“When a man’s dream is too grand, the line between ambition and obsession blurs,” Phantom said, his voice echoing in Rattan’s mind. “His desire to reach that goal at all costs becomes the only thing that matters, and the world, everyone and everything in it, becomes nothing more than tools to be used.”

In the relentless pursuit of a grand dream, one might take any path necessary to reach it. They may find themselves consumed by a hunger for more, even before their initial dream is achieved. This is when ambition blinds a person, and they become “the spotlight.”

Before understanding his true nature, Phantom had acted on his human instincts, reaching out to guide ambition, hoping to keep it pure and good. But once he let go and simply observed, he saw both the beauty and the ugliness of it.

He realized that some ambitions are so vast and complex that they require deviations from the conventional path. These deviations might be condemned by others, yet in their own way, they possess a strange, captivating beauty.

Phantom knew he could intervene, preventing these “deviations” from ever happening. But that was his mortal perspective, a limited view. When he considered things on a planetary scale, on the scale of an entire world’s fate, he couldn’t possibly guide the ambition of every single being. He couldn’t be a personal guide for everyone.

The true nature of an Arch Curse was not to guide but to watch. It was to see one’s own nature reflected in the grand ambitions of a world and understand that you can’t be everywhere at once. One person is left to fulfill their goal, and in their journey, they may create a masterpiece of deviance and ambition, something both beautiful and terrifying.

In Rattan’s case, his masterpiece was both beautiful and terrifying. He had achieved his goal, his ambition still burned brightly, but the reality was that it had been fulfilled in a way he had never imagined.

He was now facing that hard truth. The golden ball of fruit, which represented Rattan’s ambition, was now being coated in a dark purple skin. To most, this would seem like a taint, a corruption. But to Phantom, it was the most beautiful state the fruit could ever achieve.

Phantom had spent a lifetime viewing envy through the narrow lens of mortal good and evil. He saw the golden light of ambition as the “good” side of his curse the pure, noble flame that drove people to greatness. But that alone, he now realized, was an incomplete picture.

It was only when Rattan’s ambition reached its terrible, full conclusion when he felt the weight of what his pursuit had truly cost that the dark purple skin began to form. This was the other, essential half of envy. It represented the beautiful, brutal methods and the unforeseen, devastating consequences of a dream pursued at all costs.

To Phantom, this was the moment of completion. The golden light of ambition, coupled with the dark purple of its harsh reality, represented the true and whole nature of his curse. It was a masterpiece, a perfect and terrifying balance of what a mortal could achieve and what they had to sacrifice to get there.

Rattan closed his eyes in agony, tears streaming down his face as he cried out, “This isn’t happening, Guardian! This wasn’t how this was supposed to be. You were supposed to be the good one. How can you condemn me and my people to a fate worse than the empire could give us?”

Phantom reached out and plucked the dark purple fruit, his mouth watering with an ancient, primal hunger. But he paused, holding the fruit in his hand as he gazed into Rattan’s consciousness—a place he had resided for what felt like an eternity.

With a final flicker, his form blurred and he manifested in the physical world. The moment Phantom’s presence left his mind, a wave of panic washed over Rattan. He looked up at the giant before him, whose face was a constant, swirling mosaic of emotion.

“Please, don’t leave me! I need you!” Rattan pleaded, grabbing the hem of Phantom’s immense, flowing robe.

It was a pitiful sight, yet Phantom did not judge him. “You believe you need me, but you don’t,” he said, his voice a gentle, knowing hum. “You got to where you are today because of your own handiwork, not mine. I merely made the impossible possible for you. The rest was your doing.”

A voice boomed across the entire world, amplified a thousand times over by the planet’s new connection to the Abyss. It was Zarvok. “Hear me!” he bellowed. “The time has come! I call upon the Abyss to draw this fallen world into its layer! This is my ascension! This is your new home!”

With his voice, a massive tear ripped open in the void above. Everyone, no matter where they were, could see the sight clearly: a swirling vortex that revealed Zarvok’s Abyss layer in all its terrifying glory.

Then, a slow, inexorable pull began. The planet started to tear apart, huge chunks of land and sea being pulled toward the void. Rattan watched in horror, reaching for Phantom, but his grasp met only empty air. Phantom was gone. Only his voice remained, a final, echoing whisper in Rattan’s mind.

“You are a smart man, Rattan. It should be clear to you what fate has in store for you. Your world now answers to a new master. It is up to you to decide what part you will play in his world.”

Rattan’s head hung low, his jaw clenched, and his teeth ground together in a furious, silent rage. “Position marked,” the robotic voice of his artifact and domain core sounded in his ear.

He raised his arm to the sky and made a sharp, pulling gesture.

Meanwhile, high in the cloud layers, Phantom felt a strange disturbance. He was on his way to the moon to join his creator, but before he could react, an energy bubble formed around him, a powerful, pulling force dragging him back down toward the corrupted world below.

In an instant, Phantom was ripped from the cloud layer, plummeting toward the earth. From the sky, he saw Rattan, whose face was now a mask of both fury and greed. “I said I need you!” Rattan bellowed.

Phantom tilted his head in confusion, but his face, which was always in flux, settled on one particular form: Kaelen’s. His eyes took on a bright blue hue, just as Kaelen’s did when his power was active, transforming him into a living computer with an astonishing rate of calculation.

He observed the energy bubble holding him captive, his mind instantly pinpointing a point of weakness. He poked the spot and applied his mana precisely as his calculations dictated, shattering the bubble in a flash.

But his freedom was short-lived. A cube, larger than Phantom himself, appeared before him. It undulated like a living organism, opened up, swallowed him whole, and then sealed itself shut.

From the moon where they stood, Ikenga and Keles watched as Zarvok stretched out his arms and called upon the abyss. The heavens themselves seemed to recoil, the stars dimming as if in fear. To mortals below it may have appeared like a black rift in the void, but to Ikenga and Keles it was something far more dreadful—a colossal, gaping maw, wide enough to swallow a world whole. Its edges writhed like living flesh, dripping with shadows that slithered outward like veins across the firmament.

From its depths came a pull so immense it bent the laws of earth and sky. They watched as whole swathes of land began to lift, torn from the surface with terrible groans. Towers and citadels cracked as their foundations shattered, people and beasts alike screaming as they were wrenched upward. The sky itself became an ocean of debris cities crumbling midair, rivers streaming upward like silver threads, forests ripped from the ground with their roots dangling helplessly.

The screaming of thousands filled the void men, women, children, and the dying wails of magical beasts. But as each soul reached the maw, their cries were silenced, erased from existence the moment they crossed its jagged threshold. All that remained was a dreadful, echoing quiet broken only by the low, endless rumble of the abyss’s hunger.

Zadkiel stood transfixed, his expression torn between disgust and delight. His lip curled at the demons’ profane methods, at their disregard for all things sacred. And yet, beneath his disdain, a cruel smile stretched across his face. The unraveling of worlds was a symphony to him; the cries of the innocent rose like a chorus, a hymn of despair sweet to his ears. Every fragment devoured, every voice extinguished, was another note in a song he alone seemed to appreciate.

Turning, he cast a glance at his companion. Ikenga stood silent, his face carved in grim resolve. Zadkiel had known him only briefly, but never once had he seen such severity in Ikenga’s gaze. The mirth and lighthearted strength that usually radiated from him were gone, replaced by a dark shadow. His eyes did not flinch from the devastation, nor did he turn away from the despair pouring across the world. He watched it all unblinking, unshaken, as though weighing every scream and every life vanishing into the void.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep