“GREED CATACLYSM!” Mammon raised his arm to the sky and a magical array covered the entirety of the royal capital. From a bird’s eye view, one would find massive lines of written mana kilometers long running across the entire Northern Continent. Not only that, but the structure of the array extended down deep beneath the ground, encroaching upon the various labyrinths placed all throughout the landmass.
Anna found her every movement come to a screeching halt. Even Tyr found itself stumped against the strange force that took hold of Anna’s ability to move. It was as if the very concept of her being able to interfere was erased from reality itself.
No spirit she had under her control was able to do anything, and with a helpless and dumbfounded look in her eyes, she felt a searing pain erupt from her soul. It was as if something was gouged out from herself and out came a brilliant, colorful soul with thousands of spirits rapidly swarming around it in a matter of seconds.
All across the world, whether it be the beastmen of the Eastern Continent, the elves of the Western Continent, or the mermen of the vast oceans, they all went into pandemonium as the vast array released a terrifying amount of mana into the atmosphere from its mere activation.
With a casual approximation, the mana released was equivalent to having hundreds of archmages casting a grand spell all at the same time repeatedly! That monstrous level of force could take down the entirety of the Vizwel Empire in the blink of an eye!
Emperor Vizwel, the man who sat on the throne of the greatest human empire of the current generation, sat there with a deep stare that looked out into the vast distance where he saw, vividly and clearly, the warped mirage in the sky forming an intricate array of complex arcane mysteries.
Kings and emperors, powerful mages and unrivaled knights, dragons of old and elves of ancient age, tyrannical beastmen and fearsome lords of the seas, all watched in awe at the display of magical might currently ongoing in the home of humanity.
Then, in a split second, a harsh white light exploded into the sky, outshining the light of the sun and covering the whole world with light. Even the opposite end of the world had turned from night to day for a moment, dazzling those who witnessed the divine feat.
After that, souls upon souls, hundreds of millions, billions upon billions, all rose up from all around the world. The land, the sea, and the sky; from underground labyrinths to various dungeons and even strange farms for human life all constructed throughout the continent by Mammon.
Ghastly shrieks rang like the tune of death, causing a cold chill to those adept in the arts of the soul. Priests and necromancers, novice mages and skilled archmages, knights and scholars, all saw what could only be described as the apocalypse.
They all swirled and gathered, forming vast stretches of milky white across the bright blue sky, mixing and tumbling to a certain part of the continent.
Earthquakes, storms, tornadoes, and volcanic eruptions; all types of natural disasters brewed and boiled across the northern front of the world. Hundreds of millions, possibly even billions of spirits, found themselves entangled with innumerable souls, causing great disturbance to the natural order of the world.
Without the support of the spirits, order rapidly went astray as what were once lush forests turned into desolate wastelands, vast stretches of sea teeming with marine life turned into bloody pools of dead fish, with avian life gliding through the air now splattering down to the ground into a mushy mess of organs and flesh.
The only fortunate part, relative to the overall disaster that had happened, was that the majority of those cataclysmic outcomes only occurred at the four most dangerous places in the northern continent, the four legendary areas that were known for their danger and untapped resources - the Great Northern Wilderness, the Vast Southern Desert, the Shadowy Western Plains, and the Deep Eastern Trench.
That doesn’t undermine the fact though that in just minutes, millions of lives had died from the natural disaster that had struck out of nowhere.
A moment later though, a pillar of golden light erupted into the sky and down to the ground below, with Mammon in the center of it all. The pillar continuously increased in size, going from the thickness of a tree to covering the entire royal capital in a few seconds.
With the pillar as the center, gargantuan clouds of milky white souls and colorful swarms of spirits swirled around it like a vortex of spiritual beauty.
Anna’s face paled in horror as she witnessed the events happening in front of her. Even with her currently unrivaled power in the world of Tyr, she was unable to do anything else but just watch as the madman continued his strange exploits.
Dark clouds loomed in the air as the world spirit tried to intervene, but any spirit that approached the golden pillar was helplessly sucked into it. Then, as the swirling clouds of souls and spirits rapidly converged around Mammon’s body, his unique cheat, his supreme ability forged from the labor of eons of work, rapidly stole the foundation of billions of souls and spirits into his own.
His soul rapidly transformed from its previously liquid-like state into something more solid and corporeal. His Divine Sense’s domain went from kilometers to tens of kilometers and even hundreds of kilometers! His senses rapidly expanded all throughout the continent as tens of millions of human lives came into his view like a god watching everything from their omniscient perspective.
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As Mammon looked up into the sky with a mad grin running across his featureless face, he stared at the colorful wart of light absorbing hundreds of millions of souls and spirits into its own, causing it to go from a flickering orb of light into a dense, solid stone.
At this very moment, Anna finally realized something, like a memory clicking into a strange puzzle. It was a distant memory already, but one that she could still remember vividly - because, in a way, that was the very turning point of her life.
I’m your ancestor, Van Hisprite!
The aged appearance of the first user of spirit magic resurfaced in her mind, along with his dying words, words that explicitly stated the vile notebook containing the secrets to alchemy magic was sealed in his tomb.
Alchemy Magic… magic that holds the power to replicate the abilities of spirits, the direct counter and rival of her spirit magic! And there was also the tiny tidbit regarding the peak creation of alchemy, a tool that could help any alchemist gain unrestricted control over the foundation of reality, with only their skill, knowledge, and creativity being their only limits.
Flashes of events, both recent and old, slowly began to fit into one long chain of bone-chilling truth.
The missing notebook, the fact that she was still alive even after encountering Mammon Heist, his mysterious ramblings that were just plain insane, his strange magic that felt eerily similar to her own… it all culminated into one thought that made her mind freeze.
“This was all part of my plan.” Mammon winked his eyes and slowly reached out to grab the rainbow-colored stone up above. “Pretty terrifying, right? For months, you had been playing right into my chaotic orchestra of devious music. Perchance… every action of yours, every thought, every free-willed decision that you had done was all merely the fate that I had planned.”
“This is what it means to be a supreme god, my dear Anna,” Mammon said with a distorted and warped voice. The colorful swarms of spirits and souls slowly died down and the pillar of golden light receded, but the beacon of light crystallized into one big solid lump and was taken hold of by Mammon, firmly and tightly.
In the next moment, he slammed his hand right into his chest, piercing through his skin and flesh, with the colorful stone mending deep into his very soul, fusing and becoming a sort of nucleus that was irremovable from his solid soul.
A deafening silence soon came after as Anna stared with wide eyes at Mammon’s figure. Even though nothing had changed, it was as if the current situation was the calm before the storm.
Then, as she slowly regained control over her body, she unhesitatingly launched an attack at Mammon’s body, causing a radiant ball of burning hot flames to engulf him fully.
Winston, who was watching from the sidelines, silently smiled and disappeared into nowhere.
Anna felt her heart thump loudly as she tried to locate where Mammon’s body was, but as she looked back at the pile of burning embers floating in the sky ahead of her, she froze and clearly saw Mammon’s body turn into ash and dust. She quickly got over her confusion though as she didn’t sense any soul escaping from that burned body, so she knew Mammon was still alive.
But where?
As she asked that question in her mind, her eyes widened as cracks abruptly formed all across her vision. From the clouds in the sky to the land on the ground, they all transformed into shattered glass and disappeared, revealing an endless white void with no land or sky.
Anna hurriedly covered herself by warping space and time all around her body, but nothing came for a short while. It was all nothing, when all of a sudden, Mammon unexpectedly appeared right in front of her, sipping on some tea while sitting on a floating chair.
He gave her a cursory glance and let the cup of tea fall down to the endless abyss below, before curtly wiping his lips and staring at her fully.
“You know, believe it or not, I’m actually quite envious of the rapid progress you just had.” Mammon crossed his arms and clicked his tongue. “It took me a few centuries to even reach the level where you are now, but that’s the boon protagonists would have in exchange for their controlled fate.”
“Where are we?” She asked with a glare and proceeded to slowly form miniature nuclear bombs all around her.
“This? This is just a pocket dimension, a personal dungeon if you will,” Mammon answered softly and slowly stood up with a smile. “In fact, even you can do this with your current raw power.”
“You can do much more than just create nuclear bombs or warp space-time. You have literal control over reality, so you could have just controlled the spirits governing things like time and erased me completely from this timeline, but alas, you are too inexperienced with this great level of power.” Mammon shook his head regretfully. “I really expected a more exciting fight when you first ascended to the level of a Demigod, not a bullet hell where I simply had to avoid beams of light and wait for my arrays to power up.”
“Well, you do have the potential to fix this regret by warping time, but that’s practically impossible with your puny level of skill.” Mammon shrugged his shoulders. “And if you’re wondering why I’m even lecturing you right now, well it’s because I want you and Noel to get a lot stronger, a lot stronger before our final fight.”
“Final fight…” Anna gritted her teeth. “Just like how you dictated all the events that led up to this moment?”
“Yes, just like right now,” Mammon answered bluntly. “But that’s the beauty of it. If you don’t try and stop me, you’ll eventually suffer defeat. So, you better work harder after this is all over!”
Anna felt the rage inside her heart bubble more and she prepared to launch an attack, but Mammon’s warm smile slowly disappeared and he continued, “Well, this fight was more than boring. For my last lesson in this little meeting of ours, I’ll show you what you could have done differently in this little fight of ours. Who knows, maybe you’ll finally live up to my expectations the next time we meet.”
As his last words were said, a dark shadow suddenly covered her whole field of view and she instinctively looked up. When she did, she was met with a gargantuan humanoid figure hundreds of kilometers large hurling a finger right at her.
Compared to the finger, she was even smaller than an ant and could even be described as a bacteria! As the finger rapidly approached, she tried to launch a counterattack by splitting the atoms in the area above her, causing a grand explosion to erupt spanning hundreds of kilometers in a single second.
This proved to be futile though, as the dust and smoke split open to reveal the finger that had multiplied its size ten times over, which soon pressed down on her body at breakneck speeds.
The last thing Anna vaguely remembered was an aching pain from her head and back before everything went to dark.