Chapter 100: The Sky Collapsed

A sound can be heard.

“In the beginning, let there be light.”

Next, there will be darkness.

And after that.

“Only fire and water shall remain.”

Clang!

Clang!

Iron is being struck.

The world seen with open eyes was infinitely cold and pale.

The gold flickering before my eyes was utterly unpleasant and irritating.

But even that is now faint.

“Now, only one step remains.”

One step.

For whom is this step?

More importantly, who is speaking?

Before I knew it, the pale world before me had vanished.

All that remained was darkness.

Only pitch-black darkness.

And yet, why?

Even within that vast darkness, there was light.

The faint light eventually formed a point, then a line.

And it spread, albeit brilliantly.

I have seen this, vaguely, before.

Yes. It is a scenery I have always seen.

The night sky.

It was a sight as if the night sky had been unfolded endlessly, both above and below.

And there, for some reason.

Something immense existed.

In the far distance.

That immense darkness was emitting a strangely vivid light.

No, that is a bit odd.

Because darkness does not have a separate light.

‘Ah.’

An immense darkness.

A circle.

No, is it a sphere?

Yet, the area around it was exceptionally radiant.

As if the light were embracing the circle of darkness, the ball.

However, the darkness residing there, without permitting even a tiny streak of light or a single point of radiance, stubbornly and firmly guarded its own domain.

‘What is this?’

What am I looking at right now?

Is this death?

And over there, is it… Hell? Heaven? The place one enters after dying?

The image of Heaven I heard from my mother was not like this.

The image of the Demon Realm as described by the Demon Race would also be different from this.

Furthermore, neither Hell nor the Underworld, where demons dwell, would be like this.

I don’t know why, but I had such a feeling.

A scenery that could never be seen on the surface.

Yet, the darkness unfolding before my eyes.

Was infinitely radiant.

Its vastness was so endless that…

…before I knew it, I had even forgotten my own existence.

Me?

Who am I?

What am I?

In the first place.

Am I necessary?

There is something I can do because I am me, as myself.

Yes.

Ultimately, I exist for that.

Existence.

Life and death.

Life.

And.

If there is something I must do now.

…It is obvious.

Live selfishly.

The Ases in my old memories almost resented herself for striving for the sake of others.

Why live like that?

Why not strive for something greater?

“…….”

What does it mean to be great?

Leaving a name in history?

Being praised by everyone?

Being complimented? Being recognized?

What meaning does that have?

Then was my life, spent being despised by everyone, the polar opposite of greatness?

How will my existence be mentioned in history?

Born as the child of a great Hero, though I may have been impressive as a child, I was later despised and ignored even in my own homeland.

Ultimately, an alliance with the Demon King, abandoned by the world—no, one who chose to be abandoned… something like that?

Perhaps I won’t be mentioned at all.

Treated as a non-existent being, a taboo, or a disgrace.

“…….”

Is there any need to care?

It is all meaningless.

That is not where I am.

I am here.

Isn’t that enough?

Suddenly, I realize.

In life.

If there was one greatest obstacle.

Ultimately, it was myself.

Just like this, if only my heart changes.

To a hollow extent.

Everything in the world changes.

“…….”

Someone was looking this way.

He had been there from the start.

It was simply that I was late to realize it.

“You have already worked hard enough. Yet, do you intend to take one more step from here? Why? For whom?”

“…….”

He asked.

So, I replied.

“For myself.”

And.

“If there are no coincidences in this world, then everything must be inevitable.”

If so.

“There must be a reason why I came to know about her.”

To be used and abused by someone for a lifetime.

And if the freedom finally obtained was, in reality, a false cage constructed by someone else.

“Whether she wins or loses, she will never be saved.”

The things she has done may never be forgiven.

However, did I not learn while glimpsing her memories?

She did not kill the villagers.

She merely put them to sleep.

But because she was clumsy in handling her abilities, her Divine Authority.

She is simply flustered, not knowing how to release them yet.

Perhaps there was even a partial intention to protect them.

Because if she hadn’t acted.

Others might have taken the villagers’ lives.

Her thoughts had reached that far.

Because she is truly clumsy.

Because she is an unreliable human.

…I cannot even feel sympathy.

However.

She possesses a nature sufficient to evoke pity.

If there is a supreme atonement and forgiveness for her.

It would only be to create an opportunity… for her to resolve the things she herself has done.

“…….”

But a contract binds her.

She must, without fail, kill Leo, who has drawn his sword.

I knew better than anyone how the Absolute Compliance Contract was structured through the Demon King.

Because I, too, was bound by it.

Therefore.

The fact that she does not kill Leo, even though she can.

Means she has no will to comply with the contract.

Which is, in effect, the same as breaking the contract.

“So, you intend to make it so that even she cannot help it, to make her unable to act, thereby causing a failure in the execution of the contract. Is that your plan, and your will?”

“…….”

“But to do that, you must have the power to stand in the way. Do you possess such power right now?”

“…….”

I.

Am not a Hero.

One who harbors an indomitable will.

And inevitably achieves victory.

I am not that kind of Hero.

However.

“Does the fact that I cannot do it become a reason why I should not?”

“Even though you will die?”

“I am already dead. Whether I die now or a bit earlier, it is the same.”

“Even if things might end in an even worse form?”

“I must strive to ensure that doesn’t happen.”

“How?”

“…….”

I am not in a situation where I have enough leisure to have thought that far.

“Are you confident that you won’t regret throwing your life away like that?”

“…….”

As for regret.

I have had plenty.

I feel as though I was asked a similar question by someone once.

“As long as I do not forget forever, it would be impossible for me not to regret when looking back at a past already engraved.”

Unless I forget.

Unless I struggle desperately to avoid remembering intentionally.

I will regret it throughout the remembering.

And by moving forward while harboring that regret.

I have reached this point.

Therefore, I…

“I will use my own life as I see fit.”

Without needing to mind anyone.

Without calculating profit and loss.

If I want to, I do it.

If my heart leads me, I do it.

If I believe it must be done.

…I do not hesitate.

Is that not what freedom is?

Calculating and judging whether one can or cannot.

What freedom is there in that?

“Is that so.”

“…….”

Again.

I look up at the sky.

It is a pure white sky.

Right now, it is bleached white, as if covered by something.

The blue sky was hardly visible.

My body is still cold and vague.

My mind is faint, and my senses are dull.

No matter how firmly I steel my heart.

I wondered if I could even lift my body from here.

I agonized a little.

…….

….

Perhaps I had lost consciousness for a moment.

For some reason.

There was something I felt I had seen before.

A small baby angel.

I remember that when I saw it before, it was crying above a pit.

Now.

It is smiling.

Strangely.

My shoulder is lifted.

……?

When I slightly turned my head.

Someone’s hand was holding my shoulder.

Not only that.

On the other side, someone’s touch reached me.

My body was infinitely heavy, yet my upper body was raised with strange ease.

And in that state.

My body is lifted.

From the corner of my vision, someone reaches out.

The child, with a smiling face, extended that tiny hand and gripped my hand tightly.

And then, pulled with all its might.

That small hand and body seemed utterly insufficient to handle me.

Yet, for some reason, my body was lifted easily.

Before I knew it, the hands that had been gripping my shoulders and waist were withdrawn.

The figures of those who had raised me brushed past my gaze, however faintly.

There were men, and there were women.

There were children, and there were even four-legged beasts, fluffy beasts.

I could hardly distinguish their attire, faces, or expressions.

But they all looked at me and murmured in an unknown language.

“…….”

Suddenly.

When I looked down.

The child who had been pulling my hand.

A child with a somewhat familiar appearance, abruptly held out a small sword.

Supporting the blade with both hands.

It was a gesture as if presenting it to a king or a noble.

As the sword was handed over with knees half-bent, I instinctively grasped it.

Only after receiving it did I realize.

…It was the sword I had originally been using.

Truly strange.

I had just retrieved it from the blacksmith’s shop moments ago.

Despite the harsh things I endured during this short time.

This sword is so perfectly intact.

[…….]

A voice is heard.

The child eventually stepped back slowly.

And together with the baby angel, vanished.

‘Saint Kariel.’

Why are you here now?

If I didn’t see wrong, that child just now… was someone I had seen once before…

‘I do not know.’

My mind is hazy.

Nevertheless, somehow my body was raised.

It was as if someone had gripped my body and forced me up, setting me upright after I had fallen.

Even so.

These two legs were standing.

If so, I simply move forward.

No path is visible.

However, I move according to the intuition I feel.

Continuing my steps, and continuing.

Eventually.

I arrive.

I don’t know why it is this place.

But suddenly, I felt that it should be.

“…….”

Looking left and right, I realize that this place is the terminus of the beginning and the end.

On one side, there is light.

On the other, a violent storm was raging, like a disaster wrought by Mother Nature.

Yet, for some reason, everything is faint.

As if everything feels surreal.

But it is not.

It is all reality.

‘With this, truly.’

Is it the end?

Only then do I realize.

What kind of encouragement and what kind of comfort I have received while coming this far.

[Ancestor.]

[Respect to your life.]

[How were you able to live like that?]

[My master envied you. And now, even I have come to enter your tutelage.]

[What use is it to speak hundreds or thousands of words? That life itself is the most vivid answer.]

[Why do you seek to save others instead of yourself?]

[Even in death, I will not understand you. Why do those called heroes and saints all make such a fuss? Why do you make us feel so ashamed and miserable just by existing?]

…….

Who is it?

Who are they that they speak to me thus?

I do not know.

Perhaps it is an auditory hallucination.

No.

That is all real.

However, at least not now.

Nor will it be in the near future.

…How do I know this?

Clang!

Suddenly.

A period is placed.

What lies before me is a giant chain.

No, giant chains, thousands of bundles tied together to form a pillar.

A giant tower.

Perhaps a tree.

Countless armaments are hung there.

Under the desolate sky, upon the barren earth.

It had grown like a pillar supporting the heavens.

What am I looking at?

[Someday, someone will come bearing the sword you made.]

A blacksmith strikes a sword.

A scrawny blacksmith, a one-eyed blacksmith.

Letting the words of someone pass through one ear.

He struck the glowing iron.

Clang!

[This is the end!]

The Holy Sword is driven into the heart of a giant fox.

The fox made of gold wailed with all sorts of screams, pleading in pain.

However, it is not the end.

Eventually, the white-haired Hero drew another sword hanging from his waist.

The neck of the giant fox.

He severed it in a single stroke.

Then, a stream of blood like gold sprayed, as if it would fill and soak the entire world.

Thus.

That sword was held in the Hero’s hand.

The neck of the Demon King, the Golden Beast that once encompassed the world.

He cut off the neck of that monster.

That alone gave the sword sufficient meaning.

Even then, the sword did not bend, nor did it crack, nor did it break.

It is truly a masterpiece.

Eventually, that sword is passed to a girl.

The Hero glimpsed his own future in that girl.

But.

[Sir Lueld. I do not have the confidence to wield this.]

Therefore.

[I wish to entrust this to Kariel.]

At the girl’s request, the Hero accepted with a heart that was both glad and slightly regretful.

Eventually.

Toward a child who had dark hair resembling his wife.

Yet possessed the Golden Eyes that resembled himself.

The Hero bestowed that sword.

Telling her that when she becomes a knight later, this will protect her then too.

He couldn’t bring himself to say that this was the sword that had severed the Demon King’s neck.

But if the opportunity ever came.

If the time came when they could stand shoulder to shoulder.

Whether at a campsite or during a meal.

At any time, while boasting of his achievements.

He would tell her.

That in his prime, together with the Holy Sword, he had severed the Demon King’s neck with that sword.

And that the sword…

…was a sword given to him with respect by the follower of the knight who had brought him his only despair.

Despite being a Commander of the Demon King’s Army, for some reason, he had upheld chivalry, protected the weak, and been braver than anyone before his enemies.

That there was a man named Grandeus.

Hoping that the day would come to confess this.

With such complex emotions, the Hero handed that sword to his child.

It looked quite burdensome to hold for now.

But someday, the day will come when she wields it with mastery.

That day…

…….

And.

[If a child comes to you asking to repair the sword you made, you may use this then.]

The Jet-black Knight.

Severed his own arm.

It eventually turned from a lump of iron in the shape of an arm into an unknown foreign substance, festering like mud in an instant.

As if scraping together sand and moisture-laden soil.

The blacksmith, who gathered it and put it in a leather pouch.

Eventually, he reminded his son over and over of what he had seen and heard.

[After I die, that person will come to you. Completing it is the long-cherished wish of us all.]

You must remember.

[If you perform only that task properly, you are free from then on.]

And so.

The man.

Finally met him.

When a boy with a dark impression handed over a bent sword.

Though he did not show it, he trembled as if his heart were being gripped.

The prophecy was fulfilled.

A long-cherished wish unknown even to the Order of Relief Knights, which Grandeus had passed on to his father.

He does not know why.

But he will know by watching.

He said the great Grandeus could glimpse the future.

If so, when this sword is completed.

…Will he return? Will he be resurrected?

Or.

…….

“…….”

Come to think of it.

Why did I never think to read the memories, or rather, the remnants, from this sword?

No. It’s only recently that I’ve become able to perceive and handle this.

So it’s only natural that I didn’t pay attention.

If I say that, it wouldn’t be strange to have nothing more to say.

I have no strength to laugh, yet for some reason, a laugh leaks out.

Moreover.

Now, I think I understand something.

‘Ancestor.’

The ones who were chatting to me just now.

Are they ultimately someone from the future?

Then what ability did I have to see them?

And to receive their help?

If it were a while ago, I wouldn’t have known.

But now, I understand.

“I am… .”

Light surges.

On one side, a giant storm, like a collapsing giant tower, tilts toward me.

――

――――

And so.

Light as light.

Storm as storm.

All those things mixed together.

Ascended to the sky in an instant.

As if proving the intense aftermath, a vibration that shook the four corners of the earth in an instant, shaking as if tearing the ground apart.

Tangled light and frost became a storm and soared into the sky.

And.

At that very moment.

A black light.

Soared vertically.

The tangled storm of light and frost.

As if being sucked into a tiny crevice.

Between the streaks of black light.

It is drawn in.

-?

That vast calamity, which had shaken the world with its immense volume and the grandeur of nature.

Due to a single, minute streak of black light, its volume began to gradually diminish.

And soon, just as it felt as though everything had been sucked into the black light.

All that remained was.

A black pillar.

Soaring as if to pierce the very heavens.

Existing as if it had cleaved, or scarred, both space and sky.

Perfectly.

It had devoured every calamity in the area.

-No way.

Even this.

Did you see it all?

My comrade.

Just how far.

—Do you intend to toy with life?

Even in a situation where he should have been delighted.

For some reason.

The Demon King lamented.

He sighed.

And then, once more.

…He grew furious.

Truly, that thing.

Is a disloyal Dark Star.

An ignorant Black Light Star.