Deep in the Tree of Darkness, the Spirit that was summoned out from the abyss… A lone figure sat broodingly on top of his lofty throne. There weren’t any men or creatures serving the hooded man. There wasn’t even a fly to annoy him. The only company that man had… was the beautiful statue that he’d erected so many years back.

The Allfather sat silently, staring at the statue with affection. He wasn’t a stonemason, so his sculpting skills were quite wanting. The Allfather was unable to accurately depict the full image of his most beloved person even after centuries of training. However, he still treated the statue with the utmost reverence, not willing to let anyone go near or touch it. The Allfather had also rarely touched the figure himself, ever since it was first put in place, fearing that he would damage the last remaining memory he had of his loved one.

Alas, nothing lasts forever. Mustering up the courage, the man stood up from his throne and finally took the inanimate object by its face. The Allfather stroked the cold stone of the statue using his bandaged hands, trying desperately to recreate the touch of a human interacting with another.

“Dream… After so many years, we’re finally going to meet.” The Allfather didn’t have a face, but his tone was as jovial as can be. How long has he been waiting for this day? It has been five hundred years since Spirit Immortal Dream ascended. And throughout those five hundred years, not a second had passed where the Allfather didn’t think of her. He longed to hear her voice, touch her supple skin, to smell her scent and feel her love. It was an addiction, one that couldn’t be cured through pills and herbs.

The Allfather needed Spirit Immortal Dream’s touch, and he knew it better than anyone. Even as the Black Masks were fighting a losing war, the Allfather couldn’t care less. The havoc that the Alliance had wreaked… The Allfather couldn’t care less. The number of Black Masks that passed away from the raids… The Allfather couldn’t give two fucks.

The Allfather was on the precipice of attaining the one thing he desired the most. Crossing into the Immortal Realm and reuniting with his loved one. He could care less about the state of his subordinates. All that he cared about… was the hole in the sky.

“One more step… One more step to eternity.” The Allfather was finally willing to part ways with the inanimate statue. This time, he didn’t look back with affection. “I will no longer have to yearn for you… Yearn for you using this statue. With Heaven’s Gate opened… I will be with you forever.”

That was the Allfather’s oath. To reach for the stars and be with Spirit Immortal Dream.

“Hurry… Hurry… Hurry…” The Allfather prayed, urging for the final touches to be added to Heaven’s Gate. He could feel everything. The elemental energies that the Payircis were providing the whirlpool in the sky. The Noble Beasts fighting the enemies and sucking their spiritual energies dry to provide the massive energy toll. The power of the Alliance and Black Masks diminishing by the second as Heaven’s Gate continued to widen. The Allfather could sense everything… but he couldn’t do anything.

All of his energy was reserved for the final push. The Allfather had to either become a Spirit Immortal in the next few hours or pray that his preparations were enough to open Heaven’s Gate. So… all that the Allfather could do now was wait for his subordinates to finish their jobs.

Alas… It was at that moment...

“Asyesco?” The Allfather shot a perplexed look at the direction of the Blue Payirci. The Paradise Heart which should have been pumping spiritual energies into the air had ceased and more frighteningly… The World Serpent’s power had begun to diminish.

Ao’s lifeforce was the most robust among all of the Noble Beasts. He was the World Serpent, a Spirit Beast that was said to have descended from the Serpent God itself. In terms of pure lifeforce, Ao was unquestionably at the top of all the Noble Beasts, surpassing even Kuro himself! Even if he were matched against two Spirit Saints, there was no way that the World Serpent would have lost this quickly. But that wasn’t all…

“That aura… What the hell is that?!” The Allfather had a connection with all of the Black Masks and the Noble Beasts under his command. As long as it was a place that his mana could reach, the Allfather was able to sense everything within the vicinity as if he were physically present. And Shin’s altered power… was something that the Allfather had never seen in his entire life!

That spiritual energy… that elemental power that was as vast as the ocean and as unfathomable as the deepest trenches of the World… The Allfather had never experienced such a drastic feeling. Even Spirit Immortal Dream didn’t have that kind of power at her peak!

Peering into the Blue Payirci, the Allfather attempted to uncover what had gone wrong. And well…

Countless of corpses laid flat on the sandy floor, including the motionless bodies of Meijing Xuenkai, Seymour Fielder and Malgen Chaxrala. All of the top Brahmins that were supposed to assist the World Serpent had perished, and the Paradise Heart had been utterly shattered. However, what really brought the Allfather’s soul to fear… was the single man standing on top of Ao’s unmoving body.

He looked human and yet… the power that he held was anything but. It was as if… the Allfather was staring at the entire World itself. And as expected…

“Allfather...” Shin accurately determined the point in which the Allfather was observing him and flashed a sinister smile. “Wait right there… I’m coming.”

And with that declaration… The Allfather’s senses in the Blue Payirci were cut entirely. He couldn’t overrule Shin’s power like the other Spirit Saints, and he couldn’t influence the Blue Payirci anymore. That domain, which should have been under the direct control of the Allfather, was now in Shin’s hands.

“Bad… This is really bad!!!” For the first time since the war began, the Allfather did something he’d never done for centuries. He panicked. There was only one reason why he couldn’t spy in the Blue Payirci anymore. The opponent that he was trying to observe… was at a much higher level than himself.

“Kuro! Shiro! Akai! Murasaki!” The robed man immediately shouted out into empty space, his voice booming with authority.

“Allfather?! What is it?” Kuro was the first to send back a mental transmission.

“Execute the final movement! We can’t afford to wait anymore!”

“Rarara!!! What happened?” Akai asked worriedly. He’d never heard the Allfather this frantic ever before.

“No time to explain! Execute the final movement! We don’t have time to fully charge up Heaven’s Gate! We’ll have to open it as it is!” The Allfather continued to bark out orders. “Shiro, once everyone has done their part, teleport them into the Tree of Darkness! Your locations aren’t safe anymore!”

“U-understood!” The nervousness of the Allfather had been carried forward to the other Noble Beasts. As per their orders, they ignored the forces that attempted to reap their lives and placed their bodies upon their respective Paradise Hearts.

“What the-!”

“What are they doing?!”

Naturally, the Alliance members were confused. Why did the Noble Beasts, who had been relentlessly fighting against them, suddenly move away?

Woooooooooonnngggg!!! Woooooooooonnngggg!!! Woooooooooonnngggg!!! Woooooooooonnngggg!!!

Beams of astral light rose from the respective Paradise Hearts as they became bits of mush that solely consisted of elemental energy. All of the power that they have collected throughout the time that they were sucking energy were now being fed to the whirlpool in the sky. It took a few seconds but eventually… all of the Paradise Hearts melted into nothingness as they added the final touched onto Heaven’s Gate.

The moment their mission was completed, four mirror portals opened, enabling the remaining Noble Beasts and a percentage of the Black Masks and their minions to escape safely. Since it was a rush, only those at the Brahmin level were taken into the portal, leaving the weaker Black Masks out to dry.

“ALLFATHER!!! SAVE ME TOO!!!”

“GIVE US SALVATION!!! LIKE YOU PROMISED!!!”

The zealots tried to beg the Allfather, but it was to no avail. They didn’t know it yet, but the Allfather was racing against time. Before the monster in the Blue Payirci could unleash his wrath… Before he could bring down justice upon them... He had to open Heaven’s Gate.

With the Paradise Hearts and their owners gone, the remaining Payrics had nothing left to support time. Like falling Jenga pieces, they crumbled away, not caring about the remaining living beings inside, be it friend or foe. The Alliance members naturally knew that this was coming and quickly drilled an escape route into the open.

“What the fuck? Were we too late?!” Saint Shenshe spat, as she escaped from White Payirci. She saw the other Spirit Saints staring at the sky with their mouths agape and determined the worst.

The Tree of Darkness’ dead branches, the omens of disaster and death, had suddenly sprung to life. They reached out to the whirlpool in the sky, making ripples as each one of them touched the vortex. More and more of those branches touched the maelstrom until all of them had been outreached and locked in place. And then... it pulled outwards.

And from that action… The light falling down from the centre of the whirlpool suddenly got just a tad bit wider.

It was trying to rip it open… It was actually trying to rip the sky open!

“He’s actually doing it… He’s trying to open Heaven’s Gate!” Raphael hollered out, his heart rate going a million beats per second. “We have to stop him! Stop him now!”

“Tsk, all Spirit Saints! Let’s attack that fucking tree!” It may seem pointless, but the Himmel Ancestor wanted to try it one last time. He couldn’t just sit down and let the Allfather attain Immortality… Not after all that the World had been through.

However, before anyone could move a single finger.

A single man teleported right in front of them. He had rich black-hair and a handsome face that would make one question his age. His limbs were long and complexion pale. He looked regal, almost otherworldly. However, the most drastic aspect of it all…

His power was bottomless.

All of the Spirit Saints, they had seen and done it all. They’d seen Primordial Beasts, Spirit Saints, and Empyrean Wonders that would baffle a human’s mind. They’d seen bottomless ravines that possessed infinite mysteries and fought in all sorts of wars. However… They’d never seen such overwhelming power in one person before. Even the Allfather, the being that was closest to that of a Spirit Immortal, was unable to match that seemingly harmless black-haired man that stood in front of them.

And at that point, the Spirit Saints finally knew.

It was the rise… of the World’s next Spirit Immortal.