She was still alive. They all were. But the nightmares of that day still clung to them—they still shackled her.

She was the Saintess of the Heavens. A brilliant role model with Heaven’s Blessing, meant to cast a radiant light upon a world shrouded in darkness. Yet when the all-consuming darkness came, she was powerless. Too weak to dispel it.

A failure.

Memories of the fight against the Tiny Devil were etched deep into her mind. She recalled every moment as they struggled against the power of the creature the Heavens had labeled ‘Sapling’.

Yet, no matter how she analyzed the fight, the Saintess couldn’t understand what had happened. It was as if reality had turned upside down as they battled the creature. They fought it and should have won, but the Blessing of the Heavens failed to purify it.

It was weak. Clearly weaker than they had been. Yet, rather than falling to their brilliant light, the creature prevailed and… began to toy with them. It watched them struggle in glee, and it brought them… somewhere.

Where was that?We weren’t in the Earthen Union anymore.The Heavens failed to follow us.We… were cut off…

Just thinking about that place made her shudder involuntarily. Her hair stood on end, and dark thoughts blossomed in her mind as she thought about the place she never wanted to recall.

A place filled with darkness. A place that must have been bright and full of life once. Full of the brilliance of the Heavens. But now… now it was a place full of… nothing. It was void of anything. Sure, there were some things in that place, but nothing felt real. Even now, she didn’t know if it had been real or if it was all an illusion.

She shuddered again at the memory of that place void of anything with true meaning, only to notice that she couldn’t move. The Saintess stirred, screamed, and thrashed around, but her limbs did not heed her call.

I’m still asleep! she screamed in her mind.

Still caught up in the nightmare. Still… injured from the wounds the hundreds upon hundreds of creatures had inflicted upon her and her allies. The Saintess could not tell how they had escaped their wrath. The Tiny Devils had surrounded them, attacked them tirelessly for what felt like an eternity, stripping them of their power, weakening them until barely a trace of their former strength remained.

But how did they escape? Even now, she couldn’t quite fathom what had happened. One moment, they were assaulted by the Tiny Devils, the Saplings and larger creatures of similar appearance—life and power sapped until all that remained was the hope to die. To escape the pain and suffering through death. Then, in the next moment, death lurked around the corner, and they appeared back in the lands of the Heavens.

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They landed in wide open plains, towering walls unfolding before them, but they couldn’t move. The Saintess clearly recalled the call of her Goddess, yet she remembered nothing.

The last words ringing in her mind belonged to another creature. A creature from within the lands of nothingness:

Lost Soul, heed my words and guide the sword-wielding fool to me.

Their bodies were shredded, life still seeping out of them as blood pooled around the Heavenly Champions, but they survived. They made it out alive, nothingness spreading through their bodies.

The Saintess grimaced in pain, her fingers tightly curled around a cold shard. She didn’t know when the shard appeared in her hands, but she clung to it as if her life depended on it.

But that was all she could do. Her body allowed no more movement. She was powerless… useless.

And darkness consumed her, dragging her back to relive the nightmare once more.

Just… Just kill me… PLEASE!!

***

The Hunt was exhilarating. It was everything he needed… and all he got.

Nothing was comparable to the hunt. Not even the joy of growing stronger. Growing more powerful was addictive. Strengthening the Beast God’s Fragment, nourishing it with the droplets of Divinity rooted within the Champions, was still worth his attention. However, it was incomparable to watching the struggles of his prey.

William hissed excitedly as he released a spray of acid onto the fleeing masses of humans, beastmen, seria, and other races of the Pantheon. Watching their skin, flesh, and bones melt before his eyes brought a smile to his lips.

His scales clattered eagerly as he moved ahead, unleashing waves of poison into the surroundings, destroying flora and fauna alongside everything the natives and Protectors had sacrificed to build the settlement. He wondered if he would have considered the settlement beautiful. If he would have protected this place from evil if Zephir had never called out to him.

Would things have been different if he’d never met the Poisonous Beast God? William wondered as the desperate screams of hundreds reached his ears. They died like a flock of moths charging into blazing flames. But they did not erupt in flames. Their bodies were melting, leaving nothing but puddles of life and tempered poison behind.

William acknowledged the puddles, but their sole value was to increase his power. He called upon the poison all around him, his scales clattering, as poisonous streams surged toward him.

He consumed them all, his serpentine eyes drifting to the System messages as they popped up. A barrage of notifications flooded him, but he did not need them to know his Classes had ranked up once more. His body, mind, and soul were growing stronger in response to the System messages. However, the gains were barely noteworthy compared to the power he acquired from the Champions and their Blessings.

Zephir’s Fragment had opened far more doors than the System ever would. But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t make use of it. Quite the contrary.

William was more than willing to use the System and the Poisonous Beast God’s influence to grow as strong as possible. Until he was strong enough to surpass both.

Until he could face Zephir and devour him… just like the beast waited for him to grow strong enough—so it could consume him.