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Noah and his family stepped through the boundaries of the Dinsional Labyrinth, arriving on Floor 2 in an instant.
All their earlier struggles and efforts had been resolved simply by being honest, showing kindness, and asking Kireina for help while revealing their true intentions.
In the end, brute force and aggression had not been the answer. Noah reflected deeply on the lesson he had just learned.
"It's cold..." Iris murmured.
Noah scanned their surroundings. They stood on the vast surface of an azure moon. The sky stretched black and empty, like the void itself, with only faint stars glimring across it.
"We're here," Noah said quietly. "The Moon where everything fell apart."
"Where Aunt Clentina was captured?" Eleanora asked.
"Yes," Iris sighed, gazing around. "Where that woman must still be. Isn't this moon too large? Wasn't this the Crimson Moon—the one we lived on when the Outer Gods attacked..."
"And I went to face Yog-Sothoth," Noah nodded. "We killed him together. When we returned, everything had changed. We learned Kireina had stolen the Sun and unleashed chaos by freeing the Sealed Sun God and his Abominations. But that wasn't the worst of it. Sothing had taken hold of Clentina. She froze the moon... and everyone that was in it. Are our friends frozen here too? I wonder."
"Let's find out," Iris said firmly, nodding.
The four of them leaped into the sky, surveying the frozen wasteland. Giant craters and jagged mountains of ice dominated the landscape; otherwise, it was utterly desolate.
The place felt wrong. Forbidden. The biting air, the heavy atmosphere, the endless dark sky, the glittering stars, the barren ice—it all scread "stay away."
"I can feel sothing approaching..." Iris said.
"From where?" Dante asked.
"...Everywhere," Noah replied, eyes gleaming.
And then it ca.
RUMBLE!
The moon beneath them shuddered. From the ice rose countless Outer Gods crafted of strange, shimring frost, roaring as they floated toward them.
From the black sky above, more erged, shadowy Outer Gods surging forward, red eyes blazing as they fired beams of destructive energy.
"Outer Gods again, huh?" Noah muttered, manifesting a radiant golden spear. "Just stay here."
He hurled the spear downward. A blinding explosion of light erupted a second later, obliterating the Frost Outer Gods across a radius of more than a hundred kiloters.
The spear then shot upward through the smoke, tearing through the swarm of shadow creatures descending from above.
"It's done," Noah said calmly as the spear returned to his hand.
But to their shock, more creatures poured forth endlessly.
The entire family grew serious and t the threat head-on. Dante transford into his majestic Blood Dragon Form. Eleanora channeled her terrifying Outer Goddess of Blood Form. Iris beca a colossal, phantasmal fox demoness. Noah... remained as he was.
They carved their way through hundreds, then thousands, of artificial Outer Gods that never stopped spawning. No matter where they turned, more rose from the ice and descended from the darkness. It was clear these beings served as so kind of relentless security protocol protecting the area.
"Help... ..."
"...!!!"
Noah froze. He looked down and finally noticed it—a frozen city buried in the ice, dominated by a massive castle of pure frost at its center.
"Clentina?! Are you there?!"
No reply ca, but that faint "help " had felt painfully real. Noah knew in his heart that Clentina had not done this willingly. Sothing far stronger had targeted her and forced her into this state.
"I heard her! She's down there! Follow !" Noah shouted.
His family followed without hesitation, tearing through wave after wave of artificial Outer Gods as they descended.
Explosions lit the skies behind them as they landed in the frozen city. Millions of people stood motionless, statues of ice. All of them were citizens from the cities Noah himself had once built.
As they advanced toward the Frost Castle, new threats appeared: towering Ice Titans. Noah and his family fought fiercely, shattering the colossal monsters into glittering fragnts.
These creatures were powerful—Galaxy Rank Cosmic Beasts.
Yet against Noah and his united family, they stood no chance.
Finally, they reached the castle. Noah kicked the massive doors open while his family held back the relentless Titans and Outer Gods.
He stepped inside.
And there he saw her.
Clentina's face—enormous, carved from ice—gazed down at him. Her expression was one of deep sorrow, frozen tears glistening on her cheeks.
"Help ... Noah... Oh, Noah..."
"Clentina!"
Noah rushed forward, only to feel space and ti around him twist and warp violently.
"Wait—what is this?!"
He imdiately shielded himself with his Aura and unleashed his full power.
A terrifying Dinsional force erupted from deep within the moon's core.
"That's...!"
Noah looked down. An endless void opened beneath him—an infinitely vast limbo.
Giant cities of frost-grown roots spread outward toward a central point where a blinding white light pulsed like a living heart.
"What is this place?!"
Then he heard it.
Another voice.
A much darker, ancient voice.
"This is the Will of the Usurpers of Destiny. To oppose their great plan is to defy the force of nature itself. There is little you can do other than obey, Noah."
"...! You!"
Noah roared in fury as the glowing white light spoke directly to him. White mist surged everywhere, freezing into a swirling vortex of azure ice.
He recognized it instantly.
The last surviving mber of the Three Pillars of the Outer Gods.
The Naless Mist.
The Magnum Innominandum.
Nyog'Sothep.
"So you're the one behind this! What have you done to Clentina?!"
"I had given up on consuming you. Instead, I chose to serve the Usurpers of Destiny's Great Plan."
For so reason, Nyog'Sothep's tone sounded strange—hollow, almost chanical, as though he had been brainwashed.
Outer Gods were proud beyond asure, never bowing to another being.
To hear one of Nyog'Sothep's caliber speak with such submission was deeply unsettling.
"You've been brainwashed, haven't you?" Noah said coldly. "To think creatures as prideful as you would grovel before the Usurpers of Destiny. Have you no sha?"
"In the face of the Truth, Noah, there is no room for doubt. Those who refuse the Truth will et their ultimate end, just as all things must end."
Rage surged through Noah. He transford in an instant, his body growing massive, muscular, and feral, taking on a bat-like appearance with enormous crimson wings.
His Blood Energy Aura exploded outward, forming a spiraling galaxy around him, a nebula and stars made entirely of blood.
"Enough with your twisted words! Tell what you did to her—and to the rest of my family?!"
"...Why don't you see for yourself? They have been reshaped into wonderful beings."
"...?!"
Before Noah could react, a brutal strike slamd into the back of his head, sending him crashing downward.
He looked up quickly.
A gigantic golden monstrosity floated in the air, part centipede, part spider, part scarab, part worm, all fused into sothing nightmarish.
It had appeared without warning.
Then...
He felt them.
Many more presences erged.
A monstrous wild beast of shadow and thunder, resembling a multi-headed chiric wolf.
A towering horror made of thousands of glowing eyes in every shape, size, and color.
A tall, slender gray alien-like figure with impossibly long fingers and a cloak woven from black nebula.
And several other bizarre, twisted creatures.
"T-This is...!"
Noah understood instantly.
These were all his friends... and their children.
Arthur and Timassa... and their daughter Alice.
Jon and Adamantine... and their son Adan.
"They have been reshaped by Them, reford anew," the voice continued. "Try as you might, it is impossible to return them to their forr selves. But aren't they better this way?"
"Impossible?" Noah said, voice low and dangerous. "Hah. Don't make laugh."
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