Of course, such a thing would not kill the Goddess. Rather, nothing could definitely kill Alovenus other than her own suicide. In fact, she might not even die by her own hand. Whether it be something that extinguished the soul entirely, erased all traces of her, or even made it so she had never existed in the first place, as soon as she got tired of not existing, Alovenus would simply make a sudden return, almost like a cockroach.
As Lufas was now, she might have been able to forcefully end Alovenus by overwriting her immortality. She might even have been able to continuously suppress Alovenus’s efforts to revive. However, Lufas had no intention of doing so.
In any case, Alovenus herself already knew painfully well that she had been defeated.
For a long moment, Alovenus said nothing, then stuttered, “Huh? Uh? N-No way... I... I just...”
“Yeah. You realize it yourself, don’t you? You lost.”
With that blow, Alovenus’s HP became 0.
It didn’t matter that her HP was 0 though. Even if it went into negative numbers or the very concept of HP was erased, Alovenus still would not die. Alovenus could continue fighting if she wanted to. Likewise, if she wanted to stand up, she could.
However, none of that mattered. Alovenus had lost this contest of wills and selfishness. That fact meant that Alovenus now had no chance of winning anymore. Battles in this divine territory meant a contest of imposing one’s selfishness. The more selfish one would win, while the one who was satisfied with the status quo would lose.
As of now, the hierarchy between Lufas and Alovenus had been set in stone and would never change. Alovenus could no longer win against Lufas Maphaahl. Never. In other words, it was complete and utter defeat. Alovenus had lost to Minamijuuji Sei mentally and Lufas physically. There could be no excuses for this complete loss.
Faced with that fact, Alovenus felt sapped. Now that she’d accepted her defeat even once, she could no longer contend against Lufas in a battle like this. It didn’t matter how much she tried to insist that she was stronger. The fact that she’d once lost would remain in her heart. That fact would cloud her will and her belief that she was the strongest.
“Ah... Ah ha ha...” Alovenus let out a dry laugh.
What a terrible day. What a terrible, amazing day. I would never have even imagined that someone would come to oppose me, let alone rise above me. I can only be astounded. This woman... This Lufas Maphaahl is an idiot so big that she can surpass gods.
As Alovenus was sunk in thought, Lufas was in front of her, raising her fist in preparation for the final touches on her victory. Then, Lufas brought her fist down on Alovenus’s head. The impact raised a great noise akin to an explosion, and a shock wave spread outwards, the last of so many that shock waves themselves might die from overwork.
If the two of them had happened to be on a planet just then, Alovenus would have been pummeled through the ground and out the other side, only to be launched into space. Of course, given the weight of Alovenus’s sheer existence, she would be unable to be in a normal universe. This hypothetical would be dependent on them being in a supergiant one able to house her.
In short, that was just how powerful Lufas’s swing was.
“Th-That huuurrtttt?!?!” Alovenus said, shocked.
“Children who’ve done bad things need to be punished. Jeez...” Lufas trailed off. “Do you know how hard I had to work to get that hit in?”
✦ ✦ ✦
“As if. For now, uh... Yeah, rewrite that terrible script. A script that no one likes might as well not exist.”
Destroying the Goddess in complete and utter defeat was something that Lufas had considered. In fact, if Alovenus had turned out to be an irredeemably evil scoundrel, then Lufas would have taken that option and completely erased Alovenus with her last attack. In the end, however, Alovenus was not actually evil. Rather, she was a well-meaning goddess who was more passionate than most, just very mistaken and lonely.
Of course, that didn’t excuse all the things she’d done. However, Lufas felt that giving her the benefit of the doubt would be all right. With no one next to her, Alovenus was utterly alone. There was no one to rebuke her for her mistakes, and no one to scold her. No one had taught her what she needed to learn, and the Goddess had simply continued to go around in circles, making mistake after mistake without anyone to save her.
That was the difference between Dina and Alovenus. They had the same memories and the same personality, but for some reason, they had turned out totally different. It was because of where they stood. Dina was not alone. She had parents who loved her, and she’d found comrades in Lufas and her group. She had a foundation that allowed her to recognize mistakes and be called out on them.
Alovenus had nothing like that. She was too strong, since she could crush entire universes by accident. That wasn’t exactly an excuse, but eliminating her also wouldn’t solve anything. In fact, her help would be absolutely necessary to fix and replace everything that had been damaged and lost in the fight. Therefore, she had to take responsibility for all the unhappiness she’d spread and save the victims.
Also, if Alovenus were to be erased, then the devilfolk—who were her spell—would also disappear. If that happened, Lufas wouldn’t be able to face Orm.
“Oh, and transfer your authority as the Goddess of Mizgarz to Dina. You should watch and learn as you leave the management of Mizgarz to her for a while.”
After smoothly dumping such an enormous task on someone who wasn’t there and had no way to accept or object, Lufas waved her arm and returned all the dimensions, timelines, and everything else that had been destroyed in the fight. She wasn’t quite sure whether simply “returning” lost timelines would work, but in the end, it did. It seemed that the saying “anything goes” truly applied.
“You help too.”
Lufas grabbed Alovenus, who was still in a daze, by the nape of her neck and dragged her along.
“Huh? Wai—”
And that concluded the two-hundred-year-long game between the Goddess and her Rebel. It ended in checkmate after all the Goddess’s pieces had been wiped off the board or stolen. Though the Goddess had flipped over the board, the floor had been flipped over on the Goddess, and in the end, she had been punished. The world had been freed from her script. From here on out, any scripts would be written by the people themselves.
As Lufas thought of the future, she suddenly laughed.
Finally, with the battle at the Endpoint finished, Lufas returned all the mana she’d absorbed to the universe and went back to all of the people who were waiting for her, to the world in which she belonged.
When they saw her, all her loyal retainers cheered, and her former friends reveled in her victory. Benetnasch had her arms crossed, seemingly bored, but the corners of her lips were loose. Meanwhile, Orm simply nodded, satisfied.
Among all that, the girl with the same face as the Goddess beamed with a full-faced smile as she spoke the scheduled line, though there were a thousand emotions behind those words.
“Welcome back, Miss Lufas.”
“Yeah. Good to be back.”
The Twilight of the Gods had reached its end.