CHAPTER 352: BIRTH OF ENDLESS KINGDOM

Dark clouds swirled unnaturally over the Outlands.

The land of war-born races—home to orcs, goblins, and trolls—was now eerily still. Blood and ash hung in the air. Black lightning occasionally cracked across the distant skies, though no thunder followed.

Endless stood atop the highest ridge on the jagged cliff that overlooked the heart of the Outlands. Beside him stood Kael Dragonyx, still cloaked in silence, his face solemn yet wary. Flanking them in reverence and anticipation were the Chaos Twins, Aron and Selene, their crimson eyes shimmering with a feverish gleam.

Behind them, a new army of enslaved orcs and goblins knelt across the rocky terrain, shackled not by chains but by fear—of what they had witnessed Endless do, and of what he was about to unleash.

The Dragonyx Heirloom floated above Endless’s palm, spinning slowly. Its intricate etchings glowed with a dark red light, and a low hum vibrated across the air like a slumbering beast on the verge of waking.

Endless spoke, his voice like thunder muffled in smoke.

"Let the prison beneath become the kingdom above."

The Heirloom pulsed.

The ground trembled.

The earth cracked and split beneath the gathered horde as something ancient—something forgotten—stirred beneath the Outlands.

Kael narrowed his eyes. "You’re actually doing it... letting the Labyrinth seep into the world."

Endless smirked. "Not seep... conquer."

He raised the heirloom high. Dark tendrils of mana shot into the sky from it, piercing the clouds, and the heavens roared in protest.

Then—

The world changed.

A massive, towering gate materialized in the middle of the Outlands—a colossal archway formed of obsidian bone, rooted into the land like veins from the underworld. It split open like an eye—and from it, the Labyrinth spilled forth.

Not just beasts.

Not just madness.

But reality itself warped.

Black spires erupted from the earth like claws. Rivers of glowing red liquid, neither blood nor lava, poured across the ravines. The skies above turned crimson, the stars re-aligning into constellations shaped by dread.

Mountains twisted. Forests rotted. Lakes evaporated and were replaced with void pools—mirrors into the space between worlds.

A bone-chilling howl erupted across the horizon as Labyrinthian Sentinels emerged—creatures formed from steel, bone, and suffering. Towering behemoths with no faces. They let out distorted war cries in languages never spoken aloud.

The Chaos Twins could barely contain their awe.

Selene whispered breathlessly, "He... He’s fusing the Labyrinth with Aetheris."

Aron nodded, mouth slightly parted. "This is no longer the Outlands... this is..."

"My Kingdom," Endless said, lowering the Heirloom slowly.

A new sigil appeared on the sky itself—a burning crest made from the combined glyphs of the Labyrinth and the Dragonyx bloodline. It marked the land forevermore.

Kael turned his gaze downward, watching the land of the orcs and goblins being overwritten in real time—like a black tide washing away all that once lived here.

From the kneeling races behind them, cries of fear rose up. Some began weeping, others screaming, as their ancestral home was desecrated and reborn under a single will.

Endless.

He turned to Kael then, his expression unreadable.

"This was always meant to be your legacy. If not as king, then as the bloodline’s final key."

Kael remained silent, but something burned in his eyes. Disgust, or regret—it was unclear.

Far in the distance, the veil that separated the Outlands from the other regions shimmered and then shattered.

And with it came the truth.

The Outlands had ceased to exist.

They were now a living extension of the Labyrinth—a domain of illusions, shifting rules, and ancient monstrosities, all bowing to a single throne.

The Throne of Endless.

He turned to his new army—orc and goblin alike.

"Your gods are dead," he said, his voice amplified across the corrupted sky. "Your land is reborn. And your future, is mine."

The army remained silent, gripped by terror.

And with a simple gesture, Endless erected a citadel of impossible proportions right at the center of the new domain—a spiraling fortress shaped like a vertical scar against the sky. It pulsed with the heart of the Labyrinth. A heart that now beat within Aetheris.

---

Far away, in Eldoria...

Arch mages across the land collapsed from mana shock.

The skies turned faintly red.

And the sages of the Pacesetters Academy whispered the unthinkable:

"The Outlands are gone."

"And something else... has taken its place."

"What do you mean something else has taken place?"

Within the Arcane Observatory Tower of the Pacesetters Academy, a severe tension had overtaken the grand chamber. High-ranked elemental mages, diviners, and spatiotemporal scholars gathered around a Mana Conduction Sphere the size of a small house. At the center of the sphere, a blood-red rupture pulsed violently, sending chaotic fluctuations across the entire region of Eldoria.

The Pillars of the Academy—Carmilia the Ice Queen, Vlahoviç the Fleeting Spear, and Bowen the Dark Saint—stood in silence. In front of them was Drake Grey, elder brother of Morris, a war general clad in sleek black and silver armor, his blade always at his side.

"It’s not just an incursion," one of the sages muttered, her voice cold and sharp. "The Outlands... are no more."

"It’s worse than we feared," another sage added, face pale. "The Labyrinth has merged with our world. Endless—he’s claimed a kingdom."

Vlahoviç’s brows furrowed deeply as he reviewed the fluctuating energy charts hovering around him. "The mana density has destabilized in all outer borders. That abomination didn’t just transform the terrain—he’s infected the very ley lines. The mana of Aetheris is no longer whole."

Drake slowly unsheathed his sword. He looked towards the flickering sphere, then out the wide windows of the tower toward the horizon where a faint reddish shimmer now hovered unnaturally.

"The bastard’s planted a throne in our world," he muttered grimly. "And now... he’ll want the crown."

Carmilia clenched her gloved fists. "If Kaelen Dragonyx is the key, then the Academy must protect him at all costs. Endless’s eyes are on him."

"And Morris," Drake added with a soft pain in his voice. "He’s in that cursed forest... We need to prepare for war."

---

Meanwhile, At the inner sanctum of the ancient nested at the heart of the Elven settlement.

A great convocation had been called. The Ancient Elves, cloaked in robes woven from threads of wind and starlight, gathered in the floating sanctuary at the highest peak of their settlement. At the center, Velyrian the Seer, his eyes glowing with a white hue, was collapsed in a trance.

Suddenly, he gasped and rose violently to his feet.

"The Outlands are devoured!" he cried. "That... that THING... has made his move!"

Murmurs broke into sharp gasps. The oldest of the Ancients, Ish’thael of the Moonbark Lineage, gripped his staff.

"The Labyrinth walks in the light once more," Ish’thael said solemnly. "Endless has taken a throne."

Commander Maeralyn, who had just returned from preparing for war with the Nullcarvers, entered the hall just as Velyrian turned to her with wide, cold eyes.

"It’s begun," he whispered. "The old blood... the Seer... she must not fall into his hands."

Maeralyn tensed. "Then we must retrieve her now."

---

Even without scrying mirrors or mana spheres, Naena felt it. The earth itself whispered of ruin.

She staggered briefly near the Circle of Resonance, her face pale, her lips slightly parted as she pressed her hand to the ground.

Kelvin, standing nearby with Kaelen and Ethan, instantly noticed. "Naena?"

She exhaled slowly, eyes narrowed as she looked westward.

"Something has changed," she said, her voice laced with foreboding. "The Outlands... are no longer what they were. Something... something ancient has taken root."

Kaelen’s gaze sharpened. "Endless."

Ethan clenched his fists. "What did he do now?"

Naena turned to them, her eyes glowing faintly with green qi. "I’ve only felt this kind of atmospheric shift once—when the Celestials descended long ago to seal the Eternals. But this? This is... tainted. The mana lines have become twisted."

"Is Lila in danger?" Kaelen asked suddenly, his voice firm.

Naena was silent for a long moment. Then nodded once, gravely.

"Yes. The Labyrinth’s reawakening... it warps fates, not just lands. If Lila has truly awakened as a Seer, she is no longer hidden."

Kaelen looked to the horizon, his breath slow but heavy. "Then I need to finish the final path. Now."

---

— Far across Aetheris, high above the skies...

Even the Celestials, watching silently from their suspended domain, stood in grim silence. The blinding mirror of fate shimmered.

A single name echoed through the realms.

"Endless."

––––

Darkness was no longer absence.

It was presence—palpable, alive, breathing.

And at its heart stood Endless, shrouded in a cloak of devouring silence, as black mists rose from the very ground of the newly reformed Outlands—now a twisted, eternal maze known only as Endra’Zhal, the Realm of the Broken Cycle.

Endless stood before the Obsidian Altar, the Dragonyx heirloom still glowing faintly within his hand like a heart stolen from time itself. Beside him, Kael Dragonyx knelt—shackled in shadow chains, his once-proud gaze dulled with reluctant submission.

The Chaos Twins, Aron and Selene, stood a few steps behind, their amusement now subdued. Something... was happening.

Endless’s eyes, deep abysses swirling with violet and obsidian tones, lifted slowly toward the torn ceiling of the Labyrinth, where a fractured mirror of Aetheris’s mana web hovered in ghostly form.

"Now," he whispered, placing the Dragonyx heirloom into a circular hollow on the altar. "Let the world show me what it tries to hide."

From the altar, tendrils of ancient mana, black as nothingness, spiraled upward—connecting with the fractured web above. A terrible hum tore through the air, reverberating through the bone-like architecture of the Labyrinth.

The world... blinked.

And Endless saw.

He saw rivers, mountains, buried realms of beasts. The Elves scrambling to keep order. The humans trembling at their borders. The Nullcarvers, cloaked in old honor. And then—

A light.

A starborn pulse, hidden among the densest forest veils and chaotic mana streams of the Hybrid lands—lands even the Celestials rarely dared thread.

Endless’s head slowly tilted as his lips curled into a glacial grin.

"So... the last Seer-Blood walks alone."

A glowing vision now swam before him—Lila, her new blue-silver hair flowing as she soared over twisted ridges and rivers of mana so thick they bent reality around her. A sacred luminescence poured from her body, yet her face was focused, determined. She flew deeper... farther... as if pulled by something—by fate itself.

The Hybrid land warped around her, resisting and yet letting her through.

"And you walk willingly," Endless mused, "into the cradle of those cursed by gods and time."

Kael flinched from where he knelt as if he heard a name extremely familiar. "Lila...?"

Endless turned toward him, expression unreadable. "Even stars cannot escape gravity. And I... am the black hole beneath the heavens."

He raised a hand toward the fractured sky.

"Let her shine while she can. I now know... where she sleeps."

The mirror cracked again—this time, bleeding black mist.

The Labyrinth had seen her.

It could reach her.

---

Meanwhile...

High above a crimson ravine pulsing with ancient mana, Lila’s eyes narrowed. She suddenly shivered, her wings flickering mid-flight. A shadow passed over the skies—though there was no sun to cast it.

Her pulse quickened.

Her soul felt watched.

Something... knew.