"Are you awake, my love?" Jonas asked softly, holding Marie in his lap as her eyes slowly fluttered open.

Startled, Marie felt her consciousness gradually piecing itself back together. Her last clear memory was channeling her core to forge the spiritual conduit to Jonas, empowering him in their clash against the solitary youth from the martial alliance—a young warrior who had single-handedly confronted their entire dark force.

A youth named Aji.

A brutal conflict had unfolded. Aji’s parameters defied all conventional logic, as he possessed abilities shrouded in absolute mystery. His instantaneous recovery was propelled by an intrinsic, immortal constitution—a phenomenon fundamentally distinct from orthodox healing disciplines or the Black Blood regeneration of the dark army.

Furthermore, the youth had demonstrated absolute velocity, high-tier stealth, and devastating offensive output. To top it off, he commanded a paralyzing domain capable of freezing an entire battlefield in a single breath, bringing everything beneath his control.

Marie sat up slowly, pressing a palm to her forehead and shaking her head gently. It had been no dream. The desperate struggle she and Jonas had just endured was vividly real. Yet as she looked around, she was met with a profound, baffling sense of peace and tranquility.

Before answering Jonas, her eyes swept over their surroundings. They were resting in a vibrant, lush landscape framed by emerald hills and towering mountains. It was breathtakingly beautiful. Marie found herself captivated by the pristine scenery.

"This view is magnificent, my love..." Marie whispered softly. "If heaven truly exists as mortals imagine, it must look like this. I used to believe eternity was a myth, yet living in a place like this—with only the two of us—feels like more than enough."

She spoke freely, giving voice to a quiet longing for peace without external disruptions. She allowed herself to envision a secluded sanctuary belonging solely to them—a place where they could live out their days and eventually pass into the void together.

Jonas gazed at her lovely face. "Do you feel no spiritual imprint in this realm, Marie? Truly, this is our private paradise, for no other human soul exists here."

Marie frowned slightly at his words. A world inhabited solely by the two of them sounded unnerving. Expanding her sensory domain, she attempted to detect surrounding life signatures. If they were still on the physical plane, they ought to be somewhere on the Denad continent—one of the five great continents of the realm. Yet as her perception probed deeper into the environment, her eyes widened in shock.

Though the topography resembled the mountainous ridges of the Denad continent, her sensory domain picked up no human life signatures whatsoever. She detected no spiritual flux, no physical presence, no ambient mana from any living mortal—save for her own core and Jonas’s signature beside her.

Her mind raced back to the events of that night. It was now broad daylight. What had truly transpired during that final clash? Where was their standing legion of two hundred thousand dark operatives? Where had the young warrior gone? And more importantly, where had the life signatures of every human across the continent vanished to?

There was no human life—only the two of them.

"Are we dead, Jonas?" Marie asked, her eyes locking onto his. If they had been slain by Aji and transferred to the afterlife, such absolute isolation made sense. Yet she pinched the skin on her left forearm. A sharp, stinging pain registered instantly. If we are mere spirits, how can we feel physical pain?

Jonas stood up, turning his back to her as he looked out over the valley. "The fractured visions I perceived in my premonitions were accurate after all. Everything foretold in those timelines has been set in motion by that youth named Aji."

Jonas recalled the puzzling anomalies that had haunted his foresight. Though his visions had manifested only as disjointed fragments, he now understood that Aji possessed the unique capability to rewrite destiny itself—standing as the ultimate barrier against Lord Demon Shura’s invasion.

Glancing over his shoulder at Marie, Jonas explained, "We are in a domain completely severed from the physical plane. We are alive, Marie. The youth transferred us here using a spatial art known as the Mirror World."

He continued calmly, "In this inverted reflection of the world, no human civilization exists. It is an absolute mirror of the physical earth, void of human life. We cannot return unless one possesses the specialized spatial techniques required to unseal the Mirror World."

Marie fell into deep thought as she processed his words. The spatial domain deployed by Lord Demon Shura—the Second World—was already an extraordinary feat of dark magic, masking physical matter and aura behind an imperceptible boundary while keeping them present on the physical plane.

Shura’s mastery over the Second World was considered a divine parameter. Yet a young cultivator from the martial alliance had deployed a technique that mirrored the entire physical world while completely filtering out human existence.

If his explanation held true, this inverted realm contained only the two of them. It was a world forged specifically for their isolation—a sanctuary where they could live out their days together in peace, bound by an unbroken oath.

Yet a complex dilemma lingered: should they harbor resentment toward Aji for trapping them here and preventing them from standing by Shura? Or should they offer gratitude for being granted an untouched world where they could exist in quiet harmony?

"It is all so surreal... I can hardly process it," Marie admitted softly, her mind struggling to reconcile their situation.

"You must accept it, my love," Jonas said gently. "In the physical world, Lord Demon Shura undoubtedly believes we are dead. Our dark magic signatures and physical presences vanished simultaneously. Unable to detect our cores, Shura will assume we were executed."

The realization brought a heavy weight. Believing two of his supreme warlords had been slain, Shura would fly into an unhinged fury, launching an all-out war against the martial alliance to hunt down the entity responsible for their disappearance.

"My love... tell me everything you saw in your premonitions," Marie demanded, her eyes locking onto his with absolute seriousness. "I want no more lies, no more hidden truths. Tell me now."

Jonas felt his resolve crumble. He had shielded her from his grim visions solely to preserve her peace of mind, wishing to spare her the burden of the coming catastrophe.

Now, standing in this strange, isolated realm, he chose to lay bare the full extent of his foresight.

Marie listened intently as Jonas detailed the fragmented timelines he had perceived. The revelations sounded almost fantastical, yet they provided the critical key to understanding their presence in this inverted world.

In his visions, Jonas had seen Shura vanish mid-battle as the war raged. How could such a thing occur? The martial alliance had mobilized its full standing strength against the dark army, supported by a surprising unity. That was the first major anomaly in Jonas's visions: the orthodox forces had stood fully united, their numbers matching—or even exceeding—the dark army.

For decades, the dark army had manipulated the righteous sects, stoking greed and political division to keep them fractured. Yet in Jonas's premonitions, the martial world stood as a cohesive, unyielding front—suggesting a solitary figure or a specialized vanguard had unified the five continents under a single banner.

The second anomaly was Shura's sudden disappearance. The Demon Lord, who had always presented himself as a protective sovereign fighting alongside his generals, was entirely absent from the final confrontation involving the 10 Annihilation Demons and the Four Gates.

Marie had initially rejected the notion that Shura would abandon his troops, but Jonas revealed the terrifying truth lurking in the deepest recesses of Shura's dark core. Beneath his charismatic facade lay a suffocating malice—a desire to reshape existence according to his absolute mandate. Shura sought to establish a world of forced peace, stripping every mortal of free will and demanding absolute, unquestioning submission.

He sought to be worshipped as a god.

To achieve that absolute mandate, Shura was prepared to wash the world in blood. Utilizing the absolute dark parameters of the Blood Supreme, he intended to harvest the biological remains of the fallen—a single strand of hair or fragment of bone—to reanimate humanity as mindless, soulless thralls. These reconstructed entities would exist as physical puppets, completely subservient to his singular will.

Marie gasped as the horrifying truth settled in. The revelation shattered her perception of Shura's benevolence toward the dark army. The Demon Lord had granted the 10 Annihilation Demons extraordinary privileges, promising them regional sovereignty in exchange for their loyalty.

Yet looking into Jonas's earnest eyes, Marie knew he spoke no falsehoods. Total victory for the dark army meant total destruction for existence itself. Shura intended to reduce all life to mindless puppets bound to his absolute mandate.

"A higher power recognized his design and intervened to stop him," Jonas concluded softly. "If I am not mistaken, that youth—Aji—was sent specifically to eradicate Shura. He stated as much before transferring us here."

Marie now understood everything. Recognizing that she and Jonas harbored no desire for slaughter, Aji had approached them beforehand, offering a peaceful withdrawal into the Mirror World. When they rejected his offer, he had used absolute force to compel them, sparing their lives while removing them from the board.

In the physical realm, the final war was on the verge of erupting.