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Maria found herself surrounded by Outer Gods, utterly stunned.

"Welcome to the Vast Black Void Sea, where we Outer Gods reign."

"Welcome, little one."

"Have you come to feed us the worlds you promised?"

"We have been waiting!"

"We have been waiting for so long!"

"Give them to us!"

"Those delicious worlds are rare delicacies! They will satiate our hunger for billions of years!"

The same voices from her nightmares echoed around her.

Maria panicked. She wasn’t supposed to venture out this far.

"Camael!"

"I’m sorry! I had no idea they were right here!"

She quickly began shrinking, retreating toward her universe.

"Where do you think you’re going?!"

The Outer Gods pursued her, their tentacles stretching to seize her leg.

Maria groaned and manifested a long sword from her Sword Soul Heart, then slashed at the tentacles.

SLASH!

A titanic strike unleashed a tremor across the multiversal oceans of void. The Outer Gods howled in pain as their severed tentacles fell one by one, shaking the very fabric of reality.

It was incredible. Maria had struck down Outer Gods themselves.

"Stay away!" Maria roared. "I said stay away, or I will cut you to pieces!"

The Outer Gods’ eyes burned with disbelief and fury.

And then, amid them, a white eternity began to manifest from above.

She saw it.

The eternal white limbo of the white void—the origin of HIM.

The Great Leader of the Council of Outer Gods.

A colossal mass of white and gray fog, adorned with endless tentacles and gray, golden, and crimson eyes. It expanded endlessly in every direction, hundreds of times larger than entire universes.

"Maria...! I granted you my power. Is this how you repay my favor?"

His voice thundered through everything. The Vast Black Void Sea trembled violently. The Outer Gods fled from the sound, hiding behind distant universes and on vast islands of crystallized void—barely visible realms where giant stellar entities dwelled.

She knew exactly who he was.

"G-Ginnungagap?!" Maria coughed blood. "Ugh! Why?! I had no idea you wanted to devour the worlds! You never mentioned that when we—actually, we never made a deal at all. You simply gave me power for no reason!"

"No deal? No reason?!"

His tone dripped with outrage. "I had every reason to help you! I saw you as one of my own. I welcomed you to my family. I baptized you with a name... And yet you refuse to offer me my reward?!"

"I’m sorry... but I promised these people I would protect them and grant them the worlds they desired."

"If you do not give us what we want, Maria, you will be declared the enemy of all Outer Gods across the Multiverse. Are you truly prepared to take that risk?!"

Maria fell silent for a moment, her body halfway through the Universal Bubble. Nervousness gripped her as she gazed upon the countless Outer Gods.

Was it truly worth it? To become the enemy of these beings of immeasurable power, all to save these worlds?

She could probably save her family. Would she lose so much?

"You may keep your family and loved ones... Keep them as your final attachment to the pitiful mortal you once were. Now, as an Ascended Cosmic Monarch and an Outer God, you need not concern yourself with the lowly insects you are trying to protect."

Ginnungagap’s words rang with cold reason, appealing to the new cosmic mind within her.

Yes, they were all lowly insects compared to her. She stood so far above them. Why should she help them? She could simply keep her family and leave it at that. Why care about anything else—any other connection, any other bond?

"No..."

Maria shook her head. The cold reasoning of her cosmic mind made no sense to her human, mortal self.

Inside her, two conflicting minds warred: her cosmic self and her human self.

"What am I?"

She had asked herself that question ever since she became what she was.

And now, as she recalled all her memories and everything that had brought her this far, she knew the answer with absolute certainty.

"I am not a Cosmic Monarch."

"...?"

"And I am not an Outer God!"

"What?"

"I am Maria—a human from Yggdrasil, a reincarnated woman from Earth!"

"...?!"

"What nonsense are you speaking!"

"You’re clearly a—!"

As they protested, Maria’s six swords manifested in a split second. Her family immediately sensed what was happening and poured their power into her.

"I will protect and cherish my connections, the bonds I’ve forged, because that is what makes me who I am! Because... I am a human! No matter what!"

"FOOL! SO YOU HAVE CHOSEN DEATH! VERY WELL! IF YOU ARE SO DESPERATE TO DIE, THEN I WILL GRANT YOU THAT PRIVILEGE!"

"I will do the right thing and protect these worlds no matter what, Ginnungagap! I will not let you devour them—or any other world, ever!"

"WHAT?!"

Maria expanded her Cosmic Domain in that instant. Reality itself bent to her will.

The sea beneath her began to obey.

"{Primordial Cosmic Formation}: {Eternal Void Tear Castle}!"

She targeted the countless universes floating within the gigantic sea of liquid void. Her tears shared the same essence. By pouring them into the sea, its endless expanse was refined at once.

She forged the entire Vast Black Void Sea into her Cosmic Treasure.

Maria had done the impossible.

RUMBLE!

"W-WHAT?!"

"AAAGGH!"

"I-IMPOSSIBLE!"

"SHE TOOK OVER THE BLACK SEA?!"

"HOW IS THIS HAPPENING?!"

Thousands of Outer Gods panicked and fled the black void ocean, watching from above as Maria refined it into her Natal Cosmic Treasure. At the same time, the thousands upon thousands of universes rushed toward her. The entire sea transformed, reshaping into a colossal black castle. Inside it, the universes began to merge.

"She’s... forging a Dimension of her own! But she has yet to meet the qualifications to ascend into a Dimensional Sovereign like me! What sort of joke is this?! YOU THINK YOU’RE BETTER THAN ME?! ME?! THE ONE WHO GAVE YOU ALL YOUR POWER?!"

Ginnungagap immediately exerted his own Dimensional Power. The White Void Dimension from which he originated pressed down heavily upon Maria’s Vast Black Void Sea.

White void and black void clashed in an eternal struggle, each constantly pushing against the other.

Maria against Ginnungagap.

An eternal showdown.

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