The abyss did not simply tremble—it split.
What had once been an endless, silent ocean of dark currents erupted into violent motion. The waters roared without sound, folding into themselves as if gravity had reversed and then collapsed inward all at once. Pressure built from every direction, crushing, twisting, tearing at perception itself. The darkness thickened until it became absolute—no light, no depth, no sense of up or down.
Then—
everything vanished.
Youri's eyes snapped open.
He was standing.
Not floating. Not suspended.
Standing.
Beneath his boots stretched a vast, endless desert—its sands dark and heavy, shifting under a crimson sky that pulsed faintly like a living thing. The air was dry, sharp, and carried a heat that felt wrong, as though it came not from a sun, but from the world itself.
Youri turned slowly.
"Lea…?" he called.
No answer.
"Altopereh?"
Nothing.
No presence. No distortion. No sign of the abyss.
Only the desert.
But something was wrong.
Youri narrowed his eyes as he took a step forward. The ground felt real—but not right. The wind moved, but it carried no scent. The sky loomed above, but it felt closer than it should have been, like a ceiling instead of an open expanse.
"This isn't Tartarus…" he muttered.
Or rather—
not the Tartarus he had come to understand.
A sudden shockwave tore across the air.
Something passed over him at impossible speed.
Youri's head snapped upward—
—and he saw it.
A colossal figure streaked across the sky, its form blazing like a living weapon.
A towering humanoid monster forged from jagged crimson crystal and hardened scales. Its massive frame cut through the air like a falling meteor, its body layered in sharp, overlapping plates that jutted outward like blades. Its chest was partially exposed, revealing dark, stone-like flesh beneath, etched with faint, glowing runes that pulsed like a heartbeat.
Its head bore long, upward-curving horns—crown-like, regal, yet utterly monstrous. Its maw stretched wide, filled with rows of serrated teeth, and from its limbs radiated raw, unstable energy.
Nuclear.
That was the only way to describe it.
Heat warped the air around it. Every movement it made caused the sky itself to ripple.
But it wasn't alone.
To Youri's left—
another presence emerged.
This one did not roar.
It descended.
Tall. Symmetrical. Silent.
Its form was sleek and elongated, wrapped in a dark, metallic-black exoskeleton that reflected nothing. Its surface was smooth in places, ridged in others, as if perfectly engineered rather than born. Its head bore no face—no eyes, no mouth—only a smooth, angular shape crowned by two long, curved horns.
Behind it hovered a massive ring.
A burning halo of molten orange-red energy.
Gravity bent around it.
The sand beneath Youri's feet shifted unnaturally, lifting in small fragments, suspended mid-air as if the world had forgotten how to fall.
Youri didn't move.
He couldn't.
Because the moment the two entities faced each other—
the world changed.
The desert beneath them split.
From the crimson-scaled titan surged a domain even harsher than Tartarus itself—a hyper-arid wasteland where the air ignited and the ground cracked with internal heat, nuclear fire bleeding from beneath its surface.
From the black, godlike being—
reality fractured.
Its domain was one of absurdity. Objects—stone, fragments, debris—floated in defiance of logic. Entire sections of space twisted, folding inward and outward, gravity pulling in multiple directions at once.
Then—
they collided.
The impact didn't echo.
It rewrote the space around them.
The crimson titan struck first, its arm igniting with blinding force as it unleashed a burst of nuclear energy that detonated across the warped domain. The explosion was not contained—it expanded in layers, each wave hotter and more destructive than the last.
But the black entity raised a single hand.
And the explosion—
stopped.
Compressed.
Crushed into a singular point of impossible density before being hurled back as a gravitational collapse.
The titan roared, tearing through it.
And then—
a third presence entered.
The sky darkened.
Not dimmed—
erased.
A void poured into existence.
Altopereh.
Not the restrained form Youri had seen—but its true, monstrous shape. A being of pure antimatter presence, its form devouring light, its existence warping everything around it into a silent, consuming abyss.
Its domain flooded the battlefield instantly.
A pitch-black world. No ground. No sky. No logic.
Only annihilation.
The three domains collided violently—heat, gravity, and void tearing at one another in a storm of absolute chaos. The battlefield became something incomprehensible, a clash not of creatures, but of fundamental forces.
And still—
it escalated.
Then—
the sky cracked.
A sharp, jagged fracture split across the crimson heavens like shattered glass.
Something was coming through.
The tear widened—
—and a colossal ship forced its way into Tartarus.
Its silhouette was long and blade-like, its prow sharp enough to suggest it could pierce reality itself. Its hull was layered in green-black metallic plates, jagged and uneven, overlapping like shards of obsidian armor. Toward the rear, its structure fractured into aggressive fins and spiked protrusions, trailing into a tail-like engine that burned with a dim, infernal glow.
It did not belong here.
The battlefield stilled.
Even the monsters stopped.
Then—
they turned.
From the ship—
they descended.
Sacros.
Dozens—no, hundreds—of knights poured from the vessel, each one surrounded by their own domain, their presence bending the world as they fell.
They moved without hesitation.
The crimson titan roared, unleashing a catastrophic burst of nuclear fire that swallowed entire sections of the battlefield—but the Sacros knights advanced through it, their golden constructs forming barriers that split the explosion apart like water against stone.
The black entity retaliated, its halo flaring as gravity collapsed inward, crushing entire formations—but the knights adapted instantly, anchoring themselves with radiant sigils that stabilized space itself.
Altopereh surged forward.
And for a moment—
it dominated.
Its antimatter presence erased everything it touched, consuming knights, light, and even fragments of reality itself.
But the Sacros adapted.
Golden constructs formed—chains, spears, massive geometric seals of burning light.
They did not fight to destroy.
They fought to contain.
One by one, the monsters were overwhelmed—not by force alone, but by precision.
The crimson titan was struck by converging beams of radiant energy, its nuclear output forced inward until it collapsed into itself, trapped within a blazing cage of golden light.
The gravity entity resisted longer—warping, distorting, bending entire sections of the battlefield—but even it was eventually pinned, its halo locked in place by interlocking rings of radiant force.
Altopereh roared—
but even it—
was forced back.
Golden constructs closed around it, forming a prison that pulsed against its antimatter form, holding it in place.
Then—
silence.
The battlefield froze.
The domains stabilized.
The ship descended.
Slowly… deliberately… it lowered itself onto the desert.
Its presence alone caused the sand to shift and part.
The Sacros knights formed a perimeter.
And from the ship—
three figures emerged.
Hooded.
Silent.
They walked forward.
Youri stood frozen as they approached.
Something in him screamed to move—
but he didn't.
Because something deeper told him—
this was not real.
The figures passed through him.
Like mist.
Like memory.
A vision.
The central figure raised a hand.
A massive golden circle formed before him—burning, rotating, filled with symbols that Youri could not comprehend.
The ground trembled.
The desert split open.
Sand collapsed inward—
revealing something beneath.
A city.
Ancient.
Colossal.
It rose slowly from beneath the desert, as if it had been buried not for years—but for eternity.
At its center stood a towering spire, impossibly vast, stretching into the crimson sky like a needle meant to pierce the heavens themselves. Its pale surface was carved with endless layers—arches, chambers, hollowed structures—entire civilizations etched into its body.
Around it sprawled a dense city of stone—massive buildings, stacked balconies, towering facades, all worn by time beyond measure.
And then—
light ignited.
Sacros forces descended upon the city.
Golden constructs spread across its surface.
And within its depths—
shapes emerged.
Familiar.
Massive.
Unmistakable.
Orbitons.
Not one.
Not two.
Many.
This—
was where they were born.
Where Montern was forged.
Where Braken took shape.
Where Altopereh itself was created.
Not as weapons of the empire—
but as something far older.
Far more dangerous.
Youri stood frozen as the vision unfolded before him.
Because what he was witnessing—
was not just the past.
It was the truth.