Abyss Draconis

"Huuuu..."A deep inhale left Aster's lips as she slowly released her clenched fist before asking.

"Tell me, Ryuk. How do you intend to handle the coming Knull Invasion?" she asked, watching as Ryuk slowly turned his head towards her, one eyebrow raised in a questioning look.

"The coming Knull Invasion?"

"Coming?" he repeated, and Aster tilted her head in confusion.

"Oh... I guess it makes sense. You don't know. But the Knull Invasion is already here," he said, watching her scramble for her device in shock, tapping a few buttons before placing it down.

"No. It's not. They haven't even discovered the entrance yet?" she asked, as Ryuk chuckled and rose to his feet.

"Of course they haven't. They're an obsolete group, after all..." he said with an unbothered expression, gazing off into the distance.

"Five Knull Portals have opened up in Endearth as we speak, and Grade E is now filled to the brim with Knull Creatures..."

Aster's expression furrowed as she reached for her device to gain control of the satellites in Grade E, but that was when the real problem came.

She could no longer get the satellite feed anymore.

Not because the transmission was blocked... but because there was—

"No signal?"

"That's weird..." she muttered to herself, looking up at Ryuk, who was staring back at her with calm, piercing blue eyes.

"When the 4th Knull Invasion came, you told me the Humans stopped getting involved because the scale of the war had surpassed their capabilities. In short, they're now obsolete."

"My decision to call off your Starweave and declare the other top castes obsolete wasn't because of arrogance or because power got into my head."

"Isn't the Starweave organization like a spy group, Aster?"

"Going around, finding leaks of Abyssal Energy in an attempt to predict where the next portal will be? That's what the majority of your people do, isn't it?"

"Only after the gate has been discovered do they begin evacuation, right?" he asked, and Aster slowly nodded.

"Well, what if your group never returned from checking out the place where the Void Gate should've opened? What if they're slaughtered one by one… silently?"

"Without you ever noticing?"

"What do you mean?" she asked quietly.

"There'll be nothing but regret if your Starweave organization didn't disband a month ago. All of them will be killed one by one..." he said, still dispassionate, as Aster's gaze sharpened with confusion.

Her hand trembled from his words as she looked at him and realized he didn't seem to be bluffing—he was merely stating facts.

"This war will be the last, and the Ascension Alliance with the rest of the Top Factions as a whole is now obsolete... just like how the humans were rendered obsolete."

"I've figured out they can't do anything to help in this war. They're too weak... and they'll just get killed en masse," he added as he stretched out his hands and a ball of void energy curled before shooting off into the sky above the island, where it exploded in a silent wave of void.

Immediately, three figures instantly appeared in the air, their eyes scanning around before locking on Ryuk below.

In an instant, they descended before him—

Isha, Antares, and Rakshasa.

"Activate Void Vortex..."

Ryuk commanded, and in the next moment, a gigantic dark vortex—ten meters wide—spun open in the air, and he calmly turned toward it before asking,

"Is anyone interested in knowing where I spent most of my childhood?"

He stepped alone into the portal.

The group looked at each other wordlessly, before Isha followed after him, then Antares.

Rakshasa entered a moment later, and Aster furrowed her brows before she also stepped in with them.

For a second, she felt the sensation of traversing through the teleport, but it was an indescribably fleeting experience.

And when next she opened her eyes—

Her breath caught in her chest as she stared at the scene before her.

"Impossible..." she muttered beneath her breath.

Right now, like ants crawling over the land, were... Knulls.

Knulls—everywhere her eyes reached.

They covered the ground, grotesque forms lined up in perfect unity, standing motionless as if awaiting a command.

And in the sky... were all manner of horrific, airborne Knull monstrosities that blotted out the sun, reducing everything to pitch darkness.

Her stunned gaze swept across the massive army, and she quickly noticed the most terrifying part.

"There are 56 Knull Wanderers... and 25 Knull Kings!"

"Impossible!""Impossible!" she muttered again in disbelief.

There were barely up to 20 Eternity-stage experts on Endearth, and standing before her were 25 Knull Kings.

One had to know, Endearth would need at least four Eternity-stage experts to take down a single Knull King, and they only had 20 total. That meant they could only handle about five Knull Kings at once...

Yet, here were twenty-five!

"Tell me, Aster. Do you think the one who gathered an army like this wouldn't have slaughtered all your Starweave spies before they even discovered this place?"

"You think Endearth can last a single second against an army like this?" Ryuk asked as Aster raised her head to look at him—his expression was unreadable, but a mocking smile curled on his lips.

The same smile she had given him moments ago.

"But how? Why here?"

"They could've descended onto a large city like Grade B or Grade C and wiped out so many lives with this number..."

"Why the desolate Grade E of all places?" she whispered, before her gaze sharpened and she turned toward Ryuk, her expression shifting in dread, from the realization.

And he confirmed it to her by his smile slowly widening into a grin.

"They are not here for Endearth anymore..."

"They are here... for me."

"And it seems they came in with all their firepower..."

"So many familiar faces too..." Ryuk muttered to himself as his gaze swept through the clouds of Knulls floating in the air.

At the end, amongst them, twice as large as the rest of the other bird-like Knulls, was a Knull that caught his attention.

A Knull... with a peculiar symbol etched into the abyssal depths of its eyes.

A symbol that Ryuk could never forget.

"We finally meet..."