"If you were on a business trip, which city would you want to be sent to?"

Ethan's question still lingered in Black Steel's ears. When he came to his senses, he found himself thrown high into the sky.

For dragons, they have always been the kings of the sky. Such a height shouldn't be anything, yet he couldn't feel the presence of his body. Numbness swept over him, and the only thing he could do was watch the scenery before him constantly change. The outlines of the Royal Capital and the Divine Tree grew smaller in his vision until they completely vanished.

Just now...

What exactly happened?

The question still hovered in Black Steel's mind.

He vaguely saw a wolf transformed into a human. Her fighting style was different from monsters, looking very much like a real human.

On this point, he was not mistaken.

Though many high-level monsters might grasp the ability to transform, the instincts of a monster are imprinted in their every action, inadvertently revealing them. He had once expended great effort to overcome the instincts of a dragon... The monster following Ethan seemed more like a human deliberately disguised as a monster to him.

He once infiltrated human society as a half-blood to obtain the human secret treasures and the gifts this world offered to humans.

This is an unfair world.

Humans received too much favor, yet, in Black Steel's view, they were utterly foolish and couldn't properly use the gifts of heaven.

Therefore, it should be someone higher on the food chain who controls these things.

This was meant to be a world where the weak are prey to the strong. The childish summoner battles were nauseating. When seizing the energy of a secret treasure, he heard a voice, a voice older than the Crimson Queen, that taught him how to more efficiently seize energy.

He defeated everyone as a summoner and became the president of the Royal Summoner Association, shattering every obstacle with iron-blooded means, and now even the royal family members had become his puppets, obeying his every command.

He stood at the pinnacle of this world, yet now, in front of another summoner who appeared out of nowhere, he couldn't even resist.

"Congratulations, Black Steel."

The familiar voice reached his ears again. Almost as he closed his eyes, he found himself back in that mysterious space.

The sky was entangled with the roots of errors, and the ground was formed of darkness, as if walking upon the void. Not far away, the giant shadow hanging upside down was the source of his power.

A deity.

This was the conclusion Black Steel arrived at in his long interactions with the Hanged Man.

An all-knowing, omnipotent being, a mere sliver of whose scattered power can transform any monster into an elevated life form.

All along, Black Steel regarded the Hanged Man as the creator.

"...I don't understand."

He lowered his head. He did not like meeting the other as a loser, especially losing to a human he looked down upon.

"At least you survived."

The deity's consolation only deepened Black Steel's humiliation because he gradually realized the only reason he survived was that the human never considered him an enemy. Ethan's final gaze shattered his pride—as if looking upon a small creature by the roadside.

Hence, just as he would with a yapping little creature, the other merely raised a hand and pushed him aside.

The deity seemed to penetrate his heart, saying, "If that's the case, let me show you that 'human's' true form."

Before the words were fully spoken, another figure appeared in the darkness.

Boss Sakaki of Team Rocket.

Also known as Ethan, from the outside, he seemed like a young summoner who had just undergone a coming-of-age ceremony, embarking on an adventure with a small creature captured outside the city, looking very amiable, like someone easy to deal with.

However, in the next moment, the scene in Black Steel's eyes changed dramatically.

The bird serving as a mount suddenly expanded countless times in size. The golden figure hung in the sky like the sun. At the moment he met its sharp gaze, Black Steel felt a chill up his spine—it seemed to be a rarer high-level monster than a dragon, with size and power surpassing that of dragons.

He also saw the wolf girl who flung him away earlier. She was clad in armor, wielding a silver-white Knight's Sword.

"Her name is Other Shore, if you're interested in her."

"...Other Shore?"

That clearly wasn't a monster's name.

"In her world, she is the leader of the Neseriel Sanctuary, a person who has reached the midway point of the path."

The Hanged Man paused, then said, "There, is the end you've always wanted to reach."

Another world...

Black Steel was not hearing of such a concept for the first time.

The Crimson Queen wasn't from this world either.

The Hanged Man confirmed the speculation in Black Steel's heart, "Indeed, he and the Crimson Queen come from the same place... Do you remember the first time we met?"

Upon hearing this, Black Steel nodded.

Of course, he remembered. Back then, he had just left the nest, carrying his hatred and resentment for this unjust world. He heard the echo from the Old Gods. At that moment, he knew he was the chosen of the gods, and his existence's purpose was to shatter the rules written by the Crimson Queen, to return the world to its original form.