The False Goddess
"I'm the proof that this goddess is a fake, Lethe."
What an idiot, Lethe thought.
A necromancer who wielded the power of darkness, wrapped in divinity and clad in holy undead, standing before a wavering saintess and declaring himself the standard of faith.
He was a fool, that boy.
The power radiating from him was so grotesque that it would almost have been more believable to accept the giant as the real Deva.
And yet—like a lie, her heart had grown calm.
A human who crossed the line between priest and necromancer. For reasons unknown, the goddess had promised him that power.
Humans cannot know the goddess unless the goddess reveals herself.
It was the teaching of Professor Rahl of Efnel. Lethe's faith held that the goddess existed beyond human reason and comprehension, a being that mortal thought could never fully grasp.
But what stood there before her now was—
A god built from thoroughly human thinking. A god made to be believed in by humans.
Only then did Lethe rise to her feet.
The irony of it—a mere necromancer becoming the standard of her faith. But if that boy in the pristine white mantle fought at her side, she felt certain her faith would not waver.
"You're pushing it a little too far, you know."
She said it brusquely, refusing to admit as much outright, but the boy only smiled.
[Interesting, human.]
Ever Kire's voice thundered across the sky.
[I believed the authority to distort and manifest was granted to me alone—]
"No."
Simon raised the Greatsword of Ruin.
"My power is real. It's not distorted. It's not fabricated."
Shreeek!
He leveled the blade at the goddess's throat in the far distance.
"Don't lump me in with you. Fake."
[You dare demean me! This world is the real one, the true one! And soon it shall be so in fact as well!]
Ever Kire's ability could twist distorted events into things that had actually happened.
What they saw now was not yet reality. It was another future, branching off from reality like a fork in a road—and everyone entangled in it directly was still confined to those who had been in the stadium.
But if Ever Kire's plan came to fruition, it would reach beyond this place, affecting everyone outside as well. Roke Island would collapse, and the false goddess would descend into reality.
Before that happened—
"I'll stop it."
The battle began anew. Simon slammed his foot hard against the ground and launched himself forward.
His target: the throat of that goddess, far beyond the edge of the island.
"Simon!"
Lethe caught up with him and shouted.
"Kicking off the ground won't get you that far! Ride with me!"
"What—"
She swept her hand through the air, and a white magic circle unfolded. From within it leapt a white dragon with a sleek, sinuous body.
Ran, the primary holy beast of Lethe, a student of the Holy Beast Studies department.
"Ran!"
-Kyaaarung!
Her voice was still childish, but her body had grown considerably. Before Simon could even mount her, Ran trotted over and scooped him up onto her head.
"You've gotten so big!"
-Kyarung!
Simon stroked her head, and she preened at the attention. Lethe, settling onto Ran's tail, yelled out.
"Hold on tight!"
Whiiiiiiiiine!
The white dragon shot skyward, moving like starlight itself. The speed was staggering, the headwind blinding—Simon could barely keep his wits about him. Wherever Ran flew, a trail of pure white hung in her wake.
[Let no human challenge a god!]
As the goddess raised both arms, stars—Lethe's own authority—began to bloom around her.
Tch. Lethe clicked her tongue.
"She doesn't even have the Essence of a Saintess, and she's replicating my power, exactly as it is."
"That's not all."
Simon pointed at the ground below.
Wheat was now rising up across the whole of Roke Island. That was the authority of the Saintess of the Harvest.
"It seems that fake god can absorb every kind of power manifested through divinity and make it her own."
If that god became real—and if she devoured every white magic on the continent—
She would reign, truly, as a god.
"Spend your whole life believing in a god that ugly? Not a chance."
Lethe stretched her arm back behind her.
"I couldn't live like that."
"Right. That's why we have to bring her down. Here, and now."
The goddess's offensive began. Starlight burst and glittered all around them, and countless comets came hurtling down, trailing long tails, toward Simon, Lethe, and Ran.
"As if a stolen authority could—!"
Lethe refused to yield. She yanked her outstretched arm forward, and stars glittered as comets came streaming down from behind her this time.
The twin marches of stars, flying at each other from opposite directions, collided almost at once.
KWA-KWA-KWA-KWA-KWA-KWA-KWA!
"Ghk!"
Simon bit his lip. The light of stars colliding and detonating threatened to blind him, the rolling explosions threatened to burst his eardrums.
"Ran!"
-Kyaaarrrung!
Any star that came straight at them, unintercepted, Ran destroyed with a blast of holy breath.
"Simon! Leave the ones from above to me!"
"Got it!"
Simon gripped the Greatsword of Ruin and swung with everything he had. Each time he carved through the sky, the falling stars split in half with a sharp crack! and tumbled into the sea.
A little more. Just a little more!
He bored through the comets, closing the distance to the goddess.
But at the halfway point, the goddess more than doubled the number of flying stars.
"There are too many!"
countless stars glittered mercilessly around the goddess. Could they really punch through all of that?
"It's ready!"
But Lethe had a new card to play. She clutched in her palm a magic circle she had just woven, shaped like a constellation.
"Ready with what, exactly?!"
"Get ready to become a star!"
Lethe pressed her palm against Simon's back.
"Here we go!"
"Wha—what are you—!"
Simon's body was washed over in starlight.
And then—
─────────!
He shot forward like a comet, straight and true.
A sudden teleport.
The other stars the goddess had launched grazed past him by a hair's breadth, and the moment Simon came to his senses—
Oh!
The goddess was upon him, filling his vision. The corner of his dazed mouth finally curled upward.
"Nice!"
Flowers of light bloomed across his mind. Simon drew the divinity back in and transformed once more from priest to necromancer.
The gleaming white mantle became a mantle of dark blue shadow, and black light welled up from Pier's skull.
The core roared to life, pumping jet-black energy into every corner of his body.
His mind seethed hot, every nerve in his body stood on end, and he was optimized, completely, for battle as a necromancer.
Cutting through space itself!
Simon's body accelerated through the air.
His target: the god before his eyes.
The feel of cutting through!
Skeeeen!
Indeed, an Ancient Undead's power was at its strongest when its master was a necromancer. The blade rode down from the shoulder to the abdomen, and from the drawn line white blood fountained upward.
KEEEEYAAAAAAAAGH!
The goddess's tearing scream sounded less like a god than a monster.
[The target is far too large! Boy!]
Pier's voice blazed through Simon's mind.
[Cutting it clean through is impossible!]
But the blows are landing! Let's keep pushing!
Simon condensed jet-black energy into the Greatsword of Ruin, spun his body around, and fired it toward his rear. The expelled jet-black thrust his body forward.
TWUMM!
Simon planted his foot on the goddess's sloping abdomen. On that mountain-peak of a body, he could dimly make out the two enormous eyes gazing down at him—and Ever Kire's figure.
I WILL bring you down!
Simon stomped on the jet-black and leapt. Small comets came flying in from every direction, but he banked freely, weaving through them.
However—
She's too big!
The goddess's body was as vast as a fortress. No matter how far he ran, there wasn't the slightest sign of getting closer to her head.
[Boy! Above you!]
Simon looked up. An indescribably massive palm was descending, warping space itself as it came.
Simon instantly channeled power into his feet and sprang off the goddess's body.
FWOOOOOOSH!
A gale slammed into him, and he watched the goddess's palm sweep down across her own body.
Comets rained down toward Simon, helpless and unable to dodge in midair—
<Simon Polentia Original – Royal Guard>
—but he was ready.
Simon flung bones from his coat, and with a flash of emerald fluorescence, two skeletons' worth clamped onto his back.
<Royal Guard – Flight Mode>
Riding Cloud's propulsion, he rocketed upward and evaded the comets.
[KHAHAHAHA! Now that's a fine combination!]
Simon swung the Greatsword of Ruin again and again in midair, carving into the goddess as he climbed.
"I can do this!"
Countless sword-scores were etched into the goddess's body. Having entered a state of perfect emptiness, Simon gritted his teeth and looked up at her head.
Almost there now.
He could even see Ever Kire.
"I can—!"
GRRRRRRND!
In that instant—
Simon felt space warp, the same way it had when he first arrived here.
His body was thrown backward first, and the landscape around him stretched and sagged like dough being pulled apart.
He couldn't even react.
He had crashed into the palm the goddess swung. Simon reached out toward the goddess, receding endlessly into the distance.
I was almost—
[BOY!!]
Pier immediately wheeled around behind Simon's back, and the Royal Guard's Bone Armor, abandoning flight, clung to Simon's body in clumps to shield it.
KUUUUUUUUNG!
Simon's flung body came crashing back down onto the ruined Roke Island.
KWAAANG!
GGGDRRDRK!
CRACK!
KWADADADADADANG!
Simon's body bounced violently across the ground, bones scattering in all directions with every impact. Kicking up dirt and dust, rolling senselessly across the earth, his vision spinning and spinning—
And then Simon's consciousness cut out.
* * *
"Ah!"
Simon's eyes flew open.
A sky scorched red like blood.
And stars raining down like the end of the world, lightning striking again and again.
His vision was hazy, and the air was thick with the stench of burning.
Did we... lose?
Had the world Ever Kire made finally become reality? Had he failed to stop the tragedy?
Then, recalling the last moments before the blackout, Simon bolted upright.
No—the battle isn't over yet!
Simon spotted a white-haired girl fighting in the distance.
"HAAAAAAAH!"
Both arms raised high, she was pouring out stars in an endless stream.
And the goddess, too, was raining stars down upon Roke Island.
Across the island, wheat—the power of the Saintess of the Harvest—could be seen swaying. Divinity molded into the shape of wheat grains floated through the air, being carried toward the distant goddess.
At least Lethe's holding the line.
This was no time to be lying flat on his back.
Simon forced his trembling body upright—and with a crack, the bones supporting his waist gave way and collapsed.
Simon snapped alert and shouted.
"Pier!"
He could see Pier, the bones of his entire body strewn far and wide.
[Keheheh! Don't you worry, boy. Something like this mends itself, given time!]
Pier's skull, half-buried in the dirt, blinked its eye sockets. His voice crackled like static.
"I'm sorry, Pier! Because of me—!"
Pier chuckled.
[Forget apologies! Think about what you can do, right now!]
"......."
Simon nodded and shifted his gaze.
Pier was out of commission, and the Greatsword of Ruin was nowhere to be seen. Reality had been completely transformed—no subspace would open, and he couldn't even summon Prince.
Could he really defeat Ever Kire and the goddess like this?
KWA-KWA-KWA-KWA-BOOM!
KUUUUNG!
Lethe was being pushed back, struggling under the weight of the authority contest. The falling stars kept hammering Roke Island. At this rate, she would fall first.
What do I do? What can I—
HACK! HACK!
Just then, somewhere nearby, he heard a dry, ragged coughing.
Someone was still alive.
Simon sprinted toward the sound at once.
"Ah!"
A small girl in a black Kizen uniform, dark hair in a short bob.
It was Sasha.
"Sasha!"
She lay in the wreckage of the stadium, pinned beneath a fallen tree, coughing. Simon rushed over and raised jet-black energy to clear the wood away.
Thankfully she was wearing her Kizen uniform, and she didn't appear to be seriously injured.
"Are you okay?"
"...Ah."
But—
"Ah! Ah! Aaaaah! AaaaAAAAGH!"
Something was terribly wrong with her. Her body convulsed wildly—then shot straight up into the air.
"AAAAAAAAAH!"
From the girl who had lost consciousness, jet-black energy was erupting.
A textbook case of dark energy backflow. On top of that, her entire body was threatening to come apart. And at the tail end of the jet-black, a small stream of white vapor was flowing.
That was, without a doubt—
Divinity?
Simon's mouth fell open.
He had felt this divinity before. It was the exact divinity he had sensed from the Saintess of the Harvest.
Why does Sasha have— oh!
He understood the situation immediately. The Essence of the Saintess that had slipped free of Ever Kire's body had been drifting through this distorted world—and by sheer chance, it had chosen Sasha as its next host.
Even if there's no proper priest here, of all people it picks Sasha!
From Sasha's perspective, this was the second time an Essence of a Saintess had chosen her. Whether as a necromancer or as a priest, she was evidently a prodigious talent either way.
Simon wasn't particularly shocked. His own mother, Anna, had suffered through receiving two Essences of Saintesses in her time.
"Ghhhk—!"
Blood was pouring from the corner of Sasha's mouth. Left alone, she would die.
Just like back then.
Simon remembered the time when Sasha had run wild after accepting the Essence of the Saintess, and he had taken that essence into himself.
I'll try it.
No power of a Legion Commander available, the Royal Guard spent and gone.
With desperate sincerity, Simon grasped Sasha's hand.
"!"
Suddenly, everything around him changed.
Every sound vanished, and the world washed over in white.
A world of nothingness, empty of all things.
And right at that moment—
[Who are you?]
A woman's voice rang out, bristling with wariness.
[How did you get in here?]