The grand, commanding voice of the Divine Oracle slowly faded.
The battlefield across Rust City fell into an eerie stillness unlike anything before.
Every Fallen One had been wiped out, leaving only wreckage and green, tainted blood strewn across the ground.
From the city walls, thousands of North American players who had survived the ordeal gazed across the ravaged battlefield at the Yan Country guild standing not far away, its members looking like gods descended to earth.
The air was thick with awkwardness, shock, and a hint of wariness no one could quite explain.
"Allies? Not enemies?"
Scott muttered to himself. He glanced down at his Oath of Dawn, which still smelled of gunpowder, then looked up at the man who had just traded for an entire set of Demigod Artifacts. None of it felt real.
They were forces from two entirely different battle zones.
And now, with a single Divine Oracle, they were "comrades"?
"Boss..."
Scott turned with difficulty toward the upright figure at the highest point of the wall.
He had no idea what to do.
Kevin pushed up his glasses. Their lenses reflected the scarlet light flowing over Dragon Soaring World in the distance.
He spoke quietly, but the core members around him heard every word.
"This isn't an alliance. It's integration."
"What do you mean?" Scott froze.
"That deity's intent is clear," Kevin said, reverence in his voice. "They've brought all of us into the War Ladder system."
"We earn points for killing enemies. So do they. And in the end, all those points go into the same system."
Kevin's explanation made it click for everyone around him.
While the North American players wrestled with their own thoughts, the figure who had remained silent atop the wall moved.
Roderick said nothing. He stepped off the thirty-meter