Ouroboros

He did not stop. He did not yield a single step.

He simply kept advancing.

In a matter of mere days, he had wiped out nearly every Contamination Source. Watching him, Aria trembled in genuine awe.

His swordsmanship…

Randolph of the Five Powers.

He knew how to wield a blade. Properly. Truly.

At first he had simply cut a path of slaughter with a handful of techniques, but the moment the fighting closed to melee range, everything about him changed. His eyes. His stance. Even the rhythm of his breath. It was the pure, fundamental bearing of a true swordsman.

Even then, she had still found it hard to believe.

But once she saw the swordsmanship that followed, Aria was left speechless.

A master who has reached the realm of perfection.

Even to her eyes, his sword art had attained a true stage of mastery. Perhaps even beyond her own.

But how could a Corpse Crow swing a sword like that? No matter how far its evolution had twisted its form, its essence was still that of a Corpse Crow. Reaching a level like that demanded years upon years spent with nothing but a blade in hand.

And what he showed at the end was unmistakably…

When he felled this latest Contamination Source, energy had surged from his sword for a single instant.

Sword Qi.

No — something more refined, more perfectly shaped than mere Sword Qi. And that color, that form…

Sword… Gang.

Aria still could not believe it. Yet she had seen it with her own two eyes and locked it into memory.

Sword Gang.

As far as she knew, only one person in the entire world could scatter Sword Gang.

That human I saw at the Mountain of the Cultivator… was he not the only one after all?

But how? How could she keep encountering users of Sword Gang one after another? A wielder of Sword Gang was something most people would never see in an entire lifetime.

Then the way I mistook him for Baal…

Thinking back, the first time she had laid eyes on Randolph, his face had flickered for an instant into the likeness of Baal. Perhaps that had been the same instinct at work. Sensing a being so overwhelmingly strong and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠terrifying, her mind had projected onto him the form she feared most.

Because he was simply too powerful… she had mistaken him for the strongest existence she knew.

Ah.

Her fingers trembled finely. The tremor spread through her entire body.

Randolph. She could not see the end of him. Like a swamp. Like a bottomless pit. Like the Abyss itself.

She had never met anyone like this — a wall so absolute she felt she could neither grasp nor reach it.

And so they entered Faisalmer.

Why did he stop?

For the first time, Randolph — who had been racing forward in a frenzy — came to a halt. He stood perfectly still, staring at something in the distance.

"…I do not know who you are, but you will go no further."

At the same moment, a woman appeared, flanked by countless barbarians. The queen of the Contaminated, draped in a colossal white serpent, finally revealed herself.

When someone first began warping in and eliminating Contamination Sources, Isabella had barely reacted at all.

Faisalmer was a barren desert city. Few would bother seeking it out, and even if they did, they would pose no real threat. At most, she had assumed, they would clear a few Sources and leave.

That assumption was proven wrong in an instant.

Fast.

The speed at which the Contamination Sources were being erased. The speed at which the stranger was advancing on Faisalmer…

It went beyond mere swiftness into the realm of the impossible. Every time one Contamination Source fell, the remaining ones grew drastically stronger. The difficulty climbed with each kill. And yet that unhesitating advance — what in the world was it? Even walking an open, unobstructed road would have been slower than this.

It was too fast. Far too fast.

A Transcendent, then.

Of that much she was certain. The outsider was a Transcendent — at minimum a two-star Transcendent. The closer the darkness drew, the more certain Isabella became.

Hsssss.

Because the world-devouring serpent — Jormungandr — had begun to stir.

Why would a Transcendent of that caliber appear in a land this barren, this empty of anything worth taking? An isolated desert with almost no contact with outsiders.

Not all the Contamination Sources can be allowed to fall. Not yet.

But by the time she came to her senses, only two Contamination Sources remained. And one of them was her.

"Nnh."

A sudden spike of pain made her press her fingers to her brow. With every Contamination Source that vanished, her power swelled. In equal measure, her reason was slipping away, piece by piece. She was becoming something that was human and yet no longer human.

The reason she still could not leave Faisalmer was simple.

I cannot allow only one to remain.

These Contamination Sources that had tainted the city were no ordinary ones. When she first arrived in Faisalmer, she had witnessed the corrupted city and drawn close enough to the Contamination Sources themselves. After becoming queen of Faisalmer, she had forcibly released the other Sources in order to suppress them.

Desert Queen. I will not let things go as you intend.

She had no choice. This contamination had been set in motion by the previous Desert Queen. She had kidnapped gifted children, drained their lives, and conducted horrific experiments in a secret chamber. Every hellish fragment of that past had been part of the Desert Queen's experiments.

Because of that, Isabella had learned the fundamental cause of the contamination.

Contamination is not some sky-plague.

It had nothing to do with the endemic disease that arose when the continent lifted into the heavens. And so this experiment could never be allowed to reach completion.

Isabella rose from her seat.

And then she faced the darkness.

For the first time since the Main Quest began, a Constellation of the Hall of One Hundred Constellations had taken an interest.

The Constellation of the Brilliant Hero.

The same one that had fixed such intense attention on me back in the Demigod Trait Dungeon. It had continued to watch me since then, but this time still caught me off guard.

The fact that twenty-seven Constellations had lost their light the moment Baal of the Four Calamities was destroyed meant they, too, had paid considerable value for my story. Raising the rewards based on results was a burden in itself.

As expected, no other Constellations are showing themselves.

That every Constellation except the Brilliant Hero remained invisible was proof enough. They still had not recovered what they had spent — they had not even finished the Constellation Council.

I had fully expected none of them to appear at all.

And yet one had. Most likely it had taken an interest in my relationship with Isabella.

"Ill-omened one. Return to wherever you came from."

I was just as shocked.

…Damn it.

I had nearly blurted out, What the hell are you doing here?

When Main Quest 8 began, a map of Faisalmer had floated up before my eyes. On that map, a single point had been marked — a point representing a Contamination Source. And that point had been drawn exactly over Isabella's position.

She's contaminated.

Isabella was contaminated. The Contaminated worshipped and followed only Contamination Sources. But Isabella was a little different from the others.

No transformation has taken place. Instead…

In place of a transformation, a white serpent coiled around her. That was a Mystery — and yet not a Mystery.

A Transcendent's Star. And a fully materialized Named Star at that.

It was almost unheard of for a Star to materialize so clearly. Only certain Named Stars did so — and those possessed abilities on an entirely different level from ordinary Stars.

Jormungandr. The world-devouring serpent was a Star that had never appeared even once before. What kind of power it had granted Isabella, I could not know.

Still.

"Isabella, caw."

"…?"

"What are you doing here, caw?"

"…………?"

For a split second, Isabella's expression froze solid. That voice flowing from the ill-omened creature before her ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠— she could not possibly mistake that distinctive, coiling caw. Only one being in the entire world made that sound.

But the ominous thing standing before her now was no Corpse Crow.

That was…

Ah.

Isabella barely managed to steady her reeling body. Her head ached. It felt ready to split open. It would not have been strange if she lost consciousness on the spot.

…And watching her like that, I furrowed my brow.

The contamination's influence, I suppose.

The fact that she was still holding on to her mind even after becoming a Contamination Source herself was impressive enough. At any rate, the fact that she had reacted to my words meant she still remembered me.

"Isabella. I asked why you haven't come back — why you're still here, caw."

"…Silence, fiend of the Empire."

Isabella's pupils blew wide. This ill-omened thing was an evil spirit the Empire had sent to eliminate her. It was clearly trying to mimic someone, weaving false words to lure her in.

Shraaak!

A pure white whip was already in Isabella's hand. She ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠cracked the whip, its surface sheathed in serpent scales.

Hssss!

Before I could even dodge, my body was bound.

Forced Binding!

A skill that forcibly restrained its target across space itself. My entire body began to constrict as if a serpent were coiling around me.

…Something that had never existed before had come into being. And given that the Giant's Magic Resistance had not even triggered, this was clearly an ability Isabella had gained upon transcending.

Shraak!

She cracked the whip a second time, and the pressure felt ready to burst my body apart.

It was not a simple restraint — the effect intensified with each stack. And what exactly "Jormungandr will devour you" meant, I had no idea.

An instant-death effect?

Well, being eaten was hardly going to leave me unharmed. I could not just stand here and take it.

Jormungandr is a divine serpent. Using Darkness Transformation would be suicide.

So what then?

There was one last option left to me.

Shraak!

…I was going to lose my mind.

It even suppressed Domain Skills. What kind of broken ability was this? Ordinary methods clearly would not break this binding.

At least five seconds. The binding weakens right before she cracks the whip.

But three bindings had taught me something. There was a timing when the restraint loosened. She had to keep cracking the whip every five seconds to maintain it.

I counted exactly five seconds — and struck before the next crack of the whip.

Crack!

I did not miss the moment the binding went slack. I cut through the serpent coiled around my body. That should have stopped the stacks from—

Shraak!

I broke free of the bound position and lunged through the air to strike at Isabella—

…and found myself bound in midair. The stack effect carried over intact.

Annoying.

So the stacks were not tied to the location of the binding, but to the binding itself? This was more troublesome than I had expected. Especially in a one-on-one fight.

Ordinarily, abilities of a Star could only be countered by another Star's ability — or by something that overwhelmed even that.

I just have to stop her from cracking the whip.

It was an overwhelmingly powerful binding, but from what I could tell, its range was short. If it had long range, she would never have needed to show herself in front of me at all. And it seemed the stacks and the binding only applied when she actually cracked the whip.

So again — five seconds.

Whoosh!

I burst forward in an instant and swung the Northern Sky Ice Sword at Isabella's head. The incoming whip collided with the Northern Sky Ice Sword, and I stopped the crack cold.

That should have prevented the final stack.

"…Fool."

…And yet the binding activated even though she had not fully cracked the whip.

Had the act of swinging the whip been a feint from the very beginning? The original Isabella would never have used a fake like that. She had clearly learned it from watching me fight at her side.

…Not bad.

In the end, the fifth and final stack landed.

Sssssssss.

In an instant, the whip transformed into a colossal serpent.

Kyaaaaaah!

The serpent opened its jaws, bared its venomous fangs, and lunged to swallow me whole. Looking down at me — bound and reduced to prey — Isabella spoke with eyes empty of all emotion.

"Be devoured by Jormungandr and die, fiend of the Empire… Ah—!"

Isabella's movement stopped. And with it, so did Jormungandr's.

…Whew.

I let out a quiet breath of relief. At least I had made contact.

Contact alone was enough to plunge an opponent into a state of Darkness. A wielder of Darkness Skills was always in a state of Darkness — and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠so I could forcibly open the Eye of Dreadful Omen.

With its master unable to move, Jormungandr could not move either.

Hm?

Jormungandr was right in front of me. It had not swallowed me yet. So why had that message appeared?

I understood the reason a moment later.

Crrrrack!

…Jormungandr had not swallowed me. It had swallowed Isabella, who had been standing right beside it.

Sssssssssss!

The binding of the Eye of Dreadful Omen shattered, and Jormungandr went berserk.

What the hell is that?

I was genuinely thrown. That was a real Star? Named Stars were all grotesque in their own ways, but I had never seen one like this.

A Star that swallowed its own master and moved on its own!

Kyaaaaaah!