Chapter 213: The Origin

The portal spit them out into a massive graveyard.

Nathan took a breath, and it hurt his lungs. The air was freezing and incredibly thin, like the atmosphere itself had died a long time ago. He was standing on cracked, grey stone. In every direction, the ruins of a completely destroyed city stretched out into the dark. Towers were snapped in half. Huge stone walls were crushed into gravel. The streets were buried deep under thick layers of grey ash and old bone.

He looked up. The sky wasn’t cloudy, and it wasn’t just night. It was pure, pitch black. It was a total absence of light that actually made his eyes ache to look at.

The rest of the team flashed into the World right beside him. Garrett had Volcan gripped tight in both hands. Dillon’s katana sparked, and Cloudy hissed nervously around his neck. Elise held Aurora’s Heart high, its blue crystal pushing back the gloom. Smithy stood low to the ground, his Void Eel swimming through the ash at his boots.

Mirko, Kuro, and Shiro all stood in their human forms, weapons drawn and eyes scanning the dark.

"This is it," Smithy whispered, his voice sounding completely flat in the dead air. "The Origin. The very first World he ever ate."

Nathan blinked and turned on [Hunter’s Insight]. The sheer amount of magical pressure almost knocked him over. It was ancient, heavy, and completely toxic. The energy was pouring out from the absolute center of the ruined city. Sitting in the middle of the ash was a massive palace made entirely of smooth white bone. It looked like a giant tombstone.

"He’s probably in there," Nathan said, keeping his voice steady. "The real Shepherd. Not a puppet. Him."

’I can feel him staring at us,’ Kuro sent through the mental link. ’He has been watching us since our boots hit the ground.’

’Let him watch,’ Mirko growled. Dragon’s Fang burst into a bright pillar of flame. ’This Knight doesn’t care. I am ready to break things.’

’We are with you, Young Lord,’ Shiro added. Her golden eyes were totally calm. ’To the very end.’

Nathan looked at his team. His family. "We came a long way for this. Let’s go finish it."

They started marching toward the bone palace.

The ruined city wasn’t empty. It was crawling with nightmares.

Thick shadows peeled themselves off the broken walls. Twisted, pale Watchers crawled out from under the rubble. There were corrupted monsters that looked like they used to be human, and darker, ugly things that didn’t even have a name. They poured out of the side streets, totally surrounding the team.

"Formation!" Nathan shouted.

The party didn’t hesitate. Mirko triggered [Gigantification]. A flash of jade light swallowed her, and she instantly grew to twelve feet tall. She swung her massive, flaming sword in a huge circle, literally cutting a dozen monsters in half and turning them to ash.

Shiro used [Dragonification], her skin covered in thick gold scales. She rocketed straight up into the pitch-black sky and dove back down like a missile. She slammed a [Tyrant Dragon Fist] into the middle of the horde. The golden explosion sent bodies flying through the air.

Kuro didn’t use flashy magic. She just slipped through the dark, her Veilweave Daggers phasing right through the monsters’ armor to slice their internal magic wires. Enemies just dropped dead before they even knew she was there.

Garrett and Red held the absolute center. Garrett’s new Aegis Pauldrons flared, eating the heavy hits from the monsters and pushing warm, healing energy right into Garrett’s tired muscles. He swung Volcan like a baseball bat, blasting waves of heat. "Keep moving forward!" Garrett roared. "Do not let them pin us down!"

Dillon and Cloudy owned the air above them. Dillon’s Tempest Shroud snapped and popped with raw static. He dashed through the crowd, slicing heads off, while Cloudy shot jagged chains of blue lightning that jumped from monster to monster.

Elise walked right beside Nathan. Her Glacial Crown glowed brightly, keeping the Shepherd’s sick whispers completely out of their heads. Her giant Frost Golem marched in front of her, crushing twisted Watchers under its heavy ice boots. Smithy used his dark armor to phase right through a crumbling wall, flanking the monsters and letting his Void Eel tear them apart from the shadows.

Nathan used everything he had. He fired [Starfall Barrage], raining silver arrows down on the crowd. He used [Nimble Feet] to slide past a giant monster, pressing his bow right against its chest and blowing a hole through it with a quick [Focus Shot].

They didn’t stop. They didn’t slow down. They carved a bloody path straight through the ash until they reached the massive bone gates of the palace.

The throne room was gigantic, cold, and totally empty.

The ceiling was completely lost in the dark. The white bone walls were carved with beautiful pictures of a World that used to have oceans, forests, and happy people. Now, it was all just dust.

Sitting in the dead center of the massive room, resting on a throne made of jagged black stone, was the Shepherd.

It wasn’t a puppet. It was his true form. He was impossibly tall, made of blindingly pale light and suffocating black shadow. His face was totally hidden behind a veil of moving darkness, but his eyes burned through it like two dying stars. His heavy presence filled the room like water filling a sinking ship.

When he spoke, his voice didn’t echo. It just existed right inside their heads.

"Little rabbit king. You finally made it."

Nathan drew a heavy arrow and locked it on his string. The team spread out perfectly behind him, weapons ready and humming with magic.

"This ends right now," Nathan said, his voice hard.

The Shepherd slowly stood up from the black throne. "You misunderstand. This is not an ending. This is a harvest."

The final fight began.

The Shepherd was a completely different level of nightmare.

He wasn’t just raw power. He was fast, smart, and terrifyingly experienced. He shifted his fighting style every single second, bending the shadows into spears, swords, and heavy shields. He countered every single move before they even made it.

Mirko charged in at her massive twelve-foot height, swinging Dragon’s Fang with enough force to cut a building in half. The Shepherd didn’t even dodge. He casually raised one finger. A tiny shield of compressed darkness stopped the flaming sword instantly. He flicked his wrist, and Mirko was thrown backward through the air, crashing hard into a bone pillar.

"Hmph! You hit hard!" Mirko coughed, forcing herself back up. "But I don’t quit!"

She charged again, but the Shepherd met her with a sword made of pure black smoke, forcing her backward.

Shiro dropped from the ceiling, her [Tyrant Dragon Fist] blazing like a tiny sun. The Shepherd just opened his hand and literally swallowed the golden fire into a black hole. He punched the air, shooting the exact same dragon fire right back at her. Shiro took the hit square in the chest, blasting her across the room and knocking her out of the sky.

Kuro tried to slip behind him, her daggers phasing through reality. But the Shepherd didn’t even turn around. A black whip of shadow shot out of his back, wrapped tightly around Kuro’s ankle, and slammed her brutally into the stone floor.

Dillon and Cloudy tried to flank him, shooting a massive bolt of lightning. The Shepherd caught the lightning bare-handed, crushed it into sparks, and hit Dillon with a heavy wave of dark magic that sent him rolling across the floor.

Garrett stepped right in front of Nathan, slamming Volcan down to build a heavy heat shield. "I’ve got you!" Garrett yelled. But the Shepherd just swatted the air. A wall of kinetic force shattered the shield instantly, picking the three-hundred-pound tank up and tossing him away like a ragdoll.

Elise fired a heavy [Glacial Lance] to freeze the Shepherd’s boots to the floor. He melted the thick ice just by looking at it. Her Frost Golem charged in, swinging its massive fists. The Shepherd raised a hand and simply unmade it. The golem didn’t just break; it exploded into harmless snow.

Nathan fired [Starfall Barrage]. The Shepherd’s shadow ate the arrows. Nathan fired [Death’s Homing Compass]. The arrow hooked sharply, but the Shepherd casually caught it out of the air and snapped it in half.

The team was getting completely destroyed.

Nathan’s brain was running at a million miles an hour. The Shepherd was way too strong. He was basically a god inside this room. But nothing is invincible. There had to be a weak spot.

Nathan pushed his B-Rank core to the absolute limit and triggered [Hunter’s Insight].

The fast-moving fight suddenly slowed down. Nathan looked past the Shepherd’s blinding magic. He looked for the circuit.

And then, he saw it.

The heavy black stone throne sitting behind the Shepherd. It was pulsing with a sick, dark heartbeat. A thick, invisible wire of pure magic connected the back of the Shepherd’s neck directly to the heavy black chair.

"The World!" Nathan screamed over the noise of the fight. "He’s connected to the Origin! The black throne is his battery! Break the chair, and you cut his power!"

Elise figured it out instantly. "He’s anchored to the stone! Cut the anchor!"

The battered team forced themselves up and moved as one. The Shepherd realized what they were doing and roared, trying to stop them. But they didn’t care about getting hit anymore.

Mirko jumped right in front of the Shepherd and cast [Impenetrable Fortress], taking a massive blast of dark magic straight to her shield to hold him in place. Dillon and Shiro attacked his sides, buzzing around him to keep his eyes busy. Garrett and Smithy threw themselves at his legs, disrupting his balance.

Elise sprinted past the chaos and slid right up to the black throne. She slammed Aurora’s Heart against the base of the chair and dumped all her mana into a point-blank [Glacial Lance]. The heavy ice sank deep into the black stone, freezing the rock solid and making it incredibly brittle.

The Shepherd realized what was happening. He let out a horrible, ear-splitting scream. "NO!"

Nathan planted his boots, ignoring the fight happening right next to him. He pulled Moonlight’s string back to his cheek. He started charging [Focus Shot]. Ten seconds. Twenty. Thirty. He dumped every single drop of his B-Rank mana into the arrow until it shone like a violent silver star.

His friends held the line. The Shepherd tried to break free, but Mirko held her shield firm, her boots sliding backward across the floor.

Nathan opened his fingers.

FWOOSH.

The silver arrow crossed the room in a blink. It slammed perfectly into the frozen crack Elise had made in the black stone.

The massive black throne exploded into a thousand pieces.

The Shepherd violently staggered backward, clutching his chest.

The invisible cord connecting him to the World snapped. His blinding aura flickered and dimmed. He dropped to one knee, and for the very first time, the burning dead stars in his eyes looked genuinely terrified. He was suddenly mortal.

Nathan pulled another arrow, ready to finish it.

But before he could pull the string, the room violently shifted.

The spot where the black throne used to sit didn’t just stay empty. Without the heavy black stone holding it down, the raw, ancient core of the Origin World erupted.

A blinding, deafening pillar of pure, pale energy shot out of the floor. It wasn’t the Shepherd’s shadow. It was something way older. The shockwave hit Nathan like a speeding truck. He lost his footing and stumbled backward right into the pillar of light.

The pale energy instantly grabbed him. It felt like falling into a freezing, rushing river. It was dragging him down, sucking him directly into the floor.

"Master!" Mirko screamed, abandoning her shield and diving toward him.

Nathan reached his hand out, trying to grab her fingers.

But the light swallowed him whole.

And in a single blink, Nathan Cross was just gone.