Chapter 206

THE FINAL CHAPTER A Typical Nobody Is Reborn as the Greatest Demon Lord It felt like time was spinning in reverse. The desolate earth swelled into a rapid metamorphosis, returning to what it had once been, the Laville National Academy of Magic. Everyone sighed with relief at the familiar sight. “Well…it would seem we needn’t worry about the results being overturned,” Olivia said. “Yeah, Mephisto has been completely eliminated from this world,” Alvarto replied. “The return of this place is proof enough of that.” “Still, we can hardly call this a victory,” Lizer mused. The three exchanged conflicted glances. Their mission was a success…but the loss they’d suffered was all too great. It wasn’t exactly a time for celebration. “I agree, it’s not the ideal outcome…but we can’t let ourselves get depressed,” Verda said. “Our fight isn’t over yet.” The Four Heavenly Kings nodded. Ireena added, “Lady Verda is right. There’s another fight coming someday, but…let’s rest for a while first.” Sylphy sighed. “I completely second that. I am absolutely wiped out.” “Yes…this was truly an exhausting ordeal,” Ginny agreed. Everyone else felt the same. They needed rest. Thinking and planning could wait. “The sun is still high up in the sky…but I’d love to get back to the dorms and flop into my bed.” Ireena groaned. “I couldn’t agree more,” Ginny said. “Well, I wanna eat something,” Sylphy whined. “My belly’s growling so hard, I’m scared it’s gonna kill me.” Ireena and Ginny giggled at the sounds coming from their friend’s stomach. They were finally beginning to realize that peace had returned. And although Ard wasn’t with them, he’d return someday. Yet no sooner did they think as much… “Sorry to disappoint…but I have no intention…of permitting a touching reunion…” …than a voice from the heavens denied them. Worse yet, Ireena and Ginny recognized it. “You can’t be serious…” Ireena followed everyone’s gazes to the blue expanse overhead. She smirked cynically upon catching sight of the speaker, a blue-haired boy dressed in white. There was no mistaking it. He was the being who called himself a god. “As a rule, our kind…cannot interfere directly with the world beneath us… That is why, while we pass through unforeseen processes at times…we can never change…preordained outcomes.” A ripple formed in the air, signaling the start of something. Olivia recalled the events that had led to this moment. “So it’s just as I feared… He wasn’t lying to us.” Deep in their hearts, each of them had doubted Mephisto’s claim. They’d hoped that maybe the end of the world would never come. Perhaps Mephisto had lied, secretly laughing at their reactions all the while. Yet now a threat far greater than an Evil God had arrived to dash their hopes. “Now……may the Great End begin…” The god had said his kind could not directly interfere with the world. And he was probably telling the truth. So the action the self-described god had performed was not an apocalypse by his own doing. Instead, he summoned a behemoth, a gigantic beast to bring about the end. On that day, the Laville National Academy of Magic was half-destroyed. When the monster suddenly appeared in the capital, its people put up the best resistance they could muster. However, the outcome was just too devastating. After the apocalyptic beast began its rampage, Verda transported it to another location. A second war began in a deserted grassland. It was a loss beyond recognition. The fight could hardly be called a proper war in the first place. The behemoth simply invaded, ignoring all attacks. It unleashed a tornado of destruction on everything around it, toppling twenty-five villages and cities. Others like it appeared all over the world. In villages. In cities. In nations. They eradicated everything. There was no mercy, no delight or pride. They destroyed. Nothing more. A month passed. Ireena Olhyde stood before a mass grave in a corner of the capital. She spoke to one of the headstones in particular. “Remember how I told you that the continent of Sartois was in danger? Well…it fell yesterday. A new breed of behemoth appeared and wiped it out in one attack. That’s what Lady Olivia said. Lady Verda was there, too, and…now she’s missing.” There had been so much devastation in such a short amount of time. Everyone kept dying. Even Ireena’s closest friends weren’t spared. “With each passing day, I lose someone new… I’ve lost track of how many times I wished I could just wake up from this nightmare.” She never did, though. This was a nightmare that would only end if she made it through the night. “Tell me, Ard…you believed in us, didn’t you? You trusted that we could protect the world, even after you were gone.” But… Her eyes grew damp. “I’m ashamed to say it, but, without you, Ard…we just can’t!” Her tears nearly fell. All her unspoken fears almost spilled out. However, Ireena held it together at the last moment. If she broke now, it would all truly be over. No matter what despair lay before her, she could never break. Her best friend entrusted this world to her. Ireena was determined to protect it. “Two days ago…a new behemoth appeared near the capital. Lady Olivia tried to destroy it…but she lost the fight. She lost her left arm…she lost…consciousness.” The behemoths were relentless. They were traveling north, destroying every village and city along the way… By tomorrow, one would arrive at the capital. The threat loomed over Ireena, staring her in the face. “I can’t escape, and I shouldn’t try to. I have to be where you can’t, Ard. I need to protect everyone…while you’re gone. So I…I enlisted to fight.” Ireena’s friends had done the same—Ginny, Sylphy, Elzard—the girls would march forward tomorrow, side by side. Ireena knew already what would happen. She had no optimism and no pride. The past month had taken all fragile traces of those emotions from her. Her habit of saying, “It’ll all work out somehow” was gone, never to cross her lips again. However…there was no pessimism in Ireena’s heart. Only courage. “I won’t lose, I promise you, Ard. I’ll do you proud until you come back.” There was a fighting spirit in her eyes. Yet in her heart lurked understandable fear. Ireena refused to let it show, however. The day after her promise before her best friend’s grave, everything would unfold as foreseen. The next morning, in the expansive field before the capital, the mustered forces met the behemoths in battle. It was an army of tens of thousands, with a collection of first-class mages in the center, and support mages as well. The legendary hero and the two Great Mages who’d killed a revived Evil God ten years before led the charge. Their participation greatly boosted the soldiers’ morale, filling them with hope… Which made the despair all the worse. The behemoth they faced was like a giant mountain with limbs…or like the scribbled drawing of a child. Its triangular body was massive, reaching all the way to the sky. And supporting it were three threadlike legs. It didn’t look like a living being. They weren’t even sure it was. Still, the heroes did not falter. “All units, fire!!!” Jack unleashed a fireball. And on his signal, everyone in the army commenced the attack. The power of tens of thousands of Attack spells was certainly imposing. “Ya big blockhead—you think size matters?!” “This is for Olivia!” Tremendous attacks from Elzard, the Frenzied King of Dragons, and Sylphy, the Raging Champion, transformed the wave of destruction from the army into a strike to be truly feared. However… “Ahhhhhhhh.” …the behemoth emitted a soprano tone, and all attacks were erased by the infinite beams of light shooting from the triangular beast. The shots even stopped Elzard’s and Sylphy’s famed spells. Half the army was annihilated in an instant. Anyone directly hit by the light beams sweeping the earth was unceremoniously eradicated. And the casualties from the impact wave created by the attack were nearly as bad. Some soldiers were crushed to pieces; others lost limbs or passed out. Luckily, Ireena survived, as did Ginny beside her. Sylphy and Elzard were standing in the light beams’ trajectories, but a Defensive spell shielded them from the attack, and they escaped with minor wounds. Unfortunately… “Dad! Uncle Jack! Auntie Carla!” …the state of the three heroes was unknown. All Ireena could do was pray for their safety. The behemoth would not even grant them that mercy, though. It attacked again. A second attack. A third. A fourth. It mercilessly unleashed the same beams with the strength to wipe out half an army. To behold the massive beast was to understand it existed for one purpose. Extermination. The erasure of all creation. No creature would escape. These behemoths were a pure manifestation of an intense intent to kill that swept life off the surface of the planet. Ireena and her friends were no exception. “Elzard!” “I don’t care…what happens to me! As long as…you live!” Elzard had shielded Ireena and suffered heavily for it. Her dragon healing ability could only do so much. The behemoth’s attack had exhausted it. “Huff…! Huff…! Miss…Ireena!” Ginny collapsed to the ground. A drive to fight yet burned in her eyes, but her wounds were too great. She couldn’t stand. “I could…do this all day!” Sylphy gasped out valiantly. She had been spared the worst, but her Holy Sword, her precious other half bequeathed to her by Lydia, was half gone. “Elzard… Ginny… Sylphy…” Her wounded friends. All the lives lost. In the face of it all… “I won’t…let you defeat me!” Ireena glared at the behemoth, gripping her Holy Sword Vald-Galgulus tightly. That was all she managed, though. For the moment before she tried to attack, another barrage of light beams rained down. It was only thanks to Elzard’s protection that Sylphy and Ireena survived, but even that did not spare them entirely. The impact from the beam flung them across the plain. “Nnf—augh!” Ireena couldn’t move. Her limbs felt bound. She couldn’t pull herself up. “I won’t…let you…defeat me…!” She stared hatefully at the behemoth, even immobilized on her back. “I won’t…let you…kill me…!” The luminous rays came for her as though to mock her determination. Although faced with such immense despair, Ireena, Elzard, Sylphy, and Ginny still refused to give up. They all shared the same feeling. They pictured him in their minds. Ard. Ard Meteor. This was his moment. There was no way he wouldn’t come to save them. Were the behemoth sentient, it undoubtedly would’ve laughed at them. It would’ve ridiculed them for entertaining a fantasy at the brink of demise. However. Because their fantasy was so simplistic. So impossible. It needed to become reality. That’s what Ard Meteor existed for. Less than a second before Ireena and her friends lost their lives to the light beams… …a sparkling golden wall protected them. The behemoth’s attacks had destroyed every substance, every concept, but it wasn’t enough. Not even the one who named himself God and brought forth the end of the world could match him. That’s when the girls saw the rift forming in the sky, and the human figure emerging from it. He transformed into beauty incarnate. “Sheesh. A big brawl the moment I get back? I’ve got the worst luck.” The voice that traveled between his lips was more beautiful still. It was difficult to determine who he was on sight alone. He’d seemingly transformed into someone else. But in an instant, Ireena knew him. Ginny sensed him. Elzard grasped him. And Sylphy… “Uh, Var?! What’s Var doing here?” …was the only one of them unchanged. “Wait, you mean to tell me you didn’t notice all this time? You can’t be serious.” “Huh? Notice what?” Meanwhile, another pair of people were bewildered in a different way.