As he spoke, Merlin’s face grew heavy like storm clouds rolling in. His voice came slow, like stones sinking into deep water.

“The Abyss is like another Demon World, a second shadowed realm,” he said, each word steady as falling snow. “It’s smaller, yes, but it’s been a thorn under the Demon World’s heel for years. Our armies camp by its edge like iron walls, always braced for an oncoming tide.”

“But if it were only a warped structure, a crooked cave,” he went on, eyes cold as winter stars, “the Demon World could’ve swept it clean like dust. Even without my help. Even if more than one True God lurked inside, they’d still have a chance.”

“Yet…”

The Mage Tower’s scrying drew close to the ravine like an eagle stooping. A black rift yawned, and a blade of chill intent flashed within it, sharp as frost on a sword’s edge. In that heartbeat, Aphelia felt a vast, blazing authority topple toward her like a collapsing sky, and her True God power burst out on instinct like a volcano breaking ice.

Beside her, Violet seemed to sense it too. She lowered her head like grass bending in hard wind, her face tight with that dull, suffocating pressure.

Seeing the effect was enough, Merlin cut off the observation like a hand snuffing a lamp. He straightened, voice solemn as a bell at dusk. “Aphelia, what did you feel?”

Aphelia hadn’t come fully back from that state. Black streamers coiled around her like night serpents, a bristling guard-dog of light and shadow, prickly enough to explode at a touch.

After a few breaths, she adjusted. She let out a long exhale, like steam from a winter mouth, and looked at Merlin with a strange, searching gaze. “Just now… I felt the whole world watching me.”

There was one more thing she didn’t say. When Merlin broke the scrying, the same hollow drop she’d felt when those seven black-winged angels vanished fell over her again, cold as a pit opening underfoot.

Merlin nodded, satisfied, like a teacher hearing the right note. “Exactly. What looked back at you was the World Will.”

“Why could a twisted species, a clan at best, evolve into a full society?” His tone cut like a chisel on stone. “Why couldn’t the Demon World, so strong it can drown continents, wipe them out? The reasons are many, and also simple. At the bottom of that so-called Abyss lies this world’s own Will.”

The ravine returned to view like a wound reopening. This time Merlin stepped before Aphelia, and a vast starry sky unrolled around him like a banner of night. A silver-white brilliance leapt forth like arrows breaking cloud, shooting into the rift’s intent. It spanned the black vault like a braid of the Milky Way.

Twelve golden phantoms flared and condensed into twelve golden Runes, each one heavy as a planet’s gaze. They floated at Merlin’s side like guardian stars.

That towering pressure, the weight of a world, met Merlin’s upraised hand and stopped like surf against a cliff. In the black ravine, a pupil-like vortex spun itself into being with a roar, staring back across the void, yielding not an inch.

Under the wash of the twelve golden Runes, his staff began to molt like a snake shedding its skin. It fused with that river of light, became a silver-white longsword, and settled into Merlin’s grip like a piece of the night sky.

“World Will,” he said, blade pointing at the heart of the vortex, a cold smile cutting across his face. “Time to honor your promise.”

The vortex gave no answer. It only poured out heavenly might like a drumbeat of thunder, refusing to step back from Merlin’s silver river. Malice glimmered in it, thin as a knife’s edge.

Then several snarling silhouettes rose from the vortex, roaring like beasts under a black moon. They seemed to spot Merlin defying the World Will across the sky, and they hurled their challenge. Twisted ripples rolled off them like heat hazes, coiling into feral monsters that lurked at the Abyss’s lightless floor.

Merlin’s eyes held only scorn, dry as flint. He lifted the silver blade and gave the dark whirlpool a small, careless cut, like a breeze tipping a cup.

One stroke, and the star river moved.

For an instant, the world turned over like earth under a plow. The black sky collapsed like rotten ice, and the great river of stars poured down from the ninth heaven like a silver flood—heaven-sent thunder, god-given wrath.

Yet it was human killing intent that made heaven flinch. In that swing, Merlin was this world’s god, its Will, a True God casting searing wrath upon a False God, fire falling on wax.

Behind him, Aphelia saw Merlin’s full strength for the first time. His True God might spread like an ocean, and his power bent reality like a smith bending iron. She, who had only just reached the threshold, could only stand stunned like a young tree in gale.

With her own power, she knew she could break things cleanly, like a hammer on glass. But to change the world itself as Merlin did, to seize rules and authority like reins—that was another sky entirely.

“If you won’t honor your promise,” Merlin said, voice ringing like steel, “I’ll take it myself.”

Silver brilliance and the dark vortex met like water and fire. Contact brought a clash as fierce as colliding storms. Shock after shock burst from the black ravine like thunderheads breaking. The shadows lurking below were blasted apart to the last. The silver blade straightened into an arrow and drove for the Abyss’s deepest pit, unstoppable as a waterfall.

That silver light washed the darkness like daybreak flooding a marsh. Countless grim figures, bolstered by the vortex, swarmed upward like a frenzy of insects. They tried to smother the light with their bodies. Under that star-born might, it was useless.

A touch, and they melted, like frost under a noon sun. In a blink, they were gone.

At the Demon World’s border, before the Abyss’s dark mouth, the army camped under the mountains saw it all. None dared approach, like birds holding still under a hawk’s shadow. The power’s terror pinned most to the ground.

A runner forced his way through, the pressure of a True God pressing on his back like a mountain. He stumbled into the command tent and shouted with the last of his breath, a cracked bell at midnight. “Report, General! Above the Abyss… a True God-level powerhouse has struck!”

The general in black armor saw the man about to break. She sighed, a cold wind through iron. Black Arcane Power wrapped him like a cloak and gave him air.

“Alright, I know,” she said, voice low as embers. “Someone big from the imperial capital has moved. Keep watch for any monsters that slip the Abyss. This battle isn’t ours.”

She took off her faceplate and stepped out. Black scales shimmered faintly across her fine features like moonlight on armor. She looked up at a sky bent by human hands and let out a long breath.

This black-armored general was the royal family’s eldest princess, Fenrir.

Several officers in black armor followed her out, hard faces shadowed with worry like stormed stone. They gathered by Fenrir’s side.

“Your Highness Fenrir,” one burly man asked, stepping forward like a battering ram, “who is that senior above? Why didn’t we receive any order?”

Fenrir laughed softly, a warm lantern in a cold hall. She pointed at the silver river overturning the heavens. Her voice carried an easy lure, like wine in a crystal cup. “If you want to question someone, go to the Imperial Capital’s Mage Tower and ask its master. I think he’ll give you a proper answer. Ah, of course—if you can get in.”

At her playful smile, the burly man’s words stuck in his throat like thorns. His anger smoldered, then died like a fire doused. He snorted, turned away, and stared at the falling galaxy.

“By the way,” Fenrir said, voice light as silk, “Master Merlin’s in a foul mood, from the look of it. He probably heard what you just said.”

The man’s face went dark as rain-soaked slate. He withdrew in stiff silence and went back to the tent.

“Your Highness… what do we do now?” An old general stepped forward, bowing like a pine under snow. “Do we just watch? If those monsters get out of the Abyss…”

He was worried, not spiteful. It showed in his eyes like clear water.

Fenrir gave a bitter smile and shook her head, as if shaking rain from hair. “Honestly, I don’t know. I don’t know if Master Merlin is acting for the crown or for himself. But judging by that sky,” she glanced at the silver blaze, “we’re about to be very busy.”

She stood in that light, silent as a temple stone, and wondered why the gentle Master Merlin would strike so hard, so heedless, like thunder breaking a calm sea.

Back in the Mage Tower, Merlin stared at the shattered black vortex and let out a cold laugh, a knife on ice. “If you’d rather perish than keep your promise, I’ll take it myself.”

He cast another round of silver light like a final flare. The stars folded shut, and the scrying ended like a curtain falling.

Then, after the hard words, Merlin collapsed, breath tearing from him like bellows. Red seeped under his white robe like ink through paper. Aphelia gasped and moved to help, heart grabbed by ice.

“It’s fine,” he said, waving it off like smoke. “Just a scratch. What matters, Aphelia, is that from here on, it’s on you.”

The Tower Spirit, long prepared, sighed like wind through chimes. He lifted Merlin and settled him in a chair, then went to fetch a fitting healing draught, bottles clinking like glass rain.

“Aphelia,” Merlin said, voice a calm river over stone, “your road to becoming a True God must lead to the World Will. Only from it can you get your answer.”

“What about Uroboros’s power?” Aphelia frowned, her doubt rising like mist. “With her, I can already be a True God with a domain…”

The truth gnawed at her like roots under soil. After what Merlin had shown, she didn’t believe something like the World Will would bend to her. Besides, she already held a True God’s power. If she built a god-domain again, what would happen to Uroboros’s power?