Strongest Among the Heavens
Chapter 463: The Queen

Chapter 463: The Queen

"W-what the hell? What the hell is that!?"

Kazi was already on his feet, fists clenched at his sides, eyes locked onto the nightmare swallowing the horizon. A wave of something—thick, cloying, wrong—was rolling in from the east, stretching its inky tendrils over the city, devouring everything in its path. It was pure void, devouring lantern lights, fireworks, and people alike.

"You alright, man? I don’t think Jules fireworks are that freaky," Booker said. "Trauma for bombs or something?"

No one else could see it. His hair flicked gold and his power rose. Within his left golden iris, Foresight activated.

Five seconds.

He saw nothing but black.

"Kazi? Kazi, are you alright?"

His left eye pulsed twice in a row. Divine Healing Circulation was fueling him, letting him gaze further into the future like never before. He saw himself committing different acts. He witnessed different possibilities and timeline.

All started different. All ended the same.

Nothing but black.

Again.

Still nothing.

His chest tightened. No matter how many times he looked ahead, all he saw was darkness. Not a single outcome where this didn’t reach them.

Kazi whipped around. "Try to leave! Exit gate! Enter home!"

"Uh, okay...?"

Kazi tried it himself. The system flashed in front of him:

[ ERROR! ERROR! HEAVENLY GATE COMPROMISED!!!! COMPROMISED! COMMPOMOSMOPMPSPMP—]

[ ERROR! ERROR! ]

[ OUT OF BOUNDS! OUT OF AREA! OUT OF MAP! ]

[ ERROR! SUPREME DIVINITY DETECTED! ]

[ ERROR! ACCESS TO HEAVENLY TOWER HAS BEEN SEALED SHUT! ADMINISTRATOR NEEDED! ]

A chill shot down Kazi’s spine. He whipped his head back at Booker and Matty who finally noticed what was happening. They saw the darkness.

Alas, it was already too late by then. The world went black.

***

Kazi’s vision swam, and when he blinked again, the colors of Matsue were gone. No golden lanterns. No city bathed in festival lights.

The castle only stood and everything else...a dark reflection. It before him—a dead Matsue. The atmosphere was heavy, thick like tar. The people were still here, no longer running but walking with their eyes were empty and shoulders slumped. They drifted aimlessly through the streets like wraiths. Hollow faces, sluggish movements, as if merely existing took everything they had.

"Matty! Kazi! Booker!"

It was Jules and her phoenix that snapped Kazi out of his stupor. The wings of the phoenix brought light to them.

"A-are you all okay—"

Matty gasped and practically stumbled onto Feenie, clinging to her. He dropped to his knees. "What the fuck...?"

Booker put a hand to his eyes and grunted. He looked like he was seeing something. Visions of the past, perhaps?

Whatever they were all seeing, Kazi did not see it. His left eye pulsed eerily. Whatever the reason, he could move while the others could not. "I’ll be back," he told Jules. He leapt down from the top of the castle, boots landing on cold, hard stone. He approached the people cautiously, trying to get their attention.

"Hey—hey! What’s going on? What happened here?"

A woman turned to look at him. Her lips parted as if she wanted to speak, but no words came out. Her dull, sunken eyes searched him for something—recognition? Hope? But whatever it was, she didn’t find it. Instead, she lowered her head and shuffled away, shoulders trembling.

Kazi’s stomach twisted.

’Where are we? What’s happening?’

The answer came when Kazi’s gaze fell on a figure in the distance.

A lone man stood tall amidst the sea of the lost, dressed in striking Heian-era red armor and a massive nodachi strapped to his back.

"Kurōtarō!" Kazi zipped to him. "Kurōtarō! Hey! You’re here! You’re alive!"

The big Japanese man turned. His sharp, dark eyes met Kazi’s, and for a second, there was a flicker of recognition—then wariness.

"I am..."

"Kurōtarō!" Kazi answered. "Remember? You’re a student of Miyamoto Musashi!"

"A student of Miyamoto Musashi...a student..." The dim in his eyes faded. In its place, enthusiasm. "I am...Kurōtarō! Ha!" He tugged at the giant sword on his back and smashed it into the black-seeped ground, grinning. "Kazi Hossain, you have my thanks! I was asleep! Not anymore!"

"Asleep—?"

"Ngh!" Kurōtarō suddenly dropped to one knee. He raised a hand before Kazi could help. "D-do not worry. I am merely...tired."

Tired? Him? It seemed impossible. Astrid and Kurōtarō had fought for three hours straight. How could a man like that drop from simply existing?

Feenie the phoenix dropped down beside him and the samurai, carrying Jules, Matty, and Booker. The light of the phoenix helped and Kurōtarō was able to breathe and rise again.

Light...

Darkness...

This place—it was draining. But not on everyone. The people who had collapsed into themselves—ordinary civilians, weaker players—they lacked mana. Jules, Matty, Booker, Kurōtarō, himself... they still had their souls.

"This realm... it suppresses an individual’s life force."

The underworld. The land of the dead. A place no one—no living person—was ever supposed to enter.

He looked up. His left eye was pulsing like crazy, nearly about to rip from his eye socket. It sensed danger. It sensed an impending future.

A future he could not stop where—a future where the sky split open.

A deafening crack shattered and an invisible force tore through the heavens like brittle paper. A jagged wound formed in the sky, blackened flesh peeling away from the fabric of reality. From within, a giant, skeletal hand ripped through, fingers long and gnarled, the bones cracked and rotting.

Kazi did not know what he was seeing or how he was seeing. It was as though the moon had looming above. A gargantuan impossibility that defied everything he understood.

Through the crack of the sky, he saw a face.

Half of a woman’s face pressed against the opening in the sky. Or at least, what used to be a woman. Her flesh was rotting, sagging in places where decay had eaten through. Maggots wriggled in the open wounds on her cheeks, small white bodies squirming within the meat of her once-beautiful features. Her single, remaining eye was cloudy and yellowed, a bottomless pit of misery and rage.

The world felt like it had dropped beneath him.

If this was the underworld, the land of the dead, then this could only be its ruler—its goddess.

Izanami.

The Queen of the Underworld. The forsaken goddess. The mother of death.

And she was looking right at him.