Self-Destruction (Part 2)
The situation had devolved into utter bedlam, threatening to scramble my senses, but the sheer urgency of the moment snapped me awake. I screamed at Urtega at the top of my lungs.
"Father! Raise every defensive barrier we have right now! Annus is going to blow! And it's going to be massive!"
"...What are you talking about?"
"No time to explain, just hound the magicians! I'll take charge of the Holy Church! Pull every single soldier back! Otherwise, we're all dead!"
"Haaah..."
Letting out a heavy sigh, he pressed the communication artifact lodged in his ear. Having spelled it out that clearly, I trusted he would handle his end properly. I immediately whipped my head around.
"Sister Weller!"
"Wh-what?! Why?!"
"Cast your 1st Class defensive magic at maximum scale! Use the relics!"
"...Understood!"
"Cecilia! Arpe!"
"Y-yes!"
"Listening!"
"You two are the most important! Cecilia, erect a divine barrier separate from the Church's! Make it as massive as humanly possible! Arpe, buff Cecilia and the Church's forces! Ah! Can you use Forced Awakening?!"
"N-no... I used Forced Awakening just a moment ago...!"
"Can't be helped, then! We'll just have to push through! I'm trusting you! Seriously! I'm counting on you!"
"Y-yeees! I'll give it everything I have!"
I grabbed Cecilia by the shoulders and shook her violently back and forth until, overwhelmed by my sheer intensity, she shouted back with wild, flustered eyes.
"Great! Then...!"
Listening to the breathtaking, majestic resonance of Arpe's voice rising behind me, I swept my gaze across the battlefield.
"Aaaaargh! Hwaaaagh! No! Noooo! I don't want to dieeeeee!!"
Annus, who only moments ago had been screeching that she wouldn't go down alone, had finally lost her mind completely. Tears of blood streamed down her cheeks as she writhed in terror, screaming that she refused to die. Naturally, the more she panicked, the more her Authority of Death ran amok, spilling outward in every direction. But...
"...Now that I look at it, she landed in a rather exquisite spot, didn't she?"
Whether by sheer dumb luck or Susanna's deliberate aim, Annus had plummeted smack into the middle of the army conjured by Otiliv, the Demon King of Life. Consequently, our own lines suffered practically zero damage.
"Wow..."
Conversely, the grotesque abominations molded from living flesh were being reaped like dry rice stalks before a scythe. Every time the black fog surged outward with Annus at the epicenter, hundreds—sometimes thousands—of warped lives were swept away like dust. Watching them drop by the legion was a bizarre, horrifying spectacle that laid bare the terrifying cheapness of life.
"A-Annus?! Hey! What's wrong with you?! Pull yourself together! Hey! Aargh?! Your authority is running wild! You crazy bitch!"
Otiliv, recognizing Annus amidst the carnage, widened her eyes in disbelief and tried to close the distance. But the rampant Authority of Death posed an existential threat even to a Demon King; she couldn't dare draw close.
...Good. The situation itself couldn't be better.
"Aaaaaagh! Stay away! No! Don't come near meee! Don't! Don't take me awaaaay!!"
Crumble! Sift...
Seeing her limbs already disintegrating into black ash and scattering upon the wind, it was obvious this rampant surge wouldn't last forever. My tingling instincts and precognitive dread warned me that we had a few dozen seconds left at best.
"......"
"Magician Corps! Deploy the defensive spell circles!"
"Priests of the Order! We shall manifest the sacred divine arts!"
"Arpe! Please!"
"—!!"
"Phew...!"
Yet the Magician Corps' magic circles, the Church's divine wards, Saintess Cecilia's holy art bolstered by Arpe's song, and Sister Weller's relic-amplified 1st Class magic were only now beginning to take shape. There was nowhere near enough time.
"...Dammit."
So it comes to this after all. I truly didn't want to rely on this card... but I have no choice.
"...Rubias."
—I was wondering when you would finally call for me, my beloved.
"Can you slow Annus's time?"
—I can. However, it will not come without a price.
"Haaah... I knew you'd say that. What do you want?"
—Hrmmm... Let me think...
Dragging out her words as if genuinely savoring the dilemma, the eye and mouth sprouting from my left arm curved into a broad, wicked arc.
—Ah, yes. How about granting me your 'first time'?
"...What?"
The sheer absurdity of the demand made my brow furrow instantly.
—Your 'first time', of course. As far as I am aware, you have never once shared flesh with a woman since arriving in this world... I wish to claim that beginning for myself.
"...Haah."
A sigh slipped through my lips, and I pressed a hand against my temple. Glancing sideways out of the corner of my eye, I saw the women glaring in our direction with murderous expressions, looking ready to tear into her at any second.
"You've got to be kidding me. You think I'd agree to that? Demanding bed play right after a single date skips way too many steps. Is that just a demon thing?"
—You see, it seems to me that your wandering eye is entirely too severe. I feel an urgent need to properly brand you as mine.
"...Are you seriously jealous just because I rattled off Annus's past?"
—......
She fell silent at my retort, but notably made no effort to deny it.
"Just how possessive can one person get...?"
—You must remain my sole understanding confidant. You must be mine for all eternity, and you must look only upon me.
"...Never going to happen. Anyway, forget it. Name something else."
—Hmph? I hardly expected you to refuse... Are you really in any position to be picking and choosing?
"Then I'll just die."
—......
Her slit eyes narrowed into a venomous glare, but I merely smirked back, gesturing for her to make up her mind.
—Haaah... At the very least, I wish to know your reasoning. Do you despise me? Or is it simply because I am a demon?
"That's part of it, but there are also quite a few women here who would never forgive it. Morally speaking, it feels wrong on my end as well... But above all else."
—Above all else?
"If I do that, I might find myself unable to kill you later."
—...Oho? Ohooo?
The dim light in her eyes abruptly ignited with a fierce, ecstatic sparkle.
—Does that mean...? In other words...? Is that truly what you mean?
"...I'm not saying another word. Shut up and state your price already. We're out of time."
—Hahahahaha! Very well! Forget the price! My mood has improved splendidly, so I shall grant you special mercy this once!
The instant she spoke, a dense mass of something both familiar and alien tore out from my left arm.
"Khhk...?!"
A sensation so bizarre I couldn't tell if it was agony or exhaustion wracked my frame, sending violent shudders through me. Immediately after, an uncanny distortion wrapped itself around Annus.
"A... a... a... a... a...!!"
"...Phew."
Annus and the immediate perimeter around her slowed to a crawl. Decisively so. The range was tight, but with the detonation delayed, we had bought ourselves a desperate breath of air.
"...Hm?"
Yet the temporal containment looked far from stable. Every time black mist billowed from Annus's pores, fragments of the surrounding space seemed to snap back to their natural speed.
"Rubias. Why is it doing that?"
—Mmh, as expected... It seems my authority cannot entirely bring a rampant Authority of Death under total subjugation.
"You're both Demon Kings, and you can't even hold down her overflowing power?"
—It is not a matter of rank, but a divergence of conceptual natures. 'Death' is, by its very definition, a concept unbound by the flow of time. It is certainly not because my power is lacking!
"Sure, sure. Whatever you say."
I humored the Demon King's bruised pride and cut straight to the chase.
"So? What happens now?"
—...For now, I shall stall the detonation as long as possible... but I cannot maintain this for long.
"How long can you hold it?"
—One minute. That is my absolute limit.
"One minute, huh..."
I flicked my gaze rapidly between the Magician Corps, the Church, Sister Weller, and Cecilia. Going by gut feeling, Weller would finish first, followed by the Church, Cecilia, and lastly the magicians.
"Tsk, is the Magician Corps just incompetent, or is the Church's standard unusually high...?"
Barking at them wouldn't magically speed up ritual-scale spells or divine wards. All I could do was wait in nerve-shredding suspense. How long did I stand there, watching Annus convulse in slow motion?
—Ten seconds remaining, Kang Han-gil.
"...Already?"
Why does time have to fly so damn fast only when it matters most?
—Nine. Eight. Seven...
"Huff, haaah...! Multi-Dimensional Barrier...!"
With seven seconds on the clock, Weller's relic-amplified 1st Class defensive spell, Multi-Dimensional Barrier, unfurled. It wasn't large enough to cover the entirety of Therabaon, but its breadth was still breathtaking.
—Five. Four. Three...
"O Goddess! Deliver us with Your light!"
Next came the Holy Church's divine ward. Conjurated by hundreds of priests in unison, the sacred aegis flared across the wall on an overwhelming scale.
—Two.
"...The Goddess has descended, and we shall be delivered."
Immediately after, Cecilia—eyes gleaming with an unsettling divine radiance—cast her own ward. Shockingly, her personal barrier was vastly larger and far sturdier than the combined effort of the entire Church congregation.
—...It is breaking.
Fwaaaash!
The instant the temporal binding shattered, Annus snapped back to normal speed, her body disintegrating into ash at a terrifying pace.
"Aaaaaaaaargh! I won't die alone! I can't die aloooone! Come with meeeee!"
"Tsk...!"
The Magician Corps hadn't finished their cast, yet Annus had already detonated.
Fwaaaaaaaa—!
Contrary to my expectation of a volcanic eruption of black smog, Annus's self-destruction took the form of a blinding beam of black light. Compared to true light, it moved far slower, yet it was a horrifying radiance of absolute death that devoured every scrap of existence in its path.
"What...!"
The beam expanded in eerie, dead silence, sapping all color and radiance from the world. It left the chilling impression that the apocalypse had arrived. Otiliv, caught dead center, was submerged before she could even react. Weller's Multi-Dimensional Barrier, which seemed to hold for a fleeting second, shattered like fragile glass.
"Kha-kffft...!"
Vomiting a thick mouthful of blood, Weller collapsed where she stood. At the same moment, the Church's divine ward slammed directly into the ray of death.
"Hraaaaah!"
"Haaaap!"
"Aaaaaaaargh!!"
Refusing to stand idly by, Muriel, Rebecca, Cacciola, Nemeth, Wendy, Latipi, and Tsarkhella unleashed their desperate, full-powered Aura Blades, desperately shaving away fragments of the encroaching black ray.
"A-Aaaaaagh...! O-O Goddessssss...!"
"For... humanity...!"
"Guh, kffft...!"
Yet even with their combined efforts, the line barely held for a few seconds. Priests collapsed one after another, vomiting blood just like Weller, until the holy barrier melted away into nothingness. All that remained was the barrier Cecilia had raised.
"Ngh, uuuugh...!"
Snap, snap!
Capillaries in Cecilia's wide-open eyes ruptured, sending vivid crimson trails streaming down her pale face. Even so, her barrier stood far more resolute than the two that had fallen before it.
"A-Aaargh...! I-I can't... Lord Han-gil...!"
"Yeah. You did great."
"Please..."
Her lips fluttered as if trying to impart a final plea before she crumpled lifelessly to the ground. Deprived of its caster, her radiant barrier burst with a dull pop.
"Absolute Shield!"
Belatedly, the Magician Corps deployed their grand ward over the ramparts.
Sizzle! Crackle!
Yet the magicians' barrier couldn't even withstand half the duration of Cecilia's, evaporating into thin air like dry straw tossed into a furnace.
"Aaaaargh!"
"Kwaaaaargh!"
Listening to the agonizing screams of the magicians, I glared at the oncoming beam of black light. Its forward velocity had noticeably slowed. Perhaps it was just wishful thinking, but it felt as though its destructive potency had been battered down after chewing through the Church's and Cecilia's barriers.
"Phew... Yeah. Even so, we held out pretty well..."
Staring down the encroaching death, I took a short, sharp breath and ignited my power.
The Authority of the Beast God Kubel.
Hardly any of it remained after the exhausting battle against Annus... but it was still genuine divine authority. Furthermore, this entire space fell within my 'domain'. Considering Kubel's intrinsic nature of guardianship and protection, it was far better than nothing.
—It is dangerous! Kang Han-gil! I will...!
"Don't you dare do a thing, Rubias. If you're thinking of teleporting just me away to safety... I'm warning you right now, that's the absolute worst choice you could ever make."
—Khh...!
Just as I braced to meet the oncoming death ray, a colossal slash sheared through the air from behind me. Embodying an intent fierce enough to cleave open space itself, the slash carved through a section of the black light before dispersing into the ether.
"...Good work."
"Huff...! Haaah...!"
Tossing a brief acknowledgment to Urtega, who had dropped to one knee while panting raggedly, I finally stepped forward to meet the beam head-on.
Fwaaaash!
"...!!"
The moment my domain collided with the beam of death, that dreadful sensation engulfed me once more. The feeling of every single element composing my existence being snuffed out, piece by piece, from the edges inward.
"...Grrroooaaargh!!"
Like a beast backed into a corner, I expanded my authority to its absolute threshold, fighting tooth and nail against the encroachment. But my instincts screamed the truth. I couldn't win this.
"Aaaaaaaaaargh!!"
Yet even if I was doomed to die, surrender wasn't an option. I wrung out every drop of essence left in my soul, driving the authority forward.
Thump! Bang! Crack!
I could feel parts of my body bursting apart, but soon even that sensation was snuffed out, leaving only hollow, absolute death behind. Is this where it ends? Guess I'll have to do better next loop.
"...Huh?"
Right as I resigned myself and prepared to embrace death, I felt the divinity and authority within me swell anew.
"This is...?"
Feeling my fading senses roar back to life, I glanced backward. Muriel was staggering toward me, weakly extending something that shimmered with a faint, gentle radiance.
"That is...?"
"Gasp, huff...! Th-this item... was vibrating violently inside the Subspace Pouch... so I hurried to pull it out..."
With those words, Muriel's face drained completely of color, and she collapsed. She wasn't dead. She simply couldn't endure the crushing atmospheric pressure radiating from the light of death.
"...Thank you, Muriel. You just saved my life."
What she had handed me was the World Tree's Seed. I had kept it stashed away, undecided on how best to use it... I never imagined it would assert its presence of its own volition right at this critical moment.
"Right... Even if you're just a seed, you're still pure divinity, aren't you...?"
Vwoooom—!!
As if understanding my words, the seed vibrated violently and flared with an even more dazzling brilliance. In tandem with its pulse, the divine authority within me rapidly replenished, soon overflowing to aggressively push back the encroaching death.
"Huff, haah...! Alright. With this...!"
Commanding my authority with senses sharper than they had ever been, I unsheathed my claws toward the beam of light.
"Haaah, huff...!"
Not yet. Not quite.
My instincts and intuition warned me. It was still lacking. I needed to gather more.
"Huff, haaaah...!"
Holding back the ravenous black light that clawed frantically to breach my domain, I compressed my authority over several agonizing seconds.
Crack, creak!
Not in my physical flesh, but deep within my mind and soul, a terrifying sound of fracturing glass echoed.
"Khk...!"
The authority and divinity were breaking under the absurd strain. But it still wasn't enough. To eradicate this goddamned light of death once and for all, I had to wring out even more.
Snap! Shatter!
At last, the divinity and authority shattered entirely.
Gush!
Blood erupted simultaneously from my eyes, nose, and mouth, but I greedily scraped together even the broken shards of that divine authority, fusing them into the strike.
"...Now."
The moment I realized I had broken through the threshold, my claws had already swept through the air.
Slash!
The sound was surprisingly muted. But the result was utterly radiant.
"Haah, haah... Seriously, what kind of nightmare did I just go through...?"
The ray of death, which had been devouring the world like a black hole sucking in light, scattered into harmless motes. Color flooded back into a world I hadn't even realized had turned monochrome, and as the brilliant sun broke through, I collapsed flat on my rear, staring blankly up at the sky.
"That was... ridiculously hard..."
I complained aloud, but a faint smirk was already tugging at the corners of my mouth. An overwhelming sense of accomplishment washed over me, setting off bursts of dopamine like fireworks. If it were up to me, I'd pass out right here and sleep like a log... but unfortunately, that luxury was off the table.
Because Otiliv was still alive.