[Child, why do you put yourself through such suffering? Just say the word, and you will be INSTANTLY removed from this dangerous space.]

'Valmone' spoke, their voice echoing in Artemisia's mind, and at the sound, her pupils silently shifted to the side, meeting the floating humanoid figure that mirrored her likeness perfectly, the only difference being its body was pure white.

'…just me?'

Artemisia asked, and for a moment, 'Valmone' stayed silent before responding.

[Yes. Just you.]

Artemisia went quiet at that reply. She was fully aware that she was speaking to the will of her entire universe.

That much was evident from the way they called her their 'favourite'.

She also understood that if she willed it, she could be taken away from Cruotis Prime instantly, far from any mortal danger.

But as 'Valmone' had said, it would only be her.

Alvey and McEnda would remain. And most importantly, Beatrix would remain.

She did not want that.

'Valmone' seemed to already understand her thoughts and sighed.

[A pity. While I comprehend the concept of emotions, I am incapable of empathising with them. I suppose being a 100% logical existence has its downsides after all.]

They leaned closer, lifting Artemisia's chin with glowing fingers as they spoke.

[Because you desire to stay and protect your dear friend rather than escape and leave her for dead, I shall permit you to break my rules—just once.]

"?!"

Artemisia's eyes widened in shock, Beatrix's concerned voice completely ignored.

Seeing her reaction, 'Valmone' laughed.

[I think I may be experiencing this "emotion" thing after all. What I feel right now is definitely what you would call "amusement," isn't it?]

Artemisia snapped out of her shock at their words and whispered two words.

"…thank you."

Beatrix, hearing this, assumed Artemisia was speaking to her, but that was not the case.

Sensing the sincerity in Artemisia's gratitude, 'Valmone' smiled, moving around her before embracing her from behind, their voice a soft whisper in her ear.

[Anything for you. You are my favourite, after all.]

With those words, their body faded away, and Artemisia's mind was instantly overwhelmed with incomprehensible streams of information.

She clutched her head in pain, and Beatrix immediately tried to heal her. But her eyes snapped to a new direction as something entered the range of her Chrono Space Dominion, and the potential future of those intruders instantly streamed into her mind.

Besides healing Artemisia, Beatrix was also reversing the wounds Alvey and McEnda had sustained while using her power to glimpse the future.

With her Chrono Space Dominion, she created a domain that let the two demons see illusions of upcoming events, allowing them to intercept attacks from the walking dead before they could strike.

The combination of their raw power with Artemisia and Beatrix's abilities had been crucial to surviving the swarm of walking dead.

Forseeing an imminent attack, Beatrix shouted, "Incoming! North!"

Alvey and McEnda activated their Unique Skills, summoning defensive shields just in time to block a barrage of destructive meteors falling from the direction of Bewússtsein's Corpse Puppet.

The ground behind them cracked open as more walking dead erupted and charged with roars.

More undead figures rushed toward Artemisia and Beatrix, prompting Alvey to leave the northern defence to McEnda and dash to their side.

Swinging his sword, he unleashed a wave of light that incinerated the approaching walking dead and struck Bewússtsein's Corpse Puppet, who had used the meteor shower as a diversion to approach his true target.

Being the only one able to withstand the attack, the Corpse Puppet was immediately exposed.

Just as Alvey was about to charge at it, a weak hand gripped his left arm. He glanced down to find Artemisia holding him tightly, her quiet voice reaching his ears.

"Existence Realm Limitation…"

"?!"

Alvey's eyes widened as law energy coalesced into chains around his body, rising up from the ground, and Artemisia seized one, issuing a single command:

"…break!"

**BOOM!!!

Everyone froze as Alvey's demonic energy erupted in a powerful burst with his original Deity Realm power returning, and Artemisia's buffs, scaling with his base strength, amplified his power even higher.

Artemisia's face turned pale, her heart pounding as if it would burst, her body burning with feverish heat, but she forced out two words for the stunned Alvey.

"Thirty…seconds!"

Alvey needed no further explanation.

He snapped from his shock and dashed toward Bewússtsein's Corpse Puppet, his sword slicing through space at nearly Mach 1000, cleaving the corpse into ten uneven pieces just as Bewússtsein abandoned it.

Rotten blood and organs rained down, but he ignored them, raising his sword and activating his Authority.

|Authority of Light: Radiant Death!|

Spears of dark light rained from the skies, piercing every walking dead within a hundred-kilometre radius. The weaker fell instantly, the stronger wounded, and even the new Corpse Puppet Bewússtsein had transferred his soul into was battered.

The Planetary Consciousness reeled in disbelief.

What the hell had Artemisia just done? How was she able to do it? On whose Authority?

Nothing made sense.

But there was no time to focus on that. The moment Bewússtsein's soul fragment fully took control of the new Corpse Puppet, Beatrix turned to him and shouted.

"East! The red-head Flugel!"

[?!]

Bewússtsein's shock returned instantly.

How had Beatrix sensed him? He'd used his cosmic energy and fate powers to block her future sight, even within her Chrono Space Dominion.

But that was exactly why she detected him. When he'd used the meteors to distract Alvey and McEnda, she hadn't sensed him.

However, when Alvey destroyed all the walking dead except the hidden Corpse Puppet, she immediately sensed something was wrong. The puppet appeared as a blank 'void' within her Chrono Space Dominion.

Despite seeing it with her eyes, her skill couldn't detect it. The moment she realised one of the walking dead had become an empty 'void', she knew something was wrong.

Realising this, she quickly scanned the area, and in the brief moment Bewússtsein took to control the puppet, she spotted him and shouted.

McEnda, nearest to the 'east' she'd indicated, spun and dashed to the right. His pupils scanned quickly before locking on the red-haired Flugel.

Without hesitation, he unleashed a full-power strike with his staff, shattering the puppet's defences before they could form. The butt of the staff slammed into the Flugel's chest, darkness energy corroding the wound.

Even restricted to Transcendence, McEnda's Darkness could still corrode both body and soul, and Bewússtsein's soul fragment was immediately afflicted with the corrosive energy, weakening his control over the corpse puppet.

At that moment, Alvey descended from above, his sword slicing through the Corpse Puppet at a speed over a thousand times faster than sound.

The combined power of his Authority and the Morphic Edge didn't just destroy the puppet, but also obliterated the soul fragment within.

Both the pain and damage from the destruction of the fragment rippled across space, striking Bewússtsein's main body in the Core Dimension just as he unleashed a powerful attack at Arthur and Evan, who were charging at him.

[Gyarhh!!!]

He staggered, vomiting blood as the fusion of cosmic destruction and Slaughter law energy in his attack destabilised, weakening its force and leaving an opening that Arthur and Evan seized without hesitation.

|Extreme Nothingness!| |Prismatic Vortex!|

Their attacks erupted from their swords, carving through space and colliding with Bewússtsein's power, overwhelming it and striking him head-on.

One attack erased his right pelvis and leg, while the other incinerated his left torso and arm, the combined force hurling him through the air in a parabolic arc before he crashed into the ground with meteoric impact.

Jamie, standing some distance behind them, raised his sword and spoke.

|Azure Void Authority: Black Star.|

Void energy condensed into a point, breaking down space-time before blooming into a dark singularity, a sight that made Evan's eyes widen.

"Is that a fucking black hole? He should NOT have the power to create that right now," he said.

"Yes, it's a fucking black hole. Now let's get out of here before he throws it!"

Arthur replied, grabbing Evan by the collar and teleporting them away just as Jamie hurled the Dark Star at Bewússtsein.

The singularity tore through space toward Bewússtsein, who had already summoned corpses from his stash, trying to use their limbs to replace the limbs Arthur and Evan had destroyed.

Bewússtsein's eyes raised to meet the incoming Dark Star, and immediately unleashed the power of his Destruction Sigil.

[Zerstörerische Spirale!!!]

From his outstretched hands, a swirling vortex of destructive cosmic energy erupted, meeting the Dark Star in a soundless explosion.

Both attacks ripped through the fabric of space-time as they nullified each other, leaving behind a kilometre-wide black void where not even light could pass.

Bewússtsein immediately dashed to his left toward an area still illuminated, where he could physically see his opponents, and the moment light entered his eyes, he saw Evan holding his sword aloft, a huge sphere of prismatic flames coalescing above the blade.

|Dawn's Star!|

Evan unleashed the fiery sphere, forcing Bewússtsein to hurriedly counter.

[Elementare Katastrophe!]

The two clashed in a massive explosion of law energy, the shockwaves sending Bewússtsein flying several hundred meters before he slammed into the ground, quickly rolling to his feet only to drop to one knee again.

Biting his lip, he struggled with the dwindling cosmic energy coursing through his circuits, frustration etched across his face.

He stomped his foot on the ground, intent on releasing the power.

[Bounded Field—no… That Demon King would tear it apart before it can even manifest.]

Jamie's constant interference had rendered his spatial abilities nearly useless, disrupting every attempt he made to use them.

But he had no other options left.

[As I am now, I can pull this off. No… I have to pull this off. That Demon King is weakened. He can't stop this now.]

Bewússtsein lifted his eyes, watching Arthur, Evan, and Jamie emerge from the swirling inferno left by the collision of Evan's Dawn Star and his Elemental Cataclysm, their attacks closing in from every direction.

He drew a deep breath, parting his lips to speak three words.

|Domain Declaration: Planetenreich.|

"?!"

"Fuck!"

"..."

Evan, Arthur, and Jamie reacted immediately, each in their own way, as Bewússtsein's words echoed.

Cosmic energy exploded from him in massive waves, engulfing the entire Core Dimension. On his home turf, performing such a technique was effortless.

The fabric of space around them warped, forming a boundary that encompassed the entire Core Dimension.

Within it, everything blurred and vanished, only to be instantly replaced by new structures. Buildings sprouted from the ceiling, forming an upside-down continent that defied gravity across the vast, newly expanded space.

Evan gritted his teeth at the sight.

'Ashen Dominion? No… It's pointless. It'd be destroyed in an instant. And right now, I don't have the power to Declare my previous life's domain either.'

Arthur's expression darkened, fists clenching.

'My Hall of Fractured Time can't withstand this. No chance. If I force it, the backlash could shatter my energy core.'

Jamie said nothing.

He simply leapt back alongside them, observing the Domain taking shape.

'It's quite good. If I let him complete the Declaration, we're done for. Even with Arthur's artifact.'

With a quiet sigh, Jamie lifted his hand.

'If I do this… forget a year, I doubt I'll last another month.

But…I can't let these young'uns die now, can I?'

The Domain continued expanding, transforming the surrounding space into Bewússtsein's Planetenreich.

Then Jamie opened his mouth to speak, his voice echoing across space, not only through the Core Dimension but beyond, reaching even the Race Kings gathered outside Cruotis Prime.

|Domain Declaration|

Everything froze.

[?!]

The Declaration of Bewússtsein's Planetenreich came to an abrupt halt as Jamie's Authority seized control of every strand of ambient cosmic energy, bending it to his will.

Jamie used that energy to draw a new boundary across the planet, and everything within it fell under his control without resistance.

Bewússtsein's Planetenreich crumbled, crushed by Jamie's far stronger Domain Declaration, and he coughed up blood as the backlash fractured his soul.

Then the fabric of reality around everyone in the Solar System warped.

For a brief moment, the sun and every star vanished, plunging them into an unnatural darkness. When light returned, the view expanded, as if reality itself was zooming out.

The planet receded, revealing the entire solar system, its star dim in the distance. The view stretched further, unveiling dozens of neighbouring systems, then hundreds, thousands, and millions of stars.

Galaxies swirled into view, spirals of light against the abyss of dark matter. Clusters and superclusters formed, stretching into a staggering spectacle that stole every breath.

Colossal, translucent bubbles floated around them, each containing billions of stars and galaxies of every size, shape and colour, encased in gas clouds reflecting the colours of the barriers.

The fantastical view kept expanding, revealing the full extent of Jamie's Domain, crucibles of space-time stacked upon each other, each enormous sphere of light cradling countless galaxies within it.

In the centre of it all, Jamie floated with his hands crossed behind his back and called out his domain's name.

||Cosmos||

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