Chapter 229: Worlds Will

For several, grueling days, Ethen wandered through the dark, oppressive halls of Shen Castle.

He was systematically searching for a way out, but his calculated efforts had yielded absolutely nothing.

The massive, obsidian main entrance had completely disappeared hours after Karth vanished. It had seamlessly merged with the castle’s towering structure until the thick doors became entirely indistinguishable from the surrounding, seamless stone walls.

The dark corridors beyond the entrance seemed to violently, actively change whenever he attempted to explore them.

It was an architectural nightmare that completely defied all logical spatial geometry.

Massive, vaulted rooms constantly shifted their physical positions. Winding, heavy stone staircases that initially led to the upper battlements would suddenly twist, leading him directly into entirely different, subterranean sections of the fortress.

Sometimes, Ethen would patiently follow a straight, seemingly endless corridor for what felt like hours.

He would deliberately leave deep, violent slashes in the walls with his saber to mark his path. Yet, when he turned a corner, he would inexplicably find himself standing right back in front of the exact same unmarked wall he had started from.

On other, highly frustrating occasions, a grand staircase that had previously carried him upwards would suddenly deposit him three levels down into a completely unfamiliar, shadowy hall.

The impossible castle seemed entirely, maliciously determined to keep him trapped inside its paradox.

"Another dead end."

Ethen sighed coldly, his dark eyes narrowing as he stood before a solid slab of black stone that had suddenly blocked his path.

He had already thoroughly explored this specific section several times over the past few days. Yet, the wide passage he distinctly remembered carving his way through was completely nowhere to be found.

Karth was clearly, undeniably hell-bent on keeping him locked away from the outside world.

Judging by the absolute, effortless ease with which the Spirit King had disappeared from the throne room, it was incredibly safe to assume that the ancient God was fully confident in his ability to prevent Ethen from escaping.

The real, underlying question was whether Shen Castle itself was independently responsible for the strange spatial phenomena, or whether Karth was actively, manually manipulating its internal structure from afar.

Either terrifying possibility was highly troublesome for the trapped Cosmic Tyrant.

"It’s a truly magnificent place, honestly."

A relaxed, highly familiar voice echoed softly from the shadows directly behind him.

Ethen turned smoothly, his hand resting casually on his heavy saber, to see Adam’s glowing silhouette standing a short distance away.

The gray-haired man was casually examining the surrounding, shifting walls with a distinct trace of architectural admiration. He seemed far more interested in the castle’s impossible, conceptual construction than in their actual predicament.

"You’re complimenting your own jail cell?" Ethen asked, shaking his head in cold disbelief.

Adam chuckled warmly, entirely unbothered by the suffocating atmosphere.

"Hehe. It’s hardly a jail cell, kid."

He turned towards Ethen, a bright, deeply confident smile plastered across his flawless face.

"Remember exactly what I told you? If we can find the central source of this place, I should be able to control it."

Adam shrugged lazily, briefly glancing at Ethen’s irritated expression before returning his undivided attention to the shifting castle walls.

Ever since Ethen had violently evolved his class and become a true S-Rank Angel, his summons had undergone a massive, fundamental transformation.

Adam had been fully revived and perfectly restored to a state where he was completely conscious and independently aware, exactly like a living, breathing human being.

He was no longer merely a silent, spiritual summon that could be mindlessly called upon to fight and die.

Adam could actively think, passively observe, and comfortably pursue his own personal interests outside of Ethen’s direct commands.

And at this exact moment, his undivided interest lay entirely within the impossible architecture of Shen Castle.

"If I could magically find the core, I’d probably be able to steer the damn thing myself," Ethen mocked, his voice laced with freezing arrogance.

He turned his back on the smiling summon and began walking away in an entirely different direction.

Adam merely smiled wider at the sharp, predictable response.

Ethen wasn’t particularly interested in entertaining the summons casual optimism.

They were currently trapped inside a paradoxical castle belonging to a being who effortlessly manipulated the Circle of Death. Even finding its conceptual source didn’t mathematically guarantee they could hijack its controls.

Adam’s casual confidence was admirable, but raw confidence alone wouldn’t magically open a door that didn’t exist.

Still, his cold, calculating mind knew they had very little else to work with.

If there truly was a central, physical core actively controlling the castle’s strange, shifting structure, locating it might be their one and only viable chance of escaping the dimension.

And if Adam was actually right about being able to conceptually control it, Ethen might finally have a bloody way out of this cage.

For now, however, they could only keep walking through the dark.

Meanwhile, in a hidden, isolated dimension floating directly above the physical world, several dozen elite Angels suddenly appeared at the jagged borders of the Demi-human territories.

They had silently gathered in the freezing depths of the Spirit World, fully prepared for a massive, highly classified operation.

The ultimate success of this suicide mission heavily depended on violently provoking an ancient enemy that had, so far, completely refused to reveal itself.

Karth stood floating high above the elite strike force, his overwhelming, divine presence perfectly concealed from the surrounding enemy territory.

The veteran Angels below him silently prepared themselves for the slaughter. They checked their divine weapons, scanned their hostile surroundings, and aggressively gathered their dense mana before crossing into enemy-controlled space.

"I’m actively cloaking all of you right now, but the absolute second you enter, you must move fast," Karth instructed, his voice a hushed, commanding echo in their minds.

The assembled Angels silently nodded, acknowledging his final words.

Every single warrior present intimately understood the apocalyptic risks involved in this specific operation.

Their grand mission wasn’t simply to slaughter the opposing Demi-humans or violently claim more border territory for the Bastion.

They were there to ruthlessly force the World’s Will to react.

The tactical plan was incredibly straightforward, at least in brutal principle.

They would aggressively infiltrate the beast-kin territory and mercilessly attack its inhabitants, utterly destroying everything they could physically reach.

The World’s Will, as the foundational governor of reality, would eventually be forced to make a critical decision. It could either directly intervene to protect its established territory, or aggressively attempt to escape their coordinated assault entirely.

Either response would be more than enough.

The very moment the World’s Will revealed even a microscopic fraction of its true, conceptual presence, Karth and the other hidden God Almighties would strike.

They would instantly deliver a massive, coordinated shock that could permanently disrupt its cosmic plans.

However, the bloody operation came heavily packaged with its own massive complications.

The ancient Dragon Gods remained the greatest, most lethal obstacles on the board.

Chi, Ao, and Jiao were terrifyingly powerful enough to instantly threaten the lives of the veteran Angels. Any prolonged, direct engagement with the royal dragons could easily turn the baiting mission into a total, unmitigated disaster.

Fortunately for humanity, Long, the absolute strongest of the clan, was still buried in a deep, ancient slumber.

With four human God Almighties waiting in the shadows to counter the three remaining Dragon Gods, the overall balance of power was highly favorable.

If the violent plan proceeded exactly as intended, the arrogant Dragons would heavily struggle to prevent the God Almighties from carrying out their ultimate objective.

But first, they needed to aggressively draw them out into the open.

"Get ready."

Karth smirked coldly from the shadows.

The massive, invisible protective bubble surrounding the strike force of Angels suddenly shattered like fragile glass.

In the exact same, explosive instant, the Angels violently launched themselves across the border into the Demi-human territory.

They aggressively released their suppressed, terrifying energies, descending upon the floating region like a sudden, apocalyptic meteor shower.

The physical impact was immediate and utterly devastating.

The surrounding vacuum of space violently trembled as completely unhinged, powerful attacks tore through the peaceful territory.

Massive, floating continental asteroids were brutally destroyed every few seconds. Their enormous fragments scattered violently into the dark void as the Angels unleashed their absolute strongest abilities completely without restraint.

Among the immediate, massive casualties were dozens of Demi-human Demi-Gods who had been unfortunately caught in the initial, blinding assault.

They were instantly vaporized before they could even draw their heavy weapons.

The human attackers pressed aggressively forward, rapidly hoping that the sheer, unprecedented scale of the destruction would be enough to provoke a desperate response from the World’s Will.

Yet, despite the absolute, continent-shattering devastation, absolutely nothing happened.

The World’s Will remained completely, terrifyingly silent.

There was absolutely no sign of its conceptual presence, no divine attempt to interfere with the ongoing slaughter, and no subtle indication that it intended to defend the territory they were rapidly turning to ash.

The Angels continued their brutal, fiery assault, but their true objective remained frustratingly, dangerously out of reach.

They had deliberately come to provoke the operating system of the world, yet their unhinged attacks seemed to have accomplished absolutely nothing beyond butchering its ordinary inhabitants.

Instead, the furious response came entirely from the Demi-human Angels.

The very moment the sheer scale of the human invasion became violently apparent, the beast-kin elites rushed aggressively towards the threatened border territory.

They were fiercely determined to defend their remaining, shattered strongholds in the Spirit World at any cost.

The floating battlefield quickly grew infinitely more chaotic and bloody as the two apex sides violently clashed in the void.

Terrifying, world-ending energies collided mid-air, aggressively tearing huge spatial rifts through the surrounding space while the human Angels heavily struggled to maintain their forward advance.

The highly classified baiting operation was rapidly beginning to devolve into an ordinary, bloody territorial battle.

And that was precisely the exact scenario that Karth had desperately wanted to avoid.

"Okay, my turn."

Morgran smiled a dark, elemental smile from his hidden position in the void as he watched the chaotic situation unfold below.

The King of the Sky stepped smoothly out of the shadows and directly into the bloody battlefield. He casually, effortlessly waved his massive hand.

The fabric of space around him violently, instantly twisted.

A massive, terrifying killing tornado formed almost instantaneously. Its violent, roaring currents were entirely composed of pure, compressed atmospheric pressure and localized gravity.

Spectral, jagged fractures aggressively spread throughout its destructive path, violently ripping through the floating battlefield as the apocalyptic attack swept directly towards the enemy lines.

The devastating effect was immediate.

Five human Angels had already died a brutal death since the chaotic battle began, but Morgran’s direct, overwhelming intervention instantly shifted the bloody momentum back in favor of humanity.

The human forces finally gained the necessary room to advance.

The terrifying tornado forced the defending Demi-humans to desperately divert far more of their elite strength towards merely surviving the elemental destruction.

But the sheer, divine magnitude of the attack had another, immediate consequence.

The Dragon God Clan could absolutely no longer ignore the direct assault on their borders.

Deep within the darkest, most isolated reaches of space, a terrifying, suffocating presence violently stirred as one of the ancient Dragon Gods finally responded to the invasion.

Ao had been heavily dispatched.

"You dare attack us again?!!!"

Duke Ao’s furious, draconic voice violently thundered across the ruined battlefield, physically shattering the remaining smaller asteroids.

He emerged rapidly from deep space, his massive, heavily scarred form cutting through the void at a completely astonishing, terrifying speed.

The angry arrival of a fully realized Dragon God instantly threatened to change the entire bloody course of the battle.

And with Ao now directly involved in the slaughter, the operation was officially entering its next, far more dangerous stage.

While the apocalyptic battle raged wildly across the distant Spirit World, Ethen stood completely frozen before a massive, terrifying anomaly deep within the lowest levels of Shen Castle.

He stared down at the swirling, chaotic mass with a heavy, deeply concerned frown.

Unlike the strange, shifting corridors and frustrating puzzle rooms he had encountered throughout the rest of the fortress, this place was absolutely impossible to ignore.

The massive whirlpool occupied a vast, cavernous chamber that seemed entirely too large to physically exist within the castle’s foundation.

Its enormous, dark body was turning continuously, violently rotating exactly as though it were aggressively drawing in the very light and oxygen from everything around it.

It wasn’t made of water. It was a churning, violent vortex of pure, concentrated spatial energy.

Ethen could literally feel the lethal, suffocating danger radiating from its pitch-black center.

Even without physically testing the anomaly, his sharp, newly ascended instincts had absolutely zero doubt that the whirlpool possessed enough raw power to instantly threaten beings far beyond his current S-Rank level.

The dense, chaotic energy churning within its dark depths was so incredibly unsettling that every single nerve in his body screamed at him to back away.

He had faced terrifying, ancient enemies before, including massive dragons capable of destroying him with a single, careless mistake. Yet, this static anomaly felt entirely different.

The silent whirlpool gave him the distinct, freezing impression that taking a single, uncalculated step over the edge would instantly erase his soul from existence.

Ethen turned his head slowly towards Adam, who was casually rolling his shoulders and preparing to dive directly inside.

"Are you completely sure about this?"

Ethen’s dark eyes remained heavily fixed on the violent vortex as he coldly questioned the other man.

He absolutely wasn’t interested in taking unnecessary, suicidal risks, especially when they still knew so incredibly little about the true nature of Shen Castle.

Adam, however, appeared completely, entirely unconcerned by the lethal threat radiating below them.

"Relax, kid. This definitely isn’t my first rodeo."

Adam’s bright white teeth shone brilliantly in the dark, cavernous room as he flashed Ethen a deeply confident, completely arrogant smile.

Then, completely without another word of warning, Adam casually leaned forward and dove headfirst into the massive, terrifying whirlpool in the middle of Shen Castle.