Chapter 1502 - 63: Piercing the Core (2)

"I’m right here."

Nesanel spoke, his words dissolving into the lifeless dark. He wasn’t sure whether the other side had heard them.

"What a disgusting darkness."

Nesanel muttered to himself. Back in the Ethereal Realm, he had already witnessed how terrifying this pitch black truly was.

Darkness was like a door, a door leading to a world of frenzied chaos.

Beyond the door, countless unknown forces and dimensions intertwined, an endless tide of phenomena that defied human understanding. Time and space were in shambles here; reality and dream had no boundary.

Anyone who stepped into this blackness would feel their very existence challenged, even begin to doubt the authenticity of their own consciousness. In absolute, lightless deathly silence, all living things would feel fear and despair.

Even Nesanel, in confronting it, had felt a moment’s wavering, a crushing loneliness and helplessness before this boundless night.

He endured.

Since the Secret War and the Decay Plague, this was probably the toughest battle Nesanel had fought: resisting the dark’s assault on one hand, while finding a way to kill those three people on the other.

Nesanel managed it, but the price was steep.

He lowered his head and saw, upon his chest, a vicious through-and-through wound. If it had deviated just a little more, it would have shattered his heart. Pure Ethereal Radiance seeped from the wound, flickering like a raging blaze.

By relying on the Seeker of Glory’s Etherealization, Nesanel had survived that mortal strike instead of dying. Yet a hideous scar had already surpassed the limits of flesh and blood, etching itself onto his Alchemy Matrix.

The brutal Soul Scars had almost severed his Alchemy Matrix.

Nesanel coughed painfully a few times. The fully-rallied stance he had been forcing himself to maintain began to show a flaw. The blazing noonday sun he embodied now seemed much more desolate, like a dying sunset.

But a sunset is still a fierce sun.

"Seems I can’t beat you after all." Nesanel said to the darkness with composed calm.

A sound came from within the dark. Nesanel wasn’t sure if it traveled to him through space or had erupted directly inside his own mind.

It was a twisted, turbid, indistinguishable sound, like a thousand morbid melodies tangled together into an unbearable noise.

The sound first rose from the deepest depths of the Abyss, like some colossal, ancient, rust-covered bellows unfolding amid its muffled thumps.

Every intake of breath was like a raging gale rolling through a winter blizzard, shrill and icy as it tore across the night sky, carrying a piercing howl. Every exhale, by contrast, was like a traveler dragging heavy steps, exhausted to the bone, letting out a dull, drawn-out sigh.

At last, Nesanel understood that voice.

"Nesanel... you cannot do it..."

As if the Death God were proclaiming the final verdict on Nesanel’s fate.

"I know," Nesanel said carelessly, "I know there are things I can’t accomplish no matter what I do. But... my failure doesn’t mean others can’t."

"Don’t underestimate humans too much, Your Majesty."

The blackness covered most of the space, and just as it was about to devour Nesanel completely, suddenly its spread came to a halt, as if some invisible chains were wrapping it layer by layer. That power stood at the apex of all things; even this light-devouring dark had to submit.

The darkness howled with unwilling fury, yet no matter how it struggled, in the end it was nothing but futile thrashing.

And so the dark ebbed away like retreating tide.

"And also, it’s an honor to cross blades with you," Nesanel paused, then went on, "I can’t kill you, but I believe someone will one day grant you the mercy of release."

Clutching the wound in his chest, he coughed and laughed, mocking as he spoke.

"That future is no longer far off, Night King, Your Majesty."

His words echoed, then vanished along with the recoiling darkness into the Ethereal Realm. The two realms were completely severed; the foundations of reality returned to stability, as though nothing had ever happened.

Nesanel’s breathing grew increasingly rough. He dispelled the Secret Energy, finally allowing this furnace-like space to ease, if only a little.

The Ethereal Furnace was overheated and roaring; it was hard to imagine what might happen here if Nesanel kept stoking it.

The crisis was temporarily resolved. With tension inevitably relaxing, a massive fatigue washed over Nesanel, even his vision turning hazy.

He staggered over to the Ethereal Furnace, sat down with his back against the blazing steel, and closed his eyes. All his focus went into patching the wound on his chest, while his Perception spread outward like a vast net, sensing the movements around him.

Soon, a familiar Ether reaction appeared at the edge of his senses.

...

On the way under escort, Holt had no idea what exactly the All Secrets Order was plotting. Members were separated one by one according to Tier, sent to different floors, so that by the time he reached the Nest Core, only he remained, accompanied by the two Dukes at his side.

The inverted-triangle hive loomed close at hand. Within the semi-transparent gelatinous mass, figures curled up one after another, squirming gently like huge maggots, making Holt feel nothing but revulsion.

Beneath that inverted triangle, amid a field of dusky blue, a lady rose lazily from her chair. She seemed to have been waiting for him for quite some time.

"Aside from one Defender and one Negative Power User still at large, everyone else has been brought under Control." The Duke of Origin stepped forward and offered the explanation first.