God and Devil and (1)

Belial was standing at the top of the now-empty imperial palace.

Like it was some old habit from his Wallace Hope days, he stood with his hands behind his back, looking down at us.

He appeared remarkably composed.

“Well, we’re not exactly on speaking terms.”

“How hasty.”

The battle began abruptly.

There was no benefit in drawing things out.

All the ritual magic and barriers we had prepared for this final battle with him had likely been dismantled.

Of course, he had targeted the moment we happened to be away.

The harbinger of war’s beginning was Jupiter’s lightning.

A pure white lightning bolt shattered the imperial spire where he stood.

Belial easily avoided the attack by soaring into the sky.

“My goodness, are you planning to destroy everything?”

“That’s already a given.”

If we fought passively in the name of protecting the capital, we’d be the ones to suffer instead.

I immediately give chase. If I lose sight of him in this darkness, he’ll target something else.

Belial had already demonstrated an overwhelming advantage in his battles with Nina, Claire, and Lilia.

I won’t let my guard down.

Tszzzzzrk!

I throw chains between the tall buildings to shoot up into the sky.

Those capable of aerial combat like Eve and Ilina follow behind me.

“Eve.”

“Yes.”

As Eve puts her hands together in prayer, the darkness Belial had spread is pushed back in an instant.

His night, which had already thickly blanketed the entire capital, was pushed back to the heavens for a brief moment.

He chose the capital to completely crush the human spirit.

If he defeats us here, the capital will be devastated, and people will likely fall into despair.

This is his trump card, but it’s also our decisive move to secure victory.

<Messiah>

My ultimate move aimed at the moment he was forcibly pulled out of the darkness.

Chains of causality that even a devil can’t easily escape fly toward him.

“Hmm.”

Clang!

But Belial responded.

Despite it being just a single, not particularly thick chain, he deflected it with his staff and made a wide turn.

As if he had been watching my battle with Another Hope, he seemed to know the threat of <Messiah>.

That’s right. If I could have captured him this easily, I wouldn’t have struggled so much all this time.

“Burn to ashes!”

The moment he deflected the chain.

Eve’s wings summon the sky, and the sun falls on his head as he’s distracted by my chains.

The essence of fire attributes, made even more powerful by absorbing Phoenix’s feather.

The blue sky temporarily called forth and the diversion created by <Messiah>’s power.

The coordination was perfect. It was a decisive strike combining secret techniques we’d never shown to others and were using in actual combat for the first time.

“Oh, this is quite…”

Even Belial couldn’t avoid it. I can’t say we brought him down, but it was reasonably effective? I could see him blocking the falling sun by swinging his massive wings.

It was an attack that shouldn’t have been blocked. The wings that received such fearsome flames dried up in an instant like parched kindling.

“Let me shatter that composure.”

Responding to his reaction that seemed like he was evaluating the attack, I immediately use my next method.

Sshhhh!

I throw Neptune’s wave onto the blazing flames.

The massive wave meeting fire instantly evaporates, creating fog.

This isn’t interfering with Ilina’s attack. It’s just my next method to press him relentlessly.

“Lilia.”

“Eeheehee!”

Lilia reaches her hand into the fog I created with a bright smile.

The power of the <Corruptor> that can transform her body into mist.

That power not only allows her to make her body uncatchable, but its true ability is the essence of poison created by the souls of suffering humans.

“Got it!”

Lilia jerks her hand out of the fog, blood gushing from her nose.

She tried to corrupt this much territory. It’s natural that it would strain her.

But it was enough.

Lilia’s corruption, spreading throughout the fog, turns the hot, pure white mist into a dark purple, nearly black.

Already extremely poisonous by itself.

“Eve, shall we help?”

“Yes, my Cielo.”

And we isolate that fog.

Together with Eve, we weave a holy barrier to seal Belial inside the poisonous fog.

Belial left in the fog filled with poison. Could he withstand even this corruption as if evaluating it?

Boom!

The answer is ‘impossible.’

I had long since heard about the power of corruption from Eremus.

He soon began to move as if trying to break the barrier.

His composure had crumbled.

Crash!

And because he too was serious, our barrier couldn’t last long.

“Kukukuku.”

His eerie laughter echoes from within the purple fog.

Red eyes gleam ominously.

Belial, who had maintained a composed posture like a nobleman all this time, now hung in the air like a puppet suspended by threads.

The sight was quite grotesque.

Flap!

His massive wings flutter.

The wings, which had grown in size as they merged with the darkness, once again dye the world in complete night.

This space itself is his domain. The world wrapped in his overlapping wings.

Flap!

The form of his wings was no longer visible. Only darkness filled everything.

But that alone was enough to blow away the purple fog as if a storm were brewing.

Of course, the corruption is deadly poisonous to us too, but…

“Eeheeheeheehee!”

Lilia hasn’t fallen yet.

She absorbs all the corruption scattered by the wingbeat into her body, even as she staggers with blood flowing from her nose.

This entire process was all for Lilia’s temporary enhancement.

Our opponent is a trial, after all.

Then we too should properly utilize the power of a trial.

Boom!

Having reabsorbed the massive poisonous fog, Lilia launches her specialty kick toward Belial.

Though her kick seemed to be blocked midway as if hitting something invisible, she didn’t mind much.

From the beginning, her specialty wasn’t a battle that emphasized single strikes, but pressuring opponents with quick movements.

Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!

Lilia continues to deliver kicks as if floating in the air.

As if trying to shatter this space itself, she was kicking not just at Belial but in all directions.

“Hmm!”

Did that bother him?

Belial, who had been hanging suspended, raised his head and stretched out his hand.

“I’ve seen that before.”

Boom!

But Lilia has a sister who looks after her.

Claire’s shield blocks the space between Lilia and Belial.

It’s an invisible attack. An attack without distance constraints.

But because her light could push back the darkness itself.

Lilia continues her attack without falling victim to Belial’s deadly move.

“Surely this can’t be all you have? Belial.”

While Claire and Lilia are moving as one team to break this space of darkness.

We need to target the main body.

My and Eve’s holy magic. And Ilina’s magic pour down.

Whether he was truly suspended in the air or not, he reinforced his defense in place without dodging.

But it’s hard to say that was truly a reinforced defense.

Because…

-Why do you cling to such meaningless things! You fool!

-What’s the difference between nobility and commoners! This is unfair!

-All useless endeavors.

-Destroy it! Destroy all the symbols they believe in!

After he began to curl his body. Auditory hallucinations started.

Noise that seemed to pierce directly into the mind.

Discomfort like nails on a chalkboard.

“Is it unpleasant? Are the cries of selfish and destructive humans disturbing to hear?”

As if seeing through my mind with perfect timing.

I frown at his mocking voice.

“This too is an aspect of yourselves.”

<Worthlessness>

<Inequality>

<Uselessness>

<Destruction>

Scenes embroidered in the void.

And symbolic words.

-Ah…

A chill runs down my spine for a moment.

At the exact moment his red eyes curve narrowly like a crescent moon.

-Darkness descends…

“Block it!”

My senses rang alarm bells, so I shouted while launching my body to respond immediately, but.

“You always try to deny your own ugliness.”

The world already surrounded by darkness began to transform once more.

*     *      *

Worthless Hope

The devil born from human malice, from fear, wanted recognition.

Why reject it? Why turn away, regarding it merely as ugliness?

This malice is one of the essential elements that constitute them.

Belial never forgot. His name, the malice. The world of darkness and bloodbath from which he was born.

“Isn’t this also a calamity created by humans? You created devils that don’t exist to cover up the calamity you made.”

There was a black sky without a single star.

There were fragments of shattered rocks and withered, bare trees.

Blood flowed in rivers instead of water, and rotting flesh lay everywhere instead of solid ground to stand on.

“You named your own ugliness like this, so aren’t you our parents?”

It was a world that devoured people.

As if the world itself harbored malice toward people, everyone standing on the ground bled.

“Would the sun rise in such a world? Would hope be visible? No, that’s impossible. How could you find the hope you destroyed with your own hands? How could you wake from the nightmare you created?”

A blood-purple mist swirls.

Just breathing felt like his lungs were being torn apart.

Just looking forward created scratches on his retinas, making he shed bloody tears.

Everything that touched the skin contained qualities that destroyed it.

Neither purification through holy power nor ventilation through magic worked.

The unstoppable malice of the world itself. Nature created that way.

“Kugh…”

Lost fell to his knees.

No, not just Lost.

Everyone human in this place was affected at once.

An environment where humans cannot live.

Belial’s malice itself, as if embodying that very meaning.

Only Lilia could move properly, and even she was having trouble keeping her balance after being hit by Belial’s darkness-infused claws.

“I’ve heard about your existence. They call you the Son of Man?”

Belial approached Lost, crawling on the ground with both feet and hands.

Though he wore a human skin, his appearance was grotesque, as if he had completely transformed into a monster.

“To defeat me, wouldn’t you have to become like that? A god who stops breathing, sees the world with the mind rather than eyes, and touches everything with holiness rather than skin.”

Belial provoked Lost, who was on his knees, with a grotesque smile.

As if that’s what he wanted.

“Why do you still insist on remaining human? Son of Man.”

To that, Lost smiled through his blood-spitting and said.

“So that was the deal with Teacher Revenna? Belial.”

“……”

He had suspected it to some extent.

When he learned that Ann, the merchant guild master of Rubia, was communicating with a third party who wasn’t a devil.

When he realized Belial’s actions were different from what he had known.

When his master Hadard appeared at the perfect time to help Lost.

And right now.

When he realized that despite saying they would help fight trials because it could be fatal, not even their shadows were visible while he was spitting blood.

“Master and Teacher were devils like you.”

Suspicion turns into certainty.

Then what was their purpose?

Belial tried to make hope worthless, true to his name.

He spread malice widely.

What about the other two? What did they want, those who had not moved either before or after the regression?

“Teacher knew that I was the Son of Man.”

Their purpose was with Lost. He could tell that much, but he couldn’t know their exact goal.

But he could understand from Belial’s words just now.

“…they wanted me to return to being the Son of Man.”

Eyes filled with certainty.

Lost glared at Belial even as he shed bloody tears.

Belial looked at Lost’s eyes with a cold expression, then soon answered with a smirk.

“Yes, that’s the correct answer. But what changes now that you know it? The only way you can face me here is that method.”

Belial realized anew.

He certainly wasn’t an easy opponent.

Even in this brief conversation, he had been able to see through part of Revenna’s plan.

If he hadn’t insisted on remaining human, if he had brought all the monsters including Pinocchio without worrying about other fronts, even Belial couldn’t have been confident in victory.

“But why do you think that’s the only way to defeat you?”

“What…?”

“I’ve prepared for a long time. Thoroughly, even excessively. Would someone like me, preparing to face you, have prepared only this much? Yet you dare to be smug before me?”

Belial frowns.

And Lost laughed. As if enjoying himself even while bleeding.

“I am called an apostle, chosen by God as a priest. I represent the gods’ will to save people and proclaim the divine message.”

Before being the Son of Man.

He is the executor of good, the agent of numerous gods.

“Then what should we call those chosen by humans? Those who can execute good and justice to the end, even while struggling in despair and ultimately becoming monsters.”

Thud!

At that moment, an unexpected variable intrudes into Belial’s world.

A being more grotesque than the current Belial, born from the malice of devils.

Those who, despite experiencing evil and falling into despair, becoming ghastly and terrible creatures, still wish to save people while remaining human to the end.

“People have always called such beings heroes.”

They are warriors and at the same time…

“Kihihihihihihi!”

Another Hope.

A being that could be called another hope.