[Looting available.]

Alvian didn't hesitate. He reached down, his hand glowing with the extraction light of the system.

[You have acquired: Ring of the Void Sovereign (Legendary)]

[You have acquired: Skill Book - [Gravity Well] (S-Rank)]

[You have acquired: Syndicate Master Keycard.]

He didn't check the stats. Not yet. His instincts, sharpened by years of surviving in a dead future, were screaming at him. The air didn't feel lighter. The mana in the atmosphere wasn't dissipating; it was stagnating. It felt heavy, oily, and suffocating.

"Alvian!"

Valeria came running across the cracked marble of the plaza, her silver armor battered and stained with soot, but her stride powerful. Seraphina materialized from a shadow next to him, panting heavily, her daggers dripping with black ichor. Even Arin, the cowardly mage, hobbled over, his robes singed but his eyes wide with a mixture of terror and adrenaline.

"We did it," Arin wheezed, leaning on his staff. "By the Founders, I thought we were dead. Is it over? Can I go home?"

Alvian didn't answer. He looked up at the sky. The rift had closed, yes. But the stars weren't returning. The sky was an empty, flat black.

"Inefficient," Alvian muttered.

"What?" Valeria asked, stepping closer. "What is inefficient?"

"The Syndicate's plan," Alvian said, his voice cold. "They sacrificed a General, a Lieutenant, an Avatar, and their Leader. They threw away their entire command structure in a single night. Why?"

Seraphina frowned, holstering her daggers. "To summon Engels. But we stopped it. You killed the anchor."

"I killed the signal," Alvian corrected. "I killed the person shouting at the door. But what if the door was already open?"

As if in response to his question, the ground beneath them lurched. It wasn't a tremor. It was a heartbeat.

"THUMP."

The sound didn't come from the earth. It came from the air itself. It resonated in their chests, a deep, subsonic frequency that rattled teeth and froze blood. The corpse of Voice One, lying at Alvian's feet, suddenly began to dissolve. It didn't rot; it sublimated into a thick, violet mist. The mist didn't disperse. It shot straight up, a reverse lightning bolt, striking the exact spot where the rift had been.

"BOOM!"

The sky shattered.

It didn't tear open like fabric this time. It shattered like glass. A massive hole, miles wide, opened in the heavens above the floating island. And through that hole, the Void looked back.

"Warning," the System flashed red in Alvian's vision.

[Calamity Event: The True Awakening.]

[The death of the Syndicate Leader has served as the final biological catalyst.]

[Dimensional Barrier: 0%.]

[Demon God Engels is manifesting.]

"It was a trap," Alvian realized, his grip tightening on the [Lance of the Void Winter]. "Voice One wasn't the summoner. He was the sacrifice. His death released the lock."

Gravity went haywire. Debris from the plaza began to float upward. Smaller rocks, broken weapons, even the dust suspended in the air began to drift toward the hole in the sky.

"The island," Seraphina whispered, looking at her data slate. "The anti-gravity core... the polarity is reversing. We aren't floating anymore. We're falling upward. Into the rift."

A scream tore through the air from the student dorms. The panic that had subsided was returning, tenfold.

Alvian turned to his team. There was no time for fear. No time for despair.

"Valeria," Alvian barked, his voice cutting through the rising wind. "Get the Vanguard. Secure the perimeter of the Plaza. Anything that comes out of that hole is going to land here."

"But the students—" Valeria started.

"If we don't hold this ground, there won't be any students left to save," Alvian snapped. "Move!"

Valeria gritted her teeth, saluted, and ran.

"Arin," Alvian looked at the mage. "You have the [Luminescence] specialization. I need you to cast the biggest [Holy Beacon] you can manage. Right here. Mark this spot as the target."

"Why?!" Arin cried, looking at the abyss above. "You want to invite them here?"

"I want to draw the aggro," Alvian said calmly. "If the God focuses on us, he ignores the transports evacuating the civilians."

Arin swallowed hard, nodded, and began to chant.

"Seraphina," Alvian said, turning to the Shadow Dancer. "I need eyes. Not on the enemy. On the island's structural integrity. If this rock splits apart before we kill the God, we all fall into the void."

"I'm on it," Seraphina said, vanishing into the shadows.

Alvian stood alone in the center of the plaza. He looked up at the widening maw of the dimension. He checked his mana pool. Infinite. He checked his cooldowns. Reset.

"Round Three," Alvian whispered. "Come and get it."

---

The manifestation of a Demon God was not a quiet affair. It was a scream that tore the mind apart.

From the shattered sky, a limb descended. It was a hand, pale as moonlight and covered in eyes that wept black tar. It was the size of a city block. As it pushed through the barrier, the very air around it crystallized into violet ice.

[Boss: Demon God Engels (Partial Manifestation)]

[Level: ???]

[Status: Ascending]

[Passive: [Absolute Domain] - All laws of physics within 5km are rewritten to suit the Void.]

"ROAR!"

The sound wasn't audible. It was a psychic blast. Every student on the island fell to their knees, clutching their heads as the voice of the God invaded their minds. It spoke of cold, of hunger, of the end of all things.

Alvian activated [Frost Heart]. The chill in his own veins fought back against the foreign cold.

"System. Status immunity check."

[Mental Corruption Blocked by [Void Monarch] Set Bonus.]

Alvian stood tall while the world bent around him. The massive hand reached down, fingers curling as if to crush the entire Admin District.

"Not on my watch," Alvian growled.

He equipped the [Lance of the Void Winter]. He didn't fly up. He waited. He waited until the hand was close enough to see the individual, weeping eyes on its skin.

"System. [Klaus's Upgrade]. Activate."

[Ding! Blessing Active.]

"[Glacial Void Pierce]: World Sever."

He thrust the spear upward. A beam of void energy, doubled in size and intensity by the blessing, shot from the tip of the lance. It struck the palm of the Demon God.

"SLASH!"

The beam didn't stop at the skin. It carved a line of nothingness through the hand, severing two of the colossal fingers.

[-5,000,000! Critical Void Damage!]

The severed fingers, each the size of a tower, fell toward the Academy. They crashed into the library district, crushing buildings and sending up plumes of dust and magic.

The God screamed. The hand recoiled, pulling back into the rift. But it wasn't retreating. It was angry.

From the wound in the hand, drops of black blood fell like rain. But as they hit the ground, they didn't splash. They stood up.

"SQUELCH. HISS."

The blood coalesced into humanoid shapes. Faceless horrors made of black ice and tar.

[Enemy Spawned: Blood of Engels]

[Level: 45]

[Status: Elite / Horde]

Hundreds of them. They rose from the pavement, weapons forming from their own bodies.

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