Beneath the translucent, dark-colored cloak made of slippery meat tendrils, the illusory mask flickered incessantly.
It was a chaotic overlap: the weary, stubborn humanity of Klein Moretti fused with the cold, parasitic mischief of Amon.
"How long do we refer to ourselves as 'they'?" a voice echoed within the dark void.
Amon felt a wave of annoyance that tasted like Klein's lampooning.
Across the globe, millions of Amon's avatars suddenly convulsed, their features shifting into a blurred mixture of both men.
Memories leaked like toxic sap: Klein's childhood as Zhou Mingrui, Amon's eons of wandering the cosmos, and the visceral thrill of Giant Stories being etched into their shared soul.
[Giant Story, 'Cosmic Gaze Didn't Reach The Apocalypse', is resonating!]
[Narrative-grade Story, 'Hermit Slayer', has been inherited!]
[Quasi-Myth-grade Story, 'The Error that Fooled the Fool's Gambit', is being written!]
The will of the Celestial Worthy, usually a deafening roar of madness, was strangely muffled, perhaps suppressed by the Stone of Convergence or the shear cognitive friction of the two Fools fighting for dominance.
Both utilized their Door authority to create conceptual seals, preventing their consciousnesses from fully merging into a singular, mindless monster.
Through the monocle that now glinted on the blank mask, the new Fool watched as Termiboros, the incarnation of the Circle of Inevitability, breached the Sefirah Castle.
At that exact moment, the ritual reached its zenith.
The entire world was "Fooled."
For a heartbeat, the fundamental laws of the Star Stream and the Outer Deities stuttered.
The Mother Tree of Desire forgot her desires; the Monarch of Decay forgot the endpoint of time.
Only the Nine Stars and the Orthodox Gods, bolstered by Adam's pillar-status, regained their lucidity first.
Atlas, his body already regressing toward childhood, seized the two-second window of the "Fooling".
Atlas roared, his voice cracking with the strain of his Authority.
[Chronos's Resentment.]
He attempted to anchor Evernight, Lilith, Farbauti, and Adam back into their stable Half-Great Old One forms, shielding them from the destabilizing feedback of the Inextinguishable Ravings.
But the causality was too heavy.
To heal the gods, Atlas had to pay with his own existence.
He began to grow younger at an impossible speed—from ten years old to seven, then five.
To avoid disappearing into non-existence, he used his authority to regress his own regression, entering a feedback loop that consumed his mana core at a terminal rate. He knew he couldn't trick the universe forever—the last time he tried, the backlash had returned ten times stronger—but he held the line anyway.
Only the High-Dimensional Overseer, observing from the tenth dimension, avoided the "Fooling". He unleashed a barrage of dimensional collapses, which were met by a swarm of shifting Amon-Klein avatars and the ripples of Chaos Sea.
The two-second reprieve ended. The Outer Deities, enraged by the momentary lapse, unleashed their full symbolisms.
Heynckes, the Master of Steel, reached his absolute terminal point. His rusty dagger shattered, and his skin—already dull iron—began to twist. Under the gaze of the Mother Tree of Desire, the "Steel" mutated.
"Eleanor... forgive me," Heynckes rasped as his body erupted into translucent, metallic branches.
He died not as a hero, but as a new extension of the Mother Tree, his Authority of Steel now serving as the trunk for her parasitic desires.
Oh Jaejin, seeing his comrade's grotesque end, tore himself free from the High-Dimensional Overseer's 2D painting with the help of the Evernight Goddess's final wisp of Twillight. He didn't lunge with his fists.
Instead, he ignited his very mana core, sacrificing his mana core to perform a Universal Magic.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Jaejin screamed, his bold head shining more than ever.
A pillar of raw, conceptual energy—the pure symbolism of 'Mana' and 'Magic'—erupted from his chest. The Overseer tried to fold the attack into a lower dimension, but the spell resisted; as the core elements of the Reality, Mana and Magic acted as a counter-authority to Dimensionality.
The attack pierced through the formless consciousness of the Inextinguishable Ravings. The Great Old One let out a screech that resonated through the Spiritual Imprint of every living being on Earth. The sound was so intense it forced Adam and the falling gods to the brink of total loss of control, and even the other Outer Deities suffered damage as the Ravings' form began to dissolve.
[Outer Deity 'Inextinguishable Ravings' has left the Scenario!]
With a final, earth-shaking screech that vibrated through the whole of the Earth, Inextinguishable Ravings abandoned the battlefield, their presence fading into the dark objects of the cosmos.
Atlas, now a mere toddler in oversized, glowing armor, looked up at the darkening sky and let out one final roar of defiance.
A blinding light covered everything.
To anchor the destabilized Gods and save the Sect Masters from total decay, Atlas had to perform the ultimate paradox.
He ripped the very concept of "Time Regression" out of his soul and hurled it into the feedback loop.
Atlas broke the causal link that allowed probability to judge him.
He was no longer a Time-Keeper breaking the rules; he was an ordinary human soul that had paid an infinite price. The backlash of Star Will, searching for a god to punish, found only a void.
But the backlash of his own powers found him, not only did he strain [Chronos Resentment] and used regression on himself a couple of millions of times, but regression ironically reached the Authority itself.
[System Error!]
[Authority 'Chronos Resentment' was erased!]
Seeing the temporary vulnerability as the light began to fade, the Monarch of Decay raised his rotting left hand.
The absolute end of history rushed toward the powerless Atlas.
But the attack did not land.
A rift of pure, white light tore through the gray void, positioning itself between Atlas and the Monarch. The endpoint slammed into the glowing portal and was absorbed like a ripple in a peaceful pond.
From out of the portal, a figure stepped into the cold of canadian mountains. He wore a simple, flowing white robe, possessed a beard like spun silver, and radiating a calm that seemed to insult the surrounding chaos.
He was walking on air, unbothered by gravity or divine pressure.
Oh Jaejin, blood returning back into his eyes, his mana core regressing to its intact state, looked at the figure and let out a hacking, hysterical laugh.
"Is that... Jesus Christ?."
Eleanor who regained her consciousness crossed herself.
He simply smiled, and the rift behind him disappeared.
The single portal in Alberta was just the beginning.
Across the globe, from the ruins of Seoul to the London skyline, thousands of identical white rifts erupted.
Crevon [1]had finished their negotiations with the world leaders.
Using the Dimensional Entropy[2]—the source of infinite mana anchored by the Essence of the Strait—Crevon's mages stabilized the spatial fabric between the Tower and Earth. They opened the gates for the 8F's army to physically descend.
More than 30,000 high-level soldiers poured onto the battlefields.
They spread like a stabilizing virus, engaging the beyonders who had lost control, crushing the lesser devils' corps, and locking swords with the confused Asgardian army.
The chaos that had engulfed the planet was suddenly met with the crushing force of an organized, military apocalypse.
In South America, the battlefield was the most terrifying.
Medici, now the fully advanced Sequence 0 Red Priest (Red Angel of War), was not celebrating.
He was surrounded by a sea of purple-black sludge that warped reality—the Primordial Demoness was near.
The Demoness Sect had descended on all of the battlefields from Europe and Korea to China and South America, bringing chaotic disease and insanity to the continents.
The Primordial Demoness herself was utilizing authorities that should not belong to her—the chaotic reflections of God Almighty's paths.
Medici guessed that due to the Inextinguishable Ravings and her proximity to the Chaos Sea when Adam manifested, she had been unable to resist the awakening of the previous God Almighty will within her. She was half-crazy.
Hades and Persephone found themselves engaged with the 7th Devil, Morax, a titan of immense size, and the 10th Devil of Hajin's setting.
A sword of pure mana, that almost matched his body, descended from the sky on Morax, cutting deep into Devil's shoulder.
"YOU FUCKING DEVIL, GET OUT OF MY PLANET!" Chae Nayun screamed at the top of her lungs.
Suddenly, a portal opened near Medici.
A massive man, armored in ancient Chinese gears and riding a monstrous horse that emitted sparks of raw magic power, charged out.
Lü Bu.
Behind him, the elegant figure of Empress Araha of Crevon floated, she was wearing a cape that made her look like Alexander the Great and Caesar.
Lü Bu roared, locking eyes with the Red Priest.
Medici, laughing through all three mouths, raised his Spear of Destruction.
"An incarnation from the Tower?"
"Shut up, Medici!" Einhorn yelled out of one of the mouths.
Before they could clash, the Primordial Demoness let out a scream that resonated from the Mirror World.
The sludge rose up, dragging Medici, his army, and the charging Lü Bu into the Mirror Realm.
"Empress, leaving the command to you!"
Lü Bu didn't hesitate; he drove his horse into the mirror, chasing the ultimate war.
Back in the Alberta Mountains, the blinding light finally subsided.
Roselle Gustav, his body flickering from the effort of Half-Anarchy, had Distorted the laws of nature around the area, buying a microsecond of stability that allowed Atlas's sacrifice to complete without being crushed by the Outer Deities.
As the light faded, the four falling gods—Evernight, Lilith, Adam, and Farbauti—felt their symbolism stabilize.
They landed softly, returned to their secure Half-Great Old One states. Below them, the Sect Masters took their first gasping breaths after being regressed back into life.
They were alive.
Chae Joochul stood near them, his snapped white hand fan suddenly regressing back into a perfect, whole object in his grip—the final echo of Atlas's time regression.
"It's gone," Eleanor of the Silent Song whispered.
She was looking at the ground where the 10-year-old Atlas had stood.
Now, there was only a newborn baby, pink and crying, lying on the stone floor, completely ordinary.
He had regressed so far that the authority, the memories, and the status were all gone.
Atlas had succeeded, but the cost was himself.
He had not managed to regress Heynckes; the Master of Steel remained a mutated part of the Mother Tree of Desire, his metallic branches serving as her new armor.
Eleanor, Chae Joochul, and Oh Jaejin rushed forward to save the infant.
Near them, the figure who had stopped the Monarch of Decay—the bearded, white-robed man—landed on the stone.
He was Jesus Christ, the Administrator, the highest existence of the Tower of Wish.
At the same time, from the depths of the remaining Realm of Mysteries, the gray fog began to boil.
The translucent dark trench coat of The Fool materialized.
The figure's face remained a shimmering, illusory mask with blank features, though the contours of both Klein Moretti and Amon flicker beneath the surface like ghosts in a mirror.
His dark, wavy hair is perfectly groomed with a sharp split fringe, framing a gold-rimmed monocle on his right eye. It appeared to collapse inward, becoming the catalyst for a massive, swirling vortex within the chest of his attire.
Pinned to his black tie there was a star-encrusted brooch.
[True God, 'The Fool', has entered the stage!]
Adam, his giant radiant form stabilized back into a man, felt the return of his White Tower omniscience.
He looked around.
"How come we are so lucky?" Adam whispered to himself.
His mind, the cornerstone of the God Almighty pillar, processed the probabilities.
All of these events were too convenient.
They played off as if by a script written by a master storyteller.
He felt shivers that had nothing to do with the Inextinguishable Ravings.
He, the supreme manipulator, the ultimate Visionary, suddenly felt like a pawn on a chessboard being moved by a foe that had already won the game.
Quasi-God Almighty was truly just a pawn in lucky game of the particular Author of one of the three Universes.
In the center of the cosmic collapse, the Goddess of Fate manifested her true, terrifying form: three bodies standing side by side in simple, elegant white dresses.
The figure on the left, her eyes hollow and dark, skillfully wove silvery drops of destiny on an illusory loom, turning them into a net that converged into a stream. These streams flowed toward the armless middle body, merging into the current node of the River of Fate and surging toward the void.
On the right stood a headless figure, gripping an illusory silver-black knife that mechanically cut away the tributaries of the heroes below.
Will Auceptin and the Holy Monk, currently merged as the Eternal Buddha, felt the absolute weight of the Final Judgment.
The Goddess was stripping them of their symbolism, rejecting their presence from the narrative of the future.
Nearby, Medea and Athena watched helplessly in their weakened states, rejected by Fate as meteorites rained down upon them.
There was no way to reverse the current; they were watching the end approach with clinical certainty.
Suddenly, a portal tore through the static of the scenario, radiating a probability that didn't belong to the Star Stream or the Outer Deities.
The Goddess of Fate paused, her weaving stuttering in confusion.
[Constellation 'The Novel's Extra' has descended into the Scenario!]
Kim Hajin stepped through the rift, his status pressing on the destabilized reality.
His eyes were closed, a necessary precaution against the true form of an Outer Deity, yet his movements were precise.
After all, he was King of Angels and more easily infected.
He didn't worry about missing; his luck was a tangible force that guided his hand.
He raised his Desert Eagle, the weapon humming with the power of six streaks of Stigma.
The barrel was loaded with a God-Killing Bullet (Misteltein), infused with an anti-magic attribute and layered with the stories of his own narrative.
He fired. The bullet pierced the very concept of the Goddess's defense.
Before she could react, cracks erupted across her three bodies, and she dissolved into a pillar of silver ash.
He received a message from Star Will that he defeated the Great Dominator 'Goddess of Fate'.
Hajin opened his eyes as the divine pressure vanished.
He reached out, grabbing the hands of the young boy and the monk to pull them from the floor.
The moment their hands met, a blinding golden resonance erupted.
['Half-Key of Light' has been established!]
A surge of absolute Good Fortune flushed through the planet, stabilizing the fraying battlefields and restoring the spirits of Earth's protectors.
The luck was so potent it began to overwrite the Monarch of Decay's entropy and the Mother Tree's curses.
Hajin froze for a second.
"Why?" Will Auceptin asked, looking up at Hajin with wide, weary eyes.
Hajin stood still for a moment, his mind connected to the vast, shimmering consciousness of the Eternal Buddha. Through that connection, the "Author's" logic and probability finally aligned.
"I just realized something," Hajin said, his voice carrying a newfound weight.
"What's that?" the Holy Monk asked.
Hajin looked toward the Alberta Mountains.
"I know how to end all of this chaos," Hajin replied.
[1] 8F of Tower of Wish, an Empire governed by the descendants of King Arthur from legends, look up 15th-16th and 21st-22nd chapters for more info if you forgot.
[2] Was activated by Yoo Yeonha at the end of Ch. 91