Chapter 16

The Universal Ark descends, finally crossing into the gravitational zone of Kifo’s dominion – Giza. Unlike the other planets, no brilliant star clusters or spiral galaxies adorn the sky. Instead, there is only stillness…

Outside the viewport, there is no chaos. No ruins. No hellscape. Only an endless, velvet-black atmosphere speckled with ancient constellations that feel too close and too sentient.

Astera (blinking):
Wait... this is it?

Lily (softly):
It’s just… night.

Berwick (narrowing his eyes):
No sun. No moons. No reflected light. Yet… I can still see the surface.

The ship lands silently on what appears to be a stretch of obsidian glass. It stretches infinitely, reflecting the crew, the ark, and the endless sky above them.

They step out, and despite the complete absence of a sun, their bodies are gently lit—by what, they can’t say. There are no shadows here.

Shizuku takes a slow breath, stepping onto the obsidian plain first. His expression is unreadable, but his stance becomes guarded.

Shizuku:
This place… isn’t asleep.

Alto (his voice almost a whisper):
It’s watching.

In the distance, a shape flickers—an altar of bones surrounded by drifting fragments of petrified wings, relics of a species long since erased. And sitting upon the remains of a shattered dragon skull…

...is a figure. Small, unmoving, yet radiating an overwhelming pressure. A man—dark-skinned, cloaked in

ceremonial tribal garb, with a massive dragon’s skull worn as a helmet. Two small braids hang from behind the skull’s jawbone.

He is facing away, silently.

The captains stay quiet.

Shizuku (softly):
That’s him.

Asche instinctively places a hand over his heart, feeling the presence of the sigil fragment already humming from the direction of the altar. Even without seeing his face, they can feel it.

Kifo—the Primordial of Darkness.

The sky seems to ripple in response to their thoughts. And then…