With Talulah at the center and the point where the swords crossed as the axis, all material structures within a one-kilometer radius melted away. The color of red lotuses drowned everything, leaving only clean footholds beneath her and three meters in front of her.
But Talulah no longer had any feet.
Laevateinn's counterattack had completely erased the lower half of her body from the abdomen down. Even the remainder was turning into ash at a visible rate—the constantly multiplying Originium crystals and the unceasingly scorching dragonfire intertwined, barely sustaining the last trace of her life.
Surtr stood beside her and watched, her slender brows knitted with distress.
Not pain, not sorrow, not confusion—only distress.
Talulah's eyes, which had originally been filled with hope, gradually dimmed as well.
"Did I... ultimately accomplish nothing?" Weak words escaped the Dragon Girl's pale lips. She looked at Surtr with eyes full of self-mockery. "I suppose so. To think that... such a tiny sacrifice could satisfy a god... For a mortal, that really was somewhat arrogant."
"...But I won't be the last."
Her eyes slowly closed. Yet before the final glimmer faded, she heard the questioning whisper of a god from the present world.
"...Was it worth it?"
"It was."
"There are two kinds of gods. The first are gods born divine; in their eyes, all things are inherently inferior. The other kind is you. You are willing only to bestow, never to accept. I believe the reason behind that behavior is fear... You fear gaining something only to lose it again. You fear that after offering your true heart, all you will receive in return is pain. You fear this harsh and vicious world, which is too weak for you and your power. You fear that you cannot do your best. So you would rather walk alone."
"But that cannot go on. Even the strongest dam will eventually collapse without maintenance. Even the tallest tree will inevitably wither without nourishment. One day, you will fall, crushed beneath your own weight. And what is born from your corpse will be true despair for this land."
She laboriously raised her hand, wanting to touch Surtr's fingertips. The latter's hand trembled, but ultimately did not evade the contact.
So Talulah smiled in satisfaction.
"To change the world, idealists are needed. To preserve the world, realists are needed. But you are too strong—so strong that whether it is the old world or the new, both can be shaped and altered like soft clay beneath your will. Therefore, I believe that until you feel a sense of belonging and identification with the new world, rather than merely completing a task, neither fighting for the rights of the Infected nor reforming this world will have any meaning."
"The strength of mortals... even if we twist ourselves into a single rope, we still cannot oppose the sun. So..."
"If my death can make you realize that walking alone is not the right path, then it will have been worth it."
"If the destruction of the Reunion Movement can make you understand that many people in this world are pursuing your shadow, then it will have been worth it."
"You destroyed your own cause." Surtr did not respond to anything she had said. She merely posed a simple question. "You knew I would come. You knew I would destroy everything the Reunion Movement had built."
"No, no." The dying Dragon Girl struggled to shake her head. "The rise of the Infected will continue, marked by the destruction of the Reunion Movement. Because the legendary Ember Demon, the annihilating catastrophe, the hunter of the mortal world, lowered herself and personally destroyed this fledgling new force..."
"...I have already felt the obstacles and hostility coming from all directions when the Reunion Movement grew stronger. So this banner had to fall, because only after the Reunion Movement was destroyed could sparks fill the skies above Terra..."
"...This land fears you, and it is wary of you..."
"...So they will grow curious about what you do, and give the Infected time to develop..."
She said no more.
Her fingers gradually turned cold, and her blood stopped flowing. She had not even had time to call out, "Alina."
Perhaps she had not needed to.
Because Surtr recognized the silver ring on her finger—it had originally been an ornament from Elafia's antler. When Talulah touched Surtr's fingertips, perhaps she had also been rubbing this ring.
And so she fell into eternal sleep.
Surtr bent down and placed the hand wearing the ring against Talulah's chest. She then turned her head and looked into the distance, toward the burning city.
Flames spread outward from her body—not Sulfur fire, but a kind of flame unlike any conventional physical phenomenon, acting directly upon the structure of spacetime itself. It was a technique she had learned from Persephone. Its manifestation and effects were different, but its principles were broadly similar.
Everything within several meters of her became blurred, as though clocks were collapsing, as though corpses were singing. Shadows resembling both dragons and humans were forcibly dragged from an unknowable abyss, then stuffed back into the melted shell that was recovering at a visible rate, without allowing any resistance.
The dead came back to life. As the eyelids began to tremble, she removed the Originium from the Dragon Girl's stomach pouch.
Yet she did not wait for the Dragon Girl to awaken. Instead, while she was caught between waking and sleeping, Surtr pressed a fingertip against the side of her neck, sending her back into unconsciousness.
Because she heard countless cries and screams. She heard the curses of rioters and the wails of refugees. She heard pain, death, and distortion. Then everything turned to silence.
The colorless flames spread outward, but stopped at a radius of ten meters. She was ultimately recognized as a god, not a god in the truest sense. To directly and cleanly distort the spacetime of an entire city was indeed beyond her strength.
"What a farce," she said softly, speaking to herself.
"What a farce." She repeated it once.
"But I am still Surtr." Then she took from her pocket the communicator she had acquired before separating from Persephone. The call connected—and was immediately hung up by the person on the other end.
So she sat down beside Talulah, hugged her knees, and sighed softly.
Laevateinn floated beside her as always, silently comforting and warming her.
"...Why make things so difficult for a mere tool?" she asked, without knowing whom she was addressing.
Meanwhile, on the other side of Chernobog, Persephone, the unappointed Doctor, lightly clenched her fist as she watched the breach in the sky slowly heal even as it continued to crack, feeling the silence and bloodshed surrounding her. The other communicator in her hand crumbled into fragments.
It differed somewhat from the plan, but the variables were insignificant.
That foolish woman's displayed power had exceeded expectations, but she had still run into a wall.
That was a good thing, and it meant that she and Surtr would have fewer conflicts in the future. Even if she had not given Surtr the communicator, Surtr probably would have fired a full-power attack at this mobile city when she regretted her choice, or used some other method. After all, she knew Persephone's weakness. She knew she could not change save points at will, much less escape in just a few minutes. But a transaction was still a transaction: as long as one side paid, the other side would receive a benefit.
A fierce wind came from ahead... Oh, right. There was still one living person here. It was a promise, after all. Since Persephone had said she would not kill her, she had to leave her alive.
The unappointed Doctor shifted her ankle and let the red-and-white figure sweep past the spot where she had been standing. Along with the violent explosion and the missed slash, she also received a torrent of curses.
Curses from W.
"You &*＆￥＃! Sooner or later I'll ＃＃@!＆ Right now I'll @￥%(your)!＆＃ guts%—"
One keyword was still intelligible.
Persephone dispersed like a shadow. When she abruptly appeared beside W, the latter was caught off guard. Persephone extended a hand, her fingertips sharp and keen—she could easily have ripped open W's lower abdomen and torn out her intestines. Yet she did not truly attack. She merely pressed lightly against W's side, leaving no aftereffects.
W's flushed face suddenly turned green, and she dropped to the ground with a muffled groan.
Beside them, the corpses of the Sarkaz were piled as high as a mountain. Not one of them remained intact in death, and none of the "lumps" was larger than a cafeteria tray. The man who seemed to have been their leader—the mercenary chief using the alias Garson—had all the flesh below his neck torn from his bones as though scrubbed away with a brush. Only a heart and half a lung still hung from several tendons, attached to the tips of his ribs.
He was still alive. His heart was still beating. Even with his eyes gouged out, his tongue pulled free, his ears and nose cut off, and the skin peeled from his face, he still maintained a faint breath. Compared with him, W, who had merely and temporarily lost part of her mobility, could almost be said to be in paradise.
"You... You deceived everyone! Hiss—someone like you! How could an assassin kill her right under your nose?"
If looks could devour people, Persephone would probably already have been swallowed whole. But against an evil spirit of the present world in the truest sense, a mere glare could not serve the slightest purpose.
"Her? You mean..." The purple-haired woman raised a finger and tapped her chin. She seemed to recall something, revealing an expression of sudden realization.
"Oh, that woman named Theresia. I remember she had an old injury beneath her second rib. It hurt so much when I snapped it that she cried." She looked at her bloodless hand with interest. "Her voice was rather pleasant, too."
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