Only God

The Invisible Tower swayed gently.

The fairy standing guard outside the tower now stood frozen in place, his face etched with deep fear.

He was the sole survivor atop the Sea of Souls.

He had witnessed the destruction of the entire kingdom.

Because... the fairies had betrayed their covenant with the King of Kings, committed a sin, and ultimately brought about the destruction of the Sea of Souls.

The winds of the Spirit Realm howled and raged as if some horrific creature was slowly advancing through the darkness of the cosmos.

The fairy trembled; he remembered that, in ages past, he was a prince of this kingdom, and should the King of Elves fall, he was to inherit the realm.

However, as spiritual beings nearly immortal, the death of the King of Elves was not expected, and inheriting the kingdom had seemed an eternity away.

Yet... yet...

The Sea of Souls was destroyed, the King of Elves was dead.

He alone, through the secret techniques of the fairy race and the will of the Divine, managed to cling to life.

He did not know if the King of Kings had shown him mercy, sparing him this one life, or if he was to forever endure the pain of the Sea of Souls' destruction.

But when he felt the seemingly endless winds of the Spirit Realm, he realized something.

Beastly creatures...

The beasts that devoured the gods...

Seemed to have noticed the slight anomaly in the Sea of Souls.

As these thoughts settled in his mind.

The beastly creatures... as if they had heard a summon.

In the pitch-dark depths of the cosmos, an unimaginable terror loomed.

The fairy turned around.

In the darkness, gigantic eyes without pupils appeared in the depths of the universe, their lids writhing, suffused with bloodshot veins. Instantly, the entire Sea of Souls was permeated with a strange and terrifying aura; amidst the mists, waves of putrid, bloody water seeped through.

An ancient fear resurfaced, and the fairy trembled once again.

The Invisible Tower began to shake violently, as if it might collapse at any moment.

The attention of the beast that devoured the gods interrupted the Ascension Ceremony.

And this eye without a pupil was but one of the countless eyes upon the beast.

The fairy remembered, when the beast had devoured the God of Prophecy, its star had turned into one of the beast's pupil-less eyes, and with each deity it devoured thereafter, a new eye would emerge.

Inside the Invisible Tower, Eden's mind was in chaos, the space around him deformed and twisted.

Could the Holy Chorus's Ascension Ceremony... all end like this?

Eden couldn't yet comprehend what had happened.

The originally placid scenes in his eyes turned bizarre; Eden thought he saw another self standing before him, with twelve wings, darkly smiling. He raised his hand to touch, but the other suddenly erupted in lumps, swelling and bursting open, spewing forth pus like the sea, inundating him.

Eerie humming echoed in his ears; Eden struggled to listen, but his brain throbbed as if pierced, causing him such pain that he clutched his head, striving to maintain consciousness. Yet the sinister vortex drew ever closer, threatening to consume him.

Suddenly, Eden felt as if something had grabbed his shoulder.

The unexpected force brought Eden sharply back to awareness.

"Heh, heh, heh..."

Eden gasped for breath.

Before he even had time to realize that the Ascension Ceremony had failed, the fairy pointed in a direction.

Eden turned his head.

When his gaze met the eye without a pupil, for just an instant, Eden's soul felt as if it were about to explode.

Twisted pale mist swirled around the pupil-less eye, as an evil aura continuously emanated from it. The Sea of Souls was covered in blood, and within that stench of blood, strange runes floated.

Eden felt his soul undergoing a transformation.

As if… it were growing wings, sprouting hideous lumps, and oozing pus, until his entire soul would burst open.

In that instant, the fairy covered Eden's eyes.

Only when Eden could no longer see the eye without a pupil did the transformation of his soul finally slow down.

"What, what is that…" he muttered.

The fairy did not respond.

He just covered Eden's eyes and pulled him forward.

Eden slowly followed the fairy.

The stench at the tip of his nose grew stronger, the priest's footsteps became sluggish, as if walking through a muddy swamp. He felt he touched something… it was like a human hand.

Eden ignored it and dared not pay attention; he kept moving forward.

Something seemed to be approaching from behind. Eden vaguely sensed it, like tendrils made of crimson blood threads trying to drag, to pull at him, wanting to transform him into one of them, a part of the blood.

Eden's eyelids grew heavier; the fairy clung tightly, not allowing him to see anything.

The wind of the Spirit Realm howled mournfully, even colder than the chilly wind of the Mortal World. By his ear, the sound of flesh wriggling could be heard, as if forming some deformed creature.

Everything had changed, everything was distorted. Eden felt a sudden fear in his heart; he seemed unable to empathize with any of the deformity around him, which exuded a non-human malevolence!

The fairy kept leading him onward.

Where was he being taken?

To be sacrificed?

This thought suddenly surged in his mind. Eden's footsteps grew even heavier. Amidst the eerie atmosphere, he began to mistrust the fairy before him, this survivor. Was he intending to take Eden to some horrific sacrifice, to offer him as bait to the beast that had devoured the Gods?

Eden instinctively wanted to break free, wanted to open his eyes, but the fairy held his eyes shut, refusing to let go as if exhausting all his strength in this life.

Lord, Lord… King of Kings, King of Kings…

Eden's mind instinctively reached for prayer. Yet, for some reason, the concept of the Lord in his mind gradually turned into the King of Kings. As he was steeped in the blood, even his own consciousness seemed out of control, emitting a tainted call.

With every step forward, Eden felt as though he had touched another corpse.

Within the evil presence, something seemed to rush over him, oh, it was those blood threads. They writhed, coming closer and closer.

The fairy kept leading Eden onward, onward. At last, they stopped.

He let go of Eden's eyes and then, with the speed of lightning, bolted past Eden and into the distance.

Eden didn't have the chance to look back.

He heard a shrill scream.

He sensed that, behind him, those blood threads had pierced the fairy's body in an instant.

Following that scream, the fairy was dragged, pulled until he was swallowed by the pupil-less eye surrounded by the pale mist.

As if satiated, the eye without a pupil slowly disappeared into the darkness, and the broken Sea of Souls restored its original state.

Only Eden was left standing there dumbfounded. Before him was a door that seemed like an exit connecting the Celestial Kingdom to the Mortal World.

The last survivor of the Sea of Souls had died like that.

From beginning to end, they hadn't spoken a single word, nor did they know each other's names.