Chapter 275: When The Night... Falls (4)

"Efficiency," Melvin muttered as he slowed to a stop, his feet leaving the ground as he began to drift effortlessly upward into the sky.

"Master always said... efficiency is the best route."

A cold, knowing smile crept across the small portion of his face that the mask left exposed.

As he drifted into the skies, he sent his sword into his Divine Ring, and in the next instant, he unleashed his sword aura.

[Sword Aura (Tier 21/21)]

HUMMMM!!!!!

He clasped his hands behind his back, and in that moment, the sky burst with an overwhelming wave of divinity.

Countless illusory icy swords formed, stretching across ten million kilometers, suspended above every street, every region, every hidden cellar, and every fleeing vessel.

WHOOOOOSHHHH!!!!!

The moment they fully formed, they exploded outward in a sudden burst.

SHKKK!!!!

SHKKKK!!!!

SHKKK!!!!

In the same heartbeat, the fighters locked in battle with the Dark Hold went still, their heads vanishing the next moment as if they never existed.

Those who believed stone walls would protect them soon discovered they offered no real safety. And for those who ran, they realized that even distance was just another barrier a blade could easily cut through.

The most unsettling part was that nobody caught sight of Melvin, nobody noticed the blades, and nobody witnessed the angle of the strikes.

One moment, the capital was a storm of chaos—shouts rang out, affinities clashed, battles raged, the grinding roars of dragons mixed with the thunder of massive explosions. The next, that chaos drained away into an eerie, growing silence.

The dead didn’t just fall; they froze where they stood.

Those trapped in the skies turned to ice mid-flight, plummeting to the ground and shattering on impact with a brittle, chilling finality.

It was all thanks to the Dreamer’s Mask, as had been mentioned long ago.

The things Akasha dreamed into being constantly evolved alongside his powers and with each new tier of what had become Dream Land’s Dungeon.

By this point, the Dreamer’s Mask didn’t just hide Melvin—it cloaked everything, wrapping it all in an extension of himself.

And while his Sword Domain did its work, Melvin didn’t just stand by and watch.

He was already charging toward the palace, white robes snapping in the biting cold, and as he moved, the Sword Domain followed him ever so slightly, cutting down anyone who thought they had managed to slip through.

----

"W... what’s happening?" Amber murmured, caught in an awkward situation that made her skin prickle.

All around her stretched a pure, blinding white so absolute it was painful to look at for more than a moment.

In that endless void, the only tangible things were two dark, empty sockets suspended before her—eyeholes she could peer through, as though someone had hung up a mask of sight in an otherwise vacant room and abandoned her behind it.

She understood just enough to realize there was no way out.

She was trapped inside her own body, wearing Milan’s face.

It was obvious she wasn’t in control, though she had no idea the body would move and think exactly as Milan would, thanks to the catalyst’s power.

Not only that, but Amber’s divinity, along with everything else, stayed sealed away.

All she could do now was see, think, and drift through this endless blank white space.

She paced through the white void, her footsteps silent against nothing.

Every direction blurred into sameness; no matter how she turned, the eye sockets remained right before her.

"I really messed this up," she muttered, with a shake of her head. "How could I be so careless?"

She knew no one else was to blame for the situation she found herself in.

While she hadn’t arrived completely unprepared, she had undeniably fallen short.

Amid her rapid growth, it was easy to see how the power might have quietly gone to her head, leading her to overlook critical details.

One of the most important things was just how strong Milan had been from the very beginning.

And now, because she had failed to account for such things, all she could do was sit back, waiting and watching in silence.

The worst part wasn’t just the carelessness—it was the timing.

After months spent orbiting the Empire, chasing every faint lead about her origin, after finally standing in that laboratory and staring at rows of tubes that bore her own face....

She hadn’t even been given the chance to decide how the Loria Empire would meet its end.

"Five years, huh?" Amber muttered as she forced herself to look into the sockets.

"At least I have some time..."

Since Akasha wasn’t in any particular hurry, she figured there was still a chance to find a way out of her predicament before the deadline.

She knew it would be difficult—maybe even nearly impossible—while she remained sealed, but she refused to believe the opportunity was completely gone.

Outside, as she observed, the body began moving through the wreckage of the ruined laboratory.

It didn’t speak a single word, but simply smiled and kept going, turning toward the cave’s exit with an easy, unhurried confidence.

Amber could only watch through those borrowed eyes as the black-stone corridor slid past, her body—now wearing Milan’s face—walking out of the laboratory as though nothing at all were out of the ordinary.

----

Once outside, the body lifted into the skies with the Capital set firmly in mind.

As the remote forest thinned, the miles seemed to vanish, folding away beneath the rush of speed.

"No... the Empire..." the body murmured in shock as Amber and "Milan" watched.

Even from a distance, the capital’s ruin was clear: the blood-red sky looming over a world locked in winter, and millions of figures hung in the heavens in a formation unlike anything the Empire had ever gathered for parade or battle.

"You... bitch!" Liliana’s voice sounded as she frowned.

In that moment, she was in full flight straight toward Milan’s body.

Her initial target had been the cave, but seeing her right there made everything much more convenient.

"Where the hell is my mother?!"

But it wasn’t just Liliana...

HUMMMMMM!!!!!

Beside her, Melvin pulled the Dreamer’s Mask away.

The moment the mask left his face, millions of illusory icy swords bloomed through the forest below and the sky around him, a pale forest of blades answering the blaze of pure ice in his black eyes.

"You..."