novelraw Chapter 693: All In This Moment
Chapter 693: All In This Moment
Heon's aura expanded continuously, and the Law extending from it spread in all directions. Unleashing His power, He finally took the initiative to contact Elizabeth once more,
"Take the shadow of that angel down there. Your power is no longer needed here..."
"..."
Pandora's phantom plummeted in an instant. The moment Heon's terrifying golden eyes rapidly swept over Fisher before Him, and Lord Tao and Aris's throats choked up, Heon's Law had already overturned upon them, enveloping them completely.
Bizarre, oily filth began spreading from all directions, encompassing every concept within the Crevice. Although it now possessed the mass of an Authority, it weirdly did not conflict with Dagon's Authority in any way; instead, they were compatible with each other...
Heon looked at the Law extending from His body in astonishment, exclaiming in awe,
"This is something that does not exist in the universe, existing only within the Barrier. The Sea of Souls is the same... This is all because of you."
Fisher, however, didn't look at the Law extending in all directions. He merely kept his eyes dead fixed on Heon's still squirming body. After a moment of silence, he spoke softly to Lord Tao and Aris behind him,
"I can still sense the part of me inside Him. If I can make contact with Him, I might be able to use Usurping Life to eliminate my part."
He had confirmed it many times. The Demi-Human Girl Con had buried an extremely precious property inside his body. Heon had clearly realized this as well. The avatars of three deities merging into one without their Authorities repelling each other was just like how he could read multiple Completion Handbooks.In other words, as long as the part maintaining the balance could be erased, the three deities before him would collapse.
In this near-death scenario where the three divine avatars had birthed a Law and entered the Demigod rank, this was the only winning point.
Lord Tao also snapped out of her shock. Having experienced the Mythic War and seen the vast world, she recovered her wits and agreed with Fisher's plan. But a drop of cold sweat still couldn't help but slide down her forehead.
"A Demigod's rank... I'm afraid we won't even last a single exchange... You little girl, remember this well. Our lives were fought for by Fisher in the first place. If we cannot cherish them at this moment, if we don't risk our lives now, should another mistake happen, everything will truly be over."
Aris pursed her lips tightly. Reaching out, she traversed the vast distance in a single step, retrieving Karasawa Asuka's walking stick from afar and handing it to Fisher.
Heon's constantly writhing body also stabilized. His ferocious gaze entirely ignored Lord Tao and Aris, locking solely onto Fisher before Him.
"As long as I have you, what Ocean, what Dream Illusion, what Hidden... They are all dregs! I will take you away. You are mine!"
"Rumble—!!"
Heon moved in tandem with the Law. The filthy Law across the entire Crevice twisted and struggled along with His writhing form, overwhelmingly lunging toward Fisher and the other two.
The decisive battle was on the verge of outbreak.
Fisher sneered coldly, holding the walking stick horizontally before him.
"Why don't you care about your sister Hela, who was betrayed by the gods, at a time like this?!"
A spell of Dream Magic bloomed from his hands. Aris also gritted her teeth and raised a palm. The power of destiny drove space to stretch infinitely, but under the light-like speed of Heon's Demigod rank, the space was shredded by His immense power, swallowed by the Death Law.
Space was dead...
Destiny was dead...
Even deities were about to step into the grave!!
"You understand nothing! You frog in a well!!"
Heon's twisted form tore through the fractured space. The sky of the entire Crevice was covered in golden rope knots. Aris violently coughed up a mouthful of blood and shouted in a low voice,
"I can't hold on much longer!!"
The massive Dream Magic in Fisher's hand had already taken shape. Countless illusory scenes that only existed in dreams began to spread.
It wasn't that the power of Dream Magic was strong enough to contend with Heon. This was merely an inspiration that suddenly arose in him after his journey to the Spirit World.
Valentina said she saw the Scarlet Mist, which greatly puzzled Fisher.
Fighting against Heon and the other two chaos entities was already overwhelmingly difficult for them. Could it be that the Spirit World Contamination was also going to involve itself?
But before the battle began, Fisher realized that the Spirit World Contamination possessed no consciousness. It had been constantly searching for something, hence continually approaching reality...
It was searching for love.
The power of the dream expanded continuously, projecting illusory scenes through the Crevice. Fisher's memories were drawn out; the past scenes of journeying together in the Holy Sanctuary were projected into the Spirit World through the Crevice.
The image of that tender girl inscribing words on the cage of the Holy Sanctuary; the way she looked foolishly chased by Michael's Toy; her brilliant, smiling face when learning magic...
Fisher took out everything from his memories, as if announcing to the Spirit World that he was right here.
"..."
The Scarlet Mist in the Spirit World suddenly stalled at this moment. Like a flowing river, it began to change course, twisting and approaching the blue-wrapped world of the Crevice.
"Sir..."
An ethereal voice abruptly exploded in the Spirit World. But that voice was so abstract, so difficult to discern. Even so, it still caused the twelve Demigod Chaos-kin bombarding Dagon's main body in the Spirit World to tremble slightly.
It had arrived.
"Rumble—!!"
The Scarlet Mist crashed fiercely against Dagon's body. It wasn't an attack, but more of an unconscious latching on, as if an empty, lifeless pair of eyes had opened up to peer inside.
Aris and Heon were also slightly stunned, inevitably looking up at the sky at the same time.
Although that Spirit World Contamination still couldn't enter reality, the Dream Magic blooming in Fisher's hands abruptly received its influence, blooming with a scarlet color.
Gigantic, pale feminine arms bloomed like lotus flowers within Fisher's Dream Magic. There were massive ones spanning perhaps hundreds of meters, and smaller ones of just several meters or a single meter. Those densely packed arms instantly opened their palms. Under Aris's horrified gaze, they grabbed onto Fisher's afterimages inside the Dream Magic, squeezing and kneading them.
"Rumble!"
"Sir..."
"Asuka... it really is Asuka..."
Above and below the Crevice, terrifyingly pale palms interweaved up and down. Carrying massive and terrifying power, they pierced through Fisher's phantoms one by one, just like a drowning person reaching out to grab the foam on the water's surface, mistaking it for the sun or the moon, only to end up with nothing but illusions in their hands.
Watching the giant, pale arms continuously grasping at his afterimages, Fisher gritted his teeth. His eyes reddened slightly, but he couldn't allow himself to immerse in the agony Karasawa Asuka had endured waiting for ten thousand years.
He just ruthlessly manipulated the magic of the dream, projecting his afterimages toward Heon's direction.
Heon watched helplessly as those shadows rushed toward Him. The next second, giant human palms followed like a dream or an illusion, attempting to grab the shadows.
Heon scoffed coldly, controlling His Law and His rank to continuously slice apart the pale arms sprouting nearby.
"Truly worthy of Dream Illusion. Even a resonance of an Authority without a soul can have such terrifying influence."
Amidst the eruption of countless blood sprays, even more seemingly endless palms sprouted. Even with Heon's Demigod rank coupled with the Law, He was astonishingly stalled in mid-air momentarily.
But as the arms chasing Fisher's phantoms grabbed nothing time and time again, and were sliced apart by Heon time and time again, that ethereal voice still inevitably carried a trace of confusion,
"Sir... why...?"
Fisher's eyes were red, and Aris trembled all over. But he dared not hesitate, decisively roaring in anger,
"Lord Tao!! Now!!"
Lord Tao's petite body shuttled back and forth with lightning speed among the countless pale arms traversing the Crevice. From another direction, Fisher fiercely chased close behind, holding his walking stick.
"Small fry!! Die for me!!"
Lord Tao's petite arms fiercely pulled out the lone peach blossom holding her flying immortal bun behind her head. The peach blossom then grew continuously in her palm, blooming until it completely overshadowed her entire person, whereupon she gritted her teeth and hurled it at Heon.
Heon's golden pupil glanced over there. The flying peach blossom began to wither, death blooming upon its petals like an ulcer on the bone. In almost an instant, it wilted and turned to fly ash.
And this was exactly what Lord Tao intended.
In the Mythic War, exchanges between Demigods were often ever-changing in an instant. Armed with Usurping Life, she employed all kinds of sinister schemes and tricks, all merely to protect her brothers and sisters.
At this moment, seeing the peach blossom imbued with the power of destiny about to wither, Lord Tao slid all the way down stepping on a massive arm. Then, with all her might, she kicked the back of the peach blossom, using it as a shield while she dove downward.
Countless arms nearby had already grabbed hold of Heon. His twisted body struggled fiercely, carrying a massive sonic boom as He met Lord Tao head-on.
"You court death, Elf!"
Lord Tao chuckled playfully, facing that immense pressure without dodging or evading. Since they were buying time, the longer the better, of course.
"Buzz buzz buzz!"
A frantic storm stirred up by Heon shredded the pale feminine arms sprouting around them into dust. It also blew the peach blossom petals under Lord Tao's feet, which carried all her strength, into a frenzy. As the petals quivered slightly, it seemed to reveal Valentina's figure.
'Lord Tao...'
Her expression shifted slightly, her movements not stopping, but a trace of regret suddenly appeared in her heart.
'If that little Phoenix small fry loses me, she will definitely be eaten clean by that scumbag...'
'Sigh, I'm an elf who has already died once. What's the point of caring about these things?'
'I guess I'm just old, gathering a few more distracting thoughts...'
The next second, just as Lord Tao was about to clash with Heon amidst the countless pale arms, a ferocious-looking Fisher, going all out to reach Heon's back, beat Lord Tao to it, violently smashing a punch onto Heon's back.
Why was he so fast?
Lord Tao was puzzled, but overlooked one detail.
Those massive arms chasing Fisher's phantoms were already so exaggerated in their display, let alone the fact that he was the real deal. Wherever he went, those arms flew; exploiting the tremendous force of their growth, Fisher broke through the limitations of his current rank, astonishingly reaching Heon's back even faster than Lord Tao and continuously making contact with Him.
"Glug glug glug!!"
Just upon contact, the spot on Heon touched by Fisher squirmed madly.
The power of Usurping Life transmitted downwards continuously, attempting to completely erase the part of Fisher He had swallowed. Heon, naturally, also knew Fisher's intentions.
In desperation, countless strong, powerful tentacles grew uncontrollably from Heon's writhing body. In a single encounter, before Lord Tao could even react, her petite body emitted a crisp sound of fracturing bones. She let out a muffled groan, uncontrollably tumbling down along the countless pale arms beneath her.
Heon completely ignored Lord Tao, twisting and struggling as He turned His head. One massive palm tightly clamped onto Fisher, who was still behind Him.
"Urgh, ahhhhh!!"
He roared in anger, His giant palm expanding continuously until it could enclose Fisher within it, then smashed fiercely onto that pale arm.
Countless tentacles overturned upwards, locking onto the magic walking stick in his hand. Under His Demigod power, Asuka's palm could no longer maintain its shape, emitting 'crack crack crack' sounds of shattering.
The Dream Magic could no longer hold, and Fisher's phantom instantly vanished.
"Sir..."
That ethereal voice from beyond the Spirit World came to an abrupt end. The countless arms disappeared just like remnants of a passing dream, having reduced to nothingness, slowly turning into scattering ash.
"Fisher! Lord Tao!"
Aris still wanted to raise a hand to manipulate space, but the writhing Heon merely made a slight movement, pulling and twisting the surrounding space. Compared to a Demigod, Aris and the others' ranks were truly too low; they lacked any capacity to resist.
Aris herself bled from her seven orifices, clutching her head with an agonizing expression. That extreme agony made her scream out,
"Ahhhhhhh!!"
"Aris!"
Heon's golden pupil looked savage, staring deadly at Fisher pinned in His palm. He scoffed mockingly at him,
"I didn't expect that you ants at the bottom of the well would also know to borrow the power of Dream Illusion. But you probably didn't anticipate that I have merged with the power of Usurping Life. Calculated according to your time, your fragment will take an entire half hour to disappear.
"Such a long time is more than enough for me to kill you tens of thousands of times over..."
Fisher clung onto His twisted hand, meeting His placid golden eye, which seemingly contained a shining galaxy.
But with just a gentle squeeze of the Demigod's massive power, Fisher's body emitted "crack crack crack" sounds. Countless blood sprayed from Fisher's body, flowing down from his twisted fingertips.
"What a pitiful existence. You possess in vain a property that all existences in this universe would revere as a supreme treasure, yet the shell encasing it is a race whose name I have never even heard of.
"Human... Heh..."
Fisher squinted at Him, enduring the unbearable agony all over his body. Driven by that immense pressure, just as he was about to speak, trickling blood kept seeping past the corners of his mouth.
Pausing for a moment, he still stubbornly spoke,
"As a deity, you fell for the scheme of the lowliest human. Isn't that ironic, Heon?"
"Heh, human? Truly too laughable... Do you think you are such a thing?!"
Heon sneered, and then that giant arm fiercely embedded itself into Fisher's body. The power of Usurping Life activated, rapidly reverting Fisher's appearance to its original state.
His body was continuously driven by that Usurping Life power to revert, beginning to display an illusory quicksilver form. His original hands began turning into tentacles one by one, and that spreading etherealization bloomed across Fisher's body, meaning to revert him to his most original appearance.
His chest also slowly changed color. All the Completion Handbooks were external objects, save for the Demi-Human Girl Completion Handbook, which adhered tightly against his chest like his heart, continuously emitting golden light.
But Fisher struggled desperately against Usurping Life to maintain his human appearance.
"Even your self-perceived identity is fabricated, nothing but an illusion concealed by skin... You don't even know what you yourself are. Just an idiot deceived by the likes of Ramastia, deceived by your creators... Even so, you stubbornly insist on maintaining your false appearance?!"
"..."
For a long time, even after reading the Soul Completion Handbook, even after reading the Life Completion Manual, even when he finally transformed into what might be his true appearance, Fisher always believed himself to be a human.
Could it be that this human skin was some sort of noble pride? Was it a superior status lording over all other inferior demi-humans?
Could it be that this human skin was some stubborn ignorance? A meaningless facade just to deceive himself?
Or was it simply a habit, since it was the appearance he had maintained since birth?
Perhaps this was merely a deception, a scheme by the Demi-Human Girl Con and the gods to give him a sense of belonging...
Fisher panted heavily. In this very moment, the ringing of the church bells seemed to pierce through his very marrow.
"Teresa, why do I have to take your surname Benavides? It seems the other children don't bear your surname..."
"What's wrong? Are you unwilling, little Fisher?"
"I'm just curious."
Teresa smiled and rubbed the little Fisher next to her, because his appearance of stroking his chin in thought like a little adult was truly unable to keep people from laughing.
She scooped little Fisher into her arms and spoke softly,
"This is a church school. They are all orphans abandoned by their parents. They know where they came from..."
"Doesn't Teresa know where I came from?"
"Sorry, I don't know..." Teresa smiled and shook her head, simply saying, "That's why I must give you a place you came from. Giving you my surname doesn't mean you must treat me as a mother, but I just hope that in the future, you will remember where you came from."
"Is this matter that important?"
"It is..."
Teresa squeezed his little hand, stars twinkling in her eyes.
"Everyone has the same destination, which is death, but only the places they came from are different from one another. If you don't know where you came from, the rest of your life holds only that single destination. In contrast, if you know where you came from, you will often stop and look back... Every time you look back, what you see will be yourself."
Fisher seemingly understood, yet didn't. Clever as he was, he still couldn't comprehend the philosophy behind those words, merely asking,
"Then if I look back, will I also see you?"
"Mm, perhaps..." Teresa smiled slightly, asking, "Do you want to see me?"
"I do."
In Saint-Nazareth, amidst the scattering dust flying through the sky, Pandora's phantom jolted Raphaela, whose fighting was becoming increasingly arduous, away. Meanwhile, a faint golden gleam flashed before Elizabeth's eyes. As her prosthetic eye linked with Heon's vision, she simultaneously opened her mouth to ask,
"Heon, what is the situation over there... What are you doing?!!"
She froze slightly. Within her field of vision, she saw Fisher, who was conversing with Him.
Currently, Fisher was entirely coated in blood. Even though Elizabeth had told herself in her heart thousands of times that winning would unavoidably mean directly confronting Fisher and seeing him injured, her heart still nearly stopped when she saw him covered in blood while wrestling with Heon.
She lost control instantly, roaring furiously at Heon,
"What are you doing? We agreed, you just need to kill Dagon!! Don't do anything unnecessary!! What are you doing?!!"
Far away in the Crevice, Heon chuckled lightly. The two of them were connected via the prosthetic eye's Base, sharing vision and capable of conversing with each other, but Fisher couldn't hear a word Elizabeth said at all. Heon began conversing with Elizabeth within their consciousness,
"Unnecessary? I am merely showing you the essence of the individual you have always cared about..."
As the power of Usurping Life deepened bit by bit, the terrifying illusory true form on his body manifested.
That non-human body, those squirming tentacles—any of them could make a Nari human lady shriek out loud. But Elizabeth looked Fisher up and down in his current state, astonishingly still caring about his current condition,
"I don't care what he is!? I want him safe and sound! Heon! You'd better stop quickly, otherwise... Heon!!"
Elizabeth looked at Fisher in the illusory vision with bloodshot eyes. Heon completely ignored her words; instead, He pulled Fisher up straight away, nearly breaking Elizabeth's heart.
"Don't! Stop!! What are you going to do... Whatever you want to do, I'll agree to it... Just stop!! I... I beg you... I beg you..."
In the distance, Raphaela clutching her longspear was just about to advance again, only to see Elizabeth standing in place as if she had broke down, reaching out her hand towards the empty flat ground before her, speaking hysterically like this.
This caused Raphaela, who initially wanted to continue fighting, to become unable to raise her spear any further. She simply stood frozen in place. Pandora's phantom beside Elizabeth also looked up toward the sky instead of looking at her.
In the distance, the flames of war in Naris raged on. Meanwhile, in the Crevice, Heon cast a mocking glance downwards at the lower part of the Crevice, continuing to speak to Elizabeth in His mind,
"How tragic, human... You care so much about him, yet he probably treats you as the chief culprit behind all of this... He cannot hear your cries at this moment, nor will he ever know of them... He will only blame you... He will only hate you... You merely want to return to the past? He will not understand your wishful thinking.
"With him, what Ramastia, what Hela, I care for none of Them at all. I will kill Dagon right now and take him away... Heh heh, afterwards, I will help you establish a new order again... Goodbye, Elizabeth."
"No... No... No... You can't take him... You can't... You can't!!"
At this moment, Elizabeth's eyes saw only Fisher inside the Crevice. She ran emptily a few steps across the open ground below, only then remembering in her panic to control Pandora's phantom to fly up to the sky toward the Crevice and stop Heon.
Beside her, Raphaela watched her running toward her side with a vacant expression, defensively raising her spear tip.
"Eliza... beth?"
"Get lost!"
Yet Elizabeth didn't even look at her, even using her hand to push away the scorching spear tip. While her hand sizzled, her eyes remained fixed on the scene within the Crevice.
All of this happened simultaneously. In Heon's grip, it seemed that no matter how Fisher struggled, he could not stop Usurping Life from turning him into the appearance of a Chaos-kin.
Heon thought Fisher had finally accepted his fate and given up resisting. He looked at the Demi-Human Girl Completion Handbook on Fisher's chest, and just as He was about to say something, an unprecedented piercing pain surged from within Heon's body.
He stared blankly below Him, only to suddenly discover that He had been pierced through by a wooden walking stick there.
'How is this...'
He turned His head, only to see that Fisher's tentacles, which had turned phantom-like, had already entirely phased out. This was a property of the Chaos-kin, but He shouldn't have... He shouldn't have been unable to notice it...
He already possessed a Law, and was moreover a Demigod...
Unless...
He paused slightly, seeming to abruptly understand something, and lowered His head to look once again at the Demi-Human Girl Completion Handbook on His chest.
'Chaos-kin are Mythic Species. After an extensive, long passage of time, they naturally acquire extremely high ranks.'
'Then why does this Fischer Benavides before Me still need to collect Completion Handbooks to elevate his rank? And this Completion Handbook bears the aura of no other Authorities. How could it possibly have the power to help him elevate his rank?'
'Unless... this rank was originally his to begin with, but because it needed to adapt to his human body, it had to be slowly converted and given to him...'
He stared blankly down at the walking stick that had completely pierced through His body and totally extinguished the part of Fisher He had swallowed. Down below, Fisher, having accomplished all this, was slowly shifting back into his human form anew. He gave a mocking smile and said,
"I was never deceived by my true identity as a Chaos-kin. I know where I came from... On the contrary, it is you, Heon...
"You were deceived by my human identity."
Heon's golden pupil shrank slightly. In but an instant, He made a decision.
He astonishingly directly discarded the Fisher in His hand. Then, with a palm strike, He knocked out the walking stick embedded in His body. Changing course, He unleashed the entirety of His Demigod power and charged towards Dagon's direction in the sky.
"Rumble—!!"
A sonic boom rang out from the surroundings. Fisher clutched his chest and looked up at the sky, instantly understanding His intentions.
He was going to kill Dagon before the part of Fisher inside His body completely perished!!
Exactly how long it would take for Fisher's part within His body to die remained completely unknown, but even if it were only a few minutes, killing Him from inside Dagon's body was more than enough time.
Just as Ramastia had said, the only way to slay Dagon was from inside Him.
Why didn't He kill Fisher?
Because Heon truly did not know what was up with Fisher or what kind of property he possessed. In the event He killed him and the empty Authority inside him lost its vessel and dissipated, then He would be completely finished.
That was a property capable of causing the legendary Ocean to manifest in reality. If anything untoward happened, let alone losing His avatar, His true body outside the Barrier might be obliterated as well.
Thus, the most rational course of action was to first kill Dagon and erase the Crevice.
On one hand, this would finalize the deal with Dream Illusion and Elizabeth, and nicely set the stage to reckon with Ramastia and the others. On the other hand, it would also reveal this extremely precious property from Fisher to the universe.
"Ignorant ant, no matter how you impede Me, you cannot win!"
Heon's terrifying sound reverberated through the entire Crevice. Meanwhile, outside the Crevice, the twelve Demigod-tier Chaos-kin seemed to have also sensed Heon's approach. They all charged their strength, ready to unleash a full-power combined strike.
Fisher's pupils shrank. Frantically, he half-transformed into a Chaos-kin and shot upwards into the sky. Yet high up in the firmament, the powers of the Chaos-kin and Heon were already about to touch, about to detonate upon Dagon's body.
He would die!!
The Crevice would perish!!
"Buzz buzz buzz—!!"
Fisher, pursuing closely from behind, could not catch up to Heon's speed above no matter what. He could only watch helplessly as He drew ever closer to Dagon's main body.
Fisher was already completely isolated and without help...
With wide eyes, he sprinted upwards continuously. Behind him, Lord Tao and Aris had both already lost consciousness, leaving him solely to chase.
The once powerful Demigods and Mythic Species of this world had engaged in internal strife, turning into dust in history; the mighty gods of this world struggled bitterly within the Spirit World, halting before the gates of the Crevice...
The living beings fighting amongst themselves below perhaps didn't understand the realities of the situation, perhaps were still thoroughly confused, merely trembling in fear amidst the sudden war...
While he was stubborn, having no time or opportunity to convey the risks regarding all this to every lady he knew in advance.
Except at this moment, much like that afternoon many years ago when he opened the Demi-Human Girl Completion Handbook, he inadvertently learned of this impending world-ending prophecy.
Back then, times were peaceful and serene; it was as if he was the only one who knew of the extinction.
What was he thinking when he read those lines of the world-ending prophecy?
Was it a sense of heaven-ordained righteousness driving his selfless devotion to embark on the journey?
Was it knowing it might be related to several fair-skinned, beautiful demi-human races, letting lust get to his head, and thus embarking on the journey?
He didn't know, and seemingly didn't remember the concrete reasons anymore...
He only remembered that afternoon was a beautiful sunny day. Ms. Martha had made him a bowl of meat soup. Tlander invited him to go out for some fun, but after Fisher firmly rejected him, he resentfully took out a letter, saying Elizabeth requested him to deliver it.
He opened the envelope; inside were greetings constant throughout the years, reports of her triumphant return.
She mentioned scoring twelve major victories, that all was well at the borders, and the displaced civilians had returned to their lost lands.
She wrote a lot. Fisher read it for a long time, finally deciding to write an unceremonious reply.
He suddenly wanted to tell her of the world-ending prophecy he had just learned. But after long deliberation, he merely wrote a beginning before hastily concluding.
He was still not honest enough, still dodging and evasive, never speaking forthrightly.
It was like confronting the horrifying thought that after death, he would have no consciousness, returning to ash—in the moment he took up the pen, he suddenly visualized what everything would look like after all this was reduced to ashes and smoke.
When confronting Elizabeth by the sea, he truly spoke the truth; he embarked on his journey for the beautiful things he saw.
During his journey, he witnessed even more beautiful things, greedily seeking to pluck them and embrace them, thereby becoming ever firmer in his resolve.
Perhaps he was indeed selfish, perhaps nothing lofty or grand...
Only right now, watching Heon's figure about to crash before Dagon, the dread of considering that all this beauty would dissipate still engulfed his heart.
An eternal question from back then assaulted his heart: if protecting all this beauty ultimately demanded sacrifice, was he willing?
Fisher panted heavily, all scenes seemingly freezing in this transient moment.
He reached his hand out toward the sky. At this moment, everything in the world rested upon him; all safety and danger, survival or extinction, all rested in his hands...
Heon's Law had already enveloped Dagon's illusory form. Sensing Fisher falling increasingly further behind Him and the Chaos-kin closing in from outside the Crevice, His heart felt an unprecedented peace...
And Elizabeth down below, upon watching Heon release Fisher, breathed a slight sigh of relief. But watching him chasing frantically from behind, her expression remained mildly complex...
Raphaela and all the other ladies looked up towards the sky, as if sensing it in their hearts; they all realized that above them, things had reached the finale.
At this moment, the victor was already decided!
Heon's massive power was already about to flank Dagon's body alongside the Chaos-kin's power. The opponent's vulnerable interior was about to unfold under the bombardment of the Chaos-kin...
But behind Him, Fisher's hysterical, furious roar carried out from afar.
"MA...!!!!!"
That was an eccentric, single-syllable word Heon had never heard before, as if a title Fisher called out with all his might. It resonated directly throughout the entire Crevice, yet still failed to halt Heon.
'Repent, be unwilling, let everything of yours vanish into smoke...'
'Fischer Benavides...'
But the very next second, right before Heon's eyes, Dagon's already manifested body abruptly vanished, revealing the Crevice filled with scarlet mist outside. Approaching head-on were the full-power attacks of the twelve Demigod Chaos-kin.
Heon was slightly stunned, and even the attacking Chaos-kin froze altogether.
Because bizarrely, it wasn't just Dagon's body; the entire Crevice had vanished as well.
"Wh—"
"Bang—!!"
Heon couldn't comprehend the situation before Him, because in an instant, His power clashed head-on against the Chaos-kin's power, emitting a massive explosion within the void-like cosmos that could resonate through both the reality and the Spirit World.
A tremendous shockwave, resembling a crumbling galaxy, expanded in all directions. The powers of over a dozen Demigods, forced to converge on a single point due to Dagon's sudden disappearance, carried unimaginable destructive force.
"Rumble—!!"
Several Chaos-kin were critically injured, flying backwards into the Spirit World, dead or wounded. Heon's form also festered and decayed within that unparalleled, terrifying shockwave, twisting and bewilderingly falling downward towards reality alongside four or five other surviving Chaos-kin.
In bewilderment, He looked back downwards, only to see Fisher, entangled in mysterious tentacles and covered in blood with a savage expression, flying towards Him. Simultaneously, above them, the fragile Dagon and the entire Crevice instantly materialized once again.
Around Fisher, countless suction cups resembling illusory whirlpools attached to his body. Tentacles like ropes bound his form, radiating waves of mysterious, eerie ripples...
That seemed to be an aura of an Authority Heon had never encountered before.
'What is this... what is this... what is this?'
"Squish!!"
Fisher's blood-soaked figure violently filled the entirety of Heon's utterly perplexed vision. With extreme ruthlessness, Fisher stabbed the walking stick into Heon's utterly mangled body. Alongside the four or five Chaos-kin about to plummet into reality, they turned into falling stars together.
The near-collapsing Law of the incident aroused firework-like brilliance within the Crevice. But Heon cared not for all this anymore. Before His eyes was only this bloodied, battered human looking down on Him from above.
"You... how did you..."
"My body harbors the avatar of Hidden. I can communicate with Dagon's Authority, and naturally, I can communicate with Its... Unfortunately, Its position is truly far too distant, and even if utilized, it only holds a minor use. For instance... hiding Dagon and the Crevice..."
It was mentioned previously that the power of Hidden was not simple invisibility. Towards existences subjectively excluded, an individual under Hidden essentially meant "non-existent."
"You already—"
"Indeed, I've been waiting all along for you and those Chaos-kin to bombard Dagon... Without them, Dagon's Authority wouldn't be weakened; His frail true body wouldn't reveal itself internally. They are an indispensable part of your plan, and ultimately became the catalyst of your failure..."
Filled with hatred, Fisher drove the walking stick embedded in Heon's body deeper and deeper. Above, the magical light of Karasawa Asuka grew increasingly brighter, about to thoroughly shatter Heon's body.
"Now, have you remembered humans?"
"...Heh heh, but forced into a corner, you also allowed several Chaos-kin to enter reality. Now the power of the Crevice has weakened, their rank will not drop anymore. Four or five Demigods, I'd like to see how you deal with them..."
The other Chaos-kin suffered tremendous casualties in that catastrophic collision and could no longer bombard Dagon's main body from the outside, nor could they kill Dagon from within the Crevice. Even so, allowing several Demigods into reality would likely result in casualties...
Just as Fisher was about to speak, blood gushed uncontrollably from his body.
He was already heavily injured.
Yet he still stubbornly kept the walking stick piercing through Heon's body, managing to say with difficulty,
"That's still better than the Crevice being destroyed by you beasts..."
"A human, is it..."
Heon spoke no more, because this avatar of His was on the verge of turning to ash and smoke. But right before death, He still gazed at Fisher with the golden eye shared with Elizabeth,
"For the sake of other individuals, you probably..."
Fisher panted heavily, watching the magic devour Heon's body bit by bit. As he grew weaker and weaker, he only murmured,
"This is... my world-ending prophecy... I won't trouble others... to pay for it..."
"Die... for me!!"
As a violent wave of magic flashed, that light instantly swallowed the plummeting figures, leaving absolutely nothing behind.
The moment the Crevice vanished via Hidden, the sky over Saint-Nazareth instantly touched the Scarlet Mist above.
The terrifying darkness from the Spirit World instantly eroded downwards. The massive sound of seemingly exploding stars in the sky instantly attracted the gaze of every existence below... No, the gaze of every living being in this world.
Everyone watched helplessly as, following the incomparable booming noise, several meteors carrying extremely terrifying auras plummeted down towards the reality below. Instantly afterwards, the Crevice's Hidden state was disabled, covering the world once more.
"...Fisher?"
Raphaela worriedly looked at the sky, digging her longspear into the ground.
Facing the four or five terrifying meteors about to plummet down, even just their aura transmitting from above was enough to turn Raphaela's legs into jelly, uncontrollably trembling. Let alone the other weaker creatures nearby; astonishingly, a large swath of them directly collapsed to their knees with a clatter, not daring to move a muscle as they stared at the sky...
'Fisher... just what kind of enemies are you facing up there...'
Valentina also clutched her chest, the scenery in the sky in her eyes mirroring closer and closer the descent of the powerful beings in the prophecy...
"The pro... prophecy..."
"Buzz—"
After the Crevice was restored anew, those plummeting meteors abruptly halted above the sky. They turned out to be a few illusory, bizarre existences lacking even human forms, but those existences were chaotic to the extreme.
Even their mere presence was enough to make the living beings below feel uncomfortable, as if all rules were beginning to twist and gradually shatter.
Those were...
Chaos-kin.
Elizabeth stared blankly at the sky. She shared Heon's vision, and before that shared vision came to an abrupt end, the last thing she saw was Fisher's face, filled to the brim with hatred.
Heon's avatar had already scattered. His aura and the shattered Death Law He had just constructed all fell back into the prosthetic eye serving as the Base inside her body.
"Boom—"
"Living beings of this realm, you are about to taste the injustice we have tasted..."
The terrifying voices of the several Chaos-kin above echoed across the heavens and earth, further scaring the utterly weak creatures down below directly into fainting.
Elizabeth only felt in a trance; everything that just occurred was far too abrupt. So much so that she was still unable to walk out from Fisher's expression. The Chaos-kin's responses beside her ears seemed to drift further and further away. Subsequently, the entire heaven and earth seemed to quiet down, devoid of sound.
She knelt on one knee, using her sword to support herself against the ground, gasping for breath uncomfortably. But she suddenly realized that she couldn't even hear the sound of her own gasping.
"I—"
Not until she lowered her head and couldn't help but speak, did she suddenly realize this didn't seem to be a subjective illusion, because she couldn't even hear the sound of her own opening words.
Had heaven and earth in this realm truly fallen completely silent?
At this moment?
Elizabeth was slightly startled, abruptly sensing a figure appearing before her eyes.
She slowly lifted her head, only to see shining golden armor.
An indifferently standing, peerlessly graceful and beautiful, blue-haired Whale-kin had appeared before her at some point. Between heaven and earth, all sounds had stilled; every gaze was fixed on Elizabeth and the Whale-kin before her.
This Whale-kin wore a crown, lacking a cape behind her back, with only a slender whale tail swaying slightly.
Her scattered long blue hair swayed with the wind. Only then did Elizabeth stare blankly at her indifferent gaze.
This was a Whale-kin who bore a striking resemblance to Jasmine...
An existence so powerful it was beyond measure...
Elizabeth opened her mouth but couldn't utter a word. Fortunately, before that, the Whale-kin before her reached out her hand towards her and said emotionlessly,
"Sword."
Her voice was already the only one left in this world.