manynovel Chapter 642: Episode 642
Chapter 642: Episode 642
The boy had slain a living god.
Faded, matted hair drifted through the air, followed by the colossal head as it crashed into the sea. Simon hovered in the sky, empowered by the Holy Vestments, watching the scene with a calm detachment. All that remained was the goddess’s upper body, standing vacant, the raw, red stump of her neck exposed to the sky.
[Ha...!]
Ever Kire clawed at her own face.
[Kekekekekeke! Kekeke! Heu, ha! Hahahahahahaha!]
She threw her head back, her body convulsing with mad laughter. She was utterly unhinged.
"The god is dead," Simon stated, his voice sharp as a razor’s edge. "Now, only you are left."
[The god is dead?] Ever Kire’s neck creaked as she turned to face him. [Nonsense. Nonsense. Nonsense. Nonsense!]
She spread her arms wide.
[You should have realized when you cut my throat! A god is not a living thing! Do not dare to define a god by the standards of mortal beings!]
A blinding radiance erupted from her body once more. Blood streamed from her eyes, nose, and mouth.
[My god!] she prayed, trying to will the deity back to life.
He couldn’t allow that. Simon lowered his stance, preparing to launch himself forward, when—
Space distorted with a faint ’whoosh’, and the goddess’s massive hand flew at him from his blind spot. He reacted with animalistic instinct, raising the scythe to block, but he couldn’t negate the overwhelming force of the blow.
’Kgggh!’
He was sent hurtling back toward Roc Island. Space seemed to stretch into infinity before his feet finally touched down, carving long scars into the earth.
The surrounding wheat rose as if alive with a low rumble, bracing his back to stop his momentum.
’Tch, how far was I thrown?’
A cold sweat broke out on his brow as he looked ahead. In the distance, the headless goddess was moving, its limbs flailing sluggishly. It slowly raised its arms, its hands patting the space where its neck had been severed. The frantic, searching movements were filled with the bewilderment of something missing what should have been there.
And then...
’────────────!’
The headless goddess wailed. It was a bizarre, unholy sound, like air being expelled directly from its throat, bypassing vocal cords and mouth entirely. White lightning tore across the sky, and the sea churned into a violent frenzy.
[Please, just wait a moment! My goddess!] Ever Kire cried, descending and burrowing into the hollowed-out neck of the goddess. [I, who was once a part of you, will now return to your embrace!]
---
Simon bit his lip. He desperately wanted to fly toward the goddess again, but...
’...This is bad.’
A searing agony flooded his senses. It felt as if every muscle in his body was twisting and tearing itself apart.
The residual Essence of Purification within him was clashing with the power of the Essence of Harvest, triggering a violent backlash.
"Kuh!"
Clear blood trickled from his lips. This was dangerous. At any moment, the divinity could run rampant and tear his body apart.
"Simon!" Lethe cried, rushing to his side. "What’s wrong?!"
"Bring the Saintess of Harvest here!" he shouted, sweat pouring down his face.
"What?"
"Quickly! Please!"
Without another question, Lethe spread her authority, sensing for the Saintess’s divinity. She had Ran bring the unconscious woman over.
"Are you alright? What’s happening?!" Lethe asked, panicked, as she knelt beside him.
With hollow eyes, Simon’s mind raced. ’How can I send the Essence of Harvest back?’ There was no time to replicate the essence-removal surgery his mother had undergone, and he couldn’t recall the procedure clearly anyway. However...
’Just as I received the essence, giving it back should be...!’
He slowly reached out and took the Saintess of Harvest’s hand. The moment he did...
’Huh!’
The world dissolved into white.
[Oh, thank you! You kept your promise!]
The Essence of Harvest he had met before was there, smiling. The pain and dizziness began to recede rapidly. This was his deal with her: borrow her power to fight, and then return her to her original host. Simon had no reason to refuse; the backlash meant he couldn’t maintain her power any longer. If he kept the essence, he would die.
[Ah, and one more thing,] she said, pointing behind him.
Simon turned. Two white thrones stood there. One was sculpted with flames, the other with grass and trees.
[I realized it after entering your body, but it was no coincidence that you possess the ’qualification’.]
"...Qualification."
[That’s right. If you continue to collect the remaining seats one by one. And if the seven thrones gather at your feet...]
As his vision blurred, he saw the corners of her mouth curl into a chilling smile.
[I can’t wait to see what happens, O first and only Holy Child.]
---
Simon gasped as his eyes flew open. His hair, once stark white, had already reverted to its usual shade of black, and his eyes were back to normal. As he willed his racing heart to slow, letting out a ragged breath, he found Lethe’s face inches from his. She looked even more startled than he felt, clutching his hand with her shoulders hunched.
"Y-You gave me a fright, you did!" she exclaimed.
"Huh...?"
He wondered why she was so flustered—it was so unlike her—but then a sharp sting registered on his cheek. Simon touched the spot, his eyes narrowing.
"Did you just hit me?"
Her face flushed a deep crimson.
"W-Well, what was I to do! You closed your eyes and simply wouldn’t wake, yes!"
’A Saintess, of all people, resorting to slapping a patient instead of healing them,’ he mused. A small laugh escaped him as he pushed himself up. His body felt significantly lighter, as if the essence of the harvest had been purged from his system.
"Where’s Ever Kire?" he asked.
"Over there."
Lethe pointed toward the sea, where the decapitated goddess was radiating an overwhelming aura of divinity.
"Her fusion with the goddess is almost complete. She’ll attack any second now."
The ground began to tremble violently. As if on cue, the goddess unleashed Lethe’s authority. Her massive form dissolved into starlight, shot into the air, and then plummeted at the speed of light toward the center of Roc Island.
Lethe threw up a divine barrier just in time. The entirety of Roc Island buckled under the impact with a deafening crash, great fissures spiderwebbing across its surface as entire chunks broke off and plunged into the churning sea.
[Ahhh—]
Ever Kire’s voice echoed across the devastation. The upper body of the decapitated goddess had fused with the very bedrock of Roc Island, becoming a permanent, horrifying fixture of the landscape. She was just as massive as before, her torso towering over the island’s highest peaks. Her arms were so unnaturally long that if she spread them, they could span the island from end to end.
[O, you who wield the same omnipotent power as I!]
Then, upon the goddess’s chest, Ever Kire’s face materialized.
[It was a mistake to sever the goddess’s neck with the power of divinity!]
The goddess raised both arms to the sky, divinity swirling in her palms. The energy solidified, slowly taking the form of the colossal scythe Simon had used to decapitate her.
[Hahahaha! This power! This is it! With this power, the world is mine!]
As the scythe grew ever larger, Ever Kire’s laughter descended into pure madness.
[From this day forward, all humans born on this continent shall serve and worship the decapitated god for eternity!]
The sculptures scattered across Roc Island began to contort. Pillars and statues twisted into grotesque parodies of the goddess raising her scythe. The new law she had decreed was rewriting reality itself.
Watching the goddess slowly forge her weapon, Lethe’s mouth fell open in utter despair.
"What do we do now......"
"Don’t worry," Simon said, a surprising confidence in his voice as he got to his feet.
[Hahahahahaha! Hm?]
Even Ever Kire noticed the anomaly. The shape of the scythe refused to solidify, its form shifting and wavering.
The scythe’s form warped endlessly, cracking as if plagued by a critical error.
[Kugh!]
The goddess’s vast divinity was being siphoned directly into the weapon, but it wasn’t enough. Her wrists began to merge with the scythe, and now the cursed object was trying to absorb her entire body.
[H-How is this happening!]
Ever Kire had wished to create a perfect, exact copy of the ’Scythe of Demise’ Simon had wielded.
However, that feat was, without a doubt...
[Aaaaaaaargh!]
...beyond her ability.
The goddess’s body was being devoured by the very weapon she sought to create, a weapon that was now growing larger than her own form. But a wish, once made, could not be unmade. To fulfill its command, the wish endlessly attempted to sculpt the impossible form of the scythe, sacrificing Ever Kire and the goddess’s power in the process.
A god was destroying itself.
’...What in the world?’ Lethe stared at Simon, dumbfounded. ’What did he just create? That was definitely not a Saintess’s technique.’
"Lethe," Simon called.
"Ah, yes."
"This is our chance."
The world around them began to peel away like dead skin, falling to the ground in brittle fragments. It was a sign of total disintegration. Beyond Ever Kire’s self-destruction, her innate ability itself was wavering for some unknown reason.
Simon held out his hand.
"We have to strike now, before she gets this under control."
Lethe took his hand and pulled herself to her feet.
"What’s the plan? It looks like the Saintess’s power has left you, too. My divinity won’t work on her."
Simon grinned.
"I have an idea."
Without another word, they advanced on the rampaging goddess. Simon had become a necromancer once more. He slowly conjured a sphere of Jet-Black in his right hand while his left, now encased in the bones of Pier he had recovered, gripped the Greatsword of Ruin. Lethe, in turn, gathered the authority of a Saintess, conjuring a matching sphere of divinity in her left hand.
They broke into a sprint simultaneously, the orbs of Jet-Black and divinity in their hands swelling with power.
"Are you sure this will work?" Lethe yelled over the din.
"It has to!" Simon shot back. "Not unless the people of the continent want to start worshipping a decapitated goddess!"
"And not unless you want your precious Roc Island annihilated!"
As they closed the distance, their speed increased. Ever Kire, still wrestling with the creation of her scythe, seemed completely oblivious to their approach.
Simon angled his right hand toward Lethe’s left. The spheres of Jet-Black and divinity crackled violently as they brushed against each other. In perfect sync, they leaped into the air.
"HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" they roared in unison.
Pressing the two volatile energies together, they hurled the coalescing mass. The two powers, spinning furiously around their point of contact, shot toward the goddess.
But it wasn’t over. Simon raised the Greatsword of Ruin. Its surface was covered in his own blood-flow magic circles—a technique for ’blood storage’ he’d learned in his Hemodynamics class. It was saturated with his ’SM-1’ blood, a key ingredient for Chaos.
"Here I go!" Lethe shouted from mid-air, gathering the power of the stars and channeling it into the greatsword’s hilt.
The power of gravity.
Using it as propulsion, Simon let out a tremendous roar and flung the Greatsword of Ruin.
Wreathed in starlight, the greatsword flew like a meteor, leaving a brilliant tail in its wake. It plunged with perfect accuracy into the space between the spheres of divinity and Jet-Black.
As Simon’s blood was unleashed between the two opposing forces, a violent, purplish spark erupted.
Simon and Lethe tumbled to the ground in a heap. Spitting out a mouthful of dirt, Simon scrambled to raise his head.
"Please!" he yelled.
"Hit her!" Lethe screamed.
The violet light centered on the greatsword intensified, expanding rapidly. Ever Kire, who had been struggling to free herself from the scythe, finally sensed the attack and whirled around.
[This insignificant thing!]
She made a wish for it to stop. In her world, any attack could be halted with a simple thought, but...
[?!]
It didn’t work.
The power of Chaos bore down on her, dyeing the world a sickening shade of purple.
[What in the...!]
The Scythe of Demise, this purple energy—neither could be stopped, not even by the authority that could create a god.
[Just what in the world are—!]
The power of Chaos tore through the goddess, a series of sharp cracks echoing as her form fractured.
And at last, she began to crumble.
’We... we did it.’
A relieved smile spread across Simon’s face as he collapsed to the ground.
Finally.
The false world began to disintegrate completely. Everything Ever Kire had distorted was snapping back into place.
The statues of the decapitated goddess reverted to pillars and buildings. The crushed fragments of the stadium reassembled themselves, and Roc Island settled back upon the sea.
The goddess’s long arms reached for the sky, still fused to the Scythe of Demise she had never managed to complete.
Her body was vanishing.
The moment he opened his eyes again...
"Ah!"
The familiar sight of the empty stadium, as it was before the distortion, slowly swam into view.