"Did the God of Light just descend? What happened? Did Utopia strike at the theocracy of the God of Light, forcing Him to manifest and annihilate the target?"

High atop the central spire of Skyborne City, Icarus sat observing the colossal divine silhouette rising above the theocracy. For a moment, he could not determine precisely what was unfolding.

"The God of Light is interfering with the void. Analyze whatever you can. What is He doing to it? And... can we confirm where the Utopia is?"

Issuing orders without pause, Icarus fixed his attention solely on that radiant figure, trying to discern with mortal sight what this descent meant.

"The God of Light's power is overwhelming. The radiance He is projecting outward is obscuring all our detection methods. We can see only the God of Light Himself—no trace of Utopia's spires."

The report arrived almost instantly. The God of Light burned like the brightest lamp among a field of dim lights; His brilliance swallowed everything around Him. What vanished within that glare were the Utopia's signature spires.

"Cool down all overloaded devices as quickly as possible. Warm up the weapons array. For now, we'll simply observe. According to our records, every descent of the God of Light has been in response to His believers' call to deliver righteous judgment. If this situation is the same, we need only wait."

His voice was grave. Like the void, the gods remained a domain about which mortals knew little. These beings were too powerful and too easily capable of warping the soul of any who dared draw too near. Few dared study them; fewer still survived such attempts.

Thus, Icarus could not truly guess what the God of Light intended. He could only rely on knowledge of past descents.

Indeed, his guess was correct. Just like the descents before, this manifestation was to answer the call of a believer. It was meant as a "righteous act." But what exactly was righteousness... and who decided its definition?

"It seems I did not do enough. Even after blurring the God of Light's identity in the minds of the masses to this extent, I still cannot prevent His image from being influenced by a far larger congregation of believers. Even if the effect was reduced greatly... if they all sincerely believe their act to be true justice, and they ask Him to accomplish only one task, then... the God of Light cannot—will not—refuse."

The Pope of the God of Light gazed at the vast sphere of radiance through which divine power poured into the mortal world. His voice carried quiet resignation as he spoke to Roland. When Sulla succeeded in filling the God of Light with the collective will of the Utopia, the Pope immediately understood that they were now powerless to stop whatever undertaking the God of Light had embarked on. His power was now beyond their reach.

"Go. Whatever contingencies you have prepared have clearly failed. At this point, it falls to me. I am the one most deeply bound to the God of Light. Perhaps I can still accomplish something, however limited it may be."

Kiran's tone held neither anger nor despair, simply clarity. Roland's continued presence here was meaningless. Without the ability to influence the God of Light, Roland and Sulla, whose knowledge of divine truth had cost them their ability to believe in deities, were even less suited to intervene than the relatively weaker Kiran.

"Perhaps they were right. This is the shifting of eras, of one phase giving way to the next. We can't stop it. There are far more working against us within the Utopia than we can handle."

Kiran walked toward the colossal sphere of light as he spoke. Roland did not contradict him. He remained only long enough to gather what data he could on the Utopia and on the God of Light.

"Once something is born, it won't vanish quite so easily. I will struggle until my very last breath, alongside the others."

Those were Roland's final words to Kiran. Then the fortress' outer layers peeled apart to reveal the complex structures within and shot away at high speed, searching for the next chance to thwart the Utopia's plan.

"Good. Living with all your strength is enough."

A rueful smile touched Kiran's lips. He stepped before the radiant sphere representing the God of Light, pressed a hand to its surface, and, like Sulla before him, merged into it completely.

All the power he possessed, power unlike that of any ordinary wizard, surged upward along the invisible thread of faith.

He was one of the first believers of the God of Light, dating back even before the age of the Abyssal Invasion. His presence had marked every major event in the history of the Church of Light.

His faith in the god was unshakable—so much so that, even after learning the truth about the divine just as Roland and Sulla had, he retained the capacity to believe in them.

And with that faith, he reformed the church. It was he who ended the disastrous era of the theocracy. He frequently communicated with his archbishops, even if the method resembled a ghost whispering to them through their dreams...

"Justice should not be defined by the likes of you."

The God of Light was a god who fought for justice. The world held no deity literally named the God of Justice. As Damian had once mentioned, the so-called "God of Justice" was actually an eldritch being lurking in the void.

The theocracy had already proven that, if a certain definition of justice were forcibly imposed, it would become nothing but a sham, a twisted will backed by power.

And the Utopia's actions now were perilously close to that. By manipulating faith, they had altered the meaning of justice and compelled the God of Light to act according to their vision of it.

Yet Kiran's decades of work had not been futile. He had expanded the God of Light's congregation into a vast, continent-spanning community. Their shared vision of justice was something simple, ordinary, indispensable—a justice associated with daily life, not of tyranny.

This immense body of believers dwarfed the Utopia's might. Thus, the only thing the Utopia could force through was a single favor: a task believed righteous by those among them who still worshipped the God of Light yet did not know the truth of the divine.

That favor was this: to haul up the second node from the deepest reaches of the void.

The God of Light's power plunged deep into the void. Amidst a thunder that could not be heard, it dredged up what had once slumbered far below the abyssal depths of the void. Inch by inch, the God of Light hauled it upward, bringing it through the boundary between the material world and the void until it appeared at last in the very heart of the theocracy of the God of Light.

"President Icarus, we're detecting radical fluctuations in both material and void parameters within the God of Light's domain. The concentration of void energy is rising rapidly. Assuming our calculations are correct, the local environment is turning into that zone where the Bloodfang Empire used to be. This... this must be the second node that the Utopia is trying to create!"

With the material environment so drastically warped, Skyborne City's sensors finally registered a clear reading. Yet understanding what they observed only deepened the analysts' confusion and terror.

"Why is the God of Light helping Utopia complete their plan? Isn't He supposed to embody the axioms of justice...?"

Icarus's thoughts were a muddle of chaos. Should Skyborne City... attack the God of Light? Strike at a god to stop Utopia from dragging that thing upward? Impossible. The power of a deity was not something Skyborne City could ever restrain.

Moments ago, he had reached out to several of the Go of Light's believers, only to learn they had abruptly lost contact with their god. But even knowing this, the fact that the God of Light was assisting the Utopia went against everything Icarus could conceive.

"There were no civilians within that anomalous zone in the Bloodfang Empire. Based on our current analysis, what would happen to those in that region, caught mid-transition between the material realm and the void?"

After a ponderous silence, Icarus posed a question.

"They would die. The environment would pose minimal danger once it stabilizes, but during the transformation process, anyone caught within the domain would be twisted by the void, body and soul alike... and become voidspawn."

"...Do not attack the God of Light. Begin evacuating the theocracy immediately. We must save as many as we can."

Icarus paused only for a heartbeat before making his decision. They had no other options. Unable to oppose a god, all they could do was accept Utopia's success and minimize the devastation.

Below, within the God of Light's theocracy, the consequences of hauling the node from the void into the material realm were already taking shape.

Explosive void energy surged into unsuspecting citizens, flooding their bodies with the madness and distortion native to the void. Their flesh and souls warped, twisting into the horrors of that realm—shapeless, mindless, orderless things, pure abominations.

The God of Light would not stand idle against such horrors. Pillars of golden radiance speared down from the heavens, annihilating the twisted beings instantly, even though it was His own act that had caused their transformation.

One after another, radiant pillars flared within the theocracy, each more rapid than the last, a measure of how many innocents were becoming voidspawn, only to be slain by the God of Light's hand.

A tidal wave of death surged forth within the God of Light's theocracy.