Chapter 40: Hope is the Greatest Form of Despair [2]

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“What the hell is that?!”

Tisha screamed in horror, bleeding from every wound as the colossal hand surged skyward. It seized the giant sphere effortlessly and spread black ichor, disintegrating it completely.

RUMBLE!

“N-No!” Helena cried.

“Damn it! We have to use everything!” Gustaf roared, descending alongside Helena.

They spun around each other, pushing their Psychic Power to the absolute limit. Then they released it all, not at the hand, which they avoided, but at the portal itself—the Dimensional Rift.

“Close the portal, Helena!”

“Yes!”

Their Psychic Power pressed against space and time. Helena transformed into her Awakened Form. Gustaf pushed beyond his limits; blood streamed from his nose. Perhaps the first time he had ever fought to this extreme.

“AAAAHHHHH!”

The Abyssal Mother’s scream echoed, her single hand tormenting every mind nearby. Gustaf and Helena shielded themselves with Psychic Power, yet visions of her true form flooded them. They vomited black blood; miasma poured from their eyes and noses.

“D-Damn it!”

“The power of a Tier Zero…! Even an arm is…!”

Still, they forced their bleeding, dying bodies forward. Their Psychic Power bore down on the rift once more. But Soma refused to allow it. Laughing at the sight of his beloved Mother’s arm, he summoned his Grimoire and conjured more magic, widening the rift.

Tisha remained paralyzed. Dozens of black stakes pierced her body; chains bound her limbs. Soma ignored her completely, even as her sword remained embedded in his stomach and his lower torso froze solid.

“Nngh…! Ghh…!”

Her hands moved slowly, forcing the chains apart. She aimed for his neck, intent on strangling him.

“Oh dear, would you stay still?”

Soma rolled his eyes, shoving her hands away and extracting her sword from his stomach. The ice began to heal.

The blade clattered to the ground. Tisha collapsed to her knees, groaning as she vomited more black blood. Countless black hands spread across her, covering her convulsing form in agony.

“T-Tisha!!!”

Pekorine screamed. Her formation destabilized further as she felt her beloved dying. Catrise and the remaining magicians fought desperately to prevent her from abandoning it—the formation alone kept Soma from summoning Her fully.

“Soma!”

Gustaf and Helena resisted the Mind Corruption and clashed with him. They pressed their Domains against the rift, attempting to seal it while defending against the Abyssal Mother’s arm and battling Soma simultaneously.

“Hahaha, well, what can you do?”

♢♢♢♢

“RAAAAHHH!”

Louis, Zorba, and Mirai forced their way through the barrier relentlessly, ignoring the Mind Corruption clawing at their minds.

“What is that thing?! What is that black arm?!” Mirai screamed.

“Don’t look at it, Mirai! Don’t!” Louis roared.

“The mother…! The mother…! The mother is here…!” Zorba muttered deliriously. “Ugh! N-No!” He shook his head violently, resisting.

“We are almost there! Hold on! We are almost…! We are almost there!!!” Louis kept shouting, pushing forward even as his body began crumbling into ashes.

The tip of Louis’ lance pierced through the barrier. Radiant light blazed, consuming the miasma.

The more he thought of his mother—perhaps still slumbering somewhere, affected by this same corruption—the brighter his light grew.

Until…

FLAAASH!

The brilliant light no longer took draconic form. It became a giantess of pure radiance.

Louis instantly recognized her long white hair and bright yellow eyes.

This was a miracle.

By channeling every thought of her into her technique…

“Mother?”

The giantess of light smiled gently at him.

Mirai and Zorba froze in awe. The Mind Corruption vanished instantly.

“Go.”

The radiant light erupted with overwhelming force. The black miasma barrier incinerated into ashes and exploded.

BOOOM!

The entire barrier collapsed. Soma’s countless clones within the sea of miasma screamed in agony and despair, bursting into ashes one by one.

And those ashes, saturated with despair…

“That’s it…!”

Louis’ eyes blazed as he fell from the sky with Mirai and Zorba.

Both were unconscious now, but bright white hands caught them and guided Louis as he descended.

“Channel the light within you, Louis.”

“But my light… I have none, Mother.”

“No, you do. We all have. These ashes… are they not made of the light born from your hopes and dreams?”

“…!”

Louis’ eyes widened. The ashes glowed with gray light that swiftly turned white.

Then the white light became golden.

Benladra’s presence faded.

But Louis, enlightened, raised his hand.

He activated Death-Sense, halting his body from crumbling into ashes and dying on the spot.

Then he pushed beyond every limit.

Pointing toward the colossal arm…

He gathered every ash within sight.

Every fragment of despair.

All converged at the tip of his finger, then flowed into the white spear Dorfus had forged for him.

It shone brilliantly, connecting to his soul, refined by his Lifeforce and Fantasium.

The absorbed ashes transformed into the purest white light.

FLASH!

“Reverse it…”

His mother’s words echoed once more. The ashes Louis wielded reversed.

The curse of eternal despair that had driven him to madness…

Was reversed by the blissful moment of hearing her voice.

After all, the greatest form of despair is hope.

Thus, the Ashes of Despair became the Light of Hope.

BOOOMMM!!!

The light pierced straight through the Abyssal Mother’s arm—her projection, a mere fragment of her consciousness. Cracks spread across it before it shattered and exploded.

Her agonizing scream resounded across the entire Frostbane Kingdom.

“GYAAAAAAHHHH!”

As her voice echoed, Soma’s face collapsed into utter despair. His Fantasium depleted entirely; his connection to her realm severed abruptly.

“M-mo…! Mother…! MOTHER!!!”

He cried in horror at his beloved goddess’ suffering. Gustaf and Helena pressed their psychic power upon him. At the same moment…

RUMBLE!

They sealed the Dimensional Rift shut!

“N-No…! Noooo! Let me go! LET ME GO! YOU HURT MOTHER! YOU HURT MY MOTHER!!! AAAAHHHHH!”

For some reason, Soma screamed in pure agony. All his powers vanished with his mother’s torment.

In that instant, Louis—watching from afar as unconsciousness claimed him—understood the truth behind Soma’s weakness in his previous regression, the moment he had managed to harm him before dying.

“His power as Saint stems from faith in his goddess… After witnessing her projection destroyed… his faith faltered; thus he lost the power she granted him… Hahah…”

Soma’s reserves had long been exhausted. He had persisted only through the Abyssal Mother’s aid.

But when his faith shattered—seeing his goddess as fragile— the connection broke completely.

Just as in Louis’ previous loop, when he had overcome the “Paradise” of his soul and pierced the Abyssal Mother’s heart.

“M-Mother…! Why have you abandoned me…!”

Soma wept, utterly lost. Gustaf and Helena flattened his body against the floor with psychic force. Then, guiding Tisha’s blade, they pierced his Fantasy Heart, shattering it and…

Finally defeating him.

“…”

“…”

Yet it felt strangely unearned.

Both Gustaf and Helena gasped for breath, staring warily at Soma’s corpse.

They half-expected him to rise again, transforming into miasma or some new horror.

But silence followed.

Perhaps, this time, they had truly won.

“He simply gave up; he stopped fighting entirely…” Helena murmured, bewildered as she studied the body. “Couldn’t he have fought harder? He seemed so invincible…”

“He was a man of faith… until the bitter end,” Gustaf whispered, coughing blood.

Gustaf retrieved a black jewel from Soma’s chest and sealed it in a dimensional storage ring for safekeeping.

A Tier 4 Spiral Stone—immensely powerful and dangerous. He could not allow it to fall into the wrong hands.

However, consuming it might kill him as it was too powerful, containing the lingering resentment of Soma within it.

“Tisha…”

He approached the Knight Captain who had served Frostbane valiantly until her final breath.

He placed her sword across her body and folded her hands over the blade.

“Thank you for everything… Tisha… I will never forget you…” Gustaf whispered, eyes brimming with sorrow.

“She fought bravely; I’ve never met a braver woman…” Helena said softly, tears streaming down her face. “She died today… protecting our country from this monster…”

“Yeah…” Gustaf murmured. “We were all so close to not making it… I still cannot process that… we defeated him…”

“Let’s go back home, Gustaf,” Helena said, patting his shoulder. “Let’s bring Tisha with us.”

“Yes…” Gustaf nodded.

♢♢♢♢

Within a realm of eternal darkness and oceans of abyssal emotion.

A twisted reflection of one woman’s boundless desire to save all who suffered.

This was her distorted Fantasy Realm, born from her endless wish to bear humanity’s sins upon her shoulders.

Perhaps because she was deeply religious and longed to become a martyr, granting everyone ascension to heaven.

Or perhaps for entirely different reasons.

When this woman reached the pinnacle of the Mythical Realm and became a Tier Zero Spiralwalker, she underwent complete metamorphosis.

The chrysalis she discarded became her Fantasy World. Everything she shed twisted into this realm.

The Weeping Nest.

Above the darkness, a white heaven shone brightly—home to billions of souls living their ideal afterlives.

But she was not there.

She resided below, in the deepest abyss, beneath seas of despair and agony.

Her gigantic form wept constantly.

Today, the sorrow cut even deeper.

Her beloved priest, Soma, had perished.

She could not retrieve his soul, destroyed by a Divine Weapon capable of annihilating souls—the Dragon King’s Frost Blade: Niflheim.

As the great Abyssal Mother mourned her cherished priest and her failure to save him, many shadows emerged from within her own form.

Unlike the souls in the heaven above, these chose to remain at her side, working alongside her to bring salvation to this agonizing world of pain and suffering.

“Oh, my beloved Mother…”

“Please don’t cry anymore…”

“Priest Soma shall be forever remembered…”

“We will never forget his brave sacrifice…”

“Fear not… we will never give up.”

“Salvation will come to all, no matter what.”

“We will work with you for eternity if necessary.”

“Humanity must be saved.”

“So please, Mother… do not weep anymore…”

“Smile. Your beautiful smile brings us eternal bliss.”

“Ahhh… my dear children… Thank you for being here with me… Let us bring Salvation to all… for Soma…”

As she smiled for the first time in ages, she suddenly contorted her three faces in pain, glancing at the scar left by Louis’ attack.

“The scar left by the Holy Dragon Mother… how hateful.”

“We will never forgive her.”

“We must purge that false goddess no matter what!”

“The Frostbane Kingdom has proven stubborn… but this isn’t the end!”

“No matter how much they torment their people, we will stop that wretched family and bring their population the Salvation they deserve.”

“At the very least… we were able to bring some of their souls to Salvation.”

“Yes…”

High above the white skies of the Weeping Nest, many new souls arrived in Paradise…

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