Chapter 20 — Drawing the Sword Against the Stars

The howling wind scattered the last of the pale purple mist deep in the canyon.

After the Akashic black box finished its full data backup, its crystalline structure completely melted into a puddle of scrap iron and fell into silence. And in the depths of the cliff behind the black box, that massive Astral Rift—hundreds of meters long—still silently spewed blinding pitch-black death-light and golden embers.

In the grand canyon of the Deadzone, the atmosphere was as heavy as an iron plate crushed by intense gravity.

Elias stood on the edge of the collapsed main continent's sheer cliff. Beneath his feet was a bottomless, pitch-black gravitational abyss; above his head was the Divine Court's astrolabe, twinkling with cold radiance across the sky.

The fierce wind whipped about, causing his tactical cloak, stained with blood and mud, to billow out.

The boy slowly raised his hands, clutching that half of the star-core pendant tightly in his palm, pressing it against where his heart beat. His sister Aira's dark, clear eyes, the word "Brother" she spoke before turning into stardust, and the tragic sight of the entire Tartarus turning to ash under the tearing of two supreme divine powers—all of it crashed together in his mind, forging into a complete, god-slaying blade!

He would no longer ask why, nor would he fantasize about the Divine Court's pity.

"The gods sit high above, believing their mercy is a gift, believing their slaughter is balance..."

Elias's voice was low, yet it pierced through the entire grand canyon amidst the howling wind.

His right hand violently gripped the heavy, serrated industrial cutting knife at his waist. Accompanied by a piercing screech of metal friction, he yanked that mortal tool, stained with grease and enemy blood, out of its sheath!

The sharp tip of the blade crossed the massive, blinding Astral Rift, crossed the eerie gravitational abyss of the Deadzone, and pointed straight at the Golden Sanctum hanging high above tens of thousands of star domains at the very zenith of the sky!

"Listen well! You high-and-mighty gods!"

Elias's face became almost savage from extreme resolve and killing intent. His eyes were bloodshot. Like a berserk trapped beast venting its fury at the King of Gods from the deepest depths of hell, he let out a roar that made the stars in the sky tremble!

"Whether it's your hypocritical light, or your slaughtering darkness!"

"Whether you are the ruling Planetary Gods sitting high in the Inner Cabinet, or the Twin Gods who command judgment!"

"I, Elias, swear in the name of the victims of Tartarus—the planet you so casually erased—"

He swung the cutting knife heavily toward the heavens, ripping through the air with a shrill shriek:

"I swear, one day, I will charge up to the heavens carrying the fury of mortals! I will drag every single one of you self-righteous gods down from your high-and-mighty astrolabe... and slaughter you all!!!!"

The roar furiously boomed and echoed deep within the canyon!

"Smash them!"

"Drag the gods down and slaughter them!"

Behind him, Caleb roared and raised his electromagnetic assault rifle, the red light of his military-grade electronic prosthetic eye bursting with unprecedented fanaticism and ferocity! Lyra tightly gripped her astrolabe-rune board, the independent fire of mortals burning in her eyes!

At this moment, mortals were no longer lambs kneeling in prayer before disasters, waiting for the gods to bestow the air they breathed.

On this forgotten, corner wasteland of the Deadzone erased by the Divine Court, the first mortal force daring to draw their swords against the astral tracks, daring to declare war on divine authority, officially sparked the first flame in blood and fury!

Deep in the shadows at the edge of the Deadzone.

"Vespera" stood quietly where she was.

The howling wind lifted the hem of her skirt, revealing those fair, flawless, jade-like mortal ankles.

The high-and-mighty God of Darkness, Umbra, listened as the mortal boy barely three steps in front of her used that almost maddened, purest killing intent to swear aloud—right to her face—that he would drag her (the God of Darkness) and Astra down from the supreme thrones of the Divine Court and slaughter them.

That was an absurd scene that had been absolutely impossible over the long eons of countless past eras.

Under the order of the Divine Court, no one dared bare their fangs at the Twin Gods; even Jupiter, the God of Wood, had to maintain polite pleasantries when facing her authority of annihilation.

Yet, at this moment, looking at this blood-soaked mortal boy holding up a crude cutting knife and roaring at the sky, hearing that vicious vow to "drag the gods down and slaughter them"...

Hum—

Umbra's cold, absolute, high-dimensional divine core—silent for tens of thousands of eras—suddenly produced an unprecedented, violent tremor!

It wasn't anger, nor was it the killing intent of being offended.

It was... a [Soul Tremor] produced when a high-dimensional origin was forcefully slammed by the ultimate, pure rebellion and killing intent of a low-dimensional mortal!

The feeling was like a freezing, absolute-zero ice field that had been dead for ten million years suddenly being forcefully branded with an unhealable scorch mark by a faint spark thrown by a mortal.

"A soul tremor..." Umbra slowly raised her palm, looking at her slender fingers that were trembling slightly in the wind.

Within those eyes as black as night, her originally absolute, cold physical calculation framework completely collapsed and disintegrated at this moment.

She had thought this was a cold, uninteresting observation experiment.

She had thought she was condescendingly watching the burning and extinguishing of a speck of mortal fuel.

But now, she realized with horror and shock—this off-track Anomaly she had personally anchored as a karmic buffer was, in a posture utterly unpredictable by the Divine Court's algorithms, turning into an orbit-breaking blade meant to pierce the entire sky!

"You can actually... make my divine core tremble..." Umbra muttered softly in her heart, a highly complex, indescribably profound curve hanging on the corners of her lips.

She watched the boy ahead sheathe his cutting knife, turn around, and walk toward the squad.

"Elias..."

For the first time, the God of Darkness chanted this mortal's name with incomparable solemnity in her heart.

"Then bring it on."

"Let me see if this mortal orbit-breaking blade you've forged from hatred and bonds... can truly sever the astral tracks of the Divine Court."

The sky grew dark.

The hover-car turned around. Carrying the fully backed-up Akashic black box blueprints and the dismantled high-energy alloy components, it roared out of the decaying Deadzone, speeding toward the direction of the Embers Camp.

And behind them, that massive, blinding Astral Rift flashed silently beneath the gloomy deep space.

Volume 1, Core of the Blind Star, Arc 001, Destruction and Descent, officially drew to a close at this moment.

The spark had been planted; the flag of the mortal vanguard was about to rise on the wasteland. And the epic war between the high-and-mighty Divine Court and the mortals had only just unveiled its first chapter of blood and fire!