Chapter 150: Section – Akxia, The Third Key
Present world, the Arcane Tower.
In the water‑screen projected by the Phantasm Crystal, light and shadows were continuously warping and rippling, interspersed with fragmented sounds, yet never forming a clear image.
“What the heck is this glitch?”
Dean Silver bit her fluffy tail, her eyes eagerly fixed on the live broadcast screen that had blurred into a mosaic of pixels and garbled code, her voice anxious.
After enduring the boring preamble up until now, they were finally about to see Rast and that girl named Grey locked in their melodramatic love‑hate showdown…
But at the climactic moment, the live feed went pixelated again.
It drove the expectant Dean Silver into utter frustration.
What was the difference between this and those novel authors who, just as the climax arrives, abruptly post “To be continued” on their unfinished chapters?
“Little Tina’s sister…”
For a moment, Dean Silver had no choice but to turn her urgent gaze to the young woman beside her.
Under the sorrowful stare of a stoat, even the mechanist’s mercurial avatar, Ophelia, showed a trace of discomfort on her exquisitely composed face.
She lightly furrowed her delicate brow, and in her wine‑red eyes, one by one, splendid parsing runes began to rotate gently.
Using the data streamed back from the Phantasm Crystal—bound to Rast’s presence in Nightworld—she analyzed the cause of the broadcast malfunction.
After a long while, Ophelia’s clear voice finally spoke again.
“It was due to temporal degradation.”
“The Phantasm Crystal’s image signal must traverse the world‑wall between Nightworld and the present world… and during that process, the signal was disturbed by temporal distortions. That’s why we saw that glitch.”
Her brows knitted even tighter: “When I designed the Phantasm Crystal, I did not account for such extreme conditions… And apart from waiting for the temporal interference to dissipate, there is no other way to resolve it.”
“However—”
“This level of temporal distortion…”
“Could it really be caused by that woman named Grey?”
As she spoke, a hint of surprise flashed in Ophelia’s wine‑red gaze.
“To think that ‘Fate’, a High Sequence once only theoretical, actually can manipulate time and destiny.”
“Moreover, that woman called Grey… hadn’t even reached legendary status, yet she was already wielding time‑rewind as a skill.”
Although they had not witnessed Grey’s final rewind spanning an entire ten years, the earlier rewinds measured in minutes or hours had been meticulously recorded by Ophelia’s rune matrix.
Targeting herself, jumping timelines, traversing divergent possibilities, possessing near‑infinite trial opportunities…
No matter how one understood it, even the description of such an ability alone was brazen enough to call it cheeky.
Thinking this, Ophelia couldn’t help but glance at the little stoat beside her.
Her movements were barely noticeable.
But sensing Ophelia’s gaze, Dean Silver bristled as if someone had stepped on her tail, all her soft fur standing on end.
“Your Highness the Crown Princess, what are you implying with that look?”
“Are you thinking, ‘Look at her, then look at you—both of you are unique High Sequences, yet why is her Fate Sequence so awesome while your Moon is so worthless? Why is the gap between human and stoat so huge?’”
Watching the fluffed‑up Silver pounce at her, Ophelia calmly extended her hand.
In the next instant, the splendid alchemical matrix lit up in the void.
The flowing liquid metal converged into a mercurial hand that pressed down on the snarling Silver in midair.
“I’m not, I didn’t mean that…”
“But—”
As she subdued the little stoat’s assault, Ophelia again directed her attention to the empty air beside her.
A real‑time screen appeared silently; jet‑black data streams flickered like arcs, coalescing into a dossier.
This was a file on the girl known only from the Sixth Era’s historical remnant, called “Grey.”
Although the Phantasm Crystal had already failed, using the data previously saved in the database, Ophelia was still able to sketch a rough profile of this girl who appeared only in Nightworld.
“The sole High Sequence ‘Fate’ bearer.”
“Situated in the Sixth Era, an extraordinary organization tasked with preserving civilization — the ‘Shoreguards’ successors.”
“Simultaneously, she seems to share some inexplicable entanglement with Rast, a tie so profound it surpasses understanding, able to transcend different Nightworlds and echoes of history…”
As she scrolled through Grey’s dossier, Ophelia’s beautiful eyes narrowed slightly.
Merely from the dossier’s description, there was actually nothing particularly strange.
It was normal for Night Travelers to intersect with duplicate characters in the Nightworld when executing echo-of-history missions.
Some unscrupulous Night Travelers even maxed out their charisma and immediately sought influential allies upon entering the Nightworld.
But fundamentally, that was still just a Sixth Era historical figure within a Nightworld.
The Sixth Era had already vanished, and a new era had dawned… this was an undeniable fact.
By ordinary logic, that old-era figure in the echo of history should have perished along with the collapse of the Sixth Era’s civilization.
Turned to dust in the river of time, buried in the currents of history.
However—
For some reason.
In Ophelia’s heart, there was a vague, inexplicable premonition.
That girl named “Grey” would become a tremendous threat to her half‑sister the princess.
Not only that, but also to Ophelia herself.
…
Inside the Arcane Tower, a brief silence settled.
The Phantasm Crystal’s live screen continued flickering uncertainly, disturbed by temporal distortions.
Dean Silver remained held in mid‑air by the mercurial hand, struggling in vain before resigning herself and ceasing her efforts.
After all, it was all just watching the broadcast — what difference did the location make.
Meanwhile, Ophelia did not speak, simply waiting quietly for the temporal turbulence to subside.
No one knew how long passed.
Only when the rippling waves on the live feed finally vanished did the distorted visuals transform into a clear, defined image.
The grey‑haired girl Grey had disappeared from the screen, leaving only Rast.
He walked amid a sea formed from dim yellow blood, the surge of phantom waves crashing toward him before halting right in front and breaking into countless droplets.
This was the remnant of an ancient god’s fallen divine corpse, also known as the “Nether Abyss.”
Within the Abyss, that dim yellow sea was the god‑blood contained in the deity’s husk.
Even after countless eras had passed, the flow of divine blood had not ceased, continuing to roar and rush eternally in the Nether Abyss.
If an ordinary transcendent being entered the Abyss, a single drop of this god‑blood would be enough to obliterate a third‑ or fourth‑tier transcendent.
“To tread effortlessly within the husk of a god —”
“Rast must have already obtained that embryonic divine‑realm Grail.”
Gazing at the scene on screen, Dean Silver couldn’t help squinting.
“It seems that the girl named Grey has already been dealt with by him.”
What Dean Silver referred to was the current event unfolding in the Nightworld.
After obtaining both the Death‑God Star Cup and the Grail simultaneously.
Rast’s path to apotheosis had only one final step remaining.
Within the Nether Abyss, even that single drop of divine blood once capable of erasing a transcendent no longer posed a threat to him… on the contrary, that phantom ocean of death‑god blood now felt familiar and welcoming to Rast.
Thousands of waves swelled and surged around him, rising and falling as if celebrating the rebirth of a deity.
However, Rast did not pause in this place
—
He simply walked forward step by step.
As if like the myth of Moses parting the sea, he traversed through the seemingly endless dim yellow ocean spawned from the death‑god’s blood.
How long he walked, no one knew.
Just as in the present world, Dean Silver, watching the broadcast, began to yawn.
That endless dim‑yellow sea finally vanished.
In its place—
A pitch‑black rift appeared, as if devouring all light.
If the previous dim‑yellow phantom sea represented the god’s flowing blood in its corpse,
Then this black rift was the heart region of the deity’s husk.
This was the abyss’s very bottom, the deepest core of the death‑god’s remains.
Gazing at the dark rift, Rast didn’t hesitate and quietly took a step forward.
In the next moment—
The surrounding scenery abruptly changed.
It was no longer a vast phantom ocean, but a dark cavern.
Endless darkness, infinite breadth, the air heavy with an oppressive stench of decay—rotted for millennia.
This was the void within the Abyss, as if someone had forcibly torn a hollow into the ancient god’s chest.
That was why the fallen death‑god perished—no matter how intact their husk, without a heart, they were merely a living corpse.
At the bottom of the Nether Abyss, in that boundless darkness—
A few emerald lights served as the only illumination in the vast hollow.
With their glow, one could see the cavern’s center.
It was a tower.
A huge tower.
It stood upon the blackened floor, the surrounding rock cleaved as if by a colossal weapon, molten lava flowing in the fissures like divine blood.
Standing on solid ground and gazing up at the towering spire, Rast looked like an insect lit by flame.
The tower stood at the boundary of darkness and gold, its black body reflected in the dim yellow glow, as if an iron ingot about to melt.
Whether Rast himself or Ophelia and Dean Silver watching via the Phantasm Crystal in the present world, all were gazing up at this colossal tower.
All grand descriptions felt pale in comparison—no one knew how long the tower had stood. Maybe ten thousand years, a hundred thousand, or immeasurable aeons…
But at the instant Rast saw the tower, he felt deep within his soul a barrier and shackles loosening, about to be broken.
That was his “Tower” High Sequence—and seeing this sight, Rast sensed his sequence had been triggered, offering a chance for advancement…perhaps with some reinforcement, he could complete the promotion and reach the fifth tier, becoming a fifth‑tier transcendent.
Of course, compared to the current power Rast wielded in the Death‑realm—having both the Death‑God Star Cup and the Grail—the difference between Tower sequence tier 4 and 5 wouldn’t decisively boost his combat strength.
But the power from the ancient god was not truly his—it was borrowed, a phantom power from usurped divine authority in the Nightworld.
Within the Nightworld it functioned, but once Rast left, those illusions would vanish.
Only the Tower sequence itself would remain truly his—an undying foundation under any circumstance.
This thought flickered through his mind.
Rast quietly observed the scene: bronze altars formed a circle around the massive tower, as if an ancient city forged of bronze.
Seeing the tower in this bronze city, Rast recalled the myth of the Tower of Babel.
Legend said many gathered to build a tower to reach the heavens in Babylon, using fired bricks and bitumen.
The sound of hammers echoed day and night; travelers across deserts could see the lit tower and believe they would reach the divine realm.
But the gods were angered, and they cursed humanity with different tongues.
The people fractured, and the tower remained unfinished—a ruin in the wilderness, a testament to human arrogance.
The tower before him resembled that mythical Babel Tower.
The only difference—it was complete.
At the center of the bronze city’s tower top…slept a girl with ice‑blue long hair, eyes closed.
She lay curled in the frozen twilight—once tall and slender, folded small like a sleeping cat.
Akxia.
She was the blood‑scion of the death‑god, a tiny miracle born of the ages, a chosen perfect vessel.
Akxia was also the key to the last of three bronze doors in the deep path to the underworld.
Now she slumbered at the bottom of the Abyss, atop the tower.
Quietly awaiting Rast to retrieve her.
“It seems I was not mistaken.”
“The sacred rite is complete, you have contained the Grail and gathered two keys.”
An aged voice sounded in Rast’s ear, resonant with the grandeur of the bronze city and tower.
“So—”
“You are prepared to collect the final key.”
“Prepared to become the new Death‑God?”
…………………