The blazing light from the flames burning atop that mechanical giant gate covered the entire royal capital.
It was as if heaven and earth were illuminated by that brilliant, scorching radiance, bathing the entire world in deep waves of fiery heat.
Everyone looked up, witnessing Viktor reappear in the world from within the flaming doorway.
A powerful sense of shock rose in everyone's hearts at the same time.
Everyone widened their eyes and mouths, too stunned to speak, able only to swallow dryly.
It wasn't just them. Even Hermes widened his fanatic eyes, which seemed to have flowing golden sand within them, his face filled with disbelief.
He stared fixedly at Viktor before him, the golden sand in his eyes seemingly frozen in midair.
"You… How could you possibly come out of… here…"
"Viktor!!!"
A clear and urgent female voice suddenly rang out, interrupting him.
Under everyone's gaze, a white cloud gracefully swept across the crimson sky.
The green elf leaned her body forward slightly and hurriedly pounced toward Viktor.
Cocotte tightly grabbed Viktor's arm with both hands, gently shaking it in midair as she tried to draw his attention back.
Her voice was full of worry and trembled as she asked, "Where did you go just now!"
But Viktor didn't pay any attention to her at all.
He didn't even look directly at Cocotte.
This made Cocotte feel that something was wrong.
She looked Viktor up and down, but as she did, she couldn't help freezing again.
"Vic… Viktor?"
Viktor seemed not to hear Cocotte's voice. He merely raised his head slightly and casually glanced at Erica, who was floating in the sky.
Erica lowered her head in the sky, looking at Viktor, whose gaze had fallen upon her.
At that moment, Erica finally relaxed completely, and even the flames on her body that represented her anger went out with them.
"Professor…"
Finally, Viktor gently raised his other hand and pushed away the arm Cocotte had wrapped around his.
Cocotte's hands slipped down from midair. With her mouth open, she could only helplessly watch Viktor leave.
A gentle breeze swept through the royal capital, carrying a light breath of wind past everyone's ears.
Amid everyone's silence, the royal capital was surrounded by a gentle wave of air.
Dust was swept up by the wind, while flames leaped and swayed.
Beneath the silence, countless people who had sunk into the sound of the wind stared tightly at Viktor, yet no one said another word.
Even the usually composed Aubrey raised his head, a trace of seriousness showing on his face, which was as calm as an ancient well.
Soon, Viktor stepped down to the ground on invisible steps made of air and gracefully bowed to Emperor Aubrey.
Then he turned around and walked steadily toward Hermes.
The god who had been frozen on the ground raised his head and stared in astonishment at Viktor approaching him, disbelief written all over his face.
Viktor's cold voice entered his ears like the freezing wind of the northern winter.
"You seem surprised?"
Hermes' eyes instantly widened when he heard that, and a chill seemed to seep into his very bones.
His widened eyes stared at Viktor like brass bells, and his voice began to tremble involuntarily, "You… How could you possibly come out of that door…"
"Could it be, you're also…"
No, that wasn't right. That couldn't be right.
Viktor was clearly a despicable cheater. He should never have been able to come back out!
Even if he really was one of them, he still shouldn't have been able to appear in this world again.
At this moment, Hermes' mind was filled with chaos.
His mind went completely blank, and he was too shocked to speak.
His eyes, bloodshot from excessive panic, revealed his madness even more clearly.
"Tell me! Viktor!"
"Why did it let you out!"
Cheaters should be punished. That was the common understanding shared by every god.
Even gods had to obey the rules.
Yet the rules themselves had let Viktor off?
Hermes was completely unable to understand it, countless questions churning inside him.
The more he thought about it, the more unbelievable it seemed. He staggered backward several steps as though he had lost all his strength, his lips trembling nonstop.
Seeing Hermes like this, Viktor smiled lightly, a trace of teasing in his voice.
"Why do you think it was the one that let me off?"
Hermes stood frozen in place, staring at Viktor without blinking as his mind raced.
Almost instantly, he opened his mouth wide again.
Because he had thought of a possibility.
A possibility so absurd that it even filled him with boundless fear.
Cold sweat poured from Hermes' forehead like raindrops. The golden wings behind him suddenly spread open and began beating rapidly.
Carrying a powerful whirlwind, he shot into the sky.
The next second, a dazzling golden light burst from the ground of the royal capital.
Like a meteor wrapped in flames, breaking free from the restraints of gravity and shooting straight into the sky.
Finally, after breaking through layer upon layer of space, Hermes was surrounded by flames and golden light, his entire body covered in cold sweat.
He lowered his head and looked down.
No one was chasing him. Good, very good.
Even so, only one strong thought remained in his mind.
He had to escape.
That cheater… No, he was no longer a cheater.
That was a "monster" that had surpassed the rules.
He had to leave this place, leave the empire.
He was a god. He was an irreplaceable god. He absolutely could not fall here.
In his extreme state of tension, all Hermes could hear beside his ears was the howling of the wind and the sound of the air splitting apart.
Layers of clouds swept past his eyes as he passed through the blue sky and plunged into the thick atmosphere.
He had to keep running. He absolutely couldn't stop.
Otherwise, if that "monster" caught up to him, he didn't dare imagine the consequences.
However, as Hermes fled farther and farther away, he suddenly sensed something strange about the air around him.
The temperature around him seemed to be getting higher and higher.
At first, he wondered whether it was caused by the heat from friction.
But the deeper he went into the clouds, the more something felt wrong.
Because the flames were already being held back outside by his divine power, while this heat directly penetrated his body and spread throughout his limbs.
Hermes suddenly looked around, his eyes widening in shock.
At this moment, the thick clouds had already been filled with interwoven black and crimson, like the shattered ground of hell.
Even among the deep layers of cloud cover, a low roar suddenly erupted, like the muffled ringing of a bell.
The alarm in his heart suddenly rang out, and Hermes felt a fear he had never experienced before.
'No, no!'
Even though it was so hot around him, cold sweat still broke out on his forehead, and his body was likewise wrapped in a chill.
Sweating from head to toe, he couldn't help turning around and slowly looking behind him.
What entered his eyes was an incomparably huge, blazing sun.
Its dazzling light instantly enveloped his entire body, pressing tightly against him.
In an instant, those pupils filled with flowing golden sand contained nothing but the reflection of that enormous crimson sun.
The terrifying blazing sun pierced through the crimson clouds behind him, completely swallowing his body, which was covered in holy light.
And from deep within the sun came a deep, scorching voice.
"I seem to have seen you somewhere before."
"When was it?"
As that voice sounded, Hermes' entire body went cold.
He trembled all over, but the cold sweat on his body had already been evaporated by the intense heat.
His throat trembled, desperately wanting to make a sound.
But because his throat was so close to the sun, it endured an extremely scorching veil of heat, and terrifying burning flooded into his throat. It was as though a violent tearing force kept churning within it.
Suddenly, an astonished expression appeared on Hermes' face.
Around him, the originally fine crimson cracks were gradually covered by deep darkness.
From between those cracks obscured by darkness, something seemed to be flowing down, deep black liquid, viscous and evil.
Countless tentacles formed from the pitch-black liquid slowly stretched out from the sky. The curved tentacles were covered with countless torn-open, twisted mouths.
The scorching sun was tightly wrapped by countless blasphemous tentacles, which gradually tightened around it in the sky.
The sun was compressed tightly as it collapsed, forcibly tearing a huge crack through the calm space.
A clear patch of pale white, like a vast ocean, floated before Hermes.
The next second, that enormous white shape began to rotate.
It gradually reflected into Hermes' golden eyes.
It wasn't a white ocean at all, but a white eye that had yet to turn around.
But at this moment, the eyeball within the spatial rift turned around.
That deep pupil, with crimson rings flowing through it, seemed to flow endlessly toward a distant abyss.
Sizzle! Sizzle!
A terrifyingly hideous eye stared at Hermes. Its enormous, boundless pupil almost made him completely lose consciousness.
But in his hazy consciousness, that clear and heavy voice suddenly struck his eardrums.
"I remember now."
Immediately afterward, countless twisted and ugly tentacles stretched out from around the eyeball, as though the abyss of chaos had awakened, gradually drowning Hermes.
Yet he could only helplessly watch his body being wrapped in sticky black tentacles, everything in his vision obscured by writhing darkness.
As if escaping from a scorching hell, only to fall into a freezing abyss.
As he slowly sank into tranquility in his daze, that sinister voice continued echoing in his mind.
Like a demon wrapped around his body, it lingered for a long time, "You ran away like this once before, too."
"And just like now, you betrayed the gods out of fear and fled alone."
"But this time…"
In an instant, Hermes, tightly wrapped up, became a mass of writhing black flesh.
Countless tentacles violently dragged him, while countless mouths kept tearing at him.
In the end, he was slowly dragged into those deep pupils.
Countless crimson rings circled around the black flesh, turning into faint waves of air that passed through the mutually tearing tentacles and flowed into Hermes' seven orifices.
At the moment when his consciousness was gradually becoming blurred, Hermes opened his mouth and let out a clear yet desperate voice.
"Ha… bi… ka…"
As that writhing mass of black flesh disappeared, the enormous, deep eye gently blinked its huge rift.
Under the pitch-black sky, only an enormous single-eyed blazing sun remained.
"This time."
"There is nowhere for you to run."
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