Chapter 225

Chapter 225
## Chapter 225

### Chapter Title: Child of the Goddess [End of Volume 9]

—

The Galaxy-Drinking Star.

It was a titled celestial body, much like the ‘Star of Jormungand’ currently held by Isabella, yet it possessed a presence that far outshone the rest.

‘This defies logic.’

I rubbed my jaw thoughtfully, lost in contemplation.

The situation was beyond peculiar.

Typically, when a persona perishes, the stars in their possession are scattered across the vast reaches of the Pangeniar continent.

They do not fall here, into the void of the Abyss.

In all my knowledge, I had never heard of a star descending into these depths.

Furthermore, this wasn’t just any corner of the dark realm.

This was the specific territory where Raiga had escorted us for the purpose of ‘scavenging shards,’ a domain governed by the ‘Amalgam of Divine Flesh.’

Could such a series of events truly be chalked up to mere chance?

“There is something else… a detail I haven’t shared yet.”

Isabella spoke up suddenly, breaking the silence.

It was a piece of information she had withheld throughout our entire dialogue until now.

Judging by her hesitant tone, it was clearly a topic that caused her some discomfort.

“What is it you’re keeping back?”

“When we were deeper in the Abyss earlier, I caught sight of a ‘star.'”

“Are you referring to the ‘Galaxy-Drinking Star’?”

“…That is how it identified itself. However…”

“However?”

“It appeared to be a star, yet I find myself doubting if it truly was one…”

She looked unconvinced by her own eyes.

I stayed silent, allowing her the space to find her words.

“Randolph. Are stars not supposed to be the shattered remains of the goddess’s physical form?”

“That is correct.”

I gave a firm nod.

In the beginning, the only true stars were those belonging to the goddess ‘Leah.’

They were the thirty-two segments of her sundered divinity.

While many unidentified ‘stars’ had since cropped up, according to tradition and the natural order, only those original thirty-two held true status.

Isabella’s face grew solemn as she spoke again.

“The ‘star’ I encountered was not a fragment. It was whole.”

“That shouldn’t be possible. No such star exists.”

“I saw it with perfect clarity. It spoke to me directly. It was searching with a sense of desperation for the Knight King…”

“……?”

A star that had plummeted into the Abyss, frantically seeking Knight King Wilhelm?

Stars are, by definition, pieces of a deity.

The Galaxy-Drinking Star followed that same rule.

If it remained unfragmented, it was essentially the deity itself in its entirety.

‘A god is hunting for me?’

The notion raised a mountain of questions.

No functional god should be able to persist within the Abyss, and why would it choose to manifest before Isabella of all people?

Was the entity she encountered truly the Galaxy-Drinking Star?

It happened in that instant.

*Whoosh!*

A brilliant burst of radiance erupted in front of me, and two heavy doors took shape out of thin air.

“Portals?”

They were physical doors, meant to be grasped and turned.

Both remained firmly shut for the moment.

But the phenomenon didn’t stop there.

A glowing notification box flickered into existence before my eyes.

《Criteria met. The ‘Star Hunt’ has commenced.》

《Participants wishing to join, pass through the ‘door’ on the right. Those declining, pass through the ‘door’ on the left.》

《Active Entrants – ‘Raiga’, ‘The Gale Multiplier’, ‘Master of the Sepulcher’, ‘The Drowned Monarch’, ‘Shatterer of Stars’, ‘The Unborn’, ‘Great Whale of Tianzhu’, ‘The Celestial Demon’》

…As I scanned the text in the window, my mind began to reel.

Several names on that list sent a chill of recognition through me.

‘Renowned monarchs of the Abyss. And ancient, primordial entities…!’

There was no mistaking them.

The Gale Multiplier and the Master of the Sepulcher were among the most feared and celebrated lords of this realm.

The Great Whale of Tianzhu and the Celestial Demon were undoubtedly the primeval beings the Elder Dragon God had cautioned me about.

Though they had remained in the shadows until now, they were the kind of titans whose mere emergence would unhinge the world.

I couldn’t fathom what conditions had been satisfied to trigger this, but why were such monumental figures participating in a ‘Star Hunt’?

A Star Hunt.

If the objective was truly to seize a star, the stakes were lethal.

The prize here was the ‘Galaxy-Drinking Star.’

‘They are all converging on the Galaxy-Drinking Star.’

But to what end?

That star was the symbol of Knight King Wilhelm, yet what tie did these monsters have to him?

It was possible they were pursuing ‘shards of cataclysm.’

If every participant held a shard, they might be vying to consume the others to increase their own power.

Still, the location and the timing were far too precise.

Why did this ‘Star Hunt’ trigger the exact moment I stepped into the Abyss?

‘Was my arrival the final requirement?’

…The answer remained out of reach.

Based on the words of Raiga and Isabella, shard bearers never congregated in this fashion.

This wasn’t a simple scramble for a single fragment.

I felt my throat go dry.

Eight contenders in total.

Not one of them could be considered anything less than a catastrophe.

“Isabella. You’re staying behind.”

“But—!”

“This conflict isn’t for you.”

I spoke with a chilling finality.

Isabella possessed great strength, certainly.

However, that was by the metrics of the mortal world.

Against this specific roster, she wouldn’t stand a ghost of a chance.

I wouldn’t be the one to lead her to her execution.

Her eyes widened in shock.

“Do you truly find me so inadequate?”

“Yes.”

“……”

She bit her lip, stung by my bluntness.

But it was the undeniable truth.

Every single name on that list surpassed her.

Finally, she let out a long, heavy breath and looked up.

“……I will wait for you here.”

“What makes you so certain I’ll return?”

“I will simply stay here until you do.”

Her reply was laced with an iron-clad resolve.

A fierce, unwavering fire burned in her gaze.

‘She’s evolved.’

Isabella had spent so much time wandering, searching for her lost identity.

She had lived through hollow days as the ‘Snake Princess’ with her past wiped clean.

After finding me, she had immediately set out to reclaim her history.

She had returned to the sands of Paysalmer to rule as queen, and then pushed further to the Dersian estate to track the breadcrumbs of her own existence.

Her quest to find her soul had reached its end.

In the past, she was always the one walking away from me.

Now, she was the one offering to stay.

Only a person who truly knows who they are is capable of waiting.

I could have used the ‘Divine Word of Conviction’ etched into the pureblood signet to force her away, but…

“Then wait.”

Since she insisted on it, I accepted.

I had every intention of making it back.

If the goal of this ‘Star Hunt’ was indeed the Galaxy-Drinking Star, I wasn’t going to let anyone else lay a finger on it.

It belonged to me.

It was my star.

*Creak.*

I pushed open the right-hand door without a second thought and crossed the threshold.

“…I will. No matter how long it takes, I’ll be here.”

Behind me, Isabella gave a firm nod, her expression set with a finality of her own.

—

-How many tiers are there in the primary questline?

A sudden inquiry appeared on the Player Talk board.

It was a recurring question, though a concrete answer remained elusive.

-Nobody actually knows.

-Maybe tier 10 for the average player?

-Is there even content past 10?

-Most people hit a wall at ‘The Ordeal of Einhasar’ and just quit.

-Einhasar is a total nightmare!

-Didn’t the name change to ‘Dragon God Einhasar’ though? Is it different now?

-Doesn’t matter. I went back, and it’s just the same broken, overpowered dragon with a fancy new title.

-Ugh, the trauma is coming back.

The chat was quickly buried under the complaints of those who had been crushed by the trial.

Up to tier 9, a dedicated player could reasonably expect to succeed.

But at tier 10, the entire structure and lethality of the game shifted.

That was why the player base thinned out so drastically at that point.

-So, what does tier 11 look like?

-‘Abyss Predator Hunt.’ You’re tasked with taking down entities within the Abyss.

-Are you serious? You actually have to go down there?

-Yep.

-Can’t you just hop in, squash a weakling, and hop out?

-Technically, yes. But no one actually does that. Anyone skilled enough to hit tier 11 understands how vital the leaderboards are. Who’s going to settle for a participation trophy?

-I heard the real bloodbath starts at 11.

-The loot pool is on a whole different level…

-Why doesn’t everyone just cooperate, kill easy targets, and share the wealth?

-You’re dreaming. This is a cutthroat meritocracy.

-Hey, isn’t Randolph pushing through tier 11 right now?

Whenever Randolph’s name came up, the discussion turned into a frenzy.

Naturally, everyone was obsessed with his progress on the 11th tier.

-He’ll probably just drop one Abyss lord and call it a day.

-Don’t sleep on the Abyss. It’s a completely different monster compared to Pangeniar.

-The Empire has been obsessed with seizing territory down there, but without their backing, nobody even tries.

-Unless you have a massive army, even someone like Randolph won’t just walk through the Abyss. That’s why the consensus is that you need the Empire’s help.

Abyss incursions were high-risk gambles for any nation.

They demanded extreme preparation and staggering wealth.

Even the Arkon Empire didn’t take such steps lightly.

And movements on that scale were impossible to keep under wraps.

Yet, there had been zero whispers of a new ‘Abyss Crusade.’

-He’ll probably just take down a secondary boss and retreat.

-Out of everyone at tier 11, only one person has actually slain a true Abyss lord.

-Was it Gracia?

-No, it was Lucifer.

-Lucifer? From the Hero Association?

-The very same. They ran a massive raid; it was all over the news.

-I think he took out the ‘Prince of Hubris’?

-The whole team got wiped out, and only Lucifer made it back. So the specifics are pretty hazy.

-Regardless, Randolph taking on an Abyss lord solo or with a skeleton crew is a pipe dream. The Abyss is full of the unexpected.

Few believed that Randolph, who usually worked alone or in tiny units, could actually conquer the Abyss.

Raw power only took you so far in those depths.

The Abyss was a realm of variables.

Reaching a lord required a mountain of ‘sacrifices.’

-The fact that the Demon Realm is just a subset of the Abyss tells you everything.

-Speaking of which, what’s the deal with the Hero Association? They’re sinking fast.

-They need a miracle. Maybe a pact with the Spire of Sorcery?

-Please, those guys are too elitist.

-Would that even work? They might have to beg the Church of the Goddess for mercy at this rate.

-I heard they’re desperate, reaching out to everyone. They even messaged our guild, lol.

-Ours too.

-You don’t board a ship that’s already underwater.

-They got what they deserved. If you lose your grip in Pangeniar, you’re irrelevant on Earth too, lol.

-Comedy gold!

-Haha.

-Lololololololol.

-Lmao.

—

“Perhaps I should seek assistance from Pride?”

Inside a shadowed chamber, Lucifer stood before a monument of a fallen, dark-winged angel, stroking his chin as he weighed his options.

The Hero Association was drowning in a crisis unlike any they had faced before.

Conventional tactics were useless now.

The only name that offered a glimmer of hope was Pride—King Friedric.

But he dismissed the thought almost instantly.

‘That snake would just bite us the moment we turned our backs.’

Friedric would strike like a predator at the first sign of vulnerability and strip them of everything.

Asking for his help was a one-way ticket to the bottom.

‘If there is a solution… it lies here.’

Lucifer’s gaze shifted to the statue of the fallen angel.

‘The tier 11 primary quest reward.’

This monument was the prize he had claimed for his conquest in the Abyss.

He had secured it by taking the top spot in the Hall of Fame.

The power within this statue could potentially flip the script.

However, he was paralyzed by hesitation.

‘…It’s a one-time use.’

That was why he had hoarded it for so long.

The divine essence sealed within the stone was genuine.

Only the reigning number one of the tier 11 quest could hold it.

If he slipped to second place, the divinity would simply evaporate.

That made the choice even more agonizing.

‘If Randolph beats my score, the essence will transfer to him.’

Randolph had dominated the rankings from tiers 1 through 10.

He had demolished every existing record with terrifying ease.

But tier 11 was an entirely different beast.

The Abyss was no playground.

Even his own victory over the ‘Prince of Hubris’ had been a fluke of luck and massive casualties.

The Abyss was a challenge far beyond what Randolph, a man without a true organization behind him, could manage.

Even if Randolph had some secret militia tucked away, it wouldn’t change the reality.

He couldn’t possibly slay an Abyss lord more powerful than the Prince of Hubris.

‘……It’s impossible. He won’t pass me.’

Yes. It was out of the question. It was only logical.

Lucifer forced the doubt from his mind.

He slowly reached out, his fingers trailing over the cold surface of the statue.

“Child of the goddess. You belong to me.”