I closed the book slowly.
The image of the black sword and the single word above it lingered in my mind, but there was nothing more the page was willing to show. Whatever truth it held, it would not reveal itself further, not yet. I let out a quiet breath and placed the book back into my storage ring. The Essence barrier around me dissolved with a thought, its faint violet surface collapsing into nothingness as the abandoned house returned to its natural, empty stillness.
My attention shifted to the Naga.
He still hung suspended where I had left him, his body limp, his consciousness buried beneath the force of my earlier strike. His once-stable aura had already begun to fracture simply from proximity to me.
I stood and walked toward him.
With a simple motion of my fingers, I released the restraint around his body.
His body jerked as consciousness returned. His eyes opened slowly at first, unfocused, until recognition set in. The moment he saw me standing before him, whatever composure he had left collapsed completely. His pupils shrank, his breathing quickened, and his body trembled uncontrollably.
He remembered. He remembered everything.
I did not speak.
I placed my hand on his chest.
The Abyss Core answered immediately.
He felt it before he understood it. His body stiffened violently as his laws began to unravel under my will. They did not break all at once. They were devoured, piece by piece, stripped away from his existence as though they had never belonged to him in the first place.
His aura collapsed.
His presence weakened.
The power that had once defined him as a Transcendent disappeared. By the time I was done, he was no longer what he had been.
He hung there, barely able to breathe, his body hollowed, his existence reduced. He was no longer a Transcendent.
He was a Grandmaster.
I leaned closer.
"Coordinates," I said calmly.
His lips trembled. His mind resisted, but he no longer possessed the strength to deny me. Whatever loyalty he had once held had been consumed along with his power.
"Selara..." he whispered weakly.
His voice cracked.
"The planet... Selara..."
His eyes struggled to remain open as he spoke.
"That’s... where you’ll find it..."
I held his gaze for a moment longer, watching the last remnants of resistance fade from his eyes. There was nothing left in him now that could oppose me, nothing left that Hollow Star could reclaim or use. With a simple wave of my hand, I released the final restraint holding his existence together.
His body began to disintegrate immediately. His form broke down at the fundamental level, dissolving into fine particles that drifted upward like ash carried by an invisible current. Within moments, there was nothing left of him.
"Selara."
I secured the name in my mind. That would be my next destination. But before I left this place, there was something I needed to understand.
This city had not revealed its purpose yet.
I moved.
Space folded beneath my will, and I flashed forward, arriving at the edge of the central district. The structures here were larger.
Even in their destroyed state, their importance was obvious. The buildings were arranged in precise alignment, their positioning converging toward the circular center of the district. This had been the core. The place where whatever governed this city had existed.
The hub.
I walked forward slowly, my perception expanding outward as my Psynapse scanned every surface, every fracture, every grain of stone beneath my feet. The same absence persisted. There was still no Essence anywhere. No hidden constructs waiting beneath the surface.
This place had triggered the book. It had allowed the second page to open. It was connected to Theras, connected to the sword, connected to something the System itself had acknowledged.
And yet—
There was nothing here.
The moment that thought settled in my mind, the ground responded.
The fractured cracks in the street ahead darkened suddenly.
Shadows surged outward. They rose violently, spilling out from the cracks as though forced into existence by an unseen command. The darkness gathered and condensed, forming shape and structure with unnatural precision.
Within moments, three figures stood before me.
They were humanoid. Featureless. Composed entirely of shadow.
I stopped.
For a brief moment, I simply stared at them, my mind replaying the vision I had witnessed earlier.
They were identical. These were the same entities Theras had fought on his ascent to the sword.
In the next instant System notifications flashed before me.
[Unique Quest Detected]
[Unique Quest: Unclaimed Throne]
[Sequence: Brother]
[Status: Incomplete sequence detected.]
[Objective: Reach the Point of Designation.]
[Warning: Compatibility unknown.]
[Warning: System protection unavailable.]
[Warning: External authority interference permitted.]
[Warning: Permanent termination possible.]
[Critical Warning: Existence Erasure]
[Reward: #%$#@#$%]
I exhaled seeing the messages.
"What kind of joke is this?" I muttered in frustration.
I exhaled slowly, my eyes fixed on the floating window.
The text remained stable, unaffected by my irritation or disbelief. It simply existed before me, as absolute and indifferent as the System had always been.
But this was different.
The System had never given me a quest like this before.
Every quest I had received until now had followed structure. Clear objective. Defined reward. Measured risk. Even when the difficulty had been extreme, there had always been an underlying assumption that the System was guiding progression.
This was not guidance. System protection unavailable.
The line lingered in my mind longer than the others.
The System had never needed to state its protection before. Its presence alone had always implied it. Even when it remained silent, it observed.
But here, it had explicitly withdrawn.
External authority interference permitted.
Which meant something else held influence here. Something the System recognized but would not oppose.
My gaze shifted slowly to the three shadows standing ahead.
They had not moved since the notification appeared. They stood still, their forms silent and patient, as though waiting.
And just like that another notification flashed.
[Accept?]
[Rejection not available]
I looked at the message and closed my eyes for a brief moment. A quiet breath left me as I stood there, the floating words burning into my perception. I really wondered if the System had gone insane.
Why give me accept if choice was not there.
It made no sense.
The System had always been absolute. It never pretended to offer freedom where none existed. Every command had been clear. Every restriction had been enforced without illusion.
But this—
The message flashed again.
[Accept?]
The shadows ahead shifted slightly.
"Of course," I said calmly. "Accept. Let me see what you are cooking."
I took a step forward.
The moment my foot touched the fractured stone, the notification disappeared and the shadows reacted instantly.
===========================
Bonus release: 1 Chapter for every 100 GTs