WHOOOOOM!

The air in the banquet hall, and the aether itself, turned pitch-black. Already contaminated by the exploitation of restless spirits, the aether was changing its nature once more under the influence of something else.

“Wh... what is this?!”

The Black Mages cried out in horror. The aether was slipping out of their control. Mages as accomplished as they were should have been able to control aether under any circumstances, yet that impossibility was unfolding before them.

The uncontrolled aether flowed wildly toward Yuto, drawn into the Void Scythe towering behind his back. The scythe, which had been emitting an eerie vibration, began to swell as it devoured the aether.

Larger, and larger still. The expanding Void Scythe soared upward. From that point on, it began absorbing not just aether, but even aether that had already been fashioned into spells.

RUMBLE!

The thick, crimson blood that had turned the banquet hall floor into a swamp surged upward as though flowing in reverse and was sucked into the scythe. The will-o’-the-wisps drifting through the hall lost their light and became part of the Void Scythe. The magic circles the Black Mages had painstakingly laid out were destroyed one after another and absorbed as well.

“Oh my God...!”

Levian screamed in horror and clutched Flokai’s mane. The air and the aether—no, space itself—were convulsing. Like the Black Mages, she already knew that Yuto’s “power” was the divine authority of some unknown constellation, something far superior to magic. But this phenomenon was simply preposterous.

A constellation’s divine authority ultimately came through its blessing. It was a constellation lending power to a human it favored. Yet the power Yuto was unleashing now felt far too mighty to be permitted to a human.

As the Black Mages and Levian looked on in horror, a message on the Status Window trembled before Yuto’s blackened eyes.

[Void Scythe’s special skill, ‘Gluttony,’ has been unlocked.]

Agony wrung his chest, his heart. The wails of restless spirits pierced his eardrums and tore through his brain. Amid that terrible turmoil, Yuto’s eyes remained fixed on the Black Mages.

Yuto had not lost his reason. With absolute composure, he considered how to kill them. That desire awakened the Void aether.

In an instant, every spell in the banquet hall vanished, becoming part of the Void Scythe.

Yuto took a step forward. The floor had been awash in sticky blood, but now every trace had evaporated, exposing the cracked marble beneath. Step by measured step, he approached the Black Mages.

They could no longer even stay aloft. They could not control the aether to cast their flight spells.

“This... this can’t be...!”

The Black Mages’ leader screamed. The human-bone staff in his hand twisted grotesquely, spewing black smoke. Even the sinister aether imbued within it was being sucked into the Void Scythe.

“Everyone... everyone, concentrate! Control the aether! Forget capturing that monster! Kill him, kill him!”

At their leader’s desperate cry, the terrified Black Mages raised their staffs in unison.

RUMBLE!

Their bodies shook violently as their staffs poured out black mist. All ten Black Mages united their wills to control the aether and chanted a forbidden spell.

“Darkness Burst!”

Every last bit of aether the Black Mages possessed compressed into a single point, then shot toward Yuto as a swirling beam of black light.

BOOOOM!

The black light became a storm that engulfed Yuto. But the instant the vastly expanded Void Scythe slowly descended, the storm was sucked into it like water rushing down a drain.

All the aether the Black Mages had scraped together vanished with appalling futility. The scythe grew larger still, and the pitch-black haze along its blade radiated an ever more ominous glow.

“Thanks for sharpening the blade.”

Yuto’s icy voice froze the banquet hall. Without even using Void Step, he strode toward the Black Mages. The scythe, now tall enough to nearly touch the ceiling, tilted slightly to one side, its blade gleaming.

SKREEEE...

Nothing was touching the scythe, yet with every step Yuto took, it made a chilling sound as though slicing through something.

Having exhausted all their aether, the Black Mages sank to the floor, too drained to move. They gasped for breath, gripped by a terror that felt as though their very souls were being torn out by the roots.

“W... wait. Just wait.”

The Black Mages’ leader raised both hands, trembling uncontrollably.

“I surrender... I surrender. Please, spare my life...”

SHWAAASH!

Before the leader could finish speaking, the scythe cleaved through space.

SPLAT!

The five Black Mages to his left collapsed without so much as a scream. The Void Scythe sliced through their waists as easily as cutting paper.

BOOOOM!

Space tore open along the scythe’s path. A black wave erupted from it and obliterated the bisected corpses entirely. Flung away by the impact, the leader tumbled across the floor, his face drained of color.

Having corrupted countless souls into restless spirits himself, he instinctively realized that the souls of the newly slain Black Mages had been sucked into that scythe. Surely that was a punishment more terrible than death.

“Eeeek!”

The four Black Mages on his right screamed and scrambled across the floor. They desperately wanted to get to their feet and run, but their depleted aether and the terror consuming their minds left their bodies unresponsive. All they could do was crawl like insects.

BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!

The scythe struck the floor like a bird’s beak. The Black Mages crawling like insects exploded the instant it touched them. Not even a thread of their robes remained, nor a single drop of blood. Their bodies were erased on contact with the scythe, and their souls were drawn into it to suffer torment worse than hell.

“Hah... s-spare me...!”

The leader, the sole survivor, prostrated himself on the floor. The powerful mage who had stood tall amid the will-o’-the-wisps and mocked Yuto was gone. All that remained was a worm, a defeated man who had cast aside his dignity to cling to life by any means.

“Everything you’ve done in Belkain.”

His pitch-black eyes flashing, Yuto stood before the leader. The scythe that had erased nine Black Mages hovered motionless near the leader’s head. Yuto looked like a reaper holding the scythe of death over him.

“Confess every detail. Leave nothing out.”

Terror and crushing pressure weighed down on the leader’s shoulders. He must not lie. He knew that instinctively. Not even Dark Star’s immensely powerful leader had ever terrified him this much.

“W... we were only following our leader’s orders... To contaminate aether using Bel... Belkain’s restless spirits...”

“Whom does Dark Star serve?”

Yuto whispered. The leader shuddered at those words. This boy claimed to be the master of Belkain’s castle, yet he could not begin to guess who he was. Even if a constellation had granted him that absurd divine authority, how had he noticed the mastermind manipulating their leader?

“I know Dark... Star’s leader serves someone and follows their orders... but I don’t know who the mastermind is. We merely carry out the orders our leader receives...”

“...”

“I-it’s the truth. Our leader brought us the orc warriors too. We didn’t hire them... And the slaves...”

“Slaves?”

Yuto’s face twisted. At the sight, the leader flinched, flattened himself against the floor, and pressed his forehead to the ground.

“Beneath Bel... kain’s castle, in a secret passage... there’s a prison holding slaves... a laboratory.”

“A labora... tory?”

“T-to experiment on whether terror inflicted on living humans can contaminate aether.”

Swallowing against the terror welling up inside him, the leader cautiously raised his head to look at Yuto.

“You... I don’t know who you are... but that power. It’s very... sinister.”

The wrinkles on his face twitched into a servile smile.

“Far more sinister than our magic... H-how about this? Spare me and take me into your service, and I’ll devote the rest of my life to you... I-I’m offering to betray Dark Star. The aether harvested from this city is stored in underground tanks. I’ll make arrangements so you can use all of it, along with all the results from the underground laboratory...”

The leader’s servile smile twisted grotesquely in the banquet hall’s frigid air. Seeing Yuto’s black eyes and the overwhelming destructive force radiating from the enormous scythe, he had drawn his own mistaken conclusion.

That was an authority of evil far deeper and more fundamental than the wickedness Dark Star pursued. Caught up in that misconception, the leader believed he could survive.

“I can be very useful. If you take me into your service...”

“Don’t misunderstand.”

Yuto’s cracked voice cut him off. Slowly shaking his head, Yuto lowered himself to meet the leader’s gaze. His eyes, filled with nothing but a pitch-black abyss, held not a trace of kinship or interest. They did not even reflect the leader’s groveling face.

“Do you think you and I are the same?”

There was only profound loathing and murderous intent.

“B-but... that power is so sinister, so evil...! Like us, you manipulate souls and wreak destruction...”

“This power...”

The Void Scythe slowly descended toward the crown of the leader’s head. Horrified, he tried to flee, but Yuto gripped his shoulders firmly with both hands.

“...is the lament of those betrayed by the constellations, and the hatred of those trampled by vermin like you.”

The Void Scythe gave off an eerie vibration as it drew closer to the crown of his head.

“The aether you’ve been refining is the blood and tears of my people.”

The leader’s eyes contorted in terror. He still could not guess or comprehend who Yuto was. But he understood that the hatred and murderous intent Yuto displayed were pure, without a shred of falsehood.

“You asked me to spare you?”

Yuto smiled viciously.

“I can’t grant that. You will die. Your body will leave nothing in this world, and your soul will suffer forever in a place more terrible than hell.”

“W-wait! Wait, I still have more to tell—”

“No need.”

CRUNCH!

The Void Scythe pierced the crown of the leader’s head.

“Aaaaargh!”

Starting at the crown of his head, the leader crumbled into black ash. A terror greater than the pain of his body’s destruction engulfed him. His soul was sucked into the Void Scythe. Like the other Black Mages, it would flounder in an abyssal pit without end, for all eternity.

The last Black Mage in the banquet hall vanished.

An oppressive silence fell. Yuto staggered to his feet.

RUMBLE...

The enormous Void Scythe collapsed into black mist, and the price of pushing the Void’s power too far came due.

“Ugh...!”

Pain worse than death. It came to Yuto just as surely. As the Black Mages had judged, the power he had just wielded was not something a human could handle. Feeling as though his entire body were shattering, Yuto finally collapsed where he stood.

“Y-Yuto!”

Levian and Flokai rushed toward him, but he could not answer their calls.

Clutching himself, Yuto fell facedown on the floor and swallowed his screams.