Day 724[1] in Jerrica's Labyrinth
A suffocating wave of pressure crashed over the archipelagos, bending trees to their breaking points and flattening anything too fragile to resist. Rocks crumbled under the weight, reduced to jagged shards that split apart and scattered like dust in a storm. The very air warped under the force of Whitty Huton's [Demonic Intimidation], a tsunami of magical presence that flooded the battlefield with an ominous gravity. Any lesser being caught in the wake of her display would be gasping for air, pinned to the floating terrain, paralyzed by the sheer depth of her mana pool.
But Alex wasn't just anyone.
Whitty expected to see him struggling, knees buckling, arms shaking under the weight of her magick. Yet instead, she found him standing defiantly, a cocky smirk plastered across his face, middle finger raised in blatant mockery.
Alex locked eyes with her, his crimson mana-infused gaze burning with challenge. "Damn, that's it? I thought you were tryna flex."
The flicker of irritation in her eyes was all he needed. With a quick inhale, Alex launched forward, his body vanishing in a blur of speed. His takeoff split the air with a thunderous crack, a sonic boom rippling through the debris.
"Art of Shukaku: Rising Flare Kicks!"
His feet erupted into roaring flames, each step igniting the atmosphere around him as he closed the distance in an instant. He struck with a relentless barrage, six kicks aimed with precision and heat, each one capable of breaking magisteel and setting the air ablaze.
Whitty moved effortlessly, her body gliding through the sky like a leaf in the wind, dodging each strike with inhuman grace. But Alex wasn't done. Just as she grew comfortable in her evasions, he twisted midair, his momentum snapping into a brutal roundhouse kick that she never saw coming.
CRACK!
The impact sent her spinning, her body tumbling backward as the force rattled through her skull. She caught herself before she could spiral too far, hand clutching the side of her face where the kick had landed. The dull ache of pain was something she had long forgotten—until now.
Alex smirked, his feet still wreathed in flickering flames as he hovered at her level. "Not a fan of fighting on the ground? Don't worry, I'll come to you."
Whitty's expression darkened, her pride wounded more than her cheek. "You insolent little hell mongrel! I rule the skies here. I don't remember permitting you to fly."
Alex pointed his sword at her, his grin widening. "You're mighty pretentious for someone who just got kicked in the face. If you don't want me to fly, then stop me."
The arrogance in his voice sent a surge of irritation through Whitty's veins. The audacity. The disrespect. The complete and utter lack of fear.
Her red irises flickered with malice. "At first, I was entertained by your bravado, but now I've grown tired of your disrespectful tongue. I no longer wish to hear your voice."
She raised a hand, a mixture of spiritual energy, Devil, and Wind Mana swirling in her palm. The power coalesced into a small, rippling doll—a replica of Alex. Its form shimmered with an eerie, liquid-like quality as if reality itself struggled to define it. She brought the figure close to her lips and sang, her voice silent yet somehow resonant, a haunting melody that painted the air with green-tinted sound waves.
"Let my affection remove the sound from his heart—[My Love Is Your Love]."
With a delicate yet deliberate motion, she crushed the tiny effigy in her palm. Instantly, Alex felt it—a suffocating stillness wrapping around him, seeping into his bones like a venomous whisper. Mana pockets surrounding him popped like fragile bubbles, their energy dissolving into nothingness. A green glow traced his body, sealing his throat, silencing his voice, and cutting off his magical chants.
Whitty's smirk returned. "Now that I know your name and have analyzed your strength, my Ultra Skill has placed you under its effect. You are now silenced from any chanting."
A flicker of alarm crossed Alex's features as the flames at his feet sputtered. Without his ability to verbally weave mana into his techniques, he lost control of his flight. Gravity took over, dragging him down in jolted pauses of resistance as he fought to stabilize himself. But there was no spell to call upon, no words to shape his mana into action. He crashed onto the floating platform, knees bending to absorb the impact.
Still, no sound escaped him.
Alex's teeth clenched as he tried to yell out his frustration, but only silence greeted him. The anger boiling in his chest was palpable, but he had no time to stew in it—Whitty was already moving.
She descended in a blur of motion, razor-sharp claws slicing through the air toward his blind spot. At the last second, the scent of her mana-laced attack hit his senses, and he twisted just in time to evade, her claws raking through empty space where his throat had been.
Whitty pressed the assault, a relentless series of claw swipes and spinning kicks, forcing Alex onto the defensive. Each strike aimed to rip him apart, to break his guard and slice through his flesh. But he wasn't just dodging—he was learning. His short swords moved with increasing precision, intercepting each attack with a clash of steel, his movements tightening with every parry.
The battle became a dance of blades and claws, his swordsmanship sharpening as the fight progressed. What started as purely defensive maneuvers shifted subtly—his counters growing bolder, his blade slipping through gaps in her offense. The tempo changed, and for the first time, Whitty found herself on the back foot.
Her ruby eyes narrowed as she studied him. "Impossible. He's faster. Stronger. His mana—growing despite the seal? I need distance. Now."
But her moment of contemplation cost her.
Alex's blade nicked her cheek, drawing first blood. The sensation of pain was foreign, a forgotten relic of her past battles, but it was real.
Her eyes widened in disbelief before her instincts kicked in. With a panicked chant, she summoned a shield of repelling winds, the gale-force explosion sending Alex skidding backward across the platform. She ascended, putting immediate distance between them, her heart pounding in confusion and frustration.
For the first time in centuries, someone had made her bleed.
Whitty didn't speak a word as she wiped the black blood from her face. The realization clawed at her pride like a jagged wound—this was the second time he had managed to land an attack on her. A lesser being, one who should've been crawling beneath her feet, was standing at heights she was born to command. It was absurd. A cosmic joke twisted by fate. But before the weight of that revelation could fully sink in, a sudden and alien sensation prickled at her Soul Core. A raw, biting cold spread through her essence, severing her connection to her mana.
For a fleeting moment, she was mortal.
The recreated planet stilled—an eerie pause, like the universe itself holding its breath. Then, the world quaked in protest. Tectonic plates groaned as landmasses shifted and skies bled with arcs of unstable energy, desperate to restabilize. But all the chaotic noise of the breaking landscape couldn't drown out his voice.
"Crescent Moon Blade: Crashing Morning!"
His roar cut through the space between them like a battle horn, filled with fury and relentless intent.
"No, you don't! Superior Wind Mana Arts: Echoes of Infernia!" Whitty spat back, her voice laced with venom.
She flung her head back, jaw unhinging as a monstrous, guttural belch erupted from her throat. A violent storm of circular waves surged outward, shredding the air itself, carrying the promise of agony. The concussive force rippled toward Alex, distorting the very fabric of space as it closed in to tear flesh from bone. But he didn't flinch.
Instead, the Tengu rocketed forward like a missile, his form a blur of momentum and deadly precision. Both blades twirled above him, their edges igniting with a blackened blaze. The flames licked hungrily at the air, their chill a stark contrast against the raging storm of Whitty's attack.
He dove straight through the center of the assault, slicing through the spiraling waves with a fluidity that defied resistance. The violent gales clawed at him, but his momentum didn't waver. He tunneled forward, his swords screaming toward her torso. Desperation flared in Whitty's eyes as she reacted on instinct, forming a barrier of condensed Wind Mana in a last-ditch effort to halt his advance.
But Alex didn't stop.
The moment his blades met the barrier, he slammed into it with all his weight and force, like a comet colliding with the atmosphere. Whitty barely had a second to react before she was forced backward, her body helplessly pushed higher into the sky by the sheer power of his unrelenting assault.
"Get… away… from—!"
"YAAAHH!"
Pulling from the deepest depths of his Soul Core, Alex unleashed a catastrophic burst of Bio Mana. The explosive force shot him forward at speeds that shattered light itself, his body becoming an unseeable streak of destruction. The collision sent both of them careening through the void, their trajectory unrelenting as they hurtled toward the furthest of the five moons orbiting the artificial planet.
The impact was apocalyptic.
They slammed into the lunar surface with enough force to nearly obliterate its entire crust. The ground cracked and fissured, an intricate web of destruction spreading across kilometers. The collision sent a tsunami of dust and debris spiraling into the void, the sheer force of it fracturing the moon's outer shell like brittle glass.
And yet, in the suffocating silence of the vacuum, Alex emerged first.
With a few controlled backflips, he landed outside the massive crater, his form silhouetted against the pale blue lunar glow. Scratches littered his body, but none of them were deep. The cocky smirk he usually wore had been wiped away, replaced by a hardened expression of sheer grit. He spat to the side, a mixture of saliva and blood hitting the moon's surface before evaporating instantly in the void.
The weight of lighter gravity tugged at him, shifting his movements slightly, but it was nothing he couldn't adjust to. The lack of usable oxygen would've been a death sentence for most, but thanks to [Self-Sustain], he wasn't worried.
"Lucky me," he thought, rolling his shoulders as he surveyed the destruction around him.
An explosion from the crater's center cut through his musings.
Whitty shot upward, a living missile of rage, her body shrouded in wild, flickering mana. Her expression was no longer one of amusement or superiority—no, this was something darker. Something laced with a newfound hatred. Her forearms, riddled with puncture wounds, struggled to regenerate.
"What in the abyss did you do to me, you vexing hell mongrel?" she spat, her voice twisted with frustration. "The control of my magick is fluctuating randomly!"
Alex paused, then grinned, his old cockiness returning as he ran a hand through his white hair. "That's probably my skill [Mana Separation] at work. When I evolved, I got a few skill evolutions as a bonus gift from my Crest. That's one of 'em."
Whitty's face contorted in disbelief, "Mana Separation? That's a King-Class skill. Why would someone like you have one of those?"
Alex scoffed, rolling his neck with a pop before flashing her an almost taunting smirk. "Because, hoe bag, me and my niggas are all kings. Duh."
Her thoughts spun into overdrive. "Given a gift from his Crest? That meant he wasn't the Crest Leader. Which meant there were others. Possibly just as strong. Or stronger."
The realization sent a shiver down her spine.
She needed time. Time to heal. Time to think. And most importantly, time to reclaim control over this fight.
"I will admit, Mr. Zo," she said, her tone shifting as she worked to mask her irritation, "you've been a well of surprises. Exceeding my expectations in thinking I knew the heights of the mortal half-breeds that carry Infernia in their blood. It's clear—I can no longer deal with you without releasing my full strength."
She timed her words perfectly. As she spoke, the effect of [Mana Separation] faded, her control returning in a near-instantaneous flood.
A tremendous surge of Bio Mana erupted from within her, enveloping her form in a twisting, almost ethereal aura. The transformation was immediate and grotesque. Her facial features sharpened, her nose flattening into something more bestial, her eyes stretching unnaturally wide. Her once dark lavender skin charred into a soot-black, cracked with veins of glowing violet. A mane of jagged, spiked hair exploded outward, wild and untamed, while the crystals embedded in her body pulsed with a furious oscillation of pink and red light.
A demon reborn. The sheer heat of her new form made the lunar surface bubble.
Alex cracked his neck to the side, exhaling as he rested his blades against his shoulders. "Aw, hell." He smirked. "Now we talkin'."
As she stood on compressed air like an invisible platform, her talon feet curled with sharp precision, gripping onto nothing yet holding her aloft as if the moon itself bent to her will. Her arm-wings flared out in a grand, imposing stretch, the leathery layer of skin twitching with anticipation as her mana signature unfurled like a tidal wave of raw pressure, slamming against the environment with a weight that warped the space around her. Magiton clusters flickered wildly, forming miniature auroras that slithered across her skin, illuminating the pulsing veins beneath her obsidian-hued flesh. The muscles along her arms and legs spasmed slightly, as if suppressing a volatile energy eager to explode. Then, with a slow, deliberate motion, she set her gaze back onto Alex, her piercing red eyes shimmering with malevolence. A wicked, deviant smile crept across her face as she languidly ran her black tongue over her lips.
"A mere mortal dares to gawk at perfection? I should rip out those disgraceful eyes before they soil my presence further," she purred, her voice laced with venomous delight. "I will take full pleasure in mutilating such a human face."
The words struck Alex with a visceral impact, an odd nerve igniting deep within his core. His jaw clenched, a sharp rebuttal forming at the tip of his tongue—but before he could spit his anger back at her, an unseen force clamped down on his throat. The cursed seal flared once more, silencing him in an instant. A fresh wave of frustration surged through his body like wildfire. His mind screamed, and his soul ached with the sheer agony of suppression. This was the last time. He swore it. He would not allow this wretched enchantment to bind him again.
"With my mana control back," Whitty crooned, stretching out her arms, her talons flexing with excitement, "my Ultra Skill is active again. Now, you will perish before true magical might. Hahahahaha!"
Her laughter erupted into the void, unnatural and jarring, growing louder and louder until it echoed with a haunting omnipresence. It did not fade into the distance like ordinary sound. Instead, it bounced back in waves, a disorienting cacophony surrounding him, engulfing him, as if a stadium of specters were mocking him in unison. The sound rang in his skull, reverberating down his spine, wrapping around his very being like phantom chains tightening with every repetition.
"Now [Love King: Beleth], cast [Eternal Despair]!"
The moment the spell took hold, Alex's senses were assaulted. From all sides, a hypnotic, eerie melody slithered into his ears, carrying a high-pitched ringing that stabbed deep into his brain. It was not merely a song—it was a curse, a siren's lament woven with cruel intent, prying open the floodgates of his mind. Unknown to Alex, Whitty's Vessel Skill could inflict your deepest fear or obsessive attraction with absolute control.
Suddenly, he was no longer on the moon.
He saw the towering, snow-capped mountains of Aldo against the pink hues of a setting sun. He saw the village of Alexandria, where his childhood had been spent in the shadows of rejection. He felt the sting of ridicule once more, the echoes of laughter from the other Tengu Pups slicing into his soul like jagged knives.
"Why do you look so human?"
"Where's your tail, freak?"
"You're not one of us."
The words crashed into him, each syllable dredging up the shame and anger he had buried long ago. His Celestial heritage had stolen from him the physical traits of his kind—no tail, no canid ears, no wings. The children mocked him relentlessly, their jeering voices embedding themselves into his mind like a parasite that refused to die. He had bottled it all up, forced himself to endure, and convinced himself he was stronger than their words. Yet here, in this twisted moment, that laughter returned, alive and suffocating.
A dull heat simmered within his chest, a rage that had always lurked beneath the surface. A rage that, once ignited, burned with the intensity of a star. And Whitty had just struck the match.
The air around Alex vibrated violently. His greatest fear only made him angry. His fury peaked—[Eternal Despair] shattered. Black and white flames roared to life, devouring the abyss. The dark void of the moonlit battlefield was set ablaze with streaks of Hellfire Mana, licking at the fabric of space itself. Magiton particles swarmed like fireflies caught in a violent storm, illuminating the abyss in a spectacle of raw, unfettered power.
Alex's silent scream clawed its way out of his throat, and in that moment, he heard it—the voice of something ancient, something powerful, something that had been waiting for this very moment to awaken.
"The light of the Morning Star does not dim here," the voice whispered, its tone a low, charismatic rumble that resonated through his very being. "Awaken the truth of our power."
Said his V-Skill, [Morning Star: Lucifer].
The subskill [Lucifer's Wrath] activated.
Like a heavenly eruption, his aura expanded, the sheer force of it cracking the moon's surface beneath him. His once-muted cries began to distort the very space around him, bending reality as if the air itself were warping under the weight of his voice. The battlefield convulsed as Alex's voice erupted, no longer sound, but raw, omnipotent force. The moon itself quaked beneath the resonance as if the gravity itself had flinched.
"Let's put a stop to her insufferable cackling," Lucifer intoned, his presence now fully intertwined with Alex's soul. "[Speakerboxxx], activate."
A tremor split the battlefield as the fabric of silence shattered. A guttural, thunderous roar burst from Alex's mouth, rippling outward in a shockwave of pure sound and force. Whitty's hex recoiled violently, her spell melting away as if it had been doused in holy fire. The distortion of space wavered around her, the oppressive silence now obliterated by a relentless wave of sound. Alex's voice had returned, and it carried the weight of his unleashed wrath.
Whitty stumbled, eyes wide with disbelief, as she felt the mana that had once tethered Alex to silence crumble into nothingness. "What? What happened to my Hex? Where is this surge of mana coming from?"
Panic crept into her voice as she hastily activated [Analyze], her mind racing to comprehend the monstrous force swelling before her. But the answer came not in words, but in the unrelenting radiance of Alex's power.
His body burned with an untamed scarlet glow, the flames of his aura twisting and writhing like the living embodiment of his fury. His eyes, now shining like twin celestial beacons, reflected the Dawnstone that hung from his neck—a stone that no longer merely symbolized his past, but the immense power he had now embraced. He no longer fought against the blazing star within him.
He had become it.
The weight of their combined magical pressures crushed the battlefield into a storm of chaos. Alex and Queen Whitty glared at one another, their auras colliding like celestial bodies caught in an unavoidable orbit. The very air between them distorted, thick with raw mana, forging an artificial atmosphere on the shattered moon's surface. Winds howled and thrashed like unseen titans, spiraling debris in violent vortexes around them. Every gust carried the crackling echoes of their power. Unbeknownst to Whitty, her body had begun to tremble—an involuntary reaction to the murderous intent suffocating her beneath Alex's surging mana signature.
Whitty's breath hitched, her throat tightening as she tried to analyze the growing threat before her. Yet, her eyes widened in disbelief when she was met with nothing—her analysis blocked, her attempts at deciphering Alex's strength denied.
"No. No, no, no. This isn't possible against my [Love King: Beleth]. He wasn't supposed to—" she pondered aloud, her voice a whisper swallowed by the storm.
Her mind spiraled with questions. How had he grown so powerful in mere moments? Was he hiding this strength all along? But before her thoughts could fully form, a single blink of her eyes cost her sight of Alex entirely. Her breath stilled.
"Where did he—"
The thought was shattered by an impact. Like a meteor striking the moon's surface, Alex's foot crashed into the back of her neck, his form a blur of overwhelming speed. The force sent her plummeting down, her body carving into the ground like a meteor strike, rock and dust exploding outward in a violent eruption.
"Solar Mana Arts: Star Crasher!" Alex's voice roared through the battlefield.
With both palms extended, he unleashed an overwhelming tide of plasma energy. A superheated beam erupted from his hands, a blinding inferno of cobalt and golden light surging downward. The attack slammed into Whitty, driving her deeper into the crater, the force of it compressing the very landmass beneath her. A thunderous shockwave rippled outward, cracking the moon's surface as it struggled to contain the energy.
Alex poured more power into the blast. His entire form illuminated as a tsunami of star-born energy surged forth, the beam expanding into an unstoppable pillar that speared through the moon itself, burrowing straight into its core. The satellite could endure no more.
With a final, resounding detonation, the moon exploded. Fragments of its destruction scattered into the cosmos, an explosion of lunar debris thrown into the void like pieces of a broken god. The sheer force of the blast flung Alex into the empty abyss of space, his body tumbling through zero gravity as remnants of the explosion continued to flicker behind him.
Meanwhile, Whitty, barely clinging to life, remained at the heart of the destruction. Her form was wrecked—her right arm severed at the elbow, one of her elegant wings missing and drifting among the debris.
Desperation seized her as she focused her remaining energy on healing, her body glowing with feeble mana as her limbs slowly reformed. Yet, beneath the exhaustion, beneath the pain, a deeper wound festered—her ego.
How… how am I the one struggling to live? she thought, her fingers trembling as they flexed into a shaky fist.
She had seen his power level earlier. She had gauged his strength. None of this should have been possible.
Her thoughts fractured as a distant sound pierced the void. A crackling, rhythmic snap!—lightning arcing across drifting debris. Her heart clenched. She recognized that signature, that energy. He was coming.
Yet, something was off. The speed of the approaching bolt was slower than before. His mana signature—
Weaker.
A grin split Whitty's face.
"Now I've got you! Superior [Devil, Wind Mana Arts: Dark Sonic Bubble]!"
With a sudden burst of renewed confidence, she gathered every last drop of her mana into a single attack. A massive sphere of hyper-compressed oxygen and dark energy, infused with razor-sharp wind magic, formed in the space before her. The sheer density of the spell bent light around it, distorting the very fabric of reality. With a final push, she hurled the attack at hypersonic speed, its trajectory locked onto the incoming bolt of lightning.
Alex didn't dodge.
Instead, he angled himself into the attack.
The moment of impact was catastrophic. The Dark Sonic Bubble engulfed him whole, the cutting winds within it tearing into his body like millions of invisible blades. Pain—pure, raw agony—ripped through him, his flesh splitting, his bones shuddering under the pressure. It was a level of suffering he hadn't felt in a long, long time.
He could barely focus. His body wanted to collapse, to give in.
Then, amidst the torment, Shukaku's words echoed in his mind.
"Let your guts pull you through anything the labyrinth throws at you."
His jaw clenched. His teeth ground against each other as his resolve hardened. No. He wasn't done.
Summoning every ounce of his willpower, Alex activated his Sonata Skill, forcing his body to consume the attack. The spell's energy fought against him, its violent nature resisting absorption. But he pressed forward, his mana adapting, devouring the spell's structure bit by bit. His armor pulsed as its enchantment triggered, amplifying his [Dominus Irae] to further absorb the wind-based devastation.
The moment the last shred of the attack was consumed, a pulse of raw power surged through Alex's being. His eyes flared with renewed energy. His body, once ravaged, was now brimming with strength beyond what he had before.
Lightning crackled along his limbs, his feet igniting with fire and electricity as he moved—no, vanished—at speeds beyond light.
Whitty barely had time to register the shift before sheer terror gripped her. She sensed his attack before she could see it, her instincts screaming at her.
"I can't dodge it!"
A blinding light filled her vision.
Alex's form blurred into existence beside her. His body twisted mid-air, his entire weight and force coiling into a devastating, spinning back-kick. His foot, wrapped in a storm of lightning and hellfire, connected with her skull.
A shockwave erupted outward—an explosion of godly force that sent a ripple through the cosmos, the sheer magnitude of it damaging the other four moons in the distance.
For Queen Whitty, there was nothing after that.
Her head disintegrated. Countless shards of bone and blood vaporized into oblivion. Her decapitated body hung lifelessly in the void before a slow, consuming disintegration spread over it, erasing her existence piece by piece until there was nothing left.
The battle was over.
And Alex Zo floated, victorious.
Drifting through the weightlessness of space, Alex finally allowed himself a moment to breathe. The battle was done. The remnants of Whitty's existence—shattered fragments of her mana crystals and scattered remains—floated in the dark void, disintegrating bit by bit. The lingering energy from their clash pulsed faintly, then fizzled into nothingness. He strained his senses, searching for any trace of her presence, but there was nothing. Just the cold silence of the vacuum, the gentle push of drifting moon debris, and the distant glow of stars far beyond his reach.
His body sagged in exhaustion as the realization settled in. He had won. The weight of the moment hit him like a delayed explosion, not in the form of pain, but of triumph. A grin stretched across his face, quickly growing into a victorious yell.
"I won? Fuck yeah! Old Man, I did it!" His voice carried through the mental link he had established with himself, his raw joy cutting through the aftermath of destruction.
Laughter bubbled up from his chest, an innocent sound that starkly contrasted with the ruthless precision of his final attack. Just minutes ago, he had been locked in a death struggle, but now, there was only elation. He flexed his fingers, rolling his shoulders as the reality of his victory sank in.
"I didn't think she would take the bait," he mused, shaking his head. "But I knew she kept her Soul Core in her head. Man, this armor is fucking flames."
His fingers traced the edges of his battle-worn armor, still pulsing with the energy it had absorbed. The enchantment, 'Aurora's Vengeance,' had done its job well, amplifying his Sonata Dominus Skill and keeping him in one piece. He was drained, his MP scraping dangerously low, but at least he didn't have to waste what little remained healing himself completely. He exhaled, steadying his breathing. The rush was wearing off, and in its place, the vast emptiness of space pressed against his awareness.
Now that the battlefield had fallen silent, his thoughts turned to something that had nagged at him before—the voice. The one who had spoken to him amidst the chaos.
"Now that it's quiet, what was that voice from before?" His brow furrowed as he mulled it over.
"Wait."
A more pressing realization dawned on him, one that should have hit him sooner.
"Wait, now that I think about it—where the hell am I? And how do I get back?"
As if the universe itself had been waiting for his moment of confusion, the Prime Realm System chimed in, its familiar monotone voice breaking through his thoughts.
«Trial of the Bad is now complete. You have earned your passage.»
Light surrounded him, warm yet weightless. Before he could so much as blink, space folded in on itself, and in an instant, he was no longer drifting among the broken remnants of the moon.
The moment his feet touched solid ground, the shift in atmosphere was almost jarring. Lush greenery surrounded him once more, the dense rainforest standing just as it had before his trial began. The sky above, once blood-red and fractured, now stretched in a young morning hue, dotted with five restored moons. The familiar cacophony of insects, distant birds, and rustling leaves returned, painting the dawn with life once again.
Alex turned in a slow circle, taking in the impossible sight.
"Woah, the planet's back. Even the moon and shit."
He shook his head, both impressed and mildly annoyed at how reality just seemed to snap back into place like a flipped switch.
The Prime Realm System wasn't finished.
«Due to completion of the trial, [DATA RESTRICTED] will now grant the Sonata Soul Core holder the bible, Royalty.»
His eyebrow twitched at the choice of reward.
"A Bible, really? Fucking smooth." He scoffed, shaking his head. Excited as hell, though.
He knew about Luda's and Xiro's, which meant he was on the path to having his very own Guardian Armament.
The system's voice rang out one final time, its words carrying a sense of finality.
«You've danced with the dark wind and lived to tell the tale. Shall I open the door to your freedom?»
Alex exhaled, rolling his shoulders as the weight of everything finally settled. The battle, the trial, the reward—it all led up to this moment. With new strength in his veins and his next step clear, he was on his way to carving his name in the legends of Gaia.
With new power in his hands and history waiting to be rewritten, he stepped forward. His story was just getting started.
[End of Chapter]
[1] Year Five.