Night World Players

Chapter 282 "The Finale" Grey, Let's Go Home

The Threshold of Blazing Sky.

This is the gap between planets and deep space, attached to the prime material plane, yet a dimension that exists independently of the present world, also known as the "outer world".

In the eyes of many legends, the term "Cage of the Blazing Sky," originating from the ancient Elvish language, also carries another layer of meaning—

"A border that only the gods can traverse."

In this era of receding gods, mythical creatures such as ancient dragons, high elves, dire wolves, and phoenixes have long since vanished from the historical stage, leaving only a very few with meager descendants. The Crack of the Blazing Sky has become the last remnant of the era of gods, the final romantic history of that age when the gods walked the earth.

Those ancient gods who refused to perish with the receding tide of the divine era hid within the Threshold of the Blazing Sky, relying on slumber and self-sealing to resist the erosion of time, waiting for the rules of heaven to change so that they could return to the mortal world.

"The war has also ended... This is the third deity to fall in this era."

"Slumber and self-sealing can never completely prevent the loss of power—if we do not find a way to return to the mortal world, it may not be long before we follow in His footsteps."

As a realm that only angels can enter, the Seraphim's Throne is extremely special.

The concept of three-dimensional space does not exist in this realm. There is no distinction between up and down, left and right, north and south, east and west. The gods are clearly separated by infinite distances, yet they can communicate with each other at close range. Even the unchanging flow of time in the mortal world becomes extremely slow within the Blazing Sky Threshold.

This is why the Cage of the Blazing Sky was chosen by the ancient gods as their hiding place.

However, since time flows only extremely slowly here rather than at a standstill, it means that the Sky Cage is not an eternal utopia.

Seven eras have passed since the end of the Age of Gods. Even with the protection of self-sealing and the Blazing Throne, half of the ancient gods who fled here have perished in the passage of time, and the rest are merely clinging to life.

However, this ancient god's proposal was not accepted by the rest of His kind.

"Returning to the present world, that's easy for you to say."

"We are born with the Star Grail, born angels... The source of this innate power comes from Gaia's will, which is what humans call 'divine law.'"

"However, with the rise of the human race, the will of Heaven... the balance of the world has been disrupted."

"In today's world, the rules no longer allow the existence of us mythical beings. If we were to leave the protection of the Sky-Breaking Threshold, the erosion and loss we suffer would accelerate a thousandfold in an instant."

The ancient god who had spoken in rebuttal paused slightly.

"Of course, if that's all there is to it... then there's nothing to fear."

They are, after all, gods who have lived for millions of years.

Even though they are currently in a semi-crippled state hidden within the Blazing Sky Cage, they cannot simply sit and wait for death.

Through long-term research, the gods also discovered some ways... a method to bring power down to the mortal world through the World Wall within the Threshold of the Blazing Heaven.

The cults lurking in the shadows on the Western Continent are the work of these ancient gods—through followers, faith, prayer, and divine intervention, they are able to interfere with and exert influence on the present world while protecting themselves.

The culprit who desecrated the laws of nature, disrupted the balance of the world, and brought an end to the age of gods was the race called humanity.

Therefore, under the intervention of the ancient gods, various cults have been exceptionally active in causing destruction within human civilization, and evil gods have been involved in the mischief of almost every era.

If the gods are allowed to continue their relentless destruction, then perhaps after just a few more eras, the human era will come to a complete end.

At that time, the rules of the world will be reshaped once again, the human era will end, and the age of gods will return.

At that time, the gods will no longer need to hide within the Throne of the Blazing Sky, but will be able to roam the world freely as they did before the First Age, restoring the glory of the mythological era.

However, their little schemes, which had continued for several eras, have now met with utter destruction.

"The angel who wields the power of judgment; the inheritor of the 'Library of Fools'; and the wielder of the Star Sword."

"In past eras, there have been humans who ascended to the angelic realm... but this time, a total of three have appeared."

"Not only that, I also sensed the aura of a human breaking through to the legendary level in the astral plane... In addition, the Star Grail left behind by the Grim Reaper in the mortal world, in the worst case scenario, five angels may be born in the mortal world."

"With them in charge, all our arrangements on the Prime Material Plane will be destroyed—and they may even survive the end of this era."

"If I had known this would happen, I shouldn't have raised a tiger to cause trouble."

"Raising a tiger to cause trouble? When that Holy Sword Envoy ascended the throne, it was our last chance..."

"We have joined forces with the tomb guardians, and with multiple divine interventions, we have already used all our trump cards, but what can we change?"

Upon hearing this, the Crimson Throne fell into a long silence.

This is a matter of course.

Both are angels, but the ones on the other side are newly promoted, wielding holy swords and the "Library of Fools"... newcomers with boundless potential.

On their side, there was a group of old, weak, sick, and disabled people who had been barely surviving for several eras, their power having long since been lost through self-sealing and slumber.

Their only advantage is that they have more humans... than gods. Their initial alliance with the tomb keepers was based on the idea of ​​overwhelming the enemy with numbers.

As a result, Hiltina and Last were both eliminated together. Who can I complain to?

They couldn't win in a direct confrontation, nor could they win through underhanded tactics and sabotage. After that battle, all the cults in the entire Western Continent were wiped out, leaving only a few small fry who could no longer cause any trouble.

It seems that the gods have no other option but to give up and do nothing...

No, even lying down might not be very comfortable. The evil god of Deep Blue Harbor has not forgotten that Rast had previously made a bold statement, saying that he would come to the Cage of the Blazing Sky to hunt His true form.

“Continuing like this will only lead to our demise… As long as the guardian of the shore and the wielder of the holy sword live, the human era will continue forever.”

"Since that's the case, we might as well take a gamble."

"In terms of current condition and combat strength, we may not be as good as those two."

"But... in the long river of time where only angels are qualified to set foot, we are the ancient ones who occupy the upper reaches, while they are merely newborns."

"You mean?"

"Yes."

That divine thought echoed in the extremely slow flow of time within the Blazing Sky Threshold.

"The leader of the tomb keepers has contacted me."

"We have decided to use all our strength, by any means necessary, to turn back time—"

“To cut off our hidden dangers at the source of cause and effect, and to eliminate those two before they were even born.”

This suggestion was met with an even longer silence from the gods.

Compared to legends, angels, or rather gods... their greatest characteristic is "time and space uniqueness," which allows them to exist independently of the river of time and feel the flow of time.

Angels exist simultaneously in every moment of history in which they have left their mark, and unless they fall from the throne of angels like Gray, they are never weak.

However, this does not mean reversing time; for angels, reversing cause and effect is an extremely easy thing.

The inertia of the river of time itself, the corrective force of history, and the inertia of the natural order in maintaining the general trend of history... these are all existences that are enough to make even the gods fear them.

Not to mention that the gods are now hiding within the Cage of the Blazing Sky, and most of them are in a crippled state.

To turn back time, reverse cause and effect, and erase the existence of Rast and Hiltina's ancestors by killing them—the backlash from the historical correction force they would encounter might even lead to their demise.

However, being an ancient god who had lived through countless years, he had long forgotten superfluous emotions, leaving only the obsession with life.

No further words are needed.

After a brief analysis and weighing the pros and cons, the gods quickly made their decision.

Rather than waiting to die within the Cage of the Blazing Sky, and for Rast and Hiltina to come and hunt them down once they have grown strong enough, the gods chose to erase them before they were even born by reversing time, even though it would come at a great cost.

boom--

In the distorted time, the sound of surging, thunderous waves seemed to echo.

By gathering the mighty power of the gods within the Cage of Blazing Heaven, that illusory time began to slowly flow backward.

Starting from the downstream end representing the current node, the process is extremely slow, yet clearly visible, as it backtracks bit by bit.

The illusory flow of time surges and ripples, creating one vortex after another, each reflecting a scene of illusory and hazy light and shadow.

……

Hiltina ascended to the angelic throne, wielding the holy sword, and holding Rast's hand, announced her coronation to the people in the royal city square, along with her chosen fiancée...

……

Last has become a vegetable, neither alive nor dead, sleeping in a hospital bed on the outskirts of the capital city. Every sunny afternoon, Hiltina would take time out of her busy schedule to visit him at his bedside.

……

On the night of the Granville Empire's engagement banquet for its princess, a black-haired boy hovered high in the sky, with a demonic phantom like Satan's Yer spreading its jet-black wings behind him, and fired a shot that burned everything.

……

In the dead of night at Starry University, Hiltina, accompanied by Rust, received her last gift from her best friend Fran—a rapier as gentle as the night sky.

……

On the train to the academy, Rust and the newly acquainted Dean Silver looked out the window at the endless golden fields.

……

In the Canaan town, which had not yet been destroyed by the time-space collapse, Amys timidly looked up at the boy who was smugly sitting in the treehouse, worried that he might accidentally fall from the tree.

……

The mountain path was blocked by a flood. In a cold, damp cave, a young boy and girl huddled together for warmth, vowing to protect each other forever. ...

Scenes of illusory light and shadow appear in the distorted river of time.

These are all Raste's past experiences, the footprints he left in the years... and now they are being replayed scene by scene in reverse order.

The river of time flows backward, and the speed of regression continues to accelerate.

Soon, we traced back to Deep Blue Harbor in the Sixth Epoch, which was also the earliest trace that Rast left in history.

"No, it's not long enough."

"This library, which inherited the Fool's mantle, has a guardian named Rast with astonishing potential... Although he has only recently become an angel, he has already occupied a considerable amount of time."

As time rewinds, within the Threshold of Blazing Heaven, the phantom of an ancient god visibly dims.

However, the retrospective has not yet reached its end, but continues to go against the current.

Crossing countless intertwined tributaries of time, it continuously swims upstream, heading towards the source of that ever-flowing river.

The Sixth Period...

The Fifth Period...

boom--

A deafening roar came from the Cage of Blazing Heaven, and countless stars shattered, leaving only a crystal-clear star cup that was slowly lingering.

That is a symbol of the extinction of the gods.

Perhaps it was already extremely weakened over the long years, and this ancient god could no longer bear the burden of rewinding time, and thus perished completely.

However, the flow of time has not stopped.

Every deity knew that this was a war that would never end.

If they cannot completely wipe out the other party, then their fate is already sealed.

Only by going back to the most distant point can we completely eradicate Rast from the root and eliminate all possibility of his survival.

boom--

As yet another ancient god phantom collapsed, the Star Cup appeared.

That illusory tide of time has begun to accelerate further.

Quaternary Period.

Tertiary Period.

The Second Period.

……

Having gone back to this point, most of the long river of history and time has been traversed.

Those are tributaries of the trillion-mile river of time, intricate and intertwined, entangled with distorted time.

This is the immense power that has flowed from time immemorial to the present, carrying countless eras, billions of lives, and millions of years of time—the weight of "history."

Every tributary of time is a crucial juncture, a turning point, or a divergence in the millions of years of human history. Behind every twisted strand of time lies a heroic epic, the rise and fall of a nation, and the brilliance and demise of a civilization.

And these millions of tangled and intersecting channels represent trillions of historical detours—

Ultimately, they all converged at the single starting point.

That was the origin of the river of time, the starting point of human history, and the beginning of the magnificent epic that would last for millions of years.

The final, and also the first, age of gods.

After paying the price of nearly half of the ancient gods' annihilation, these ancient deities finally reached the very top of the river of time—a history unique to mythical beings, one that no living human could ever touch.

However, the next moment.

The deity who was guiding all of this suddenly froze in place.

He clearly saw that at the end of all this, at the beginning of the river of time that no human could ever touch... there was still a figure present.

Black hair, black eyes.

He stood quietly at the very top of the river of time, blocking the way of the gods.

"Wow, I didn't expect that you would come to me on your own without me even having to go to the Blazing Sky Cage to find you."

Looking at the ancient gods who had traveled back in time and appeared before him, the young man couldn't help but smile.

"Since we're about to pick up little Grey, let's use a line that fits her 'fate' sequence's mystical style."

He looked down at the astonished gods below, then snapped his fingers lightly.

Our meeting was predestined.

Within the distorted, spacetime vortex that devoured the gods...

Only the boy's voice still echoes, unchanged.

"Even if there are a thousand roads, none can escape meeting me."

……

The vast and boundless deep space of the universe.

This is the deepest part of the starry sea, and also the origin of destiny.

Grey thus sank into the abyss of stars, letting herself drift aimlessly with the current.

This was an exchange called fate, the price she had to pay after making such a grand vow.

From the very beginning, Grey was acutely aware of the weight of what she was about to accomplish and was prepared to pay a price commensurate with it.

Falling from the angelic realm, they wander eternally in the deepest reaches of the starry sea.

There are no traces of life in the astral plane. Even if astral creature or a legendary powerful being who can travel through the stars occasionally approaches, they will be blocked by the karmic barrier originating from fate and will not be able to set foot in this silent deep space.

Time has lost its meaning here; each twinkle of a star may mark the passing of hundreds of years.

Only for fleeting moments, when starlight reveals the course of fate rewritten by others, can Grey glimpse a corner of light in the prime material plane through the twinkling of the stars.

The nation rises, prospers, and then falls into ruin amidst war.

Heroes and kings rise to glory, only to fall from grace, their stories becoming the poems sung by wandering poets.

Civilizations have also changed several times, from the wizard civilization with its magnificent mage towers soaring into the sky, to the magic civilization with its magical mechs traversing the skies, to the era of beast tamers who valued beasts above all else...

But regardless of the type of civilization or how culture changes, the catastrophe at the end of each era always occurs in a cycle, burning civilization to wasteland, and then sprouting new seeds of civilization from the wasteland.

This endless cycle has already occurred six times, and it looks like it will continue indefinitely.

Until, a tiny variable appeared.

He was a boy with black hair and black eyes.

Initially, in the vast, almost endless torrent of history, this tiny variable was so insignificant.

However, with his appearance...

From the steam age, through the technological age, to the space age where spacecraft are everywhere and even ordinary people can roam the deep space...

Because of his appearance, the course of civilization was guided towards an unprecedented and brand-new future.

That is, at the same time.

Grey finally received the small miracle she had been longing for.

Snap.

The curtain of starlight, along with the seal called fate, shattered.

In the shattered light, Grey finally heard the voice that was imprinted deep within her soul.

That was a name she would never forget, even if she fell into the abyss of wandering.

We met in the thick fog of Frozenwater Town, and became acquainted on the long street of the Watchtower...

They met through betrayal on a rainy mountain cliff, and cherished each other through farewell on a broken coastline...

A tearful embrace amidst the burning ruins of Canaan.

And this moment is the very last moment—

They fell in love during this reunion after a thousand years of separation.

"Grey, let's go home."
……

(End of the book)

(End of this chapter)