Chapter 1661: Descent of the Zenith Cathedral
The World Tree’s roots splintered.
Like raw nerve endings, the main trunks frayed into countless pulsing tendrils, their bark glowing with concentric, ring-like patterns. Through Orion’s senses, the World Tree of the Titanion Realm was clearly evolving. Its creeping roots choked the landscape like ivy, violently siphoning the realm’s life force and origin energy.
The same devastation ravaged the third world, and the ravenous consumption awoke something buried deep below. A furious bellow erupted from the bowels of the earth.
Orion, the Lifeless Dreadgod, Archbishop Kysar, and Moriphara all felt the shockwave. Yet, the entity’s nature and location remained a total mystery.
The group exchanged tight glances before settling their eyes on Archbishop Kysar. This world belonged to the Cult of Four. If anyone knew what lurked beneath the crust, it was him.
"I told you," Archbishop Kysar said evenly. "We Archbishops are mere pawns to the gods. How could a piece on the board understand the player’s grand design? I warned you that devouring the three great worlds would attract things beyond our control."
He remained undisturbed. He knew that when the sky fell, the tallest giants would catch it. The figures standing before him were no giants. Explaining further was a waste of breath; they only needed to pass their findings up the chain and await judgment.
A second bestial roar shattered the silence.
As combatants at the fourth and fifth stages of the demigod realm, Orion and the others noticed the subtle shift immediately. This came from a completely different entity.
"Fools! We are out of time!" the Lifeless Dreadgod snarled, his suppressed rage aimed squarely at the Cult of Four. "Spit out what you know so we can formulate a plan!"
"We are equally in the dark," Maximilien replied. The demigod phantoms of him and Eryx materialized behind Archbishop Kysar. Like Orion, they were straining their senses, trying to read the shifting reality of the third world.
"Useless!" the Lifeless Dreadgod spat. As an ancient being of vast experience, he absolutely loathed chaotic variables and blind spots.
Perhaps his sheer hostility worked; the terrifying roars ceased. But none present were foolish enough to breathe easy. A ticking time bomb lay buried in the third world, ready to detonate at any second.
"The second world has completely collapsed!" someone shouted.
Instantly, Orion, the Lifeless Dreadgod, Archbishop Kysar, Moriphara, the phantom of The Progenitor Swarm, Maximilien, and Eryx vanished like streaks of shooting stars.
The ruin of the second world left the God-Slaying Ballista exposed and masterless. No one was going to pass up a Demigod Artifact capable of locking onto a soul.
The seven phantoms descended into the void. Floating debris and volatile spatial rifts surrounded the epicenter, where the God-Slaying Ballista pulsed with blinding divine light.
"It’s mine!" the Lifeless Dreadgod roared. He was closest to the prize, laughing like a maniac. "First a divine heart fragment, now the God-Slaying Ballista! Even the Will of the Realm favors me!"
In that split second, the other six—Orion included—reached a silent, deadly consensus. They unleashed their full power, obliterating the Lifeless Dreadgod’s phantom on the spot.
"Hand over the Demigod Artifact." The voice was cold and distinctively feminine—a stark contrast to the usual insectoid chattering of The Progenitor Swarm.
The Progenitor Swarm detached from Moriphara, breaking down into countless runic insects that flickered out of existence. But they hadn’t vanished. They swapped. The swarm materialized in the center of the ruins, perfectly trading places with the God-Slaying Ballista, which dropped straight into Moriphara’s waiting hands.
The maneuver happened in a blink, but for demigods, a blink was more than enough. Kysar, Maximilien, and Eryx of the Cult of Four struck as one, shredding the Swarm’s phantom to ash.
Realizing the weapon was gone, their heads snapped toward Moriphara.
The sight made them freeze.
Moriphara held the God-Slaying Ballista, but Orion stood directly behind her. His arm was shoved straight through her chest, his bloody hand clamping down on the heavy weapon right beside hers.
"You..." Moriphara choked out, staring over her shoulder in pure disbelief.
Only now did she grasp the sheer depths of Orion’s power. It eclipsed all her calculations. The abyssal dread rolling off him felt eerily identical to the terror of The Progenitor Swarm.
With a wet tear, Moriphara’s physical form burst, disintegrating into the void.
"Kill him!"
Orion hadn’t even secured his grip on the God-Slaying Ballista before the three Archbishops of the Cult of Four descended upon him in a lethal crossfire.
Yet, in that razor-thin margin between attack and defense, time froze.
Radiant holy light pierced the void, violently tearing open the second world—now a complete Godforsaken Land. A massive rift ripped across the sky above them, bleeding a heavy, dark-gold light that painted the ruins. Reality itself seemed suspended in amber.
A sprawling cathedral, bathed in endless divine light, slowly descended from the rift. It brought with it cascading rubble, gleaming stained glass, and the four Divine Idols crashing into the earth.
The sheer bulk of the cathedral cast Orion, Archbishop Kysar, and the others into a suffocating shadow. An eerie, absolute silence gripped the battlefield. The surviving demigods stood totally paralyzed, stripped of even the instinct to run.
"The... the Zenith..."
"Cathedral!"
Archbishop Kysar swallowed hard, the audible gulp loud in the sudden silence. He choked on his own spit, craning his neck in disbelief. Beside him, Maximilien and Eryx looked equally paralyzed.
They had hollowed out the Zenith Cathedral themselves. To see it manifest here, entirely under its own power, shattered everything they knew.
Bellow!
Hiss!
Before the shock could fully set in, two alien cries echoed from within the cathedral. The noise acted like a lit fuse, drawing a violent response from the void. The two roars they had heard earlier erupted in answer.
Roar!
Howl!
Bellow!
Hiss!
The four distinct sounds crashed together. Their pitch and cadence rapidly synchronized, vibrating until they merged into a single, deafening frequency.
As if answering a summons, cascades of divine light spilled from the Zenith Cathedral, striking the four divine statues embedded in the earth. The stone idols stirred to life. They writhed, shedding dust and shattered rock as their forms bled into one another, violently fusing into a single entity.
