Legacy of the Dark Sage

Ruin drifted along the abyss of despair with a blank expression. He had known meddling in the confrontation between his prey and Flos would result in something unexpected.

Alas, that something just happened to be his prey not even present in the ensuing confrontation but also Obstruction being present and using his domain before he, Ruin, could do anything.

Ruin could not help but let out a dry laugh as he muttered, "I never expected them to make such a move just because I appeared before them... ha~ the life of a famous person... truly a tragedy..."

After saying his piece, he sat in midair with his legs crossed and surveyed his surroundings.

Unlike the others who had fallen into Obstruction's Domain, Ruin did not lose his senses. He could still see the outline of his hands when he looked at them, even in complete darkness. Apart from that, he did not have problems determining his left and right. But he did admit, at times, he wondered if he was sitting upright or upside down because there was a sense of blood rushing in his head while he sat in midair.

Just as this thought crossed Ruin's mind, he chuckled and said, "Or~ the rush of blood is just me feeling a little pissed at the current situation."

Now, this statement, Ruin found more 100% accurate than the first.

"Well then~," he looked up, and a humorless smile appeared on his face. "Should I make a move now? Or should I wait?"

His smile then turned into a maniacal grin as he thought of something, "He will come and rescue his damsel in distress, right~?

"Should I try and capture her instead and force him not to run away from me again?"

In another location in the Abyss of Despair, Malek was similarly observing the darkness around him.

Similar to Ruin, Malek still had control over his five senses, albeit a little weaker. Unfortunately, he was too exhausted to move his body apart from his eyes. Truth be told, keeping his eyes open and only seeing pitch-black darkness was also exhausting.

Ultimately, Malek closed his eyes, and immediately, scenes that transpired before Obstruction summoned his domain flashed through his mind's eye. He was aggrieved at his incompetence in protecting all those complete beings and humans alike who lost their lives.

While Malek wallowed in his self-blame, Stella's voice seemed to fill his thoughts, saying:

"It is not your fault... You are never a mage that goes to war. Being the Head of the Conclave, there are only a few times when your power is needed. When collecting a very valuable item, when our people need help defeating a very powerful beast, or when there is a threat to the Conclave. But even in those times, attacking with a mindset to kill is not necessary, even if they are people who have ill intentions.

"You are best at handling affairs of the Conclave and never in fighting. Yes, you have very offense-oriented magic, and it is true that you are far more powerful compared to mages at the same level, but that does not change the fact that you are not a person of war...

"So don't blame yourself, Malek. If you have to blame someone, blame that rascal..."

Somehow, in the last part, especially when the 'rascal' was mentioned, the voice changed into Sigma's.

Malek chuckled in spite of the situation, and he opened his eyes once more.

'Blame him, huh? Why? Because he entrusted almost half of his militia to me? Because he left that woman in my care?'

Even as the thought crossed Malek's mind and even as he wallowed in self-blame, blaming Kyran was out of the question.

'You're right, milord... The things that happened here are no one's fault... rather... everything is according to their whims.'

A greenish light flickered in Malek's irises as he thought of the Fates. Thinking about it now, in his vision, where Kyran lost control and unleashed hell in Somuli, there were a lot more who died. As a matter of fact, no one survived apart from Kyran.

Those who died today just might as well be those people if Malek's vision did happen. But since they had averted that scenario— at least, he strongly believed they did— those people who were fated to die then had to die one way or another.

'... to die one way or another... Will it be the same for us? Will we meet the same fate...?'

"No."

A voice belonging to the least person Malek wanted to hear spoke in his head.

"You're not taking any more of my people."

The light that flickered in Malek's eyes just now grew as he realized that he was not hearing the voice in his head but actually hearing it reverberate in the darkness.

"Today, I'll collect all due debts."

Kyran's voice!

RUMBLE! RUMBLE!

CRACK! CRACK!

Cracks formed on what might be the edges of the darkness.

Nahir and all those who managed to survive up till now also heard Kyran. It might have been because of the despair each and every one of them had felt after being imprisoned in this darkness that after hearing his voice, all of them seemed to have seen the light.

In actual truth, they were indeed seeing the light filling the darkness as the cracks in the walls forced the darkness to collapse.

Backtracking to when Kyran appeared in the underground shelter and found Cyneah and the others were not there, he remained calm. He first observed the remnants of the battle and more or less guessed what transpired. After that, he was able to sense Flos and Obstruction's lingering magic energy in the air.

Realizing it was them who came for Cyneah and recalling what Obstruction could do, according to Nolan from their confrontation, it did not take long for Kyran to guess where everyone had gone.

With that in mind, Kyran combined three theories he learned about Void's nature from Caelan: one, the theory of reconnection; two, the theory of absorption; and third, the theory of dismantling.

The first one he did was to ensure he had enough magic energy to sustain what he was about to do.

As per Caelan, Void can reconnect one spot to another. This is the theory that works when they use warp. Unlike the theory in Space magic, where they shorten or lengthen the distance, Void basically opens a point and reopens another at a distance.

Kyran's target in reconnection was the Human plane. Before, he would never dare try this because of the strain he would suffer afterward. But things were a little different now, especially after his body got enhanced.

For the record, Kyran had used the same theory when he made a miniature version of Noir's array. Noir's array needed several items that had a high volume of magic energy to ensure it was charged enough for others to use. But since Kyran did not have enough time to gather the materials needed for the array, as well as most of those items were actually unavailable in Somuli, Kyran tweaked it and instead, used Void runes to connect the array to the Human plane.

Basically, the magic energy supplied to the miniature array came directly from the Human plane. Unfortunately, because the array was mobile and the one controlling it did not possess Void magic, it had a time limit. Once the magic energy charged into the array was depleted, it could not replenish again unless Kyran controlled it.

Using the theory of Reconnection, Kyran opened a path from Somuli to the Human plane to ensure he could replenish his magic energy.

Next was the Void's theory of absorption. There is nothing much to say about this theory because it is pretty much self-explanatory.

A good example of this was True Void's ability to absorb any type of magic energy in the surroundings, making him a bottomless glutton. 

Creating a point where Kyran could connect to the Human plane was not enough for him to absorb its natural magic energy because of the two plane's different magic laws. Fortunately, he was the Void Master. Thus, that was not a problem.

Finally, the Void's theory of dismantling basically destroys or reverts anything back to its nothing form. This theory is pretty similar to Time's ability to rewind time. The difference, however, is obvious. Time targets time in general, which affects everything that happens in that time frame, while Void's dismantling only affects specific targets.

In Kyran's case, the target was the last spell unleashed in the underground shelter. This was a bit tricky because he had to target the correct spell that was unleashed. Otherwise, he had to try again.

Fortunately, the last spell unleashed in the shelter was powerful enough to leave some traces behind, allowing Kyran to analyze and understand it at once. Unfortunately, he discovered the spell was actually a Domain.

Summoned Domains are different from cast spells, which means they will be hard to dismantle. After all, Domains are created based on a mage's own understanding of their magic. There are no magic runes involved in its creation.

Nevertheless, Kyran unhesitatingly targeted it. Though it took some time, he still succeeded.

Finally, the Abyss of Despair crumbled.