998 Chapter 998 - Silent End

More years passed.

By now, the world had recovered in full.

Except for the couple of Beast Kings that had been sacrificed for the Mage Kings, the world had fully recovered.

While the war was technically still ongoing, no one had truly fought in it, and people didn't even think about it.

There hadn't been any battles in thousands of years.

The war didn't even feel like it existed.

Except for the Abominations, the world had become peaceful again.

However, the existence of the Abominations had already become a normality for all the people.

While Abomination Lords had stopped appearing, Ancestral Abominations and weaker still kept appearing, but they had been appearing for such a long time that not even Mage Lords remembered a time before them.

And if not even the Mage Lords had witnessed a world without Ancestral Abominations, how would the weaker people feel?

It had always been like this.

Naturally, the appearance of the Abominations gave the world a certain feeling of doomsday, but the Empress of Death represented hope.

She had already managed to get rid of Abomination Lords.

At some point, she could also get rid of Ancestral Abominations!

They were sure!

After tens of thousands of years of terrifying war, the world was finally in an age of hope and peace.

Yet, while the general public looked at the development of the world with bright eyes, the Mage Kings and Mage Emperors felt very different.

The closer they got to the Ultimate Tournament, the more worried they got.

All of them had already seen Abaddon's power before, and they all knew that he could fight them.

He wouldn't even need to become a Mage Emperor.

Of course, if two Emperors attacked him, he probably wouldn't win.

But what after he became a Mage Emperor?

Then, they would all need to fight him simultaneously.

It was really dangerous.

In secret, many of the Emperors had already come to talk to Gregorio in private.

"Hey, now that all of this is over, do you really want to go through with the Ultimate Tournament?" they asked. "After all, you wanted this tournament for your warrior, right?"

One had to remember that the tournament only existed because Gregorio had threatened everyone with releasing the Archivist.

If Gregorio stopped threatening them with the Archivist, they could just not hold the tournament.

Yet, Gregorio shot all of them down.

"You wanted this," Gregorio answered with annoyance. "Originally, I helped Shang because I wanted him to kill Abaddon. While I can't negotiate with Abaddon, I was able to negotiate with Shang."

"I wanted Shang to kill Abaddon, give him a couple of Kings and Emperors so that he can become a God, and make him deal with the Abominations."

"But because of you, he kept destroying himself more and more until he became something that I don't even recognize anymore. How am I supposed to stop someone like that from destroying the world?"

"But then, he died."

"And now, you're stuck with Abaddon."

"So, no, I won't stop threatening you with the Archivist."

"If the tournament doesn't happen, I will release the Archivist."

"You dug your grave. Now, you have to lie in it."

Obviously, the Mage Emperors weren't the biggest fans of Gregorio's answer.

Most of them just argued more.

Some of them reacted with aggression and called Gregorio a sore loser.

And one of them, Linastra Boomwitch, even agreed with Gregorio to a certain extent.

Linastra Boomwitch said that she had been on the sidelines for too long and that she should have supported him.

But Gregorio just said that it was already too late.

The damage was already done.

The fate of the world was set.

He told her that the world would end in about 5,000 years after the Ultimate Tournament.

Of course, Linastra didn't fully believe that.

After all, the final battle between the Emperors and Abaddon hadn't happened yet.

There was a real chance that they could win.

Gregorio didn't answer.

When Linastra left, Gregorio just looked towards the northwest.

He saw Shang, or more precisely, what Shang had become.

The more time passed, the less human Shang became.

By now, his body didn't even look human.

Shang was no longer human.

In fact, Shang wasn't even an Abomination.

Shang had become his own being.

The most fitting word Gregorio could come up with was Nightmare.

Shang had become a Nightmare.

An enemy to all life and existence.

The end of the world.

Shang had become the apocalypse.

Gregorio knew that the world was already over.

More years passed, and the Ultimate Tournament was already on the horizon.

A couple of old Mage Kings died, and new ones were crowned, but none of that mattered anymore.

The Mage Emperors were fully focused on the Ultimate Tournament, and they came up with many strategies.

They wanted to include Gregorio in their meetings, but Gregorio declined.

He was done with them.

Eventually, only a thousand years were left.

Shang was now 50,000 years old, and he had been in the Sword King Realm for 21,000 years.

For 21,000 years, he had worked on nothing but his power, and his results were terrifying.

Shang's power kept escalating to the point that he wouldn't even need any Abominations to destroy the world.

He wouldn't even need to reach the Ninth Realm.

He could just tear Aterium's reality slowly apart.

When Gregorio saw Shang, he felt only one thing.

Acceptance.

The world didn't know, but the end was already certain.

There would be no excitement.

There would be no last epic battle.

Shang's power had reached places that no one had even dared imagine.

Shang had become so powerful that he could probably even fight the Archivist...

As a Peak Sword King.

This was no battle for survival.

Without anyone noticing, Shang had already become the undisputed strongest being in the entire world.

He had already become the ruler.

He might not be a God, but he was already one in practice.

Gregorio just looked at the world with melancholy.

For the last millennium, Gregorio just watched the world.

It was like watching a loved one slowly dying.

And then, it was time.

The 50,000 years were up.

The Ultimate Tournament was here.

The end of the world had arrived.