Chapter 124

Chapter 124
## Chapter 124: The Fissure in the Dark Shell

The survivors gripped their hilts and shafts.

Gracia exhaled a heavy, weary breath.

*Boom!*

In that fleeting second, the sky ignited with electricity.

Out of the swarm of a thousand blades hovering in the heavens, a single steel bolt plummeted like a strike from the gods.

Under normal circumstances, the sight of a body torn in two would send anyone sprinting in the opposite direction.

“M-Meat! I smell it!”

“Can we… is that for us to eat?”

…God help them.

They had lost their minds. Their sanity had finally snapped. The suffocating pressure of the void had eroded their humanity.

It was the same rot that had taken root in Gracia’s own soul.

Even if he were to execute every single one of them, the nightmare wouldn’t lift.

However, in this specific moment and place, an iron fist was mandatory. The fact that they had dared to lunge at him proved that his grip on command had begun to splinter.

‘I have to set a brutal precedent.’

—Either perish like common pests, or perform your final duties.

That was the burden he carried.

He would ensure they didn’t die as mere vermin. He would fight so that, if nothing else, they could draw their last breaths as men. He could not allow this place to devolve into a cannibalistic pit of shadows where neighbor fed upon neighbor.

Gracia lifted a single hand.

He did so clearly, ensuring every eye was on him, fueled by the cold resolve to strike them all down.

“Look! A crack is opening!”

The tension broke suddenly.

A scout came sprinting toward them, shouting at the top of his lungs to Gracia.

“An egg?”

“Yes, sir! The black egg!”

Gracia’s expression soured, and he moved with urgent speed.

He was headed toward the obsidian sphere that had been birthed from the bowels of Baal. If a fissure had appeared, it meant the incubation was over.

As Gracia reached the epicenter of the hollow, the air grew so thick he could barely pull it into his lungs.

*Snap!*

The dark shell was indeed splintering.

‘What kind of horror is waiting to crawl out of there?’

Would it be a perfected version of Baal? Or something entirely alien?

He had no frame of reference. He couldn’t even formulate a guess.

But he knew with absolute certainty: whatever was inside was no ordinary creature.

Gracia and the surrounding warriors stood paralyzed, watching the hatching with hearts hammering against their ribs.

—

## Chapter 125: Sovereign of the Void

“Oh!”

“It’s coming out!”

“The deity is waking up!”

Ragged, starving, and half-dead, the masses began to huddle and murmur about the emergence from the dark sphere.

From the moment it appeared, theories about the ‘black egg’ had been split. Some thought it was Baal’s final evolution; others believed it was the god that had slain the beast.

No soul truly knew what would step out once the shell fell away.

Yet, they all shared a singular, desperate reaction: they dropped to their knees before the obsidian object and began to pray.

“Please! Have mercy!”

“Save our lives!”

“We implore you, we beg of you…!”

They didn’t care what it was; they only cared that it might be their ticket out of this nightmare. Over a month of being entombed in this abyss had stripped them of everything but desperation. They had been kidnapped into this realm, living every second in the shadow of the grave.

If not for Gracia’s tyrannical discipline, the ground would have been soaked in the blood of their own kin long ago. They would have been tearing at each other’s throats just to survive another hour.

To these hundreds of thousands, the ‘black egg’ had become a literal god. They were convinced it was their only salvation.

A sea of fanatics, skeletal hands clasped in frantic worship, encircled the hatching sphere. Hunger and trauma had warped their spirits into this terrifying devotion.

Even a man of Gracia’s power could not hold back this tide of religious mania.

“Gracia, do you think something from the ‘lower depths’ is about to appear?”

Gracia looked at the questioning player and slowly shook his head.

“…Regardless of what it is, our directive remains the same: ensure the safety of the people.”

It was no small weight; the lives of 600,000 souls were tethered to their blades.

Gracia took a long, steadying breath.

Then, he acted.

‘Thousand Swords.’

One thousand blades rose into the air, forming a deadly, rotating halo around the black egg. They were primed to strike the instant the occupant revealed itself—especially if it bore Baal’s likeness.

*Crackle. Zap!*

A vibrant, azure sword aura began to bleed from the floating steel.

Simultaneously, a spark like a lightning bolt ignited within Gracia’s pupils.

This was his most devastating technique: Heavenly Punishment.

It was a cataclysmic offensive that called down a thousand lightning strikes to erase a target from existence.

*Whoosh!*

The air hummed with lethal intent.

This was a finishing move that drained every drop of mana and physical energy he possessed. Because of the immense preparation required and the fact that it left him bedridden for a week, he almost never drew upon it. It was his final trump card.

“…Is that the ‘Heavenly Punishment stance’?”

“I thought it was just a myth, but seeing it for real…”

“Nothing survives that strike.”

The onlookers whispered in hushed, reverent tones. The players stared, mesmerized and terrified, unable to blink. He hadn’t even resorted to this against Baal initially.

But despite their awe, Gracia was a coiled spring. If the heat of his aura wasn’t instantly vaporizing his sweat, he would have looked like a man standing in a rainstorm.

“Everyone! Stay back! It’s too dangerous! Retreat as far as possible!”

Through the thick tension, a voice cut through to the civilians.

It was a striking woman. The White Knight, Serengeti.

She stood like an iron pillar, her resolve never wavering for a second, even though the companion who usually wore the goat helmet beside her had perished within these depths.

‘She is magnificent.’

Every time Gracia felt his spirit beginning to crack, he looked toward her. Her unshakeable heart acted as his anchor.

He didn’t have a word for the sensation in his chest. Was it love? Perhaps. But she was a citizen of Pangeniar. It was a connection that could never truly be. For him, simply watching her was enough.

*Crack-crunch!*

“Ah…!”

“The fissures…!!”

The spiderweb of cracks on the sphere suddenly gave way to massive gaps.

The murmuring stopped instantly. A graveyard silence fell over the crowd as they watched the birth from the ‘black egg.’

Then.

*Hiss…*

A thick, dark vapor began to pour from the broken shell.

The mist coalesced, twisting into a shape reminiscent of a dark phantom. A ghost. No… it was something else.

“A Reaper…”

There was no mistaking that silhouette. It was a Reaper—the same type of entity that had hunted Gracia across the world and drained the very years from his life.

But this one was different. It didn’t match any Reaper he had ever encountered.

“W-What is that thing?”

“A spirit? A wraith?”

“Is it the Grim Reaper itself?”

“Look at the scythe, it’s definitely a Reaper.”

The crowd’s whispers rose again.

…That was the first anomaly.

Reapers were supposed to be invisible to everyone except ‘the marked.’ No one else should have been able to see the specters that had dogged Gracia’s footsteps.

And then there was the physical form.

“…Doesn’t its face look like Baal?”

“Look at those wings…”

…It was true. It had the frame of a Reaper, but the face was a haunting mirror of Baal. Furthermore, one of the three wings sprouting from its spine was an exact match for the fallen beast.

Was this a creature from the ‘lower depths’?

Gracia slowly began to lift his hand to signal the attack.

Then, the creature made a sound.

—Kya.

……Kya?

What was that supposed to mean?

—Kyakyakyakya!

The Reaper let out a high-pitched, joyful laugh and swung its massive blade.

Gracia tensed, expecting a slaughter, but the Reaper’s scythe cut through nothing but empty air.

‘Why is it attacking the wind?’

The answer came a moment later.

*Swoosh!*

*CRACK!*

A sound of cataclysmic force echoed through the void. It sounded like the very sky was being shattered.

*Rumble…*

In the distance, the ‘perimeter’ of the abyss began to disintegrate. The invisible wall that had kept them imprisoned, which had resisted every spell and blade they threw at it, was falling apart.

As the barrier vanished, it revealed the reality beyond.

Past their prison lay another, even deeper ‘abyss.’

“W-What are those things?”

“No way… what is…”

“Ah… no…”

The crowd moved as one, recoiling in primal terror.

It was an instinctive reaction. Even Gracia and the elite players stood frozen by the vista.

In the dark expanse beyond, hovering in the infinite shadow, were eyes. Thousands upon thousands of eyes belonging to horrors within the abyssal layers were staring directly at them.

‘…Those eyes… they belong to the Rulers of the Abyss.’

The realization finally hit Gracia.

The Sovereigns of the void had been spectating this entire ordeal from the start. He didn’t understand the ‘why’ behind it, but he knew that every single ‘Ruler’ was a monster of god-like proportions. Even Baal had been just one among many.

The sheer volume of them was the problem.

……There were too many ‘eyes.’

Were they all Rulers? What truly existed in the heart of the abyss? Why were they focused on this one spot? And how had this Reaper managed to tear the veil between worlds?

*Hum.*

*Humm.*

*Hummm.*

In the midst of his racing thoughts, it happened without warning.

Glowing ‘warps’ began to manifest beneath everyone’s feet. One for every person present. More than 600,000 circles of light.

“W-What’s happening?”

“It’s just like the day we were brought here!”

“Gateways! They’re gateways!”

“Are we going home? Is it over?”

“The Reaper from the egg is saving us!”

“Thank you! Thank you so much!”

“All hail the Black Egg Reaper!!!”

The masses erupted in a feverish joy. The very same magic that had kidnapped them was being used to send them back. They were being forcibly repatriated.

People began to vanish in the blink of an eye, swallowed by the lights one after another.

*Crack!*

The egg was now falling completely to pieces.

‘I have to see it.’

He had to know what it was. What was truly inside. The Reaper that broke the wall was just a herald; the true core hadn’t shown itself yet.

Gracia leaped into the air, dodging the warps that tried to claim him.

‘I have to be sure.’

His gut told him that humanity’s fate rested on identifying what came out of that shell. Whether it was a friend or the ultimate foe, he needed to see its face.

*Vroom!*

But the warps were persistent, tracking his movements.

*Hum! Humm!*

More circles spawned in the air around him, trying to force him through the exit. Gracia bit his lip until it bled, twisting through the air with everything he had, determined to see the end of the birth.

The ground below was already vacant. All 600,000 people had been sent away. He was the final soul remaining in the void.

And then.

*Crash!*

The shell disintegrated entirely.

‘That shape… it’s definitely—!’

Gracia’s eyes stretched wide as he caught a glimpse of the hatched being.

But that was the end of his journey. In that exact moment, his heel clipped a warp, and he was sucked into the light.

…

I slowly unfolded from my defensive crouch.

I pulled my spine straight, flexed my legs, and stood up. I opened my hands, rotated my shoulders, and tilted my neck to ensure everything was functioning.

“Everything feels solid.”

—Kyakyakya!

Hell let out a cackle.

The towering Reaper form had vanished; it had shrunk back down to its small size and was now darting around me in excited loops.

For the moment, my physical form seemed standard.

…I had died. There was no doubt about that. Yet, I had returned.

‘Eternal Randolph.’

When ‘Eternal Randolph’ triggered, the ’13 hidden traits’ had sparked to life within my ‘dead ashes.’ After that, by consuming Baal and subduing the ‘Fragment of Ruin,’ my physical self had been reconstructed.

To the eye, I was still Randolph. I didn’t look like a different person.

‘I am still myself. I haven’t lost who I am.’

My mind and soul felt perfectly aligned. Yet, I knew I was different. I had developed.

…Evolved might actually be the more accurate term.

‘Status window.’

I pulled up the interface that would show me my new reality in the most direct way possible.

[Status Window]

Name: Randolph

Class: Star Successor

Class: Supreme Sword Saint

Level: 8

Strength: 117 (102 + 15)