The freezing pine forest east of the village was a pristine, snow-blanketed labyrinth. For three days, Shiori’s Vanguard group had slogged through the knee-deep drifts, systematically hunting anything that moved.
However, the results were bitterly disappointing.
Shota swung his broadsword, cleaving a low-level Horned Rabbit cleanly in two before it could launch itself from a snowbank. A few yards away, Kazura drove his spear into the center of a freezing, sluggish blue slime, watching it dissolve into a meager scattering of bronze coins and a pitiful amount of EXP.
"This is completely pointless," Shota complained, his breath pluming in the freezing air as he kicked the snow. "Slimes? Rabbits? A couple of stray Killer Bees? We're barely moving the needle on our experience bars. There's absolutely no fun in this."
"He's right," Kazura agreed, pulling his cloak tighter against the biting wind. "If we have to fight a Rank A Demon Commander, grinding on literal fodder is just wasting our stamina. We aren't getting stronger; we're just getting frostbite."
Shiori, standing atop a frosted boulder to keep a vantage point, frowned. As the Class President and the tactical anchor of the group, she felt the crushing weight of responsibility for their survival. "Patience," she ordered firmly. "We don't know the terrain, and we don't know how the System scales in this region. We stick to the fundamentals."
Suddenly, Yua and Mei stopped dead in their tracks.
Yua, whose elemental affinity was Earth, dropped to her knees, her hands pressing flat against the frozen soil. Mei, a Wind user, closed her eyes tightly, her face paling.
"The wind just died," Mei whispered, her voice trembling. "It’s completely stagnant. Like... like something sucked the air out of the forest."
"The ground..." Yua gasped, her eyes flying open in sheer panic. "Something massive is moving under the crust! It's not an earthquake. It's concentrated!"
Saintess Evelyn's serene expression vanished instantly. "Form up! Everyone, to me! Now!"
The students didn't hesitate. They abandoned their skirmish lines and sprinted toward the glowing Saintess. Evelyn slammed her golden staff into the snow. A brilliant, multi-layered magic circle erupted beneath their feet, projecting a towering, luminous dome of Holy Magic.
The ground began to shake violently. The tremors were localized, focused entirely on the tree line directly in front of them. The frozen earth buckled and cracked, deep fissures spider-webbing through the snow.
Shiori’s dark eyes darted across the shivering treeline. Her high-tier [Perception] skill pierced the shadows of the pines. A massive, concentrated sphere of violently compressed mana was hurtling through the forest directly toward them, tearing ancient trees up by their roots.
It was magical artillery.
"Evelyn's shield won't hold!" Shiori shouted, her tactical mind calculating the density of the incoming strike. "It's a dense-mass projectile! It will shatter a pure light barrier!"
Without waiting for permission, Shiori stepped to the absolute edge of Evelyn’s golden dome. Thrusting both hands forward, she tapped into the secondary, hidden skill tree she had kept secret since her summoning. A pitch-black magic circle, inscribed with jagged crimson runes, flared to life in front of her.
"[Aegis of the Void]!"
A swirling vortex of dark magic materialized, overlaying the exterior of Evelyn’s holy dome.
A split second later, the artillery shell struck.
The sound was deafening—a concussive roar that temporarily deafened the entire party. The artillery hit Shiori’s dark barrier with the force of a meteor. For two agonizing seconds, the void magic absorbed and devoured the kinetic energy, before finally shattering like black glass. The remaining shockwave slammed into Evelyn's holy dome, cracking it, but the golden barrier held.
The shaking abruptly stopped. The dust and pulverized snow slowly began to clear.
Stepping casually out from the ruined, splintered remains of the pine trees was a man.
He was incredibly tall, looming over seven feet, with a grotesque, heavily scarred face and dead, sunken eyes. He wore heavy, dark iron armor, and he looked entirely human, yet his presence felt profoundly wrong.
"Tch," the tall man clicked his tongue in profound disappointment, resting a massive, jagged great-sword on his shoulder. "I felt a concentration of holy mana. I was expecting the Goddess's prized little summoned Heroes. But looking at this pathetic display... I'm just facing a group of stray, over-leveled adventurers."
The temperature dropped even further. The shadows behind the tall man warped, and a second figure glided into the clearing.
It was a female Lich. Her skin was a translucent, necrotic grey, stretched tight over delicate bones, and she wore a tattered, elegant gown of rotting midnight silk. Emerald hellfire burned in her empty eye sockets.
"Do not let your eyes deceive you, General," the Lich hissed, her voice sounding like dry leaves scraping across stone. "Look at their souls. They are the summoned Heroes. The foreign anomalies."
The tall man blinked, a cruel, ugly smile slowly splitting his scarred face. "Seriously? These children are the vanguard of the Upper Realm?"
Shiori’s heart hammered in her chest. She immediately cast [Analyze] on the two figures.
[Target 1: Human Traitor - General Vane]
[Level: 100+]
[Target 2: Undead Commander - Lady Sylas (Lich)]
[Level: 100+]
They were significantly higher level than anyone in the vanguard party. And worse, one of them was human.
"Weapons ready!" Shiori commanded, drawing her blade. "They're the commanders from the demon fortress! They're trying to ambush us!"
Vane didn't draw his sword. Instead, he slammed the blade point-first into the frozen earth. He raised both of his massive hands to the sky, and a suffocating, black miasma began to pour from his armored gauntlets.
He was chanting.
"False gods of the upper realm, your toys are powerless here," Vane’s voice boomed, echoing with unnatural, layered distortion.
"He's casting a zone debuff! Don't let him finish the incantation!" Shiori screamed.
She lunged forward, her blade coated in dark mana, while Evelyn immediately channeled a highly condensed beam of searing holy light.
"Cut the threads of destiny!" Vane continued, entirely ignoring their attack.
Before Shiori and Evelyn’s combined strike could reach him, the female Lich raised her skeletal hand. "[Grave Wall]."
The ground erupted. A massive, ten-foot-thick barricade of hardened rock, infused with necrotic mana, shot up from the earth. Evelyn's light beam scorched the center of the wall, and Shiori's blade shattered the outer layer, but the defense held long enough.
"Sever the divine bond!" Vane roared, the black miasma spiraling into the sky, blotting out the sun. "Let the blessings of light rot into nothingness under the weight of the underworld! Abyssal Rite: Holy Banishment!"
The dark cloud exploded outward, washing over the entire clearing like a tidal wave of ink.
The moment the miasma touched them, the Vanguard group collapsed. Shota hit his knees, dropping his sword as if it suddenly weighed a thousand pounds. Yua and Mei gasped for air, clutching their chests. Even Shiori felt her legs buckle. The ambient mana in the air, the divine blessings the System had granted them upon their summoning—it was all suddenly smothered, suffocated beneath an oppressive, crushing weight.
[WARNING: 'Holy Banishment' Active.]
[All Divine Blessings Nullified. Total Stats Reduced by 50%.]
The stone wall lowered. The Lich glided forward, the emerald fire in her eyes flaring with sadistic joy. "Such fragile little toys. Now, we can easily eliminate them."
Shiori gritted her teeth, desperately trying to force her heavy arms to lift her sword. They had walked right into a trap.
Location: Floor 100 - The Demon Lord's Throne Room
Far beneath the ocean, removed from the snowy battlefields of the north, an entirely different kind of struggle was taking place in absolute silence.
Kyouya Kusanagi lay completely unconscious on the obsidian floor, suspended in the gentle, telekinetic grip of the Demon Lord.
Within the dark, infinite expanse of Kyouya's consciousness, Nova was working at a frantic, terrifying speed. The AI was isolated, unable to rouse her host, leaving her to manage his collapsing internal systems alone.
"Processing... processing... anomaly detected," Nova calculated, her data streams moving at light-speed.
She devoted a fraction of her processing power to observing their exterior surroundings. Through Kyouya's passive sensory skills, she could 'see' Sofia. The Blood-Drenched Demon Lord was not acting like a final boss. She was seated elegantly on the steps of her ruby throne, her chin resting in her hand, simply watching Kyouya sleep with a look of profound, terrifying patience.
"Historical discrepancy identified," Nova noted clinically.
According to the hundreds of ancient tomes Kyouya had absorbed in the library, the Demon Lord of Cascadia was recorded as a towering, monstrous male entity—a beast of pure, unadulterated slaughter. The history books were not just wrong; they had been entirely fabricated. The true Demon Lord was this elegant, immortal woman.
And far more disturbing was the fact that Nova’s advanced predictive algorithms could not read Sofia's intentions. She exhibited zero hostility, zero killing intent, and zero defensive posture. It was a complete behavioral void.
Refocusing her primary processing power, Nova turned her attention back to the crisis threatening Kyouya’s life: the microscopic droplet of Sofia's blood that he had attempted to absorb.
"Initiating deep-scan analysis of foreign biological material," Nova ran the subroutine.
When the results populated, the AI’s logic cores nearly crashed.
"Error. Re-calculating. Error."
The blood was not 100% demonic. In fact, beneath the terrifying exterior layer of absolute dark mana, the foundational genetic code of the blood contained a staggering concentration of pure, unadulterated Holy attributes. It was a biological paradox. The Demon Lord possessed divine blood.
"This entity is a contradiction to the System's fundamental laws," Nova concluded. "Hypothesis: The Goddess Kamiya and the Demon Lord share a direct origin."
But lore and history did not matter right now. Kyouya’s internal mana circuits were still paralyzed by the sheer density of the single drop of blood. If they remained in this state, his avatar would eventually suffer systemic failure.
"Calculating probability of secondary absorption attempt," Nova initiated.
She ran millions of simulations. If she forced the [Absorb] skill to activate again, the System would violently push back. However, the simulations revealed a vital loophole. Because of the blood's divine nature, the System's rejection mechanism would only trigger logical errors and skill cancellations. It would not inflict HP or MP damage upon the host.
The disadvantages were negligible. The advantages of successfully assimilating the DNA of the Absolute Immortal were literally incalculable.
"Conclusion: Acceptable risk. Initiating brute-force assimilation protocol."
Without Kyouya's conscious input, Nova took direct control of the Slime's core skill.
"[Absorb] activated."
[CRITICAL ERROR!]
"Bypassing safety protocols. [Absorb] activated."
[CRITICAL ERROR!]
"Rerouting mana flow. [Absorb] activated."
[CRITICAL ERROR!]
In the cold, blue-lit silence of the throne room, the AI began her silent war against the System. Fail. Again. Fail. Again. Fail.
Nova possessed infinite intelligence and zero capacity for frustration. She would repeat the cycle a billion times if necessary, hammering against the walls of reality until the absolute code cracked.
Inside Kyouya's paralyzed consciousness, Nova did not rest. She possessed no concept of fatigue, no capacity for despair.
Attempt 4,892,104: Failed. System rejection.
Attempt 4,892,105: Failed. System rejection.
Attempt 4,892,106... Firewall anomaly detected. Bypassing logical constraints.
Sofia, the Blood-Drenched Demon Lord, sat on the lowest step of her ruby throne, her chin resting gracefully in her palm. She watched the unconscious boy with deep, unblinking fascination. She could visibly see the mana around him warping and snapping, as if his very existence was violently arguing with the laws of the world.
What a fascinating anomaly, Sofia thought, a rare, genuine smile touching her pale lips.
Watching him struggle, Sofia found her mind drifting back through the centuries, grasping at the frayed, blurry threads of her own past. Before she was the absolute sovereign of the Abyss, before the calendar was reset to Year 1, she had been... someone else. The memories were smothered under layers of dark mana and the crushing weight of her Immortal title. She remembered a sky that wasn't choked with ash, and a profound, searing betrayal that had ignited her eternal hatred for the heavens. But the details—her original name, her original face—were gone.
Suddenly, the cavern was bathed in a blinding, incandescent light.
It wasn't the dark, suffocating purple of Kyouya's Slime aura. It was pure, unadulterated gold. Holy Light.
Nova had finally broken the code.
The single drop of Sofia's blood assimilated into Kyouya's core. The reaction was catastrophic and beautiful. A cascade of System windows violently shattered into digital dust around him, replaced by a massive, glitching interface dripping with golden and black code.
[CRITICAL SYSTEM OVERRIDE]
[Host Data Corrupted by Absolute Entity]
[Status Board: ERROR]
[HP: ERROR] [MP: ERROR] [SP: ERROR] [STR: ERROR] [AGI: ERROR]
[Skill List: Unreadable/Overflow]
[New Title Acquired: Absolute Gluttony of Everything]
[Ultimate Skill Unlocked: End of Absolute Level Error]
(Description: Existence Erasure. Target is permanently deleted from the world's operating system.)
Kyouya’s eyes snapped open.
His physical form hadn't changed—he still wore the tailored dark suit, his messy black hair streaked with violet. But his eyes were different. The deep, analytical violet irises were now ringed with a brilliant, predatory gold.
He slowly sat up, looking at his hands. He felt entirely weightless. The System, which had previously felt like a heavy, restrictive blanket over his soul, was gone. He existed outside of its parameters now.
Sofia stood up, her crimson cape flowing behind her. "Well," she said softly, her voice echoing in the vast chamber. "Finally awake. And looking much better, I might add."
Kyouya didn't flinch. He slowly stood up, brushing imaginary dust off his lapel. He met the gaze of the most dangerous entity on the planet and spoke his first words since absorbing her blood.
"I am going to kill the Goddess Kamiya."
Sofia's violet eyes widened slightly, and then she threw her head back, a melodic, chilling laugh echoing through the cavern.
"Straight to the point," Kyouya continued, his voice devoid of fear. "You hate her too. I absorbed a fraction of your memories with your blood. You despise the Upper Realm just as much as I despise the System that kidnapped me."
Sofia stopped laughing, her expression sharpening into a look of absolute, terrifying predatory grace. "You are arrogant, little anomaly. But you have the power to back it up."
Kyouya glanced at her status. Just like his, her entire board was a glitching mess of [ERROR], with only her Ultimate Skill—[Immortal]—visible.
"It seems I finally have an equal ally for my next move," Sofia murmured, stepping closer until she was inches from his face. "But tell me, Absolute Gluttony... how exactly do you plan to kill a deity who resides in a realm we cannot physically reach?"
Kyouya’s golden-ringed eyes narrowed. "By tearing down the pillars that hold her realm up. We start by breaking her game."
Location: Northern Frontierra Forest
The snowy clearing was a zone of absolute despair.
Under the crushing weight of Vane's Abyssal Rite: Holy Banishment, the Vanguard party felt as if gravity had tripled. Their divine blessings, the very things that made them "Heroes," were completely suppressed.
"[Grand Cross]!" Shota roared, raising his broadsword. He tried to dump his mana into his Ultimate Skill, but the blade only sparked pitifully before fizzling out.
"It's no use!" Yua cried out, her knees trembling. "High-tier skills are completely locked! I can only manifest basic elemental bolts!"
Kazura, gripping his heavy tower shield, pushed himself to the front of the formation. "Stay behind me! My base END stat is the highest! I'll hold the line!"
General Vane, the towering human traitor, let out a booming laugh. "Hold the line? Boy, you don't even know where the line is."
Vane moved. He didn't use a movement skill; it was pure, terrifying physical mastery. To Kazura, the massive armored man seemed to turn into vapor, displacing the freezing air.
Before Kazura could even brace his legs, Vane materialized directly inside his guard.
"Too slow," Vane whispered.
Instead of using his great-sword, Vane simply threw a devastating left hook. The iron gauntlet bypassed the heavy shield entirely, slamming directly into Kazura’s ribs.
The sound of shattering bone echoed through the trees. Kazura was launched backward like a broken doll, his heavy armor offering zero protection against the raw kinetic force. He crashed through a frozen pine tree, spitting a massive mouthful of blood onto the white snow.
"Kazura!" Yoshi screamed.
Shiori’s eyes tracked Kazura’s tumbling body. Her analytical mind was racing, bordering on panic.
He's alive, Shiori deduced, but I don't know by how much! That was the true terror of the Holy Banishment. It didn't just drain their stats; it blinded them. They had spent months relying entirely on the System's HUD. They knew when to push and when to heal because they could see floating green and blue bars above their heads. Now, stripped of the UI, they couldn't see their own HP, MP, or stamina. They were fighting blind, forced to rely on pure human instinct—something none of these teenagers truly possessed.
And Vane, Shiori thought, gripping her katana tightly. Why is a human commanding a demon fortress? He uses Abyssal magic, but his physiology is human. What did the Kingdom do to make him turn?
Her tactical breakdown was violently interrupted.
A stream of searing, emerald-blue hellfire streaked toward her face. Shiori threw herself to the side, rolling through the snow, but the edge of the flame grazed her cheek. The flesh sizzled, and a line of blood instantly froze on her skin.
"Do not lose focus, little hero," the skeletal Lich, Sylas, hissed. She floated a few feet off the ground, dark magic coalescing in her bony hands. "Your opponent is me. I will enjoy peeling the flesh from your pretty bones."
Shiori scrambled to her feet, wiping the blood from her cheek. She took a deep breath, compartmentalizing her fear. She was the Class President. She had to lead.
"Listen to me!" Shiori shouted over the howling wind. "Change of formation!"
Shota, Yoshi, Yua, and Mei looked at her, their faces pale with terror.
"We are splitting the aggro! Shota, Yoshi, Yua, Mei—you four take General Vane! Do not engage in close combat! Use your low-tier skills to harass him and keep him moving! Your objective is not to kill him; your objective is purely survival!"
"Are you insane?!" Shota yelled, deflecting a stray chunk of ice. "He'll slaughter us!"
"He's a heavy hitter, but he's arrogant!" Shiori commanded. "Keep your distance! Evelyn, get to Kazura! Do whatever it takes to manually heal him without your high-tier AoE! I will deal with the Lich!"
Sylas let out a rasping, dry laugh. "You? A severed thread against a master of the Necropolis? How amusing."
"I don't need high-tier magic to cut you down," Shiori said, her dark eyes flashing with cold, calculating fury. She coated the blade of her katana in a thin, highly compressed layer of Void magic—a low-cost skill, but incredibly dense.
On the other side of the clearing, Shota and Yoshi roared, launching a desperate, uncoordinated pincer attack against the giant General. Vane simply scoffed, casually swinging his great-sword to deflect Shota's strike, while kicking Yoshi's spear aside.
The clearing erupted into total chaos. The Vanguard was no longer fighting to win; they were fighting simply to draw breath for one more minute. Shiori dashed forward, her boots kicking up a cloud of snow, plunging headfirst into the Lich's storm of blue fire.
✦✦✦