Back in the main world of Elias, the sky was empty.

The monstrous Void Shrine, the Corrupted Buddha, and the second Prince who claimed to be a God were all gone.

Scoured from existence by a light so pure it had scrubbed the atmosphere clean.

From that silent, azure sky, a single figure fell.

Lyra.

She was no longer the vessel of a Zero.

She was now a broken girl, her body limp, her coat and mask disintegrated by the sheer force of the energy she had channelled.

"LYRA!"

On the ground, Leona, watching her fall, instantly reacted.

She flared her Beast Aura and ignited all the aura she could channel.

In a flash, she shot into the air like a red comet, intercepting the falling body fifty feet above the ground.

THUD.

Leona landed heavily, her boots cracking the glass-fused earth. She cradled the unconscious elf in her arms.

"Hey! Pointy-ears!" Leona shouted, shaking her gently.

"Wake up! Don't you dare die after all that showing off!"

Lyra, unfortunately, didn't wake, but her chest rose and fell in a shallow, ragged rhythm. She was alive.

CRUMBLE.

Around them, a sound like falling dominoes echoed across the desert.

The 50,000 Void Beasts, the mutated soldiers of the Dragon Empire, suddenly stopped moving.

With their connection to the Prince severed, the animating force that held their twisted flesh together vanished.

They collapsed into piles of black ash, blowing away in the wind.

The war was over.

For ten seconds, there was absolute silence.

Then, a single Dwarven soldier raised his axe.

"ZERO!"

It started as a whisper, then a shout, then a roar.

"ZERO! ZERO! ZERO!"

The chant spread from the Dwarves to the Elves. It echoed through the Magitech screens to the Human Slums, to the Dragon Lands, to the frozen North.

The name of a terrorist. The name of a savior.

….......…

[Location: The Kingdom of Light – Grand Cathedral]

The Pope fell to his knees.

On the screen above the altar, the war had ended. The "Heretic" had saved the world.

But the Pope wasn't looking at the screen. He was looking behind the altar.

CRACK... CRASH.

The fracture in the giant marble statue of the Goddess of Light finally gave way.

The face of the Goddess, the serene, beautiful visage that had watched over humanity for a thousand years, sheared off.

It crashed onto the altar, shattering into a thousand pieces of white stone.

The Cardinals stared in horror. The symbolism was terrifyingly clear.

The Old Gods had looked away.

The world had chosen a new God.

….......

[Location: The Abyss – The Garden of Silence]

GASSSSP.

Damien woke up screaming.

He thrashed on the cold stone floor of the cave, clawing at his own chest.

It felt like he had swallowed a star. His veins were glowing beneath his skin.

"Master!" Isabelle was there instantly, pinning his shoulders to the ground.

"Master, look at me! Breathe!"

"It... burns!" Damien choked out. "Too much... too heavy!"

Unknowingly, the "Hopes of the Era", the collective Will of millions of people, hadn't just disappeared when the link severed.

A fragment of that immense power had followed his soul back down the line.

It was too much for a mortal soul to contain. It was trying to tear him apart.

'Fuck! am I going to explode,' Damien realized, his vision swimming in gold.

'I survived the Prince just to die from anoverdose?'

NO.

A dark, guttural growl echoed from the depths of his core.

The Greedy King's Intent woke up.

In a desperate attempt to fight back Damien's soul stopped fighting the golden light. Instead, it opened its jaws and ate it.

The burning sensation vanished, replaced by a cold, crystalline clarity.

The chaotic Will of the world was crushed, refined, and merged into Damien's own existence.

VWMMM.

Damien stopped thrashing. He lay still, panting heavily.

"Master?" Isabelle whispered, leaning over him.

Damien opened his eyes.

Isabelle gasped and pulled back.

His eyes had changed.

The left was still pitch black. The right was still gold. But the pupils were no longer just vertical dragon slits.

A horizontal bar of darkness had cut through the vertical slit.

A Cross-Shaped Pupil.

It was the symbol of a being that stood at the intersection of Existence (Will) and Non-Existence (Void).

In this battle, unknowingly, he had broken through the seventh order finally!

"This power, amazing!"

Damien sat up, rubbing his temples.

Although he wanted to study his new strength more, he knew he had to calm down the anxious made in front of him

"I'm okay, Isabelle," he croaked.

"I just... ate a little too much."

Fortunately, before she could ask any more questions about what had just happened, the air in front of him exploded with blue light.

A flurry of notifications blinded his vision.

[DING!]

[DING!]

[DING!]

The notifications scrolled past his vision so fast they blurred.

[Special Quest Completed: The Surface War.]

[Quest Grade: SSS+ (Impossible).]

[Achievement Unlocked: Slayer of the Void prince.]

[Achievement Unlocked: Messiah of the Era.]

[System Analysis: Detecting massive change in world plot.]

[Status: You are now worshipped as a Deity by 40% of the Surface Population.]

[External Will can now be harvested as a resource.]

Damien swiped the windows away, ignoring the titles. He didn't care about being a Messiah. He didn't care about fame.

He looked at the bottom right corner of his vision. The Currency Counter.

[Destiny Points (DP) Calculation...]

[Reward: 2,000,000 DP.]

Damien stared at the number.

Two. Million.

Before this war, he had scraped by with 200,000, worrying about the cost of a single skill.

Now?

A low chuckle escaped his lips.

"Heh..."

"It seems that my journey in the Abyss is going to get a whole lot easier from here!"

Looking at this amount of DP, Damien couldn't even begin to think of what to do.

Not only had he unexpectedly broken through seventh order, but using the ninety thousand DP from before, he had solved the trouble of being unable to use abyss mana

If he had any issue, right now, that would be the evolution of his shadow mana.

"System? How many Dp is required to evolve Shadow mana to Void mana"

Yes, although happy with his current strength, Damien was ready to take it one step further.

[Author's note! Thank you to everyone who supports me here on Webnovel! The month is almost up, and I have a goal to reach

As such, I would continuously hold mass releases for all gifts given during this period till the month ends, even if it exhausts my stock

A luxury car is two extra chapters, a dragon is three extra chapters, a castle is ten extra chapters, and a character of your choice, name and description being inserted in the next arc!]

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