When the red sun finally touched the horizon after about ten hours of nighttime, Len and the rest of the group that defeated the corrupted deity returned to the now-silent siege tower to continue where they left off the day before. Surprisingly, even after the intense fight, the magic circle had remained intact.

  After carrying away the debris and cleaning up some parts, the group managed to unveil the entire teleportation circle that covered about thirty percent of the floor.

  Without wasting any time, Gail rushed to the center and started revising the runes and put his knowledge to the test. Rita was currently resting so he was the only one here who had a fair understanding of how runes worked in general.

  While he was doing that, everyone else resorted to doing whatever they wanted as they waited for Gail’s results.

  Luna climbed up the tower stairs and made her way to the black shrine of this tower. After her interaction with Oblivion, Luna had grown a great deal of interest in Everlight, the Servant of Light.

  That name still made her tremble but she was starting to get used to it as she learned more about this world and the true celestials.

  She slowly walked to the sacrificial altar and climbed onto the surface to get a better look at this statue of the Servant of Light behind it. This one lacked a head though, but its build was very similar to the one back at the cathedral.

  Another interesting detail about this statue was that it lacked wings. This version of the statue of Everlight depicted a more human version of the celestial.

  Was this how she appeared to some followers?

  ‘I guess it’s common for deities to shift between forms.’ She thought as she scanned the black figure.

  Anyway, since she had some time to spare, Luna decided to try and see if she could control Qi once again. She sat down, crossed her legs, and started to meditate. This was the second time since yesterday.

  Previously, Luna had hoped to awaken a memory that would gave her some kind of clue about manipulating Life Essence. But her hopes led to nothing. And for once in her life, unique blood felt useless in this situation.

  As she entered her meditative state, Luna began to feel the life energy traveling through her muscles and giving them life with each breath she took. If she could control that life essence in her body, Luna would finally find a way of opening a Soul Gate.

  She was confident that learning how to control the essence in her mundane body would set her on the path of ascension. She had been taught how to control zenshi even before her family confirmed she wasn’t capable of awakening like the rest.

  Stolen story; please report.

  Luna had not put that knowledge to waste of course. The special breathing techniques and exercises improved her overall combat abilities and made her a better swordsman as she indulged herself more and more in the world of martial arts.

  However, the most important piece of information she had acquired was the art of meditation. An art she was told to master from the time she first gained the ability to walk.

  Meditation was the key to ruling the mind. Anyone born with the spark of divinity needed to learn this specific art if they wanted to become an ascender in the first place because it was the first step at achieving the balance between the body and mind.

  ….Cultivation of Mind is what the monks back at the main sect called it. It focused on preparing the mind for the path of ascension due to how intense zenshi sometimes felt after opening the First Soul Gate.

  Also, a powerful mind could on the stress of summoning a weapon in a short period and manifest weapons almost instantly. However, the strength of the manifested weapon usually depended on the Ascender’s level of zenshi mastery.

  Fortunately, Luna just happened to be a master of the art of meditation due to her inability to sense unique energies like ascenders. Through meditation, she was introduced to the world of using qi to expand her mundane senses. One could say it was a consolation to not let her feel so left behind. But after going against the sword guardian, Luna realized she was underlooking the benefits of being sensitive to life's essence. If she wasn’t, Len would’ve been one of the bodies they were burning yesterday.

  ‘Sigh. Let’s try again.’

  After getting comfortable, she cleared her thoughts and closed her eyes. The world around her was engulfed in darkness as she entered a meditative state.

  Slowly, her senses started to fade. It started with her hearing as she slowly felt the canopy of noise on the lower floor disappear…

  Second, the smell of sand finally disappeared from the edges of her nostrils. Meaning her sense of smell had been numbed as she dived deeper into a more clear conscious state.

  Like zenshi, she started by feeling all the qi flowing through her. Then, she tried moving some of it to her hand like how would enhance a punch by concentrating all their zenshi on that point.

  Qi was more difficult to command due to its ancient nature. Things like intent were useless. She needed to find a way of influencing it without trying to enforce her will on it.

  Soon, her concentration broke after some time of meditation. Once again, she had accomplished nothing.

  “I might as well go mad from all this overthinking.” She whispered to herself.

  Suppose Oblivion was right about the flame holding the divine realm. Then Luna needed to tell someone else to do something about it.

  Honestly, this was above what she signed for.

  He mentioned that the end is coming. By the end, he meant that more and more gates were set to appear in the mortal realm to finish the job.

  The current world was already a mess because a small part of the divine realm started bleeding into the mortal realm. The Fall began with a large rift in the sky that made way for all types of monsters that caught humans off guard. The advanced technology at the time was useless…guns…nuclear bombs…nothing could kill those things.

  One gate at that time led to the death of about forty percent of humanity. Some fell victim to cursed creatures while others turned to monsters after coming into contact with black ether. What made it worse was that zenshi was still complicated to awaken or use because of how foreign it was to humanity. A first Soul Gate user would go against a cursed tyrant with no assurance of coming out of it alive.

  Those were the darkest times.

  Luna sat properly and tried to imagine what would happen if the two realms finally collided. The number of sorcerers in the world would never be enough to give humanity a fighting chance if more cursed emperors made it to the mortal realm.

  “Extinction.” She muttered with a shaky breath. “We would be driven to extinction…”

  She imagined a scorched earth. An Earth crawling with all kinds of abominations, gates spawning everywhere with more devils and cursed creatures crossing over.

  ‘It would truly be the end.’ Luna’s dark thoughts lingered as she remembered every detail of Oblivion’s conversation.

  The deities didn’t care about humans despite this being their mess.

  ‘Why would they? We’re a lesser species…’

  Luna was silent for about three more minutes as she tried her best not to quiver even more. She was terrified of the future because she now knew bits of the horrible truth. As she analyzed these bits more, her fear seemed to escalate even further each time she thought of a possibility.

  “The magic circle is active…but this configuration...I’ve never seen anything like it. You all need to see this.” She heard Gail’s voice over her communicator.

  ‘I guess I will find more answers if I continue to climb this tower.’ She sighed and jumped off the altar.

  She gave one final look at the headless statue of Everlight and proceeded down the flight of stairs leading to the first part of the dark tower.