Meanwhile, deep within the cavernous rot that was once Abeloth's lair, Jin-Woo stood in the center of a vast chamber—surrounded by corrupted stone, twitching tendrils, and walls that wept darkness. His sensors pulsed softly, feeding readings to his internal system and World Eternal Slumber.
The results? Disgustingly accurate.
"Huh," Jin-Woo muttered, peering down. "So this is the Font of Power?" ( img here )
Font of Power looked like a dirty well—a crater-like pit lined with blackened moss and oozing thick, smoky tendrils of Dark Side energy. It bubbled like tar and hummed like a broken engine.
"…This looks like a septic tank for Sith ghosts."
His gaze shifted.Pool of Knowledge ( imgs here )
And there—on the opposite side of the cave—was the Pool of Knowledge. A wide, murky green lake, flat and unmoving, it. The surface reflected nothing . Just swirling thoughts locked in green stagnation.
Jin-Woo tilted his head.
"Shouldn't it be the other way around?" he asked no one. "Power gets the lake. Knowledge gets the puddle. Not… this."
Still, his hands moved with precision. With one motion, he reached into the Pool of Knowledge—his glove parting the false surface like a membrane—and retrieved something… delicate. A glowing tether of memory, a soul fragment, pulsating with faint yet undeniable identity.
Xiang Yu. The original. The version born in Proper Human History. Not a copy. Sure as hell not a throne-bound echo.
"Here's your husband," Jin-Woo muttered dryly, sealing the tether into a capsule and clipping it onto his belt. "Problem secured. Now… for these two failed plumbing experiments."
He raised both hands. Shadow tendrils surged from beneath his feet—sinking into the Font of Power and the Pool of Knowledge, encasing them like black vines dragging corpses into the soil. A sigil opened behind him—a vortex to World Eternal Slumber. The rift opened only gravity folding inward as the two corrupted constructs were pulled through, sealed under his dominion.
Then—his thoughts moved. Jin-Woo spoke through the mental link.
"Offensive Bias. Does Daybit… continue being Daybit?"
The war-forged AI answered instantly, voice cold and neutral.
"Affirmative, Supreme Executor. Agent Daybit has formed a tactical partnership with the Gravemind. He intends to use its Flood strains later via his personal Servant system. As of this moment, the other Crypters are not monitoring Daybit—they are distracted, observing Hinako's 'hide-and-seek' operation via diverted screens. , I have shut down all active surveillance feeds targeting his point of view."
"A neutralization request was submitted for your consideration."
Jin-Woo's response came without delay.
"No need. If Daybit wants to bring an apocalypse to his own world… then so be it."
"Once I harness the Font of Power completely… I'll convert it into a multidimensional barrier. One that will make sure no entity—not even the Gravemind—can ever cross over into our galaxy again."
Hinako's POV —
The sky wasn't just screaming—it was bleeding.
Black lightning from Mortis itself crackled through the air, missing Hinako by barely a meter. The bolt smashed through a nearby ridge with a sound like a continent splitting in half, turning the entire landscape into molten glass. The jeep—Daybit's ridiculous starship-hybrid monstrosity—was now a twisted, flaming wreck, tossed like a broken toy during the wild chase.
Hinako stumbled, panting, barely shielding herself with nearby rock as volcanoes erupted around her. Literal, summoned volcano strikes—each explosion sending chunks of magma high into the air, raining down like falling stars made of hellfire. The land trembled beneath her feet, already cracked from tectonic strain. She didn't need a sensor to know: Abeloth was trying to shatter the planet's core.
"Jin-Woo…" Hinako snarled between gritted teeth, flipping behind a chunk of scorched debris. "You should've told me this crazy bitch was capable of shattering her own moon!"
The night sky proved it—Abeloth had done exactly that. The shattered moon of a celestial body floated in pieces above the planet .
Twenty meters away, Abeloth staggered through the mist—unstable, bleeding thick green liquid that dripped and sizzled as it touched the ground. Not blood. Flood infection.
Her frame twitched. Her mass writhed unnaturally. And yet—her power did not fade.
"You Living Beings …" Abeloth hissed through cracked lips and split jaws, her voice overlayed with screeches and whispers like a broken choir. "Irritate me…"
She raised a hand, claws stretching wide, eyes flaring with her black sclera .
"If I can't kill the Shadow Monarch…" Her voice cracked into a shriek. "…Then I'll kill his subordinates!"
She lunged forward—every claw ready to carve Hinako into nothing.
But then— She froze.Wide-eyed.Trembling.
"NO. NO—NOOOOOOO!! MY FONT OF POWER—MY POOL OF KNOWLEDGE—IT'S GONE!!"
She reeled, unhinged, half-corrupted by Flood bile and her own wrath—when something far more ancient began to pulse across the battlefield.
Far away—beyond even the fractured orbit of the broken moon—Jin-Woo's eyes gleamed.
His power now reaching 75% of its true Monarch form in his own galaxy the seal is weakening .
A familiar presence rippled through the shadows behind him. Yogumunt—the Monarch of Transfiguration. The one Jin-Woo had killed, consumed, and bent to his will long ago.
Jin-Woo raised his hand like a puppeteer tugging a single thread.
A purple portal ruptured open in front of Hinako—twisting like veins of black lightning as Yogumunt's massive demonic arm burst out from within and grabbed her like a treasured prize.
Hinako gasped—before she was violently yanked into the portal, vanishing in a blink—
Ripped back to the safety of Shadow Tython.
But Abeloth saw it. And Abeloth lunged.
No hesitation.. Just pure acceleration, tendrils flaring— "NOT AGAIN—NOT YOU—!"
But she was too late.
A second portal split open right beside her, sharp as a blade in time.
And from within it— Yogumunt's colossal, demonic bone pillar came crashing outward.
CLAAAANG! It struck Abeloth mid-lunge and sent her hurtling like a meteor—
Slammed through boulders, trees, and ancient stone—until her broken form crashed violently back into the farthest walls of her own cave.
The walls trembled. The dark trembled.
And then…
Jin-Woo stood before her.standing, arms crossed, in the center of the storm.
Shadows swirling like a crown of dusk behind his head.
Abeloth, coughing up more green bile, forced herself to rise with one twisted arm—and then froze.
Jin-woo just smiled. A cruel, casual, victorious grin.
"…So," Jin-Woo said dryly, almost amused,
"How does it feel to get robbed in your own home… …While you were standing right there to witness it?"
Abeloth didn't answer. Instead—she screamed,— And summoned her volcano.
The cave quaked. The air warped.
A hellish inferno surged forth, erupting up from the earth
But before it could land,
Jin-Woo tilted his head slightly.
Behind him, Yogumunt's sigil pulsed, the Monarch of Transfiguration answering his will without hesitation.
A portal snapped open above Abeloth—
And her own volcano dropped on top of her.
The impact crushed her under molten rock and psychic backlash—
And before she could even rise, another portal tore itself into the air.
Yogumunt's monstrous demonic arms burst from the rift like twin serpents—
Latching onto Abeloth's writhing, lava-coated form and slamming her down,
Chains of black flame binding her arms, her throat, her ribs.
She shrieked, defiant, coughing up Flood-tainted bile . but she was bound.
"Why…" Abeloth hissed, eyes glowing wild, "why don't you just kill me? Get it over with! You can kill an immortal… even without the Mortis dagger."
Jin-Woo didn't answer immediately.
He simply stepped forward, his black blade not drawn.
He didn't need it.
Instead—he impaled her directly with his hand, sinking through skin, sinew, and spirit.
Her scream choked short.
He reached in—and pulled out her heart.
Not her literal one. Her core—a sphere of swirling, coalesced Force energy. A corrupted Abeloth -heart that pulsed .
Jin-Woo encased it instantly in a cube of shimmering spatial compression.
A perfect prison that even time couldn't touch.
Abeloth collapsed into silence. Her body fell limp, eyes wide, her body now locked in a dark side force cocoon, sealed from the galaxy.
She would survive. But she would heal for a long, long time. Outside the cave, her Sithspawn creations continued warring against the Flood— Trapped in a war they could only stalemate .
Jin-Woo finally broke the silence.
"If you die," he murmured, glancing at her cocooned body, "so do the Font of Power and the Pool of Knowledge."
Jin-woo turned slowly, the cube of her heart hovering above his palm.
"I've heard the theory. The first one to claim them… binds them. Soul-to-source. If you die—so does their continuity. So...Weakening you was the better play. Let you rot in agony. Let the artifacts slowly adjust to me—not you."
He walked toward the exit of the cave.
"And if you die… those Mortis chuunibyou freaks will get alerted.…And it's not time for that yet."
Jin-Woo stepped out of the cave . The cube containing Abeloth's core still hovered above his palm,.
Down the mountain slope—amidst burning flood tendrils and fractured Sithspawn carcasses—the two forces still clashed like a nightmare with no ending. But the one approaching Jin-Woo didn't come from either side.
Daybit emerged through the smoke.
Calm. Silent. A few minor scorch marks on his coat, and one glowing line of red across his glove where he'd deflected an energy bolt—but otherwise? He looked untouched.
He stopped a few steps away from Jin-Woo, the red and purple lightsaber hilts now dimmed at his sides.
"…Did you succeed?" Daybit asked, voice even. "Did you get what you wanted?"
Jin-Woo nodded once. "Uh huh. And you?"
Daybit didn't smile. "I got Plan D."
There was a long pause.
Jin-Woo tilted his head, unimpressed. "…That's the one that can wipe out galaxy , isn't it?"
Daybit said nothing.
Jin-Woo rolled his neck once, exhaling as his shadows dispersed into the mist behind him.
"Good. Then tread carefully."
"Advice from a veteran: I've broken worlds. Raised armies from the dead. Made entire pantheons go radio silent just from rumors of my name."
He held up the cube—the heart of Abeloth still trembling inside it. "…But you pull that trigger too early—and the story ends before it begins."
Daybit nodded .
As the swirling slipspace portal collapsed behind them, Jin-Woo and Daybit stepped out onto the familiar soil of Shadow Tython .
Then—FWING! . A flash of green light sliced the air.
Hinako's lightsaber—ignited—came hurtling toward Jin-Woo's head. He didn't flinch. He simply tilted his head to the side, letting the blade pass harmlessly by with a soft vmmm as it buried itself into the ground behind him.
Hinako stomped forward, furious, cheeks puffed, cloak flaring.
"Are you—insane?! That was the most suicidal, psychotic, backwater plan I've ever heard in my 2,200 goddamn years of living!"
She pointed a shaking finger at Jin-Woo.
"You threw me into a war zone with a walking corpse serpent AND an angry tentacle MILF who shattered her own moon because I EXISTED. She hurled volcanoes at me, JIN-WOO. Volcanoes that's geological domestic abuse!"
"You didn't say she could smell me through the trees. You didn't say she could scream like a banshee and cause earthquakes just by glaring! I had to hide in a Jeep—a Jeep!—while Daybit played chess with a plague god!"
She whirled toward Daybit. "And you! Next time you wanna offer to help, at least TELL ME YOU'RE FRIENDS WITH A HIVE MIND THAT WRITES POETRY!"
The other Crypters—Kadoc, Kirschtaria, Ophelia, and Peperoncino—stood off to the side, arms crossed, all watching Jin-Woo with that same expression: Slightly irritated. Mildly betrayed. Quietly exhausted.
Jin-Woo said nothing. He merely lowered a small capsule from his belt and placed it gently onto the black grass.
Inside: a glowing tether. A soul. Xiang Yu. The Proper Human History version.
Hinako froze mid-rant. Her eyes locked onto the capsule. In one motion, her whole demeanor shifted like a flipped coin. She bolted forward, scooped up the capsule like a treasure, and clutched it to her chest with a bright, almost childish grin.
"I was good at playing hide and seek, wasn't I?" she beamed.
Kirschtaria pinched the bridge of his nose. "…Hinako. You just changed your entire mood in three seconds."
Peperoncino raised a hand like he was holding a scorecard. "BOOO! Crybaby vampire! That was a full tantrum followed by a magical-girl transformation! Bravo!"
Kadoc just sighed , "This group's gonna be the death of me…"
Amid the chaos, Jin-Woo stepped forward with calm finality, his eyes turning toward avatar of zeus . "…Now . Zeus our fight that about to began ."
The Avatar of Zeus, tall and resplendent in divine armor , grinned with thunder in his tone. "Our promised battle awaits."
"But after seeing your Shadow Monarch power in action… well, it's a bit unfair, ? . That's beyond True Magic. That's something even the gods of Proper Human History would tremble at."
"If your powers ever become part of Proper Human History, the Age of Gods might rise again… in terror. So. We fight. But not here. At Olympus. My Olympus. in the Atlantic Lostbelt. The throne of the divine still stands. And there, you are not allowed to use your Shadow Monarch power."
Jin-Woo raised an eyebrow . "You're putting restrictions on me… so what's the prize? I don't fight for free."
Zeus chuckled,. "Not a warrior indeed… but a man who understands exchange." "A man who values the give and take. Give me time. I'll arrange something… worthy. I know you don't care for gold, and your tastes are… unique."