The spire of the Cathedral of Six didn't just fall; it dissolved into a rain of molten stone and black ash, creating a hazy curtain between the Overlord in the sky and the ants on the ground.
Ainz Ooal Gown adjusted his pauldrons. Well, that was dramatic, he thought, suppressing the urge to cough as the ash cloud rose to his altitude. Note to self: High-Tier Undead summons cause structural damage that comes out of the repair budget.
Below him, the chaotic melee had erupted.
The Black Scripture had launched themselves from the ruins, propelled by Fly spells and martial arts. There were five of them in the air, engaging the Floor Guardians.
It shouldn't have been a fight. Level 100 vs Level 30-40 (average scripture member) was a joke.
But these humans were glowing.
"Troublesome," Ainz muttered, casting [Sense Magic].
A kaleidoscope of auras blinded him for a second.
Buffs. Dozens of them. Not just 3rd or 4th Tier. He saw 6th Tier Divine Magic layers. He saw alchemy boosts. And interwoven through it all, like a silver thread, was the chaotic signature of Wild Magic.
"Demiurge!" Ainz shouted over the roar of a detonation.
"Ainz-sama!" The demon appeared at his side, hanging in the air by his bat wings. He looked ecstatic. "The destruction is proceeding efficiently!"
"The enemy stats," Ainz pointed a bony finger at a Black Scripture member—a large man with a shield—who had just blocked a strike from Cocytus. "They are elevated. Artificially."
Clang.
Cocytus's katana sparked against the shield. The impact shockwave shattered the windows of the surrounding districts, but the human didn't die. He slid back ten meters in mid-air, blood spraying from his nose, but he held the line.
"Wild Magic enhancement," Demiurge deduced, his eyes narrowing. "It seems the Dragon Lords are acting as batteries for these insects."
"Battery..." Ainz whispered. Support casters. The Dragons are hiding, buffing the frontline.
That changed things. If the human tanks could survive more than one hit, they could buy time for the real threat: The World Item.
"Down there!" Shalltear shrieked.
Ainz looked left.
Shalltear was diving. She was a red streak of vampiric fury, her Spuit Lance extended. Her target was a small figure hovering near the rear of the enemy formation—a woman in a heavily embroidered dress that swirled with hypnotic patterns.
The Downfall of Castle and Country.
"Gotcha, you bitch!" Shalltear screamed, her speech degenerating into her crude persona. "Gonna tear your spine out through your nose!"
The woman didn't move. She just held up the Dress's hem.
Suddenly, the air between Shalltear and the woman shattered like glass.
A claw—massive, spectral, and glowing with the brightness of a star—erupted from nothingness.
SLAM.
It swatted Shalltear.
The strongest Floor Guardian was launched sideways like a skipping stone. She smashed through one church tower, then a library, burying herself in the burning ruins of a residential block.
"What?" Ainz felt his non-existent stomach clench. "Who hit her?"
From the distortion, a voice echoed. It sounded like metal grinding on metal.
"You possess the arrogance of the Eight Greed Kings, Sorcerer," the voice boomed. "But you lack their unity."
The distortion widened. It wasn't a portal. It was a projection.
A massive dragon head, wreathed in light so intense it distorted space, peered through the rift. It wasn't fully there—it was miles away—but its magic was manifesting directly.
The Brightness Dragon Lord.
"Seven-layer Barrier. Distort Distance. Mirror World."
The dragon chanted in draconic, the Wild Magic bypassing the Yggdrasil casting time rules.
The sky above the capital warped. The smoke stopped rising. The sun turned green.
"Guardians!" Ainz commanded. "Form up! Don't let them isolate you!"
But he was too late.
The Mirror World activated.
Space twisted. Cocytus, who was winding up for a strike on the shield-bearer, simply vanished—folded into a pocket dimension.
Aura and Mare, who were on their dragon mounts, found themselves suddenly upside down as gravity inverted in their local zone. They plummeted upward, screaming as they fell into the cloud layer.
And Ainz?
He was alone.
The noises of battle faded. The heat of the fire vanished, replaced by a cold, damp chill.
He floated in the air, but the city below him was gone. He was in a grey void. Fog curled around his boots.
"A separation tactic," Ainz reasoned aloud, forcing calm into his voice. [Emotion Suppression]. "You intend to pick us off one by one?"
"Pick you off?" The Brightness Dragon Lord's voice laughed from everywhere and nowhere. "No. We intend to bury you."
A massive shadow moved in the fog.
Ainz gripped his staff. He checked his buffs. Still active. He checked his mana. Full.
"If you are going to fight me," Ainz announced to the void, "come out. Hide-and-seek is a game for children."
A beam of light answered him.
It didn't come from the shadow. It came from inside Ainz's ribcage.
Ping.
His passive barrier High-Tier Magic Nullification flared.
Ainz spun around. Nothing.
Stealth? Perfect Unknowable?
"You rely too much on your eyes, Player," a new voice whispered. A soft, sibilant hiss.
From the fog directly beneath him, darkness solidified. Not shadow. Darkness. An entity that made the black of Ainz's robes look grey.
The Deep Darkness Dragon Lord.
"I have killed one of you before," the shadow mass hissed. "His ring tasted like fear. Just like yours."
Ainz raised his hand.
"Twin Maximize Magic: [Reality Slash]."
He fired two tears in the fabric of space blindly into the mass.
They hit. The shadow roiled, shrieking—a sound like a dying galaxy—but it didn't dissipate.
Resistance? No... Absorb?
Ainz felt a tug. Not physical. His MP bar.
It dropped. Significantly.
"Wild Magic: Soul Syphon."
"Cheater," Ainz muttered, calculating his odds. "So that's how it is. One tank. One drainer. And the humans are the distraction."
He reached into his inventory.
"I suppose I should stop saving the good items."
He pulled out a small hourglass. A Cash Shop item. [Chat-log Integrity Check]. Wait, wrong item.
He pulled out a red crystal. [Summon Primal Fire Elemental].
"Meat shields first," Ainz decided. "Then we see if shadows can burn."
The Ruins of the Cathedral – Ground Zero
The air smelled of ozone and fried electronics—a smell that shouldn't exist in this world, caused by the overcharged mana residues.
Albedo stepped over the body of a fallen Black Scripture mage. Her heels crunched on his breastplate.
The battle raged elsewhere. In the sky, the dragon projections were keeping Ainz occupied. In the Mirror Dimensions, the Guardians were fighting for their lives.
But here, in the rubble of the Sanctum, it was quiet.
"Search," Albedo commanded.
Three Level 80 Mercenary Vassals—Shadow Demons—slid out from her cape. They scattered into the debris.
Albedo walked toward the spot where the Pontifex had died. The ashes were still hot.
She kicked through the pile. Nothing. The Grim Reaper Thanatos had likely consumed the body entirely.
"Tch."
She moved to the back of the chancel, where a heavy iron door stood, twisted by the heat but intact. The entrance to the inner vault.
"Lady Albedo."
She turned. One of the demons held up a shattered piece of metal.
It was gold. A jagged shard of armor.
Albedo took it. She recognized the alloy. It was Seraphim-grade Yggdrasil gold.
"The Captain's spear?" she asked.
"No, Mistress. This was found... lodged in the statue."
The demon pointed to the melted remains of a statue of the God of Light.
Albedo inspected the shard closely. There were scratches on it. Scratches made by claws.
Wait.
She brought it to her nose. It smelled... old.
This isn't from the current battle, she realized. This shard has been here for centuries. Someone laid it here as an offering.
She flipped it over. Engraved on the inside was a maker's mark.
Made by: Lucifer.
Her breath hitched.
Lucifer. The builder of golems. The prankster. This was a piece of his original armor.
The Slane Theocracy didn't just loot dead bodies. They had been interacting with the Guild Members back then. Or fighting them.
"If Lucifer was here," Albedo whispered, a dangerous obsession clouding her eyes, "and they have his armor shard... did they kill him? Or did he leave it?"
A heavy crash from the vault door interrupted her.
"Mistress! The door! It opens!"
The iron twisted and fell.
Standing in the doorway was not a priest. It was not a soldier.
It was a Golem.
It was huge, humanoid, made of white marble and gold filigree. Its face was a singular, massive ruby. And etched onto its chest was the emblem of Ainz Ooal Gown.
Albedo froze.
"A legacy guardian?"
The Golem's ruby eye flashed. A pre-recorded voice emanated from it. A voice Albedo knew. A voice she hated because it wasn't Ainz.
"Greetings, trespasser! I am the Angelic Sentinel, MK-IV! If you are listening to this, you have either defeated the locals or you are the locals! Either way, I'm activating Self-Destruct Sequence in 10... 9..."
"Lucifer!" Albedo shrieked. "You absolute idiot!"
She slammed her axe, Ginnungagap, into the floor.
"Wall of Jericho!"
A barrier rose just as the Golem detonated.
BOOM.
The explosion wasn't fire. It was holy light. Pure, unadulterated anti-demon radiance designed to wipe out 10th Tier evil alignments.
Albedo's barrier held, but the force slammed her against the far wall. The cathedral ruins vaporized completely, turning the hilltop into a bald crater.
Albedo coughed, pushing rubble off her wings. Her white dress was singed. Her skin hissed where the holy light had touched it.
"I hate him," she growled, spitting blood. "I hate all of them. Except Ainz-sama."
She stood up, looking at the crater where the vault used to be. The explosion had destroyed everything inside. The items. The history. The potential loot.
Or had it?
In the center of the scorched earth, one object remained.
It was floating in a protective sphere that had survived the blast.
Albedo walked over to it.
It wasn't a weapon. It wasn't jewelry.
It was a simple, leather-bound notebook. Surshana's Log Volume 2.
And sitting on top of it, seemingly unaffected by the blast...
A rubik's cube.
Albedo stared at it.
A World Item? she wondered. No. She sensed no world power from it.
She reached out and poked it.
It clicked. The sides rotated.
"Hey guys! Check it out! I figured out how to enchant a puzzle toy with [Mass Dominate Species]! Just solve the blue side and—whoops!"
Lucifer's voice again. From the cube.
Albedo's eye twitched.
"Trash," she hissed. "It's all trash."
She snatched the cube and the book.
"I'll hide this. Ainz-sama must never know his friends left behind nothing but pranks and death traps."
Mirror Dimension – The Upside Down Forest
Mare fell up.
Or was it down?
He hit the canopy of a forest that grew from the sky. Branches whipped his face. He flailed, grabbing a thick limb.
"A-Aura?"
Silence.
The forest was blue. The leaves were crystal. The air hummed with wrongness.
Mare scrambled onto the branch, gripping his staff Shadow of Yggdrasil. He was shaking.
"I... I'm alone."
A rustling sound came from the trunk of the tree.
"You are strong for an Elf," a voice said. Not from the tree. From the reflection in the crystal leaf.
Mare looked at the reflection. It wasn't his face. It was the face of the Elf King—his biological father, whom Ainz had allowed Aura to execute just days ago.
"Scared?" the reflection sneered.
"N-no," Mare stammered. "You're dead. Aura killed you."
"Wild Magic reflects the soul," the reflection warped, turning into a massive, translucent dragon. "I am the Mirror Dragon Lord. And you are trespassing in my domain."
The tree branch Mare stood on suddenly turned into a snake.
Mare jumped, landing on mid-air—which felt solid.
"Earth Surge!" Mare cast.
Nothing happened.
"No earth here, child," the dragon laughed. "Only reflections. Your Druidic magic is weak here."
Mare looked around. No earth. No soil to manipulate. Just sky and crystal. He was effectively silenced from his main element.
Panic bubbled up. Ainz wasn't here. Aura wasn't here.
"I... I have other spells," Mare whispered, clutching his chest.
"Do you?"
The Mirror Dragon launched from the reflection, a beast made of shards and light. It was fast—Level 90 speed. Its claws raked Mare's shoulder before he could blink.
Mare tumbled, crying out. His HP dropped by 5%.
"You rely on your master," the Dragon taunted, circling. "Without him, what are you? A scared boy in a skirt."
Mare wiped his eyes. He sniffled.
Then, he stood up.
He adjusted his skirt. He straightened his gloves.
"Ainz-sama... told me," Mare said, his voice trembling but getting louder. "He told me... to be confident."
He lifted his staff.
"And he said... if the environment doesn't suit you..."
Mare looked the Dragon in the eye.
"...change it."
He didn't cast an Earth spell. He gripped the staff with both hands.
The Shadow of Yggdrasil wasn't just a magic booster. It was a Divine Class Item.
"World Item: Avarice and Generosity!" Mare shouted, activating his gauntlet instead. "Discharge XP!"
A wave of black smoke erupted from the gauntlet—stolen experience points from the Katze Plains massacre, saved for an emergency.
"Metamagic: Maximize. [Create Fortress]."
The black smoke solidified. It didn't make a building. It made a floating island of black obsidian in the middle of the sky void.
TONS of rock.
The Mirror Dragon screeched as the sudden manifestation of physics slammed into its crystal forest, shattering the delicate wild magic constructs.
Mare planted his feet on the new black earth. He smiled. A sweet, terrified, deadly smile.
"Now there's earth," Mare said.
He tapped the ground.
"Earthquake."
The obsidian island fractured, turning into thousands of seeking missiles.
"D-don't run away, okay?"
The Sewers of Kami-Miyako
While Gods fought in the sky and Albedo looted the dead, a different drama played out beneath the streets.
Pandora's Actor (currently in the form of Sebas Tian for melee efficiency) was sprinting through the sewer tunnels.
"Filth! Muck! And terrible acoustics!" he complained to no one, kicking a giant rat into paste.
Ainz had sent him here with a specific order: Find the source of the Wild Magic beam that broke the barrier.
"According to the flow of mana..." PA stopped at a junction. To the left, sewage. To the right, a clean, dry tunnel marked with ancient runes.
"Subtlety is key," PA muttered. He transformed again. This time, into a generic Theocracy Priest.
He walked down the right tunnel.
The air grew cold.
He reached a massive circular chamber. In the center, a group of robed figures stood in a circle around a glowing artifact—a shard of iridescent glass.
And hovering above them...
The Downfall of Castle and Country. The real one. The Dress.
It was being worn by a young woman with heterochromatic eyes and white hair.
Zesshi?
No. PA squinted. Transform: Ranger Mode.
This woman looked like Zesshi, but younger. An older model? No, a spare?
"Focus," a man in the circle shouted. "The Brightness Lord is maintaining the isolation! We must re-target the World Item!"
"The target keeps moving!" the girl in the dress cried. "The Vampire is too fast!"
"Switch targets!" the man commanded. "Target the Sorcerer King! Even if we can't control him, the attempt might stun him long enough for the Deep Darkness Lord to land a hit!"
PA hid in the shadows.
World Item confirmed. Enemy strategy confirmed.
He should report to Father. That was the safe, loyal thing to do.
But if they targeted Father...
Ainz Ooal Gown was cautious. He had World Items equipped. He was immune to mind control.
But PA knew his creator. Ainz was also prone to panic when surprised. If they stunned him? If the DDDL hit him with a Soul-breaking attack?
PA stepped out of the shadows.
"Verzeihung!" he shouted in German, striking a flamboyant pose. "Is this the line for the bathroom?"
The cultists spun around.
"Who are you?" the leader shouted.
PA transformed. Not into Ainz. Not into Touch Me.
He turned into the Supreme Being Ulbert Alain Odle. The Demon of Great Disaster.
"I am the casting director for your imminent demise!" PA roared.
"Maximize Magic: [Grand Catastrophe]... wait, I can't cast that. Bluff failed!"
PA realized his mistake mid-pose. He couldn't mimic the World Disaster class's trump card fully without the specific mana ratios, and even then, it was weaker.
The cultists stared at him.
"Kill him!"
"Plan B!" PA shouted, switching to his Touch Me form. "World Champion Defense!"
He activated the ultimate defense skill, creating a dimensional barrier just as twenty spells hit him.
"Father!" PA screamed telepathically. "I found the Dress! Coordinate 44-X-Y! Send backup! Or cookies! Preferably backup!"
Cliffhanger: The Trap Springs Shut
High above, in the grey void.
Ainz heard PA's distress call.
"The Dress is in the sewers?" Ainz blinked. "Then who is holding the dress on the surface?"
Decoy.
It hit him. The entire battle on the surface. The separation. It wasn't to kill them. It was to get Ainz away from the Downfall.
And now Pandora's Actor—who did not have a World Item equipped because he was lending them to the other Guardians—was standing in front of it.
"Pandora!" Ainz shouted.
He turned to dive, to teleport, to burn his way down.
But the Deep Darkness Dragon Lord made his move.
The shadows solidified into chains. Not magical chains. Conceptual chains. The Chain of the Coffined Soul.
They wrapped around Ainz's waist, legs, and staff.
"Going somewhere, Thief?" the DDDL hissed. The massive dragon fully emerged from the fog. It looked like a rotting corpse of a dragon, with hole-ridden wings that leaked darkness. "Your spawn is unprotected. We will take him. And then we will use his shapeshifting face to walk into your tomb."
Ainz struggled. He couldn't move. Teleportation failed. Strength failed.
His eye sockets flared a deep, abyssal red.
Panic vanished. Improvisation vanished.
Satoru Suzuki left the building. Only the Overlord remained.
"You threaten my son," Ainz said. The temperature in the void dropped to absolute zero, freezing even the Wild Magic fog.
Ainz released his staff. It floated beside him.
He reached into his chest cavity.
"You want a World Item so badly?"
He pulled out the red orb sitting in his ribs.
The Orb of Momonga. (Often fan-dubbed, actually a WCI specialized against dragons).
"I'll give you one."
Ainz Ooal Gown smiled.
"Activate."