Harem Of Eternal Yandere Beasts: My Legendary Wives

Chapter 73: The Eye Beyond the Sky

The sky screamed. It wasn’t the sound of thunder, the rushing of wind, or the physical collapse of mountains. It was a literal, coherent scream—a sound so vast that Orion felt it vibrating within his bones before his ears could process the noise.

The entire academy froze. Every student trailing behind the evacuation lines, every senior combat instructor occupying the high walls, and every cultivator within a hundred kilometers paused in their tracks. The world itself seemed to recoil from the sound, and inside the column of black light, the colossal eye continued to open slowly and patiently, like an entity awakening from a dream older than civilization itself.

The moment the eye opened completely, every defensive formation in the academy flickered violently. The Hall of Founders groaned under a sudden atmospheric weight, and ancient runes carved deep into the stone walls blazed with a fierce golden light. Emergency barriers expanded automatically, stacking one layer over another as centuries of ancestral defensive preparations reached the exact same conclusion simultaneously: extreme, existential danger.

Orion couldn’t look away from the horizon. The eye was structurally impossible. It existed, yet his senses insisted it didn’t. Every time he tried to focus on it directly, its shape seemed to shift and blur. One moment it possessed a vertical pupil, then a circular one, then dozens of concentric rings, and then none at all. His mind couldn’t settle on a single, coherent image; it was like trying to observe an object that reality itself refused to define.

Beside him on the stairs, Selene suddenly grabbed her temples, her posture buckling. "Damn it," she hissed. A thin trickle of crimson blood began to run from her left nostril.

Vale reacted instantly, stepping between her niece and the western horizon. "Don’t look directly at it," the instructor ordered. Her voice carried an absolute authority, backed by an undercurrent of urgency that Orion had never heard from her before.

Across the lower campus yards, several students had already collapsed to their knees. Orion could feel the physical manifestations of the panic spreading through the academy grounds like static electricity.

The massive eye moved just slightly, yet the subtle motion felt larger than the movement of entire continents. It looked downward, tracking toward the world, toward the capital city, and finally settling directly on the academy plaza.

For a single moment, Orion felt exposed. It wasn’t the mere sensation of being noticed; he felt entirely seen. It was as if every thought he’d ever compiled, every choice he’d made, and every secret he possessed had been laid bare beneath that impossible gaze. The oppressive sensation vanished a second later, leaving cold sweat across his back.

Suddenly, the System interface appeared. It didn’t manifest as a clean notification. Instead, the familiar blue screen shattered into existence, flickering with broken fragments, jagged cracks, and lines of visual static. The old bastard sounded entirely different—not afraid, but intensely focused. That shift in tone worried Orion more than a standard panic would have.

◈ MYTHIC SUMMONING SYSTEM ◈

*Do not establish eye contact.*

*This is not a joke.*

◈ ◈ ◈

For perhaps the first time since unlocking the core, Orion obeyed the interface immediately, dropping his gaze to the stone floor.

Caelum continued to stare straight ahead at the black pillar. His face had gone entirely pale—not the flush of immediate fright, but a haunted, hollow pallor. It was the expression of a man watching a catastrophe repeat itself in real time.

"The seal is breaking faster than it did during the convergence," Caelum muttered.

Vale turned her sharp gaze toward him. "What exactly happened fifteen years ago at the Frontier Branch?"

For several moments, Caelum remained silent, his knuckles turning white against his hilt. Then he let out a short, bitter laugh. "The exact same thing that’s happening right here."

The answer settled heavily over the group.

"The Frontier Branch discovered historical records," Caelum explained, his eyes never leaving the sky. "Ancient texts older than the founding of the Empire, older than every recorded kingdom on this continent. We believed the traditional Sovereign Path was fundamentally incomplete." He paused, exhaling slowly. "We were right. We just completely misunderstood why."

The black-haired cultivator closed his eyes briefly. "The Path wasn’t incomplete because power had been lost to time, Orion. It was incomplete because pieces of the progression framework had been intentionally removed from the world."

Silence stretched over the stone steps before Vale asked the obvious question. "Removed by whom?"

Caelum’s lips curved into a smile that lacked any trace of humor. "The old bastards who created it."

Orion’s eyes narrowed slightly. The specific choice of words felt deliberate. Very deliberate.

The broken System interface flashed again in his lower vision.

◈ MYTHIC SUMMONING SYSTEM ◈

*Rude.*

*Technically accurate. But still rude.*

◈ ◈ ◈

Caelum’s gaze shifted slightly, tracking the empty space just in front of Orion’s face. He couldn’t read the glowing text, but his expression confirmed everything. He knew the interface was there, and he knew exactly how it operated.

"The founders discovered that advancement beyond a certain stage accelerated the decay of the underlying seal," Caelum continued, his voice dropping an octave. "So they split the Path. They hid the advanced principles, erased the complementary techniques, and destroyed the records. They lied to their descendants to keep the entity contained."

The Hall of Founders trembled again, a deep seismic groan shaking the foundation. The black pillar expanded further, spilling thick ropes of darkness into the upper atmosphere. The jagged claw emerged completely, followed by the upper section of an arm covered in thick scales darker than midnight. The sight caused several distant faculty members on the rooftops to stagger, and one lower-ranked instructor collapsed outright from the spiritual pressure.

"What is that thing?" Selene finally asked, wiping the blood from her lip. No one mocked the question, and no one dismissed it.

Caelum looked toward the emerging limb, his jaw tightening. "I don’t know."

The absolute flatly delivered answer surprised everyone.

"I know what its awakening does," Caelum clarified, his voice turning ice-cold. "I know the type of destruction that follows it, and I know what happens if it fully clears the threshold of the light. But I do not know its name, its classification, or what it truly is."

That specific admission terrified Orion more than a complex explanation would have. Caelum wasn’t guessing or theorizing; the man had actively survived a confrontation with this entity’s influence, and even he didn’t comprehend its nature.

Inside Orion’s chest, the Sovereign Core pulsed three times in rapid, rhythmic succession. The sensation wasn’t entirely born of fear. It felt like an ancient, buried recognition—the feeling of hearing a dead language and somehow understanding the context of a single word. The impression lingered, persistent and profoundly uncomfortable.

Then, the massive eye shifted, looking away from the academy grounds. It turned its gaze across the distant western horizon, sweeping over the outer mountain ranges, the low forests, and the regional rivers, searching for a specific signature.

When it stopped, the gaze locked onto a point far beyond the visible horizon, deep within the interior of the continent.

The creature reacted immediately, moving with sudden violence. The massive claw slammed against the edges of the black pillar, fracturing the boundary of the light. Ropes of dark energy exploded outward, and the sky cracked again as though the entity had finally located its primary target.

"What changed its focus?" Vale whispered.

Before anyone could guess, Orion felt a sudden surge within his Sovereign Core. It wasn’t responding to the entity in the sky, but to a completely separate signature approaching the academy at extreme speed. Another pulse answered, followed by several more in rapid succession. It wasn’t a single individual; it was a coordinated group.

The air directly above the main plaza distorted violently, rippling like disturbed water. Students shrieked, and the nearby instructors instantly activated their combat techniques, their weapons humming with condensed mana.

Figures began to emerge from the spatial tears high above the academy grounds—five, ten, then twenty individuals snapping into perfect formation. Each figure wore heavy, unreflective black armor, carried specialized weapons, and radiated a crushing cultivation pressure. Engraved clearly upon the chest plate of every single newcomer was a distinct symbol: a silver eye.

Rowan’s face drained of color entirely. "The Hunters," he whispered, his voice barely clearing his throat.

The newcomers deployed across the sky with absolute discipline and perfect silence. There wasn’t a single wasted movement or stray fluctuation of energy; they operated like seasoned predators rather than an ordinary military line.

The lead figure stepped forward, descending slightly. She was a tall, silver-haired woman with striking golden eyes, and her passive cultivation pressure alone was intense enough to force the remaining lower-ranked students in the courtyard to collapse. She surveyed the campus layout, scanned the ancient structure of the Hall of Founders, and finally locked her gaze onto Caelum.

Her lips curved into a calm smile. "Found you." The words carried clearly across the entire campus, entirely unaffected by the roaring wind.

Caelum’s expression hardened instantly. The shift was subtle, but Orion caught it. The black-haired cultivator had shown a profound dread toward the entity in the mountain range, but toward these newcomers, he showed only a cold, focused hatred.

"You survived the purge," the silver-haired woman noted, her tone holding a hint of mild disappointment.

"I have a habit of disappointing people," Caelum replied evenly.

The woman let out a short laugh, and several Hunters behind her shifted their stances. Then, her attention turned, tracking across the steps until her golden eyes landed directly on Orion. The moment their gazes met, the ambient temperature in the plaza seemed to drop.

She tilted her head slightly, evaluating his stance, his core fluctuations, and his physical age. Then she looked back toward Caelum, her expression shifting into one of curiosity.

"Is that the replacement?" she asked simply.

Absolute silence reclaimed the steps of the Hall. Caelum didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he glanced toward Orion for a fraction of a second—a brief look that felt heavy with historical weight. Then, the black-haired cultivator let out a slow sigh, like a man accepting an inevitable conclusion.

"No," Caelum said clearly.

The silver-haired woman frowned. "No?"

Caelum smiled, the familiar, confident expression returning to his face, though it still didn’t quite reach his eyes. "He’s the last chance."

The sky screamed once more as the creature beyond the mountain range roared against its restraints. The Hunters tightened their aerial formation, drawing their weapons in unison, and the reality of the situation finally clicked into place for Orion. The Frontier Branch, the Hunters, the seal, the creature, the core, and the system itself weren’t separate mysteries. They were pieces of the exact same historical narrative—and he was standing directly at the center of it.

The silver-haired Hunter descended further, her blade humming with black static, as the System delivered a final crimson notification across his vision.

◈ MAIN STORYLINE UNLOCKED ◈

*The Last Sovereign War*

*Status: Active*

* **Objective:** Survive long enough to regret it.

◈ ◈ ◈