The Tree of Shadows, invigorated by the "Desire to Live" radiating from thousands of trapped souls, had finally breached the Astral World.
Its brownish-green branches, thick as continental plates, clawed through the cracks of the barrier, reaching for the stars of the Outer Deities.
Beneath this cosmic parasite, the ruins of the Pillar Square became a slaughterhouse of ideologies.
Red Angel Medici and Termiboros moved in a blur of conceptual violence that the human eye could not track.
Medici, now a full King of Angels, swung a broadsword of purple flames that didn't just burn—it conquered. Every swing rewrote the local "Weather," summoning hailstones of frozen blood and lightning that carried the scent of iron.
"You call yourself an Angel of Redemption?" Medici's three mouths laughed, a terrifying, discordant sound. "You're nothing but a maggot hiding in the folds of an Outer Deity!"
Medici unleashed a [Provocation] so potent it physically manifested as a wave of red heat, intending to force Termiboros into a reckless state.
Termiboros, the Angel of Redemption, did not flinch.
He was a creature of Inevitability.
He began the [Summoning Dance], his three-headed form twisting in a rhythm that made the very air of Trier feel like a ticking clock.
"Your war is a relic, Red Angel," Termiboros whispered.
He activated [Fate Exchange].
For a heartbeat, the "Success" of Medici's flaming strike was swapped with the "Inevitability" of failure.
The purple flames turned into cold water mid-swing, splashing harmlessly against the mercury-like skin of the giant.
Simultaneously, Termiboros reached out with six arms, using [Fate Appropriation] to snatch the "Tactical Advantage" from the surrounding Heroes.
A dozen official Beyonders suddenly tripped, their feet tangling in "Bad Luck" as if the ground itself had conspired against them.
The Djinns, sensing the shift, surged forward with renewed cruelty, their demonic blades carving through the weakened Hero ranks.
High above the square, standing on a floating fragment of a cathedral, Oh Jaejin faced Vassago.
The 3rd Devil, despite his missing arm and charred face, was a nightmare of greed.
He opened a small, ornate box—an artifact from a forgotten civilization—and a vacuum of "Curiosity" began to pull at Jaejin's mana.
"A 10-star Mage," Vassago purred, his voice a silk ribbon. "I wonder... how many secrets are stored in that bald head of yours? I think I'll take them all."
Vassago snapped his fingers, and a series of "Questions" manifested as obsidian spears.
Each spear carried a conceptual weight: Why do you fight? Who created you? What is the end of magic?
"Magic," Oh Jaejin whispered, "is not a secret. It is the [Principle] of existence."
He raised his staff, and ten stars ignited behind him in a geometric pattern.
[Absolute Arcana – 'The Silence of the Wise']
A sphere of absolute mana-nullification expanded from Jaejin.
The "Questions" of Vassago hit the barrier and simply ceased to exist, their logic overwritten by Jaejin's sheer willpower.
The 10-star Mage then pointed his staff downward.
A beam of white-gold light, the [Star-Fall of Reason], hammered into Vassago.
The Devil shrieked as his tuxedo was burned away, revealing a body made of shifting, greedy shadows.
Purple flames in a size of meteor spread across the battlefield.
Medici's battle had reached its climax.
"Aish! Red Angel!" Shin Jonghak's mana spread in all direction burning away the scorching heat of the flames to protect the heroes and himself.
He was hit in the chest, throwing him into the wall.
[The Physique 'Intermittent Explosive Disorder' is reaching a critical state!]
[Stat Boost: 150%... 180%... 210%!]
His enemy used its chance.
On the ground, Shin Jonghak and Jung Heewon were locked in a brutal struggle with the Devil of Principles.
[Stage Transformation has occurred!]
The incarnation of the 4th Demon King was an absolute wall. Every time Jonghak swung his spear, a monotone voice would drone: "REJECTED."
[Giant Story 'Attorney of Unwelcome Guests' has begun its storytelling!]
The kinetic energy of the strike would be deleted before impact.
Jonghak's Crescent Moon Slashes flickered and vanished like dying embers.
"You are a violation of order," the Devil of Principles stated, raising a porcelain-white hand. "CRUSH."
The gravity around Jonghak increased by a thousandfold. His knees hit the stone bricks with a sound like a cannon blast.
Jonghak looked up, his eyes now pits of molten gold.
At the center of the square, Jung Heewon stood.
Heewon was a Sequence 7, but her true power came from the Chaos attribute of the Star Stream. She was the Judge of Apocalypse, and her opponent was the very definition of "Order" and "Evil". She was the worst opponent for the Demon King.
"Jonghak-ssi," she pointed to the heroes and official beyonders, which were currently loosing.
He saw his comrades dying from impossible coincidences and felt a gnawing, cold fury.
The white flames of Heewon's sword flickered, facing the powers of Devil of Principles head on.
"REJECT THIS!" she screamed, swinging her blade in a vertical arc that cracked the porcelain mask of the Demon King. The two were locked in a stalemate of absolute Law versus absolute Chaos, a battle that threatened to erase the very cobblestones they stood upon.
"Over here! Move to the pillars!" Shin Jonghak roared.
He moved to the front lines of the carnage, his black magic power burning any attack that was pointed at the heroes and official beyonders.
"Don't look at the sky!" Jonghak commanded, grabbing a terrified novice Hero by the collar and shoving him behind a stone fragment.
While her companions fought, Rachel stood at the edge of the square, facing Alex Lancaster.
Lancaster was no longer human.
The brownish-green sap of the Tree of Shadows oozed from his pores, and his sword was a jagged branch of the tree itself.
"Rachel... look at the sky. Your England is gone. Come... become the soil with me."
Rachel looked up.
And then, it happened.
A sound like a crystal mountain shattering echoed through every universe.
The golden light of the sun—the only thing keeping the darkness of Fourth Epoch Trier at bay—suddenly flickered and turned a cold, sickly green.
The Eternal Blazing Sun had fallen.
['The Death of the Daylight' has occurred.]
[All 'Sun' pathway Beyonders have lost their protection.]
[All 'Light' Attributes and Skills are weakened by 20% for 10 minutes!]
Across the world, the lights went out.
A spiritual coldness swept through the continent.
People on the streets of Earth suddenly felt a profound, hollow grief, as if the concept of "Tomorrow" had been deleted.
She looked at the Tree of Shadows, which was now pulsing with a terrifying, triumphant light.
Rachel threw a card on the floor.
===
[Golem of Spades] [5-star] Effective Good
—Summons a Golem, one of the four legendary protectors of 21F, Card Kingdom.
—This Golem will protect its owner until death.
○Spades – shifting snakes like spears of cards deal damage to the enemy.
===
A swarm of cards errupted, creating a three-meter-tall giant.
She turned to Lancaster. Her eyes were filled with the green-gold light of an entire continent's flora.
"I am the Princess of the Great Britain," Rachel said, her voice carrying a weight that made Lancaster stagger. "And as my last decree... I claim this land."
Rachel began her ritual.
She wasn't just using her own mana; she was tapping into the natural ley lines of Europe that were converging on Paris.
She became a lightning rod for the "Natural Power" of the world.
The spirits of the forests of Germany, the rivers of France, the fertile soil of Ukraine, and the highlands of Scotland all surged toward her.
Her body began to glow with a blinding, emerald intensity.
"Rachel! Stop!" Jonghak screamed, realizing the price. "Your body can't hold that much probability and mana!"
Rachel didn't look back.
She felt her head fill with malicious thoughts.
But millions of natural spirits anchored her.
She felt peaceful.
Indifferent.
'That's how Master always feels?' she remembered the words of Chae Joochul. 'That's terryfing.'
'Nature is cold. 'She' doesn't care about death. About family. She just exists. If you use this power for too long you'll become like me.'
She saw the Tree of Shadows beginning to pull the Mother Tree of Desire through the door. If she didn't act now, the Earth would become the Outer Deities' garden.
"Lancaster," Rachel said, looking at her former master.
She unleashed the first wave of energy.
"NO!" Lancaster was angry. He was the only one allowed to kill her. Spears of cards protecting rachel didn't allow him to interfere.
The brownish-green roots of the Tree shrieked as the "Natural Power" of the real Earth began to sever the "Corrupted Desire" of the Abyss.
The Fourth Epoch Door began to groan.
With the death of the Eternal Blazing Sun, the anchor for the "Switch" was failing.
The door was closing.
"GO!" Rachel commanded the others. "LEAVE NOW!"
She drove her rapier into the heart of the Tree's root, her body beginning to fracture into motes of emerald light. She was burying herself into the foundations of the Fourth Epoch, intending to become the seal that the Blazing Sun could no longer maintain.
"I promised to someone I'd protect the world," Rachel smiled, her form starting to fade into the blood-red rain.
[Scenario 'The Sunken Epoch' is reaching its conclusion.]