Chapter 1267: Another Rift

The figure who had once been the War God’s Pontiff stood silently beneath the grand throne. He had once been the vessel for divine madness, the source of the spiritual corruption that spread through the upper echelons of Typhon and its armies. He had been the architect behind the tragic, unintended “war” between Typhon and Cecil, indirectly causing the War God’s Church to be purged and dismantled by the Typhon royal family.

He had even been personally captured by Rosetta Augustus, sacrificed as a conduit to hasten the War God’s descent into the mortal realm.

Few figures in history become true turning points. Malm Dunit was one of them—though the role he played in that turning was far from honorable.

But all of that was long past. To this phantom, neither ghost nor heroic spirit, the events that once unfolded in the mortal world no longer held any meaning. He was but a trivial servant in this dissolving, disintegrating divine realm, guarding the last lingering illusion left by the gods, standing watch over the crumbling gates of a kingdom that had long since fallen apart.

“I never expected visitors here,” Malm Dunit said, lifting his gaze with a trace of curiosity as he regarded the group before him—ancient arcanists radiating with energy, heavily armored and burly paladins of the Holy Light, and a foreign god manifesting as a projection. Such a team was unimaginable in the days he once knew. “What brings you here? This is nothing but a collapsing ruin.”

“We seek the secrets of the gods,” Kamail replied calmly, fixing his eyes on the old man. No matter what this man’s former identity had been, it no longer mattered. To Kamail, he was simply an ordinary source of intelligence. Naturally, he remained cautious, wary of any corrupting influence this wandering “ghost” of the divine realm might carry. “And you? How have you retained your consciousness after death and the fall of the gods? How have you lingered here for so long?”

Malm Dunit was silent for a moment, then chuckled softly. “I don’t know… perhaps because I want to.”

Kamail said nothing, only glancing briefly at Mirmyna, who also remained silent. Then he nodded slightly. “We will continue exploring. Will you stop us?”

“No… I have no reason to stop you anymore,” Malm Dunit said lightly. “Mortals have triumphed over the gods. This divine realm is your spoils of war. That is the rule my lord acknowledged—act freely. It is the right humanity has earned.”

Kamail exhaled quietly. Though he doubted this ghostly old man could actually impede a team of explorers protected by divine avatars, this was still the War God’s realm. Any reckless action could trigger unpredictable consequences. Avoiding conflict was the best outcome.

Just as Kamail raised his hand to order the White Knights to continue their search, Malm Dunit’s voice rang out again: “There is a place I want to show you.”

“A place?” Kamail’s eyes narrowed with a mix of surprise and caution as he looked at the phantom. “What do you want us to see?”

“Relax. I mean you no harm,” Malm Dunit said, sensing Kamail’s unease—perhaps a unique intuition of a ghost. His tone held a faint smile. “At the edge of this divine realm, I’ve seen something that shouldn’t be here. I think you might find it interesting. It’s not far—just beyond here.”

Curiosity sparked within Kamail. After a brief hesitation, he decided to follow the ghost. “Lead the way.”

Malm Dunit nodded and silently strode toward a door beside the throne. The explorers, led by Kamail, followed closely, with Mirmyna bringing up the rear, alert to every shift in their surroundings.

They passed through the outer wall of the arena and entered a new district through a gate opposite the Walk of the Cheerers. Here stood countless towering buildings—windowless, doorless—lined with iron-gray roofs, high walls, and towers adorned with swords, spears, and blades. The servants who once tended the gods had vanished, leaving only hollow winds that howled through the dim light, stirring dust along the empty streets.

After the gods’ fall, even this once-immaculate divine realm began to gather dust.

Malm Dunit merely shook his head slightly, no longer moved by such sights. He had wandered here for so long that any lament had long since faded. He led the explorers through these silent palaces and streets, deeper and deeper—toward the very edge of the divine realm.

As they neared the boundary, Kamail noticed subtle changes in the environment. The murky light of the sky had grown steadily dimmer, as if night were falling. The buildings showed increasing signs of decay—cracks and gaps appeared in walls and roofs that should have been solid and pristine. Even the massive stone streets beneath their feet became uneven and riddled with fissures.

It was as if the closer they drew to the realm’s edge, the more the space itself was being eroded and dissolved by some unseen force.

He glanced at the tall, elegant woman beside him—the senior advisor standing three meters tall. She caught his gaze and smiled faintly beneath her veil, her expression complex.

“This is how the divine realm unravels,” she said softly. “It begins at the edges, worn away bit by bit by the chaotic ripples from the Deep Sea. If you think of mortal thought as a reef gradually sculpted over generations, then the ripples in the Deep Sea are the waves. Though the reef seems solid, without the constant ‘support’ of mortal consciousness, it will inevitably be worn down and broken apart by the endless waves.

“The fragments that break away return to the chaos of the Deep Sea. What you see here is only the earliest stage of that process.”

Kamail listened intently to the former deity’s words. In the past, such knowledge—truths beyond mortal comprehension—would have been dangerously forbidden, revealing the mysteries of divine operation. But now, with a mortal expedition inside the divine realm, Kamail and his White Knights were witnessing these secrets firsthand. Forbidden knowledge had become accessible—a symbolic effect and one of the fundamental principles within the realm of the gods.

As the team pressed on through this outer district, the fading light cast the ruins in ever starker relief. Intact buildings grew scarce; collapsed ruins multiplied. Towering palace walls and lofty structures had crumbled into broken bricks and shattered tiles. At one point, a building collapsed silently before their eyes—an eerie, soundless ruin.

Mirmyna raised her hand, conjuring a glowing orb that illuminated the gloom. Yet beyond the light, the chaotic darkness still surged—a roiling mass of invisible clumps and shadows, layered like visual distortions, gathering in the deepest reaches of the chaos.

Kamail glanced toward the darkness and felt a strange familiarity. After a moment, he realized where he had seen such a sight before—the Shadow Realm.

The “sky” of the Shadow Realm was this very same chaotic darkness!

“It seems you noticed it too,” Mirmyna’s voice came then. “The floating regions of the divine realm are called the Deep Sea. In a sense, the Deep Sea is the deepest part of the Shadow Realm. Unlike the clear divide between the Shadow Realm and the mortal world, the boundaries between the Shadow Realm, the Deep Sea, and the divine realm are blurred—especially when the divine realm’s borders are fractured. The divisions become increasingly indistinct…”

“Is it possible to travel directly from here to the Shadow Realm?” Kamail asked, curiosity and scholarly deduction stirring within him. “If the ‘direction’ is right, could one even reach the Court of Rebellion?”

“…Unfortunately, it’s not that simple,” Mirmyna smiled softly, shaking her head. “Seeing something doesn’t guarantee you can reach it. Being able to reach it doesn’t mean it’s visible. Being visible and reachable doesn’t mean it exists. And existing doesn’t mean it can be known. This is the foundation of the world—birth and reflection of all things are far more complex than mortal understanding. Even the gods cannot fully grasp these mysteries. But I believe… perhaps one day, through your own efforts, you might unravel them.”

Kamail pondered her cryptic, profound words. At that moment, Malm Dunit’s voice came from ahead: “We’ve arrived. The border of the divine realm—the vision I want to show you lies just beyond.”

Startled from his thoughts, Kamail looked up. The boundary of the divine realm stretched before them.

The City of the War God had reached its end. The land ahead seemed shattered by an invisible force, broken into a horrifying, fragmented expanse. Beyond the jagged fracture line, the ground had vanished entirely. Ruined buildings drifted away from the divine realm, rolling and billowing in a sea of dust that resembled a cloud ocean. At the edge of the land beneath their feet, torn walls and crumbling towers appeared ripped apart, with dust flowing like water from the cracks, cascading down into the unsettling, boundless cloud sea beyond the divine realm.

Mirmyna raised her hand again, and another orb of light floated above the cloud sea, casting a radiant glow that illuminated the vast expanse. Kamail could see farther now.

Countless whirlpools churned across the cloud sea’s surface. At its far edge, the clouds boiled and roiled like a cauldron. A sharp boundary marked the border between the chaotic darkness and the cloud sea. Matter escaping from the divine realm was swallowed by this boundary, instantly reduced to tiny particles that vanished in the next moment.

This was the scene of the divine realm’s death—being relentlessly consumed by the ripples of the Deep Sea.

Even the steadfast White Knights were shaken by the unprecedented spectacle, their low murmurs betraying their awe.

But what Malm Dunit wanted Kamail and the others to see wasn’t just this “devouring boundary line,” nor merely the vast, churning sea of dust clouds.

The former War God Pope raised a finger toward the distance, his deep, hoarse voice echoing from the depths of his spectral form: “Do you see it over there? That largest vortex? That’s what I want to show you.”

Kamail’s gaze followed the ghostly finger, and in the next moment, the two points of arcane light at his temples suddenly contracted.

Deep within the cloud sea, a massive vortex roiled, surrounded by shattered ruins that rose and fell with the swirling currents. Amid the surging dust clouds, a huge spatial rift had appeared—its origin unknown, its destination a mystery. Its curved edges traced an arc, as if it were a small, accidental breach revealing a fragment of some far grander structure. It sat at the very center of the vortex, and any drifting debris that came near was instantly torn apart and swallowed by the rift.

From the depths of that rift, an unusual, striking blue light rippled like water, carrying a texture that Kamail found hauntingly familiar.

He hadn’t seen such a glow in a thousand years.

Kamail stared in that direction for a long time. After careful consideration, he slowly reached out his hand. Crossing the shattered boundary at the edge of the divine realm, he felt the sensation of magical exhaustion vanish the moment his hand passed through. A powerful magical resonance radiated from the distant rift, its energy seemingly suffusing the entire cloud sea.

Withdrawing his hand, Kamail’s mind cleared.

The broken boundary beneath his feet marked the current “complete limit” of the War God’s divine realm. Inside this boundary, the realm’s power remained intact, repelling magic and maintaining a “magical vacuum.” But beyond this boundary, the realm’s repulsion of magic faded, allowing the entire dust cloud sea—the “devouring transition zone” between the divine realm and the deep sea—to be saturated with magic leaking from that rift.

Kamail was no stranger to this energy… it was the magic of the Deep Blue Well.

A term that had recently become a hot topic among the empire’s top scholars suddenly surfaced in his mind: the Deep Blue Conduit.

“Could a Deep Blue Conduit appear near the divine realm’s territory?” Kamail suddenly turned to Mylmina and asked.

“The Deep Blue Conduit runs through all the realms of the planet,” Mylmina replied immediately. “In theory, whether it’s the Shadow Realm or the Umbral Realm, the Elemental Planes or the divine realms, they all lie within the conduit’s reach.” But then her tone shifted, tinged with unease. “However… this isn’t a normal Deep Blue Conduit.”

“Not a normal one? What do you mean?”

“It’s a rift—a leak. Do you understand? A normal Deep Blue Conduit is a steady flow of magical currents. Though immensely powerful, it’s like blood flowing through veins, confined to its own ‘path.’ But this… this rift is clearly abnormal!”

(End of chapter)