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Chapter 31 – The Collapse of Silence: The Price of Ignorance

The borders of the Shadow Realm still trembled with the echoes of the last summons. Nihreth spread his wings, woven with dark tones, gazing at the horizon. V’s command was now clear and undeniable: Let the hunt begin.

Darkness spread through Midgard’s veins, and the divine dimensions were quick to sense this vibration. However, this time, the gods were not unprepared. They too had realized: V was no longer just a threat; he had become an absolute that endangered their very existence. Therefore, they would not only protect the Lord of the Eyeless Knowledge but also set a grand trap to destroy V.

But there was something they did not know.

Nihreth was no longer just a summons.

When V descended upon Midgard, the sky screamed. Clouds darkened with his arrival, and the earth fell silent. Nihreth glided behind him like a dark echo. The other summons—Griffon, Shadow, Nightmare—all were called from dimensional rifts to surround V. But this time, it was different. Something felt… wrong.

“This silence… it’s not of nature,” Nihreth said, his voice carrying an ominous tone. “This place has already been sealed.”

V’s eyes saw the divine seal rippling in the sky. It was an area sealed with the pattern of time; those who entered would not be able to leave. This was not a battlefield but a tombstone.

And then…

Time tore apart.

Celestial lights cracked, and five different figures descended from divine dimensions. Each was adorned with manifestations of different divine powers. Among them was a familiar presence: the light following Otharys. But this time, V faced an army.

“V,” one of them said, their voice a whisper yet piercingly powerful. “You cannot touch the Lord of Knowledge. Your power has long surpassed the dimension you deserve.”

V smiled. His voice echoed in two layers: one his own, the other the voice of the infinity within him.

“You cannot stop me… you tried. And you died. Now, you’re only prolonging the delay.”

The first attack came suddenly. One of the gods attempted to reverse the flow of time, pulling Griffon back to his pre-birth existence. But Nihreth intervened; he pierced time with his wings and broke the attack, pushing the griffin back. 

Immediately after, Nightmare tore the sky and descended upon the battlefield with a scream that disrupted gravity. As he fell like a dark star, all of Midgard trembled. Shadow slipped through the silence, moving to attack one of the gods from behind.

But the trap was much larger.

The gods were not just five. Each had brought divine reinforcements from different dimensions. V and his summons suddenly found themselves in the midst of a vast army.

“Feel it to your cores,” one of the gods shouted. “This is absolute judgment!”

But V’s expression never changed.

He raised his hand to the sky and shouted:

“Time, space, and darkness… you are at my command!”

And darkness fell. Stars extinguished. Time bent. Space warped.

V summoned a black hole.

Small, almost invisible at first… but then growing, spinning, screaming, and beginning to pull everything into itself. The battlefield tore apart. Divine beings screamed, trying to escape, but parts of some had already been absorbed.

Nihreth engaged in one-on-one combat with the gods, initiating a shadow dance where dark spells exploded one after another. Each of his attacks was a dimensional rift; each defense carried the weight of a planet.

V turned to one of the most powerful gods: the Lord of Knowledge… This god, eyeless and with a face covered in symbols, attacked with his mind, layering planes of existence upon V. Reality collapsed layer by layer, time shattered, matter burned.

But V smiled. The voice within him spoke in a murmur:

“A god who cannot see… how can he recognize darkness?”

He captured the god with shadow chains. Then he entered his mind, shattered the symbols. The god’s scream extended beyond dimensions. And at that moment, Nihreth echoed across the battlefield with a spell that suppressed everything:

“Now be silent! V’s will is infinite.” 

Divine powers clashed with Nihreth’s darkness. Hundreds of attacks collided, dimensions shattered. Midgard’s crust broke. Mountains collapsed, oceans boiled. But V’s eyes were now elsewhere.

The moment arrived.

He reached the heart of the Lord of Knowledge.

He extended his hand to the god’s essence and absorbed it.

Another scream was heard, but this one could only be heard by the gods. It was the annihilation of a being, the absorption of its essence.

And at that moment… V’s body illuminated. Time stopped. Space trembled. Darkness wept.

V broke through the peak of the fifth level. He ascended to the sixth.

Power erupted like a storm in V’s veins. His body transformed. His eyes reflected the spark of universes. The summons knelt. The sky over Midgard closed like a pitch-black dome.

But at that moment…

The sky split open.

A voice came with lightning. It spoke with a power that shook not only the heavens but also the connective tissue of existence:

“Enough.”

The lightning that split the sky was golden.

The voice was familiar. Undeniable.

Zeus.