Beside a cliff behind Heim Fortress,
Hel gazed into the distance, watching the eerie violet-red beams of light slowly rising toward the sky. She murmured softly,
"So it's finally starting… then I should move as well."
As soon as her voice fell, she leapt backward off the cliff. Her body descended slowly, landing atop the tower of Heim Fortress.
When she lay down on the lounge chair that had been prepared long ago, her consciousness drifted away—returning to the side of the young mage.
At this moment, countless undead surrounded the young mage—hundreds of thousands of them. Centered around him, they sat cross-legged in concentric rings on the ground, forming a formation so vast and precise that it gave off an uncanny, oppressive aura.
The outermost ring formed a massive circle. Inside it were two nested pentagons, and from the vertices of the outer pentagon stretched five straight lines, connecting inward to shape a smaller one.
Anyone with arcane knowledge would recognize it—a ritual array.
But right now, no one was paying attention to the undead or what they were arranging. Every gaze was fixed on the colossal pillar of light rising far in the distance.
And not only here—in the plains northwest of Blossom City, and deep within a forest to the south of the Glorious Kingdom—identical groups of undead were setting up the same formation.
At the center of these formations stood the Grand Duke and his attendant.
However, the moment they connected to the undead network, their minds were completely taken over by Hel. Their bodies no longer obeyed their own will.
They could only watch helplessly as they led legions of undead to strange places and, under compulsion, began constructing these incomprehensible arrays.
"Who am I? Where am I? What am I doing?"
The same three questions echoed endlessly within their minds.
Their memories were so jumbled that they could no longer tell if they were still the Grand Duke and his attendant—or if they were the two deputy bishops from the God-Welcoming Church.
Even their sense of purpose had dissolved; they acted like puppets, blank and unaware.
Then, at the very instant the eighth beam of light pierced the heavens,
the three vast ritual networks across the land flickered once—and vanished beneath the surface.
In that moment, the hundreds of thousands of undead who had formed the arrays lost the souls within their bodies. They collapsed, lifeless—true corpses at last.
Then, in midair, the seven towering beams of light connected to one another, forming a massive ring that enveloped most of the Sacrificial Kingdom.
Within the circle, lines of crimson-violet energy traced rapidly, as though an unseen hand were etching a vast and intricate magic array into the sky itself.
The elements within the array's boundaries clashed violently, as if enraged by some blasphemous act.
Water burned.
Earth turned to sand.
Flames became liquid.
The air itself thickened into fluffy masses like clouds of cotton.
Even the undead began to show signs of revival, while the living started to wither and age.
But all those unnatural reactions ended within a few breaths.
Then, silence.
The elements grew still—only for waves of blood-colored energy to surge upward from the depths of the earth, feeding into the magic circle in the sky.
Hel knew what it was: the endless miasma of blood corruption, tainting the planet's leylines.
When the blood energy was completely absorbed, the outline of the array in the heavens was almost complete.
But it still wasn't enough.
To activate a formation of such magnitude, completion alone was meaningless—it needed a tremendous power source to awaken it.
And so, from every shadowed corner of the land, countless translucent figures began to rise, streaming toward the dark circle above.
If one looked closely, they would see that most of them were Beastmen—some human, some other races—all slain during the Beastman invasion.
Their souls floated upward, drawn into the array, making it burn even brighter. The violet-red glow deepened into crimson, then darkened further—until it became a foul, purplish black that reeked of despair.
Yet even after consuming all those souls, the circle did not stop.
It continued to draw in more.
The souls of the undead were ripped from their decaying bodies, and their flesh turned into misty blood vapor. Both spirit and essence were devoured by the formation.
When no trace of an undead remained within the array's domain, the formation's hue turned completely black.
Darkness spread across the sky.
Then, every element within the circle's reach began to corrupt—collapsing into pure, unrestrained demonic power, which surged wildly into the core of the formation.
The next moment—
a jet-black beam shot upward, piercing the heavens like liquid night.
Even far to the west, in the distant Magic Empire, the column of darkness was visible against the horizon.
Deep within the endless northern forests of the Empire stood Alfheim, the capital of the Elven Empire.
There, a small elven girl slowly opened her eyes. Gazing eastward, she sensed the vast, malevolent surge of magic filling the air.
Her serene face curved into a faint smile.
"The wheels of fate have begun to turn.
The Reaper who brings death shall meet death himself.
The changer of worlds shall spark rebellion against his own cause.
The judge shall face judgment.
All great powers shall perish.
The holy and the corrupt shall return to chaos.
Sun, moon, and stars shall fall back to the earth.
How pitiful—that the fallen Demon King shall be the one to save this world.
All has been decided.
Such is fate's decree—and the truth of this world."
With a quiet sigh, she closed her eyes once more, lying down upon her small bed. Within moments, she was asleep again—as if she had only spoken in her dreams.
Meanwhile, upon the Watcher's Wall at the eastern edge of the Human Empire,
Augustus watched the colossal formation in the distance, his expression grave.
It was strange to see such tension on the face of a massive dragon covered in silver scales.
"This feeling… it's the stench of corruption.
Damn it, that Holy Tribunal Church never said anything about encountering something like this on a routine mission."
He instinctively spread his wings, intending to flee the cursed land—
But a voice from nearby stopped him.
"Augustus, are you leaving already?"