Right after the world was dyed in light, Alon's body immediately began plummeting toward the ground.
Alon was startled for a moment, but he quickly understood his own condition.
‘Just as I thought, I kept Reverse Heavens going longer than I needed to.’
Fundamentally, Reverse Heavens put an enormous strain on the user.
That remained true even after he had grown accustomed to using it.
The more accustomed he became, the more efficiently he could use Reverse Heavens and extend its duration, but that did not mean he could erase the burden itself.
‘...I did use it a little too much.’
As he fell, Alon looked up into empty space.
The clones he had created all across the sky vanished the moment Reverse Heavens ended, as though they had never existed in the first place.
Naturally so.
The clones he had created this time with the newly acquired Illusion of Totality—each one so real it might as well have been genuine—were never something he could have used this way without Reverse Heavens to begin with.
‘It corrupts all magic spheres or matter containing at least a certain amount of magic power into illusions, huh.’
Alon recalled the hundreds of clones.
Clones that each possessed magic power similar to what Alon outwardly displayed.
Thanks to those clones, Alon had been able to deceive Bringing-In Night’s eyes and plant a “misconception” in it.
The misconception that, by lowering the magic power of the other clones ever so slightly, Alon was trying as hard as possible to hide himself.
The misconception that Alon knew nothing, and was desperately flailing in an attempt to force out a victory by landing one hit out of hundreds of attacks.
And that misconception had cracked the exquisitely maintained defense of Bringing-In Night.
With that, Alon had been able to seize his chance at victory.
‘I’m tired.’
Even while falling toward the ground, exhaustion washed over his body.
The magic he had used to deal with Bringing-In Night had long since passed dozens and reached three digits, large and small combined.
It was only natural that fatigue beyond imagination would come crashing down on him.
That said, he could not simply crash into the ground as he was, so Alon let out a deep sigh and twisted his body.
And just as he was about to force himself to use Reverse Heavens one more time—
Thud-!
Someone caught Alon’s falling body.
[Qyu-!]
It was Kkamangi.
Perhaps because it had been feeding on the magic power from Reverse Heavens, Kkamangi was still in the form of the Devourer of Poison. It caught Alon just like that, then landed on the ground.
“Alon!”
“Are you alright?!”
The moment Kkamangi shifted back into the form of a cat and set Alon down, Penia and Evan came running from far away.
Just as Alon was about to wave a hand lightly to tell them not to worry,
his vision was suddenly swallowed by red and blue light.
Naturally lowering his gaze, Alon discovered light pouring out from the pocket inside his coat.
[Qyu!?]
Kkamangi beside him wore a startled expression, and Alon, as if entranced, reached out and pulled something from inside his coat.
The moment he did, Alon realized the identity of the shining jewel.
‘This is—’
It was the jewel he had received from Yutia.
More precisely, the jewel that was said to have appeared after the maggot’s father disappeared.
And it was giving off a magnificent radiance.
“Alon!”
Penia and Evan must have thought something had gone wrong, because they rushed toward him even faster.
And in that very instant—
everything stopped.
Kkamangi, startled out of its wits amid the fierce light, stopped.
Penia and Evan, running toward him while calling Alon’s name, stopped.
Even the countless fragments that had been falling from the sky after Bringing-In Night’s death stopped.
A sudden situation.
Alon tried to move his body, but—
‘It won’t move.’
Regrettably, he could not.
Only Alon’s mind could continue to think.
As if to tell him that he too had been trapped inside this frozen time, his body refused to obey him.
‘What in the world is this—’
Just as an involuntary note of unease rose onto Alon’s face—
Click.
A tiny sound reached his ears.
Very small.
And yet unmistakably audible.
Click.
The next moment, Alon realized it was the sound of someone approaching.
Click.
The time after that, when it became a little clearer, Alon realized it was the sound of shoes.
For some reason, it sounded strangely familiar.
Click.
The sound was coming closer and closer.
But Alon could do nothing.
In a place where time had stopped, he could only remain still and listen to the approaching sound.
And when the footsteps came to a halt,
Alon realized that something had reached him from behind.
Slide—
Soon, he felt a hand stroking his head.
Not just once.
A touch that stroked his head again and again.
...And yet for some reason, it felt like a touch steeped in lingering longing.
At that strange caress, Alon wanted to turn around, but he was still frozen in place.
And then, at the final moment—
[...Whatever it may be, whatever you choose will be the right answer.]
A voice sounded by Alon’s ear.
A murmur heavy with longing.
...A murmur tangled with many different emotions.
And then—
Crack-!
The world, which had definitely been stopped just moments ago, began moving once more.
And Alon—
[One who has obtained the qualification of Rhythm, speak the path you wish to walk.]
—heard a voice ringing inside his head.
Yutia silently stared at the enormous eye before her.
That infinitely alien eye, moving incessantly as though it might suck something in, spoke to Yutia.
[I expected you would come.]
“My, did you?”
[Yes. You bitch interfered with my business before as well.]
“Then that makes things easier.”
Yutia’s voice was calm.
But Staring Void answered without wiping the amusement from its tone.
[What exactly is easier about it? Don’t tell me—are you about to babble something like, “If you stay still, I’ll kill you painlessly”? Hmm?]
The Void giggled and cried out in delight.
[What a shame, monster bitch! You’ve fallen into a trap.]
“...A trap?”
[Of course! You’re already too late—!]
Craaack—! Craaash!!!
At Void’s words, the space around them suddenly began shattering like glass.
And what appeared at the same time was—
[I’ve already absorbed all the sacrifices! Unlike last time!]
—an empty moonlit meadow, barren to the point of desolation.
A meadow so empty it felt hollow.
And yet the red liquid below the abyss seemed to tell what had once been here.
From within that abyss, Yutia looked ahead.
And standing there was a man emanating a presence so grotesque it sent chills down the spine just to look at him.
A man with black skin, reverse-colored eyes, and black hair like a mane hanging below his waist—
No, Staring Void.
Standing there in silence, Yutia soon let out a low sound of realization.
“Hm, so instead of waiting for Stage 4, you decided to devour everything ahead of time?”
[Yes. Because I expected you would come.]
“But if you did that, you won’t be able to recover your original power.”
At Yutia’s smiling question, Staring Void let out a crooked chuckle.
[Hah, you’re right. Even after devouring tens of thousands of sacrifices and dozens of Divine bloods, my power only managed to reach Stage 3. But that doesn’t matter.]
“Why not?”
[Because on this continent right now, there’s no one stronger than me.]
Grin—
[It’ll be a long time before those bastards come down. Long enough for me to make this entire continent mine and still have time left over.]
“...So you mean to finish unifying everything quickly before the other Divine bloods descend?”
[Correct. And I intend to kill you miserably as well, now that you’ve stepped in here.]
Void’s two eyes flashed toward Yutia.
Still smiling, Yutia asked in return,
“Do you really think that’s possible? Killing me, I mean.”
[Do you think it isn’t?]
“Hmm...”
Yutia pondered for a moment.
Then she pulled something from inside her clothes.
It was a pocket watch.
An old-looking pocket watch.
Click.
Yutia glanced once at the pocket watch as it opened with a small friction sound.
Void found that puzzling, but before it could finish the thought, Yutia turned her eyes forward again and tilted her head.
“Certainly, defeating you as you are now does seem difficult.”
At those words, Void, which had been momentarily blank, broke into a grin.
Tick—
[You’re quick to realize things.]
“Since it’s come to this, may I ask just a few more questions?”
[I’ll allow it. If I had it my way, I’d tear you apart right now, but unlike you, I am magnanimous.]
Void, clearly convinced it had already secured victory, accepted with a smile.
Yutia slowly opened her mouth.
“If I’d arrived just one day earlier, it seems the situation might have been different. What do you think?”
[Hah—if that had happened, I wouldn’t have been able to deal with you. At the time, I still hadn’t absorbed the sacrifices sent from over there. But there’s no need for you to dwell on that regret.]
“Why is that?”
[Because—]
Grin.
[That is something that would absolutely never happen.]
At Void’s ecstatic sneer, Yutia thought for a moment, then asked,
“Well, fine. Then let me ask something else. You said you’ll unify everything, but won’t that be a little difficult with Stage 3 power? After all—Stage 2 will be descending soon.”
The dim moonlit night illuminated her.
[Hah, don’t worry, monster bitch. Even if I lowered myself to Stage 3 to descend faster, now that I’ve absorbed all the sacrifices, I’m no ordinary Stage 3.]
“...I really did walk right into a trap.”
Seeing a small light settle over her murmuring face, Void seemed to decide no more conversation was needed. It stepped forward and said,
[I’ll tear you apart and kill you miserably.]
“Aren’t you a little too confident?”
[What?]
“Well, you don’t even properly know what my ability is, do you?”
[Do you think that kind of thing matters in this situation?]
Her face, which had been dimly shaded, had somehow begun to glow orange.
And at that very point,
Staring Void felt something off.
A strange sensation that something was going wrong.
“Mm—of course it matters.”
Staring Void stared blankly at her face.
The face that had held a reddish-orange glow moments ago was gradually beginning to shine brighter.
“Because I may have fallen into your trap—”
No, it wasn’t just that.
Her body, clad in dark ceremonial robes, had begun to shine.
The sense of wrongness intensified even further.
And then—
“—but you also fell into mine.”
—tick.
The moment it heard those words,
Staring Void understood.
The truth behind that bizarre sense of wrongness—
[...Ah?]
It was not that her face was glowing.
It was not that her ceremonial robes were glowing.
It was merely—
light.
A sun that did not belong in a dark moonlit night, the warm sunlight of midday, shining down on her.
And the instant it recognized that, Void realized something else.
The sun floating above Yutia’s head was moving toward the east at an impossible speed.
No—
it was rewinding.
Her glowing face gradually began to turn orange once more.
—tick.
[Wh-what?]
The face dyed orange slowly faded back into dimness again.
And what it arrived at was—
“What a shame.”
night.
A night beneath a blue moon.
The tens of thousands, thousands of sacrifices it had stored up—
[Ah?]
—still existed exactly as they were.
The night of one day earlier.
“What was absolutely never going to happen ended up happening.”
At Yutia’s words, Staring Void stared at her blankly.
More precisely, it stared at this scene.
No matter how hard it thought, its mind could not understand the situation.
And yet instinctively, it could tell.
This was not a dream.
Nor was it an illusion.
This was unmistakably reality.
What lay before its eyes were clearly the countless sacrifices it had gathered until now.
And the power it had gained by absorbing them was gone.
As though—
────time had turned back.
[Ah.]
With that realization, it let out a sound that was neither quite shock nor quite lament as it looked ahead.
Yutia was there.
Her reptilian red pupils shone a vivid crimson, as though resonating with the red light of the countless sacrifices.
And at the end of the arm she had stretched straight upward, her index finger was raised.
And then—
“Sacrifices.”
Click.
“I’ll enjoy them.”
Crush—!
That was the last scene Staring Void remembered.

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