The wind howled through the peaks of the Amantha range, carrying the biting chill of the north.
The Evernight Goddess, currently dressed in a starlight dress that seemed both regal and oddly casual for a deity about to commit deicide, stretched out her hand. The fabric of her sleeves rippled like the aurora borealis.
"Since we are conspirators now," she smiled, a genuine expression that reached her crimson eyes, untainted by the cold indifference of her future self, "you can call me Amanises."
Klein Moretti hesitated for only a fraction of a second. He reached out. His gloved hand grasped hers—it was cold, like touching smooth marble left out in winter, yet beneath that coldness hummed a terrifying, vibrant energy. With his other hand, he grabbed the Secretive Plotter's shoulder.
"Hold tight," Klein warned.
[Hunger of the Digital Void] flared. The blue circuitry on the black glove pulsed.
Slash.
Space didn't just fold; it was deleted and pasted elsewhere. The scenery of the Amantha valley blurred into streaks of light and shadow, the world stretching like taffy before snapping back into place.
When the world stabilized, the air was thinner, biting with a glacial chill that sought to freeze the very spirituality in their veins.
They stood at the foot of a towering, jagged peak.
The Hornacis Mountain Range.
Massive, ancient pines clung to the slopes. The peaks weren't gray and dead, but white and pristine, piercing the clouds like the fangs of the earth. And surrounding the highest peak was a thick, unnatural fog—a veil of secrecy that felt uncomfortably familiar.
"It looks different," Klein murmured, gazing at the peaks.
"That's the territory of my friend," Amanises said, adjusting her veil. She began to walk up the path, her footsteps leaving no prints in the snow, as if she were a ghost haunting the mountain. "Though we are about to change that."
As they ascended, the atmosphere grew heavy. The Secretive Plotter walked silently behind them, his presence erased, guarding their rear. He looked at the mountain with the bored, analytical gaze of someone who had seen worlds burn a thousand times.
"You know," Amanises began, her voice carrying over the wind without being lost. "Before all this... before the epochs, the madness, and the divine thrones... I was just a salarywoman."
Klein adjusted his pace to match hers. "In the Modern Era?"
"Yes. I worked for a large tech conglomerate in Germany," she reminisced, a wistful look softening her sharp features. "Though I was originally from Northern Europe—Norway. I missed the fjords. I missed the smell of the ocean that wasn't filled with Beyonder monsters."
She laughed dryly, kicking a pebble. "Imagine my surprise when I closed my eyes in a warm apartment, worrying about a project deadline, and woke up in the body of a Sequence 2 Demonic Wolf."
Klein winced. He had woken up as a human, albeit in a dangerous situation. She had woken up as a monster, surrounded by monsters.
"It was hell," she said simply. "Flegrea—the Annihilation Demonic Wolf—was my 'Boss'. He was mad. Bloodthirsty. He ate his own children if they showed weakness or ambition. I had to act like a Subsidiary God of Misfortune just to survive. I had to forget my humanity to keep my sanity. I had to bark when he wanted me to bark."
She looked up at the peak of the mountain, where the thick fog obscured the hidden kingdom.
"That's when I met them. Philanias and Antigonus."
"The Mother of the Sky and the Half-Fool," Klein noted.
"Looks like you seem to know them by different names," Amanises corrected. "After I... facilitated Flegrea's death with Grisha's help—a wonderful bit of corporate backstabbing, as I went on using this opportunity to advance to Sequence 1, and then helped Lilith... Ah anyways, his children... they fled across the sea."
She gestured to the surrounding mountains with a sweeping motion of her arm. "They came here. They established their own kingdom. To hide from the madness of their father's legacy and the new order of the Sun God. I felt sympathetic to them. They only tried to regain their consciousness and stability."
She paused, a complicated expression crossing her face—half amusement, half pity. "Antigonus... he was different. He hated Flegrea. He hated the crude violence. He wanted refinement. He wanted... to be human."
She glanced at Klein sideways, a playful glint returning to her crimson eyes.
"He liked me, you know."
Klein blinked, nearly tripping over a root. "Antigonus?"
"Yes. He thought I was gentle. Beautiful. Unlike his other siblings who just wanted to eat." She chuckled. "He even confessed to me once, in the Second Epoch. Can you imagine? A giant demonic wolf bringing you a bouquet of fresh human skulls and high-sequence characteristics as a courting gift? It was... strangely sweet, in a horrifying, eldritch way."
Klein lampooned internally, his face twitching.
'So the Demonic Wolf Antigonus, the source of the Seer pathway's madness, the terrifying Half-Fool... was a simp for the Evernight Goddess? History truly is a circle of madness. Does that mean the Seer pathway has a hidden "Romance" attribute?'
"But," Amanises' voice turned steel-cold, the nostalgia evaporating like mist, "we lost touch. He wants to advance. He is gathering believers in that kingdom up there. He is preparing the ritual for Sequence 1: Attendant of Mysteries."
She looked at Klein significantly. "And you know better than anyone what that ritual entails."
'Constructing a town of marionettes,' Klein thought, feeling the weight of the [Cane of the Depraved Monarch] in his hand.
They stopped on a high ridge. The wind howled around them, screaming through the crags.
Amanises turned to Klein. The playfulness was gone. She looked small against the backdrop of the ancient mountains, yet infinitely vast. The starlight on her dress seemed to dim.
"I am lonely, Junior," she whispered.
It wasn't a complaint.
It was a statement of fact, as heavy and immovable as the mountain itself.
"I have shed my humanity layer by layer to survive. To protect. But sometimes... I feel like I am just a concept named 'Evernight'. I feel like the girl from Norway is dead, and only the Goddess remains."
She stepped closer, looking into Klein's eyes.
"I have a favor to ask. Not as a Goddess. As your countrywoman. Well, technically we aren't... As a person from the era we once called home."
"If..." she swallowed, her throat working. "If I help you. Promise me."
"Promise me you will give my future self... The thing I ask you to."
Klein felt a lump in his throat.
He understood that loneliness.
The isolation of being the only one who remembers a world that no longer exists.
He felt that she was perhaps the only person in this entire era—maybe even in his own—who truly understood the specific, crushing weight of their origin.
"I promise," Klein said softly. "I will find her. And I will tell her about the girl from Norway. I will pass whatever you ask."
Amanises smiled. It was dazzling, brighter than the sun above.
"Oh, please," a deep, exasperated voice cut through the tender moment like a guillotine.
The Secretive Plotter stepped forward, looking thoroughly unimpressed. He cleaned his ear with a pinky finger.
"Are we done with this soap opera? 'I am so lonely', 'I am a monster', 'My coffee was bad'... Do you want to hear about my 1,864 regressions? Do you want to know how many times I watched my loved ones die? How many times I killed them myself to save the timeline? I have tragedy that spans universes."
The atmosphere shattered instantly.
Amanises blinked. She leaned over to Klein, poking him with her elbow.
"Hey," she whispered loudly. "Is this guy the MC of some third-grade edgy webnovel? '1,864 regressions'? That sounds boring. Who writes a character with that much trauma porn?"
"Pfft," Klein failed to hold it in. He laughed. He remembered Kim Dokja saying something very similar about Ways of Survival.
"Actually... yes. My friend told me it was a 'not very good' novel. 3,149 chapters of suffering."
The Plotter glared at them, his hand twitching towards the [Black Heavenly Demon Sword]. The void around him darkened.
"I will throw you both into the cosmos. I will feed you to the Apocalypse Dragon."
"Focus," Amanises grinned, dodging the Plotter's killing intent and turning back to the mountain. "We are here."
They stood before a massive wall of gray fog. It wasn't the fog of Sefirah Castle. It was the Concealment of the Nation of the Evernight. It was a barrier woven from the authority of the Darkness and Seer pathways.
"This veil hides the kingdom from the world," Amanises said. "Antigonus is inside, playing king with his marionettes. He thinks he is safe."
She raised her hands. The sky above Hornacis suddenly went dark. The sun was erased. A velvet curtain of Absolute Darkness descended, draping over the entire mountain range like a shroud.
"Now," Amanises declared, her voice resonating with divine power that shook the snow from the peaks. "No one—not Sasrir, not Leodero, not even God Almighty—will know what happens here. This is my domain. This is the Evernight."
She touched the foggy barrier. It didn't resist. It recognized its master. Or rather, it recognized the Authority that was superior to it. It recognized the Sister who had come to kill the Brother.
CRUMBLE.
The barrier shattered like glass struck by a hammer.
"Who..." whispering echoed from the city within—a voice layered with madness and shock.
Instantly, the mountain came alive.
Hundreds... no, thousands of figures leaped from the shadows of the hidden city. They were humans, giants, wolves, even deformed creatures of the mythos—but their eyes were dull, their movements jerky.
Marionettes.
An army of the dead, controlled by a single will. They moved in perfect unison, a tide of flesh and weapons surging down the slope.
"Antigonus," Amanises said, her eyes flashing crimson. "He really has been busy. Look at all these toys."
She reached into the empty air.
Darkness coalesced in her left hand, forming a scythe that seemed to swallow all light—the Uniqueness of the Darkness Pathway. Crimson moonlight gathered in her right hand, forming a sphere — the Uniqueness of the Moon Pathway.
"Here begins the fun," Amanises laughed, her form blurring as she charged straight into the army of puppets.