The first punitive war against the Utopia had ended in a strange, hollow fashion. The Alliance suffered almost no real losses; aside from the spellcasters and warriors killed in Utopia's initial surprise assault, not a single casualty was added afterward.
And yet no one could call this a victory. In the eyes of central command, it was an unqualified defeat. The Utopia had sunk wholly into the void. Though such an act would otherwise be dismissed as suicidal folly, given the Utopia's understanding of the void...
A dull roar trembled across the sky. Skyborne City had arrived one step too late, its main citadel erging from the heavens with a thunderous roar as it slowly descended. Teleportation arrays flared to life, releasing teams of scholarly wizards who imdiately hurried over to where Utopia had plunged into the void and began to analyze the traces left behind.
"They surpassed all our expectations. It's unfortunate, but we failed—we couldn't stop them. You must already understand what kind of enemy we're now forced to face. Until we resolve this, every other problem on the continent will have to wait."
One of the wizards in command briefed the liaison from the Alliance aboard the Skyborne City.
"I understand. I'm dreading what cos next. The Alliance has begun searching the archives aboard the city, but there is almost nothing pertaining to anything like what the Utopia just did. Entering the void outright... There is no precedent at all.
"For now, the best we can hope for is to develop so ans of tracking their movents. If even that proves impossible... then we're truly in trouble."
The liaison's voice brimd with helplessness. No one would lay bla upon the commanders for this failure. Truthfully, they had perford admirably and done everything that could be done. But the Utopia's mastery over the void was simply far beyond anything conceivable in this age. No one could have predicted what transpired.
"Have Skyborne City send word across the entire continent. Nowhere is safe anymore. I don't know whether installing enough material anchors will do any good, but given how the Utopia wielded void power in this battle... I wouldn't hope for much."
The commander issued his next order.
"Understood. The city's scholars and wizards are gathering all the data they can. Let's trust them. With luck, they'll find sothing—anything—we can use."
The liaison raised no objections. The warning was sent across every channel he controlled, not only to the mbers of the Alliance but to every sapient race capable of understanding the threat.
Their urgency was simple to explain: the Utopia had transford from a visible enemy into a phantom haunting the continent.
With the organization now buried in the void, the Alliance had no way to pinpoint its location. And the void, brimming with countless unknowns, gave the Utopia the ability to manifest anywhere across the land.
No one knew when or where they might suddenly appear. The Alliance's knowledge of Utopia was already threadbare; predicting their next objective, their next acquisition, their next move, was all but impossible.
How did one defend against such a foe? The Alliance's overall strength far exceeded the Utopia's. Apart from the initial surprise assault, the Alliance forces had all but crushed them.
But the Alliance represented the combined might of the continent, not the strength of any single kingdom. The forces assembled for this battle were far from the Alliance's full strength, yet they were still gathered from many nations. In a one-to-one comparison, a lone kingdom would be utterly overrun.
And now the Alliance faced an enemy capable of erging at any point on the continent at any mont. How could it guard against that? Distributing its forces evenly across all regions was impossible. A point-to-surface breakthrough would always be far easier than a surface-to-point defense.
Thus, the Alliance had to gain the ability to observe Utopia's movent in the void. Without it, they would be facing a nightmare: an enemy unpredictable, untraceable, and, in many cases, defeatable only through luck.
anwhile, the Skyborne City's scholars and wizards had reached the site where Utopia disappeared. Their expressions were solemn as they attuned themselves to the surrounding void energy, gleaning what they could in hopes of divining the Utopia's trajectory and understanding the impossible feat they had just witnessed.
"...Too clean. Far too clean. Sothing of that scale entering the void should have left fluctuations comparable to the descent of a void god. And yet there's nothing to sense. The void is stable, terrifyingly stable, as though this colossal structure entered without disturbing it at all."
Disbelief colored the wizards' faces. Every probe shattered another limit of their understanding; again and again, the results proved how inconceivably deep the Utopia's command over the void truly ran.
"There are no traces left. The void energy has settled entirely. It's as though the city never existed—like it always belonged here, seamless with the void itself."
Another wizard shook his head. Neither their instrunts nor their own power could detect even the faintest remnant of a disturbance. The Utopia had taken the Bloodfang Empire into the void... to an unknown destination.
"These towers... were they the key? It's a pity. They seem to have self-destructed completely. What remains is no different from ordinary stone."
The scholars' curiosity was fueled not only by the crisis and dread Utopia had unleashed, but also by the irresistible hunger for knowledge that defined every true scholar.
They wanted to understand how the Utopia achieved such feats, and how the powers they themselves wielded differed from those wielded by the Utopia's wizards.
But the towers were re husks of what they had been. Though structurally intact, they had lost every connection to the void, every thread of power that had once allowed Utopia to resist the Alliance's wizards.
It was clear that the Utopia never intended to leave the Alliance any useful information. The extensive investigation yielded nothing. The enemy had disappeared into the void, leaving neither trace nor direction.
"It was too cleanly handled. They know far more than we do... and that discrepancy ans that things are beginning to spiral toward the worst-case scenario."
After receiving the report from Skyborne City's scholars, the commander muttered a bleak conclusion.
But regardless of how the situation developed, for better or worse, the Alliance had no choice but to act. There was no ti for doubt or hesitation. They needed to send warnings to every nation, and they needed to imdiately begin the research into the void and the developnt of technologies capable of observing its depths. Only then would they stand any chance at all.
The outco of the first clash between the Alliance and the Utopia spread swiftly through every available channel. Any kingdom on the continent whose lines of communication were not entirely sealed soon learned what had taken place within the Bloodfang Empire's territory—and of the Utopia, which had slipped into the void and might reappear at any mont.
Yet widespread panic did not erupt. Many commoners could not grasp the significance of what had happened; yet others dismissed the tale as re rumor. Only those seasoned enough, powerful enough, and connected to the Alliance—those who knew the Alliance would never fabricate a ssage on such a matter—understood just how grave the situation had beco.
Within the Church of Nightfall, news of the Utopia naturally raced across the Prayer Network, reaching Wang Yu before anyone else.
"So the force expelled when the Tree of the Night activated its automatic defenses resembles the power of the God of Terror? That confirms your theory, doesn't it?" Wang Yu asked Avia as he watched her call up data from the Tree of the Night.
"It's long past the point of re resemblance," she murmured, brows knitting together as she pondered. "Barring so extraordinary coincidence, this is unmistakably a variant of divine power. The power of gods. Which ans... at least half of my theory holds."
A glimr of understanding surfaced in her eyes.
"If your theory is correct," Wang Yu said thoughtfully, "then Roland's identity is rather interesting, isn't it? We might have to reconsider his ties to the Utopia. Still, let's follow the evidence step by step. As long as they continue to act, they'll leave traces behind."
Avia's proposal, he realized, was heading steadily closer to the truth.
"Right, Lady Darkness," Wang Yu said, suddenly turning to the Lady of the Night. She was lounging beside him and idly fiddling with his laptop. "Can you see into the void? Specifically... that city that sank into it?"
The Utopia's disappearance was a genuine problem. He could enter the void himself to search for it, yes, but the void was boundless. He lacked the ability to conduct such a precise hunt. For that, he would need the goddess beside him.
"I can," she replied, lifting her gaze from the screen, "but not fully. My sight in the void spans farther than yours, yet it is still limited. What I see are the regions illuminated by the faith of my followers. The deeper one goes into the void, the narrower my vision becos. And their city has descended very far. Unless they rise closer to the surface, I will not be able to locate them."
"Impressive," Wang Yu remarked, raising a brow. "At the very least, you might be able to provide advance warning. Even Skyborne City can't do that right now. We need all the ti we can to prepare."
It was a far better answer than he had expected. A short warning was infinitely better than none at all. Wang Yu imdiately relayed the goddess's information to the Alliance.
anwhile, back in Skyborne City, progress was finally being made—a startling kind of progress.
"What... is this thing? A... node?"
When the search periter was dramatically widened to tens, then hundreds of kiloters, the scholars of Skyborne City detected sothing in the material world at the site where the Utopia had once stood: a massive anomaly in the Void's environntal field.
It had not vanished with the city's descent into the Void. The domain persisted. Though saturated with void energy, it was not rejected by the material world. Instead, it stood like a colossal wedge driven into the boundary between matter and the void. That was the essence of a node.
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