Chapter 47: Birth of Darkness

Outside the trial, the Golden Clock paced back and forth at the top of the Mage Tower, watching the enormous black sphere that contained Elden.

Waiting without making preparations was not in her nature, especially in a situation this sensitive. However, there was nothing she could do inside the trial itself, so she had no choice but to monitor the changes appearing on the sphere's surface and try to determine whether things were proceeding smoothly or something unexpected had occurred.

She feared more than simply the possibility of the trial failing. She was also considering the other possibilities. The birth of a Great Ruler was not an event that could be taken lightly, and even if everything proceeded according to plan, the emergence of an existence at this level could produce unusual phenomena, perhaps even causing damage that no one could predict.

For this reason, she had evacuated the Mage Tower long ago. The people, resources, and research materials had all been removed and transferred elsewhere as a precaution against any emergency that might arise during the process.

She did not necessarily expect to need these precautions, but she preferred to prepare for the worst rather than regret having ignored the possibility.

Now, all that remained was to wait.

Whatever happened, would happen.

She watched the black sphere in silence, trying to maintain her composure, when something in the atmosphere began to change.

At first, the change was not obvious. It felt as though an invisible pressure were accumulating in the air, something faint whose source she could not identify. Then, within moments, the sensation intensified until the atmosphere itself seemed to have acquired an enormous weight.

She raised her head.

Black clouds were gathering in the sky, blocking out the light and casting heavy shadows over the area surrounding the tower. At the same time, the pressure increased until even breathing became difficult, as though the air had transformed into a heavy mass pressing down on everything around her.

This was no longer merely a metaphysical effect confined to consciousness or the soul. It was beginning to manifest in the physical world.

The winds howled violently, and the remaining furniture inside the tower trembled as cracks spread across several stone structures. Small fragments then began breaking away from their places and slowly rising into the air, as though gravity had lost its authority over them.

Countless objects floated around her, suspended in space without responding to any familiar law.

As a cold wind swept through the Mage Tower, the Golden Clock retreated until her back pressed against the wall.

Her eyes widened, and whatever composure remained on her face vanished. She grew visibly paler as a heavy sense of danger overwhelmed her, one she could neither ignore nor dismiss.

“Something...”

The words caught in her throat.

Then she whispered, panic beginning to creep into her voice.

“Something has gone wrong.”

In the next instant, the black sphere began to tremble.

Its shaking was anything but ordinary. Its surface rippled as though it had turned into water, then repeatedly swelled and contracted. Bubbles spread across its surface, forming and disappearing at an accelerating pace until it looked as though something enormous were boiling inside, struggling to force its way out.

The Golden Clock took another step back.

Her instincts screamed at her to keep her distance and leave this place before it was too late.

She did not wait to discover what would happen next.

She activated her teleportation magic, and her body vanished from the top of the tower at the very moment the disturbance reached its peak.

In the next instant, a black beam darker than the night shot toward the sky.

It tore through space with tremendous force, accompanied by an immense pressure that made the entire region tremble. Under the influence of the surging power, the floating Mage Tower began to tilt slowly, then its structure started cracking and crumbling.

Massive chunks of rock broke away from its structure and fell from above amid the howling winds, while the tower gradually lost its balance.

“You... you! What have you done?”

The World Will trembled, unable to determine whether her body was shaking from overwhelming anger or fear. The scene before her surpassed everything she had prepared herself to face and everything she had believed she could control.

The madness laughed as he watched her trembling, his crimson eyes widening with manic delight. His laughter contained nothing but mockery, as though he had been waiting for this moment since time immemorial, as though seeing the being that had confronted the universe itself rendered helpless before him was the reward he had lived for.

“Yes... Yes! These are the consequences!”

His shoulders shook as his laughter grew louder.

“The consequences have finally come back to haunt you!”

A moment later, a horrifying scream shattered the silence.

It was so sharp and terrifying that the World Will instinctively clutched her ears, even though the sound was not a physical one that ordinary ears could hear. It had erupted from that colossal entity, which contained a soul and consciousness beyond anything imaginable.

The vessel named Elden... was screaming.

It was not a cry of fleeting pain, but the sound of suffering that words could not describe—the suffering of an entire existence being subjected to something it had never been created to endure.

“What... what is this?”

The mockery vanished from the World Will's face as she watched the vessel's immense soul, which shimmered with a pure white light. At first, she could not identify precisely what had changed. The difference was so subtle that it was almost impossible to notice, but it was there, and she knew that something had infiltrated an existence that should never have contained it.

A flaw had appeared within the soul.

A tiny patch of darkness, barely distinguishable amid the endless expanse of light.

There was no obvious reason to be concerned about a patch of such insignificant size. Nevertheless, the World Will could not tear her gaze away from it. Deep within her instincts, she sensed that what she was seeing was neither ordinary darkness nor a fleeting trace that could easily be erased.

The moment the will of the vessel, Elden, cast that vast consciousness into its depths, without the original consciousness possessing the ability to resist, the dark seeds began to bloom within the depths of his soul.

The patch did not remain small for more than an instant.

It expanded with terrifying speed, as though something hungry had finally awakened after a long slumber. Branching black tendrils spread from it, piercing Elden's vast soul like veins spreading through a living body. They multiplied endlessly, infiltrating its immense mass until no part of that boundless existence remained untouched.

It was corruption.

A cold sensation swept through the depths of the World Will, like a shiver running down a nonexistent spine. Was it fear? Or awe before something whose nature she did not yet understand? She could not be certain, and perhaps the distinction no longer mattered.

Only one thing was clear.

Things were beginning to slip out of her control.

But the World Will did not remain frozen for long. After a moment of shock, she regained her composure and moved the will she had already spread throughout a large portion of the vessel.

Her will surged like colossal tsunamis, flowing like hurricanes sweeping across an entire world as it crashed against the corrupted will multiplying within Elden's soul. At first, the difference between them was obvious. The World Will possessed overwhelming control over the vessel, and her consciousness had already spread throughout its depths, whereas the corruption was merely a newly expanding patch.

Thanks to this advantage, she managed to surround the darkness and trap it, then force it backward with tremendous strength, preventing it from spreading freely.

For a moment, it seemed that things were still under control.

But that did not last.

As time passed, the World Will began losing the ground she had fought so hard to reclaim. The darkness was not truly retreating. It contracted beneath her pressure, only to spread again, seemingly indifferent to the power crushing it. Whenever the World Will attempted to subdue it, it found a new path through which to infiltrate, exploiting every crack in her control and every moment when the density of her will weakened.

Then it happened.

The darkness suddenly opened up, as though a hungry beast had spread its jaws for the first time.

It lunged at the World Will and tore away an entire piece of her.

“Gaaaaah!”

The World Will froze.

Pain overwhelmed her all at once, so sharp and violent that she felt as though her body were being torn apart alive, piece by piece. It was not physical pain in the ordinary sense. It was as though a part of her very existence had been forcibly ripped away, leaving behind a void she could not ignore.

The World Will had never experienced such pain before.

She had existed for a long time, yet she had never felt anything like this... not once.

But the worst had yet to begin.

Suddenly, a dark hue seeped into her will.

It was a fragment of the darkness that had transferred into her. She felt it spreading through her depths, attempting to infiltrate her existence and seize control of it from within.

For the first time, the World Will trembled with fear.

But she did not surrender.

She steeled her resolve and severed the corrupted portion of her will without hesitation, abandoning it before it could spread any further. Then she continued fighting, relying on her remaining will and the strength she replenished from outside, attempting to seal the gaps created by the attack and halt the darkness's relentless expansion.

She was losing.

Her will gradually eroded, and her control over the vessel weakened with every new confrontation. The battle had become a struggle for survival, one she was fighting against something whose limits she did not understand and which she did not even know could be destroyed.

The only things still binding her to the battle were her fierce determination to protect her world and her deepest desire to preserve the life she had embraced since her birth.

That desire was older than her fear, deeper than her pain, and stronger than anything that tried to break her.

Nevertheless, she was not the only one paying the price for this battle.

The madness named Elden was not immune to what was happening, either. The immense consciousness contained within the vessel had split into opposing forces fighting one another from within, each consuming the other or attempting to subjugate it. There was no true victor in this chaos. Even if one side managed to overcome the other, the price paid by the vessel could make the outcome catastrophic for everyone.

Yet Elden no longer seemed to care.

His groaning turned into a roar, then his roar transformed into manic laughter. There was not a trace of regret or fear in his voice. Instead, he seemed to relish every moment of the chaos, as though watching everything collapse had been his sole purpose from the beginning.

Deep within the vessel, the storm grew more violent.

Glittering fragments of white will whirled through the darkness, intertwining with the scattered pieces of corruption. Their speed continued to increase until it was no longer possible to distinguish the individual fragments. The forces collided, crushed one another beneath immense pressure, and repeatedly gathered, disintegrated, and reformed.

As the fragments continued to spin, they began converging into an enormous sphere of black and white.

It was not a sphere in the physical sense, but a mass of conflicting wills compressed beyond imagination, containing forces whose density exceeded the limits of individual consciousness. Light and darkness struggled for dominance across its surface, alternately seizing control before reshaping it once more beneath the ever-increasing pressure.

Little by little, that mass began transforming into something new.

Something vast, strange, and incomprehensible.

Elden watched everything unfold.

He was no longer laughing quite as much, but he did not look away from the scene. He watched as the light swallowed the darkness, only for the darkness to cover the light again, in an unending cycle that seemed destined to continue forever.

The sphere turned from white to black, then returned to white before darkness engulfed it once more.

Finally, the white began to fade slowly.

It could no longer reclaim the space it had previously occupied. Darkness crept across the sphere, swallowing what remained of the light until black gradually came to dominate its surface.

Elden stopped laughing.

His body trembled, then froze in place, stunned, his crimson eyes fixed on the sphere changing before him.

Then he heard a sound.

Crack.

It was faint, resembling the fracture of something buried at an unfathomable depth, yet it rang out with terrifying clarity from the core of the black sphere.

In the next instant, the corrupted darkness exploded.

It surged through Elden's soul like an unstoppable flood, covering everything in its path. It left no room for light and no place where the remaining forces could gather and reform. The darkness swallowed the immense soul, spreading through its depths until not a trace of what it had once been remained visible.

Elden watched the darkness approaching him.

He did not try to retreat or resist.

He no longer even had the desire to do so.

He had spent almost his entire existence struggling, hating, and resisting. Now, he felt no need to keep fighting. There was nothing he wanted to save, no other goal he wished to achieve, and no future he looked forward to.

When the darkness finally reached him, it embraced him.

The blackness swallowed him quietly, and his existence dissolved within it. There was no more pain, no more struggle, and no longer any need to hold on to anything.

Elden disappeared into the embrace of darkness.

And there, he grew in peace, freed from the life that had bound him.

Forever.