Chapter 221: The Darker the Night, the Brighter the Stars

A pitch-black domain had descended over the entire capital, consuming everything. The soul of the Perfected One, vast beyond reckoning, had been absorbed. Now, the God of Terror, possessing that divine corpse, was a being of unimaginable might.

Unlike before, when its divine domain had expanded slowly as it harvested terror to strengthen itself, the God of Terror was now unleashing its power outward, dragging the souls of all living beings into its own domain by force.

Across the capital, bodies lay strewn across streets and courtyards—grand knights, mages, and common folk alike. Their minds and spirits, against the presence of the God of Terror, were no more significant than droplets of water in a storm.

There was silence. Utter, deathly silence. Within the capital, not a single sound remained. A sea of silence spread throughout the god's realm, a dead ocean that drowned all equally and without mercy.

From the motionless bodies sprawled across the ground, thin threads began to unravel, winding up toward the sky, toward the divine husk now occupied by the God of Terror. These strands were woven from the ever-growing power of terror, now transmuted into raw energy.

"How long must this go on?! I don't want this—I don't want this! Let me die, please, just let me die!"

"No—no—someone, anyone—please! Kill me..."

"Why... why can't I pass out? It's hopeless... I'm going numb... Please, just let me go numb..."

Howls of despair echoed through that space, forming a black fog so dense it was tangible. That fog drifted through the divine domain of the God of Terror.

In that bottomless sea of deathly silence, time twisted and stretched. Every second in the material world seemed like an hour to those trapped within.

And within that void, there was nothing but stillness, eternal descent. Above, the faintest glimmer of a dim, grey sky. Below, nothing but a boundless black sea.

Perhaps the souls drifting in that abyss imagined great sea monsters lurking below, frightful beings of unknowable shape. And perhaps those imagined horrors brought a small, bitter comfort.

For the true terror of this ocean was not danger, not the unknown. It was that which could be seen at a glance: an endless solitude that never ended.

These souls, untethered and unmoored, floated on forever, tormented by isolation and despair. There was no end in sight, and this endlessness seeded an ever-deepening terror of the future.

Some begged for numbness in the face of despair, but numbness would not come. The God of Terror's power sustained their consciousness, mending those souls even as they fractured, forcing them to remain aware, sensitive, "alive."

Others tried to escape into dreams or memory, constructing private worlds of fantasy and nostalgia to shield themselves. But it was futile.

If they were embodied, their souls could retreat within, curl inside that shell like a child within a womb, and pretend the world was far away.

But now, stripped of flesh, their souls lay bare, cast naked into the sea of oblivion, unable even to dream. Their awareness clung to the surroundings. In the face of that eternal monotony, despair and panic surged again and again.

Fear spiked, again and again. Everything still alive in the capital was swiftly being erased. They too would fall soon enough.

Above the royal palace, a translucent silken canopy unfurled, enclosing the palace within a protective field. This was Themis' Shroud, Aleisterre's final line of defense—a miracle that nullified physical, magical, spiritual, and even divine effects.

Yet even so, the radiant glow it cast, its magical circuits and intricate runes so dense they resembled ornamental thread, was dimming.

The God of Terror's domain gnawed at its edge, bit by bit. It was only a matter of time before even this last bastion collapsed.

Below, in the capital's shadow, the rest of the city had long since fallen. Every resident had been dragged into the Sea of Terror, their souls converted into engines of dread, their continuous suffering fueling the ever-expanding realm of the god.

Only the dome of the Church of Nightfall remained: fragile, wavering, and held up by the fading power of the Lady of the Night. That power, which had never been immense to begin with, now strained and flickered beneath the pressure of a true god's might.

"My beloved followers... I may soon be unable to answer your prayers. Before that time comes, I shall offer all I have to create a sanctuary. I do not know how long it will last. But I ask you—please, do not surrender to despair.

"I have watched you and witnessed your deeds. That is why I love you... and why I believe in you. If a chance to awaken remains, I wish to see you again. And remember—the darker the night, the brighter the stars."

The devout of the Lady of the Night looked up, their faces pale and fearful, as the divine dome above shrank before the encroaching might of the God of Terror. They prayed fervently, calling out to her, pleading for her strength.

Avia's face was bloodless. Perhaps the others thought of the Lady of the Night as an equal to the ancient gods, those beings with histories that stretched back to the dawn of time.

But she knew otherwise. In truth, the Lady's power was minute in comparison. She might as well be an infant standing before titans.

As the worshippers gathered toward the dome's center, praying as they drew what protection they could from the Lady's lingering power, her voice rang out again—this time inside every follower's mind, calmly and steadily.

"It's her... the Lady's voice... she's answered us again!"

"Praise be! Such a generous goddess would never abandon us—the dome is expanding!"

"No—wait! I can't feel the Prayer Network anymore. We've... lost contact with her."

"No... no... this can't be happening!"

"It's really... true? Then... then she..."

At first, joy burst from their hearts. The Lady's voice had returned, and as the dome grew for a brief moment, hope flared in their eyes. Surely she would not forsake them.

But as her words settled, meaning took shape. And with it, terror.

The Prayer Network had gone silent. A strange emptiness began to bloom in their hearts—like a cord had been cut, a bond severed. Their deity... was no longer there.

"...Lady Darkness..."

Avia whispered the name that only she and Wang Yu knew. A sorrow, deep and unshakable, filled her heart.

Far into the distance, a man frowned. "Mr. Garcia, our connection to the Prayer Network has been severed. Divine arts are currently unusable, and all communication with the Nightblades in the capital has been completely cut off.

"Magitech communicators were blocked long ago. The only channel still functional—the Prayer Network—has gone down as well. And... it seems we've also lost contact with the Lady of the Night."

Atop his purebred warhorse, whip in hand, Garcia urged the steed to its limits as he galloped at full speed toward the capital. As he listened to Kevan's report crackling through the magitech device, his face had grown grimmer and grimmer. It was now ashen.

Ever since the unstoppable ritual and divine descent in Selwyn's capital—and its mirror in Aleisterre's own capital—this expedition force from Aleisterre had thrown all caution to the wind in its mad rush to return home.

The army should have returned triumphant after crushing the enemy, but not a single soldier looked victorious. The ritual that took place in Selwyn's capital and the intelligence from Aleisterre had made it clear just how dire the situation had become.

As one of the grand knights and commanders of the expedition, Garcia rode at the vanguard alongside several elite knights. Each was mounted on the finest steeds the army had to offer—horses whose riders had gritted their teeth and fed them potions that made them gallop forward at deadly speed. This might well be their final charge.

They had taken some comfort in the news that one of Aleisterre's ultimate weapons, the Corpse of the End, had been successfully deployed in the capital. No matter the price, it had bought them precious time.

But just moments ago, all communications from the capital ceased in a single, chilling instant.

The final message relayed through the Prayer Network read: "The God of Terror has seized the Corpse of the End. All Nightblades have launched a final, suicidal charge. Return with haste. The capital stands on the brink of annihilation."

"The God of Terror... why did it have to be that accursed god?!"

Garcia's mount thundered across the plains, but the shadow of despair that had begun to settle in his heart could not be driven away.

He had once stood watch over the Forest of Fog alongside Lilya, Avia's aunt, and was himself a pupil of Archbishop Fang. He knew better than most the nature of the God of Terror.

Its destructive power was hardly its greatest threat. No. That was the infection, the insidious, all-consuming plague of fear. Given the right environment, that terror would only grow and grow. Then, the god would feed. Terror—true, undiluted terror—was one of the deadliest diseases in existence.

Garcia dared not imagine what the God of Terror could accomplish now that it had claimed a divine body. If he reached the outskirts of the capital only to find his homeland swallowed whole by the deity's domain, he wasn't sure he could bear it.

"There's no time... It's too far. Half a day at this speed—that's our limit. Any longer..."

Muttering to himself, Garcia knew full well how bleak the odds were. They needed at least a day to return to the capital, but they didn't have that long. They had no time at all.

Then came a voice through the communicator. "Reinforcements from the cursebinding spire are en route to Aleisterre. Mr. Garcia, someone is asking for you by name.

"They're not far—about fifteen kilometers east. Go quickly. They're preparing a mass teleportation. They might be able to take your whole unit to the kingdom's border. It could cut your journey in half."

Garcia blinked, stunned for a moment. Then, without hesitation, he spurred his horse and gave the command. His unit veered east, galloping toward the cursebinding delegation. They would still be racing against time, but perhaps there was hope yet.

Back in Aleisterre's capital, despite being perhaps the only soul entirely unaffected by the God of Terror's power, Wang Yu found himself no better off.

The field of darkness around him now obscured all light. He couldn't see a thing. In the pitch-black city, he ran by the guidance of nothing but the ripples he emitted and his sharpened senses.

He turned a corner too fast and slammed into a wall. Stone shattered; a hole was left in the masonry. Wang Yu staggered back a step or two—no real damage done—but this was far from the first time something similar had happened.

"Damn it! This never ends!"

With a curse, he broke into a run again. Within the God of Terror's pitch-black domain, reality itself had begun to distort. All was silence and shadow. Even the air no longer stirred. Vibrations were dulled and erased.

Wang Yu felt as if he were back on Earth, running blind through a cave where not even his hand could find the walls. He never knew when he'd crash into the next obstacle.

Even his keen senses were beginning to falter. Direction, distance, terrain—everything was slipping from his grasp.

The only tool still functioning was his ripples—normally strengthened by the void but now reduced to a mere two-meter radius.

Even in a weakened state, his ability seemed impervious to the God of Terror's influence. The ripples continued probing the space ahead, revealing the unseen.

And yet even his ripples were deceptive. They transmitted the feedback from his environment—raw, unfiltered data.

But now, perhaps 99% of that data was corrupted by madness: wailing, screams, and mindless terror.

These were the cries of souls dragged into the sea of silence, echoes of despair reverberating endlessly through the god's domain. And as the terror multiplied, the feedback Wang Yu received grew more intense, louder, and more frenzied.

For Wang Yu, it became harder and harder to extract anything useful. The echoes drowned out critical information,the very data he needed to avoid hazards and navigate the space.

He wasn't affected in mind or spirit by the madness, but even he couldn't parse endless nonsense forever.

His brain wasn't like Avia's, capable of rapid-fire parsing and filtering. This task, demanding as it was, was already pushing him to his limit.

If he continued like this, he would surely lose himself in the God of Terror's divine domain. Even if its divine power itself couldn't infect him, the detritus—the psychic debris—would be enough to trap him here.

"Almost there. Just a bit farther. Focus."

Muttering under his breath, Wang Yu forced his mind to settle. Calm and focused, he began again to sift through the cacophony, teasing out what he truly needed.

He wasn't far from the massive hole at the center of the capital, the one that led to the capital's shadow below. If he could just reach it, he could enter the underground city.

"Hm?"

Then, he stopped. Just two meters ahead, the ripple detected something—no, someone. A humanoid silhouette...

The signal grew clearer. More and more data emerged from the static. Around him, shadowy human shapes began to appear, real, tangible beings encircling him on all sides.

"..."

Wang Yu had no idea what they wanted. Without hesitation, he invoked Blood Tempest. Blood surged from his Bloodbite Ring, forming a massive crimson serpent that coiled protectively around him.

And within that bloodwrought ward, in the heart of the God of Terror's domain, shadows gathered. There were countless silhouettes, filling the space as far as Wang Yu's ripples could sense.

Though he could only detect those shadows within two meters of himself, in truth, every shadow that had once wandered the god's dominion had now converged upon this one spot.

Being too unique wasn't necessarily a blessing. Alone and unaided, Wang Yu remained active and coherent within the God of Terror's divine domain, a lone firefly in a pitch-black room, a pale gleam in the abyssal deep. Too bright and too conspicuous...

Elsewhere, a golden blade of light descended from above, cleaving a once-mighty black sun, now diminished and pale, cleanly in two. The blow shattered not only the sun but also the stone platform suspended in the void beneath it.

The legendary knight Roderick, whose potential was the very black sun that had just been bisected, gasped and coughed. He clutched his abdomen, struggling to stay conscious. His potential had been shattered by absolute force, critically wounding his physical body and ability to manipulate fighting spirit.

Not far away, Fang, bare-chested, his muscular frame slick with blood and wounds, suddenly turned and struck at his back with a glowing fist. His blow collided with razor-sharp claws that had materialized behind him.

A burst of light erupted. The cracked, clawed hand could no longer withstand the impact and shattered into a shower of hardened, razor-edged fragments that scattered across the ground.

Gallier, the legendary chimera knight, staggered back several paces after clashing with Fang. He kept his eyes fixed on the priest who was now walking steadily toward the fallen Roderick, unwavering in his steps. Gallier's breathing was labored and ragged.

The knight was a wreck. Most of his fanged teeth were broken, and the claws on both hands either snapped or splintered.

The scales that armored his body had been torn away in large swathes, revealing vicious wounds beneath. Even the draconic tail at his back had been severed in the middle, leaving a bleeding stump. The source of all these injuries was none other than the advancing Fang.

With a final, defiant roar, Gallier unleashed a sonic wave that rippled visibly through the dust-laden air, aiming at Fang.

In the same instant, his body vanished, leaving behind a crater from the force of his leap. He reappeared behind Fang.

Gallier launched a vicious kick aimed squarely at the back of the priest's head. The claws on his foot were still intact—mostly.

A meteor hammer formed from the holy book of the God of Light came crashing down, intercepting Gallier mid-strike and slamming him into the ground.

Fang turned and smashed his fist into Galet's dazed face, stunning the powerful legend unconscious with a single blow.

"What overwhelming strength..."

Roderick looked up at Fang from across the battlefield. He had just neutralized Gallier entirely. Struggling to sit up, he spoke with a faint, self-deprecating smile.

They weren't weak—Fang was just too strong. He held off the two legends alone; all they could do was stall him.

"You've won... Fang Stuart. Kill us, and go. Go save your kingdom. If you don't leave now, it may already be too late. In this war between nations... we've lost."

Roderick's voice held no fear of death, only calm acceptance. He met Fang's gaze with steady eyes.

"That kingdom is not as fragile as you think."

Fang crouched beside him, his tone quiet yet firm.

"A kingdom is fragile," Roderick said bitterly. "Just like Selwyn. I knew of the plan, but to me, the Selwyn of the past is already gone."

"No, not quite," Fang replied. "Selwyn still exists. The capital may have fallen, but the people—those who remain—they are still there. As long as they live, Selwyn has not truly perished."

"...Is that so? Then why haven't you killed us yet, Fang Stuart? If you delay any longer..."

Roderick shook his head. Clearly, he didn't take Fang's words seriously.

"I won't kill you. The Church of Light is neutral. I intervened only because Aleisterre's army couldn't defeat you, and I wished to prevent further loss of life. Killing you... that's not my duty."

He raised a hand, calm and unhurried. "Besides, I've seen what Aleisterre has done to you over the years. I know all their little schemes. From your perspective, some of your choices are understandable. But as a follower of the God of Light, and as an Aleisterran, I must try to stop this war."

"...You really do speak like someone from the Church of Light."

Roderick blinked in mild surprise, but then let out a quiet sigh of acceptance. He knew the stories.

"Despite being legends, you chose to stand by Selwyn's rulers. Why? The clergy of the Church of Light have been observing Selwyn's capital for some time.

"Aleisterre's elite may likewise be flawed, but at least our citizens live decently. You've seen the ruin Selwyn's capital has become. Don't you care?"

Fang's tone was casual, as if he were just a man making small talk with an old friend. There was no hostility in his tone.

How many trials, how many brushes with death, how many battles must one survive to become a legend? Every legendary knight had an unshakable will.

No kingdom could truly compel one to act. If a legend didn't want to fight, almost nothing could force one into action.

Thus, most lived unfettered, unmoored, even rootless lives. Yet Roderick and Gallier had willingly risked death for Selwyn.

"...I know Selwyn hasn't always made the right decisions," Roderick said after a pause. "But I just... couldn't bear to watch the Selwyn I once knew disappear. A laughable faith, perhaps. A faint hope. But that's what brought us here.

"The kingdom of the past, huh... Yes, I remember that era fondly. It was a different time. Aleisterre wasn't so different from you, then."

Father Fang's eyes softened briefly before he grew serious. "One last question—what's the state of the Abyssal Gate?"

"...Lapdogs."

The word dripped from Roderick's mouth like poison, contemptuous and bitter. It was hard to say whether he referred to the Abyssal Gate... or to himself and Gallier.

"What a shame," Fang murmured, regret flickering in his eyes. "Those of us who walked out of that era... the Nightblades, the Abyssal Gate... were once united by pure ideals. We've all changed since."

Fang stood up.

"Go now. If you wait any longer, the power of the God of Terror will swallow all of Aleisterre." Roderick managed to lift a hand in a weak gesture of farewell. He urged him onward.

"The soul is the most precious possession of any sentient being. Even the gods cannot fully unravel the mysteries these souls hold.

"The God of Terror is indeed formidable. Its terror stains the human soul pitch-black—like the lightless depths of the ocean, or the eternal night of a starless sky—and from that soul-bound fear, it draws unceasing strength.

"Even if the God of Light were to descend in person, He could not wholly uproot the God of Terror, whose essence is intertwined with the very emotion of terror. But conversely, there are elements within the soul that even the God of Terror cannot erase.

"That which is born within the crucible of terror is ever pure and potent. Alone, a single soul may not be enough to resist the overwhelming power of the God of Terror—but gathered together, they just might. Just as you have done in unifying the fear of the people of Selwyn.

"The God of Light is a most unusual deity. His will seems more like the convergence of many voices than that of a singular being. At the very least, He has the power to collect such beliefs.

"My task is to find a suitable vessel to bear that power. And as it happens, I know someone perfect for the role."

Emerging from the fissure in space, Fang paid no heed to the two Selwynian legends, broken and lying in defeat. Instead, he turned toward the capital of Aleisterre and began a prayer to the God of Light.

"Humanity is not yet ready to face the gods alone. Until the time comes, I beseech the divine to lend a hand."

Within the capital, one and one place alone remained untouched by the God of Terror's corruption: a humble, unassuming chapel dedicated to the God of Light.

Obscure and forgotten, the chapel was known only to a rare few. Only Wang Yu and a few members of the Nightblades had ever visited it, on the day Wang Yu first met Fang in the capital.

Upon a mantle lay a modest statue of the God of Light, sculpted with powerful muscles, its form glowing faintly with golden light, shielding the empty chapel with quiet grace.

As Fang's prayers rose into the silence, golden threads began to stretch from the chapel, piercing through the divine realm of the God of Terror and spreading outward across the capital. They sought the fallen souls of Aleisterre's people.

In the void, golden lights glimmered throughout the city, like stars scattered across the night.

And the darker the night, the brighter those stars shone.