While the Power of Order could sever and dull emotion, rendering its wielder almost untouchable by fear, doubt, or hesitation, its antithesis operated in the exact opposite manner.

The Power of Chaos did not isolate; it connected. It demanded bonds, fed on them, and deepened them beyond what most beings could comprehend. Through it, one did not merely remember others—they felt them, across entire universes. The deeper the connection, the more absolute the link became.

Cain felt everything.

He felt the moment Anark died.

It was not a distant realization or a quiet understanding. It was a rupture. A violent tearing that echoed through his entire existence, as if a part of his very soul had been ripped away without warning. His body froze atop the mountain, his breathing halting as an overwhelming surge of grief, disbelief, and fury flooded his mind all at once.

Cain and Anark had known each other since the beginning of his path.

Back when Cain was nothing more than a young man in Aether, not even having reached the Divine Ascension Realm, it was Anark who intervened and saved his life. The Primordial had stood between him and certain death at the hands of the Soul King.

With Anark’s guidance, Cain had taken his first steps into the Primordial Path. He had gained the power necessary to protect those he cared about, to stand against forces that once seemed insurmountable, and to carve his place into the vast hierarchy of existence.

Together, they carved a path through impossible odds, overcoming the Imperium of Time and preventing the fall of the Everstrife Empyrean World into the grasp of the Tenth Empyrean World. Side by side, they battled the Root, defied destiny, and stood against forces that would have crushed lesser beings without a second thought. 𝗳𝚛𝚎𝚎𝘄𝕖𝕓𝕟𝕠𝚟𝚎𝕝.𝗰𝕠𝐦

Their brotherhood was not born of blood, but of war, sacrifice, and unwavering trust. It was forged on battlefields drenched in blood and tempered through countless life-and-death struggles. Anark was not merely an ally. He was family. Someone Cain trusted with his life without hesitation.

Even after awakening in Paradise, when everything around him had changed, and the weight of his new existence threatened to crush him, Cain found solace in a single thought: Anark was still out there. In the Nine Empyrean Suns Universe, the True Primordial remained, standing as a guardian. As long as Anark lived, Cain believed that his people, his world, would endure.

That belief had anchored him. It had given him peace.

But now...

Now Anark was gone.

The moment that truth settled into his soul, it felt as if something fundamental had been torn away. It was not just grief—it was absence. A void where something irreplaceable had once existed. The world itself seemed dimmer, as though a vital light had been extinguished forever.

Cain stood in silence, his gaze drifting into the distance as a storm of emotions surged within him. Pain, disbelief, anger, and something deeper, something darker, coiled in the depths of his being. The bond they had shared did not simply vanish with death. It shattered, and the backlash echoed through every fiber of his existence.

And it could not have happened at a worse time.

On the very day Anark fell, the Ninth Realm of Paradise received an unwelcome visitor.

The newcomer was a grotesque and otherworldly figure, its presence alone enough to warp the very fabric of reality. Multiple jagged, crimson wings extended from its back, each one resembling a blade rather than a natural limb. Its entire body was wrapped in dark, ancient bandages, giving it the appearance of a corpse dragged from a forgotten tomb.

Yet what made it truly terrifying was not its appearance, but its aura.

The moment it entered the realm, the air itself seemed to scream.

Space twisted. Light bent unnaturally. The very laws of the world recoiled as though in agony. This was not power that belonged to the Third Realm. This was something far beyond it—something that stood firmly within the Fourth Realm, a level of existence that could dominate entire universes.

With every beat of its wings, the distortion intensified, spreading like a plague across the sky.

The creature made no effort to conceal itself. On the contrary, it announced its presence with overwhelming arrogance, as if demanding that all existence acknowledge its superiority and kneel before it. Its momentum surged, carrying it across vast distances in an instant, until at last, the highest peak of the Ninth Realm came into view.

In the blink of an eye, it stood above the mountain range, gazing down upon the figure waiting below.

Though its body was completely bound, even its eyes hidden beneath layers of bandages, a red glow still seeped through, radiating an overwhelming sense of dominance and disdain.

"Stand ready for my arrival, ant."

Its voice echoed across the sky, deep and hoarse, carrying a weight that pressed down on every living being that heard it. The moment the sound reached them, countless minds began to fracture, hallucinations surfacing as their deepest fears clawed their way to the surface.

"Before you stands a Sacred King of Chaos and Order."

The sky darkened further with each word.

"I am the darkness. I am horror. I am the embodiment of the primal fear sentient beings felt on the first night."

The pressure grew suffocating.

"I am the Nightmare King."

Silence followed, heavy and absolute.

"Due to your achievements, I showed you respect. I sent my Knight to bring you before me. Yet you not only disobeyed—you dared to kill my Knight."

The darkness thickened, swallowing the light as his aura spread across the world like an inescapable tide.

"Now I will—"

He never finished.

Because in that moment, Cain lifted his gaze.

Everything changed.

The oppressive aura, the suffocating darkness, the overwhelming presence of a Fourth Realm entity—all of it froze. Not weakened. Not resisted. Frozen, as though reality itself had hesitated.

The Nightmare Sacred King had witnessed horrors that could drive even the greatest heroes into madness. He had risen through mountains of corpses, endured countless trials, and cast aside fear long ago. It was an emotion he believed himself to have transcended completely.

Yet as he met Cain’s eyes...

Fear returned.

Those eyes burned with a blinding scarlet light. Blood streamed down from them like tears, staining his face, yet he did not blink. They were not merely eyes—they were abysses. Endless, devouring voids filled with rage, grief, and something far more ancient.

It was like staring into a crimson ocean that threatened to drag everything—mind, body, and soul—into its depths.

The sheer intensity of emotion contained within them was overwhelming. Hatred, sorrow, loss... all fused into something so dense that even a Fourth Realm life form felt as though it might drown in it.

Cain slowly rose from the ground, his gaze never leaving the Nightmare King.

When he had first imagined facing a Fourth Realm entity, he thought he would feel many things. Tension. Caution. Perhaps even fear. It would have been a new and terrifying experience, one that demanded everything he had just to survive.

But now...

None of that remained.

Every other emotion had been burned away, consumed by something far more primal.

Hatred.

"If not for your seal..."

His voice was low, yet it carried a coldness that pierced deeper than any blade.

"I would have returned home."

The air trembled.

"If not for your seal..."

The ground beneath his feet cracked.

"I could have saved my brother."

Each word struck like a hammer against reality itself, sending ripples through the very fabric of existence.

Cain’s aura began to rise, no longer restrained, no longer controlled. It surged outward in violent waves.

"I AM GOING TO KILL YOU!"