Chapter 91: [Chapter 91 ● Nytherion!]
Nytherion had already claimed the battlefield.
The Veil of Misrecognition distorted understanding, the Oblivion Hunting Ecology turned the environment itself against those seeking answers, and the Unified Oblivion Collapse quietly eroded memory, continuity, and awareness.
Many of the outsiders no longer fully understood why they had come. Some struggled to remember what they were investigating; others found themselves unable to maintain a coherent chain of thought for more than a few moments.
Confusion spread faster than panic.
By the time realization should have arrived, it was already too late. The invisible darkwind descended, heads separated from bodies, and lives ended. Many died with bewilderment still lingering in their eyes, their minds never fully comprehending what had happened.
Meanwhile, the person responsible for the entire disaster appeared completely unconcerned.
Resting comfortably upon the sofa, Aphryne watched Aezaleon through half-lidded eyes. An infatuated smile rested upon her face. There was no jealousy or resentment, only a quiet yearning. Watching him lose himself in the warmth of one of his wives merely strengthened her anticipation. Soon enough, she would be in that position as well. And that thought alone was enough to leave her in an exceptionally good mood.
At the same time, Aphryne directed the darkwind to begin transporting the corpses toward the auction hall.
Bodies rose one after another from blood-soaked streets, shattered buildings, collapsed rooftops, and ruined marketplaces before drifting through the air under Nytherion’s control. Soon, they began piling up within the auction hall itself, forming a grotesque mountain of flesh and blood.
Yet the number of corpses continued increasing.
The adventurers never stopped coming, the investigation teams never stopped arriving, and the curious onlookers never stopped gathering.
To them, the disturbance surrounding the auction house remained an unsolved mystery demanding answers. What none of them realized was that the moment they entered Nytherion’s domain, they had already become prey.
Those who died beneath the darkwind did not simply perish.
Under the influence of Oblivion, the informational significance of their existence began collapsing. Memories lost stability, names became uncertain, relationships weakened, and the traces they left behind within the minds of the living gradually eroded.
The weaker the victim, the more complete the effect became. Friends forgot details, companions struggled to remember faces, witnesses lost certainty, and entire groups gradually stopped noticing who was missing and who was not.
As a result, information spread far slower than it should have.
Warnings never reached the people who needed them, reports became fragmented, and investigators disappeared before they could properly communicate what they had discovered. The dead accumulated, yet the alarm that should have followed never truly formed.
Consequently, more people continued entering the area, and more people continued dying.
From beginning to end, the investigation failed to organize itself into anything meaningful. For those standing beyond Nytherion’s reach, everything appeared strangely normal. No large-scale panic spread, no coherent reports emerged, and no one understood the true scale of the catastrophe unfolding within the thousand-meter radius surrounding the auction house.
The slaughter continued uninterrupted.
Five minutes later, Aphryne wrinkled her nose in disgust. The smell of blood had become unbearable. During that short span of time, more than four hundred and fifty ascension rank three ascendants had died. Dozens of rank fours had followed them, while even several rank fives had eventually succumbed after brief resistance.
The difference lay neither in talent nor combat experience; it was authority.
The stronger their spiritual ascension rank and soul foundation, the longer they endured. The weaker their soul stability and spiritual authority, the more vulnerable they became to Nytherion’s influence.
Many of those rank fives possessed powerful bodies and vast reserves of energy, yet neither offered meaningful protection against an elemental power that attacked awareness, memory, identity, and existential continuity directly.
The body could resist, energy could resist, but preserving the stability of one’s self, the fundamental information was an entirely different matter.
Aphryne had always been dangerous. Not because she was the strongest, but because she embodied a very particular kind of calamity—a silent one. The kind that spread unnoticed until the damage was already irreversible.
An inevitable disaster.
An unavoidable catastrophe.
A true calamity.
Yet despite the efficiency of her work, her expression gradually soured. The overwhelming scent of blood filled the entire area. "How annoying."
She stood from the sofa and glanced toward the entrance. "When are big sister and Auguszta coming back? It’s already been five minutes."
The true experts of Varion would not remain absent forever. Monarchs, academy officials, and high-ranking authorities—sooner or later, someone genuinely troublesome would arrive.
With that thought in mind, Aphryne stepped through the shattered window and drifted downward into the streets below. Though she lacked the ability to truly fly as an ascension rank three ascendant, the darkwind supported her effortlessly, allowing her to float above the ground as she moved away from the growing sea of corpses inside the auction hall.
Nytherion’s influence was terrifying, but it was not absolute. Against ordinary individuals, those who perished beneath its power were swiftly forgotten.
Names faded, faces blurred, and memories lost stability. The informational significance of their existence gradually eroded from the minds of the living. Yet there were always exceptions: individuals with vastly superior souls, experts who had comprehended the greater cosmic law of karma, or the concept of memory, casualty, or related powers.
Existences whose foundations far exceeded Aphryne’s and Nytherion’s own. Such people might not remember everything, but they could certainly notice the absence left behind. They could sense that something was wrong—a missing memory, a broken chain of recollection, or an empty space where certainty should have existed.
Whether they could resist that influence or reconstruct what had been lost was another matter entirely. After all, the boundary between the possible and the impossible was rarely as absolute as people liked to believe. Still, that was a concern for later. For now, Aphryne had no intention of allowing the investigation to properly begin.
A faint smile appeared on her face as the darkwind silently followed her into the streets.
More adventurers were arriving, more prey had entered the hunting ground, and she fully intended to greet them personally.
