Only a few months earlier.
The expedition heading for the 71st Floor had once entered a strange space where night and day, past and future and present, all coexisted.
There, Vitalianus and every member of the expedition had passed through a place called the “Memory Door,” and only after that had the true space of the 71st Floor finally appeared.
Hio saw Abelard’s memories.
Ailights heard the conversation between Venus and Ripyue.
Freyja read Ariel’s memories.
Legarda retraced his own memories.
Antiphus experienced the memories of the previous Abyss.
And Vitalianus……
* * *
「You have passed through ‘Beltesia’s Memory Door.’」
A battlefield.
What Vitalianus saw was a battlefield.
However, it was not the sort of battlefield thick with the stench of blood.
It was, without question, dreadful and wretched beyond words, but no heavy reek of blood drifted through the air.
The earth was stained black, and the energy of the Abyss overflowed all around.
He wondered if this was the Abyssal space he had only heard of in words, but the scenery around him was far too familiar for that.
‘This place……’
So familiar it was almost dear to him—this was the imperial capital of the Empire, Ivenia.
And it had been reduced to utter ruin.
Even the words “utter ruin” were insufficient.
‘Gail, Melissa…… Damon……’
Every familiar face had become a corpse, strewn across the ground.
Black smoke poured from their noses and mouths.
They were emaciated, consumed by the Abyss.
Vitalianus continued walking through the center of that calamity.
In truth, he was not moving his own feet and walking.
What he was seeing was someone’s memory.
He was merely seeing, through that person’s eyes, what the owner of the memory had done.
Even so, Vitalianus was so preoccupied with examining, one by one, the faces of the countless heroes collapsed beneath his feet that he did not even realize what state he himself existed in.
That was how dreadful and shocking the sight was.
As he continued on, he reached a place that was no different from a ruin.
It was not difficult to guess what this place, now collapsed in on itself, had once been.
How could he fail to recognize it?
This was his pride, his honor, a place no different from his very life.
Even if it had burned, shattered, and fallen, how could he fail to recognize the place he had devoted his entire life to protecting?
How could he not recognize the imperial palace?
The imperial palace, which had always risen so lofty and proud, had been horribly destroyed and collapsed.
As he walked vacantly through its midst, a familiar face he had forgotten caught his eye among the heaps of stone.
‘……The crown prince?’
The crown prince, who should have had his head severed years ago after losing the war of succession he himself had started, lay dead, buried among the rubble with a harrowing expression on his face.
However, he looked a little older than the Vitalianus he knew, and the clothes he wore were garments symbolizing the emperor.
He could not understand it.
A world destroyed by the Abyss and a fallen Empire.
The face of the crown prince appearing out of nowhere in such a world.
He could not understand it right away, but he moved a little farther.
And when his gaze moved along with him and discovered another corpse.
When he found a corpse that had died more miserably than anything else, so filled with resentment that even its eyes had not closed.
Vitalianus’s mouth, which had remained silent for so long, opened.
No—the owner of the body Vitalianus was watching, the owner of this memory, opened his mouth.
He looked down at the wretched corpse lying before him and murmured a name in a low voice.
“……Vitalianus.”
For that corpse was none other than Vitalianus himself.
Only then did Vitalianus begin to understand all of this.
What it was that he was seeing.
Whose memories they were, and how things had come to this.
“If you were going to die like this, you should have at least asked me to fight beside you.”
These were the memories of none other than the mage, Hio Pavlenko.
Not the memories of the current hero Hio Pavlenko, but of the days when he had been called the Supreme Heavenly Demon.
As Hio had explained, they could be called memories of his previous life.
“Showing off by acting cool all the way to the end.”
He lowered himself, knelt, and closed Vitalianus’s resentful eyes.
“Still, well, I’ll keep my promise……”
Hio Pavlenko.
Why was Vitalianus seeing his memories?
He could not know, but there was one thing he did understand.
The Supreme Heavenly Demon.
The world he had lived in was far too dreadful, and far too tragic.
“Rest easy, and don’t worry.”
The place the Supreme Heavenly Demon headed after rising, turning his back, and leaving the capital was an unexpected one.
The headquarters of Black Fang, and a place designated as a forbidden land of the continent.
It was Baal Forest, called the Forest of Black Mist.
The place where his old friend sat as its leader.
It was also the place where Hio and Vitalianus had brought down Black Fang together.
But Baal Forest, as seen through the Supreme Heavenly Demon, was very different from the place Vitalianus knew.
There was no mist that deceived sight and senses, and no sign of traps or other forces could be felt.
The gray castle at the center of Baal Forest was also clearly visible, and the Supreme Heavenly Demon climbed it as though it were only natural.
At its top, he was able to see a welcome face once again.
“Ataolf.”
Ataolf of the Black Mist.
He was sitting languidly at the highest point of the gray castle.
“What brings the famous Ruler of Flames here? Have you come to take my head, even now?”
The Supreme Heavenly Demon shook his head.
“I just had a promise to keep.”
“……A promise?”
As if it did not matter whether the man before him was the continent’s worst villain or a criminal, the Supreme Heavenly Demon naturally plopped down on the floor.
Then something rather absurd came out of his mouth.
“Breakfast is taboo, he said. It’s a symbol of overeating, overdrinking, and luxury, so even if you’re hungry as soon as you open your eyes, you have to endure it.”
Ataolf did not answer the out-of-nowhere words.
He merely stared into the air with eyes that had grown somewhat hollow.
“As you know well, training must be done at the appointed time. It must be neither early nor late. Your back must always be straight, but you must not look too far ahead, nor too far down.”
“……”
“You must live for honor and glory, and keep away from gold coins. No, isn’t that strange? You need gold coins to live, yet you’re told to keep away from them. And that’s not all. You must protect the honor of your fellow knights, and you must not recklessly insult your enemies. You must always be fair and despise baseness and deceit. You must never show your back to the enemy, and you must fight for the peace and safety of all. How can a person live while upholding all of that? Even I have had enemies I feared and wanted to run from, more than once.”
It was not Hio Pavlenko’s way of speaking.
He was merely conveying someone else’s words through his mouth.
And it was all too obvious whose words they were.
“How was it? The life of a hero. In truth, it was nothing special. From afar, it looked so radiant and noble, but when I actually became one, it was different. Every day was difficult, uncomfortable as though I were wearing clothes that did not fit, and also……”
This was Vitalianus’s life.
His own life.
“Lonely.”
There was no way he could fail to know.
Because it contained every word he had wanted to say, if only they could meet again someday.
“I wanted to tell you this, no matter what.”
To everything he had turned away from in order to uphold such trifles.
Because he had failed to properly see the face of the friend who had been suffering right beside him.
“I’m sorry. For only telling you this now, and for being unable to say it to you face to face.”
It might already be far too late.
No, it was certainly too late.
“Could you forgive this wretched friend?”
With that as the last word, silence settled over them.
The Supreme Heavenly Demon closed his mouth as though he had said all he needed to say, and Ataolf merely sat there, his eyes even more hollow than before.
How much time passed like that?
A terribly cracked voice slowly sounded.
“He…… is dead?”
The Supreme Heavenly Demon nodded.
Ataolf lowered his head.
“I see.”
Heh, heh…… A low laugh came from his bowed head.
“How did he die?”
“He died with the emperor while protecting the imperial palace.”
“Is that so…… Truly a death befitting him. To protect trash like that…… Ah, I suppose I’m in no position to say that. Heh, heh……”
Ataolf’s laughter grew louder and louder, until his shoulders began to shake.
“Hahaha! Isn’t it funny? Even in death, he’s apologizing and acting noble all by himself. He was a man who lived thinking he was so very great.”
“That’s true.”
“Heh, heh, heh. Everything he said to me must have been a lie, too. He was the very picture of a hero, as if drawn that way. A man like that felt uncomfortable, as if he were wearing clothes that didn’t fit? Hahaha! What deception is this?”
“You’re right. It was deception. Vitalianus was a hero until the moment he died.”
“Hahahahaha!”
Perhaps it was so funny that Ataolf began laughing while clutching his stomach.
It was a clear, hearty laugh, refreshing enough that even the one listening might feel relieved.
He must have felt so unburdened that he laughed for a long while without even thinking to stop the tears flowing down his face.
Then, suddenly, he lifted his head and looked straight into the Supreme Heavenly Demon’s eyes.
“I cannot forgive him.”
That gaze felt as though it were looking at Vitalianus himself.
“……I see.”
“He simply irritates me. Those golden eyes that always seemed detached, and that vast magnanimity of his that could ask forgiveness even of the worst piece of trash in history.”
The metallic voice, already seeming inhuman, rang out even more harshly throughout the room.
“He irritates me so much I can hardly breathe.”
For the first time, Ataolf’s true feelings, which Vitalianus had never been able to hear, reached him.
“That was why I avoided him all this time. Because a head-on clash would cause too much damage? No. It was simply because I was afraid I might want to give everything up. Because the anger and hatred that had lost their destination seemed like they would fade whenever I saw him.”
“Then couldn’t you have just given up?”
“How could I! My family! My efforts! Those pieces of trash in the Empire never once offered me a sincere apology. They had neither the thought nor the will to find the culprit. Do you think the citizens were any different? They offered condolences to my face, but behind my back, they were busy pointing fingers and saying they had known this would happen!”
That was why Ataolf’s anger had to be a flame that never went out.
It was something that had to flaunt its existence by endlessly burning hatred against the world.
The black mist, stirred by Ataolf’s emotions, blazed fiercely.
His pitch-black eyes were rage itself, but for some reason, to Vitalianus, even that seemed like an act.
As though he had to be this way.
Had Ataolf’s anger toward the world, in truth, not already died down long ago?
“Do you know this?”
Ataolf softened his presence and opened his mouth once again.
“I, too, once wielded a sword.”
He picked up an old sword beside him.
It was rusted here and there and blunted beyond use, but the jewel set in its center still shone.
At that, the Supreme Heavenly Demon nodded.
Vitalianus himself had probably told him.
“Hahahaha! Is that so?”
Ataolf burst into laughter.
“Then do you know this as well?”
Then he pointed that old sword at his own heart.
“In truth, I wanted to become a hero.”
Despite being described as blunt and rusted, the sword pierced his flesh far too easily.
A cruel blade that accurately pierced his heart and was drawn out again without hesitation.
The Supreme Heavenly Demon did not stop him.
He merely stood for a long while before Ataolf’s slowly cooling corpse.
“I knew that, too.”
Then he simply turned away.
* * *
Afterward, there was no word that came to mind for the Supreme Heavenly Demon’s actions except tragic.
Every place he went was swarming with abominations, all the food was contaminated, and even when he occasionally thought he had found an intact village, there was no one alive.
He could only see the corpses of a mother and child who had taken their own lives.
And traces of them having been hacked apart by abominations.
Even so, the Supreme Heavenly Demon moved on in silence.
For what purpose?
No matter how one looked at it, this world no longer had any hope.
The earth was contaminated, and no living people could be found.
Even if someone were alive somewhere in the world, there was no food anyway, so they would starve to death, or die from contamination by the Abyss, or be brutally killed by the abominations spread across the continent.
Even so, the Supreme Heavenly Demon moved on steadily.
At times, he was surrounded by hundreds of Abyss monsters and abominations, but he broke through them with flames that covered heaven and earth.
Without resting, he moved in search of survivors who might be somewhere.
How could he do this?
No—could anyone possibly go through all of this and remain sane?
Only then did all of Hio Pavlenko’s actions make sense.
Why he had made an imperial princess into an emperor, and a girl from the streets into a saintess.
Those eyes that had been inexplicably friendly from their first meeting, and that strangely easy way of speaking.
He had already passed through a hell Vitalianus knew nothing of and arrived at the present.
How laughable it was that he had acted as if he knew better, offering advice.
Even in a world already destroyed, he moved to become hope.
Could he do the same?
Not a false hero with only a convincing exterior, but a true hero.
Vitalianus sank deep into thought within the Supreme Heavenly Demon’s memories.
And the Supreme Heavenly Demon continued to move for a world that had already fallen.
* * *
So, you see.
Something like this could hardly even be called a sacrifice, could it?
Hiss—
The sound of burning from within his body disturbed his ears.
The Golden Lion’s intent had far surpassed its limits.
Compared to the Abyss, which could be called the world itself without exaggeration, it was infinitesimal.
Even so, the weight contained within it was heavy enough to shake the entirety of the Abyss.
“When all of you saw memories of the past.”
His body burned away endlessly.
In proportion, his intent blazed up so greatly that it was difficult even to control.
But he had to hold on to his mind.
Because this was his final request—and his advice.
“I alone saw the future.”
The first thing he had seen at Beltesia’s Door of Memory was the Supreme Heavenly Demon’s memories.
And after those memories ended, Vitalianus saw the true future.
Why, when everyone else had seen memories of the past, had he alone seen the future?
Why had the ancient god shown the future only to him?
“There, you were smiling so very happily.”
It was a lie.
He had seen no such future.
What he had seen was a future utterly, utterly miserable.
The future awaiting one unfortunate person after Airaitz used the Authority of Sacrifice.
Therefore.
“Please, do not lose that smile.”
He knew with absolute clarity what had to be done.
With those final words, he bent his knees slightly and straightened them.
And then, before he knew it, he was before the Abyss.
Amid the falling stars, the most brilliant star rose alone.
The lord of the Abyss, called Kreutzwald.
What he thrust into that enormous eye was the Golden Lion’s sword.
At the same time, it was everything that made up the hero named Vitalianus.
BOOOOOOM—!
Under that overwhelming power, under that weight, the Abyss helplessly burst apart.
BOOOOM—!
The great sword-star fell with it as well.