Just as the enormous Abyssal rift, suppressed by Puni's vast holy light, shrank to a mere thin black crack, as though it would be completely erased the next second—
A sudden change occurred!
A will erupted from the deepest part of the rift, more terrifying and ancient than all the Abyssal aura from before combined, filled with endless madness!
A stream of sinister energy, condensed to the extreme and colored an ominous purplish-red, burst fiercely from the nearly closed rift and slammed hard into Puni's ongoing pillar of holy light!
"Boom—!!!"
Two utterly opposing forces, both containing power on a cosmic scale, collided with unprecedented violence!
There was no deafening explosion, but a silent shockwave instantly swept outward, freezing the souls of all who sensed it and twisting the laws themselves!
Puni's usually aloof and majestic face showed the faintest frown.
He could clearly sense that the newly emerged power was of an incredibly high level, enough to confront him head-on.
"So the one behind this finally couldn't stay hidden?" Lan immediately sensed the sharp escalation in the energy clash behind Puni. The starlight around her flared with unprecedented brilliance, ready to support him at any moment.
"It is nothing." Puni's voice remained as calm as a deep pool, though it now carried an icy sharpness. "Just someone skulking in the shadows."
Rather than retreating in the face of this sudden interception, he increased the output of his holy light once more! The pillar became even more dazzling, more solid, and thicker, attempting to force the dark-purple torrent of evil energy, filled with madness and nothingness, back into the rift with the absolute order of holiness.
Yet the being deep within the rift seemed equally unwilling to yield. The purplish-red flow of energy swelled as well, seemingly containing countless twisted