The terrifying phenomenon of people suddenly disintegrating into clouds of black ash was occurring simultaneously across every corner of the world.
There was no warning.
No detectable magical disturbance.
Nowhere to hide.
The Labyrinth City of Orario was naturally no exception.
Within mere minutes of the morning sun rising, the city, usually bustling with tavern activity and adventurers preparing for their expeditions, was plunged into unprecedented mass chaos.
Screams of terror, hysterical sobbing, and confused shouts echoed from every direction.
The gods and goddesses were forced to witness with their own eyes as people standing right beside them suddenly froze, cracked, and turned into piles of fine dust for reasons no one could explain.
Nearly every Familia faction in Orario was affected by this massive purge.
The factions with particularly poor reputations, criminal records, or severely compromised morals suffered the most, including Soma Familia.
At their headquarters, nearly eighty percent of their members, who had spent their lives consumed by greed, extorting others, and resorting to any means necessary to obtain even a single drop of Soma's sacred wine, suddenly crumbled into ash on the spot.
Even among the city's ruling elite factions, such as Loki Familia and Freya Familia, the phenomenon still claimed several lives among their lower-ranking members who had secretly accumulated negative karma.
"W-What the hell is going on?! Hey! Answer me! What happened to your body?!" a minor goddess shrieked from a street corner, lamenting the empty clothes of her follower, who had left behind nothing but a mound of dust on the ground.
Unsurprisingly, this wave of mysterious deaths provoked an overwhelming surge of anger among the divine beings.
The gods and goddesses were furious over the sudden deaths of their precious followers.
The entire incident was utterly incomprehensible.
"This makes absolutely no sense!" one god bellowed inside his residence, smashing a table to pieces with a blow. "Who the hell did this?!"
"Has some evil god secretly unsealed their Arcanum?!" another goddess interjected, her face twisted with fury. "They're using their Arcanum to mass-exterminate everyone who meets certain criteria!"
Something this horrifying clearly could not be allowed to go unanswered.
The gods' boredom was instantly replaced by overflowing rage.
Elsewhere, on the rooftop of a luxurious inn, Hermes had been gleefully peeping into the women's bath with a lecherous expression just seconds earlier when his face suddenly turned serious.
Every trace of his usual playfulness vanished as he leaped down into the streets and watched clouds of black ash drift through the morning air.
With veins bulging angrily at his temples, Hermes raised his head toward the sky and shouted so loudly that his voice reverberated throughout the city.
"Ouranos! You're seeing this, aren't you?!"
"The situation has spiraled out of control!"
"Grant us permission to use our Arcanum temporarily! We have to investigate which bastard is responsible for this incident!"
Deep beneath Orario, inside a silent, secret chamber at the Guild's headquarters, Ouranos closed his eyes as he sat upon his throne.
The tremors caused by thousands of souls disappearing in an instant had disrupted the balance of his prayers, which restrained the Dungeon.
Recognizing the scale of the crisis, Ouranos finally granted permission through spiritual resonance.
"Permission granted... You may access your Arcanum on a limited basis to uncover the truth."
In an instant, the divine message reverberated through the minds of the gods in Orario.
They activated their Arcanum simultaneously, unleashing their Omniscient Clairvoyance to scan all of space and time. They intended to trace any traces of Arcanum they could find and identify the insolent bastard who had set this chaos in motion.
However, the results they obtained delivered a truly horrifying shock.
There was absolutely no trace of another god.
Instead of obtaining the culprit's coordinates, their divine consciousness collided with an invisible wall—one that was mighty, unyielding, and cold.
Some far more magnificent power was tightly sealing away all the historical truths within the Akashic Record, preventing and blocking their attempts to investigate any further.
◆━⊰✿✧✿⊱━◆
In the courtyard of Twilight Manor, Loki was in a state of genuine fury.
As a goddess who deeply loved and fiercely protected every member of her Familia, losing more than a dozen of them in a single second right before her eyes had driven her to the brink of madness.
"You insolent bastard!! Who the hell do you think you're messing with, huh?!" Loki roared, her face flushed crimson. Her normally narrow eyes were now wide open, blazing with red light. "You think you can shield yourself from my sight?! Take this, you piece of shit!!"
Loki unleashed the full power of her Arcanum, forcing her divine consciousness to smash through the barrier concealing the truth so she could hunt down the culprit.
She was consumed by rage, determined to make that person pay dearly for the deaths of her precious followers.
*BOOM!*
An inaudible conceptual collision struck Loki's realm of consciousness.
The next instant, the Goddess of Trickery's body jolted violently.
"Ugh... Ah?!"
"Cough!"
Loki suddenly vomited a mouthful of thick, fresh blood.
Her body staggered backward before she finally collapsed to her knees on the marble floor, clutching her chest as though an invisible giant hammer had crushed it.
Her soul had sustained cracks after being struck by the extraordinarily deadly backlash from Charlie's Transcendent power.
◆━⊰✿✧✿⊱━◆
Loki was not the only one to suffer such misfortune.
Across other factions in Orario, dozens of gods and goddesses experienced similarly horrifying situations.
The cries of divine beings in agony rang out from every direction.
All of them suffered serious spiritual injuries and vomited blood after recklessly attempting to uncover forbidden secrets beyond the limits of their abilities.
The gods, who considered themselves the rulers of the world, now stood before the shadow cast by the power of the new Heavenly Dao—Charlie.
They were forced to realize, in the most brutal way imaginable, that the entity currently carrying out The Great Reset was not a being they could reach, let alone oppose.
The gods of Orario were now wounded and frustrated after suffering the backlash of Charlie's power.
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