Eternal Thief

Just the realm’s presence alone felt like an invisible oppressive power pressing its palm against the world.

Even Ace felt it, and Eva felt her bloodline coil in warning, disgust, and hunger all at once.

On the other hand, the Dread Duchess, unmoving as stone, narrowed her eyes beneath her veil with a hint of nostalgia because the last time she saw the Sanctuary’s true wall was around six thousand years ago.

At that moment, she felt she had reached a bottleneck in her cultivation and left the sanctuary to seek insights in the next realm.

As the Gate opened wide enough for an army to march through…yet only three beings stepped out under the countless gazes of the myriad abyssal beings.

Three silhouettes, shrouded in crimson mist and void-black luminance, they didn’t fly, nor did they walk; they descended, as if gravity itself bent to lower them to the mortal world.

Their footsteps made no sound, yet every impact seemed to echo in the souls of every Abyssal Being below the realm of the Abyssal Lord.

The first held a lantern shaped like a weeping eye.

The second carried chains that trailed behind them like cosmic serpents.

The third wielded nothing, yet the space around their empty hands twisted and shrieked.

Their forms were never fully visible. Every time light touched them, their bodies blurred as if the world was refusing to look at them directly.

Furthermore, they weren’t masked or hooded, but the space itself seemed to hide their faces.

Every abyssal being who tried to see them clearly felt a burning sting in their eyes or a pressure behind the skull, like a whisper threatening to carve out their memories.

Even Ace felt a prickle of warning as he quickly averted his gaze, but inwardly his heart beat widely because a faint sense of dread rose in his chest.

’Are they Abyssal Kings?!’ Ace thought but quickly rejected it because he had been in the presence of an Abyssal King and even an Ascension King, so he was slightly familiar with their unique aura.

However, those three felt completely different, alive yet not alive at the same time, and they were giving the exact same aura as that gate, as if they were carved from the same mold.

On the other hand, as the sense of abhorrence deepened from Eva’s bloodline, Flaggy’s amusing voice rang, “This Evernight Sanctuary isn’t simple because those three are…Abyssal Puppets!”

While Eva was startled by Flaggy’s sudden revelation, the three ’Corpse King’ reached the midpoint between the Gate and the Abyssal sky.

They suddenly halted at that point as if the entire world was their stage, and the bleeding light of the Sanctuary swelled behind them, outlining their silhouettes like mythic executioners.

At this moment…

’THUMP…!’

All three placed a hand over their chest, lowering their heads in a single synchronized bow toward the Abyssal Plains.

“W-What level of existence…?”

“Are they Abyssal Kings?!”

The Abyssal Beings all over the Abyssal Plains were discussing in awe and skepticism, but no one dared to show any disrespect.

At that moment, hidden within a shadowy mound, two demonic eyes flickered with a hint of horror, “No… even Kings do not distort reality like that! Are these the… true envoys of the Sanctuary?! ”

In another place, inside a dark chamber filled with a sea of ghostly flames, a towering giant looked up at the sky through his hollow sockets, as if he could see through everything.

He muttered in a solemn tone, “The protectors of the Evernight Realm. I saw six of them slaughtering the Half-Abyssal Kings of the Cult of Undying Star like wood?! But why would they come out this time instead of the envoys selected from the nobles? Is this a warning for someone?”

The crowd across the Plains erupted into prayer, fear, panic, and awe.

Back to the Duskmire Vault, from her vantage, the Dread Duchess’s lips curved, “Three Protector Envoys… The Sanctuary is taking this seriously this time.”

Ace’s eyes narrowed sharply because he felt something tighten, something deep inside him reacting to those chains the second envoy carried.

At that moment, the first Envoy raised the lantern, and its eye opened. A blinding crimson tear of light shot across the sky before the silence devoured the world. It was silence woven from law itself, a silence that compelled all things to listen.

The lantern-eye narrowed to a slit, and for the first time since their descent, one of the Protector Envoys moved with intention.

The First Envoy raised its head, and the fog around its form parted, and suddenly, it spoke, but not loudly or sharply like a proclamation shouted for the world to hear.

Its voice was simply there—inside the air, inside the bones, inside the soul, a voice that bypassed ears, bypassed distance, bypassed will. A voice that echoed through every ravine, every fortress, every kingdom of the Abyssal Plains.

Even those in deep seclusion, those trapped beneath mountains, those sealed inside pocket realms—all heard it, and all trembled as they all understood. Because that voice was not carried by sound, it was taken by a mysterious authority.

“We bear the will of Evernight!

“We are here to announce the Evernight mercy to all Abyssal Plains!

“Hear the Will of the Evernight Sanctuary!”

The world flinched, even Abyssal Lords lowered their heads while Marquises froze mid-breath, and faraway hidden existences stilled like prey sensing a predator.

The Protector Envoy continued, “An irregularity has occurred.”

The blood of countless beings ran cold when they heard an ’irregularity’ in the Sanctuary, a place governed directly by the strongest existence of the Abyssal Plains, the Evernight Council!

Whispers broke out across the Plains like panicked insects.

“What does it mean?”

“An irregularity in the cycle?”

“Is the Sanctuary unstable—?!”

“Impossible! The Council would never allow—”

The First Envoy’s voice cut them off with a single word, “Silence!” and the Abyss obeyed.

The First Envoy lowered the lantern slightly, and the bleeding light spilling from the Sanctuary shifted, darkening, deepening, thickening like coagulating law.

“This opening… is not just for the members of the Evernight Council!”