IBHJ 1218

A series of sharp cracking sounds filled the air as stalactites began to shatter, crashing down one after another.

"What—what is happening?" Xuanzang cried out, looking around frantically.

"We need to get out of here now!" Ritsuka shouted.

Without warning, a massive boulder broke loose from above, plummeting straight toward Xuanzang. Ritsuka's eyes flashed as she thrust out her hand. In an instant, a giant tree burst from nowhere, its branches wrapping protectively around all three of them before smashing through the rock wall and carrying them to safety.

Behind them, the entire cave continued to collapse in on itself.

Deep inside the darkness, Manaka stumbled forward, clutching her head in agony.

—Arthur, Arthur

"Stop calling his name!" she screamed, her voice echoing through the crumbling cave.

—Who... who are you? How are you using my body? Wait! I get it now! You're just a fake—a copy of me! Tell me, impostor, did you come here to steal Arthur from me?

"I couldn't care less about your prince charming," Manaka muttered through gritted teeth. "You're the monster here, not me..."

…

"What is that thing?!" Ritsuka gasped, staring at the collapsed cave as a massive pillar of black light erupted from underground, shooting straight into the sky and creating a swirling vortex.

In seconds, fierce winds whipped up around them and storm clouds gathered overhead. The darkness spreading from the vortex quickly engulfed the once-clear sky.

In the distance, the Empire's Barrier—normally transparent—suddenly became visible as white walls before being swallowed by the advancing black mist.

The dark energy pouring from the vortex seemed to destroy everything it touched. Even the giant tree she had created began to dissolve on contact with the mist, breaking apart like smoke.

"No!" Her eyes widened as she realized what was happening. The tree wasn't just being destroyed—it was being absorbed!

A series of sharp cracking sounds filled the air as the massive tree disintegrated. Its substance was being broken down to its most basic components and then assimilated by the spreading darkness. The black mist moved rapidly up toward Ritsuka and the others still perched at the crown of the dying tree.

"We need to move now! Don't let that mist touch you!" Ritsuka shouted, grabbing Xuanzang and Ayaka by their collars and leaping through the air to get them safely to the ground. She glanced back to see her tree completely consumed by the black fog.

"That's insane," she muttered in disbelief. "It just devoured Olga's tree like it was nothing."

A sudden jingling sound caught her attention. Turning around, she saw Xuanzang's nine-ringed staff trembling violently, its rings clanging together as if warning them of imminent danger.

With a deafening boom, endless waves of mud began gushing from the collapsed pit, flowing outward in all directions. Everything the mud touched—rocks, trees, even the very fabric of reality—simply vanished. Time and space themselves seemed to twist and distort, creating what looked like a zero-dimensional chaos.

Within that swirling void, a figure made entirely of mud slowly began to take shape.

The moment Ritsuka laid eyes on the mud figure, she felt an instinctive terror grip her entire body—like a lamb spotting a wolf. She felt frozen, as though plunged into ice water. This wasn't ordinary fear; this was the primal, deep-rooted terror of facing one's natural enemy—the instinctive reaction of a Beast confronting something even more dangerous than itself.

"It's her—there's no doubt about it! It's her!" Ayaka cried out, her voice trembling with both terror and hatred.

"Who?" Ritsuka asked.

"My sister. Manaka Sajyou!"

Ritsuka had already learned everything about Manaka from what Ayaka had told her earlier. Looking at the mud figure taking shape before them, she knew immediately this was no longer the Manaka she'd come to know—this was the true Manaka Sajyou who had been sleeping inside her all along. And not someone they stood any chance against. It took Ritsuka only a split second to make that assessment.

"Master Xuanzang, get out the bottle—we need to teleport back to Tír na nÓg right now," she urged.

"Right away..." Xuanzang frantically pulled the alchemical bottle from her pocket and removed its stopper, but nothing happened.

"That's not possible," she said, her face paling. "Why isn't it working?"

A series of cracking sounds rippled through the air as the surrounding void began to fracture like glass, breaking into web-like patterns before dispersing into tiny particles.

"The world's surface is being peeled off!" Ritsuka gasped in astonishment.

Unlike other planets, Earth has distinct inner and outer layers. The inner layer is what's known as the "Inner Sea of the Planet," while the outer layer is the planetary surface where all life exists.

Normally, this surface is held firmly in place by the Star's Anchor—it can't be forcibly removed. But with Manaka Sajyou's awakening, the impossible was happening—the world's skin was being violently torn away.

The consequences would be catastrophic. The planet's natural laws would revert from supporting human life back to their raw, primordial state. The Earth would die just like a person whose tendons had been ripped out and skin flayed off.

And Ritsuka, having taken Olga Marie's place, understood something even more terrifying—if the planet's surface was completely peeled away, it would reveal the door to "the Root," that mystical source of all power that countless mages had spent their entire lives searching for.

That would unleash true chaos!

"Hehe... I can feel it... that aura. You're here somewhere, aren't you, Arthur?"

The mud figure spoke with chilling delight in her voice.

The black vortex swirling above them grew even larger, stretching across the sky as the dark mist thickened to an almost solid mass.

--Ring-ring-ring!

The nine rings on Xuanzang's staff shook violently, clanging against each other in a frantic warning—as if the sacred object itself were warning them of the evil before them.

Manaka Sajyou had fully awakened.

Most people who didn't understand the true nature of the world probably hadn't grasped just how catastrophic this situation was, but Manaka Sajyou's awakening was bringing about a complete transformation of the Eternal Empire.

The massive black vortex now dominated the entire sky, and the thick dark mist it produced was somehow canceling out the immortality that all citizens of the Eternal Empire possessed.

Anyone who breathed in even the smallest amount of this mist—despite their supposed eternity—would instantly dissolve. No, not just dissolve—they were being transformed into more of the black mist itself, completely assimilated into the growing darkness!

They were becoming one with it!

Mikarus stared in horror. "What in the world is happening?"

"Has she awakened?" Demonic Bodhisattva muttered with a deep frown as she stared at the massive black vortex swirling in the sky.

"If the world's surface keeps peeling away like this and that door appears..." She paused, her expression darkening. "Could the Lord of Salvation be planning to use Manaka Sajyou to resurrect himself? And if so, would the Emperor even be able to defeat him again with Akasha's Arrow?"

The questions tumbled from her lips, but she had no answers—and frankly, she was afraid to imagine the possibilities. After all, she had completely betrayed the Lord of Salvation by now and was only looking out for herself.