The fall of the Eternal Blazing Sun was a conceptual erasure of light for 10 minutes.
Above ground, across the streets of Paris and the sprawling heart of Europe, the sky had turned into a bruised, necrotic green.
The spiritual coldness was so absolute that people collapsed not from the temperature, but from the sudden, hollow realization that "Growth" and "Light" were no longer fundamental laws of the world.
In the Market District, the Nine Evils had turned the cobblestones into a charnel house.
Kim Oh-Sung of Satan's Servant stood atop a barricade of twisted metal, his hands weaving layers of barriers that trapped entire squads of Heroes.
Beside him, Kim Hakpyo of the Evil Society laughed, his body erupting in tentacles of pure demonic energy that lashed out like whips, dragging screaming civilians into the gaping maw of demonic energy.
But the resistance was equally ferocious.
Kaita, the Seat of Silver of the Chameleon Troupe, moved through the shadows like a flicker of moonlight. His silver wires, thinner than a human hair and stronger than dragon-sinew, crisscrossed the narrow alleys of the 4th Arrondissement. With a single flick of his wrist, he decapitated a high-tier Djinn who had been attempting to summon a demonic bull.
"Too slow," Kaita muttered, his eyes cold and predatory.
High above him, Hirano Arashi, the Seat of Brown, floated amidst a swirl of silk robes. As an 8-star mage, her mana was a tempest. She raised her hand, and the very air above Paris crystallized into thousands of magical lances.
"By the order of the Boss," she whispered, "this city belongs to the Troupe."
Nearby, the air seemed to shimmer with an impossible, staggering beauty.
Setryn, the Seat of Turquoise, walked through the chaos as if she were strolling through a garden. Her presence was enough to stop the hearts of weaker men. But there was something more terrifying about her now. She had consumed the Sequence 7: Witch potion of the Demoness pathway.
Her skin glowed with a pale, moonlit luster, and her eyes held the depth of an eternal abyss. A group of heretics from the School of God's Descent tried to lunge at her, only to find their bones turning to brittle glass before they could even perceive her beauty. She was a disaster in human form, a woman who could slap the face of a legend like Yoo Joonghyuk thrice and walk away laughing.
At the edge of the Seine, where the water had turned to a black, oily sludge, Kyrgios Rodgraim stood like a tiny, azure-haired doll amidst the ruins. His turquoise hair crackled with White Pure Star Energy, and his eyes were fixed on the sky.
"Disgraceful," Kyrgios spat, his voice carrying the weight of a Constellation's True Voice despite his small stature. "My lazy disciple disappears, and the world decides to turn itself upside down."
Beside him, Yoo Mia, the sister of the Regressor, stood with her sword drawn.
She had reached level 3 of Transcendence, her movements a mirror of her brother's.
She unleashed the Breaking the Sky Swordsmanship, her blade cutting through the Lv. 30 monster.
Before them, the ground erupted.
Suah, the leader of Rose School of Thought Indulgence faction, appeared. He was a nightmare—a gargantuan tree-like entity drenched in black oil, with hundreds of human arms reaching out from his trunk. Black and white eyeballs rolled on his surface, each one reflecting a different madness. Beside him stood his sister, Tirié.
[Sequence 1 'Abomination' has entered the Scenario!]
"Son of the God who should never have been born," Kyrgios hissed, his Electrification activating. He became a streak of blue-white lightning, slamming into Suah's oily bark. The impact sent a shockwave that leveled three city blocks, but the Abomination didn't flinch.
Kim Oh-Sung and Kim Hakpyo quickly intervened, throwing up barriers and demonic tentacles to distract the Transcendent. They used the powers of the Beyonders to destabilize Kyrgios's mental state, projecting the sounds of a thousand dying worlds into his ears.
Kyrgios didn't even blink.
However, the distraction was enough.
Suah and Tirié roared in unison, their forms liquefying into a mass of oily corruption. They dived into the earth, heading straight for the Underground Trier to fulfill their role in the Mother Tree's descent.
Deep beneath the surface, inside the jagged geometry of the Fourth Epoch Trier, the battle of the Angels had reached a breaking point.
Red Angel Medici and Termiboros were locked in a stalemate that was tearing the local Fable to shreds. Medici's purple flames were being looped by Termiboros's Inevitability, while Termiboros's dances were being interrupted by the sheer, conquering weight of the Red Priest's status.
"We need to leave, you mercury-blooded parasite!" Medici roared, his three mouths bleeding. "The Hostel Ritual is falling apart! If we get caught in one of the Rooms when the synchronization hits 100%, we'll be painted into the walls forever!"
Behind them, the Darkness was manifesting as a literal canvas, a "World within a Painting" that sought to swallow the Fourth Epoch.
Termiboros smirked, his six arms twisting.
"I do not fear being a part of a Story, Medici. But... I agree. The variable has become too large."
Suddenly, Suah and Tirié erupted into the square near the praying Susanna Matisse.
They didn't attack the Angels; they lunged at the Tree of Shadows, which was currently riddled with cracks from Rachel's natural-power ritual. The two Abominations began to merge with the bark, their oily essence healing the brownish-green wood and forcing the Tree to grow at a terrifying, exponential rate.
Jung Heewon tried to stop them, but she was currently busy protecting Rachel, so there wasn't much she could do.
The roots shot upward, piercing through the dimensions and finally gripping the Astral Barrier from the inside.
Jain of the Chameleon Troupe appeared from the shadows, her hands glowing with a white, spatial mana.
['Mass Teleportation' is activated!]
But a cold, mechanical voice echoed through the Star Stream.
[The 'Star Will' has restricted the exit conditions.]
[You cannot leave until the Great Fable of the Sunken Epoch is completed.]
"Stupid Star Will and your damn rules!" Jain cursed, her eyes wide with panic. "I shouldn't have come here! I'm a thief, not a martyr!"
In the center of the chaos, Oh Jaejin stood like an unwavering pillar.
He was the only one holding the Devil Vassago and the Devil of Principles at bay. With ten stars burning behind him, he unleashed a wave of mana so dense it physically pushed the Demon King and Devil back.
"There would be light," the old mage whispered, his eyes clear for the first time in years.
Oh Jaejin tapped his staff.
[Absolute Arcana – 'The Star-Fall of Reason']
A beam of white-gold light slammed into the Demon King and Devil, buying the group a few precious seconds.
He turned to Jain.
"Try again when the structural integrity fails! I will hold them back!"
Rachel was a sun of emerald fire.
She felt the cold indifference of the natural spirits—the forests of Germany, the soil of Ukraine, the winds of the Atlantic.
They didn't care about the city.
They didn't care about the war.
They only cared about Balance.
'Master... I understand now. To save the forest, you must burn the thorns.'
She saw the Tree of Shadows tightening its grip on the world.
She saw Lancaster, her former master, screaming in rage as the cards of the [Golem of Spades] kept him trapped in a cage of shifting snakes cards.
"I promised to someone I'd protect the world," Rachel whispered, a single tear of green light falling down her cheek. "I'm sorry I can't keep my promise to stay."
Rachel merged with the natural forces.
Her body shrunk into a single, blinding dot of emerald light—a Singularity of Nature.
She shot forward, entering the deepest crack in the Tree of Shadows.
[Your ■■ is Duty!]
As she entered the Tree, the emerald light exploded from within. The brownish-green bark began to turn to ash. The "Corrupted Desire" of the Outer Deity was being replaced by the "Unyielding Growth" of the real Earth.
Medici saw the opening.
He channeled the last of his strength into a giant, violet meteorite of flames.
"BURN!"
The combined impact of Rachel's nature-mana and Medici's King-of-Angels fire caused a structural resonance that the Fourth Epoch Trier could not sustain.
The structural foundations of the sunken city—and the Paris catacombs above—shattered.
Paris—the surface city of light—began to literally sink into the earth as the destabilized Structure of the Fourth Epoch collapsed. Buildings tilted, monuments groaned, and the Seine began to pour into the abyss of the underground.
"Jain! NOW!" Shin Jonghak roared, his burning aura of mana creating a protective dome around the survivors.
Rachel, now a fading spirit of wind and light, used the last of her consciousness to buffer the group from the falling debris of the city.
She was the wind beneath their feet, the air in their lungs.
Because the Fourth Epoch Trier was no longer isolated—the seals broken, the reality and fabrication blurred into a single, crumbling mess—the Star Will's restriction flickered.
Jain screamed as she poured every drop of her mana into the skill.
[Mass Teleportation: EX.]
As the iron-black door of the Fourth Epoch finally closed for the last time, and the Evernight Goddess descended to shroud the remains of the tragedy in absolute, merciful concealment, a flash of light erupted.
They were blinded by a kaleidoscope of multiple worlds—gold, red, violet, and green.
The Sunken Epoch was over.
[Scenario 'Shadow of the Sunken Epoch' has been cleared.]
[Story 'The Princess who became the Earth' is being recorded.]
When the light faded, they were gone.
Paris was a silent, dark crater hidden from the world, and Rachel was gone with it.