His body could no longer withstand the backlash of wielding the Cosmic Sign. Every fiber of his being screamed in protest. If he wanted to survive what lay ahead, he had no choice but to ascend and become a Monster Lord, and he had to do it soon.

"Saya... I will take care of you," Souta swore in a low, trembling voice.

At the very least, he had stopped her from vanishing completely.

Souta slowly lifted his head and surveyed his surroundings. The desolation he remembered was gone. Grass swayed gently beneath his feet, flowers bloomed as if untouched by tragedy, and fierce winds rolled across the land. Above him, the sun shone brilliantly, casting a warm, almost cruelly beautiful glow across the sky.

"The calamity..." he muttered.

His gaze returned to the faint ball of light resting in his palm.

The Land of Fire Light had survived. The kingdom had endured the calamity without invoking its final, desperate measure, the cleansing that would have erased everything. The cost, however, was devastating. Countless lives were lost, yet some had managed to cling to survival. Those survivors now stared at the sky in disbelief, witnessing a sunrise they had been certain they would never see again.

More than ninety percent of the kingdom’s population had perished.

Those who remained gathered among the ruins, doing their best to piece together what little was left of their world.

Rebuilding the kingdom would take years perhaps decades. Still, Prince Angus and his people refused to surrender to despair. They worked tirelessly, salvaging whatever they could from the shattered city, determined to ensure that the kingdom’s legacy would not end here.

Just like that, several days slipped by in the blink of an eye.

The royal capital had been reduced to ruins beyond salvation. With nothing left to reclaim, the survivors made a decisive choice that they would rebuild Nature Zone City and declare it their new capital.

"Huff..." Prince Angus wiped the sweat from his forehead as he surveyed the newly erected structures rising from the devastated land. A faint smile tugged at his lips. "This is better."

Emiline approached and came to a halt beside him.

"How goes the reconstruction, Your Highness?" she asked.

"It’s going well. Our people are resilient," Prince Angus replied with quiet pride. "We will rise from this."

He then turned toward her, his expression growing solemn. "And our savior? How is he?"

"The Hero of the Land of Fire Light is currently in discussion with His Majesty," Emiline answered.

"I see..." Prince Angus exhaled slowly, gazing toward the horizon. "From this day forward, our land will prosper."

Emiline nodded in agreement, sharing his conviction.

...

Elsewhere, inside a modest, unassuming house.

Souta sat calmly at a small table, a cup of coffee resting beside him. Across from him sat the King of the Everlasting Kingdom, their conversation unfolding in an atmosphere far heavier than the room itself suggested.

"You have saved our kingdom from the calamity," the King said solemnly.

"It was nothing," Souta replied flatly. "I only fought because it would have affected me as well. If it hadn’t, I wouldn’t have intervened."

"Regardless of your reasons, your actions saved the people of this land," the King insisted. "We owe you our lives."

Souta’s gaze lowered slightly. "It wasn’t for the kingdom. I only wanted to save one person."

The King fell silent, studying him. He did not know what had truly transpired during the battle, nor how Souta had managed to quell the calamity. What stood before him now was a mystery, one both terrifying and profound.

"You are the strongest one in this land," the King finally said. "Your words carry weight. Tell me... what do you intend to do next?"

"My plans?" Souta raised an eyebrow, fixing the King with a steady stare. After a moment, he spoke. "If you’re asking that, then you must already be considering placing your kingdom under my banner."

The King gave a small, grim nod. "Yes. Even if we do not wish to, we have little choice. You surpass all of us in strength. It would be irresponsible not to address it."

"I see..." Souta exhaled quietly. "Then you should know this, I am forming a force. One capable of standing against the calamity."

"The calamity?" The King’s eyes widened. "You mean... it isn’t over?"

"No," Souta said without hesitation. "It will return and when it does, it will be far worse than what this land has already endured. I can’t explain how I know this, but the calamity is far from finished."

He wanted to say more, to reveal everything he knew. Yet an unseen restraint wrapped around his words. Whenever he tried to push further, his voice failed him as though the truth itself refused to be heard.

Perhaps... this was the curse.

"If that is true," the King said gravely, "then we must prepare."

Though doubt lingered in his heart, he could not ignore the reality before him. The being standing across the table was the very monster who had ended the calamity.

"That’s exactly what I intend to do," Souta replied. After a brief pause, he continued, "I will be leaving this land soon. I’ll search for the nearest gathering of intelligent beings. Humans, demi-humans, or even monsters. Anyone who can fight."

"I understand," the King said, nodding slowly.

Souta studied him for a moment before asking, "How much do you know about the other lands? About the continents beyond this land?"

The King shook his head. "Very little. The people of the Land of Fire Light have lived here for their entire lives. We have never reached another land, so we know nothing of what lies beyond."

Within a radius of ten thousand kilometers surrounding the Land of Fire Light, there was nothing, no other continents, no visible landmasses. Countless expeditions had verified this. Those who dared to push farther rarely returned, and those who did came back broken, they encountered vicious monsters in the ocean.

"I see..." Souta murmured. After a moment, he continued, "Your son mentioned something curious. He said the Land of Fire Light was once called Australia. Can you tell me about that?"

"Australia..." The King repeated the name softly, as if testing its weight. "Yes. In the distant past, this land bore that name."

His voice grew quieter.

"Our knowledge comes from ancient records unearthed from the ruins of a long-fallen kingdom. They are the oldest texts we possess, the last echoes of an era before mana was discovered."

He paused, his fingers tightening.

"According to those records, the people of that time had no true understanding of mana. They were only beginning to sense the flow of natural energy, treating it as a miracle rather than a force. Back then, this world was whole. Other lands existed. Other nations thrived across nearby lands."

The King’s gaze drifted downward.

"Then the disaster came."

He swallowed.

"The texts do not name it. They only describe its aftermath. Entire continents vanished. Not sank but vanished. Seas where cities once stood. Skies that burned for days. The flow of the world itself was torn apart, as though something had reached down and erased vast portions of existence."

Silence filled the room.

"No records speak of survivors beyond this land. No remnants, no ruins, no lingering mana traces. It was as if those lands had never existed at all."

The King finally looked up, his expression grave.

"That is why the Land of Fire Light stands alone. Whatever destroyed the rest of the world did not simply kill, it erased. And to this day, no one knows why this land was spared."

The King fell silent, having shared the ancient history.

It was the furthest era ever recorded in the history of the Land of Fire Light. In that distant age, the people had already endured a calamity and survived. From the ruins of that catastrophe, the scattered nations slowly united, rebuilding civilization with knowledge wrested from disaster itself.

"We call it the Era of Discovery," the King said. "And from it arose a great nation, the Ancient Empire of Hal."

His voice grew solemn, almost reverent.

"The Empire of Hal endured for several thousand years. It was not merely an empire, but a dominion that stood above all others. During its reign, the Land of Fire Light produced beings whose strength bordered on the divine. Mortals who could bend the land, the skies, and the flow of mana itself to their will walked openly among the people."

The King paused, as if weighing his next words.

"It was during this era that the land was reshaped. The name Australia was erased, replaced with the Land of Fire Light. Some records suggest the change was not symbolic but absolute, as if the Empire had rewritten the land’s very identity."

His expression darkened.

"Countless eras followed their fall, each marked by growth and inevitable calamity. Yet the greatest tragedy is that much of Hal’s knowledge was lost. The most important records were sealed beneath the royal capital, buried when the city collapsed and swallowed by time."

"Buried..." Souta murmured.

A faint glint flashed in his eyes as he spoke. "Then I’ll go there later. If even fragments of Hal’s records remain, they may tell us why the calamities keep returning or how the people managed to survive."