There Will Be Tears

The moment Hraesvelgr’s wing fell, I acted immediately.

This time, I won’t be late. This time, I won’t let my guard down.

Whether the beast loses its head, loses its wings, or gets pulverized into dust, I won’t loosen my vigilance.

I ran with all my might.

“Kyaa?!”

I caught Línea as she was falling.

I almost lost her. By pushing through with a reckless plan, everything nearly fell apart. I had lowered my guard, feeling reassured because two trials were on our side.

But now, I won’t make that mistake again.

The opportunity that Master created. The time he granted by cutting off one wing.

I feel both gratitude and severity from the fact that he only provided one attack to create this chance.

Master probably won’t intervene further. He merely gave me one more opportunity.

Grab.

I grasp the frozen wound.

I forcibly rip off the area I was slowly thawing and healing.

There’s a limit to the sacred blood I can shed from my palm. When manifesting it as holy magic and converting it into chains, some parts are lost.

And above all, I need to go through that whole process.

So I manifest through blood.

I convert sacred blood infused with tremendous holy power directly into chains and completely seal Hraesvelgr’s body, which has plummeted to the ground once more.

Is it necessary to go this far?

I prepare thoroughly for the beast’s next move, to the point where such a question might arise.

From the beginning, my opponent is a trial.

I had to risk my life too.

“Haah…”

I deploy Canopus’s Jar.

I add the burden of death god worship to a wound that’s already near fatal. But it’s worth it.

Even without using that power, I can already generate sufficient firepower, but with it, I can naturally wield much stronger power.

Enhancement of future actions through sacrifice and offerings.

The best way to utilize it.

“What I need now is…”

Lightning that splits the sky? Or flames that cover the earth? Or perhaps waves that plunge into silence?

None of those.

What I need most in this situation is a way to definitively deal with a monster that continues to move despite having its head severed.

Death god worship that reveres death.

Pluto’s scythe that harvests lives.

“Die.”

What I borrowed at the cost of holy power is a massive scythe emanating an ominous aura.

A body at death’s door. Blood spilled.

Organs offered as a price. The consequences of death god worship that follow from this situation.

Even I can’t dare to guess what the backlash will be.

But I must do it. If I miss this opportunity, there won’t be another.

“Lost.”

But before I could swing it, Línea stopped me.

She, whom I had put down to deploy holy magic, hugged me from behind and blocked the scythe’s movement.

“Línea, I need to do this…”

“It’s okay now. You’re just too tired, Lost. You’re too tired and in too much pain to look around. It’s really okay now, so please don’t push yourself anymore.”

Línea gently removed the scythe from my hand.

“We agreed on this, remember?”

“…”

The holy magic I had just completed disappears before I can swing it.

Just her embrace is enough to stabilize my mind.

And only then could I see it.

“This son of a bitch… took too long.”

“Indeed.”

I could see Titan falling from the sky like a meteor.

The hammer he was holding had clear golden energy gathered on it.

Aura and spirit magic.

Both powers completely made his own.

BANG!!

An incarnation of overwhelming destructive power pulverized Hraesvelgr’s body.

*     *      *

As soon as Nina’s procedure ended, Titan set out.

He had fixed the rampage of his spirit magic, and a mana circle had finally settled in his heart.

Of course, this was just the beginning.

Aura is mana that has assimilated with the body.

It’s the process where mana begins to dissolve into the body beyond the mana circle, which serves as a power source, and is reborn as aura according to each individual’s traits.

Naturally, to achieve this, one must first fill that power source, the circle.

But Titan had only just created that power source and hadn’t reached its limit yet.

At best, he could only manipulate pure mana. That alone wouldn’t generate such extraordinary destructive power.

“He was prepared.”

Nina nodded as she looked in the direction where Titan had disappeared.

Lost had left a bundle of elixirs for Titan.

He had prepared a shortcut to help Titan reach the aura he so desperately wanted. In fact, it was something he could have given to Claire after she recovered, but he had clearly drawn the line.

The backpack Titan had been carrying when he came to see Nina contained elixirs.

They were prepared for consumption immediately after creating the mana circle.

No matter how beneficial an elixir might be, consuming them consecutively is dangerous.

In fact, even Sir Albus, the gatekeeper of the elixir storage, immediately thought of the elixir’s side effects when told that Lost had collapsed.

Swallowing the pure source of energy.

The backlash when it fails to dissolve can break the body.

Despite having just created a mana circle, Titan decided to take that risk. For the sake of his companions who were waiting and counting on him.

“See? People are foolish. But they know how to reflect on themselves.”

It’s an act that hastens death.

But he’s boldly walking a tightrope to save people.

How can one say such a sight isn’t noble?

“So it’s our turn now. Rata, can’t you forgive people now?”

“Cheep!”

Rata, a spiritual beast of Alfheim with a red ribbon around its neck.

Despite Nina’s words, Rata broke free from her arms and moved.

Nina slowly followed the small squirrel. She knew where it was heading.

And as Nina expected, Rata had reached the place where the barrier blocking the World Tree’s root was located.

The small rodent’s claws kept scratching at the barrier, but it wouldn’t even leave a mark. This little squirrel has been fixated on this place for over ten years.

“Rata.”

To gnaw on the World Tree.

“Ratatoskr.”

“…”

“You know it too now, don’t you?”

Rata. No, Ratatoskr.

Spiritual beasts are born from the corpses of spirits. They are newly born using those corpses as fertilizer.

But it’s not an easy process.

It takes at least hundreds of years for a single spiritual beast to be born.

Because that many corpses of spirits with the same traits need to accumulate.

That’s why a situation like the current one was impossible from the beginning.

The existence of three spiritual beasts with an absurd amount of power from the same ‘wind’ category.

Yes, that’s why the three spiritual beasts that make up the <Wind’s Tomb> all originated from a single entity.

<Wind’s Tomb>