Chapter 74
Chapter 74
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Translator: Ebonarch
Chapter: 74
Chapter Title: Face-to-Face
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After I was neutralized, the Underground Vermin turned their attention to the other three.
Shwaaak!
"Danger!"
As another attack bore down on Lenis, Elfin hurled herself forward, embracing her and rolling away.
To unleash an assault on the level of what they'd hit me with earlier, even the Underground Vermin needed time to prepare—so this one flying at her was far weaker by comparison. But it was still more than enough to claim the lives of all three.
"Aughhh!"
The massive dark spear grazed her ankle as it passed, drawing a pained groan from Elfin.
In any normal circumstance, her ankle would have been cleanly severed. But thanks to the light power I'd bestowed on her beforehand still lingering in her limbs, it merely left her with a grievous wound instead of ripping away entirely.
"Elfin! Are you okay?!"
"I-I'm fine... Ugh!"
Having focused solely on shielding Lenis and neglected her own body, Elfin staggered under the agony before collapsing.
At this rate, we'd be too late.
I forced out a ragged breath on the verge of passing out and called to Ravi.
"Huff... Huff... Cough... Ravi, can you hear me?"
"I hear you... I hear you, Alvis! Please don't die..."
Ravi trembled violently, tears streaming down her face as she gazed at me teetering on death's door.
"Ravi... Get me... up there... Cough... To the woman up above..."
"Woman...? Ah... Who is..."
"No time—hurry...!"
"Y-Yes!"
Ravi scooped up my blood-soaked body, tears pattering down as she leaped upward.
If we stayed put like this, not just me but everyone here would die. Any sliver of hope, no matter how faint, had to be seized.
The Underground Vermin bellowed as Ravi sprang toward the woman shackled in countless chains.
"Kill them! We don't know what'll happen if they touch her!"
"Pierce them both at once!"
More colossal dark spears hurtled toward us. Elfin and Lenis shouted desperately from the ground.
"Alvis! Ravi!"
"Dodge! You'll both die!"
"Ugh..."
With no way to evade mid-air, Ravi steeled herself for death and hoisted me overhead with both arms.
She couldn't defend herself at all now, but it positioned me to reach the chained woman.
'Please... something has to happen! Anything at all!'
There was no other path out of this nightmare but this fragile thread of hope.
I silently prayed for some solution to emerge as I touched the toe of the woman bound in chains.
And the instant my fingertip met hers, my vision went blindingly white.
I stood in a vast, empty void.
No Ravi, no Elfin, no Lenis. No oppressive darkness or Underground Vermin—just pure emptiness.
The gash in my side, where the Underground Vermin had pooled their power into a dark spear that pierced clean through and obliterated half of me, had healed completely. No pain remained.
But it didn't feel like escape.
"Where... is this place? Where'd everyone go?"
『Finally, my voice has reached you.』
"!"
A crystalline voice resonated through the void, yet no speaker appeared.
Instinct told me exactly who it was.
"This is... that woman from before? No—Goddess Lunia?"
『Goddess... My creations once called me that. But now, having lost nearly all my power and plummeted to the earth, I can no longer claim that station. Still, Lunia was indeed my name.』
"So you were the one shackled in that pitch-black lair, restrained by those Underground Vermin? A goddess?"
『Embarrassingly, yes. Betrayed by those who were once my priests, faithful, and devotees, I became a tool to empower them—drained of strength day after day, exploited at their whim for millennia. Before my power could fully dissipate, I wrung out every last drop in secret, calling for aid from any who might hear, unbeknownst to the usurpers.』
"Calling for aid?"
『My plea took root across countless worlds, manifesting in forms unique to each. In yours... it seems to have bloomed as books and games.』
"...! So you made those?!"
『Not quite the full truth. I merely ensured my cry for help rippled into each world somehow. The act of creation belonged to that world's inhabitants. Yet the outcome bore my undeniable influence.』
It was like asking, "Did you make this crap game?" and hearing, "Not exactly."
『I cannot say precisely what you witnessed there. But those visions were endpoints of myriad fateful paths that might unfold in this world—inevitable conclusions awaiting all had nothing changed.』
"In other words, what would've happened if the Underground Vermin's schemes went unchecked?"
『Precisely.』
"Then why call on me? Why not just summon the Holy Warrior here?"
『After my fall, every Holy Warrior in this world was a mere phantasm. Fabrications by the betrayers and usurpers—a long con to mask their theft of my power as if the world carried on undisturbed. And the 'Holy Warrior' renowned in this age... cannot thwart their designs. Nor does he will it.』
What nonsense was this?
Brayden just sitting on his hands?
『He clings to his honor, his reputation, his public image far more fiercely than his own convictions. No direct ties to the usurpers, yet he danced to their tune like a marionette, all to safeguard his vaunted name. Every ordeal you glimpsed indirectly was a window into how the world turns from his vantage.』
"......"
The realization bordered on ridiculous.
Holy Warrior Brayden NX was a game with baffling plotlines. Players got no real agency to alter events—just dragged along preordained, idiotic rails. No wonder it drew endless flak.
It offered no solace to the beleaguered defeated heroines of the prior light novel, instead cornering them further. Situations screaming for alternatives devolved into forced fights with no choices, straight to kills.
But it wasn't shoddy design. It was Brayden himself at fault?
Tough to swallow outright, yet recalling how he'd innocently grated on Ravi back in Carrot Duchy—shattering their bond—it didn't sound entirely off-base.
『Thus, I needed one to shatter the status quo. Not a world swallowed by betrayers and usurpers, but someone intimately familiar with it, brimming with the deep affection of its denizens... One who, through fury and despair, never abandons our world to the end... The world's lifeline. My final lifeline.』
"And that's... me?"
『Countless souls across endless worlds heeded my salvation's call in their myriad guises. Walls too high to breach, frustrations unyielding to will, myriad hurdles—they all relinquished the fight. Save one. You alone refused to forsake our world.』
Well, duh. Botch a game that badly, and it tanks hard. I'd powered through anyway, clinging to some delusion it'd turn around.
『Hence, two souls exchanged places. This world's original Alvis now dwells in yours, in your former guise. As you do here.』
...Damn, that chafed. Leisurely life over there, no drama, while I'm grinding through hell here.
Least I scored Ravi, Elfin, Lenis—beauties unimaginable back home. Worth the meal ticket?
Irrelevant now.
"Tons I wanna ask, but priorities. I'm dying here. Kidnapped to the Underground Vermin hive, no exit in sight. Heard a voice, made contact—now what? Where is here? Others? Vermin? Escape route?"
『Savior from beyond... No—Alvis. That power you wield is a fragment of my divinity. Even betrayers couldn't plunder it all at once. They prolonged their spans with it, then over eons corrupted and claimed it as theirs.』
"Your point?"
『Uncorrupted remnants they lent to sham Holy Warriors—sending them to slay under banners of war, purge, pacification... Absorbing the tainted spoils, stuffing leavings back into bound me, extracting anew as whims dictated.』
"And?"
『When they repatriated the last Holy Warrior's absorbed dregs to me, I poured it all into summoning your soul—and bestowing it there. Unseen by betrayers. I became an empty husk post-ritual, but you wielded it righteously. Yours outshines their perversions in might and purity.』
"So I just fight?"
『...No. They've seized too much; you cannot face them all together. Yet our combined strength can rend a portal for egress. My dwindled might limits it to three at a time. Alvis... your choice?』
What choice? Crystal clear.
"Ravi, Elfin, Lenis first. They escape for sure, right?"
Nothing visible, yet I swear the goddess smiled.
『...Your soul shines noble and pure, as expected.』
The void dissolved. I snapped back—to the dark spear lancing for Ravi's heart.
Flash!
Blinding radiance flooded the grand cathedral.