Naro now stood at the pinnacle of the mortal world, a Rank 5 Blood Path Nyx user, his power is strong enough to shake the heavens themselves. Only a single step remained—a step that would carry him beyond mortality and into the realm of immortals. To do so, he would have to obtain and use the forbidden power of the Asrith Sacrifice, an immortal Nyx whose use demanded more than life itself.
…
The World of Nyx was not a simple creation. It was a structure of ten realms, forged and bound by the will of Heaven.
The first nine realms were cages of flesh and ambition—worlds for mortals, where Rank 5 and below struggled endlessly for power. Each of those realms was vast, each the size of an entire Earth, yet still they were but fragments beneath Heaven's gaze.
But the tenth realm… was different. It was the Divine Expanse, the domain of Immortals—those who had transcended Heaven's leash. It is ten times larger than Earth, a place where mountains reached beyond the stars and bloodlines of immortals walked freely.
No mortal could step into that realm by will alone. The moment one ascended to Rank 6, the Heavens themselves would cast them out from the mortal realms—banish them upward into the immortal domain, where eternity awaited.
Yet Heaven was no fool. It maintained balance through a cruel law: whenever the Immortal Nyx of a realm was used, Heaven would birth new ones—glimmering seeds of transcendence that called to the strongest of mortals.
It was an endless cycle—ambition feeding Heaven's will, mortals climbing toward divinity, only to vanish from their world the moment they succeeded.
And now… Naro stood before that final boundary.
In the Realm of Immortals, the name itself didn't mean that Nyx users are truly alive forever—for even the immortal realm, death was a thing. Ascension did not grant true immortality; it merely bought time. The difference was that in this realm, life itself could be bargained with. Countless Life Nyx flowed through its lands—ancient powers capable of stretching one's existence across centuries, or even millennia.
That was why the tenth realm was called immortal—not because its dwellers could not die, but because they refused to.
Yet, beneath the brilliance of its skies lurked horrors beyond imagination. The Immortal Realm was no paradise—it was a crucible of creatures and monsters. Within it roamed beasts born from the chaos of creation, each strong enough to erase an immortal in a single breath. The weak were devoured, the foolish forgotten, and only those with both might and wisdom carved their names into eternity.
To survive there was not a matter of power alone. It demanded strategy, knowledge, and willpower.
For in the Immortal Realm, even legends bled—and the heavens themselves watched in silence as the strong rose upon the corpses of the fallen.
…
Naro was ready to face the Asrith Sacrifice Nyx cave.
He left his castle beneath the night sky, the moon sliding across his staff—a blood-red long rod resting against his back. His black armor absorbed most of the light, reflecting only thin traces of silver. His exposed fangs curved slightly, from his smile. Every step forward meant he had survived something others had not.
The cave was distant.
Normally, he would have walked.
This time, Naro activated the Immortal Light Travel Nyx.
Light wrapped around his body, pressing inward. Space folded, then collapsed.
He reappeared in front of the cave.
Pain followed immediately.
It wasn't dramatic, but it was sharp enough to make his breath hitch. His soul wavered, strands of it thinning from the strain of forced movement. Naro frowned slightly. Mortal limits were always waiting to be reminded.
He crushed the soul-recovery stones, letting their cold essence settle his soul. Only when the tremor completely subsided did he allow himself to rest.
The night passed in silence.
When he moved again, the cave was unchanged.
Hidden. Too quiet for the forest.
The forest around it felt abandoned, as if life itself had learned to stay away. From the depths of the cave, a sound drifted outward—soft at first. A thin ringing, accompanied by something like slow, metallic breathing.
Naro stepped inside.
With every step forward, the sound grew clearer. The ringing wasn't singular; it layered itself, different pitches rising and falling, never settling into a pattern. The deeper he went, the more it pressed against his senses.
"Boy…" Dracula muttered, his voice low.
"There's a guardian here. It stopped entire armies. This isn't something you can overwhelm."
"I defeated you," Naro replied without slowing.
"You have no right to talk."
Dracula clicked his tongue but said nothing more. Blue gem-lights emerged along the cave walls, embedded like veins of crystal. Their glow reflected off stone and water alike. The ground gradually sank until a shallow pool spread across the cave floor.
Naro stepped onto the water. It held his weight. Only after several steps did he notice the reflection.
The gems above were blue. But in the water—they burned red.
Naro slowed.
Not enough to stop.
Step.
The surface beneath him gave way.
Cold swallowed him, and before he could orient himself, the world twisted. Up became down. Weight shifted. Then he emerged again—standing, breathing, whole.
But the cave was wrong.
The gem-lights around him glowed red now, their reflections above shining blue. The realms had exchanged positions.
Naro took a breath.
This was not an illusion. The pressure on his soul was different.
Footsteps echoed.
Not splashes. Not echoes of flesh.
Step. Step. Step.
A figure approached.
The guardian with white-golden armor, elegant, flawless and yet empty. It had N=no aura of life. No soul fluctuation, only sound.
The ringing intensified, vibrating through the cave walls, slipping between pitches until it became disorienting.
"DODGE!" Dracula shouted.
The warning snapped Naro into motion. He twisted, staff rising as the guardian's weapon crashed into it.
CLANG! metal on metal
The impact shoved him back, water rippling violently beneath his feet. His arms tightened, muscles straining as he absorbed the force—The guardian's strength was no exaggeration. After all, it was entrusted with guarding a rank 6 Nyx, Against this guardian, even the peak of rank 5 mortals would struggle to survive, let alone gain the upper hand. Facing it head-on was not bravery, but a gamble where a single mistake meant death.
Naro saw it's details clearly; The armor was hollow, fully empty inside.
"Interesting, no wonder I didn't sense it with my Heart Beat Sensing Nyx." Naro thought to himself.
The guardian pulled back slightly.
Then it rang again—this time sharper, more focused, a new pitch.
The next attack came faster.
A slash tore through the air, compressing pressure ahead of the blade. Naro shifted his footing, narrowly avoiding the strike. Stone behind him cracked under the displaced force. The guardian did not pursue immediately.
It hummed.
Multiple pitches overlapped, rising rapidly.
Dracula's voice turned serious.
"WATCH OUT!"
Naro's instincts screamed.
The guardian vanished.
Not movement—disappearance.
A moment later, space behind Naro distorted.
Impact.
A kick struck his torso with terrifying precision, collapsing his guard and launching him directly into the ground. His body lost it's balance and gravity as the world flipped again, forcibly expelling him into the blue gem realm, the force sent him flying out and then slammed into solid ground again.
Pain bloomed late as blood surged up his throat. Naro coughed, forcing himself upright, eyes wide not in panic-but calculation.
"This guardian did not attack recklessly." Naro thought inwardly.
A little time passed.
the guardian did not stop, It tilted itself forward—and then it dived straight into the ground, the ground itself opened for it. The red gem realm rippled, and in the next instant, the guardian emerged within the blue gem realm.
Before Naro could get a chance to rest—A ringing sound echoed.
The pitch was familiar, identical to the first.
The guardian then attacked.
Naro reacted on instinct, shifting his footing and narrowly avoiding the strike. The attack passed through the space he had occupied only a breath ago, tearing the ground apart.
Both Naro and Dracula caught onto something.
"…You realized it too, didn't you?" Dracula said slowly.
Naro did not answer at first. His gaze remained fixed on the guardian.
"With every pitch," Dracula continued, "comes an attack. Each sound is not random—it announces the move."
"This pitch just now is exactly the same as the first one. And the attack was the same."
A pause.
"We can read it's attacks!" Dracula chuckled. "This guardian isn't chaotic. It follows rules."
For the first time since the battle began, Dracula sounded hopeful. "We have a chance at winning."
"I know." Naro replied coldly with a frown.
But opportunity did not mean winning.
The real problem was not if they could read it.. It was how many pitches the guardian possessed, how many attacks were hidden behind those sounds, and whether Naro's body could endure enough strikes—long enough—to memorize the rhythm before it broke.
The guardian remained motionless, its hollow armor humming faintly, as if cycling through unseen tones.