Zarazel led the forces of the Life Path across the endless skies, their combined auras so imnse that even though they traveled at the very edge of the Second Realm-where clouds no longer ford and stars bled faint light-those far below could still feel the crushing weight of their presence.
Billions lifted their heads toward the heavens. They could not see Zarazel or the ArchDeities who followed him, but they felt them-like distant storms that threatened to sweep across the world.
For more than a month, the army advanced. Their speed distorted space, their shadows stretching over continents. Finally, their destination revealed itself upon the horizon.
The Rainbow Bridge was no re landmark. It was a wound in reality, a divine scar of the Great War, and one of the most dangerous places in the Second Realm.
Suspended in the exact center of the Second Realm, the bridge stretched like a radiant arc across eternity, connecting two colossal landmasses that would otherwise be forever divided. Each strand of its luminous surface shimred with shifting hues. It was said that the bridge was woven by the clash of Overgods themselves, crystallized from fragnts of truth, will, and destruction.
Beneath it lay the true terror: a river of dark plasma, endlessly churning, endlessly hungering. It was no ordinary energy, but the remnants of the Great War, when countless divine beings had fallen. Their corpses, their blood, and their shattered souls had fused into a molten abyss, collapsing into a black current that defied the laws of matter and ti.
The river boiled and surged like a geyser, columns of annihilation erupting high into the heavens. Anything touched by that current was erased-body, soul, and mory.
The Rainbow Bridge was the only safe path across. To stray from its arc was to be devoured by the abyss below.
Cain's fists clenched unconsciously as he gazed upon the river. His Neo-Demon body, reinforced by the Scarlet Throne and enhanced by Depravita Aura, could endure almost anything. He could regrow flesh, repair shattered bones, even crawl back from death as long as his heart and head remained intact. Yet when he looked into that abyss, his instincts scread.
But it was not the plasma river that drew his sharpest focus.
On the far side of the Rainbow Bridge, another army had assembled. The forces of the Freedom Path had arrived first. Their ArchDeities lined the skies, radiating killing intent so suffocating it warped the air. And at their head stood her.
She was a dark and imposing figure, radiating regality and nace in equal asure. A robe of white and crimson draped her fra, its hem embroidered with golden crosses, each inlaid with scarlet jewels that glowed faintly as if fueled by living blood. Such garnts were not re attire-they were symbols, granted only to the most trusted pillars of the Ancient One's path.
Her face was pale, mask-like in its stillness, frad by straight, jet-black hair. A tall white headdress crowned her head, giving her an air of solemn, terrifying authority. Most striking of all were her eyes- crimson orbs that burned with unnatural light, streaks of blood flowing down her cheeks like eternal tears.
Her gaze was not simply cold. It was condemning, the look of one who judged the world itself and found it unworthy. She carried herself as if all existence were a cage, and she its destined breaker-the one who would tear down the last barriers so the Ancient One could ascend to the peak of the Tower.
She was Urin, the leader of the Freedom Path in the Second Realm. An Alpha-Oga Overgod.
The ArchDeities of the Life Path glanced at her briefly, then looked away. None dared hold her gaze for long. The gap between an ArchDeity and an Alpha-Oga Overgod was not one of degree but of reality itself. They existed in wholly different realms of power. A single full strike from Urin could end their lives without resistance. Better not to tempt her attention.
But there was one who could not look away.
The Scarlet King.
His eyes locked on Urin, his chest rising and falling heavily. It was not her beauty, nor her aura, that ensnared him. He was not a creature moved by charms or illusions. No, it was sothing deeper, stranger. His Neo-Demon Core pulsed violently within him. He felt a bond- intangible, indescribable. A sense of familiarity, as though she were sothing he had always known, yet simultaneously sothing utterly alien. Two sides of the sa coin.
"What is this?" Cain thought, his fists tightening until his knuckles cracked. "Why do I feel... connected to her? Familiarity and opposition bound as one..."
Urin's eyes narrowed, and across the impossible distance of the
Rainbow Bridge, her gaze t his. For an instant, silence devoured the
battlefield.
Despite the armies behind them, despite the abyss below, it was as though only the two of them existed-Neo-Demon and Overgod, predator and judge, mirrors reflecting each other.
The mont passed. Urin's expression smoothed into perfect calm. She folded her legs beneath her, hovering in ditative stillness above the bridge, and closed her eyes. The ArchDeities of the Freedom Path followed her lead.
Zarazel, seeing their choice, did the sa. He crossed his arms, his vast aura stabilizing like an iron fortress.
There was no point in clashing now. All of them desired blood, yes. All
of them yearned for dominance. But victory here would not co from slaughter. It would co from the one who seized the Natural Inheritance the mont it manifested-and escaped with it intact. To waste energy fighting before its arrival would be folly. The dark plasma river would punish weakness. The bridge would favor only the swift and the prepared.
And so both armies settled into silence.
The skies above the Rainbow Bridge grew heavy, the air shimring with divine pressure. The combined aura of two Overgods and dozens of ArchDeities surged higher and higher, until even distant mountains cracked and groaned beneath the weight.
Anything weaker than a Prima Deity who dared step within reach of this gathering would ignite in fla, reduced to ash in monts. Even Prima Deities themselves would falter.
What was about to occur was sothing the Second Realm had not witnessed since the Great War-a confrontation of Alpha-Oga Overgods, the supre rulers of the Crimson World.
User Comments
0 comments from readers