It was a strange sensation.
The feeling of one’s body floating up and drifting through the air.
No, it wasn’t that his body was rising; the ground had fallen away.
The ground sank, and the walls receded.
The whole world was black, as though they had come to outer space, but no stars could be seen.
What could be seen instead was a single enormous magic circle shining in black.
If asked how black could shine, he would have been hard-pressed to answer.
And yet the magic circle truly was shining in black.
Looking around, everyone was in the same state.
Some were flailing with the ground now far beneath their feet, while others were glancing about as if this situation was simply fascinating.
After a short while.
An immense amount of mana began to whirl at the center.
A tremendous wave of energy churned around Freyja, who had manifested in her true dragon form at some point, and Hio Pavlenko, who had raised his staff beside her.
There was no one here who could fail to sense a wave of energy on that scale.
With that as the signal, everyone’s bodies began to be sucked in at terrifying speed.
Like being pulled into an enormous vacuum cleaner, the Continental Allied Forces were rapidly drawn into a narrow, long, pitch-black passage.
It was the road to the Abyss.
* * *
As expected of an army gathered from the finest elites on the continent.
They recovered their senses quickly as well.
They had been told they would invade the Demon Realm directly through a passage, but hadn’t it been called a passage?
Common sense suggested they would walk through it on their own two feet.
But it was nothing of the sort.
The passage was compulsory, and neither body nor soul obeyed their will; they had simply been swept along for a long while, like fallen leaves caught in a wave.
It had been a long, distant span of time, enough to make one’s soul feel as though it might leave the body.
Had they been ordinary humans, or humans trained only half-heartedly, they would have lost consciousness and fainted without even realizing the passage had ended.
But not a single member of the allied forces gathered here was so easy to underestimate.
“Ugh……”
“Open your eyes! Come to your senses!”
Though they had been tumbled through the passage until their souls nearly fled their bodies regardless of their own will, the moment their feet touched the ground, they found their balance and shook their heads to clear their minds.
They were indeed worthy of being called members of the allied forces chosen to represent the continent.
However.
“Th-this is……”
After regaining their senses and looking around, they instead let out dazed voices.
The place where they now stood was the Demon Realm. The Abyss.
The end of the world, as some called it.
It was a scene that could only make those words sink in.
The earth was dry, as if it had lost all life, yet strange plants of bizarre shapes jutted up here and there without regard for that.
Trees twisted in spirals as if wailing stretched their branches toward the sky.
On every branch hung small, eye-like fruits that glowed faintly.
And from the cracks filling the earth, the Abyss seeped out like mist.
In the sky, where it was difficult to distinguish night from day, violet and black light mingled, and a great fissure floated at the center; if one looked closely, it even seemed to writhe.
Faced with such a sight, such a landscape, even the well-trained allied forces could not help but feel disoriented.
“Form ranks!”
“Remember! This is the Demon Realm!”
Even amid that, there were those with exceptionally strong willpower, and such people were usually commanders leading their own units.
Thanks to their shouts, the allied forces came to their senses again and began to restore their formation.
But the Abyss’s true welcome had not even begun yet.
“……”
An eerie stillness settled over every direction.
The voices of the unit commanders shouting at the top of their lungs could no longer be heard.
No, at the very least, there should have been the clatter of armor or the presence of people moving.
Yet when even the sound of one’s own footsteps could not be heard, a thought suddenly, truly suddenly, seized them.
Do I really exist?
And when that thought surged up.
—Kyaaaaah!
—Save me, please save me!
Screams erupted.
Erupted was the right word.
Distant and yet near, the screams surged up far too abruptly within the overwhelming silence.
A startled knight swiftly turned his head toward his surroundings, but there was no one calling for help, no one screaming.
Far from it, not a single one of the countless knights who had been lined up around him could be seen.
It was confusing and bewildering.
But he could not even recognize that confusion or bewilderment.
Because there was no time to think about it.
The moment they set foot in the Demon Realm, at the end of the world.
They were already the Abyss.
Thus they sank without end.
They had been tainted the instant they arrived.
It was a space where even reasonably resilient knights could consider coming to their senses a luxury.
At the center of that space, a pure white light burst forth.
“Everyone, open your eyes.”
It was a miracle.
It was holy power.
The sacred light emanating from Saintess—no, Apostle Irina enveloped the vast space entirely.
She had declared the surrounding area to be her domain.
Those who had been buried beneath the Abyss barely managed to open their eyes.
They had thought their eyes were open, but at some point their minds had been seized by the Abyss, and they had collapsed.
“Be careful.”
Irina’s graceful voice spread far and wide on divinity.
It was the voice of a saintess that blew away the murky residue of the Abyss and fully awakened the minds of the allied forces.
“The place where we stand is the end of the world.”
This place was the end of the world, the Abyss.
* * *
If it could be called fortunate, then fortunate it was.
For now, they had avoided the worst-case scenario they had imagined.
What they had feared most was Kreutzwald discovering the existence of the passage and laying some scheme there, but there seemed to be no trace of that.
The reason most of the knights had been unable to come to their senses the moment they arrived was the pure energy of the Abyss, incomparable to anything on the continent, not one of Kreutzwald’s tricks.
“Should we not secure our retreat first?”
At Vitalianus’s words, Hio nodded and looked up at Freyja.
“Freyja and I will inspect the magic circle, so I’ll leave the construction of the camp to you.”
“Goes without saying.”
The thing to prioritize above all else was securing a retreat.
In other words, preparing a way back.
It would have a profound effect on the army’s morale, and there was no need to even mention the difference between having somewhere to return to and not having one.
They would have to hurry and construct a camp, then coordinate well with Irina and the priests of Hibernia to create the optimal defensive line.
“Let’s go inspect the passage.”
Everyone began moving busily to find their own roles.
For reference, Purnell had not been able to come with them.
She had stubbornly insisted until the end that she would go with them, but what could not be done simply could not be done.
For no other reason than divinity, Purnell could not survive here even for a moment.
After all, she was a specter in form.
Any existence that had twisted death in any way was bound to be vulnerable to divinity, and Purnell, being a former necromancer, had no way of not knowing that fact.
And yet she had stubbornly insisted she would go.
Well, in the end, she had been forced to remain behind alone in the Dragon Temple, thoroughly sulking.
In any case, they had safely arrived in the Abyss, and there was an extraordinary amount of work to do.
They inspected the passage, engraved a new magic circle, decided the domain together with Irina, and spread divinity within it.
So that no matter how dense the Abyss became, it could never intrude.
This would be an absolute mental barrier and the allied forces’ final line of defense.
“The camp has been completed as well.”
Meanwhile, the legion’s camp had also been finished.
For a camp where tens of thousands of soldiers might have to hold out for days, weeks, or even months, it had been completed very quickly.
As it was the task they had prioritized and valued most, it had ended quickly.
Then now, it was time to advance.
“Will you expand the domain?”
At Vitalianus’s question, Hio shook his head.
There was indeed a method of gradually expanding the domain.
It was the safest way to pioneer the Abyss, even if it cost the allied forces some sacrifices.
It was a method that could make full use of the large number of allied soldiers, but—
“This is a battle against time.”
In the end, the issue was whether they could defeat Kreutzwald or not; they were not here to wage a territorial war in this dreadful environment.
“I thought as much. I’ve already divided the troops, so you just think about how you’ll get to Kreutzwald.”
“I will.”
Hio’s gaze turned into the distance.
This was not the end of the world Hio knew.
It was true that it was the same landmass.
The environment, where an ordinary human would lose their mind the moment they set foot in it, was similar, and so was the landscape where everything had been twisted and transformed into something grotesque.
But the place where Hio had been, the place where Kreutzwald dwelled, was not such an open area.
It was a place where ash flew through the air all year round, where the energy of the Abyss was several times denser, and where one could barely make out even an inch ahead.
For instance.
“……There it is.”
A place like that ash-covered region in the far distance.
At Hio’s murmur, the gazes of everyone nearby turned toward the same place as his.
Even in this environment where neither trees, nor earth, nor sky could be called normal, that place was particularly more grotesque.
It was several times darker, and because of whatever was drifting thickly through the air, they could not even see what sort of place it was.
“You mean there?”
“Kreutzwald is there……”
Kreutzwald was there.
“Are you going to keep staring blankly? Didn’t you say this was a battle against time?”
“……Right. We have to move quickly.”
They had to get as close as possible before Kreutzwald noticed.
He could not be certain whether Kreutzwald truly had not noticed or not, but for the moment, there was no sign of movement.
They had to select the optimal personnel to break through that ash-covered region together.
Too many people would only get in the way.
But if they moved with too few, their stamina might become a problem before the endless night of monstrosities.
This was an expedition that could take days, or months, for all they knew.
“So……”
Hio looked over the faces of those who had gathered nearby.
Each and every one of them was a true powerhouse of the continent, the sort rarely found gathered in one place.
Of course, most of them were faces Hio knew.
“The personnel who will cross into the ash-covered region with me are……”
They could, in effect, be called the final expeditionary force, a death squad.
It went without saying that they would have to risk their lives, and it would likely be dozens of times more dangerous than here, before the passage guarded by tens of thousands of troops.
Even so, the eyes of those looking at Hio flickered with eagerness.
Because all of them were strong.
They wanted to fight that absurd monster, whatever so-called master of the Abyss he might be, directly.
There was also likely the reason that they wanted to personally witness the unbelievable heroic tales that had spread after Hio’s clash in Hibernia.
“Vitalianus, Airlites, Freyja. And Legarda as well.”
These four would naturally accompany him.
Far from holding Hio back, they were the only beings who could help him.
The problem began after that.
In any case, those who accompanied him from this point on were highly unlikely to be of help in the battle against Kreutzwald.
Even so, he needed people who would be useful in reaching that point.
“Gail and Mallisa.”
The first names called were the First Knight Commander Gail and the Royal Knight Mallisa.
Gail was a knight evaluated to be just below Vitalianus, and Mallisa was an awakened one, a woman who had awakened will, however faintly.
They would be of no small help in battle against monstrosities.
The next place Hio’s gaze turned was—
“Claire.”
The red-haired girl who had been with him at the beginning of this unfamiliar continent.
She had now become a full-fledged woman, and at some point, she had become someone who was by his side even at the moment of the final battle.
Claire stepped forward with a slightly flushed expression and stood behind Hio.
After that, Hio called several others and ordered them to accompany him.
Every one of them was famous for being strong and level-headed.
After passing over one person after another in that way, he arrived before a unit gathered in numbers clearly fewer than the others.
This unit, organized separately for a special purpose, was composed of powerful individuals from other worlds.
In other words, it was a unit of possessed people.
Naturally, the one standing at their head was Antiphus.
Behind him, Silbert’s and Daphne’s faces could be seen as well.
Hio’s steps, moving at a steady pace, soon reached them.
Naturally, Antiphus’s and Hio’s eyes met, and Hio’s mouth slowly opened.
However.
“Antiphus.”
Hio’s footsteps did not stop.
“You and the others stay here.”
Leaving behind only those words, he walked straight past them.