Chapter 1100: The Beginning of The End
The land lay beaten and battered. Massive craters had formed in patches, deep grooves—deep enough for hell to rise from beneath—had consumed the entire landscape. Forests had been reduced to stumps, and a torturous storm of snow ravaged the entire plain.
This storm of snow had never happened before. Rather, it had been a lavish and beautiful plain with greeneries and trees that twisted so high they dared to touch the boundaries of heaven.
But now a titan lay broken in silence. Its fur—vast whips of snow frozen mid-motion—fanned across the scarred land, each strand like the unraveling of a blizzard. The head alone, larger than mountains, sagged into the earth, its fangs sunk into the soil as though even death could not unclench its hunger.
And at the crown of the fallen wolf stood a man. A speck of mortality upon a god’s ruin. His knees pressed into the ridges of bone and frozen flesh, his shadow lost in the abyss of the titan’s features.
The air still trembled from the dead god’s last breath—a shudder that had cracked valleys and shaken rivers—but all that remained now was stillness, a silence vast enough to swallow prayers.
Blood like molten night seeped through the titan’s snow-white fur, trailing in rivers down its colossal cheek, staining the ground in crimson seas. Against it, the kneeling figure seemed both conqueror and mourner: the slayer standing upon a god’s corpse, yet dwarfed by the corpse of eternity.
Phainon’s face had changed. His smooth and flawless skin was now rough and weathered, stubble scattered across his chin and jaw. His eyes were now deep and somewhat hollow.
He heard Ul’s radiant and simultaneously joyless voice in the depths of his soul.
[Congratulations, you have slain an Abyssal Titan from Acheronix]
[The bones of the corpse have been forged into a unique Armament, a companion to serve you]
[Congratulations, you have received Divine Sword: Soul Taker]
Regardless of the words he heard, Phainon did not seem affected by any of it. His expression remained hollow and indifferent.
He stood slowly and scaled down the head of the wolf as though he were climbing a mountain that stretched from the sky.
He himself looked more than a little worn. His armor was barely holding together. It seemed to have once been a golden signature of light, but now it was just a torn, jagged relic of its glory days.
So tragic that armor crafted from the depths of the sun could not withstand the onslaught of a dead god.
The sword bestowed upon him by the Lord of the Night had shattered in the maws of the vicious creature. The only thing that had saved him wasn’t even the teachings of the Tomb Kings.
It was the savage ways he had learned from survival the moment he began. The cruelty he had endured, clawing his way into this world.
He had left with such confidence, ready to take the world beneath his feet.
But he was met by a truth that tore him to shreds.
Still, the weight of his responsibilities pressed like the rocks of a crumbling mountain, rolling down and crushing his soul every day. Every moment, he groaned from the pain of what must be done.
He silently searched for a better path but understood the importance of what needed to be.
He was offered no consolation, no matter how much he knew, how much he accomplished. It hurt nonetheless.
And here he stood, having fulfilled his first assignment—the first of many to come.
This was the beginning of the end.
One that Phainon himself heralded.
***
When Northern opened his eyes, he felt strange. He had experienced all of that from a perspective that did not exist inside the world.
At the same time, Phainon’s experiences had resonated deeply with him. It was incomplete, of course—so many things were fragmented—but much of it caused such pain that it made him shudder.
However, he did not see the end. The question of what Tra-el was remained unanswered.
But other important questions were answered.
And with that, Northern felt he could make a few deductions.
But right now, he didn’t even have time for that. He was too shaken, too rattled by sorrow, to think of anything else.
The hollowness that consumed the Prince’s heart gnawed at his own. And Northern mourned for the goodness of a Prince that had existed perhaps tens of thousands of years ago.
Still...
Northern paused for a moment before letting out a heavy, sorrowful sigh.
Then he paid attention to how his body was feeling. It felt peaceful, as expected. He could no longer enter the Limitless Void.
There was a more intricate way to describe it. The gateway felt shut—like there was nothing there—but instead of entering that nothingness, he could not enter his own soul at all.
But his soul was peaceful, vast, and endless.
Another strange thing Northern felt was the surge of soul essence coursing through his being.
Having grown accustomed to void essence for so long, soul essence flowing through his soul felt alien. It was lacking in quality—void essence felt superior just by the texture of its flow through the channels of his soul.
But there was something about soul essence. It felt malleable, incredibly malleable.
That was something void essence did not truly possess; there was a rigidity to void essence. But the problem was that Northern was certain this rigidity existed in soul essence as well.
He might not have wielded soul essence, but he had been on the receiving end of attacks spawned from it for years.
So if he dared venture a guess, he would say this felt like a superior version—more original, more... primordial.
While he wanted to feel somewhat guilty about losing the boon of power that void essence had granted him, he also felt like his possibilities were now truly endless when he considered what he could accomplish with DiY and Omniform.
’Omniform should be able to truly affect DiY now, right?’
Nonetheless, Northern felt utterly exhausted.
But he couldn’t afford to acknowledge that reality yet. Northern immediately tried to sense the link between him and his summons.
His eyes widened instantly, trembling.
’It’s... gone.’