Back in Old Eden, at the residence of the Nine-Tailed Foxes that encompassed thousands of square miles of land, Kaelith sat down in her father’s office, facing the latter behind his desk. She stared at him with her arms and legs crossed and an arched eyebrow.

“…is there something you want to say?” Karyu eventually gave in under the pressure and lifted his head from his work.

“You could have tried a little harder to stop Lucrecia,” his daughter chided and he sighed.

“What was I supposed to do? Imprison her?” He shook his head. “Your boyfriend is a Dual Emperor with absolute authority over wolves, and on top of that, you and your mother were present. If he had been vulnerable, of course, I would have stopped her. But he was not.”

“Right, so you left it for us to deal with despite the risks of confrontation,” Kaelith deadpanned.

Karyu looked away a bit and cleared his throat. “Anyway… he made her faint, huh? He’s stronger than I expected. I suppose his titles are not empty crowns. He’s an impressive boy.”

The vixen snorted. “You have no idea how big of a crown some of his other titles are,” she stated and he sent her a puzzled look, which she shrugged off. “At least I’m happy you accepted him as my lover without a fuss instead of saying some stupid shit like he’s too young or weak. Saves me the trouble of beating you up black and blue and taking over your Clan Head position,” she said in a completely honest and innocent voice.

The older man managed to keep a straight face, but if you looked closely, there was a bead of sweat trickling down the side of his face. ‘Yes… which is precisely why I didn’t bother…’ He retorted silently and exhaled tiredly.

There was no doubt in his mind she was capable of actuating that threat. He may trump her when it came to level and Host Rank, but when it came to pure battle strength, Kaelith outclassed anyone else in the Clan. In the first place, as things were going… the boyfriend himself might outclass him very soon as well.

“What kind of things do you say to your father…?” He nonetheless lamented out loud.

“Oh, it’s fine. Cheer up, dad. I knew you weren’t stuck up like that. Honestly, I was just scared you would agree with the old farts of the council after spending so much time with them.”

“Right… currently, they’re more annoyed about the fact that your mother is taking funds from the treasury without asking anyone,” Karyu leaned back and smiled. “You wouldn’t happen to know what it is for, would you?”

Kaelith grinned. “You’ll see soon. It’s related to wolfy too and the foreseen results far outweigh the investment, believe me. Though, frankly, I think having mom stop being a lazy drunkard is the best part of it all.”

“You don’t say…” Karyu huffed in amusement and looked back at his desk, spreading apart a few documents with a wave of his hand.

“Well, jokes aside, what are we going to do about the bugs?” Kaelith inquired.

“There isn’t much to say,” he grunted. “We’ll have to first settle their assets. They took everything of physical value with them, obviously. But they still own certain businesses and properties under the name of the Clan. We’ll sever our tie with their name and personally participate in the Global Quest to hunt them down. It would be a disgrace for us not to capture our own dissidents.”

“Don’t you worry that the Clan will be under pressure now?” The vixen frowned. “The Scorpions were rotten, but they gave results. Without them, we lost a massive amount of leverage against Guilds or Clans vying for our influence. In fact, some of them might try to swallow our assets.”

“I’m well aware, and that will be the main topic to discuss with the other Heads. We need to set up defenses until we finish restructuring and building a new intelligence branch. But before that,” he paused and flipped one of the papers he was reading.

Tapping on the document with his fingers, Karyu sat back as a harmless flow of mana came out of the paper and projected several images, texts, videos, and data all around the office.

Kaelith raised an eyebrow and recognized the views of certain Plateaus; those infamous for being dens of Téra, vampires, and other fiends. “The Abyss?” She voiced out and her father nodded.

“It has already started,” he said as he grasped one of the videos with a hand motion and brought it in between them. “I received all this barely half an hour ago,” he added as the images played several groups of Hosts going against hundreds of mindless Téra. The environment was glaringly noticeable, consisting of square areas of completely different environments and elevations.

“…that’s the Outer Land,” Kaelith recognized the Plateau immediately. “Why?”

“Hm?”

“What are those Hosts doing? If they can access the 700th Plateau, you would think they’d be much more cautious about this whole thing,” the vixen couldn’t help but scowl in confusion. “It’s barely been a few hours since the Global Quest was issued. It’s frantic.”

“Ah,” Karyu realized the cause of her perplexity. “Try to remember. The Quest said you would be rewarded for your victories and granted power from the defeat of your enemies.”

“Well… yes?”

“And have you noticed that this Quest also has no direct reward stipulations?”

Kaelith blinked and then widened her eyes. “You mean… this is a contribution type?”

“Yes,” he nodded. “Not only that; there are reports of Hosts gaining a very small percentage of the defeated targets’ attributes. They also give more experience and the Quest provides a leaderboard with clear separation of the top scorers to spur even more competition.”

“I see… no wonder everyone is leading hunts already.”

“And it’s dangerous,” Karyu sighed. “For now, it’s limited to the weaker Téra. Those are weak and mostly incapable of thought. Millions are roaming the System and proliferating almost just as fast as they’re being culled. However, when people start to turn toward the smarter ones or most importantly, the vampires…”

“It’s going to devolve very fast,” Kaelith finished grimly. “Nesslyria is cruel as a Queen. There’s no surprise there that she allied with the Abyss Empress. And worst of all, she’s powerful and holds over half of the vampire population under her. If they are attacked, they’ll strike back.”

“And then a System-wide war will break out,” her father declared. “The Scorpions can and will try to assassinate threats. God knows what the White Scorpion will do now as an enemy.”

“…and the Abyss Empress? Do we have an idea of who or where she is?”

Karyu shook his head. “Unknown. Everything about her. Before the announcement ever came, her whole existence was already nothing but hearsay.”

Kaelith lowered her eyes in thought. “Nyx and wolfy told me a few things they heard from one of the Abyss Rulers… The Empress is supposedly a Téras tempered by Meuro, the true name of what they’ve been calling the Abyss… In Nyx’s own words, the Abyss Empress would be a creature that wields nothingness as a weapon.”

The Fox Patriarch furrowed his eyebrows. “…at this point in time, there’s one thing we need that’s more important than ever.”

“Which is?”

“To—”

* * *

“—understand the Téra,” Rakna said as he snacked on a cookie, the rest of the group enjoying their own pastries and drinks. Ceresta was particularly entranced in tasting everything.

“Understand them?” Lucrecia raised her voice questioningly as she closed the various messages she was receiving from her clan about the situation with the Global Quest.

“In other words, we need information. What they’re capable of,” Nyx explained in his stead. “Just knowing of their Empress’ mutation will do nothing. While it is obvious she must be powerful, to a point she might even be dissociated from the System, it would be better to know the full extent of her abilities as well as her motive.”

“For now, all they have done is work behind the scenes of Kratos and Plateau Zero,” Rakna added with a hum. “They created the Grafted… an army of Half-Téra. The question is what for.”

“Who knows, world domination?” Higure threw a guess casually, leaning forward with her hands on the couch’s headboard and her tail wagging lazily behind her.

The therian snorted. “How could I have not thought of that?” He mirrored her smirk for a moment and she blinked in surprise before her tail accelerated in excitement.

“Mhm, I like this new version of you,” she nodded happily, which made him shake his head.

Nyx rolled her eyes. “It is not the time to be flirting, you two.”

“Nope, it’s always time,” the lioness rebutted mirthfully. “You should try it a bit more too. You have crossed all the bases already. You have to reinforce your basics now,” she said meaningfully and the goddess blushed.

“Please do not turn this house into a den of debauchery,” Hans’ voice resounded as he came back from above, having seemingly changed attires to a casual style. Once again, he glanced at Lucrecia, who also stared back. For some reason, both silently maintained a deadlock until the azure-haired boy scoffed and looked away, prompting the she-wolf to smile victoriously.

Rakna raised an eyebrow in amusement and Hans ignored it in favor of something else, “If the next step is to learn more about Pandora’s Spawn, there are two specific individuals to consider as ideal sources,” he stated. “The first is obviously Eternal Night, their alleged ‘Father’. However, logically, the second choice bears more chances of success. And it happens to be accessible to us.”

Nyx widened her eyes in recognition. “Him…”

“Yes, the abhorred Architect of Eternal Night; the Mad God, Karaskan.”

* * *

In a Plateau hidden from all where divinity fills the air and Celestials roam free, one figure clad in a thick fog of darkness sat on a familiar eight-branched cross adorned by a skull.

Cackling, the God of Madness looked up at the sky, his eyes darker than a black hole. The shadows that swathed him obscured his appearance, but they were not separate from him. The darkness was part of him; born to be veiled from light.

“One, two, three…” He uttered in a sing-song voice. “Is that how many times I will have died? We’re on our way to meet again, Arimane. A seed watered by your legend… Truly, destiny has an uncanny way to spit on all our faces.”

Despite his melancholic voice, Karaskan grinned hopelessly; brokenly. The Mad God did not care about sentiments. He was one of the oldest Gods to live, he was mad before madness existed. And lost in his wallows of misery, he made himself a Nemesis, crafted the Kind Demon, and cursed the world with Pandora.

The weakest, fakest, yet most thriving villain.