An overwhelming sensation surged, an irresistible force field enveloping Roy's body in an instant.
Drawn by an almost instinctual pull, Roy took a step forward, but his consciousness snapped back under his control, forcing him to halt.
He barely retracted the foot already on the staircase, stepping back slightly into the narrow passage leading to the rooftop. Turning, he saw only a pitch-black, bottomless abyss behind him.
The corridor, stairs, and passageways… all had vanished without a trace.
Clearly, the entity above had anticipated Roy might defy its script and attempt to flee.
Faced with such a situation, no one with a shred of sense would push open that suspiciously ominous iron door.
He wasn't some foolhardy investigator with meager strength and not love his life.
Though he had scanned the building countless times with detection magecraft, spatial probes, biological and non-biological sweeps through his Mystic Eyes, the results were always the same.
Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
The entire building held no life but his own, no sounds of breathing, no presence at all.
Even knowing something awaited him beyond the door, Roy could neither perceive nor glimpse its true nature. Despite casting detection magecraft for safety, the entity's identity remained elusive.
Yet the inexplicable, perilous sensation couldn't be ignored.
His soul was warning him, protecting him. The fleeting pain in his soul during that brief gaze at the entity was the only time he felt such a sting.
Crack! Crack! Crack!!
An intangible force reverberated within his soul, as if the plane or veil of reality itself were being torn apart by some aberrant power, collapsing in on itself.
This attack, this force.
Though invisible to the naked eye and undetectable by magecraft, his soul's subtle ache and warning were unmistakable.
His soul was both alerting and shielding him. The moment of eye contact with that bizarre amalgamation was the only instance he felt such soul-deep pain.
Crack! Crack! Crack!!
The unseen force continued to resonate and quake within his soul, as if the fabric of reality was being shredded by an unnatural power, collapsing ceaselessly.
Though magecraft couldn't capture it, when Roy observed with his soul, he saw its true form, gray, irregular shapes, like a chaotic assembly of mismatched parts. Yet these things appeared endlessly in this space, intent on consuming his body and soul in an instant.
"What the hell is this?!"
Though incomprehensible and impossible to counter, this eerie attack and force had descended upon the world. The chaotic, rule-defying shapes rampaged, tearing and shattering the space and veil along their path. Had Roy not retreated swiftly, he might have been crushed by the rupturing sensation of the torn veil.
There was no time to think, for the chaotic mass surged forward, overwhelming in number and speed, rendering escape impossible.
Without hesitation, Roy discarded the white sword of light in his hand. Against an attack that tore through dimensions, mere magecraft was laughably inadequate, like using paper to stop a raging forest fire.
Raising his palm, Roy's Mystic Eyes flared open. Guided by instinct, he summoned his soul's power, shaping it into an invisible blade. He wielded it, slashing at the endless, terrifying tide before him.
Bang!
Boom!!
Crack! Crack! Crack!!!
An endless cacophony of shattering and the trembling rupture of the veil filled the air. The white space's veil was torn asunder, and Roy could see nothing within the chaotic wave of irregular forms.
His eyes beheld only the countless irregular amalgamations, expressionless yet somehow conveying emotion and intent.
Boom!!
A fragile sound, as if something had snapped.
Cough, cough, cough…
After a brief clash, the invisible blade forged from his soul's power cleaved through the incomprehensible wave.
The situation was like cutting water with a blade. The intangible wave surged, only to be sliced apart by Roy's invisible blade. Scattered droplets burst past him, tearing vast swathes of the void and veil in their wake.
Countless terrifying fissures, like gaping abyssal maws, opened around Roy. Through them, he glimpsed a dark, unfathomable horror on the other side.
"This is insane…"
Roy frantically wielded his soul-blade to fend off the relentless pressure of the irregular forms, his mouth twitching.
It appeared his soul-forged blade had indeed cut through the veil-tearing tide. To an outsider, Roy might seem like a saint parting the seas or a war god cleaving calamity. But he knew the truth.
The only reason he'd achieved this was because the entity was toying with him, not using its full strength. Though it seemed like an even match, or even that he held the upper hand, the reality was different.
The irregular tide was endless, stretching beyond sight, while he'd exhausted himself repelling a single wave. His soul, though immensely powerful and vast in scope, was insufficient against this infinite, veil-rending tide.
If the entity intensified its assault, his meager strength couldn't withstand it.
Behind the tide, the master of this chaos loomed, a mass of gray hemispheres, glinting metal shards, and plastic-like cylinders in the endless white void.
It seemed to be testing Roy's limits, deliberately holding back. Otherwise, that veil-tearing assault could shred him and scatter him across dimensions in an instant.
Yet Roy had no means of escape.
"Void, inversion, between surface and depth."
Buzz!!!
Ice-blue Mystic Eyes glowed in Roy's gaze. White mana hands formed at his shoulders, splitting off, reinforced by his soul, and pushed against the tide to ease his burden.
But even this effort was meaningless against the irrational, relentless wave.
Perhaps sensing Roy's tension, the overseer above the dimensions swayed its chaotic form, slowing the tide's frequency, granting him a moment to breathe.
"This is an Outer God, definitely one of them. I can't recall which, but this irrational power could tear the planet's dimensions apart if it wished…"
In that brief respite, Roy analyzed his predicament.
From its appearance and irrational power, it was clearly not of this planet. At his current level, Roy was a legendary figure in the Nasuverse, capable of sitting back as a background titan. In the eyes of the Clock Tower, the Church, or the Spiral Manor, he was likely on par with Zelretch, a dangerous entity.
And who was Zelretch?
One of the world's five "Magicians." Also among the Twenty-Seven Dead Apostle Ancestors. The five phenomena unattainable by magecraft or science are called "Magic"; those who wield them are "Magicians." Zelretch's Second Magic allowed him to roam parallel worlds freely.
He once fought "Crimson Moon." The Moon's Ultimate One, a being capable of annihilating the planet. Though the battle ended in a draw, it cost him dearly, aging him and weakening his power. Turned into a vampire, he was listed among the formidable Dead Apostle Ancestors.
Roy had achieved comparable feats, defeating lesser Ancestors aside, he'd toppled a half-complete Mother of Creation. Though not quite on Zelretch's level, had he not held back?
If thrown into Zelretch's era against Crimson Moon, Roy was confident he could slay her with all his might.
Yet a being like him, who could sit as a background titan in the Nasuverse, was now overwhelmed in mere moments, alive only because the entity spared him.
Utterly absurd…
He couldn't help but scoff, baffled by why another Outer God had appeared on this planet.
The power gap was insurmountable by magic alone.
"Relax. In your incomplete state, you can't triumph over such a force."
At the brink of life and death, that familiar voice echoed in Roy's ears again.
As he turned, a strand of golden hair floated past. A warm, comforting hand gently rested on his arm.
"Hold onto me. I'll show you how to wield true power."
"Ah… okay."
With a soft acknowledgment, a force emerged, and something shifted.
Roy felt his soul lightly touched by an anomalous power, unlocking its shackles.
The soul and status, once mere vessels, gained new insight and transformation. The soul-blade, previously a crude projection of energy, began to reshape under the guidance of an invisible hand, becoming more intuitive, perfectly suited to Roy.
It coalesced into a sword in his hand. White light erupted from the blade, condensing.
In an instant, this invisible sword's power dwarfed its prior crude form by countless magnitudes. White specks of light, drawn not by extraction but by the essence of the Third Magic, orbited Roy like planets around a sun, guarding their vital star.
The white morning stars swirled, merging into the invisible sword, unleashing a power incomprehensible even to the Third Magic's creator. The white brilliance enveloped everything, assembling like a puzzle with Roy's soul as the blade's foundation, adorned by the Third Magic.
This sword surpassed the Third Magic, one of the five great magics, in sheer terror and value, an arcane force beyond human or planetary comprehension. A mere flicker or faint mana ripple could ripple space itself. Roy clearly felt that this sword, born from his soul's status, could slice through captured dimensions and phases with a single swing, unmatched even by the Sword of the Stars.
It was too perfect for him…
Born from his soul, gripped in his hand, it was less a sword than a separated self, or perhaps his child.
Thus, the invisible sword was perfectly tailored to Roy, and only he could unleash its true power.
"Now you know how to use it, right?"
In a flash, the golden-haired girl turned, smiling faintly at Roy, stepping aside to yield the stage to her chosen protagonist.
"Of course."
Returning Abigail's smile with a broad grin, Roy grasped the invisible sword's hilt without hesitation. His soul and all he was resonated in an instant.
As if all supremacy, soul, cosmos, and deeper mysteries were clutched in his palm.
No teaching or study was needed. Like a human instinctively swinging an arm, Roy raised the blade and lightly swung at the oncoming irregular tide.
Buzz, buzz, buzz,
The sword's mysteries and power unfurled with Roy's swing, breaking all restraints, pouring into the chaotic ocean ahead.
The invisible force, tearing dimensions and slashing phases, collided, locking in true stalemate.
But in mere seconds, the endless irregular forms within the tide began to collapse under the invisible slash, tearing every touched position and dimension from start to end.
At that moment, perhaps having learned all it desired, the hidden entity finally revealed itself.
Ripples stirred in the pure white void dimension. Space twisted, and an indescribable form appeared before Roy's eyes, just as he'd glimpsed across dimensions, a mass of gray hemispheres, glinting metal shards, and plastic-like cylinders.
This time, the amalgamation wasn't chaotic but coalesced into a humanoid shape before him.
With its emergence, Roy felt the dimensional tearing intensify, as if a hazy veil were effortlessly ripped apart.
"Daoloth."
At that moment, Abigail, standing beside him, named the entity.
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