Chapter 152: That Was a Story After the Fairy Tale Ending
Akxia had a very, very long dream.
In the dream, she was neither the Queen Helen of the Underworld Nation, nor the Night Traveler Akxia.
Instead, she was a village girl born into a small noble family at the borderlands, who had dreamed of becoming an adventurer since childhood.
On the day of her coming-of-age ceremony, she secretly slipped away from home and began her journey across the continent as an adventurer...
On the road, the girl encountered a black-haired, black-eyed boy who had dreamed of becoming a knight since childhood.
The two formed an adventurer team and began traveling together.
They once climbed the highest, most magnificent snowy mountain peak; they also witnessed the deepest, most oppressive maelstrom in the Lightless Sea from aboard a sailing ship...
They had conversed with the Nomadic Tribes who lived by roaming the vast open plains, and had also witnessed the splendid underground kingdom built by the Dwarves deep within the shadowy mountains...
And so, naturally, feelings began to blossom between the boy and the girl during their journey...
Until they fell in love and joyfully tied the knot.
They built a small wooden cabin deep in a quiet, uninhabited forest, far from the hustle and bustle of the world, and lived happily ever after, just the two of them.
This was the story written in a fairy tale book called Chronicles of the Silver Wing. The only difference was that the protagonists of the fairy tale had been replaced.
Not the original male and female leads in the book... but Akxia herself, and that black-haired, black-eyed boy.
By this point, the story should have come to an end, just like all fairy tales do—with the princess and prince living happily ever after.
Ending it here, anyone would sigh in contentment and throw celebratory flowers.
But—
Akxia’s dream had not ended, and continued on.
This was a story not recorded in the Chronicles of the Silver Wing, a tale that happened after the Happy End of the two's blissful conclusion...
The girl born in a small town, who dreamed of becoming an adventurer, was actually the reincarnation of an ancient Evil God who had brought apocalyptic catastrophe to the continent a hundred years ago.
So long as she existed in the world, she would bring plagues and disasters upon it, leading to the deaths of countless living beings.
And now, the will of that Evil God was awakening within her body, using the girl as its vessel...
Little by little, it devoured Akxia’s humanity.
...
The once warm, orange-hued dream shattered into fragments, replaced by pitch-black darkness.
Akxia felt as if she were within a boundless, endless Snowstorm Night.
The profound darkness spread out with not a single glimmer of light—no path ahead, no direction to follow.
The girl, thinly clothed, walked through the snow like that.
The extraordinary powers that had once obeyed her every command, and had helped her become Queen of the Underworld Nation, could no longer be sensed.
At this moment, she was no different from an ordinary girl without the strength to truss a chicken.
Until all the strength in her body was exhausted, and Akxia stumbled and fell to her knees in the snow.
Countless snowflakes corroded her body, turning into a bone-chilling cold, stripping her of her warmth bit by bit.
Her body grew colder, and what the Snowstorm Night took away was not just her body heat, but also the flickering flame of life within Akxia—like a candle in the wind.
That flame of life dimmed little by little amidst the snowstorm.
Her bodily senses collapsed—first numb were her hands and feet, then her torso.
Until finally, even her consciousness and memories began to be stripped away.
Among the few precious fragments of memory she had, all were gradually swallowed by the bone-chilling darkness of the snowstorm, like fleeting illusions.
Within a still-intact palace bathed in warm sunlight, their first encounter with that boy...
On a dark, starless night, under faint candlelight, listening to his gentle bedtime stories...
Wearing leather boots, carefully avoiding patrolling Servants, catching a glimpse of the blue sky after rain...
Riding in a carriage through streets dyed red by the sunset in the drizzling rain, the distance between their hearts growing unprecedentedly close in the silence...
And on that day, by the cliff in the outskirts, beneath the blazing sky, the girl’s confession of her feelings to the boy...
All of it was falling apart.
Sincere emotions, irreplaceable cherished memories...
Everything was tainted by the biting chill of the snowstorm, about to be swallowed by pitch-black nothingness.
That endless darkness was the will of the Evil God now awakening within Akxia.
The boundless Snowstorm Night beside her represented the Evil God’s will invading her being, and the flickering flame she desperately tried to protect... represented Akxia’s sense of self.
When that flame, like a candle in the wind, was completely extinguished, it would mark the moment her humanity was wholly devoured, and the Evil God truly awakened in her body.
That was a supreme Ancient God, before whom human sense of self was as insignificant as dust.
“Rast...”
The girl’s weak call floated through the wind and snow.
Even though all her memories had grown blurred, even the face of that black-haired boy had faded.
Even though she had already been pierced by that bloodstained blade, the icy pain still echoed in her body.
Yet Akxia still murmured that name—the name she refused to forget even at the edge of death.
Because she still remembered, on that outing with Rast, the fortune told to her by that petite girl in a hooded cloak—
And the outcome of that divination: the ending between her and Rast.
She knew well that so-called divination was mostly a trick, and also knew that mysterious fortune teller was not to be trusted.
But Akxia still believed in the result of that fortune. She believed unconditionally.
Even after knowing the entire truth, even after discovering the betrayal—perhaps even as her sense of self was being devoured by the true master of the Underworld Nation, in the final moment before the self called “Akxia” ceased to exist—she still wished for unreachable happiness and beauty.
...
Deep in the Nether Abyss, within the sky-piercing Tower of Babel.
Atop the high platform, beside the amber-colored coffin, the Sacrosanct Grail and the Death God’s Star Cup had both completely dissolved. The shattered starlight, like liquid, flowed slowly between the inner and outer layers of the coffin.
Then, the flowing starlight merged with the solidified dusk, blending into one.
That once-small coffin suddenly expanded, transforming into an ice coffin several times grander and more majestic.
It still maintained the form of a coffin, yet it radiated vast pressure... as if it were not the coffin of a deceased, but a frozen throne nurturing the rebirth of a deity.
In fact, this was not an illusion.
The Star Cup and the Sacrosanct Grail respectively represented faith and authority—two of the Three Divine‑Ascension Keys.
And at this moment, Akxia within the coffin, as the Perfect Vessel of human and divine blood, her very existence already embodied the last of the Three Divine‑Ascension Keys—Divine Flesh and Blood.
The final key was now complete, and on the ancient path leading to the Underworld, the last sealed Bronze Gates opened at this moment.
Thus—
It meant—
A complete deity had now been fulfilled.
The former Death God was about to return to the world in a complete form.
...
Within the radiant overflow, inside the translucent ice coffin—
One could faintly see a girl with ice-blue long hair slowly sitting up from within the coffin, like a doll that had long been abandoned but was now wound up again.
She slowly opened her once tightly shut eyes.
Those indigo-purple eyes now shone with crimson-gold light, like flowing lava.
The dim darkness deep within the Nether Abyss was, at that moment, illuminated as though it were broad daylight.
"This is the moment the path to the Underworld is once again connected."
From afar, the Incarnation of Bounty belonging to Noah also cast a watchful gaze.
This was the first time since the retreat of the arcane and the end of the Age of Gods that a new deity had been born.
Of course, it had been far too long—
The long passage of multiple eras had eroded more than ninety percent of the power that remained within the corpse of the Death God.
Even if the ritual of Ascension to Godhood had been completed anew, the Death God reborn in human form now possessed only a fraction of the power they once had in their prime.
To Noah, who was considered ancient even in legend, a newly born god with the authority and divinity of a god but with less than one percent of their former strength was still completely within the bounds of control.
This was precisely the other purpose behind Noah's presence here, aside from eradicating the Shoreguards.
The remnant soul and Divine Consciousness of a god of old—these held immense value, even to the Gravekeepers.
After all, most of the surviving deities had hidden themselves atop the Threshold of Seraphim.
And the outer edge of the world atop the Threshold of Seraphim was a realm that only Mythic Beings rejected by the Order of the World could enter—full of secrets and unknowns even to the Gravekeepers.
To capture the remnant soul of an ancient god would undoubtedly offer insight into the deepest secrets of the divine realm.
...
Boom—
Boom—
Outside the gaping cavity at the heart, the entire Phantom Ocean erupted in thunderous resonance.
The so-called Nether Abyss was formed from the remains of the Death God, and at this moment, the former corpse sensed the return of its Divine Soul, stirring waves like the collapse of mountains.
Inside the frozen coffin, the girl whose eyes had shifted from indigo-purple to crimson-gold was breathing deeply. Though it was the face of a young girl, her expression bore the majestic might of a deity high above the clouds, looking down upon all beings—like a king reigning supreme.
The dim ocean rose and fell in rhythm with the girl's breath, waves crashing and rolling.
It was as if... the entire world was celebrating the rebirth of this ancient god of old.
"To that resurrected Divine Consciousness, this is the beginning of rebirth, of overlooking the world once again, of reigning supreme."
"And to Noah and the Gravekeepers behind him, this is their best opportunity to glimpse the secrets of the Threshold of Seraphim and the mysteries of Ascension to Godhood."
"Indeed..."
"This is a grand festival of divinity—a feat that allows myth to repeat itself."
"In such a spectacle unmatched across time, all eyes were fixed upon the resurrected ancient god."
"Who would possibly care, amidst the ritual of Ascension to Godhood—about the feelings of a vessel, a consumable, used as the key..."
"It was but a speck of dust in the tide of the era, a necessary sacrifice—unnoticed, unremembered."
Rast’s murmurs were drowned beneath the tide that blotted out the sky, unheard by any.
Before him, within the amber ice coffin, an overwhelming aura slowly expanded, transforming into a boundless majesty that reigned over all, stirring a storm.
And at the heart of that storm—
Someone was chanting his name: "...Rast...Rast...Rast..."
The girl’s cries were swallowed by the wind and tide, growing weaker and fainter until they could no longer be heard.
...
"It’s time."
"Activate the contingency I prepared, Rast."
Noah’s indifferent voice crossed the vast distance and rang clearly beside Rast’s ear atop the high platform.
"Imprison the vessel of the resurrected Death God."
"Then, through blood exchange, transfer the divine blood flowing within that vessel into your own body."
"From then on, you shall be the new Death God."
As those words fell—
Before Rast, a delicate gemstone slowly manifested from the void.
Rast understood that this was the contingency Noah had prepared.
This legend among the Gravekeepers seemed to harbor no malicious intent.
He genuinely wished for Rast to ascend the Divine Seat of the reborn Death God, and then guide him to join the Gravekeepers.
And at this very moment—
All Rast needed to do was activate the gemstone, and Noah’s contingency would be triggered.
Then he would truly inherit the Divine Seat of the Death God.
Or, to put it simply—
From "he."
To "He."
Except—
A sudden shift stirred in Rast’s thoughts.
In the next moment—
A slightly worn book suddenly fell into Rast’s hands.
On the book's cover was an illustration of a young knight holding a silver sword and a lady witch shrouded in black mist.
Due to its age, the fairy tale book’s cover bore mottled cracks and wear.
This was a fairy tale book.
A fairy tale titled Chronicles of the Silver Wing.
It was also the gift Akxia had personally handed to him back then on the cliff, in return for the hand-copied manuscript she had rewritten as a gift.
With the authentication of the Nightworld, this "Unfinished Fairy Tale Book" had been sublimated from an ordinary book into a true Emblem Armament.
The next moment.
Rustle, rustle—
Though no hand moved, the aged fairy tale book suddenly fluttered on its own, as if blown by wind.
Then, its pages stilled on the final sheet.
That was the blank pages that inexplicably appeared after the happy ending of the male and female protagonists living together blissfully in Chronicles of the Silver Wing.
It was also the origin of the Emblem Armament’s name—The Unfinished Fairy Tale Book.
Gazing at the blank fairy tale book, Rast raised the gemstone and slightly turned his wrist.
Slash—
A gleam of cold light flashed by, accompanied by the sound of blade tearing through flesh.
He did not activate the gemstone, but used it as a blade to directly slit his own wrist.
Veins ruptured, and crimson blood splattered into the wind atop the high platform.
That pure white of the pages was thus stained with a crimson hue.
...
Within a dream that blurred the line between truth and illusion—
The girl with ice-blue hair curled her body up...
Though the cold wind and snow pelted her frail shoulders, cold to the bone, Akxia still struggled to spread her thin arms, trying to shield the fire beneath her from the storm.
That was the source of Akxia’s soul, and the last fragment of her self untouched by the awakened consciousness of the ancient god.
Within that tiny flicker of flame, lay all her memories with that black-haired, black-eyed boy...
Memories she refused to share, did not wish for anyone else to see.
No matter who—be it god or fate—none had the right to seize it. None were worthy of coveting this treasure.
And then—
Akxia felt a faint warmth gently rippling out from within her soul.
The snowstorm quietly dispersed, along with the darkness that had devoured the light.
Taking its place was a ray of warm sunlight.
...
The spilled blood dripped upon the final blank page.
Then, inexplicably... the blood traced clear strokes and lines.
Upon this unfinished fairy tale book, a story began to be written...
A tale that began after the happy ending.