Chapter 228: Untitled

"What is this place?"

Ethen’s voice echoed coldly across the vast, empty expanse of the dark hall.

He stood perfectly still, his sharp eyes rapidly scanning the imposing architecture that mirrored the Great Pyramid located deep within the Bastion of Humanity.

The geometric precision of the massive stone blocks was entirely identical.

Yet, despite the perfect visual replication, something about the sheer physical construction of the space felt fundamentally, conceptually wrong.

"This is Shen Castle," Karth explained smoothly, his voice lacking any echo at all.

The Spirit King didn’t stop walking, his casual, unhurried footsteps carrying him toward a towering flight of obsidian stairs at the far end of the hall.

Ethen followed several paces behind, his hand resting loosely but deliberately near the hilt of his heavy saber.

The hall was undeniably enormous, aggressively swallowing the ambient light and replacing it with a cold, unnatural stillness.

Ethen couldn’t quite put his finger on the exact source of his extreme discomfort.

The towering, oppressive architecture felt strangely familiar, yet the sickening, paradoxical sensation he had experienced when Karth first summoned the castle in the void hadn’t disappeared.

If anything, the suffocating feeling of spatial disconnection had only grown stronger the deeper they walked inside.

It was exactly as though the universe itself was actively screaming at him to leave.

He narrowed his dark eyes, his gaze fixed on the relaxed back of the man walking casually ahead of him.

Of the four God Almighties actively ruling the Spirit World, Karth was undoubtedly the most dangerous and mysterious variable on the board.

There were countless ancient myths, historical texts, and bloody legends heavily detailing exactly how Morgran, Titan, and Bark had come to exist in this brutal world.

But absolutely nothing similar was known about Karth.

There were zero recorded texts detailing his true origins.

There was no clear, historical account of his early mortal past, and no logical explanation for exactly how he had come to effortlessly possess such extraordinary, conceptual power.

To the rest of the world, the Spirit King had simply appeared one day, fully realized and terrifyingly absolute.

That massive, glaring absence of foundational information had naturally led Ethen’s paranoid, calculated mind to develop several dark suspicions.

He had never fully trusted Karth.

It didn’t matter how many times the Spirit King had miraculously intervened to save his life or casually handed him world-altering opportunities.

Of course, cold logic dictated that if Karth had truly harbored immediate, malicious intentions toward him, he wouldn’t have brought him before the other God Almighties in the first place.

At least, that was what Ethen wanted to pragmatically believe.

But there was absolutely no tactical reason to lower his guard simply because Karth had treated him like a favored pet in the past.

After all, Ethen understood better than anyone else breathing that powerful people could be incredibly generous for reasons that had absolutely nothing to do with genuine goodwill.

A fattened pig was always treated well right up until the day of the slaughter.

"Sigh."

Karth finally reached the very top of the towering obsidian stairs.

He turned smoothly and settled his relaxed frame into a massive, heavy stone seat that perfectly overlooked the vast, shadowy expanse of the hall.

He rested one arm casually against the cold side of the chair, his posture radiating absolute, undisputed authority.

He slowly turned his head toward Ethen, who remained standing rigidly near the base of the dais.

"Do you honestly think I’m a God Almighty?"

Karth asked the question with a strange, chilling smile slowly spreading across his flawless face.

Ethen’s cold expression remained completely unchanged, carved from solid ice, but his internal attention immediately sharpened to a razor’s edge.

The ambient temperature in the massive hall seemed to instantly plummet.

"You heard what they said back there," Karth continued, his voice dripping with casual amusement.

"I aggressively took over the Circle of Death directly from the World’s Will itself."

The Spirit King leaned forward slightly, the shadows hiding the corners of his glowing eyes.

"I’ve aggressively pushed that conceptual domain to the breaking point, where the Will is actively fusing with raw biological matter just to finally do away with me."

Karth paused, letting the terrifying magnitude of that statement settle into the silence. His smile widened just a fraction.

"And you must have noticed exactly how heavily guarded and paranoid the others are when I am in the room."

He smirked, seemingly entirely amused by the apocalyptic tension surrounding his existence.

Ethen remained perfectly still, his mind rapidly processing the tactical implications of Karth’s words.

"Now that you mention it, you’ve always deliberately presented yourself as completely different from the others."

Ethen finally spoke, allowing a cold, knowing smile to appear in his dark eyes.

"I always thought you were just a hidden Demi-human who managed to steal humanity’s faith."

"Hehe."

Karth laughed softly, the sound dry and echoing, showing absolutely no sign of taking offense at the blatant insult.

"Right now, we’re floating in absolute deep space, somewhere near the very edge of the local solar system."

Karth casually waved his hand toward the massive, arched windows lining the upper walls of the throne room.

"If I truly wanted to, I could effortlessly push this entire castle to the absolute edge of the known universe in a matter of seconds."

He spoke with terrifying, unbothered casualness.

He talked about traversing the infinite, deadly reaches of the cosmos exactly as though it were no more difficult than taking a leisurely stroll through a garden.

"But that would unfortunately come at the severe risk of permanently losing my connection to the Spirit World."

Karth slowly turned his glowing gaze toward the distant, burning stars visible through the tall glass.

For a brief, fleeting moment, his usually amused expression became heavily contemplative as he silently studied the endless, freezing expanse beyond the castle walls.

"No," Karth continued, slowly shaking his head.

"I’m not a beast-kin. I’m not a Demi-human. But I’m also not from this planet."

He paused, letting the silence stretch before turning his heavy, suffocating gaze directly back to Ethen.

"Like you... I’m an outsider from another world."

The words landed with the devastating, physical weight of a meteor strike.

The air in the throne room instantly vanished.

Karth had just casually, effortlessly revealed Ethen’s darkest, most heavily guarded secret while simultaneously exposing his own.

For the very first time since entering the paradoxical castle, Ethen’s carefully crafted facade visibly fractured.

His eyes widened fractionally, and the Cosmic Tyrant aura humming beneath his skin flared violently in pure, unadulterated shock.

He had always suspected that Karth was hiding a massive, historical secret, but he absolutely hadn’t expected the conversation to take this specific, terrifying direction.

He stared intensely at the Spirit King, his mind racing at a million miles an hour, desperately searching for any micro-expression that indicated the man was lying.

He found absolutely nothing but cold, honest amusement.

"Are you from Earth?" Ethen asked, his voice dropping to a freezing, absolute whisper.

"Earth?"

Karth chuckled, slowly shaking his head. "I’ve been there, but no."

The Spirit King’s smile faded into something far more serious.

"That place is currently controlled by a supreme being far, far stronger than me."

His glowing gaze remained firmly locked onto Ethen as he continued to systematically dismantle the young Angel’s worldview.

"At some point during your early rise, I honestly thought you were him."

Karth admitted casually.

"I thought the ruler of Earth had personally crossed the void and come here to specifically fuck with me. But that doesn’t seem to be the case at all."

Ethen didn’t respond immediately.

He slowly walked toward the massive, arched window overlooking the distant, burning stars, his boots clicking heavily against the cold stone floor.

He stopped right beside the thick glass, staring out into the void as a faint, dark smirk slowly appeared on his face.

"Why do you think that?" Ethen asked smoothly, though a heavy, troubled frown quickly replaced his arrogant smile.

The terrifying possibility made an uncomfortable, overwhelming amount of logical sense.

Perhaps he hadn’t just accidentally transmigrated.

Perhaps he had been deliberately, forcefully sent to this brutal world by the supreme being currently controlling Earth.

Perhaps he was nothing more than a disposable, planted pawn, deliberately placed directly in the path of an ancient intruder who had once ventured into Earth’s sovereign territory.

It would perfectly, neatly explain several massive anomalies that Ethen had continuously struggled to rationally understand since his violent arrival.

The inexplicable, heavily tailored assistance he had constantly received from the shadows.

The impossible existence of his system.

The terrifying S-rank summons heavily drawn straight from Earth’s own mythology and history—Arthur, Gilgamesh, Vlad, Morgana.

And the incredible, world-altering opportunities that always seemed to perfectly materialize before him at exactly the right tactical moments.

Ethen had always logically known that massive parts of his situation didn’t mathematically add up.

Yet, he had never found a single, unifying explanation that could cleanly connect all the scattered, bloody dots on the board.

Now, Karth was casually suggesting that another, infinitely more terrifying being was actively moving the pieces.

"For one, Earth is gone."

Karth smirked, delivering the fatal blow without a shred of hesitation. "It was completely shattered by some mysterious, cosmic force."

Ethen remained completely, utterly still.

The stars outside the window seemed to blur. His entire foundational anchor, the world he had originally bled for, was simply erased.

"Second..."

Karth paused, leaning back into his throne, seemingly deeply enjoying the heavy, psychological torture of the conversation.

"I’ve been inside your mind several times. You’re definitely not him."

If the first apocalyptic revelation hadn’t been enough to physically shake the Cosmic Tyrant, the second certainly was.

Ethen’s expression darkened into something truly demonic as he slowly turned away from the window.

"You searched my mind?"

His voice was a freezing, lethal hiss.

A flash of pure, unadulterated disgust and violent hatred crossed his dark eyes as he glared at the relaxed God.

The casual revelation was far more mentally disturbing and violating than he cared to openly admit.

Karth had apparently effortlessly bypassed his absolute mental defenses, strolling through his private thoughts and memories without triggering a single alarm.

And he had shamelessly done so more than once.

"Relax."

Karth waved his hand dismissively, completely unaffected by the murderous killing intent rolling off Ethen’s body.

"That was a long, long time ago, way before I knew exactly who or what you were."

The Spirit King shook his head, offering a cold, undeniable truth.

"Besides, there was and still is absolutely nothing you can do to physically stop me."

Karth spoke completely without malice or hostility, but he made absolutely no attempt to soften the crushing reality either.

Karth didn’t want to needlessly offend Ethen, yet he clearly didn’t fear him in the slightest.

Compared to the countless, bloody eras Karth had survived and the terrifying, conceptual powers he commanded, Ethen was still little more than a violent, newly born child swinging a sharp stick.

Whatever incredible S-Rank abilities Ethen had recently acquired, the absolute power gap between them remained an endless, insurmountable abyss.

Ethen understood that brutal reality perfectly well.

He was a Tyrant, but he wasn’t suicidal. He wasn’t foolish enough to blindly pick a physical fight with a supreme being he mathematically couldn’t defeat.

Especially not when he still had so much critical information and power to gain from their highly toxic relationship.

Nevertheless, he coldly filed the massive violation away deep in his mind.

He would have to systematically invent a new method to permanently lock his consciousness, ensuring Karth could never casually invade his sovereignty again.

For now, however, there were far more pressing, immediate matters on the board.

"Then why don’t you want me to participate in the hunt for the World’s Will?"

Violently changing the topic, Ethen walked slowly forward, directing his full, calculating attention back to Karth’s relaxed form.

The burning question had been heavily bothering his tactical mind ever since their tense conversation with the other God Almighties in the void.

Karth had blatantly, shamelessly tried to discourage him from volunteering in front of the others, even when Ethen had coldly insisted on joining the suicide squad.

Now that they were completely isolated, he demanded a proper, unfiltered explanation.

"The World’s Will might not have its eye on you just yet, but you’re an anomaly. An outsider, exactly like me."

Karth leaned forward, resting his chin on his knuckles.

"If you directly participate in the assault and the operation ultimately fails, the Will is going to instantly recognize your foreign nature. It will violently hunt you down and permanently expel you from reality."

His expression remained perfectly relaxed, but his following words carried an entirely different, heavily calculated meaning.

"You’re still highly useful to me, kid."

A sly, incredibly dark smile slowly appeared on Karth’s face.

Ethen stared intensely at him for a long, silent moment before a matching, cold smirk mirrored the God’s expression.

"That’s assuming we fail."

The knowing smile on Ethen’s face locked perfectly into place.

For the very first time since his violent arrival in this world, Ethen finally felt exactly as though he could clearly see through the thick fog of Karth’s grand intentions.

The Spirit King had a highly specific, calculated reason for desperately keeping him away from the active operation, and it absolutely wasn’t out of simple, paternal concern for his safety.

From what Ethen’s sharp mind could instantly deduce, Karth actively wanted the other God Almighties to fail their hunt.

More importantly, Morgran, Titan, and Bark didn’t seem to be even remotely aware of the betrayal brewing right beside them.

The massive realization instantly raised several dozen new, terrifying questions, but Ethen smartly kept them locked tightly behind his teeth.

He didn’t yet know exactly what Karth hoped to ultimately gain from the slaughter of his peers. Confronting the supreme being without possessing the full tactical picture would accomplish absolutely nothing.

Still, one absolute truth had just become crystal clear.

Karth wasn’t merely passively withholding historical information.

He was deliberately, forcefully keeping Ethen away from a global operation whose bloody outcome was specifically designed to serve his own hidden interests.

"To that exact end, you’ll be staying here for a while."

Karth suddenly rose smoothly from his heavy stone seat, looking down at Ethen with a faint, victorious smirk.

"I promise I won’t kill you. But you absolutely must wait here until we’re completely done."

Before Ethen could even twitch his hand toward his saber to respond, Karth simply ceased to exist.

He didn’t teleport. He didn’t fade. He was just gone.

The massive, oppressive hall instantly fell into absolute, suffocating silence.

Ethen stood completely alone in the center of Shen Castle, surrounded by a dark structure whose true origins he couldn’t comprehend.

He was locked in a paradoxical prison, floating in a place entirely removed from the brutal world he had just fought so hard to conquer.

Earth was completely gone.

Karth had violated his mind.

And the ancient, smiling man who had constantly aided him since his arrival was actively working toward a dark endgame that could easily put his entire family and the Bastion in apocalyptic danger.

Ethen’s cold expression hardened into pure, unyielding diamond as he mentally processed the massive revelations.

He still didn’t know exactly what Karth was planning.

But as he stared at the empty throne, the Cosmic Tyrant made an absolute vow. He had absolutely no intention of remaining an ignorant, captive pawn on another man’s chessboard for much longer.