THE VILLAIN'S POV Chapter 764: A - Written in Death (2)

The Shadow Sect's War General, Fulghor, obviously yearned to dive into the battle—yet his present state made it impossible.

"I can see you've depleted every bit of your aura in the clash with the Third-Rank Demoness," Gehrman noted with keen insight.

Fulghor gave a nod while Gehrman scaled up to his shoulder, and the duo departed from the scene together.

"Forgive me, my old companion. If I hadn't taken half your strength, this setback wouldn't have struck," Gehrman remarked.

"No apologies are necessary," Fulghor responded steadily. "My strength played a key role in bringing down the Fourth-Rank High Demon, Wesker. That's more than enough justification to lend you all of it... much less just half."

With those words, Gehrman released a soft sigh of ease from his perch on Fulghor's shoulder.

Gradually, he twisted around to gaze at the chaos of the battlefield trailing behind them.

Frey Starlight dashed in the other direction, bearing his kin... Abraham and Ada.

Due to Amon's Transparent World blocking his teleportation abilities, Frey had to sprint physically out of its reach before activating long-range jumps once more. Inside that domain, his teleports were limited to brief hops within the barrier alone.

This left Frey with no option but to flee on foot—hauling his family along while slashing through undead foes with his blade simultaneously.

Even amid the desperate peril, Frey kept his cool. His feelings hardly surfaced any longer.

Observing this, Gehrman sensed a profound shift had occurred deep inside Frey.

Then...

In that instant, as Gehrman fixed his eyes on Frey's vanishing figure...

Frey spun back around.

His sharpened awareness cut through the miles and turmoil, fixing directly on Gehrman... a stark sign of the immense progress Frey Starlight had achieved.

Gehrman's azure eyes connected with Frey's shadowy ones.

Several wordless moments ticked by.

At once, the pair inclined their heads in mutual acknowledgment.

For the very first time, they met as equals.

No more the scheming tactician and the innocent mortal...

Instead, two genuine fighters locked in the identical struggle.

With that, the Shadow Sect pulled back from the fray, abandoning the field to the sudden arrival of a third force that stirred up mayhem beside the demons.

Eventually, this whole clash would etch itself into legend...

The War of Shadows.

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Time pressed onward relentlessly.

Occurrences refused to halt.

A complete day had elapsed since the skirmish concluded—and its repercussions rippled shockingly through the globe.

Reports raced far and wide with alarming speed... not just over Earth, but across the vast expanse of the wider realm.

The key updates boiled down to these essentials:

The Shadow Sect has resurfaced, unleashing a ferocious assault on the High Demons.

The results proved breathtaking.

Its standout consequence:

The Shadow Sect managed to slay the Thirteenth-Rank High Demon, Geppetto... a vital pillar in the demons' arsenal of destruction.

The Shadow Sect took down one of the elite Top Ten High Demons... namely, the Tenth Rank, the Demons' War General... Zibar, wielder of the Soul of Reincarnation.

This revelation alone hit like lightning, jolting the world to its foundations. Countless years had dragged by without a single Top Ten High Demon falling to any foe.

But the real bombshell... followed right on its heels.

Led by the returned Saint Gehrman on the front lines, the Shadow Sect also eliminated the Fourth-Rank High Demon—Wesker, possessor of the King's Eye.

This disclosure ignited global uproar—though the surprises kept coming.

Thanatos had broken free.

One of the prime Original Soul Bearers had resurfaced on Planet Earth.

All these dispatches flooded in over just one day... while the Earth's war raged without pause.

Such developments rattled the world profoundly... particularly the tidings of Wesker's demise.

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Golmara — Realm of the Ghouls

The tidings of the Fourth High Rank's end reached the hearing of a timeless horror.

A creature boasting four limbs and a form of deep scarlet muscle...

The third of the Seven Great Powers...

The Ghoul King, Radagon.

"That vile beast... Wesker... has perished?"

The Ghoul Sovereign appeared dumbfounded... struggling to accept it...

after clashing with that demon in person long ago and failing to end him.

---

Meanwhile—

Lucaria, the secluded domain of sorcerers cut off from the rest, caught wind of the reports too.

Still, the mages brushed them aside, clinging to their seclusion and shunning any ties to the outer realms.

In contrast...

The updates snagged the interest of a figure freshly inducted into the Seven Great Powers,

now occupying the Fifth Position...

Sieghart, the Ascendant Prodigy.

"Planet Earth? That's a name I've never encountered..."

That marked his first thought.

Yet upon grasping the events unfolding there...

The Ascendant Prodigy rerouted his path, aiming toward an unfamiliar goal.

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...

...

The reports kept propagating...

though they bypassed the awareness of Midir, the foremost of the Seven Great Powers,

or Orested, the runner-up...

both already en route to the enigmatic landmass that had materialized at the cosmos's heart.

That development by itself loomed enormous.

And now, Earth's dispatches only amplified the strain gripping the whole world.

"What's unfolding in this realm?"

That query hung on every tongue.

The rise of the obscure continent had lured myriad mighty entities,

and an immense conflict loomed inevitable upon it—

with demons and hordes of other kindreds storming the territory all at once.

Concurrently...

A savage confrontation exploded in a remote edge of the stars,

upon a vulnerable world named Earth...

a confrontation pitting the timeless Shadow Sect against the High Demons, vastly heightening its stakes.

Following a prolonged stretch of tranquility and serenity...

It appeared the era of warfare had dawned anew.

However, the world remained oblivious then

that the impending disaster would eclipse all prior upheavals...

that the looming calamity would engulf them entirely,

without notice...

and without pity.

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The Day Following the Clash

(The moment Wesker's death was declared)

The duel between Amon and Thanatos wrapped up inconclusively once Neto stepped in.

The struggle dragged on extensively, yet Thanatos couldn't dispatch his rivals owing to the missing pinnacle of his arsenal—the Death Soul—and the scarcity of potent remains in his collection.

His personal might proved horrifying...

But it fell short against Amon and Nito combined.

The confrontation closed with every side retreating,

after a huge swath of the Empire lay in total ruin.

The demon side entrenched itself on Ultras Continent.

Thanatos, meanwhile, seized the Empire for his domain

and set about forging a fresh legion from the local cadavers...

gearing up for his grand comeback.

In retaliation, the Shadow Sect rescued as many humans as feasible, steering them eastward.

Though they preserved vast crowds of Empire dwellers, plenty more ended up under Thanatos' control...

He had emerged as a third autonomous player in Earth's turmoil.

The Shadow Sect took root in the east...

in the former domain dubbed the Eastern Nightmare Lands.

In this way, Planet Earth split into three rival factions,

their intensifying strife fated to unleash mounting devastation.