It happened in an instant.
The memory of the past she had been watching—the space itself—shattered and tore apart.
Through the cracks, a sight impossible to comprehend was revealed.
【Found you.】
At the voice that made every hair on her body stand on end, her head turned upward of its own accord, and she saw it.
A single enormous eye, containing all the gloom in the world.
【Riphue’s hope.】
The voice that came from there made space tremble and her mind ring.
There was no time to understand what it meant.
A helplessness she had never felt before in her life. The sense of her own existence, so insignificant before a being she could not resist.
【Your schemes are paltry, and your struggling is paltry as well.】
Her mind went blank, and her entire body, strengthless, began to tremble.
She was going to die.
She would surely die.
Between the falling fragments of the dungeon space, from within the deep, deep darkness, it reached out its hand.
That was how Claire felt.
Since any struggle would be meaningless anyway, she might as well just die.
Without resisting at all, she should simply entrust herself to the encroaching abyss and die like that.
It was hard to believe, but Claire had certainly thought that.
All she had done was see that bizarre eye and hear a few words in that bizarre voice, yet the very will to resist had vanished.
However, Claire was not the only one there.
【Supreme Heavenly Demon.】
Supreme Heavenly Demon. Another name referring to Hio.
It was certainly an alias Claire knew as well.
When they had left Delphir Village, Hio had said that Sirbert would understand if she told him those words.
She still did not know what they meant.
However, she did know that those who recognized that alias of Hio’s were, without exception, far from ordinary.
She also remembered Sirbert’s reaction when he first heard that name—how he had flinched in shock and gone rigid.
【Hio Pavlenko.】
Just what did it mean, and what sort of being did it refer to, that even that grotesque entity would call Hio by it?
【Riphue’s last hope.】
And what, then, was Riphue’s hope?
Riphue referred to the goddess of hope, but……
No, before that, how was she even capable of thinking such thoughts?
Until just moments ago, she had been pitifully trembling, thinking only of death, yet at some point those thoughts had vanished without a trace, and her mind had wandered elsewhere.
If there was a reason for that…… it was probably thanks to Hio, who was emitting a dazzling light right before her eyes.
The golden goddess’s hand, pouring down from the distant heights of the sky, held back the surging darkness.
Lightning accompanied his body, and above his head, a blue sun stood with Hio.
Once she saw that, she could no longer think of something like death.
She tried to force herself up, hoping to lend even the slightest bit of strength.
But.
【The light will sink, and darkness will rise.】
Those still incomprehensible words rang through space and shook her mind.
【When that time comes, you will be the abyss.】
“……!”
As if flung away, the grotesque eye and the darkness receded into the far distance and vanished in an instant.
She had only closed and opened her eyes once, yet before she knew it, she was in an entirely different space.
“Wh-where is this……?”
A vast cavern.
It was a flower field filled with yellow rapeseed blossoms.
“……It’s the common space that appears once you clear all the dungeons. You’re all right now……”
The moment she heard Hio’s words, her body swayed.
Her strengthless legs refused to obey her.
“Are you okay?”
If Hio had not quickly supported her, she would have rolled unsightly through the flower field.
“Yeah…… I was just a little startled. Sorry.”
From the place where she touched Hio, something warm flowed into her.
An energy that made her heart feel soft and calm.
Her hands and feet, which had been trembling faintly, gradually settled, and strength began returning to her body.
Hadn’t one of Hio’s many aliases been the Saint of Black Wings?
Divine power was flowing into her.
“Thank you.”
At Claire’s words, Hio answered with a faint smile and looked around.
A vast cavern. All around them were yellow flowers.
Along the walls, passages had been opened at regular intervals, and most of those passages stood open.
If Hio and Claire had cleared the dungeon normally, they would have entered this common space through one of those passages.
Claire, looking around after Hio, pointed to the one entrance among the passages that alone had collapsed and said,
“That must be the path we came through.”
A collapsed entrance.
According to the prior explanation, a collapsed passage meant that all dungeons had been cleared.
An open passage meant that the clearing was still in progress.
“Then those passages that closed……”
A closed passage meant they had failed to clear it.
And failure to clear it meant the annihilation of the party.
“They must have been…… unlucky.”
They had probably been terribly unlucky.
Perhaps they had formed a two-person party like Hio and Claire, or perhaps an unexpectedly powerful monster had appeared.
“……It’s a floor with many variables.”
As Hio said that, his gaze remained fixed on the closed passages.
“There was…… nothing they could do. Again.”
His words were filled with anger.
Seeing him speak while suppressing his anger so intensely was unfamiliar even to Claire.
What was it that had made him so furious, yet forced him to endure it?
“Variables. Damn variables.”
If she had to guess, perhaps it was anger toward Hio himself.
That anger was greater than she had expected, so Claire quickly changed the subject.
“More importantly, Hio. ……Can you tell me? What exactly were those things?”
The beings that had appeared while destroying the dungeon.
A space filled with darkness. The grotesque eye floating in the sky above it.
As she recalled it, fear once again welled up from deep within her heart.
If Hio had not calmed her with divine power, she likely would not have been able to speak so calmly.
It had not been a dream.
Then what, exactly, had that been?
At Claire’s question, Hio remained silent for a while, then bent down and sat among the yellow flowers.
“Do you want to sit for a moment?”
Claire carefully sat beside him as well.
Even then, a brief silence followed.
At the end of it, Hio opened his mouth.
“That thing is an invader that seeks to take this world.”
What he spoke was the truth of the distant past.
The true Abyss, known in the present age only to Hio.
The greatest enemy, and the root cause of all these events.
“Abyss, the deep, or the bizarre. It has many names.”
He had not carelessly spoken of it to anyone.
Not to Sylvia, nor to Vitalianus.
Because he knew better than anyone the tremendous weight and anxiety they would have to bear the moment he told them.
He had not told Daphne or Sirbert either.
Because he still could not trust them completely.
The reason was, after all, logout.
They were people who treasured their homeland more than this world.
Were they not beings who had tried to use this world as a testing ground for the sake of their homeland?
Possessors so unstable that, if things went wrong, they could log out at any time.
This was the first truth he had ever confided.
A war that had continued since a thousand years ago—no, perhaps from far earlier than that—yet was recorded nowhere.
What the Abyss was, and when the battle against it had begun.
Why the gods no longer raised their voices, and why magic had to disappear behind the veil of history.
How the Abyss monsters they were facing had been born, and how there was no way to reverse it.
After hearing the entire story, Claire could not say a word.
She had never dared to imagine it.
No, who could possibly have imagined it?
Who could have expected that he had been fighting such a heavy truth, and such a vast Abyss, all alone?
With what words could she comfort him for his sacrifice, and with what words could she praise his efforts?
She did not know, but whatever she said now would surely be unable to offer him any comfort or solace.
“It’s one of my goals. To get rid of that grotesque thing we saw earlier.”
She had not even dared to think of resisting and had only filled her mind with death, yet Hio spoke not only of resisting it, but of erasing it.
That was why she could not say anything.
Because she felt so ashamed and small.
“Claire. You have to become strong.”
Hio’s quiet voice reached her as he gazed into the distance.
“Train until your mind won’t be shaken by it. Grow your intent until you can strike it.”
Those words were not meant for Claire alone.
They were like a vow Hio was repeating to himself.
And then, at that moment.
Boom—!
A heavy sound rang out from far away.
The sound of something heavy closing shut.
When she followed the sound with her eyes, she saw the entrance of a passage that had newly closed.
Another party had failed to clear the dungeon.
They had been annihilated and died just like that.
Hio kept his gaze fixed on it and murmured,
“……We have to.”
His eyes seemed sorrowful, and yet also as if he were holding back rage.
With those words, silence continued for a while.
Rapeseed flowers in full bloom brushed against her cheek as they swayed.
Perhaps because that comforting floral scent caressed the bridge of her nose.
“I’ll become strong.”
Claire mustered her courage and spoke.
“I won’t collapse helplessly like this again, and I’ll become strong enough to land a serious blow on that Abyss.”
It was strange.
This was not right, but strangely, she felt happy.
“You’re my goal. So your goal is my goal too.”
When she turned her head to look at Hio, he was also looking at her.
Not with sorrowful eyes, nor eyes that were holding back anger, but with clear black eyes that seemed a little surprised.
“I’ll try harder too. I’ll try and try until I can stand proudly by your side again.”
Strangely, the words flowed out smoothly.
She should not feel happy, but she did.
A wide flower field with only the two of them.
A beautiful flower field smiling in full bloom despite being inside the Abyss floor.
Within it, the words Hio had shared were a truth told only to her.
Had Hio’s heavy burden been lightened even a little?
Had she been of some small help to him?
Was that why joy was rippling in her heart?
“When that time comes, when I’ve become strong enough to be of help to you……”
Or was it because the yellow flowers blooming and swaying were too beautiful?
Was her heart lifted because their fragrance was so pleasant?
“I……”
Perhaps all of those things were reasons.
The reason she was about to speak aloud the words she had only ever imagined, the words she had, at some point, begun imagining like a dream before falling asleep.
It was because the flowers were blooming far too beautifully for something in the Abyss, and because the fresh atmosphere was like a spring day.
“You……”
But perhaps the conversation they had shared had gone on for too long.
Kuuung—!
Once again, a heavy sound rang out from behind them.
A sound slightly different from before—not something closing, but something collapsing.
Swallowing the words she had failed to let out, she turned around.
She saw a passage collapsing, and people walking from in front of it.
Familiar faces.
Among them, the man at the very front had his expression hardened as he glared at Hio, almost as if staring him down.
“……Supreme Heavenly Demon.”
Again.
That incomprehensible name rang out once more.
* * *
Hio and Claire were the first to enter the common space, the final rendezvous point, and the second to arrive after clearing all dungeons was the party of Antipus and Sirbert.
Starting with them, Vitalianus and several other parties quickly entered the common space.
In other words, the vast cavern, the common space where yellow flowers bloomed in profusion, had filled with many people.
“Ah, come to think of it, weren’t you trying to say something earlier?”
“Huh? M-me?”
“You definitely said that once you got stronger, you’d do something……”
“Ah, ah? That! It’s nothing important! I’ll tell you next time. Ahaha……”
Claire waved her hands in denial, strangely flustered.
“……Really? All right.”
Well, he let it go for now and looked around.
Nearly all the parties had arrived.
Passages lay at regular intervals along the walls of the cavern.
Most of the seventy-odd passages had collapsed, but five of them had shut firmly closed.
Since the Empire and the possessors had begun conquering together, the first casualties had occurred.
Now only one passage remained open.
Just then, the final party came limping in from that passage, as if injured.
“The last ones are coming in! Maintain formation!”
The moment the final party entered, the boss raid would begin.
And so the Empire’s knights and the possessors, spread wide around the common space, watched the center with tense eyes.
The same was true of Hio and Claire.
Rumble—
Then, the moment even the last party entered the common space and the entrance to the passage collapsed, messages appeared.
Messages visible only to the possessors announced the boss’s emergence.
「All personnel who entered the Breakthrough Floor have arrived in the common space.」
「The final breakthrough will now begin.」
At the same time, Abyssal energy spread thickly outward.
The yellow-blooming flowers lost their vitality and began to turn black.
Their vision darkened another shade.
And there, in the very center of the cavern, the shape that abruptly rose up was unmistakably the boss monster of the Breakthrough Floor.
“It’s here!”
“Don’t approach! Wait!”
The knights stood ready with their swords pointed forward, while the long-range skill users immediately poured out their skills.
Kwaaaang—!
All manner of skills rained down.
Blackening petals scattered through the air, dirt flew up, and clouds of dust surged.
However.
“Kieeeeeee!”
As expected of a boss monster, it seemed to have taken no real damage.
Its overall appearance was that of a bipedal monster.
Like other Abyss monsters, it was black from head to toe, but what stood out were its head and hands.
Its head was abnormally large compared to its body, and atop it sat some unidentified triangle, all twisted out of shape.
At the end of its arm, a long staff as tall as itself was fused with its hand, warped together.
“Kieeeeeek!”
The boss monster cried out thunderously and struck the ground with the end of the staff stuck to its hand.
Somehow... it looked familiar.
“Something’s coming! Prepare yourselves!”
A familiar-looking wave spread through the cavern.
A familiar pattern of mana.
“Wrap yourselves in aura!”
“Deploy defensive skills!”
“Kieeeeek!”
The change came at once.
The flowers, which had once been yellow and fragrant, turned completely black, then began to intertwine with one another and grow enormously.
“Kiek! Kieeeee!”
However, compared to how threateningly they grew, no attack came.
They merely wrapped around a small space that included the monster itself.
Even that, somehow, was familiar.
“...For now, don’t get close. Keep attacking from a distance!”
All sorts of attack skills were unleashed, centered around the possessors, most of whom had long-range abilities, but the barrier of black flowers only shook and did not break.
Nor did it launch any other counterattack.
It merely—
“Kie! Kieeeeek!”
From within, the monster’s cries continued to ring out.
Kwaaaang—!
Attacks poured down.
The barrier trembled.
“Kieeeeek! Kieeeeeek!”
The monster cried out.
Kwaaaang—!
An even stronger attack struck the barrier.
Then an even more thunderous cry came from inside.
“Kieeeeeek!”
It was not a scream.
Nor could anyone understand what it was saying.
And yet it continued to shout something without stopping.
“Kieek! Kieeeeeek!”
What was it crying out so desperately?
As though it never tired, the monster kept shouting.
As if...
“Kiek! Kieeeeek!”
Do not worry.
I am here.
“Kieek! Kieeeeeek!”
Be at ease.
Tetradia will surely return.
So please, until the very moment you die, do not let go of hope.
“Kieeeeeek!”
Because it reminded her of an old mage who had once shouted so, until his throat was raw.
“...!”
Claire covered her mouth with both hands.
Her eyes were wide open, and before she knew it, she had taken a step back.
“Kieeeeek!”
Unlike Claire, Hio stepped forward.
Calmly, as always.
Firmly suppressing the emotions that threatened to burst out, enduring, and enduring again.
[Hidden Trait: Violence Is Not Allowed! (Patience: 997 / 1000)]
And so, he stepped forward.