Taming the Protagonist

Volume 2

Chapter 107 : Fantasy Armament · Deus Ex Machina! · Part One

Blood-flame burned.

As the sun sank below the horizon, a second blood-red sun blazed in the Imperial Capital’s sky.

At that moment, every fifth-tier transcendent in the Empire turned their gaze toward the Imperial Capital, some in disbelief, others in sheer terror.

Ephithand Flame, Her Supreme Majesty the Empress, had long reached the end of her glorious life.

The last time she so brazenly flaunted her power was thirty-two years ago, dragging a sky-shrouding Void Dragon Whale from the Zero Point Labyrinth.

Back then, Ephithand took no pleasure in war or torment, nor hid in the Source Flame, neglecting state affairs.

She was then an Empress who could proudly proclaim her power to the Empire, unconditionally sharing that centuries-rare Void Dragon Whale with her subjects.

No one expected the flaming sun above Anticheg to burn so fiercely, so suddenly. Everyone thought it wasn’t time yet.

The Imperial Capital was rocked by a massive quake.

At least eighty percent of fifth-tier transcendents, sensing Ephithand’s ferocious release of Flame-Feasting fire, fled immediately, abandoning their estates.

The rest, either bold or with escape plans, stayed to observe.

The fifth-tier transcendents, dominated by divine species for a millennium, had long formed a tacit understanding for this rare opportunity.

Everyone knew the current Empress and Hydra’s decline would coincide, and for reasons they didn’t understand, their seemingly peaceful coexistence hid sharp tensions.

A war between two divine beings might destroy most of the world, perhaps sparing few fifth-tier transcendents.

But some always believed they’d survive and build a new world on the ashes.

In Anticheg, the great Majesty dominating all laughed maniacally in a manner unbecoming her status and appearance.

“Flamel… Flamel! You ended like this?! Hahahahaha… what were you working on? As a creator, you killed yourself so absurdly?!”

When Anselm fused Flamel’s created miracle into his body, Ephithand sensed the anomaly instantly.

—The Hydra’s aura, as a fellow sixth-tier divine species, that abyss-like presence, was rapidly fading.

The terrifying gaze of the abyssal beast watching her vanished in an instant.

Even Notun, floating ten thousand meters above the Imperial Capital, entered standby mode, its cannon aimed at Anticheg closed.

Sensing this, Ephithand’s first reaction was “denial.”

She refused to believe the monster she’d fought for decades would die so inexplicably, so… comically.

So, cautiously, carefully, she extended her perception toward the Hydra Mansion.

After confirming Flamel didn’t retaliate, she slowly stretched her senses to the untouchable realm in the sky, Notun.

Yet Flamel still didn’t retaliate.

Moreover, she sensed the shock and panic of all Contract Heads on Notun, their abyssal aura fading rapidly.

Though she didn’t immediately find Flamel, the signs all pointed to… something happening to that monster.

In truth, Ephithand hadn’t planned to act now.

Old, deranged, and tyrannical, she became razor-sharp when it came to her survival.

Her intent was to keep Flamel guessing about her true timing with feints, appearing ready for a final battle while secretly preparing elsewhere.

Though such tactics were childish in divine species conflicts, Ephithand didn’t care.

As long as she could seize the chance to survive and advance, she’d do anything.

But she hadn’t expected this opportunity… to come so easily.

Even now, amidst her ecstasy, she remained wary of Flamel, suspecting he was hiding, waiting to strike fatally.

So she unleashed her power recklessly, both probing Flamel and preparing defenses.

Yet… nothing happened.

In this agonizing wait for Ephithand, nothing happened. Instead, she saw… the beautiful boy she’d coveted for years heading toward Anticheg.

He bore no sixth-tier aura.

To divine species, others of their kind were starkly distinct.

Unless deliberately hidden, a sixth-tier divine was as obvious as a walking sun.

Staring at Anselm, Ephithand’s breathing grew heavy.

“Flamel’s dead… and you didn’t inherit his power?”

“No, no… if so, Flamel might not be dead but weakened or sealed for some reason?”

The woman’s eyes blazed with ecstatic flames, knowing Flamel would never use his son as bait, nor had any need or reason to do so.

If Flamel’s divine species aura vanished and Anselm didn’t inherit his power, then something major must have happened to Flamel!

And at this moment… who could Anselm turn to?

Who in this world could solve a divine species’ problem?

“Ah… ah…”

Ephithand’s throat let out a sound mixed with joy and desire, her voice trembling at the end.

“Are you coming to beg me?”

She licked her lips, watching through magic, with a predator’s gaze, as Anselm approached the palace, ascending toward Anticheg.

“Such touching father-son devotion… At this moment, I’m truly glad you and your father are so close, Anselm… You want to save him, don’t you? You’d be willing… to pay any price, right?”

The thought of possibly dominating the monster’s son, the boy her daughter claimed as her own, the genius no one in the Empire could rival, this beautiful youth so perfectly suited to her desires, pinning him beneath her to ravage at will… just imagining it, Ephithand’s tall, soft, ripe body convulsed.

She had reclaimed her peak power, along with that fiery desire and ambition.

“Come… Anselm, dear Anselm.”

“Let me… love you well.”

After an unknown time, the gates of Anticheg’s palace slowly opened.

Arriving to confront the Empress, Anselm stood calmly before the gates, hands resting on his cane.

“Why not come in, Anselm?”

The voice from deep within the hall made Anselm raise an eyebrow.

The seductive, almost dripping tone made it clear… Her Majesty the Empress held him in very, very low regard.

However, provoking a divine species without that power would be even more foolish.

The Empress’s attitude, as if she could already fully control him, was only natural.

The young Hydra merely smiled, walking calmly into the hall.

The palace gates closed with a rumbling grind, seductive blood-flame igniting in the braziers on the hall’s pillars.

Anticheg was as Anselm remembered, with the grand veiled bed before the Source Flame. But this time, the Empress wasn’t lying behind the veil.

She stood upfront, her gaze as if she would devour him whole.

“It’s been a while, Your Majesty.”

Anselm maintained his composure, but Ephithand had no interest in such trivial talk now.

Her figure appeared before Anselm in an instant, her hand reaching to caress his face, her greed unmasked.

“Look at you… Anselm.”

The woman chuckled with pleasure: “What brings you to me at this time, hm?”

She relished the thrill of touching the boy before her.

Ephithand suddenly understood why her foolish daughter was so attached to Anselm.

His unmatched quality was one thing, but more crucially, what thrilled them as divine species was… the desire for conquest.

Conquering a continent could never compare to the joy of conquering a divine being.

The pleasure of dominating, toying with, even ravaging a future divine species, the son of that wretched foe she clashed with, surpassed Ephithand’s imagination.

But beneath this pleasure, her pursuit remained unchanged.

“You know…”

The flames in the Empress’s eyes burned as if fueled by endless craving—not for pleasure, but… for survival, for transcendence!

“You know what I want, don’t you?”

She pressed close to Anselm, embracing him tightly, exhaling scorching breath.

Her behavior was both to sate her desires and to pressure Anselm into yielding quickly.

Ephithand’s craving for self-preservation surpassed everything at all times.

So eager to force Anselm’s submission, she abandoned all imperial dignity, all decorum of negotiation, clinging to him like a beast in heat, absurdly… incomprehensible.

Who could imagine that the woman now writhing against Anselm, so base and laughable, was the Empress ruling the entire Empire, a divine being overlooking all?

No wonder, in that future, Sulun, facing Hitana, showed such strong contempt for Ephithand.

Clearly, Ephithand was nearly completely mad… let alone dignity, everything yielded to “survival.”

A motive so natural, so justified, yet so absurd it defied judgment.

Pressed by soft flesh, Anselm couldn’t help but marvel inwardly that his current enemy was such a creature—perhaps the greatest fortune amidst countless misfortunes.

On his way, he had prepared a speech to deal with the Empress, ensuring she wouldn’t discover Flamel and Elnilisa. Anselm had to be fully prepared, or if she used them as leverage, he’d be helpless.

But the young Hydra realized he’d overthought.

Once Ephithand saw him deliver himself, her eyes held nothing else.

The only thing this woman had going for her was her discernment—the ability to see the essence of his Spiritual Essence.

The power Anselm unleashed when destroying the Assassin that day, though shielded by the Hydra domain’s millennial prestige, was too terrifying, and the Empress had sensed a hint of it.

From then on, she began observing Anselm’s Spiritual Essence and it was after realizing this that Anselm devised his plan to coerce Flamel and gain sixth-tier power.

“Tell me… Anselm… tell me.”

Ephithand cupped Anselm’s face, murmuring urgently: “Tell me about your Spiritual Essence… your power, is it what I think, is it!”

Her last three words were nearly a roar, her grip on Anselm’s face tightening abruptly. Her sudden hysteria, no matter how beautiful she was, was chilling.

Anselm merely chuckled, pushing her away calmly: “I want to make a deal with you, Your Majesty.”

“…A deal, what deal? Power? Ivora? Me? The Empire? It doesn’t matter! Tell me! Tell me what your Spiritual Essence is!”

Still without an answer, Ephithand shifted from seductive allure to a frenzied, ferocious tyrant… the true end of a divine species, unable to control emotions or self, utterly mad.

The blood-flame above Anticheg surged violently, its tyrannical pressure sweeping the Imperial Capital, even scaring pedestrians to death, collapsing pale-faced.

“Please calm down, Your Majesty… I’ll give you the answer now.”

Yet Anselm remained calm.

After making that purely heartfelt decision, he had never been so serene.

The all-eroding darkness spread from Anselm’s feet in all directions.

The Source Flame in Anticheg swelled instantly, not in hostility but… in joy.

The joy of feeding.

Under the Source Flame’s suppression, Anselm’s abyss was confined to a three-meter radius around him.

Staring at the darkness that appeared from nowhere, at the writhing, eerie tendrils emerging from it, Ephithand, as if entranced, reached into that fearsome darkness.

“Ah… ah!!”

Ephithand’s body shuddered, her unsteady legs nearly collapsing.

Her indecent moans and gasps, the twisted fervor and madness in her eyes, sent chills down the spine, stirring dread.

“I saw it… I saw it!”

Her eyes were gradually dyed black, but the Flame-Feasting Royalty’s all-consuming flames burned it away.

The two forces tugged back and forth, nearly indistinguishable in victory.

And Ephithand’s flushed face, her crazed expression, seemed to show she cared little for this erosion, her focus entirely on… what she “saw.”

“As you see, this is my Spiritual Essence.”

Anselm looked at Ephithand’s frenzied state, a trace of… pity in his eyes?

Such pity rarely appeared in Anselm’s gaze, reserved only for a certain type of person.

—People like that pianist, Yura Nanaka.

To Ephithand, who likely could no longer hear him, he explained calmly: “It’s not complex; the effect is quite straightforward.”

“—With this Spiritual Essence, I can let anyone find, in the abyss, the perfect possibility to advance further.”

Anselm spoke simply, and his Spiritual Essence’s effect was indeed that “simple.”

Anyone influenced by his Spiritual Essence could find, in the abyss, the most suitable possibility to advance further.

Mortals would ascend to transcendents, transcendents would break through their current tier without external aid, without rituals or materials, ignoring restrictions, directly elevated… no, dragged into a deeper abyss.

Its name was Abyss… Preaching!

“Possibility…”

Ephithand, with great difficulty, tore her gaze from the chilling darkness to Anselm’s face, gripping his shoulders with desperate greed: “Divine species… even a sixth-tier with no path forward can find it, right!”

Anselm nodded slightly: “As you think, as long as possibility exists, even a divine species can find that sliver of opportunity.”

“…I knew it, I knew it, hehehe… hahahahaha!”

Ephithand laughed maniacally: “I saw it just now! I saw it! I can raise the earth to the sky, I can build an eternal legacy surpassing all!”

“My… Our possibility! This damned abyss can’t bind me… can’t bind me!”

“…No.”

After her mad laughter, her expression turned cold, her face ferocious with rage: “This ability… why didn’t you use it on Flamel! His aura vanished—because of you! What’s the side effect of this Spiritual Essence!”

“Side effects…”

Anselm suddenly smiled: “Would you believe me if I told you?”

“Speak! Tell me now!”

“The side effect is quite obvious. You must have investigated those affected by my Spiritual Essence. You should know their… common trait.”

Even facing a madwoman who could tear him apart at any moment, Anselm smiled calmly:

“They become extremely obsessed with me.”

“…What?”

A flicker of doubt crossed Ephithand’s face.

As Anselm predicted, she didn’t believe this side effect.

But it was true.

Abyss Preaching… the abyss as the source of power, Anselm as the preacher granting opportunity.

In this process, those who received the preaching would uncontrollably develop fanatical worship and devotion to the preacher.

In later stages, this worship would completely destroy their mind and self, existing solely for Anselm.

Depending on their personality, this extreme emotion varied—some would want to die without Anselm, some would do anything to possess him, some would die for a single word of praise from him.

In short… At that point, Anselm himself became the abyss in their eyes.

They no longer chased the abyss but Anselm.

“And if the recipient overcomes their obsession with me, the preacher… they’ll align more closely with the abyss. I’m sure you understand, aligning with the abyss is never a good thing.”

Under Ephithand’s gradually calming gaze, Anselm said leisurely.

Aligning with the abyss meant better understanding the world’s essence but also… deeper, more terrifying abyssal erosion, accelerating madness.

Undoubtedly, this Spiritual Essence’s effect was astonishing, even allowing divine species to glimpse the possibility of reaching the seventh tier, but the side effect… was too great to accept.

Either lose oneself, becoming Anselm’s puppet, or accelerate into the abyss, consumed entirely.

“…So that’s why you didn’t use it on Flamel?”

Ephithand chuckled lowly: “Afraid he couldn’t succeed and would fall faster into the abyss?”

“No, you’re mistaken, Your Majesty.”

Anselm shook his head: “So far, everyone who received my preaching, without exception…”

The devil smiled provocatively at the divine:

“All became puppets chasing me, not one chased the abyss.”

The power of Spiritual Essence came from the soul’s essence, its desires.

The Hydras could, within a certain scope, determine the general effect of their Spiritual Essence… Abyss Preaching fully embodied Anselm’s needs at that moment.

The possibility of advancing further meant pure power; the “preaching compulsion,” a side effect to others but not to Anselm, reflected his need for control.

Fate’s threat left him with no sense of security. He needed everyone under his absolute control to feel at ease.

Under these twin desires, the Spiritual Essence named [Abyss Preaching] was born.

“This is… the side effect? This is the side effect of this Spiritual Essence?”

Ephithand murmured, then laughed heartily:

She pinched Anselm’s chin, lifting his face slightly, speaking with brazen superiority: “Chasing you… chasing you? What's the cost? Uncontrollable obsession with you is the cost?”

“Hehehe… hahahahaha! I thought it was some life-threatening cost, but it’s just this laughable thing!”

Anselm didn’t mind, smiling at Ephithand: “Don’t forget, if you overcome your craving for me, you’ll face an even more dangerous abyss.”

“A more dangerous abyss, ha! More dangerous? The seventh tier… the seventh tier clearly transcends the abyss!”

Ephithand licked her red lips, staring into Anselm’s eyes, her craving for survival, for ascension, reaching its peak.

“I saw it.”

Her voice trembled as she murmured: “I saw that possibility… that’s my possibility!”

“So, you wish to continue, Your Majesty?” Anselm tilted his head slightly.

“Of course… of course! My dear Anselm, of course I’ll continue.”

Ephithand, still pinching Anselm’s chin, leaned down, their noses almost touching, exhaling a sweet yet scorching breath.

“I’ll remember everything you’ve done for me. Whatever you need, once I become the one and only greatness… including myself, it’s all yours.”

“So now!”

Her eyes and expression turned ferocious and tyrannical again: “Give me… give me that power, that possibility! I won’t allow you to stop like you did just now!”

“Very well, I understand.”

Ephithand, so deranged and mad, hadn’t considered why Anselm had the courage to come to Anticheg alone, why he could remain so calm now.

Perhaps she had already convinced herself that something happened to Flamel, and Anselm came to her to save him.

More likely, she simply didn’t believe Anselm had any means to oppose her.

Who could stand against a divine species but another divine species?

Without Flamel, what ally could Anselm find?

In her eyes, Anselm had likely given up, knowing he was powerless.

“Please… look closely.”

His preaching unfolded again, those sea-blue eyes seeming to carry an irresistible magic.

Ephithand quickly sank into them, her own eyes starting to be dyed black, the Flame-Feasting fire instinctively clashing with the abyss.

“Ah… I see it, dominion, control… everything…”

Ephithand murmured as if entranced: “Overturning the sky, inverting the earth, gathering the seas…”

Though she appeared completely bewitched, the rising, terrifying aura was undeniably real.

She seemed… to have truly found some possibility!

“Disintegrate… reshape… recreate… the world…”

The pressure grew so heavy, unbearable even for transcendents, potentially crushing them to death, gathering in Anticheg.

At this moment, no one should have been able to harm the Empress, who seemed to have grasped some possibility.

But Anselm knew Ephithand could never succeed.

Because if fate wanted to destroy the Empire, the most critical step was severing the divine species’ lineage.

The Hydras were nearly eradicated, so how could It… allow a seventh-tier monster to be born among the Flame-Feasting Royalty?

“It’s… there… no… no! Wrong! It’s not—”

Ephithand’s entranced murmurs suddenly turned to rage and fear.

No one knew what her “possibility” had become, but at that moment, two sudden changes erupted!

First, Anselm abruptly drew a glowing orb from the endless darkness around him, thrusting it toward Ephithand.

Simultaneously, the space within Anticheg… twisted violently without warning!

The distorted, fractured, unstable independent space, as if torn away, slammed into Ephithand like a cannonball!

“Ah—!!!”

Her piercing scream didn’t echo over the Imperial Capital, drowned out by the roar of that strike.

Everyone watching Anticheg saw the palace, standing for a millennium or more…

Flattened from the Imperial Capital’s highest point!

“I’m so… sick of you, you wretched dog.”

A fiery red figure appeared, accompanied by those crude words.

Ivora, clad in a flame-colored gown, stomped on the rubble, her face filled with disgust: “Your damned lustful expression… it’s nauseating.”

“Iv… ora!”

A hysterical roar echoed over the Imperial Capital:

“You cursed traitor… you think I wouldn’t dare kill you!”

Ivora raised her hand to the sky, gripping it.

A hundred-meter-wide distorted space formed instantly above Anticheg’s ruins.

Unfazed by the threat, she swung her hand, unleashing pure destruction on the Empire’s highest symbol of Flame-Feasting glory!

Boom boom boom—!

From the highest point downward, the terrifying, twisted unstable space crushed everything within a hundred-meter radius into dust.

Amid the deafening roar, the entire Imperial Capital trembled!

“Fool, you cowardly trash, thinking you could use Anselm to become some illusory seventh tier.”

Ivora declared, word by word: “We’re already… at war, you old hag!”

“You think I’d let you keep hogging the power that should be mine, lingering forever!”

Anticheg’s towering structure was completely destroyed by Ivora, but the Source Flame still floated like a sun, seemingly indifferent.

“…Hey, Anselm.” Ivora turned to him, her eyes growing fiercer, “This isn’t what you promised. Where’s the absolute certainty you said would defeat this old thing?”

“She’s already weakened a lot, isn’t she?” Anselm shrugged.

“Not enough!”

Ivora roared: “You think this weakening—”

Pfft—

The once-arrogant Grand Princess spat blood, her body as if crushed in a press, nearly burst by some invisible force!

Fortunately, Ivora instantly formed an independent space barrier around herself, shielding against this terrifying force, but the barrier began to distort rapidly, the force nearly shattering space itself!

“Anselm!!!”

Amid Ivora’s roar, Anselm gripped Gleipnir and fired a shot into the bottomless pit below.

Ivora, rapidly regenerating while resisting the force, continued shouting: “You’re telling me your confidence is this toy?! Are you trying to get us both killed here!”

“Don’t rush… wait a bit.”

Anselm murmured softly: “It should take effect soon.”

“Wait? Wait, and I’ll be… huh?”

Ivora clearly felt the force on her weakening rapidly. What was happening?

“This strength…” Anselm frowned slightly, “Between fifth and sixth tier? Still tough to handle.”

“…How did you do it?”

Struggling to maintain her space barrier, Ivora said in disbelief: “You really weakened her?!”

Anselm smiled: “Secret.”

The answer was simple.

The orb he thrust at Ephithand was what Flamel, in the original future, used to maintain sanity for ten years despite a shattered soul.

It was a byproduct crafted from the miracle’s scraps, with effects similar to it.

The miracle that severed the Hydras’ curse truly eradicated the endless information surge and abyssal erosion.

Once formed, it freed them from the abyss’s influence, but losing that infinite understanding of the world and abyss, Flamel could no longer maintain sixth-tier status.

This byproduct worked oppositely, forcibly lowering the tier to drastically reduce abyssal erosion.

In the original timeline, Flamel used it to spend his final ten years with Anselm and Elnilisa.

Flamel knew what Anselm intended, so he repurposed the item meant to preserve his sanity into a tool against the Empress.

Even if Anselm inherited Flamel’s power, with only two Contract Heads, he’d be far from complete as a Hydra.

In that state, even with sixth-tier power, he wouldn’t match Ephithand.

His original plan was to use Flamel’s power, this item, and Ivora with her Ether Armament to overwhelm Ephithand, ensuring she couldn’t threaten him.

In two or three years, with all Contract Heads in place, Ephithand would no longer be a match.

This was why he had Mingfuluo arrange for someone to craft the Ether Armament for Ivora, preparing for this battle.

In truth, per the original plan, this battle… shouldn’t have happened.

With sixth-tier power, Ivora’s Ether Armament, and the item suppressing Ephithand, the life-cherishing Empress would have yielded.

But… the plan had a slight hiccup. Anselm didn’t gain the critical sixth-tier power from his father.

Yet Ephithand’s weakening… exceeded Anselm’s expectations.

“Seems she suffered some heavy blow while seeking her possibility.”

Anselm raised an eyebrow, while Ivora, freed from the invisible force, panted heavily.

“Damn… though weakened, if it’s just you and me… we can’t kill her.”

Ivora turned to Anselm, spitting blood, her eyes fierce: “You really have no other way?”

“Other ways… still waiting.”

“Waiting again?” Ivora’s voice rose sharply, “Anselm! Are you mad? When did you become this unprepared, wretched mess! You bastard… are you trying to get me killed too!”

If she didn’t have to stay vigilant, she’d likely have punched Anselm by now.

“Just the truth.”

Anselm gripped the gray-black bracelet: “If we can’t wait, we’ll just choose the worst option.”

“It’s already bad enough!”

As Ivora roared, both she and Anselm felt a mountain-like pressure and ferocious pull, slamming them into the bottom of the pit Ivora had created.

Boom!

Amid the massive roar and rising dust, Ivora grimly manipulated space to protect herself, while Anselm rose from a half-kneel, his shattered legs rapidly healing.

Opposite them, Ephithand, disheveled and ghastly, stared with bloodshot eyes.

“An… selm.”

Her hoarse voice spat each word: “What did you do to me!”

“Hm… just temporarily spared Your Majesty from the abyss’s disturbance.”

Anselm spread his hands, smiling: “How’s that? Feel more normal now?”

Though he said this, his eyes were cold.

Ephithand’s power… was recovering fast.

The byproduct from scraps was, as expected, limited. In the original timeline, Flamel suppressed it for ten years because he chose to.

On Ephithand… it might not last thirty minutes.

If divine species were so easy to handle, would they be called divine?

Boom!

Anselm’s figure was instantly pinned to the pit’s wall by an invisible force.

Every Flame-Feasting Empress awakened a Spiritual Essence, not as overbearing as the Hydras’ but undeniably powerful.

Ivora dominated space, while Ephithand controlled… gravity!

Until now, she had only used her Spiritual Essence, not her Flame-Feasting fire.

Ivora didn’t look at Anselm, seemingly no longer relying on him.

Though her face was grim, knowing she might be doomed, she showed no fear, let alone begged her mother for mercy.

She raised her hand, sealing Ephithand in an independent space, then grimly tried to collapse it, annihilating her in the destruction. But moments later, her expression changed.

A massive invisible force erupted from within the space, distorting, shattering, and crushing the concept of space itself under Ephithand’s gravity!

Bang!

The space containing Ephithand broke from within.

Expressionless, she reached toward Ivora, as if to crush her again, clenching her hand.

But this time, she failed.

Because under Ivora’s gown… crimson streams of light suddenly glowed.

“…”

Ephithand narrowed her eyes.

She sensed no massive ether fluctuations, but Ivora was clearly different.

What was it…

“I haven’t fully mastered this thing… damn it.”

Ivora muttered, tearing off her gown.

Beneath it… was a form-fitting armor, perfectly outlining her curves!

The armor gleamed with flame-like streams, flowing like molten lava. Ivora clenched her fist, flashing Ephithand a scornful smile:

“Sorry, old thing, you’ll have to…”

“Get lost for a bit!”

She snapped her fingers, and Ephithand’s space twisted… as if a can were turned inside out.

But of course, it wasn’t a flipped space—it was… the opened gate to the Zero Point Labyrinth!

Amplified by the Ether Armament, Ivora could open a portal to the Zero Point Labyrinth anytime, anywhere!

After throwing Ephithand away, Ivora’s face darkened immediately.

She turned to Anselm, grabbing him with a gesture, pulling him from the wall where Ephithand had pinned him into her grasp.

“Anselm… I don’t care what you’re scheming.”

Her expression was icy, each word deliberate: “You’d better produce something now. I can hold that old hag for ten… tch, five minutes at most!”

Anselm didn’t respond, only closing his eyes.

Time ticked by, and Ivora’s expression grew uglier.

Fully focused on controlling space to keep Ephithand lost, she had no energy to spare for Anselm.

If he produced nothing soon… she’d turn and kill him first, then fight that old hag to the death!

…Looks like I don’t have extra time to trust you, Arlo.

Anselm sighed inwardly, but he felt no regret, no resentment.

You’ve already helped me immensely.

That’s enough. The rest… I’ll handle myself.

Inheriting sixth-tier power from Flamel was the safest choice, with endless benefits for the future.

But not inheriting that power didn’t mean Anselm was truly at the Empress’s mercy.

Ivora’s aid, Ephithand’s weakening—the most critical part now… was himself.

He would truly use his Spiritual Essence, just like… six years ago.

As the preacher of the abyss, favored by it, he could, to some extent, draw on its power.

Then… preach to himself, seeking the possibility to advance further!

Six years ago, doing so would have driven him mad instantly, but now, with some control over this Spiritual Essence, Anselm might not completely lose himself.

The outcome… wouldn’t be great either way.

But even so, to Anselm now, this was a million times better than being driven by fate to mindlessly devour his father.

“So…”

Anselm opened his eyes, his sea-blue gaze now a sea of darkness.

“Let’s begin.”

He dove into the abyss.

The abyss was the convergence of infinite world information, countless elements, countless truths forming the cornerstone of this world’s rules.

In the boundless darkness, endless information flooded Anselm’s consciousness—what was the essence of fire, the fundamental unit of elements, how to construct space, the basic principles of time… When truths coveted by sorcerers became a torrent, relentlessly pouring into and scouring your mind, truth became a maddening curse.

“I…”

…Hm?

Searching for his possibility in the abyss, Anselm seemed to hear something.

In this metaphysical conceptual plane, “sound” couldn’t exist. Beyond endless information, there was nothing.

But just now… that was definitely—

“Call… ing…”

Anselm’s consciousness halted.

In that instant, he understood, driving his will at top speed toward the source of the sound.

“Call… me…”

He had heard this voice countless times.

Cold, calm, joyful, angry, and… resolute.

At that moment, recording that message, she was so resolute, resolute enough to make Anselm regret ever doubting her.

“An… selm.”

In the endless darkness, Anselm’s consciousness found a gray particle.

And in that instant, he opened his eyes.

The young Hydra looked down at his bracelet, his expression filled with awe.

“You really… went all out. Even Father probably couldn’t have thought of this.”

“Anselm, you still have time to talk to yourself?!”

“…Is it urgent? No, you came just in time.”

Ivora turned, glaring at Anselm, roaring furiously: “Are you mad?! That old hag is coming back any second, you!”

“You…”

The Grand Princess, turning to look, showed shock and disbelief.

Because, despite sensing nothing, she saw… a faint shadow floating in midair, embracing Anselm’s neck.

“Anselm.” The shadow whispered in his ear, “Call its name.”

The boy couldn’t help but laugh: “Must it be so ceremonial?”

“Of course.”

The shadow grew more solid, forming someone who shocked Ivora even more.

It was that insignificant, weak, pitiful doll Anselm toyed with at will.

Yet now, in Ivora’s eyes, that doll embraced Anselm’s neck, saying softly:

“I stake my life on this.”

“For you, I offer the power to shatter fate.”

Anselm smiled, kissing her still-faint cheek, raising the hand with the bracelet, clasping it with the girl’s ethereal hand from behind.

Cold iron light bloomed in their hands, accompanied by a steely, resolute declaration:

“Fantasy Armament—”

“Deus Ex Machina!”