The artificial golden clouds faded from the sky of the Jura Forest, revealing a natural, peaceful sunset that painted the horizon in a warm orange hue.
On the ground, the scene was closer to a miracle than a battlefield. A million soldiers of the Eastern Empire were sitting or lying on the grass, breathing heavily, their minds in a state of complete confusion. There were no mangled corpses, but rather a massive army freed from the nightmare of absolute enslavement after the threads of "Mephisto" were severed.
Akira descended slowly from the sky, the Dusk Cloak fluttering quietly behind him. The moment his feet touched the ground, Benimaru, Shion, and Geld approached him.
"It's over," Benimaru said, sheathing his black sword, signs of relief evident on his face. "The human soldiers are unable to fight, and they possess no hostile will. We will provide them with water and food, and once they fully regain their consciousness, we will guide them out of the forest."
"A wise decision, Benimaru," Akira nodded. "They are nothing but victims in the Administration's game."
Suddenly, the ground shook, and Veldora landed like a small meteor beside them, his arms crossed and frowning deeply.
"This is completely unfair!" the Storm Dragon grumbled like an angry child. "I prepared to unleash some storms and destroy some angels, and in the end, you erased them all with a snap of your fingers! Do you realize how eager I was for some action?!"
Akira laughed lightly, while Diablo appeared from behind him with his usual smile. "Kufufufu... You should apologize to Veldora-sama, my Lord. You completely stole the spotlight."
Despite the smiles and the victory, Akira felt something strange inside him. The Ultimate Skill **[Azathoth]** was stable, but the amount of cosmic energy he had swallowed from Clayman and the holy magic of the angels was absolutely massive. He felt as if an entire galaxy was spinning inside his chest, needing to be compressed and tamed so it wouldn't leak and hurt anyone.
"I need a place of absolute isolation," Akira said, directing his words to Ramiris, who had just arrived with Treyni. "I want to enter a state of deep meditation to compress the Void energy. Any slight leak could accidentally erase the capital."
"At your command, you terrifying hero!" Ramiris gave a cute military salute in the air. "I will teleport you to the 'White Void Room' on the 99th floor. It is a room dedicated to testing destructive spells, completely isolated from the rest of the labyrinth."
With a flash of light, Akira disappeared from the battlefield.
***
**[The Labyrinth - 99th Floor - The White Void Room]**
Akira found himself in a vast, endless white room. There was no furniture in it, nor did any sound or mana flow reach it from the outside.
Akira sat in the center and closed his eyes, diving into his inner world to tame the energy of "Azathoth".
Hours passed (or perhaps days, for time here was different).
As Akira used the "Void" to swallow the excess energy in his body, something he didn't expect happened. His "Azathoth" energy, which represents the pinnacle of the powers of nothingness, began to resonate with... something else. Something buried deep within the fabric of the white room.
Akira opened his eyes. The room was no longer entirely white.
The density of his Void energy had caused the superficial crust of reality in one of the corners to "melt," revealing a hidden layer beneath it. This wasn't a secret room built by anyone; it was a "Dimensional Pocket" overlapping with the fabric of the labyrinth itself, hidden so brilliantly that not even Ramiris or Veldora had ever sensed its presence.
Akira stood up and walked toward that ripple in space. He raised his hand, clad in Void energy, and touched the air.
*Riiiiip.*
The air tore open silently, revealing a small spacetime rift barely the size of a door. The aura emitting from this rift wasn't hostile, nor did it belong to the Administration. It was an infinite aura, calm, and very familiar... an aura exactly like the energy Akira had swallowed from Guy Crimson, but millions of times purer and grander.
Akira stepped quietly into the rift.
He expected to find a dark room equipped with the latest magical technology, or a complex crystal shrine, but he was surprised to find himself standing in a completely natural and primitive environment.
It was a damp, dark cave, illuminated only by strange plants emitting a faint green light, and crystal ores scattered on the walls. There was a small underground lake making the quiet sound of dripping water.
"A cave? Here in the heart of overlapping space?" Akira muttered, looking around in awe. The contrast was stark between the magical labyrinth walls outside and this quiet, primitive place.
Akira took cautious steps, the sound of his boots echoing faintly on the wet, rocky ground.
In the center of this secret cave, upon a simple, uncarved stone pedestal, there was no legendary weapon, nor a cosmic treasure.
Rather, there was something very small.
A light blue slime, transparent as crystal, floating in absolute peace within an absolute temporal barrier where time did not move and mana did not flow. It made no movement, but the absolute aura slowly leaking from that barrier made the "Azathoth" inside Akira tremble with instinctive respect.
Akira didn't need anyone to tell him who this entity was.
Akira had finally found what Tempest, and the entire world, had lost for five hundred years.
The true physical body of "Rimuru Tempest".