This day was still like any other, seemingly no different at all.
Within the Dimensional Esophagus, every living being endured the Endless World's irreversible process of digestion: refugees who had only just arrived, trembling in fear; powerful beings constantly shuttling between different gathering places; existences waiting indifferently and bleakly for the fate of being digested; and terrifying old monsters tirelessly striving for a sliver of survival.
It was filled with despair and longing, barren and scarce resources, and a monotonous, tedious future.
The Piercing Gate Gathering Place within the Dimensional Esophagus was famed for being unaffected by the illusory world and for the gifts of World Heart Fragments. There were also legends of ancient refugees escaping the Dimensional Esophagus, even rumors of hunting down descending Overlords. All this draped the Piercing Gate Gathering Place, in the eyes of outsiders, in a veil of mystery and terror—a truly dreadful place that even descending Overlords would avoid whenever they learned of it.
Suddenly!
At the first peak of the Peak of the Nine Mountains, the pinnacle that had symbolized the Piercing Gate's supreme authority for several eras, a majestic energy fluctuation erupted. It poured forth without end, boundless and inexhaustible, sweeping across the entire Piercing Gate Gathering Place in an instant.
Whether they were spirited refugees or refugees who had lowered their heads in surrender, all looked toward the distant horizon, where endless light and darkness twisted together. Such vast, irresistible majesty could belong to only one person in the entire Piercing Gate Gathering Place—the Annihilation Wizard King of the Peak of the Nine Mountains!
"Hiss... Nameless is challenging the Annihilation Wizard King?"
"That has to be it!"
In an instant, every refugee's heart surged with excitement. At last, someone dared to challenge the Annihilation Wizard King, who had been revered as