CHAPTER 35: LAST STAND

Velik roared in anguish.

"Raku? What the hell are you doing!?"

He couldn’t believe what he was witnessing.

The beast spirit, known across worlds for his simple and straightforward nature, was now doing something so utterly reckless that Velik could only call it madness.

"Do you also want to betray the world you swore to protect? Betray the creators who gave you life! who taught you?" Velik’s wails shook the entire plane as his voice carried his grief and fury.

"That world...you once vowed to defend it! Wherever your people stand, that is your duty!"

"Shut up!"

Before Velik could finish, Osiris, whose transformation had made him even stronger, slammed his head beneath the acidic sea, forcing him into silence.

The behemoth ignored Velik’s cries, the massive creature lowered itself before Mirethane, adopting a submissive posture. Its fangs and tail were drawn back, its great body hunched like a supplicant bowing to a master.

The beast lifted its eyes, not to Mirethane, but to the vortex above him, which embodied the will of the Endless Abyss.

"If I... if I become a part of this world," Raku stammered, his voice breaking under the weight of both fear and desire, "will I really gain more power? Any amount?"

Cillian did not answer, but instead watched in silence.

"I... I want Velik’s Windrunner power! I want the rock affinity of the mountain giants!" Raku’s words came in desperate bursts. Seeing that Cillian stayed silent, his anxiety grew sharper.

"I want land, real land! I want my people to worship me truly, not bow out of hypocrisy to angels and the so-called Creator! I want more! I want everything!"

Still, silence.

Cillian found himself weary of the display.

The endless clamoring of these so-called mythical creatures felt shallow and small to him.

"Let’s go, Mirethane," he finally said, deciding that if Raku and Velik required destruction, Mirethane’s hand would be enough.

For the first time, Mirethane stirred.

Seeing them about to leave, Raku’s panic erupted.

Gas stormed from his nostrils, his massive body now restless and shaking. Then aa black shackle formed out of the abyss itself.

It drifted toward the behemoth , hovering temptingly like forbidden fruit. The beast spirit could not look away.

Cillian summoned the power of space, preparing to bring Mirethane into the assessment world. But before leaving, he cast one final sentence toward Raku.

"Prove... yourself."

The words sank into Raku like a blade. For a moment he froze. Then, driven by a hunger born from some dark corner of his soul, he reached for the shackle.

The moment it bound him, whispers from the abyss filled his mind. Knowledge from the Endless Abyss poured into him, twisting his heart, reshaping him in ways he could not yet comprehend.

"I... understand," Raku growled at last, lowering his head, fangs bared. His eyes glinted with feral resolve.

With a sudden roar, he turned, not on Cillian, nor Mirethane, but on Velik.

Velik, already battered in his clash with Osiris, felt a searing pain tear across his back as Raku’s massive body shattered bone.

His wings were seized, then viscously ripped apart by Osiris with a cruel delight.

Here, there was no benevolence, honor, loyalty, love, friendship, family, to any such positivity, all were just illusions destined to collapse beneath betrayal and ruin.

In this realm, morality was as fragile as glass against the abyss’s lure.

As Velik’s blood spread across the poisoned sea, his fate was sealed. The Endless Abyss had claimed two new servants, one, the ancient ancestor of the Orc warriors, the other, the original abyssal dragon.

⸻———x——————

"Almost," Cillian said lightly.

He had brought Mirethane into the assessment world, to the planet closest to the Endless Abyss, a world which already lay firmly in his grasp.

"It’s time to wake. After so many deaths, so many prayers, even you cannot remain asleep."

Across the corrupted planet, war raged without end. Entire races who once worshipped angels were now divided, slaughtering one another in blind zeal. Yet no matter how they fought, they could not deny a grim truth.

The planet’s dark side, closest to the Endless Abyss, was collapsing. The land itself was being torn away, dragged piece by piece into the abyss and remade as its own.

The corrupted rejoiced, praising the abyss’s embrace even as their souls were doomed forever.

But amid that despair, countless others clung to faith. Facing what seemed like the final proclamation of doomsday, they fell to their knees in desperate prayer.

And perhaps their voices were heard, because as Cillians gaze turned upward, a chill ran across his body.

The white planet at the center of the assessment world had begun to rotate. After countless ages of stillness, it moved once more.

As it turned, vast transparent halos emerged, expanding across the star system. With each rotation, they drew in the scattered fragments of faith, weaving them into substance.

Faster and faster the planet spun, until seven radiant halos burst forth at its edge, each a different color. Together they spanned the whole of the universe, touching the spiritual sea of every living being.

On each halo, runes and inscriptions blazed, with marks of rules even Cillian could not decipher.

The abyss’s advance had been stopped. The seven halos, embodying chastity, temperance, diligence, generosity, and their kin, had arrested its spread.

Beneath their light, shapes began to form. Wings of radiance, forms of order, creatures of faith returning to life.

"..."

With the rise of the seven halos, seven beings descended, they were not creatures of flesh but made from the world laws themselves, embodiments of rules made manifest. Their arrival was born from the cries of all who prayed across the war-torn assessment world.

Even as the alien races knew they could not win, they chose to fight to the death against the Endless Abyss. They resisted in the face of blasphemous whispers, clawing for even the faintest chance of salvation.

But faith, for all its fervor, was weak against fire and steel.

Prayers could not shield homes from burning. They could not prevent cities from becoming dens of demons. They could not stop butcher knives from falling.

"Angel... I have worshipped you devoutly all my life..."

An alien woman knelt among the corpses of her village. In her trembling hands she clutched a small angelic idol, its face worn smooth from endless prayer. Around her lay the dead, her village chief, the knight she had secretly loved, her neighbors, her friends, all were silent now.

Her world had collapsed into silence. Only the howls of demons remained, twisted with cries of hunger and delight echoing across the ruins.

"In my life I have never strayed from your teachings," she whispered. "I worked every day for myself and for the church. This was the diligence you asked of me..."

One demon spotted her and stalked forward, its weapon raised.

"Whenever I saw misfortune, I gave what little I had. This was the generosity you taught me..."

The demon drew closer, the blade aimed at her neck.

"I never envied others, never intruded into lives not my own. This was the tolerance you taught me..."

Tears streamed down her face as she pressed the idol tighter.

"So I pray... when I die, take my soul with you. Do not let it... fall into that terrible abyss."

"—!"

When she opened her eyes again, she could hardly breathe.

And before her stood a true angel.

"Your soul belongs to the Creator forever," the angel said gently, radiance blazing from every part of his being. "We are only guides for your journey."

Behind her, the demon screamed as its body dissolved. It wasn’t just slain, it was purified. Flesh, spirit, and soul burned into nothingness, scoured so clean that even the Abyss could not reclaim it.

The angel extended a hand in blessing, touching her through the air. "But not yet. It is not time for you to return to heaven. Stand, and Fight—for yourself, for your family, and for everything you love."

Then the angel vanished, answering another desperate prayer elsewhere on the battlefield.

The woman stood trembling, staring at her hands. Could someone so weak truly fight?

The answer came in light.

A storm of radiance erupted from her, flooding the ruined village. Dozens of demons shrieked as their bodies and souls unraveled, their essence erased entirely.

[Tenth-Stage Divine Magic: Holy Light]

Her frail spirit sea had been ignited, an unshakable seed of faith planted deep within her. And In that moment, she was remade.

From a helpless villager, she rose as a bishop-level warrior of the angels.

"A... miracle..." she whispered.

And she was not alone.

Across the assessment world, others who had prayed with true devotion were transformed. On battlefields, in cities, on plains, mountains, and seas—the faithful were remade. Each became a beacon, leading scattered survivors into counterattack.

Demon nests burned under holy light. Villages once lost were reclaimed. Slowly, desperately, the balance of the war shifted.

Beneath the glow of the Ring of Virtue, this world began to lean once more toward the rule of angels. For the first time, evil faltered.

The balance of victory was tilting.

——————x——————

Elsewhere.

"Hah... I didn’t think this world’s ’final defense’ would be so impressive."

Cillian lifted his gaze. High above, seven radiant figures hovered, each indescribable and yet undeniable.

They had no fixed shape, no natural features, and still, the instant one beheld them, there was no question what they were.

Angels.

Each burned with a flame of a different hue, and from those flames unfurled halos and wings of light. Together, they embodied the Seven Virtues.

"So this is the final stage of the assessment world," Cillian murmured. "The prototype... the first drafts of angels from Heaven Mountain."

In the divine worlds of the fourth assessment, angels had long been worshipped as symbols of law and purity. But what stood before him now were not symbols, these were the originals, creatures where divine fire and law were one.

His eyes narrowed toward the fourteenth planet, halo-crowned at the center of the trial.

"I wonder what treasure lies there... the reward for clearing the fourth test." His voice dripped with greed.

But his thoughts were interrupted. One of the faceless angels raised their weapon, a blade of burning white fire, and pointed it at him.

Her voice thundered across the world, a judgment heard by all.

"Why did you create such depraved creatures?"

The flame along her blade roared higher.

"What do you... take life for?"

Cillian stood in their judgment. Seven angels loomed above, embodiments of virtue itself. And instead of fear, a crooked smile spread across his face.

"You ask me... what I take life for?" His eyes darkened, black pupils spinning with a vortex of red and shadow.

And he laughed.