The Ends of the World.
Lands of primordial storms and ice that have never been fully explored due to such harsh environment.
As their name implies, they are located at the 'end' of the world in both the north and south, its poles.
It is rumored that a certain Dragon Lord was born in one of these lands and was found there by one of the very few beings powerful enough to explore it.
But that is not the rumor nor legend that matters now.
No...
There is one far more important than that, for those merciless lands are the place where the Tower stands.
Be it in the north.
Be it in the south.
The Tower has always been there.
Both reaching at the heavens and piercing right through the deepest of depths.
Its existence is mentioned in the Holy Scriptures of the Nerinnus Church and in some of the world's legends from the Legendary Age.
It is a place like none other in Arte.
Whereas most of the world and its very countries follow the way of love and warmth, even if it is in their own ways, there is none of that there.
Not in its dead design, nor in what lies inside.
And that is...a dungeon.
Yes, a dungeon of insurmountable size and form, which defies the mind far beyond the breaking point.
A dungeon of infinite traps that more than that, are the divine machinations of the Goddess, capable of taking multiple forms just to stop whoever dared to enter.
A dungeon of an endless number of guardians, all ready and willing to die over and over again to keep that which is trapped inside from ever being freed or...breaking free.
Indeed, as they are not just guardians, they are jailkeepers, for the Tower is a prison made by the Goddess of Arte and its purpose is...the incarceration of the greatest transgressors in the history of the world.
It is there that the one who dared to try and take over her world is sealed.
The one who was so close to killing her.
The worst transgressor of all.
The Evil God.
They dared to defy the Divine Law set by the Divine Council and invaded the world of another God, or in this case, Goddess.
Doing so, not only invited chaos and death upon her world.
It invited war.
War like none other.
A war among Gods.
And to take the world from the Goddess' hands, the Evil God deployed their Emissaries, twisted beings made on their image with only one purpose, to spread their unholy gospel, their...'Words' throughout the lands of Arte.
The more they spread, the more the Evil God became anchored to Arte, and sadly...there were many.
Words of sickness and hunger.
Words of blood and wrath.
Words of nightmares and suffering.
Words of corruption and pain.
Words of death and unrest.
Words of powerlessness and hopelessness.
Words of...hate.
And while its Emissaries besieged the world with them, the Evil God set their sights in corrupting the very heart of the world itself.
The composite core of the planet.
One both magical and physical.
If the Evil God had accomplished such act of defilement, then all would have been lost.
The Goddess would have lost her world and her life, for without the former there would have been no chance for her to avoid being consumed by the Evil God.
Such brutality was to be expected of Gods, as they are beings who do battle not only in the physical plane, but also the ontological one where the battlefield is one of 'being' and where the one with the strongest 'self' is victorious, either absorbing the loser or turning them into nothing.
The reason as to why the Goddess' fate would have been such a grim one was simple, she was and still is, a Young Goddess, and the one she was facing was anything but that, they were an Old God.
The scope of their powers is simply too different.
Young Gods, for the most part, are limited to their 'sphere', to their 'jurisdiction', they can see everything inside such 'territory' of theirs...as long as it is theirs, that is, for anything that is of an Old God would prove difficult to see with their powers, even if it is inside such 'realm'.
Of course, there are exceptions and ways the Young Gods can use to see such things, the simplest one being focusing their godly sight after being informed of the location of it, like a certain Goddess has done before.
But even then...that is a testament to the power that the Old Gods hold.
And make no mistake, they are powerful.
Truly and almost absolutely.
Regardless of their powers being essentially the same as those of those of the Young Gods, for as previously stated, the scope at which they exert them is different, and in the case of the Old Gods, it is much, much greater.
Firstly, Old Gods are not limited to their own 'realms', their own 'spheres', they can see into the realms of others with as much ease as they would with within their own 'jurisdiction'.
Secondly, not only can they interfere with those 'territories', but they can also descend upon them, even if there are some conditions.
Just like the Evil God did.
All so that they could take Arte from the hands of a Goddess they had deemed beneath them, imperfect, naïve, and more, and then crush it in front of her broken self before consuming her.
Still, let us remember that a war consists of two sides and the Goddess was not going to stand idly by while her beloved world was taken from her.
Oh no.
Of course, she was not going to do that.
So, she raised her voice and called out to all of her created, her children so to say, in what was both a cry for help and a call to arms, a call to fight beside her.
And they all answered, loudly.
They offered their very best and those beyond that.
They offered their young and their old.
Their strength and their wits.
Their power and their creations.
Their faith and their hope.
Their love.
They offered it all to the one that had never ignored them, to the one that was always there with them.
They offered it all and more...to her.
And before such response, she was nothing but moved, so much so that she shed tears of joy and had no second thoughts about giving strands of her holy hair to arm those brave enough to face the Emissaries, those with a will so strong that it would burn forever.
Ah, but that was not everything she did, as she also used her blessings to arm those who led the young and old nations of that era, empowering them in ways that would enable their people to put up a fight against the Evil God's hordes of monsters.
And lastly, she used her voice to guide the one that represented her in Arte, making sure that her will was transmitted as clearly as possible from then on.
A will that told everyone what was needed to win such godly war.
Something that lied in the most important of the conditions that an Old God needed to fulfill to descend and remain on a world that was not their own.
Such condition was that an Old God needs something to anchor them to that world, be it an artifact, living beings, or something else like their Gospel, and in the case of the Evil God those anchors were his Emissaries and their 'words'.
Thus, if the Goddess and her people were to win, they needed to destroy such anchors, as that would weaken both the Evil God's presence in the world and the Evil God themself to a point where they could be defeated.
And that became the plan.
A simple, yet risky one, for the odds were already stacked against a Young Goddess like herself, let alone her people.
But she and her people still went through with that plan, raising their weapons against those very odds and coming out on top.
Indeed, they did.
For her Knights, accompanied by the armies of all nations, dared to look at the tapestry of fate and how it showed the supposed end of their world, and they...set it on fire with their will alight.
The battles were bloody, terrifying, and sometimes they pushed everyone to the brink of madness as the Emissaries brought forth calamities upon calamities with ease.
Yet...the flame in the hearts of those fighting never wavered and instead they lunged into such abyss, bringing down Emissary after Emissary.
Be it sealed or slain, none escaped such Knights.
They did not let them.
Regardless of the cost being their own death or something much, much worse.
And every time one of the Knights fell, the Goddess wept in silence as she fought, sadness, frustration and pain filling her heart.
Meanwhile, every time one of the Emissaries fell, the Evil God was subjected to such backlash of energies that it made them twist and wail in true pain, all as their strength and presence weakened with each broken anchor.
Something that the Goddess wasted no time in taking advantage of, making the physical side of their godly battle turn from one-sided to evenly matched.
Of course, such battle was still of titanic proportions, as the battling gods traversed the world in flight like blue-white and black comets, clashing and colliding with each other before taking the fight to the oceans.
There, they tried to drown the other in what seemed to be never ending waters and perilous depths, yet none let out their last breath in that watery abyss.
Instead, their fight continued until they took themselves out of the oceans and into the land, where divine armaments were called and used to try and cut each other open in a battle that defied the imagination.
Mountains fell and were born anew as either of them were thrown into and through them by the other.
Canyons were formed and abruptly closed as they tried to crush one another.
Space itself was cracked open by the sheer weight of the magical energies they exerted against each other.
And more, so much more.
Yet, even amongst all the destruction and chaos that her battle with the Evil God brought, the Goddess protected every single one of her people, teleporting those in the vicinity of her fighting to safety, not caring one bit about how much would she bleed by focusing on that rather than the Evil God's attacks.
And bled she did, for she received many attacks while doing so.
But again, she did not care.
After all, she was fighting for her people, and no amount of pain would stop her from helping them.
Of course, it was not as if the Goddess did not pay back the Evil God for such attacks and soon enough, it was not just her who was full of injuries.
Indeed, for as the battle raged on, the Evil God found themselves bleeding profusely, their divine blood seeping into the ground they stood on, just like her.
That enraged them.
That made them even more brutal in their attacks.
Unleashing curses and more upon the world to try and make the Goddess waver.
But she did not.
She stood her ground.
And she fought the Evil God into a deadlock they could not break through, no matter how hard they tried.
Then, as the breathing of both gods became ragged and their legs started to shake, it happened.
The last of the Emissaries fell.
The unrestful one was put to rest.
Thus, there were no more anchors left.
And the backlash from that made the Evil God experience a kind of suffering that was completely and utterly incomparable with everything they had felt before.
It is said that the wails they let out that day were able to be heard all over the world and that their echoes still linger in the deepest of caves and canyons.
Finally, the Evil God's defeat was at hand...but it did not come in the way an epic would desire.
No, it was not a defeat through death at the hands of the Goddess.
Because sadly, the Goddess had sustained terrible, weakening injuries in the battle too and she did not have the strength to slay an Old God like the Evil God, even if they were already in a truly weakened state.
That is why she instead did as some of her Knights and sealed the Evil God in the only place that could contain them.
The Tower.
There the will of the Goddess is focused and given form.
There even the power of the Divine Law reinforces the seal that binds them.
There...nothing is supposed to get in.
Not even the dying screams of Akramax, Emissary of Sickness and Hunger.
Even more so since they were coming from another space altogether, a...mirror one.
But get in they did.
And the Evil God stirred from the pain that their death brought upon them, lashing out in a half-awoken state for the same number of days that it took for many events to happen in the world outside of the Tower.
Like a certain colorful battle, a feast that welcomed a miracle, and a meeting that served as the first step to a nation's birth.
Fortunately, the power the Evil God exerted upon the seal was not enough to break it.
Unfortunately, it was enough to make a crack on it, and through it a side of them, an Aspect of them, oozed its way out.
The Aspect from which Akramax drew his power.
The Aspect of Sickness and Hunger, Languor.
Its form was not a humanoid one but that of a black ooze, one that was almost like miasma but in a liquid state.
Still, it knew that it needed to hurry and reshape itself before it was too late.
Before the Goddess who trapped its Whole was aware of its escape.
But of course, said Goddess' gaze had never left the Tower in the first place.
________________________________
"...!"
Hmm?
Dear, I hate to say this but something very bothersome has come up.
Really?
Yes...
Aww...and right when we're watching our girls and Sylvie taking classes from Mika and Josie...
Now that's bad timing...
I know...! Mouu! That annoying, lazy, evil idiot!! They are getting in the way of me taking more photos of my girls in class!!
Annoying, lazy, evil idiot...
Ah, the Evil God.
Well...it is about time he did something.
After all, isekai law tends to act like that.
Then I want to beat up the idiot who wrote that law! They should learn not to be so inopportune!
Haa...but there is no use in crying over spilt mil now, I suppose...
I must go.
Do you want me to go with you, darling?
I can mobilize the Maid-Knights too if you want.
No, dear, there's no need for that. It is only a small problem; I can deal with it on my own. I do want to ask something of you though.
Anything.
Fufufu~~, I knew you would say that. Can you cast [Dress for Heaven] on me once again?
Of course.
Let's just go to our room to do it. That way we will not worry anyone.
But first...
I have to say goodbye to my girls, yes, and I already did, dear.
...right, telepathy?
No, dummy. I just waved at them.
Ah.
"Fufufu~~~."
Following that lovable giggle and me waving goodbye to everyone too, we leave for our room where I cast [Dress for Heaven] on Nerinne.
Still...the Evil God...
"Don't worry, Auros. I will be alright. I promise."
"I know...even my instinct tells me that but..."
"...you can't help but feel worried?"
"Yes...I feel that even if you will be alright, it will not be ok..."
Man, I am starting to sound like a certain protagonist...
"No, no, don't think that. I understand. So, how about this? If there is even the smallest sign of things not going well, I will call you to my side, Auros. I swear it on my name."
Grrr...
"...what a convenient way to make me not follow you without permission in a cliché way. Fine..."
"Fufufu~~, it is a promise then."
With that, we kiss as we embrace each other tightly for a moment before letting go and exchanging gazes, her confident golden eyes trying to reassure me, just like her smile.
She then places her hand on my left cheek and...
" I will be back shortly."
...says that before disappearing.
There was no chant.
There was no spell.
She has just teleported as naturally as it would be for a Goddess.
"Evil God...if you dare to harm even a strand of her hair...I will truly turn into a Nightmare...your Nightmare."
Come back safely, my heroine.
____________________________________________
It was instantaneous.
One moment she was in the castle with her beloved, the next she was in the Tower.
Specifically, she appeared in the room outside of the Evil God's sealing chamber, right where the cracked seal was.
And most importantly, she appeared right as the now free Aspect of the Evil God began to take a more humanoid form.
Not only that, but she was right in front of it and was wearing an outfit that belonged to a character her Soul Partner liked.
But why did she change her clothes to that?
The answer was simple.
Clothes of such obvious mortal design would only anger the Aspect.
And she knew that.
That is why she was wearing them.
"YoU...NErinNe...nAïVe RoSe...lowly...Goddess!"
Proving her right, Languor slowly formed a mouth and wasted no time to express their anger towards Nerinne in the divine tongue, all while their mass began to increase and flow upwards, almost like a black fountain, stopping at a height that matched Nerinne's.
Then, their form began to change into that of a humanoid, with their ooze-like body turning into skin, hair, and everything else as they continued to vilify the Goddess.
"YoU fILthy...thing! You dare appear before me reeking of cattle?! Of mortal?! Is there no remaining trace of respect for your position in that empty head of yours?!"
However, that was not all, for their pitch also changed, going from a deep and distorted, guttural one, to a clear, female one, which matched their new form.
The form of a woman.
"Bah! Why do I even ask?! Not only do you still seem to be using the minimum of your [Omnis], but you have lowered yourself even more, you maggot! Truly, you are a foul waste of divinity!"
Each strand of her hair had both the color and the hardness of copper, while her skin was far from unblemished, being of a rotted gray and having blisters all over. Meanwhile, her ears were slightly pointed, and her lips were as pitch-black as her eyes.
"And worse...to lay with a mortal...such a disgusting thing...did you not learn anything from what happened to Scarred G—!?"
*KER-CHUNK*
"GUR—GH!!"
As an incredible pain filled her body and black blood dripped out of her mouth, Languor looked down at her chest and then up at Nerinne, her eyes making it clear that she truly could not believe what had just happened.
Nerinne had pierced her right through the chest with a lance, a lance that a few instants ago had been but the Goddess' right hand, and she was unable to see it, let alone react to it.
"GnN...!! GaRgH...!!"
Of course, the Aspect immediately tried to take the lance out of her with her hands, but it was useless, no matter how much strength she seemed to apply.
Thus, she came to a dreadful realization. Not only was she so weak that she was helpless against the Goddess, but the Goddess herself had intentionally angered her to make her attack even easier to land and now it was impossible for Languor to free herself.
She was truly and utterly at her mercy.
"You...!!"
Meanwhile, Nerinne smiled as she watched the Aspect's expression become twisted in anger from both that truth and the pain.
Then, she spoke.
"Oh, that is a new form for you. I wonder what might have caused it...or who, that is. Fufufu~~~."
Nerinne's giggle and tone truly did not match her actions, but it sent quite the clear message to Languor.
She was not just at Nerinne's mercy.
Nerinne was toying with her.
So much so that she was even letting Languor use its omniscience to look into the mortal whom she had a relationship with, fueling Languor's wrath even more.
"HOW DARE YOU MOCK ME LIKE THIS?! YOU!! A PUTRID PIECE OF DIVINE FLESH THAT NOT ONLY LAYS WITH A MORTAL BUT HAS BIRTHED A DEMI-GODDESS OUT OF IT!! OHHH, I SHALL RELISH THE MOMENT WHEN I CRUSH THAT LITTLE DREG'S SKU—"
Those were unwise words...truly unwise words, for they did nothing but wake up Nerinne's darker side.
"Holy Weapon of Promised Destruction: Nern. Release, [Seal Thirteen: Divine Destroyer]."
A side that did not wait for Languor to finish talking before unleashing upon her a pain far worse than what she was already feeling. One that would make her wail.
"—! NNNHHHHYYYYAAAARGH!! THIS LANCE?! YOU—AAAAAAAAAGHGHHHHHIIIAAAAAAA!! THIS PAINN...!! A GOD-SLAYER?!!"
And wail she did. She could feel herself being torn apart from the inside, almost as if something was eating at her very essence and leaving nothing behind. Furthermore, black blood began to come out from her ears, nose, mouth, and eyes.
The same eyes that were fixated on the lance that was still piercing her chest and for a good reason.
The lance had changed.
It no longer looked like the black-red sinister one the Goddess before her had used to pierce her but a few minutes ago and yet...it did not look like the spiraling gold holy one either.
Rather...it could be said that it was a combination of those two forms, as it shined golden like the latter while retaining the sinister frame of the former.
No, no...this lance was already beyond what could be considered sinister, it was heretical.
And the red power that filled the lines engraved all over it was proof enough of that, as that hungry power was but distilled deicide. In other words, it was the power to kill Gods.
"YOU FORGED A GOD-SLAYER AND GIFTED IT TO A MORTAL?! HAVE YOU GONE M—AAAAARGHH!!!"
Painfully 'silencing' Languor, Nerinne pushed the lance even further into her body, drowning the Aspect's very essence in even more of such anguish, one that was only comparable to the anguish her Whole felt when the last of the Emissaries fell.
"No, I have not gone mad. I trust my love. The moment I fell for her was the moment I knew I could trust her with my eternal life. This Holy Lance is but the proof of that trust and love, one that was reciprocated shortly after when she entrusted her very soul to me. She is my Soul Partner, my true beloved, and that girl is our dear daughter. And I am not letting you touch even the air around her nor my other daughter. Not now. Not ever. So...begone!!"
*FWWWWWWWIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIISHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH*
"GYYYYYYYYYYYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!!"
"Begone and be destroyed!! Make the you still inside the seal suffer in true pain as a part of their core vanishes from existence!!"
With a fury that could only be born from the love she has for her loved ones, Nerinne exclaimed that as she used the full power of the lance on the wailing Languor, riddling the Aspect's form with cracks that shined with a red glow that grew brighter and brighter the closer her utter demise got.
Thus—
*CRACK*
...what? Something...
*CRACK-CRACK-CRACK-CRACK*
Something is wrong...
*CRACK-CRACK-CRIIIIIIIIISSHHHH*
The space-time continuum is cracking before my—no...this is already beyond that...
This is...
"GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGHHHHNNNNNNNNNAAAAAHH!!! I WILL MAKE YOU PAY FOR THIS!! NERINNNNNNNNHHHAAAAAARGGGG!!!"
*CRASH*
"This is...!"
...a full rupture in space-time.
A phenomenon like this cannot happen from natural causes, it simply cannot, and that implies intent or rather...that the fault lies on another party.
Some would perhaps say that a God would be the only capable of causing something like this and they would be right...but not in the way they think.
A God can indeed manipulate time and space, that is one of their abilities after all, but such interventions do not—cannot cause this kind of damage since their omnipresence and omnipotence helps them exert such power throughout the entirety of time and space in a uniform manner, alleviating any strain in the space-time continuum and preventing such ruptures from happening.
Unless...and this is but mere speculation...such God was struck by something that truly damaged them when trying to do such a thing...
Thus, such divine energies would run amok throughout the space-time continuum and thus...this.
And sadly, seeing what is before my eyes I believe this is close to the truth...
The reason being the being that is at the center of it all...
The Aspect.
Languor.
And someone else.
Someone who is both not her and her.
Someone whose body has replaced Languor's entire backside due to the rupture opening right where she stood, turning them almost into a sort of conjoined being.
Thus, only half of the being standing there was Languor while the one on the other side was...her Whole.
The Evil God
Truly and wholly.
Yet, this was not the end of times scenario that the presence of a freed Evil God would imply, for there were no black skies, nor there were raging mounts of flesh corrupting the land, or anything like that.
Instead...
""GYYYYYYYYYYYAAAARRRGHHH!!!""
...there were screams. Screams of agony that came from both Languor and the Evil God as they were pierced by a certain god-slayer lance in their respective sides of the rupture.
They screamed as they uselessly tried to remove it but instead their hands were burned by the deicidal energies coming off from such weapon, which only increased their anguish.
Furthermore, the ones wielding them not only did not permit it, but they also pushed the lance even further into their chest, causing them to look at the ones behind such pain with a hatred that could only be described as eternal.
And there, reflected in those hateful eyes, we can see the faces of the ones that have earned such grudge and they are not the same.
Yes...
On Languor's side it was Nerinne.
But on the other side the wielder of such heretical weapon was...
"A-Auros...?"
...her beloved.
And she was far from alright.
Her crown of horns was but a shade of what it once was, for it was now cracked, broken, and with some horns missing entirely.
Blood painted her face as she was bleeding profusely from a wound in her head that was not healing at all.
Her left eye was nowhere to be seen as it was sealed shut and she did not seem to be able to open it anymore.
Her left side in general seemed heavier...even more so with her left arm hanging lifelessly from her shoulder.
And if that was not enough...her armor, which looked different than the one the Goddess knew, lied in pieces all around her. Only her sabatons and one of her greaves remained on her, even if they were also damaged.
"W-what happened to you, Auros?! Why are you like that?!"
"..."
"So-something is wrong! Why can't I hear you...?!"
Despite Auros' immediate reply, her voice was unable to reach her beloved's ear on the other side of the rupture, unlike the screams of the suffering Evil God.
Moreover, it is highly likely that the same could be said of the sound coming from Nerinne's side, and as such it is probable that Auros guessed correctly what her beloved had said rather than she being able to hear her.
'If that isn't working, I'll reach you like this...Auros! Auros!'
'*KRSSSSSSHHHHHHHTT*'
"...?! Why can't I reach your mind?!"
Having come to the same conclusion, Nerinne immediately tried to reach out to the Auros before her through her telepathy, but a sort of static sound was the only thing that came back to her, making her exclaim that in both worry for her Soul Partner and frustration over such dreadful thing.
Still, she was not going to give up that easily.
"Then...I'll use everything!"
*FWOOOOOOOOOOOOSH*
Thus, she did as she said and stopped holding herself back and used her godly powers, her [Omnis] in their entirety, her eyes burning with blue-white divine power.
Her omnipotence.
Her omnipresence.
Her omniscience.
Everything.
She used them all without a second thought.
And yet...nothing.
She could 'see' nothing, much less obtain any information about it.
It was almost as if what lied on the other side of the rupture was another world altogether.
One that was outside of her grasp.
Thus, she could only 'see' what was right in front of her and nothing more.
That being Auros and everything else in the ruined room her Soul Partner was in.
Everything.
Every single thing.
And as she tried to get ahold of even the smallest amount of information about the world on the other side of the rupture by looking closely at such everything, something caught her attention—no, it pulled it quite strongly while filling Nerinne's heart with a certain sentiment.
That thing...it was somehow familiar to her.
It was something with which she shared a deep connection.
Even when she was sure that she had never seen such thing before.
That something was a sword.
A broken sword whose shimmering pieces lied on the floor just like Auros' armor.
"..."
And the more she looked at it, the deeper the sadness she felt, leaving her confused as to why she was feeling like that.
But then, the reason became apparent as her gaze finally reached the sword's hilt, one that had an orange gem...
One that had the face...
The face...of a girl.
"No! No, no, no, no! NO! It cannot be! NO!!"
Rejecting what she had just realized about the sword with everything she had, Nerinne shook her head as sorrowful tears escaped her eyes.
Yet, not wanting her beloved to be taken by sorrow, Auros began to write something in the air with Light attribute magic.
"...!"
Something that immediately pulled Nerinne's attention from the sword to her once again.
"{This is just a bad dream, My Heroine. A cliché of the isekai law. Nothing more, nothing less. That's why let's finish this so that I can wake up and see you in that cosplay. Everything will be alright after that. Trust me.}"
Such was the message her Soul Partner had written and as she finished reading it, a trembling smile appeared in Nerinne's face.
"You...dummy...! How can you...how can you say that and make such smile when everything I see is..."
"..."
In that moment, Nerinne looked into her beloved's eyes and saw the strong belief and conviction that was behind such message and so...
"No...if you say it is a bad dream, then I shall believe in you, my love."
...she, a Goddess, swallowed her sorrow, her fear, and more, and put all her faith in a mortal, her Soul Partner.
"Let us finish this thing together, Auros!!"
With that, both nodded at each other and released the power of the lance at the same time, increasing the number of glowing cracks in the bodies of both Languor and the Evil God, all as their screams caused the rupture itself to tremble.
"NERINNEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE...!"
"AUROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOS...!"
Then, the deicidal red glow reached its zenith, and both Languor and the Evil God mustered everything they had to beckon...
"I SHAAAAAL BE FREEEEEEEEYAAARGH—!"
"I AM ETERNAAAAAAAAAAAL! I AM INE—!"
...that before they exploded in a flash of red light, releasing a shockwave of divine energies that permeated Arte for a moment before disappearing completely.
Still, that shockwave...I could feel wrath in it...hatred...was it truly caused by them succumbing to the lance's power or is there more to it?
...
"Auros...!"
"*smile*"
In any case, with the cause of the rupture gone, it too started to disappear along with the Auros on the other side of it, who left Nerinne with a smile and one last message.
"'See you in a minute'...fufufu...dummy...you are such a dummy..."
One that Nerinne read out loud as she put her hands over her heart before swallowing the sobs that had started to rob her of her voice and declaring...
"I promise that when that bad dream comes and you wake up from it, I will show you this cosplay...Auros..."
...that with a brave smile. All as her words echoed throughout the now empty room.
After that, Nerinne restored and reinforced the cracked seal that had led to the Aspect's escape with a dose of the god-killing energies of the lance and returned to her beloved's castle.
When she arrived, she made sure to kiss Auros deeply before tightly embracing her and her daughters.
When asked about what happened, she only responded by saying 'a bad dream'.
Meanwhile, the Evil God inside the seal was drowned in an indescribable pain until they lost their half-woken consciousness because of it, falling asleep once again.
Most important of all though...
What sort of fate awaits them?
What sort of events could have led to the paradigm that was on the other side of the rupture?
Could it be that what just happened is but the start of such things? Or perhaps...what happened now is what prevents such paradigm from being born?
And what was the Evil God of that side trying to achieve before the rupture occurred?
Sadly, all of that is something only the future knows.
Because not even an Old God like I, Yawue, can see it clearly.
And that...is truly worrying.
To be continued...in the future.
(So, this is it. CHAPTER 100 WOHOOO!!! HOLY CRAP! I REALLY DID NOT THOUGHT THAT ONE VOLUME WOULD END UP WITH 100 HARD STORY CHAPTERS!! *ahem* Think of this chapter as a sort of "after credits scene" of the volume. Will we see the events that lead to that future? Of course. Where are the Maid-Knights in that future? What or who is that sword? Well, we can't have a story if I just spill the beans, right? Is the story going the dark-edgy route? More edgy than having a super edgy black knight that has tamed the incarnation of a primordial storm? Just kidding, I know what you mean. Don't worry, I will not change the core, the essence of the story that I love to write. So, I hope you are still reading when we eventually get to that point. Maybe Volume 5? Who knows? There are still major isekai tropes turned volumes that will come before! Nations to explore and so more!)
(UP NEXT: OMAKES!! THREE OF THEM IN THE SAME RELEASE! THE LAST ONE IS MY FAVORITE! AND IN FRIDAY! THE SIDE STORY BEGINS!) (In other news, I am going to begin the edits I mentioned for the watty's and start with commission talk with two artists I know for the cover. Also, adding an otaku glossary at the end of some of the chapters to make things more accessible for everyone!) (You will find linksto our discord, ko-fi and my twitter in the comments below!) (Also, if you can and you want, I will leave a link to the strawpoll for the favorite character of volume one!) (Have a great week everyone!!)
Poll (also putting it in the comments): https://strawpoll.com/fxc1bdeg
Auros Stat Sheet: