The Kingmaker System Chapter 751 - 750. Nefrakar - The World Of Forsaken

Far beyond the countless worlds watched over by the Heavens, beyond the reach of stars and the flow of time, existed a forsaken realm that Creation itself had abandoned.

It was known as Nefrakar.

The Forsaken Expanse.

No sun had ever risen over its lands, nor had dawn ever touched its skies. Instead, an eternal twilight bathed the world beneath layers of bruised crimson and ashen brown clouds that drifted in opposing directions as though even the heavens above could not agree upon where to go. High above them all hung a colossal moon, its surface shattered beyond recognition. Nearly half of its ancient body was simply... gone, as if some unfathomable being had once taken a bite from the heavens themselves, leaving behind only a jagged wound that had never healed.

Below stretched a world that could scarcely be called alive.

The earth was a sprawling wasteland of black stone veined with dull crimson fissures that pulsed faintly like the arteries of some sleeping beast. Rivers of dead mana flowed through those cracks in place of water, moving with an unnatural sluggishness while carrying whispers that no language could decipher. The air itself felt heavy, thick enough to cling to the skin like damp cloth, every breath laced with decay so ancient that even death seemed young beside it.

Nothing in Nefrakar truly died.

It merely changed into something worse.

Forests of twisted, bone-white trees covered entire valleys, their roots creeping across the surface like living serpents while their branches stretched downward instead of toward the sky. The leaves resembled pale, withered hands that rustled despite the complete absence of wind, and whenever one finally detached from its branch, it dissolved into black ash long before touching the ground.

Across the endless plains wandered creatures that defied every law of nature. Hulking masses stitched together from scales, fur, feathers and bone roamed alongside towering beasts whose countless limbs dragged across the earth, leaving trenches behind them. Some possessed dozens of mismatched eyes that blinked independently, while others carried mouths across their entire bodies, devouring the corpses of their own kind with insatiable hunger before turning upon one another once nothing remained to consume.

The screams never ceased.

Some came from the creatures themselves.

Others came from the land.

Above this nightmare stretched a horizon broken by impossible silhouettes. Mountains rose like the exposed ribcages of forgotten giants, while colossal skeletons lay half-buried beneath the wasteland, so immense that entire kingdoms of lesser demons had made their homes within hollow skulls and shattered spines. Whether those remains belonged to beasts, Gods or something even older had long since been forgotten.

This was the world where the Heavens cast away everything they deemed irredeemable.

Corrupted souls, failed creations, forbidden life, broken laws.

Every curse too dangerous to remain within Creation.

Every existence that the universe itself rejected.

All of them eventually found their way to Nefrakar.

And at the heart of that endless wasteland, where the rivers of dead mana converged into a sea darker than the void itself, slept the beings whom even the demons feared...

The Demon Lords.

The Lords who had fought against the Dragons in a war a millenium ago were still recuperating. Some of them had injuries far graver that they had been pushed to the brink of their existence. Had it not been their strategic retreat to Nefrakar, they would have been perished.

Among the seven Demon Lords, three had already recovered and had resurfaced from the sea to begin the war again. The Demon Lord of Gluttony was one of them.

The collapse of the Summoning Portal did not only shake the mortal world.

Its aftermath rippled across the very fabric of Nefrakar.

The skies of the Forsaken Expanse distorted as though an invisible hand had torn through them. A deafening spatial tremor rolled across the wasteland, sending shockwaves through the crimson clouds while rivers of dead mana erupted into towering waves.

The countless creatures that had been dragged back through the collapsing portal never even had the chance to scream. Their bodies twisted violently before disintegrating into clouds of black ash, erased by the unstable currents between worlds long before they could touch the cursed earth once more.

The tremors continued to spread, cracking mountains, the forests of pale, twisted trees bent beneath the invisible pressure and the black sea itself rose and fell as though something colossal had stirred beneath its endless surface.

It sloshed a little, before the sea opened.

An enormous bluish-grey silhouette slowly emerged from the endless ocean of dead mana. Its body dwarfed mountains, its scarred hide covered in ancient wounds that had never truly healed. Countless black barnacle-like growths clung to its flesh, each bearing rows of crimson eyes that slowly opened one after another.

This was the Demon Lord of Gluttony.

Its immense body floated effortlessly above the sea as though gravity itself had long abandoned it. Slowly, it raised its colossal head toward the place where the portal had once connected two worlds.

"...The portal closed."

The words rolled across Nefrakar like distant thunder as the immense whale drifted silently above the sea of dead mana. Countless crimson eyes embedded across Gluttony’s colossal body remained fixed upon the empty stretch of space where the portal had existed only moments earlier.

For several seconds, nothing answered him.

Then a calm voice echoed through the wasteland.

"It would seem so."

Unlike Gluttony’s earth-shaking growl, the second voice was almost pleasant to listen to. It came from no particular direction, seeming to rise from the crimson clouds, the cracked earth and even the rivers of dead mana themselves.

Gluttony’s enormous tail lashed once, sending waves crashing across the black sea.

"I sensed them."

His countless eyes narrowed.

"The Frost Dragon..."

A deep rumble escaped somewhere within his mountain-sized body.

"...and the young Aqua Dragon."

His immense jaws slowly opened, exposing rows upon rows of jagged fangs.

"Without Yggdrasil... they should have lost."

Silence lingered before the unseen speaker answered.

"No."

There was neither mockery nor disappointment in the voice.

"We were deceived."

Gluttony’s body trembled with a low growl that spread across the wasteland. The lesser demonic creatures grazing upon the carcasses scattered in blind panic, but they had reacted far too slowly.

Its colossal body simply swept through the fleeing horde, and an entire swarm of nightmarish creatures disappeared into its cavernous maw. Bones shattered. Flesh tore.

Their screams lasted only a heartbeat before the Lord of Gluttony swallowed the writhing mass of lesser demons whole, his enormous throat rippling as the creatures vanished forever into the abyss that was his stomach. A dissatisfied rumble echoed through his colossal body before his tongue lazily traced the blood staining his jagged fangs.

"...Unsatisfying," he grumbled, the disappointment in his voice almost childlike despite the devastation he had just wrought. "I would have preferred the Frost Dragon."

A soft chuckle drifted across the wasteland.

It wasn’t mocking, nor was it amused. It was simply the quiet acknowledgment of someone who had already considered every possible outcome long before the battle had even begun.

"You’ll have your opportunity," the unseen voice replied calmly. "What closed today was merely one door."

Above them, the fractured moon hanging over Nefrakar pulsed with a faint crimson light. The clouds surrounding it churned like a great whirlpool, while cracks of black lightning crawled silently across the heavens.

"The next door will not close."

Gluttony’s countless crimson eyes slowly rose toward the broken moon. For the first time since awakening, genuine curiosity surfaced within them.

"...The seal is breaking."

"It has been breaking for a very long time," came the measured reply. "The mortals merely hastened what was already inevitable."

The crimson clouds continued to twist around the fractured moon, their movements almost resembling an enormous hand slowly tightening around the sky.

"Soon, we shall no longer require Dark Mages, nor desperate fools willing to barter away their souls simply to invite us into their world."

The voice paused, not because it needed to think, but because the silence itself carried weight.

"Our King no longer sleeps as deeply as He once did."

Even Gluttony fell silent.

Far beneath the endless sea of dead mana, something stirred, it wasn’t violent not loud.

Yet that single movement sent ripples across the entirety of Nefrakar. Rivers of dead mana reversed their flow, mountains groaned beneath an unseen pressure, and every lesser demonic creature instinctively lowered itself to the ground.

"The cracks sealing His prison widen with every passing age," the voice continued, as calm as ever. "When they finally yield... His Majesty will no longer wait for an invitation."

The wasteland fell deathly still, only the crimson winds continued to howl.

Then, beside a jagged pillar of black stone, a shadow stretched across the ground despite there being no light to cast it. The darkness twisted unnaturally before a small wooden puppet stepped out from within it as though emerging through the surface of water.

From the shadow stepped a wooden puppet no larger than a child of eight or ten. Its body had been carved from polished ebony, smooth and immaculate, every delicate joint bound together by impossibly fine golden strings that swayed as though guided by an invisible puppeteer. Resting upon its face was a porcelain mask, carefully painted with the gentle smile and innocent features of a young boy.

It was the sort of face that invited trust without effort, warm enough to lower one’s guard and harmless enough to dismiss at a glance. Yet behind the mask’s hollow eyeholes lay nothing but an endless darkness, a silent reminder that beneath the child’s appearance lurked something ancient, calculating, and profoundly inhuman.

This was the Demon Lord of Greed.

Greed quietly observed the place where the portal had vanished.

"They played the better hand today," he murmured, almost sounding impressed rather than disappointed.

His porcelain smile widened by the smallest fraction.

"Fortunately..."

He gently brushed an invisible speck of dust from his sleeve before lifting his gaze toward the fractured moon.

"...a clever player never loses because of a single hand."

His fingers curled ever so slightly, as though already gathering unseen strings.

"He simply ensures..."

The puppet’s smile became just a little warmer.

"...that his opponent never realizes they have entered the next game."