Noxanna rang the bell only once.
But that single toll carried the weight of a natural disaster.
The sound spread outward, covering the entirety of Dreamland.
Ordinary sound diminishes as it travels through a medium, but Noxanna’s did not.
No matter how far it went, no matter what medium it passed through, the bell she rang advanced with unchanging force.
From the depths of Dreamland, the sound passed through the middle layers, swept across the surface, and did not stop there.
In the end, it crossed the boundary of dreams and reached into the real world.
“...This is...”
Inside the crimson curtain of blood, Grander, who had been lounging on her sofa, suddenly sat up.
For the first time, the face of Grander, usually steeped in languid boredom, hardened.
Even when dream-sand covered all of Rederbelk, she had not reacted like this.
An entire city falling into paralysis, a disaster with potential to expand into an international catastrophe—such things had been woefully insufficient to stir Grander’s interest.
But this bell was different.
“Could there really have been a living god? And this power...”
A bad omen.
Grander hesitated briefly, then shook her head.
This was not a situation for her to intervene in.
She sank back into the sofa, golden hair scattering like fine silk strands across the cushions.
“My disciple. I leave it to you. In any case, you are the only one who can stop this now.”
And if you fail...
Then...
Grander closed her eyes once more.
Her ragged breathing echoed faintly inside the red curtain of blood.
At the same time, the Lumenis Church branch in Rederbelk felt the same thing.
“The sand is pouring in!”
“Hold fast! Raise your prayers!”
“N-no! This is different from before! It’s too strong—we can’t endure it!”
Outside, priests and paladins who maintained the Sanctuary barrier collapsed one by one.
They weren’t dead—merely asleep.
But knowing that sleep would never end again, Priestess Remria considered it no different from death.
“This situation doesn’t look good.”
Even as dream-sand surged in from all directions, Remria’s face remained adorned with a serene smile.
Believers screamed and fell, fear spreading like a plague through those nearby.
Some prayed to Lumenis, others begged not to die.
“Priestess Remria.”
Those few remaining gathered to form a smaller, denser Sanctuary barrier.
Bishop Preden was among them.
“We cannot hold out long like this.”
“Yes. Even if we endure, perhaps only an hour at best.”
“What in the world has happened? And that bell we heard just now, what was it...”
Since the sound of the bell had rung, the dream-sand’s strength had multiplied.
The paladins dispatched by the Church could not withstand it, collapsing helplessly. Even Preden herself was drenched in cold sweat, barely managing to hold her ground.
Instinctively, she could not shake the dread that something far greater was unfolding.
“Priestess, have you foreseen this future?”
“No, even I have not seen such a future. What I saw lies beyond this. But this is troublesome. What is happening now bears a destiny strong enough to twist even the future I have seen.”
“Has the demon finally awakened the heretic god?”
Preden’s question nearly pierced the truth.
She had not risen to her position merely through connections.
Remria nodded, confirming her fears, and Preden squeezed her eyes shut.
“Ah... Lumenis.”
The heretic god.
For the god served by demons to awaken was a calamity for the Lumenis Church.
Yet there was nothing Preden could do.
So she knelt in place and prayed.
To the Divine One, Lumenis.
Fervently.
That was all a frail human could do.
Only Priestess Remria alone kept her calm smile as she gazed at the storming sands.
* * *
Outside the city, it was pure emergency.
The dream-sand that had hovered around Rederbelk like smog now spread like wildfire on a swift wind.
The great bell had tolled, and the ensuing sandstorm left no one able to resist.
Wherever the dream-sand brushed, people collapsed helplessly.
Even knights with hardened bodies.
Even mages with brilliant minds and iron wills.
Even soldiers with unshakable faith.
Before the dream-sand imbued with the Goddess’s power, they were nothing but ants before the tide.
“This... this can’t be.”
Watching from afar, Princess Erendir felt her fingertips tremble.
She clenched her fist, forcing the trembling down.
But the sandstorm showed no sign of stopping.
Greedily devouring everything, it rolled closer and closer until it reached the encampment where Erendir stayed.
“Protect the Princess!”
“Your Highness, you must flee!”
The knights cried out, but they too knew it was useless.
This was not something one could escape by running.
“Stand back, all of you.”
It was then that Lutus stepped forward.
In his hand was his personal weapon—his solo-numbered Gladius Arts, [Jet Stream].
From the fact that he began with his strongest weapon, it was clear how serious he was.
“Not a single step. If you move even slightly, you’ll be torn apart. I don’t have the leeway to restrain my strength that finely right now.”
For words of “no leeway” to come from Lutus—who could mistake their weight?
Gulp.
The royal guards swallowed hard, tense to their cores.
Lutus gripped his sword and reached his arm back.
The sandstorm was nearly upon them, like the gaping maw of a giant beast.
Toward the storm, Lutus thrust his blade.
Whsssh!
The blade pierced the air, unleashing the essence of his swordsmanship.
A storm of rotating energy collided with the atmosphere, birthing another tempest.
Like fighting wildfire with backfire, he set storm against storm.
Lutus did not rely on swordsmanship alone.
He poured out his aura to its utmost.
The aura storm clashed with the sandstorm, holding it at bay.
“To face a storm with nothing but his body and sword...”
Those watching Lutus murmured in awe and reverence.
But Lutus’s own expression was grim.
His storm was being eaten away by the sand as time passed.
‘One strike alone won’t do it, then.’
He withdrew his blade and stepped forward, twisting his waist and swinging again.
Each swing unleashed storm-like aura, continually pushing back the sand.
But this sandstorm was no ordinary natural disaster.
The power within it was strong enough to erode even Lutus’s aura.
Were it not for his swordsmanship, redirecting with minimal force, everyone present would already have been swallowed.
But—
‘I really have grown old. Even with all my swordsmanship, I can’t hold out like this forever.’
The sandstorm grew stronger, while his strength had limits.
Even now, each swing was a desperate contest against the storm.
He told himself he had aged, but even with the body of his prime, would it truly have been different?
This was never something as ordinary as a natural disaster to begin with.
‘If I fall back here, the people behind me.......’
At the very least, he absolutely had to protect the First Princess.
A look of resolve appeared on Lutus’s face.
The veins across his entire body bulged, and his muscles swelled even larger.
Sweat began to bead on the sturdy frame of Lutus.
The same Lutus who had remained unfazed even when facing three Knight Commanders at once was now dripping with sweat as he stood against the storm, and those watching behind him bit their lips.
“C-Captain Lutus.”
The knights felt helpless that all they could do right now was watch.
Lutus swung his sword in a trance-like state.
He could not afford to let his guard down for even a single second.
In the act of holding back this storm, a single mistake could collapse the dam.
Kwagagagak.
His legs dug into the ground, but Lutus’s body was slowly being pushed backward.
This was the same Lutus who could withstand a tidal wave—yet now he was being pushed.
This was not something one could handle simply by resisting. No matter how exceptional an individual was, there were forces beyond anyone’s ability to endure.
For power imbued with the will of a god was exactly that.
Yet a grin tugged at the corner of Lutus’s lips.
If it was hard for one, then what if there were two?
“You’re late, you damned old man. I thought I was going to die holding on.”
“Hohoho. Aren’t you being a bit too harsh with your words?”
At the sudden voice from the sky, everyone’s gaze turned upward.
Beyond the raging sandstorm, the silhouette of a single man appeared.
“W-Who is that?”
“Inside that storm, unharmed?”
Everyone questioned the identity of the figure.
Only Erendir realized who it was.
“Could it be, you are.......”
“It is an honor to meet you, radiant future of the Empire.”
At last, an old man slowly emerged, breaking through the sandstorm.
He was an elderly figure with a kindly smile, reminiscent of a friendly neighbor grandfather.
With a light gesture of his hand, the sweat-soaked Lutus exhaled the breath he had barely been holding back.
“Haaak, haaak. If you were going to help, you could’ve done it sooner.”
“Even looking like this, I nearly flew my feet off trying to get here.”
He spoke to the Empire’s strongest knight, Lutus Wardot, with the ease of an old friend.
Some of the magicians who recognized the man widened their eyes as if they might split.
“G-Grand Mage Clinton!”
Clinton Rothschild.
The imperial Grand Mage, and a man who had reached the unprecedented level of the 7th Circle [Impera]—a realm never before attained by human standards.
He had not appeared even during the capital’s terror incident, yet now he finally took action.
“Truly, one lives long enough and sees everything. Just how did such a thing come to pass?”
Clicking his tongue, Clinton twitched his fingers as if he were a conductor.
From his fingertips, mana flowed out, seizing control of the surroundings and forming a massive barrier of magic.
The divine barrier raised at full strength by Priestess Remria, Bishop Preden, and the Church’s elite paladins had barely extended a radius of ten meters.
But the barrier Clinton alone raised expanded to a full kilometer around.
And he had done this with ❖ Nоvеl𝚒ght ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеl𝚒ght) nothing more than a wave of his hand, no prior preparation. For the magicians, it was impossible even to estimate what heights of mastery this represented.
It felt like witnessing something indescribable, something belonging to another dimension altogether.
Yet Clinton himself simply landed on the ground and tapped at his lower back, as though it were nothing.
“It isn’t easy, using magic on such a scale after so long.”
“Old man’s bluster. Anyway, thanks for the help.”
Relieved, Lutus grinned broadly as he greeted Clinton.
“So then, do you have any way to resolve this?”
“A solution, is it.”
Clinton’s gaze narrowed and turned toward the heart of the storm—Rederbelk.
“Even I cannot think of any way to resolve this disaster.”
“What? Then why the hell did you even come here?”
“I only wished to confirm something for myself.”
With those words, Lutus realized Clinton was not simply looking at the storm.
“......You sly old man. I wondered why you had been absent lately—so you went off to dig up some strange knowledge again.”
“Hoho. What else is there for a decrepit old man shoved into the back room? I merely wished to see something wondrous before I die.”
For words spoken by a 7th Circle mage, it sounded far too humble—almost like a deception.
But Clinton was sincere.
“Regrettably, it seems the one who exists at the next realm has chosen to remain silent in this situation.”
Clinton shook his head with regret.
As a man who studied magic, he had longed to witness with his own eyes what a realm worthy of being called legend might look like.
But that was merely his personal curiosity.
It was not the real reason Clinton had come here.
“The wheel of fate, which had been rolling slowly, has now been given a push. The end of this world is not far away.”
* * *
Ludger opened his eyes.
The sensation of dream-sand against his cheek was soft, making him feel as though he were lying on a comfortable bed.
‘What on earth happened?’
If only for a brief moment, he had lost consciousness.
With unsteady steps, Ludger slowly rose to his feet.
Then, when he looked around, his pupils dilated wide.
People all around were collapsed on the ground, unconscious.
‘All of them, taken out?’
Noxanna’s seal was not yet fully undone.
She had only just opened her eyes moments ago. Naturally, it would take time for her true power to return.
What she had just shown was not even a tenth of her real strength.
‘And yet, this is the result.’
And this had not even been an attack aimed at them.
Ludger could feel it. What Noxanna had done was, for her, no more than a casual exhalation of breath.
‘This is the true power of a god.’
Even among gods, Noxanna’s power was on a different plane entirely.
As the goddess who symbolized dreams and death itself, her rank as a deity stood nearly at the very pinnacle.
That was why, even when the other gods had died, she had not perished—merely been sealed away.
To fight against something like that?
That was nothing short of madness.
In Ludger’s mind, a single way to overcome the current situation surfaced.
No, perhaps this was the only option left.
“Must we unseal this side as well?”