The lowest layer of the Abyss was known as the Devouring Depths.

There was no light here.

No sound. No warmth. Not even the most basic sense of space, such as up, down, left, or right, existed.

Aiden stepped out of the void passage, and in the next instant, his entire body was swallowed by endless darkness.

Thick, heavy, and filled with a dead silence that seemed able to corrode everything.

That was Aiden’s first impression of the Devouring Depths.

Creak-

The body of an Intermediate God, strong enough to withstand a strike from a true god, actually let out a strained, grinding sound the moment he entered this place.

It was not gravity.

It was not a physical attack either.

It was a terrifying pressure that came from the level of concept itself, as if this place was trying to "digest" him.

Buzz!

Divine patterns suddenly lit up in Aiden’s double-pupiled eyes.

The profound power of the Law of Space spread out at once, trying to form an absolute defense around him.

However, the law of "spatial lockdown," which was powerful enough to seal ten thousand miles of empty space, melted away the moment it touched the darkness.

Like leftover snow under the blazing sun.

And that was not all.

Inside his mind, the cold system voice, which represented Aiden’s greatest trump card, produced a harsh burst of static for the first time.

[Ding! Unknown logic intrusion detected... System calculating... Bzzzt... being digested...]

[10,000x critical hit... activation fai- bzzzt...]

The system stopped working.

This hidden power, which could force a critical hit even against divine lightning tribulation and refine even traces of the Primordial, was now being swallowed by "Gluttony."

Even its own operating logic was being devoured.

Aiden stood in the void and looked down at his hands, which were starting to give off a gray mist.

Yet the corners of his mouth slowly curved upward.

"Even the system can be eaten..."

"No wonder Yves could not understand it, even at the moment of his death."

He closed his eyes.

In his mind, he saw Bella standing on the walls of Celestial Imperial City, her beautiful eyes as cold and clear as snow.

"Do not resist. Let it devour you..."

Aiden took a deep breath.

At that moment, the divine patterns in his double-pupiled eyes slowly faded away.

Boom!

He took the initiative to disperse the power around him-space, thunder, and the Law of Light.

His divine power withdrew.

His divine body was left completely undefended.

In an instant, the dead darkness around him seemed to smell blood, like sharks in the deep sea. It rushed madly into his body.

Pain.

Pain that could not be described with words.

It was not the pain of flesh being torn apart. It was the emptiness of life itself being stripped away.

First came the laws.

The advanced structure of the Law of Space was chewed apart by the Devouring Depths like a snack.

Thunder and light turned into the purest energy and were sucked dry.

Then came his memories.

The difficult years when the White City rose to power.

The glory of winning the global Class Change Tournament.

The trust of Eira, Empress of the Great Shaw Empire.

Even the warmth of the extreme cold crystal that Cheryl had handed to him in the snowstorm was quickly growing cold and blurry.

"Who... am I?"

Aiden asked himself in his heart.

But those words slipped away like sand through his fingers.

At that moment, his sense of self completely collapsed.

Just as he was about to sink forever and become a part of the Devouring Depths-

in the final fraction of a second-deep within Aiden’s soul, the incomplete array formed from five Primordial Crystals suddenly shook violently.

A clarity he had never felt before lit up in the void.

He was not dead.

Instead, when he completely gave up "thinking" and "fighting back," he finally touched the true nature of this place with pure feeling.

This was not emptiness.

Nor was it destruction.

It was... hunger.

A hunger so vast it could devour the universe.

A hunger so empty it could drive anyone mad.

It was crying.

Like a helpless monster, it hid in the forgotten deepest part of the Abyss, desperately searching for food.

But no matter what it ate, it could never fill the bottomless hole inside it.

The true nature of Gluttony was not taking from others.

It was hunger that could never stop.

It was the sorrow of never being satisfied.

At this moment, Aiden reached a depth that Yves had never reached back then.

With his consciousness on the edge of fading away, Aiden slowly opened his double-pupiled eyes in the endless darkness.

There was no anger in those eyes.

No fear.

Only a calm and pity that seemed to cross a thousand years.

His voice sounded strangely in the depths of the Devouring Depths, even though there was no air and nothing to carry sound.

"I have been hungry too."

"I know what it feels like to want to fill something inside you, but never be able to."

"You are not greedy."

"You are a wound."

Those words rang out in the deepest part of the Devouring Depths, where there was no air and no medium.

Yet they were like silent thunder, tearing apart the dead silence that had lasted for ten thousand years.

Deep within the Devouring Depths, that primitive consciousness, which did not even have the pride of "Arrogance," began to tremble violently.

It was broken.

It was chaotic.

It was the purest form of hunger, something no living being had ever understood.

For millions of years, whether they were gods or Demon Gods, anyone who stepped into this place had only fear, resistance, or useless sorrow in their mind.

Only Aiden, in the final moment before he was about to be completely digested, saw through its despair.

Boom!

Without any warning, the concept-level power of digestion that had almost melted Aiden’s divine body suddenly stopped.

The thick darkness no longer moved.

The mad devouring came to an abrupt halt.

At that moment, the entire Devouring Depths fell into absolute silence.

A silence so deep it felt strange.

Then, an extremely weak signal, trembling like a newborn baby, slowly formed in Aiden’s mind.

"...You... understand..."

It was not a language.

It was the most primitive kind of soul resonance.

Aiden stood in the void, endless darkness reflected in his double-pupiled eyes.

A gentle smile appeared on his lips.

"Yes. I understand."

"But you don’t have to keep doing this."

Aiden’s voice was not loud, but it carried a strong and unquestionable confidence.

"When all the ’doors’ are pushed open, and when I reach the very end..."

He slowly raised his head, as if he could see through the Abyss and look toward the vast, unknown other side.

"I will give you something you can truly digest."

"Not these broken laws."

"Not these small, humble memories."

"But a brand-new, complete universe."

"A space large enough for you to digest."

"Large enough to fill the emptiness inside you."

Rumble-

The consciousness of the Pillar of Gluttony let out a world-shaking tremor.

That was the first time in ten thousand years that it had felt the hope of being full.

The first time it had been given a reason to exist.

In the deepest part of the darkness, a deep, ghostly green light slowly rose.

It was the core of the Pillar of Gluttony.

It was also the seventh Primordial Crystal.

Unlike the crystals before it, it did not resist him or test him.

Instead, it drifted down like a gentle star and finally rested quietly in Aiden’s cracked palm.

[Ding!]

The system, which had been completely frozen, suddenly let out a sharp roar at that moment.

[Seventh Primordial Crystal detected... Base protocol forcefully activated!]

[Primordial Law Resonance Array... Completion: 100%!]

[Law comprehension increased: 57%... 59%... 61%... 63%!]

[Ding! Recognition from the Seven Pillars has been collected. The path to the Golden Gate is now open!]

Boom!

At that moment, the four laws inside Aiden’s body-space, thunder, light, and the primordial trace-fully merged into one.

They turned into a brilliant seven-colored divine ring.

In an instant, it wiped away the gray mist and wounds on his body.

A few strands of white hair had appeared at the ends of his hair, left behind from the struggle.

His aura of law was still a little unstable.

But his eyes were clearer and deeper than ever before.

At the entrance of the Devouring Depths.

Bella stood there in plain clothes, cold and pure like snow.

But her hands, tightly holding a teacup, had turned white at the knuckles.

Cheryl stood beside her.

Her beautiful eyes were filled with worry as she stared fixedly at the dark entrance that swallowed everything.

Buzz!

The void trembled.

A tall, slender figure slowly stepped out of the darkness.

Aiden’s white hair moved gently.

His clothes were a little messy.

But he stood perfectly straight.

Every step he took landed on a node in the void.

He looked like a true god walking among mortals.

"Aiden!"

Cheryl cried out in shock and almost rushed toward him.

But halfway there, she forced herself to stop.

She only stood there, looking at him with red eyes.

The heart Bella had been holding in fear finally settled at that moment.

She looked at Aiden.

Her voice was still cold and calm, but there was a faint tremble hidden in it.

"How did you get out?"

Aiden met their eyes and smiled faintly.

"I said something Yves never said."

Bella was slightly stunned.

Her delicate brows drew together.

"What did you say?"

Aiden put away the seventh crystal in his palm and softly spoke eight words.

"I said, you are not greed. You are a wound."

When Bella heard this, it was as if she had been struck by lightning.

She stood there in silence for a long, long time.

Slowly, she turned her head and looked at the dead, silent entrance of the Abyss.

A complicated and distant light flashed in her eyes.

"...Yves was very good at solving problems."

Her voice was very soft.

It sounded as if she was speaking to Aiden, and also to herself.

"But he was never good at understanding wounds."

"You are better at that than he was."

Aiden did not answer.

He only stood there quietly.

Then he turned his head and glanced at Cheryl beside him.

At that exact moment, Cheryl was also looking at him.

Her eyes were full of tenderness, fear, and relief.

Their eyes met in the air.

Then, as if both of them were trying to hide something, they looked away at the same time.

Behind them, the Abyss, which had just fallen calm, silently faded into the distance.