When the plot-skips players into the game world

At the very center of the airwaves lies the dance skirt.

Or more accurately—it's the remnants of a dance skirt.

When the battle fully began, the wounds she had previously suffered from the Blood Blade became evident. Her entire being was torn completely in half... in the middle of her tilted, torn body, a pitch-black crystal hung suspended in mid-air.

It was merely the size of a fist, yet it seemed capable of devouring everything around it.

Just as it appeared, all the material around it began to disintegrate, turning into the Void. This naturally included the dance skirt itself.

Her eyes lost both pupil and sclera entirely, turning instead completely pitch-black like the crystal.

Her two torn halves peeled away piece by piece at a speed visible to the naked eye—each piece the size of a thumb, then further shattered into fragments as small as rice grains, slowly turning into void.

During this process, the solid ground turned into a liquid resembling sludge. Then it further turned into gas, eventually dispersing completely.

The speed of disintegration was exceptionally fast, and in the blink of an eye, the wine cellar had completely vanished. What followed was the church above.

From the outside, it appeared as if an unparalleled energy ripple had burst forth, pulverizing everything it touched... but the essence was not so.

It was the "dissolution of significance."

Everyone has had things they once cared about but later deemed childish and dismissed as they grew up. Just like every country, every civilization, at different stages of development, had goals they would achieve at any cost, only for those objectives to later become obsolete, outdated, needing optimization and reconstruction at some future point.

For example, the bricks on the ground, old residences, broken city walls... and for instance, at this moment, the wine cellar below, the church above.

At some future point, they will lose their significance and be flattened, dismantled—or at the very least rebuilt or relocated. But in any case, the existence itself would have lost its meaning, becoming an obstacle. Ultimately, it will be forgotten as if it never existed.

Their destination is the Void.

If one shifts the perspective to the infinitely distant future—where civilization will turn to ruin, and planets will reach their end.

The entire universe will perish, all that once existed will cease to exist... until all returns to one, falling into eternal silence and meaninglessness.

—Viewing the world from the perspective of the infinitely distant "Truth," one comes to realize... the Void is the enduring reality, while the awareness of existence is but a fleeting illusion.

Whether looking into the past or gazing into the future, if one could see the end of time, one would find "now" as small as dust.

Just like erasing a stain—"existence" is scrubbed from the grand curtain of the void.

This is the truth of the apocalypse.

It is also the essence known as "Void Whisper."

This power is neither attack nor destruction but merely advancing the eventual "destiny" of the future to the present.

—It is, thus, an early death!

Precisely for this reason, it is theoretically an unguardable attack.

Though the Blood Celestial Marshal appeared composed and spoke with lofty words—before the dance skirt, which turned everything to void, even they seemed fragile beyond measure.

Just being looked at by the "dance skirt," her skin instantly erupted with blood patterns. They were like blood vessels and spider-web-like cracks.

Like shattered porcelain or glass bursting in the summer heat. Her entire body instantly shattered, spewing blood.

Yet this tragic outcome made the Blood Celestial Marshal reveal a grim, satisfied smile: "Is this... all you can do?

"Even I... can no longer be dissolved?!"

The Blood Celestial Marshal's right arm transformed into a Blood Blade, cleaving down in an instant.

A flash of scarlet light, and the ground already melting was directly torn apart.

Just like parting the sea—only she parted the ground.

Fragments of rock broke upward, an invisible air wave pushing outward. Like a bullet penetrating the human body—the slender Blood Blade pierced through, and thousands of meters away, the earth was instantly overturned, shattered dozens of meters wide.

The church on the ground was completely pulverized, and moonlight spilled through the massive chasm above.

This level of attack could hardly leave the innocent unscathed, unharmed.

Before being dissolved by the void, the entire district experienced its end in an instant.

It did indeed cause slight damage—the Blood Blade, when touching the dance skirt's skin, didn't turn directly into void but left a second penetrating crack, slicing her from two halves into four.

At the moment she was attacked, the surrounding voidification ceased.

Aiwass and Sherlock suddenly awoke amidst a violent, deafening buzz.

The countless open doors they saw, the ceaseless otherworld knowledge flowing into their brains, halted abruptly. It was like opening a large file only to see "file corrupted." The decompression process was interrupted in an instant, as if woken suddenly from a dream.

When Aiwass awoke, he saw the confrontation between the dance skirt and the Blood Celestial Marshal.

He could hear, see everything happening outside, but could not respond—his "computational power" was completely maxed out, leading to a complete system crash. Now, with the "program not responding," it automatically crashed, and Aiwass instantly regained himself.

Yet the dance skirt, split into four pieces, showed no hurry or fear.

"...Just three thousand blood vessels, why..."

The dance skirt was merely perplexed.

After all, this was not the Void's core... as the Blood Celestial Marshal had noted, it was just a "waste of the Void."

It originally existed within the Blood Celestial Marshal, and before that, within the Eternal Self.

"It's... [Hatred], waste. Hatred endures through the ages."

Blood Celestial Marshal's voice was arrogant yet elegant: "Because they always hate me, they won't let you so easily dissolve me...

"—Mere remnants of the void, how dare you look up at the moon? Bow down to me!"

The next moment, massive crimson ripples manifested beneath her feet.

Crimson ripples shattering everything collide with a shield as black as ink.

Scarlet and black intertwine, an attack and defense beyond vision begins anew.

...Has hatred lasted since ancient times?

In that instant, Sherlock was momentarily stunned.

He seemed to vaguely understand something... Could it be that this strike affected the innocent, causing the Blood Celestial Marshal to carry enduring hatred... allowing it to harm the Void?

Because this strike had "meaning," it became something long remembered by people.

Though in the long passage of time, both love and hate will dissolve into meaninglessness.

But if the Void's power isn't strong enough, and the "time" it can dissolve isn't much... compared to love, might "hate" possibly last longer?

"Those blood vessels..."

Aiwass looked at those evil yet sacred wings made of blood vessels.

The Blood Celestial Marshal is like his father, the Banquet Celestial, an "Eternal Banquet Celestial." But the Blood Celestial Marshal emphasizes "sacrifice, flesh, pain, and craving"… Because of this, his followers are cruel, discarding human affairs, using various inhumane methods for sacrifices.

Yet after the Blood Celestial Marshal descended, he did not harm the innocent.

Even though she absolutely loathed the actions of the Son of the Moon, unexpectedly she didn't bury those Blood Slaves along with them. Nor did she completely destroy the family just because it produced a Son of the Moon.

How could such a person hold such a cruel and extreme domain?

Unless...

The Blood Celestial Marshal has something he must accomplish relying on this domain.

Cain created the Son of the Moon to achieve the "Perfect Human." The Perfect Human is intended to replace Amber in opposing the Dusk Species, that is to say, Cain was created to oppose the Void—hence he chooses to attack the dance skirt with priority over Aiwass and the others.

Through cruel sacrifices, allowing himself to be entangled by hatred, his evil would not be forgotten even after a thousand years.

The wings made of three thousand blood vessels, entangled with resentment and curses that Aiwass could see at a glance. Those were evidently blood vessels flayed alive—through such a sacrificial ritual, collecting grudges over an unknown time span, hard to forget even as time flows, the fragments of the Void stripped from her body can't truly harm her.

The Eternal Self willingly endures the influence of the Void, she will inevitably suffer corrosion.

The purpose of the Blood Celestial Marshal's birth is to achieve the Perfect Human, to reach the realm of Dusk. Cain hopes to fulfill the Eternal Self's desire, so he created the Son of the Moon to practice the "Perfection." If he can truly become the Perfect Human… then with this act of Creation, this Perfect Human couldn't just be a substitute for Amber but would become a puppet of the Void.

…But ironically, when the Eternal Self created the Blood Celestial Marshal, he was too utilitarian, thus not incorporating genuine love in this process. Whether the Eternal Self or the Banquet Master, both regarded the Blood Celestial Marshal merely as a test subject, the only one who loves Cain is now the Fog Sky Department.

Due to the lack of "love," even if the Blood Celestial Marshal can reach the realm of the Perfect Human, "9" can never become "10."

"No wonder..."

Aiwass murmured.

He had felt odd for a long time—why is the representative color of the Path of Love black?

It obviously doesn't make sense.

The Son of the Moon is red, the Beast's Path is also dark red. The Sun Path may not be red, but at least it couldn't be black... the Path of Love should be red no matter how one thinks, at worst it should be pink.

And yet, in the Path of Love of the Source River of Creation, the Shadowy Celestial Marshal representing revenge appears strangely, along with an abundance of curse concepts mixed in.

…It seems now, perhaps because the First Source River has long been polluted by the Void.

The concept of revenge shouldn't belong to the River of Creation, but it undoubtedly belongs to the opposite of the Path of Love—hatred. The meaning of revenge lies in remembrance and hatred, and engraving itself is the power of the Path of Dusk… love plus dusk, equates precisely to the Void.

—Revenge is "Creation based on the Void."

That is the strong counterforce the River of Creation generates to counter the Void!

Hence the shadow is the color of black—not "love's" color, but the color of the "Void!"

Aiwass thought to this point and suddenly realized something.

Behind him, the massive wings composed of countless blood vessels, the Blood Celestial Marshal god-like.

Behind him, innumerable blood vessels like inverted roots.

How does this not symbolize an inverted World Tree?

If the Great Tree as the Ancestor of Elves means "sacrificing everything for others," then the philosophy of the Blood Celestial Marshal is exactly the opposite.

To make all external meanings belong to oneself!

That is a theory similar yet distinct from "premature death."

It's not about rendering life meaningless. On the contrary—it places immense importance on the existence's meaning of those whose lives are stripped away by her.

Because she has an extreme scarcity of "meaning," she desires to plunder it from others. To complete her own existence.

And precisely because of the Blood Celestial Marshal's reckless plundering… she conversely possessed the ability to resist the Void!

If the initial meaning of the Blood Celestial Marshal's birth is to counter the Void—then now, facing the Void head-on, her existence's meaning is already realized!

—A sinner enveloped in the resentment of hundreds of generations and countless people, how could he be easily dissolved by such a weak force as the Void?

Aiwass felt he seemed to have some inspiration…

Could it be, the serpent too is…

The battling sides once again separated.

Bathed in the pure moonlight, the Blood Celestial Marshal raised her head, lifting her hands. As if wishing to embrace the moon.

"Mother!"

That tender voice was firm as iron, echoing from afar in the air: "Bear witness!"