"Hah... Easier than I expected." 𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚

Standing at the center of a massive crater, Wang Yu flexed his fingers. The wounds across his body had already knitted shut. The only thing truly depleted was his bloodpool, but that hardly mattered now.

"Well, that was an awe-inspiring fight. Terrifying, even. Mind if we talk a bit?"

He turned toward the voice. On a low hill two or three kilometers away stood a white-haired youth in a dark gray robe, smiling faintly down at him.

"You want to talk about your so-called ‘utopia,' I assume?"

Wang Yu tossed something up in his hand lazily. As he blasted Ethan Harris into dust with a single punch, he'd caught a small object that had tumbled from the man's remains—a delicate thing, like the hand of a clock or an instrument gauge.

This curio, the Perfect Pointer, could spare its bearer from a fatal blow, restoring all injuries sustained within the last ten minutes. Unfortunately, like the Mirror of the Stars, it came with a crushingly long cooldown. Ethan had already triggered it during the fight. It wouldn't respond again for another five years.

"It seems you're well informed about our plans," the white-haired youth replied calmly. "I presume you slew Lady Selene, then? Given what happened with Aleisterre, it's clear you've disrupted more than a few of our arrangements."

Though he didn't confirm it outright, his tone made the truth plain: this youth was indeed one of those bound to the utopian ideal.

"What do you want to talk about? Cut to the chase," Wang Yu said, relaxed and unmoving.

"I want to ask you not to interfere any further," said the youth earnestly. "You're... different. Even after our plan is fulfilled, you won't be bound by it. The world we intend to build, the utopia, need not conflict with you."

His voice carried a quiet sincerity.

"Oh?" Wang Yu raised a brow. "So this utopia of yours will sweep up everyone except me?"

"In a sense, yes," the youth admitted. "You are the only one beyond its reach. To complete the utopia, every other being must be drawn into it. For them, that may look like death, even if it isn't a true death."

He spoke with a trace of regret, as if this inevitability pained him.

"I thought you had plenty of willing followers," Wang Yu said dryly. "Why not just build this utopia with them, instead of forcing everyone else into it?"

"The utopia isn't what you imagine," the youth replied without hesitation. "It isn't born of my own desire. It is for the future of all sentient races: a world beyond loss, parting, and death. Suffering like that shouldn't be inevitable.

"Those who walk with us know this truth. They're noble souls who've chosen to give up what they have for the sake of that vision."

"I see. Sounds impressive," Wang Yu said, scratching his head. "Then let me make a simple request. Leave Aleisterre out of it. Let those who want to join do so. Don't drag the rest along. I doubt they'll miss your utopia."

"I'm afraid that's impossible," the youth said softly, shaking his head. "The utopia is a current, a tide that must sweep over everyone but you. With your power, Wang Yu, why choose to stand against it?"

"Seems you've got that backwards." Wang Yu's eyes narrowed. "It's because I have this power that I can say no. If I didn't, you'd have killed me already."

He exhaled, weary and cold. "All this talk of destiny and the future isn't my thing. My friends, their parents, all of them worked hard just to live. Why the hell should you get to decide they don't anymore? Why do they have to vanish because of your grand design?"

His words carried a raw, almost comical exasperation. From start to finish, Wang Yu cared about simple, tangible things. The youth spoke of destiny and civilization's future; Wang Yu cared about the few people who mattered to him. Nothing more, nothing less.

"It seems you still can't understand the burden we bear or the purpose we pursue," the white-haired youth said quietly. "I won't impose further today. Perhaps one day you'll see our efforts across the continent and understand. Whatever the case, if you choose not to oppose us, that alone would be enough to bring me peace."

He turned slightly, preparing to leave.

"..."

Wang Yu said nothing. His eyes were cold, unblinking.

Then, a vast cage of void energy descended from the heavens, sealing the world around them both in a luminous prison of silence.

Truth be told, Wang Yu had been expecting this. His power of the Chariot hadn't been able to lock onto the youth earlier, considering that the youth had kept his distance during the fight with Ethan.

But Wang Yu's eyes were sharp, and Avia had been feeding him a live relay of everything happening in the surrounding void.

"Oh? So I was exposed from the very start," the youth murmured, smiling faintly. "Did you call down that spire's wizards to encircle me? I'm flattered. But I'm afraid it won't help."

He didn't panic. Even faced with the seventh-tier reinforced Voidbound Prison, prepared in advance by the cursebinding spire at Wang Yu's warning, the white-haired youth merely raised his hand and snapped his fingers.

Void ripples spread outward. The boundaries of the prison that met it began to tremble violently. Within moments, all authority over the cage was stripped away.

"Manipulating void energy, are you? That power does not belong to you, or to anyone. It is a force that any might wield, if they only—"

The white-haired youth had long anticipated the prison descending from the heavens. The convergence of void energy, the distortion twisting through the material world—none of it could escape his perception. He was, after all, demonstrating his strength before Wang Yu and the cursebinding spire. Yet before he could finish speaking, a rift bloomed beside him, one utterly devoid of the void.

Avia emerged halfway from that sudden rift, a sphere of pure, radiant light in her hand. Without hesitation, she thrust it toward the youth at point-blank range.

"?!"

The instant he saw what she held, the white-haired youth's pupils contracted sharply, a flicker of unprecedented shock crossing his gaze. Then, without a moment's pause, he poured every ounce of his strength into action.

A door materialized from thin air. Just before the sphere could strike, the door's threshold swept across his body, rending space apart and wrenching him out of the void-wrought prison entirely.

"...A pity. We missed him," Wang Yu muttered as he hurried to Avia's side, staring at the spot where the youth had vanished. "But that spell he just used, was it...?"

"Yes," Avia nodded. "It was indeed a Gate of Phases, and far more refined than my own version, at that. The spatial seal meant nothing to him. He could exploit every flaw in the ‘stabilized' coordinates as if the world itself were full of cracks."

"I can't help thinking," she added quietly, "that this spell may have originated with him."

Her eyes dimmed in thought. The Gate of Phases, a space-warping spell she had acquired from the Grand Library, was a powerful technique. She had once hoped to use it to help Wang Yu find his way home, but when that proved futile, she instead mastered it for battle and exploration.

She was certain that the white-haired youth had used that very same spell. Considering that the librarian Samuel Hayden was acquainted with Roland, it was not hard to guess that a figure of Roland's era had contributed the spell.

"He didn't notice you appear beside him," Wang Yu remarked. "So the Chariot's power really does lie outside his understanding. Too bad we couldn't make him eat that blast."

He took the glowing sphere from her hand and tossed it into the lingering rift with a sigh.

"His Gate of Phases is too fast," Avia admitted. "And the Chariot's power you lent me can't suppress his spellcasting. His mana comes from within, from a part of his very being. It can't be nullified."

She clenched her fist. If only she had been a heartbeat faster, she might have trapped him mid-cast with her own Gate of Phases. Clearly, she still had a long way to go, and she would need to forge her own path if she ever hoped to surpass him.

"...You know," Wang Yu said, his expression odd, "the more I think about that battle with this so-called Sword Saint, the less sense it makes. The power he wielded, and whatever breakthrough he achieved mid-fight, he classified as ‘swordsmanship.'"

"But this world doesn't have cultivation arts like that," he went on. "Technique alone shouldn't grant strength that transcends the bounds of skill. And yet, the power in his blade was something like the void. Like a domain. That shouldn't even be possible."

Avia blinked, then frowned slightly. "...You're right," she said after a pause. "There's nothing wrong with your reasoning."

"Well?"

Far away, the orc Barsaka glanced at the white-haired youth stepping through a portal of light.

"Ethan Harris has fallen," the youth said, brushing dust from his clothes, his tone faintly weary. "For now, don't even think about confronting that man. When the remaining nodes are in place, the problem will resolve itself."

"And you?" Barsaka pressed. "Can't you do anything about him?"

A low, humorless chuckle escaped the youth. "Do you know what I saw? The one we're fighting may not be the only enemy."

Barsaka's expression darkened. "What terrible news."