Established Pinnacle: The Enigma

And just like that, Time ticked by.

Twelve months had passed by and the time for promotion was finally inching closer and closer. By now, Allen and his tribe had, for some reason... crossed twenty Regions in that short span of time.

Such a distance was supposed to take centuries to cross at the speed of lower ranked warriors. Ordinary people can cover two miles per hour, luggage included, meaning almost tens of years to cover almost a hundred thousand miles on foot.

As for them, even when using beast-pulled carriages and covering tens of miles per hour, it should take them at most an entire year to cover up that much distance, including rest and crossing the sea divinding the Regions.

"But why, why did it only take us a year to cross over that much distance?" Allen looked at the clear blue sky and questioned himself. He was sure of it now, he seemed to have heaven defying secret movement Arts.

Krishna: "????"

• • • • •

Middle Realm, Green Continent

World Forest Region, Green River

It has been a year since Enigma pulled that mighty Beast away. And likewise, four and half years since Night met Enigma. And she was proud to say that he was the Sun of their lives.

But recently, that Sun was burning dimmer and dimmer everyday. Word from Enigma had not been heard from at first, the first six months were hopeless yet hopeful at the same time.

They believed in Enigma unconditionally, and knew that he would never forsaken them. They had done a lot for him, and he did not seem to be that kind of a person.

But the destruction the colossal bird brought with it was too dangerous and too devastating... perhaps even for him, as a powerful Deity. Just its presence was far inducing.

Even Nia, who was only slightly weaker than Enigma at that time, said she would die within seconds against that thing. Let alone anyone else far from her level.

She tried to think of more solution, she tried and tried, but the only solution she could think off was death, not even buying time was possible for her, let alone him.

For six months, they stayed at their toes and decided to isolate themselves and just train. They disregarded everything and went into a period of cultivation and gaining strength.

The three sisters managed to promote to Saints from Epics within half a year. They were still unaware of their terrifying talents, but after this experience, they knew Enigma did something groundbreaking for them.

Ali had managed to become a Half Deity even without Enigma's help. He had succeeded in collecting trillions of units of Mana, and using them to ignite his blood and Seed of Foundation.

He ignited and burned his blood, as from being something similar to <Lower Existences>, or Mortals, he ignited it into blood of something akin to a <Unique Existence>, a Deity, an Inner God.

He also ignited his Seed of Foundation, and was on his way to shaping it into an Incomplete Plane. His Determination and Diligence ignited the will within the others, to alls aspire for greatness!!

And this was just in six months, boosting his strength greatly. His daughter Kuma, was not far away from becoming a Half Deity as well, just a few months away.

As for the Deities and above, unfortunately for them, six months were not enough for them to make much progress. The tens of Deities with ordinary talents unfortunately had to wait years before they can progress.

But the three Lesser Deities were more fortunate. Being one of high grade Chosens, they only needed to wait for one and a half years to breakthrough, and as for Lulu, a Greater Deity, she had two years left before she promoted.

Forget Nia, a Higher Deity.

But this was when everything was still fine. A month later, the beginning of the fouth year, a beggar appeared above their home. He hovered up above and gazed down on them.

"It's you?" Nia flew up and drew her gaze straight across his, at the exact same height. She was innately arrogant, let alone now, as an Imperial Higher Deity with 30 Planets within her Inner Zone.

Her favorability of him was also quit low, considering that she thought he was a foe. But the beggar did not seem to mind her attitude much, nor did he care much.

"Calm down lass, I don't have the energy to bicker with you... No, I do. But I think you won't." The beggar shook his head helplessly as he tossed the soccer ball sized burning red core towards her.

Nia caught it by reflex and looked down. She did not understand what it was and what he meant. "What do you mean by this? Who will drain me of my energy? You? Don't make me laugh, you lowlife bandit."

Compared to when she was around Enigma, her tone was quite harsh and prideful. But the beggar did not change his expression once again, instead, he continued to look at her with pity and sympathy.

"What?" She asked as his gaze gave her uncomfortable chills on her back. Like Allen, she found the behavior of this senior to be unsightly if he acted 'proper'.

"It's from him. The boy you all seem to love so much." The beggar responded immediately after a sigh. Like he said, it was not his time to act unreasonable, right now.

"What? Who? Little En?" Nia curiously looked at the red crystal-like orb in her hands. Since it was from him, she was curious why he sent someone to bring it, instead of doing it himself.

It was strange, and unlike him. Unless...

"That is a Divine core, it has a probability to give you a skill beyond Unique from the Pyromaniac Bird. It's value is quite high as the chances of it forming is less than 0.001% within Divine Beasts.

"The core can also be used to upgrade Ordinary magic weapons to Unique weapons. Or just craft a new Unique weapon. It can also—" The beggar who cut off Nia's thoughts was about to continue rambling, which was in his character. Unfortunately, Nia cut him off.

"Wait, wait, why are you telling me this? Why not use it your—"

"It's a parting gift." The beggar cut her off as a form of revenge as well. He held back his rage for being cut midway and answered her. Seeing her confusion, he added, "From your beloved 'Little En'."

Nia suddenly froze and gazed at the beggar strangely. She then closed her eyes and tried to connect to Enigma through the spiritual link. Unfortunately for her...

"Gone... It's gone..." She blinked her eyes in disbelief, not wanting to believe it all. She continued to try and connect to him, but found nothing.

Until a point where she could not connect to him at all. "No... No no no, this can't be happening... Where, where is he?! What happened to him?!  His body then? Are you sure he's really... gone?"

Nia's outburst was able to reach the hundreds of thousands of people down there. The upper echelons flew up to get the bigger picture of the situation.

Plus, they had to calm her down as her aura was spreading our everywhere, as if trying to devour everything in endless primal darkness and destruction.

"It's true. Well, at least that's what it looked like. His... brother has taken care of him—"

"What brother?! Enigma has no brothers that we know off!! What did you do with him?" The more she spoke, the more she felt calm, for some reason her anger dissipated.

But her prowess, that could match up to an ancient being exploded out immediately. Threatening to suffocate everyone below with the density of the pressure.

Even the realm suppression was not able to limit her that much. She was still with ancient being prowess even while being suppressed by him, an ancient being himself.

'Oh? So, he had such a powerful aide? I guess I misjudged them.' The beggar thought as he raised up his hands to show his stance, "Down young lady, down. I swear upon my life that his body is currently fine, with his brother.

"At least, they have the same scent and origin, so they are more related to each other, than you guys are to him. And believe me, I can kill you easily, don't get over your head lassy." He concluded with that.

Nia finally managed to calm down and lowered herself. She met the others and told them to retreat. She did not believe it, she did not want to believe it, but there was no way to confirm everything for now.

When everyone entered the conference room, they saw Lulu on her knees, her eyes in despair as she stared blankly forward A pile of rumbles lay before her feet, it was now obvious to them.

"Lord Enigma... is... How?"

"It can't be... It can't be... It definetly can't be..."

"How...?"

"...."

Some were broken, some were fearful, some were lost, some were speechless and some were confused. But one thing was for sure, all fifteen of them were sad.