In space, a dark pool of inky blackness appeared outside Earth, forming a massive expanse that covered an area of several kilometers. From within it, a brooding, anomalous presence lurked, a sinister aura perpetrating throughout space like a coming plague. The first to notice this anomaly was, of course, the ark who after the altercation with Joyner intruding in their base, had doubled their efforts in monitoring Earth and the surrounding space around it. As soon as the dark pool appeared, it immediately triggered several alarms inside the ark, alerting everybody inside of the pool’s presence. But before the ark could even analyze what was going on, a haunting pressure suddenly caused everything to stop, as if being frozen in time. The dark pool appeared like a one-dimensional flat surface of black water, like a screen made of ink both sides of which could be seen. But looking into it exposed an abyssal depth hiding unending terrors and monsters. And from within this abyss, one such

Sable, Pamela Bernard, and finally Arran left the underground room for the surface. As soon as Arran appeared, his face changed as a slight frown creased his brows.Noticing this, Sable asked, “Is there a problem?”Arran answered immediately.“The humans in the ark, I can’t sense them anymore.”Arran’s reply caused everybody to angle their heads upwards to space in the direction the ark was positioned.Unlike Arran, neither of them possessed his powerful senses so they couldn’t detect the traces of the ark or the humans directly. The only thing they could perceive was the powerful aura of the Shade engulfing their entire senses.Even across thousands of kilometers and through Earth’s nomological barrier they could still feel that powerful aura so they couldn’t be blamed for not noticing anything else that was off.“So you’re saying that the ark and the humans in them are in danger and under attack?” Pamela asked.To this, Arran shook his head, denying her words.Frowning she retorted.

Booooom!A massive explosion burst through space, leaving a firework of sparks flaring brightly. A wave of shocks impacted the sparse atoms in space, causing intense vibrations and high-pitched sounds to affect everything around them. Arran and the others were forced to cover their ears to block out the sounds, but an even high-pitched scream that couldn’t be blocked physically hit them even more forcefully.It was like the sounds of countless tormented souls screaming out for help, for someone to save them. But it was also the sound of celestial rage caused by an angry deity.Anyone weak in spirit upon hearing this sound would lose themselves in agony, running the threat of losing their souls.Arran’s spirit was sufficiently tough, having already evolved with parts of his soul being fused with the imprints of the world's laws. So he wasn’t affected much by the agonizing scream. Same could be said for the others.Still, Arran’s face displayed shock as he processed the aftereffects of

The moments just before a final attack lands usually spelled the end for an opponent. Bernard, now unable to move, was at the crossroads between life and death, with the end seemingly coming for him.But before Bernard could be impaled by the blood skewer, his voice rang loudly in a frenzied roar of anger.“Shut the hell up and get out of my head, you inferior beings!”This was followed by another shout coming from behind him.“Pamela now!”“You don’t have to tell me twice.”In the next moment, a blinding green light burst out from behind Bernard, shining like flames on a glooming night to chase away the darkness.As soon as the green light appeared, the screams stopped, and Bernard regained his mobility. In the next moment, Bernard threw a punch at the approaching blood spear while simultaneously moving his body to dodge.This was the first time Bernard had ever avoided an attack headed directly at him and the results that followed showed that this was the right thing to do.The bloo

Pamela didn’t clarify what she meant by her previous words and nobody inquired either. Bernard simply asked, “So what do we do now?”“We wait,” Pamela replied.“It shouldn’t be much longer now. In the meantime try to recover your wound. We might need you to fight later.”“I don’t need you to remind me,” Bernard said. Still, he began circulating his energy to recover from his injury.Bang!Just then, a sudden sound like chains being broken rang out, reaching the quartet. Following it, a beastial roar echoed into their eardrums.Everybody reacted immediately to the sound.“What was that?” Arran asked.Pamela frowned heavily her eyes going to the netherworld flame that had gradually begun to dim.Eventually, Pamela said, “I guess it’s over. An outcome had already been decided.”The others also noticed the waning flames of the netherworld and thinking about the effects Pamela told them it possessed, they immediately guessed what had happened.“So your curse failed to affect the enemy, did