The World After the Fall

In the deep darkness, there was a strange crying sound.

Every spirit of in [Chaos] knew what this crying was from. The spirits were busy running away once they heard the cries and never came back. It was because these were cries from Dead Men.

Today, their cries were different. It seemed like they were in pain. Something twisted them within the darkness and exploded. Then the cries stopped.

[It's boring.]

The darkness spoke and all the Dead Men within the darkness flinched. There was no way that they could fight against the one who spoke in this space.

'Boring?'

Sole-King Catastrophe, the master of Dead Man Palace, felt that it was strange that he had said such a thing. It had been so long since he felt this kind of feeling.

He had a guess as to why he was feeling such human-like emotion so suddenly. It was probably because of the recent link. The beings that were connected by the link shared each other's emotions. Unlike Catastrophe who had no emotion left in him, the humans had many and various emotions. That was probably what made him feel needless emotions.

'Puny human.'

Catastrophe did not like this at all.

'He made me do all this stupid work and disappeared.'

He looked at the giant summoning circle placed down in the darkness. It was not here a few months ago as it was originally at the Palace of Reincarnation instead of Dead Man Palace. Catastrophe still remembered the voice of the human who offered to install this summoning circle.

-Kill everyone that is summoned here. That's my deal. It's not much to you anyway, is it? I think you'll feel bored being stuck in this darkness all day.

Of course, that human was Jaehwan. Thinking back to it now, Catastrophe was not sure what made him accept such a deal.

'…Well, this does make it less boring,' he thought as he looked down at the summoning circle. It was quite fun to kill the Generals being summoned here as they died at the [Great Lands]. It was also fun to play interesting games with all the Generals that were summoned.

The [Great Lands] was at war because of Jaehwan's 'General Massacre' before he left [Chaos]. Darkness controlled the 9th region, and the other Lords began attacking the region. Thus, Catastrophe had fun killing all these Generals that were sent up.

However, that was over now. No Generals had been summoned for the past few weeks.

It wasn't definite, but he could only guess that the Lords of the [Great Lands] had probably realized something. As for Catastrophe, he lost his only hobby.

'And it's been a while since I lost a link with him.'

Catastrophe then looked up as he remembered the human's face. It had been three months since he lost the link with Jaehwan.

'Why did it have to break now?'

He felt something being cut, and after he realized it, it was too late. He tried to take control, but it was all too late. The link that was made by facing him had been broken.

There was no way for it to happen. Even if Jaehwan was against an enemy who could cut the link, the link between Catastrophe and Jaehwan wasn't that easy to break. If it was broken, then there was only one possible reason, and it was also the worst possible reason.

Return of the Machina.

That was the only possible way to break Catastrope's link, which was made by one of the Three Ancient Gods.

Of course, there was a way to recover the broken link. Actually, two. One was to use the [Eye of Geshtalt]. When using the Setting stored within the [Eye of Geshtalt], the link could be recovered right away. But it had not been long since he went up to [Depth]. There was no way for Jaehwan to get his hands on the [Eye of Geshtalt] so quickly. Then, that only left the second choice.

The second way to recover the broken link was to just wait. The way Machina destroyed the link was not permanent, and the destroyed link would be restored given enough time. The only problem was whether Jaehwan could survive until the link recovered.

'Maybe I should've taught him various things before sending him up there.'

It was too late now. Who would have thought that Jaehwan would face the enemy using Daeus' Machina?

'…He'll take care of it,' Catastrophe thought as he remembered Jaehwan's lonely unique world. Yes, he was going to find the answer. Catastrophe could feel it.

'Huh?'

That's when he felt something. The summoning circle began to shine. It was the signal that dead Generals were being summoned.

Prey.

He thought it was a good opportunity to kill time. He could enjoy killing these Generals, the link would soon return to normal, and then he'd find out what was going on.

But then, Catastrophe became tense. There were more than just one or two of them. And they were all more powerful than average.

'What are they?'

Catastrophe quickly gathered all the Dead Men within the Palace. It probably was no help considering the power of the ones being summoned, but it was better than none.

It was not like Catastrophe to become nervous at a few Generals. If it was before he was sealed away, he could have killed at least ten or twenty of them easily.

It was different now. Maybe three or four… that was his limit. They were that powerful.

'Wait, these ones…'

Catastrophe felt his guess was right as their world power became apparent. There were only a few who could have this much world power. Soon, the light turned off and a total of eleven figures appeared.

The world power of the eleven pressured the Dead Man Palace. The Dead Men panted in fear.

These were Lords, each with the power to finish [Chaos] individually. Even if Jaehwan came back, there was no way for him to face these Generals. Even if one of them escaped the Dead Man Palace, [Chaos] was done for. Their voices then came from the darkness.

"Oh, so the Palace of Reincarnation really did disappear."

"Yeah, now I realize why no one returned."

"Haha, it's been so long since I last came here by dying."

"I thought everyone would just feign death. You all succeeded in killing yourselves."

After a while, someone's voice quieted everyone down.

"Let's cut out the noise. The master of this place awaits us."

Then they appeared through the darkness. The one at the center had the most powerful world power. Catastrophe knew who he was. He was one of the Lords who sealed Catastrophe along with Big Brother, and he was the ruler of the 9th region of the [Great Lands].

"Long time no see, Catastrophe."

The Lord of Darkness, Gerome, was standing along with ten other Lords...

'I guess I might not be able to keep the promise with him.'

Catastrophe smiled within the darkness.