The moment The Crimson Star appeared, everyone who saw it exploded into motion—people shouting, people jumping to their feet like they’d been struck by lightning.

By now, almost everyone knew the story: the Awakened had gotten their abilities because they’d seen The Crimson Star.

Which was exactly why countless ordinary Enhanced had been beating their chests in regret for the past year, cursing themselves for one stupid thing—

Why the hell did I go to sleep that night?

So when The Crimson Star showed up again, the regular Enhanced went absolutely crazy with hope.

Did this mean... there was another chance to become Awakened?

These days, any Enhanced who was still alive already had the habit of getting up at night to cultivate. So this time, almost everyone saw it.

Eyes locked onto that crimson point in the sky. Nobody blinked. Nobody looked away. They just stared, waiting—begging—for an ability to ignite inside them.

What they didn’t know was that it was already too late for that.

Once the constellation chart in your mind had been lit up, you couldn’t awaken abilities that way anymore.

Only someone completely ordinary—someone who’d never lit up a constellation chart at all—had a chance to awaken from The Crimson Star.

And by now?

People like that practically didn’t exist.

But even if it wasn’t granting abilities, The Crimson Star’s return still triggered something massive—

A full-scale resurgence of Earth’s mysterious energy.

That night, the concentration of mysterious energy across the planet surged to several times what it used to be. Even ordinary Enhanced could feel it, thick in the air, wrapping around them like warm tidewater.

And just like that, nobody cared about awakening anymore.

They dropped where they stood—on rooftops, in courtyards, on the sides of highways—and started absorbing mysterious energy with wild excitement, pushing their Tiers upward as fast as they could.

If humans were excited, though...

Zombies and mutant beasts were downright ecstatic, like they’d been waiting for this exact moment since the day the world ended.

The instant The Crimson Star appeared, zombies and mutant beasts climbed to high ground—rooftops, hills, broken overpasses—and turned their faces up toward the sky like worshippers.

Invisible strands of crimson energy drifted down.

Inside their skulls, their crystal cores reacted like parched earth finally meeting rain, greedily drinking it in.

And it wasn’t just them.

Plants across the world began to surge—growing too fast, too thick. The first waves of mutated vegetation quietly took root, spreading in the dark.

The Crimson Star’s return kicked off a chain reaction across Earth.

And at the same time, one Void Realm passage after another began to tremble with ripples of space.

The distortions twisted harder... and then split open into full-on spatial cracks—doorways that connected to different Void Realm worlds. The channels opened completely.

Within the Void Realms, creatures felt the disturbance and sprinted toward it in a frenzy, drawn by instinct.

But right as that was happening—

The nine stars of the Nine-Star Dipper suddenly flared, bursting with blinding light.

In the next instant, the spatial cracks standing across the world began to close.

Slowly. Reluctantly.

Then they vanished, leaving nothing behind.

One after another, Void Realm creatures arrived at where the openings had been... only to find empty air.

Just blank, silent space.

Some of them looked utterly confused, as if their brains couldn’t process what had happened.

But some—stronger ones—went still, eyes narrowing. Thoughtful.

They didn’t speak. They didn’t rage.

They simply memorized the location... and left.

Fallen Star City...

Ethan activated [True Sight], watching the thick mysterious energy swirling around them.

And that’s when he noticed something else.

Beyond the dense mysterious energy, there were faint, threadlike traces of something invisible—crimson energy.

It didn’t feel as "pure" as normal mysterious energy. But the quality of it... was on another level. Higher. Sharper. Like it belonged to something deeper than this world.

Ethan tried to draw it in.

Nothing.

No matter how he guided his breathing, no matter how he focused, it simply wouldn’t enter his body.

He had to give up, frustrated.

What a waste.

That energy was clearly far above mysterious energy. If he could absorb it, the effect would be insane.

"Tonight the mysterious energy is thick," Ethan said, voice firm. "Everyone—absorb as much as you can."

"Yeah."

He didn’t even need to tell them. They could all feel it.

By then, everyone was already sitting down, eyes closed, pulling the night into their bodies like they were afraid it would disappear if they hesitated.

All night long, everyone threw themselves into absorbing mysterious energy. Breakthrough auras flared everywhere—one after another, like fireworks you couldn’t see, only feel.

By five in the morning, the Nine-Star Dipper and The Crimson Star vanished together.

But this time, the mysterious energy on Earth didn’t sink back into silence the way it always had before. It stayed thick—dense enough to make the air feel heavy.

That single detail drove people crazy with joy.

Nobody bothered with anything else anymore. They shut out the world and kept cultivating. Some didn’t even eat.

Everyone could feel it in their bones: this was a mad dash for energy. This kind of concentration wasn’t going to last forever. If you could rise a little now, you rose. If you could rise a lot, you didn’t stop until your body gave out.

The entire planet went quiet.

Humans. Zombies. Mutant beasts.

Everyone was racing the clock, squeezing every last drop out of the sky.

Deep in the mountains of Karst Valley State, the Stoneborn powerhouses wore looks of pure shock.

"The mysterious energy in this world is actually this dense!?"

"It doesn’t make sense. With energy this thick, even a pig could take off." Someone’s voice turned sharp with confusion. "So why are this world’s humans so low-tier?"

"It might be a world that only just started its resurgence," the leader said slowly, thinking it through. "And this kind of energy spike... it can’t last."

He glanced upward, eyes burning.

"But no matter what, we ran into it. That makes it our opportunity."

"That soulless thrall’s strength is fixed. It can’t improve. As long as I can break through to Stage S, I might not have to fear it." Hatred twisted across his face. "Then we’ll have our revenge."

"Yeah!" The others nodded hard.

No more talking. They sat down immediately and started dragging in that thick mysterious energy like their lives depended on it.

Yamato Empire... 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂

A nation that had already been wiped off the map—now completely ruled by the Infernals.

When the Infernals followed that group of Flamebirds to a passage, then crawled out through it...

They were stunned speechless by what they saw.

Their original world was dark red—no plants, no real resources, barren to the point of despair.

But this world?

Green everywhere. Mountains. Rivers.

It looked like paradise.

So almost all of the Infernals poured out of that crimson wasteland and settled here.

At first they thought it was just the environment that was better.

Then they realized the real treasure—

This world had abundant mysterious energy, too.

And especially today, when the concentration suddenly surged, the Infernals were so excited they could barely contain themselves.

A huge portion of them had been stuck at the peak of Stage B for ages, unable to break through because their home world kept them capped.

After entering this world, the Tier restriction loosened.

And this energy surge?

It didn’t just loosen it. It shattered it.

In a single night, at least half of the Stage B Infernals stepped into Tier 19.

And it wasn’t only there.

Across other countries, more creatures from the Void Realm had emerged.

Some burst out and slaughtered openly.

Some hid in the shadows, waiting.

Some chose a different path—quietly taking control of human groups like they were putting leashes on animals.

Those Void Realm creatures probably couldn’t have imagined it—

They’d arrived just fine.

But now they couldn’t go back.

Which meant they were trapped on Earth... at least until the next time the Void Realm passages opened.

The closing of the passages might have been Earth’s way of protecting itself—but it clearly wasn’t permanent.

Maybe it wouldn’t be long before the passages opened again.

And next time... they’d open completely.

When that happened, humanity would have to face those Void Realm creatures head-on.

But for now, no one knew any of that.

Right now, the entire world was doing the same thing—absorbing mysterious energy and pushing Tiers as high as possible while the surge lasted.

And that situation lasted for a full ten days.

For those ten days, Earth was eerily quiet.

And in those ten days, every living thing that remained on Earth—human, zombie, mutant beast—saw their strength climb in massive leaps...