“……So this was it.”
A golden hand illuminating the night sky.
So immense that it enveloped the entire island, and though it was far away, it felt as if it were right before her eyes.
It was something familiar to Daphne.
“Back then…… that sight was really…….”
What she had seen just before losing consciousness in the abyss had been real after all.
The warmth she had felt then. The languid calm, as if her mind were being healed. The sense of fulfillment that had filled her chest.
Of course, she could not feel it now, since she was not inside it.
Instead, she could feel an overwhelming power she had not recognized back then.
An island filled with Abyss energy.
She could tell without setting foot inside.
The place the expedition from the 51st floor had entered must have been that island.
And yet the hand of the goddess, which she had thought was nothing but warm, was now destroying the island itself.
Just what kind of power was that……?
Unable even to guess, strength unconsciously entered her hand.
The difference was this vast.
When she had been told not to step forward, she had honestly thought it might be a little excessive.
But it had not been excessive.
She had simply been lacking.
To think she had suggested forming an expedition together.
How ridiculous those words must have been.
How laughable they must have sounded to him.
So telling her not to step forward had been his utmost consideration, in his own way.
There had been no need to enter the island.
All he had to do was destroy it.
He was someone different from her not only in the scale of his power, but even in the way he used it and the way he thought.
“Just…… what is he looking ahead to?”
The Supreme Heavenly Demon.
If she could, she wanted to enter his mind and come back out.
With the power to lightly destroy an entire island, just how far was he planning?
And.
“……Me too.”
Would she ever be able to reach that place?
In Daphne’s eyes, as she clenched her fists tight, were reflected the falling fragments of the island and Hio, watching them.
* * *
Beside Daphne was Yun Seul-a.
Somehow, she had ended up accompanying her because of Lee Hyeon-seung, and somehow, they were now watching together the awe-inspiring sight of the sky island collapsing.
“Hah.”
A short breath escaped her without her realizing it.
“The First Awakened?”
Vaguely, she had guessed that Lee Hyeon-seung might be some kind of being who led the First Awakened.
“What utter nonsense.”
How absurd that was.
Was there anyone who knew as much about the First Awakened as Yun Seul-a did?
Yun Seul-a had personally seen even Nam Tae-min’s true power, which had never been revealed.
And she also knew that both Daphne and Nam Tae-min were among the highest-ranking figures encompassing the First Awakened.
And yet…… look at that now.
Even Daphne, right beside her, had her eyes wide with shock and her fists clenched tight.
How was she supposed to explain that power?
“Is this really something a human can do……?”
The golden hand descending from the sky was benevolent and sacred.
And yet it was also strong enough to crush a massive island and all the monsters packed inside it in a single stroke.
What could that mean?
Did it not mean it was the power of a god?
A person who wielded divine power.
Suddenly, a truly absurd assumption flashed through her mind.
Could Lee Hyeon-seung possibly be…….
“A god?”
Was he some kind of being who had created the First Awakened?
“Haha…….”
Even thinking it herself, she found it so absurd that a hollow laugh slipped out.
It made no sense.
No matter what, a god?
It was something completely devoid of logic, unlike Yun Seul-a, and something she would not even have considered just a few hours ago.
However…… the scene unfolding before her eyes showed that such a thought was not entirely far-fetched.
And had she not tried to investigate Lee Hyeon-seung, only to find absolutely nothing?
No records about him, no people who knew him.
There existed nothing whatsoever that could prove his identity.
That, too, would make sense if he were a god.
“Hah…… seriously…… no way…….”
No matter what…… surely thinking he was a god was going too far.
Surely it was.
Yun Seul-a’s eyes, as she thought so, were trembling with uncertainty toward herself.
* * *
A dark room.
Only the light of the monitor illuminated the man’s face and upper body.
He no longer knew how many hours it had been.
He had simply shut himself in his room all day, searching for and watching videos.
He had run away because he had been afraid.
—Fools who gained fame far beyond their ability.
But the situation had concluded in a direction he never expected.
—Know shame.
Because he was ashamed, he had shut himself away.
—I will be watching.
Those words terrified him so much that he could not go outside.
And so, hiding behind the monitor, he kept watching the same thing over and over.
What was playing on the man’s screen was footage from that day.
A miracle he could not believe even as he watched it.
Among the videos from that day, it was the best edited one, already having surpassed several billion views.
A dark sea with waves crashing. A sky after sunset.
The island floating between them was covered in an especially deep darkness.
A single white streak of light cut across that night sky.
As it gradually zoomed in, its form was finally revealed in detail.
A pure white horse racing through the sky at tremendous speed, and a man riding atop it.
Around that point, the background music grew faster, and when the man’s figure, continuously magnified, filled the screen—
Before anyone knew it, the man was standing before the island, silently gazing at it.
The sight of the white horse and the man confronting the dark, enormous island was so small that at first glance, it seemed like a battle that could never be won.
Yet as if mocking such thoughts, he lightly raised his staff.
Thoom—the intensified music struck the heart, and at the same time, the camera’s viewpoint shot upward.
At that moment.
Thoom—what filled the screen was the form of an enormous mage.
The island sunk in darkness, and above it, the old mage gazing down at it steadily.
With a benevolent face and resolute eyes, the mage looked down upon the island, then tapped a point in the air with his staff as if placing a dot.
Pabababak—with that sound, thousands of eyes appeared and surrounded the island completely.
Thousands of eyes pressed in, as if determined to analyze the island from top to bottom.
The screen showed the island’s overall appearance once, then showed the man.
The speed at which the two images alternated grew faster and faster, and the music rose in accordance.
When that speed reached its peak—
All sound abruptly stopped.
What appeared was the man’s smiling face.
—The Heavenly Realm, is it.
He cried out incomprehensible words and stretched his staff straight up toward the sky.
What happened after that was a miracle.
Even seeing it through a video, it was a rapturous sight that could only be called a miracle.
A golden radiance descended from the sky and washed away the darkness.
Yes, “washed away” was the most fitting expression.
The filthy darkness receded from the island, and the island let out a heavy groan as it began to crack.
Before long, that enormous thing collapsed and began to fall.
Only then was the interior of the island revealed.
The bizarre monsters packed densely inside it.
Monsters of forms he had never seen in his life had all fallen, as if their souls had been drained away.
They were being buried at sea together with the falling island.
The video ended with the island falling and the man on the white horse silently watching it, his back in frame.
“……The Supreme Heavenly Demon…….”
The man knew the identity of the man in the video.
Of course he did. If one was among the First Awakened, there was no way not to know that man, and the man himself was one of the First Awakened.
“I, I…… really had no choice.”
He had always taken it lightly.
Every time he entered the world of Ventair.
The logout ticket, too, had felt burdensome at first, but once he had built up a certain degree of fame, it had not been much of a burden.
Because every time he logged out, he earned an absurd number of points.
Because the whole world praised him and lifted him up.
So he really had had no choice.
Who could have imagined it?
A situation where those great Awakened, people as strong as he was or far stronger, people whose names everyone knew, were collapsing without being able to put up a fight.
When he even saw one of them finally die with his head bursting apart, the first thing that came to mind was, naturally, logging out.
What else could he have done?
He could not die there, could he?
And what if, like at the start of the raid, logging out became impossible?
That was why he had logged out without the slightest hesitation, and fortunately, the logout ticket had worked properly.
What he had felt then was…… relief.
And the raid had failed.
He was keenly aware of his responsibility.
He knew full well what consequences would follow after failure.
It was not as if he had intended to simply keep hiding like this.
An Abyss Gate would appear, and the Awakened would gather again, so could he not gather his strength again then?
He did not know about that world, but he had to protect this one, the real world.
He really…… he really had intended to step forward.
But before he could even do so, everything had ended.
The Supreme Heavenly Demon, the ranker among rankers.
When he heard that the man had stepped in and resolved it in an instant, he had felt so relieved.
But at the final words revealed belatedly—
—Know shame.
He had hidden himself right away.
He did not know why.
Had he, as the man had said, come to know shame?
He did not know…… but suddenly, he was simply afraid.
—Fools who gained fame far beyond their ability.
He had lost confidence that he could accomplish anything beyond this.
From here on, would it not require someone on the level of the Supreme Heavenly Demon?
Stopping the destruction of the world.
The weight of it, which had been so heavy that he had not even been able to feel it, was only now becoming tangible.
And so, in the dark room, the man stared endlessly at the only thing shining—the monitor screen.
At the Supreme Heavenly Demon shining there.
He engraved that utterly relaxed figure into his eyes and into his heart.
There were millions of comments beneath it.
In the languages of every nation, they were all praising him.
They trembled before his power.
Even so, the man did not feel so much as a speck of jealousy.
Because he knew it was a realm he could never reach.
What arose instead of jealousy was only admiration.
The man slowly closed the eyes that had been gazing into the screen.
What was he supposed to do now?
What lay ahead was no longer a realm he could do anything about with his own power.
It must be a road only monsters like the Supreme Heavenly Demon could survive.
Should he go farther?
Should he stop here?
It felt as though waves were crashing inside his heart.
That phenomenon was occurring in most of those called the First Awakened, or heroes.
* * *
The Abyss’s weakness is divine power.
Thinking about it, the hints had been there all along.
Even in the game, divine power had been effective, and had it not even purified corrupted lands and people?
It was just that priests capable of handling divine power were extremely rare.
And in the world of Ventair, the first country to fall to the Abyss’s invasion had been the Holy Kingdom of Hiberunia, so that too was fairly intuitive evidence.
There had been many reasons—the absence of the Saintess, a pope lacking legitimacy, the sudden death of a cardinal—but the most fundamental cause was that the Abyss monsters had invaded the Holy Kingdom first.
One could think it was merely coincidence, but thinking about it now, had it truly been coincidence?
Had they not instinctively tried to eliminate first what threatened them?
This became even more certain after meeting the Green Dragon, Ariel, who had been consumed by the Abyss.
Most of her soul had already assimilated with Abyss energy.
In such a state, what would happen if he used the “Heavenly Realm,” said to be equivalent to high-ranking divine magic?
Since it was already a skill engraved in Hio, he could know immediately without needing to test it.
The complete annihilation of anything related to the Abyss.
Not purification, but annihilation.
That was why he could not use the Heavenly Realm on the dragon, and had no choice but to slowly purify her with Purification.
The explanation had grown long, but to summarize: the Abyss’s weakness was divine power.
And the highest-tier defensive skill Hio had acquired, “Heavenly Realm,” was a skill that required divine power.
Conveniently, his mana stat had also nearly reached the 500 that could be raised through the Fame Point Shop.
Which meant that once he used the Fame Points he would earn now to raise all his mana, he would have to raise his divine power next.
「All Abyss Gates have vanished.」
「Returning.」
In any case, that was not what mattered right now.
Arilleia.
May Arilleia and the Empire, which had surely been invaded by the Abyss, be safe.
With that desperate hope, Hio opened his eyes.
And the scene that appeared the moment he opened them was—
“What…… the fuck is this.”
A complete mess.