The light twisted around Kel as he stepped through the portal.
His boots crunched onto solid ground. No molten rivers. No crimson sky. No choking ash.
Instead, he found himself standing in a wide meadow under a pale blue sky. Tall grass swayed in the breeze, dotted with white flowers. In the distance, crystal-like hills shimmered faintly in the sunlight.
"It's… normal," Kel muttered.
"Don't relax just yet," Uncle David said beside him. "Looks can lie in here."
The two top guilds moved ahead, their leaders at the front. Savam of the Silver Fang Guild strode forward with calm confidence, scanning the horizon. The ice-haired woman leading the Azure Blades issued quiet orders, her team fanning out in formation.
At first, they encountered only weak monsters — lanky, four-legged beasts with bone masks. They fell quickly under the Awakeners' blades, leaving nothing but fading mana dust. The atmosphere grew lighter. Even Kel felt a flicker of relief.
But then the wind stopped.
The grass froze mid-sway. The air thickened, heavy in Kel's lungs. Somewhere in the far distance, the sky began to dim — not from clouds, but from a growing shadow.
Savam frowned. "Positions. Now."
The shadow grew larger, swallowing light as it approached. The ground trembled once… twice… then split in thin cracks.
And then it arrived.
A figure stepped out of the horizon as if space itself had opened for it — five meters tall, wrapped in shifting darkness that rippled like liquid. From its back spread eight wings: four blinding white, four black as a starless void, each moving in slow, deliberate rhythm.
Its face was a smooth, reflective void — no features, only a mirror. And in Kel's reflection within it… two eyes burned like white fire.
The halo above its head was broken, shards of gold light circling lazily. But every fragment radiated enough authority to make Kel's bones ache.
No one moved. No one breathed.
Then the Lord of Unknown Power spoke. Its voice was a chorus of echoes, deep enough to shake the marrow.
"Curious. Two guilds. Many warriors."
Savam raised his sword. "Everyone, attack!"
Mana flared like a storm as spells and weapons slammed toward the Lord. Blazing spears of light, arcs of lightning, walls of force — all vanished before touching it, dissolving like smoke in the wind.
The Lord did not raise a hand. It simply looked at them — and the Awakeners collapsed, one after another, lifeless. No wounds. No cries. Just silence.
Kel fell to his knees, the crushing aura pinning him like an invisible mountain. His chest burned. His vision blurred. The void-face turned toward him.
Wings folded in, darkness swallowing the world until Kel could see only that mirror.
"You carry no blade. No power."
It tilted its head. In Kel's reflection, the white flames flickered higher.
"And yet… even I, a Universal Lord, feel fear from what sleeps inside you."
Kel's breath hitched. His mind screamed for his body to move, but his limbs refused.
The Lord straightened, wings flaring to blot out the false blue sky.
"Fear… is reason enough. I will erase you here, before you awaken what should never be."
The black wing descended. The shadows pierced his chest like ice. Kel's breath caught — and the world faded to nothing.
No pain.
No sound.
Only a vast emptiness swallowing him whole.
In his last moment, he thought he heard a whisper — not from the Lord, but from something deeper, something inside him:
"At dawn… I will rise."