We slipped into the core layer without sound.
The region felt suffocating, because the laws here were stacked too tightly. Even with my perception spread wide, I moved carefully, wrapping both of us in layered concealment. Shadows, spatial folds, Essence suppression, everything I had stacked together until our presence became a blur. Knight stayed close too.
The core layer was not built for rest. It was built for war.
Massive platforms floated in a wide arc, forming the innermost crescent of the demon defenses. These were not barracks. These were firing platforms. Thick Essence shields curved outward from them, overlapping like scales, each one pulsing with a deep green glow.
Beyond them lay the battlefield.
Rows of demon soldiers floated in formation, tens of thousands at a time. Grandmasters formed the bulk, with Transcendents positioned like keystones between them. Their auras were restrained, disciplined, held tight instead of flaring wildly.
At the very back of the demon forces, far from the direct clash, floated a single figure. Even before scanning him I knew who he was. This was the first upper transcendent I was encountering.
Saleos Emberlord.
He stood alone, arms folded behind his back, his long cloak drifting slowly in the void. He did not move. He did not shout orders. He did not release his aura. He simply watched.
Beside him floated another demon.
[Phegor Chokeste - Level 392]
At first glance, there was nothing special about him. His aura was strong, his level in the 390s. His posture was calm, almost passive. But the moment my perception brushed past him, the Star of Origin trembled faintly inside my Dawn Core.
That fluctuation again.
The same wrongness I had felt on Peanu. The same faint, crawling distortion wrapped around deathmist, shaped by runes that did not belong to our universe.
I narrowed my eyes and focused on that demon.
And he wasn’t alone.
As my perception widened, I began to see them.
Dozens. Then hundreds.
Scattered throughout the demon army were soldiers carrying the same signature. Some were Grandmasters. Some were Transcendents. They blended in perfectly, fought in formation, responded to commands but something about them was off.
They weren’t fighting fully.
Their attacks landed late. Their support came slow. When formations shifted, they adjusted just a fraction too slowly, forcing others to compensate. Small mistakes. Constant mistakes.
Not enough to be obvious.
Enough to bleed an army dry.
My jaw tightened.
Suddenly, in front of the demon forces, the void erupted.
The abomination wave surged forward like a living tide. Massive, twisted bodies pressed together, shrieking as they moved. Above them drifted Phantoms, tall and thin, their forms flickering in and out of clarity, their presence dragging at the laws of space.
The collision was brutal.
Demon soldiers met them head-on. Blades cut. Domains flared open. Fire, lightning, and blood-red Essence tore into the rushing mass. The platforms behind them fired continuous beams of condensed laws, carving through abominations in long, glowing arcs.
The void screamed.
Then, suddenly, the abominations stopped. The charge broke apart mid-motion. Phantoms lifted their arms, and the entire wave pulled back, retreating with unnatural coordination.
The demon forces halted. Weapons stayed raised. Domains remained open. No one relaxed.
Seconds passed.
Then the abominations surged again. The same pattern. The same timing.
"This again," the demon beside Saleos muttered, his voice low. "Pesky creatures."
Saleos said nothing. He didn’t even turn his head.
I stared at the battlefield, cold realization settling in my chest.
They were playing with the demons. They were probing reactions. Measuring response times. Forcing fatigue. Drawing out Essence. Bleeding morale one wave at a time.
Knight exhaled slowly beside me.
’This is bad,’ he murmured. ’This isn’t a fight. It’s farming.’
I nodded.
I stretched my perception further, past the battlefield, toward the far end of the void.
That was when I saw it. Beyond the Eternal forces, beyond the final crescent of their defense, stood a tower.
It rose straight out of the void, impossibly tall, its surface shifting between different colors of the rift. Laws bent around it. Space folded toward it. Even from this distance, it felt heavy in my senses.
I didn’t need to ask what it was. That was where the Eternal was. It wasn’t on the battlefield. I assumed it was probably resting or watching the chaos.
’We should leave now. I have seen enough.’ I said to Knight.
He nodded.
Just as I began pulling us back and my space law activated, something happened.
Saleos moved. His neck snapped toward us with terrifying speed.
Even through layers of concealment, even hidden inside folded space, his gaze locked onto our position.
I felt it like a blade pressing against my throat.
Knight went still. I held my breath.
Saleos stared into the void for a long moment, unmoving, like a carved statue. His eyes narrowed just a fraction, but that was enough. I felt it instantly. A shift. A tightening in the Essence around him.
I locked my perception onto him, every sense sharpening.
And the moment I felt his Essence surge—
I teleported.
Knight and I vanished from that spot a heartbeat before disaster struck.
In the very next instant, Saleos appeared exactly where we had been. His body twisted mid-motion, already committed to the attack. His fist drew back, glowing with a deep red light, dense and violent, like a collapsing star forced into the shape of a hand.
Then he struck.
BOOM!!!
The void shattered.
Space fractured like brittle glass, cracks racing outward in jagged lines before snapping back together with a scream of distorted laws. A shockwave rolled across the battlefield, flattening Essence flows, rattling shields, and forcing every being—demon, phantom, and abomination alike—into complete stillness.
The battlefield went silent.
Saleos’s aura exploded outward, heavy and crushing, pressing down on everything in range. I felt it even from where we reappeared, far enough away to avoid the direct strike but close enough to understand one thing clearly.
If that punch had landed, neither Knight nor I would have escaped unharmed.
Saleos slowly straightened, his eyes scanning the void where we had been moments ago. His gaze was sharp, calculating, predatory. He didn’t look angry.
He looked alert.
His aura continued to rise, layer by layer, as if he were peeling away restraints he normally kept locked tight. The pressure in the void increased with it, making the battlefield feel tense, stretched thin, like a bowstring pulled too far back.
Then something else changed.
Far beyond the demon formations, at the very edge of perception, the towering structure near the rift began to glow brighter.
The tower.