A New Ability: "Let There Be Light" (Seeking Follow-up Reads)

The Blood Moon hung high.

A desolate wind blew across the wasteland.

With a thunderous roar that shook the earth, the white Bloated Giant, clutching a mysterious black Short Club, wandered through the ruins.

He was like a ghost drifting across this Crimson Wasteland, seemingly searching for something.

This monster, whose eyes flickered crimson from time to time, seemed quite vengeful, scouring the area for that detestable "flea."

Suddenly, a moving Small Black Dot appeared in the distance, abrupt and conspicuous in the deathly silent wasteland.

Is... it... him?

After a simple thought, he was ecstatic.

Found... you!

But in the blink of an eye, the black dot rapidly approached him.

"Tap, tap, tap-tap—"

Swift footsteps clearly trod across the debris-strewn ruins.

A familiar face gradually entered the monster's murky vision.

That Person was carrying a long... clanking Mechanical Spear on his back.

The monster gritted his teeth and widened his eyes.

--He wasn't running away, but charging straight at him?

This flea, who only knew how to roll and possessed no ability for frontal combat...

How dare he!

The next moment, the "flea" raised his spear.

"I'm back!"

He said as much.

"Eat my spear!"

Thus, the monster widened his eyes to look at that spear.

The sharp spearhead, however, showed no sign of a thrusting motion.

In the next instant, the spearhead flickered—

The flashlight tied to the spearhead turned on, emitting an extremely blinding light.

In the dim wasteland illuminated by the Blood Moon, a striking beam of light appeared, tearing through the darkness and shooting straight out—

Stabbing into the monster's wide-open eyes.

"???"

"ROAR!!!"

With nothing but white glare before him, the monster roared in fury, forced to squeeze his eyes shut.

Then, With a "boom" like a cannon blast!

The spear-gun shook violently.

The muzzle beneath the spearhead fired a powerful "shot," billowing with yellow smoke.

Several pustules burst in response, and the pained monster staggered on the spot, nearly falling to the ground.

At this moment, the Swollen Giant Monster, dazed by this sequence of events, heard the sound of rapid footsteps once again.

He was coming.

Bai Zhou raised his spear-gun, accelerating his charge toward the monster.

"Tap, tap-tap-tap—"

"Strength Enhancement" Small Ritual, activated.

"Body Agility" Small Ritual, activated.

"Jumping Expert" Small Ritual, activated.

Half of his total Spirituality, ignited.

Secret Technique Imprint, activated.

Radiant and spirited, Bai Zhou was filled with power.

Exerting force with both legs, he leaped into Mid-air with a "whoosh."

His lithe figure held the spear-gun high, his silhouette in the striking stance overlapping with the Blood Moon in the sky, Moon Ember... Sacred Oath...

Slash!

Slash, slash, slash, slash!

Slash through the pustules! Slash open the fat! Sever the white bones! Shred the internal organs!

Flames ignited upon the spear, first red, then turning white.

A strange, white, luminous flame, carrying an unstoppable and majestic momentum, along with a blinding radiance like a small sun—

It exploded from the spear tip, rolling onto the monster and setting it ablaze.

"ROAR!!!"

The Swollen Giant Monster in the fire wailed and bellowed in agony.

Bai Zhou pulled back and retreated rapidly, observing the monster's figure cautiously from afar.

The scorching and magnificent white flames completely engulfed its bloated, ugly, and foul-smelling body, which was covered in tumors and pustules.

One by one, the fleshy growths and pustules were burned to ash, and layer after layer of fat was scorched dry.

The bloated, obese body gradually burned down to a smaller size.

"Is it almost over..." Bai Zhou stared intently at the burning Swollen Giant Monster.

"Roar..."

The monster's wails, which had echoed across the wasteland, gradually grew weak.

Those turbid eyes, illuminated by the firelight, seemed to become slightly clearer.

The flames on its body no longer seemed scorching.

The magnificent light no longer seemed blinding.

Instead, it became warm and bright...

"Ah..."

The Swollen Giant Monster in the fire revealed a look of sudden realization, as if it had remembered something.

Then, to Bai Zhou's bewildered expression, It said intermittently:

"Tha... nk... you!"

"...What?"

Bai Zhou blinked in confusion.

In the next instant, the line of Last Will above the Swollen Giant Monster's head trembled and bloomed with light.

[So dark, so dark...]

The Last Will shattered.

The strokes and fragments of the characters surged toward Bai Zhou all at once, and images flashed rapidly before his eyes.

This is...

Bai Zhou was suddenly stunned.

How could this hideous, ugly, cunning, and despicable Swollen Giant Monster be...

Her name was Laia, a little girl who was afraid of the dark and loved beauty.

Because she was timid and afraid of the dark, she was best at making everything shine brightly.

Light magic, purification magic.

Being lopsided in her studies, this was the only kind of magic she knew.

That way, she would never have to be afraid of the dark again.

Although she possessed absolutely no combat ability, this single magic she knew was incomparable to anyone else's.

As a result, all the Adventurer teams vied to invite her to join them.

She left her hometown and made a great name for herself in the Sky City.

But she remained that timid little girl who was afraid of the dark and loved beauty.

Her little dress was always adorned with starlike gems.

In the center of the hem was a white silk bow, lively and pure, as if it were her trademark.

Although everyone took good care of her, always placing her at the back of the team...

The more they did so, the more this lopsided little girl who "only knew how to shine," like a little candle, would feel frustrated by her own uselessness.

—Until this day.

A strange virus swept across the world.

Everyone was turned into a Walking Corpse, and an endless army of the walking dead had already descended from afar to the foot of the Sky City.

Though timid, she voluntarily left the Sky City—known as the fortress that never falls—to arrive at the front lines and defend her hometown nestled at the city's feet.

Before the war began, she casually gifted a cute Wooden Horse to a little Boy from her hometown.

"We will be victorious."

"Definitely."

She gently stroked the Boy's head and said softly.

The war broke out.

The small hometown, a place that in her memories was forever bathed in warm golden sunlight, was shrouded in bloody smoke.

They were more terrifying than anyone had imagined; a tide of corpses, vast and overwhelming, swallowed everything.

The soldiers beside her fell one after another, and the starlit dress on Laia of Light no longer shimmered.

Despair blanketed the battlefield, and soon, there was nothing left but the rising and falling chewing sounds of the zombies... and weak, sporadic resistance.

...Timid Laia heard the sound of her own teeth chattering.

But a child's cry pierced through the chaotic din, pinning her thoughts of retreat in place.

When she opened her eyes again, those beautiful pupils were shining with golden flames.

This world needs light.

Struggling to push aside the crumbling masonry before her, Laia paid no mind to the filthy bloodstains on her skirt, stumbling into the center of the open battlefield.

With her slender arms raised high, the Maiden hoisted the war banner that had long since fallen.

"Shine!"

The girl who knew only one magic in her life, jokingly nicknamed "Laia of Light" by the people, poured all her will, all her hope, and all her courage, along with the hatred for darkness deep within her Bone Marrow, into it—

"The light is here—"

"Hope is here—!"

It was no longer a gentle light of purification, but an incomparably condensed, incomparably scorching pillar of White Light that shot into the sky.

Like a Spear of Judgment thrown by a Deity, the pure and overbearing pillar of light tore through the gloomy sky with a roar.

A phantom of a massive banner manifested in the firmament, snapping loudly in the wind.

—A Platinum War Banner, woven purely from burning light, shone in the sky!

The radiance poured down like a bursting flood, and countless rushing streams of light, carrying a sacred hum, judged the corpse tide into ashes drifting across the ground.

...How should one describe the scene the Soldiers witnessed at that moment?

Perhaps it was seeing a lighthouse of hope stand tall at the moment of deepest despair.

Her tattered, starlit skirt was lifted by the currents of light, fluttering wildly.

A girl so slender she seemed as if she could be blown away by the wind raised her arms high, waving the burning banner of light and declaring victory.

It was as if a miracle.

Every Soldier would never forget this scene for the rest of their lives.

The courage ignited by the miracle instantly pierced through the entire crumbling battle line.

"Follow the banner! Follow... Laia of Light!"

The Commander's voice rang out like a thunderclap, filled with a desperate, do-or-die fervor.

No more words were needed; shattered shields were raised once more, and notched blades refracted the Holy Light.

The Soldiers roared and bellowed, launching a counterattack following the banner that shone with Holy Light.

Because they firmly believed—

Hope was with them.

The Deity was with them.

The first war against the corpse tide ushered in a miraculous victory.

However, in the subsequent third war against the corpse tide, this "Laia of Light," who symbolized miracles, along with her most loyal followers, was ultimately swallowed by the boundless tide of corpses.

In the final instant before she sank into total oblivion, the Maiden's innate love for beauty drove her to tremble and fumble at her waist.

—That was once the most dazzling part of her starlit dress, her most beloved white bow.

But what her fingertips touched was no longer the soft, smooth silk texture of her memories...

Instead, it was sticky, cold, putrid grease; it was hair-raising pustules.

The golden hair that had once been as pure as the morning dawn had also turned into swollen, fleshy tumors.

The last glimmer belonging to "Laia" was completely extinguished in the face of this terrifying truth within reach.

The most timid maiden met her end in the most tragic way.

The little girl who loved beauty the most turned into the ugliest and most terrifying monster.

The girl who feared the dark the most stepped into the deepest, pitch black Eternal Night.

"So dark... so dark..."

Until countless years later, The arrival of a youth.

A mass of pure white flame burned, finally dispelling some of the thick, icy darkness...

These wars were not recorded in history.

This civilization also silently vanished countless years ago.

The story of "Laia" was merely a tiny ripple in the shifting of history, ultimately buried in the depths where no one cared to look.

But that "miracle" left behind a few traces in the long river of time.

Someone turned this unforgettable scene into a mural, which was unearthed by people many civilization eras later.

People did not know her specific deeds and could only imagine them while looking at the mural.

Yet those people who were still in the Sea of Ignorance discovered that the mural could emit a faint light when they prayed to it.

Like a divine miracle.

Thus, based on the clues of the story, people incorporated this "Goddess of War" who held high a war banner into a part of their mythology.

This little girl who could only "glow," like a small candle, and always felt she was useless—

Was thus placed upon a pedestal.

People called her...

Goddess of Light!

Goddess of Light—Aglaia.

"Hum..."

Amidst the raging white flames, The blurred figure of a maiden slowly emerged.

She wore a little dress that shone like the stars, her demeanor quiet and graceful.

She gently lifted the hem of her skirt and bowed.

"Good day, Adventurer."

She spoke to Bai Zhou, her voice crisp and sweet:

"Thank you for letting me see the light again."

"--May the light forever soothe your trembling soul."

Then, Before the emotionally complex Bai Zhou could say anything, her figure vanished from where she stood.

Turning into a ray of light, she rushed into Bai Zhou's body.

"This is..."

This was the first time Bai Zhou had received a gift after fulfilling a Last Will since awakening his Fate.

In the past, as an ordinary person, he could only receive material gifts.

But this time...

That ray of pure white light passed through his body, reaching deep into his Fate.

And then—

It rushed straight into the pitch-black Sea of Ignorance.

The echoing sound of the sea boiling reached Bai Zhou's ears.

A pure white character imprint was branded onto the surface of the Sea of Ignorance.

This imprint looked very much like a Secret Technique Imprint branded onto one's Fate, yet it was also quite different.

At the very least, the Secret Technique Imprints of a Destined One were never branded onto the Sea of Ignorance...

Ya had explicitly told Bai Zhou that the Sea of Ignorance was the "ignorance" and "ordinariness" of a clouded Fate, the most useless thing in the Fate Space.

Powerful Destined Ones could even manage to evaporate the Sea of Ignorance entirely...

"What is it?"

Bai Zhou stared at that mysterious and ancient character mark. Even though it was unfamiliar and incredibly complex, he felt as if he could naturally understand its meaning in his heart.

--It was as if he had been born knowing how to use this language, almost like an instinct.

Next Second, Bai Zhou opened his eyes in the dilapidated wasteland.

He suddenly opened his mouth to chant.

The moment the words left his lips, they transformed into a mysterious and blurred tone, as if perfectly natural, yet carrying the heavy majesty of commanding the world.

The world seemed to come to a standstill at this moment.

Bai Zhou clearly felt his Sea of Ignorance vibrating, and something overflowed from the depths of the Sea of Ignorance, spreading out in all directions across the world.

In this instant, he understood clearly what the words he chanted, or rather the "incantation," meant.

He said--

"Light."

Then, in the next instant, Endless light exploded with him at the center, Drowning both heaven and earth.

A long while later.

The Blood Moon spilled across the ground.

A faint wind swirled through the weary wasteland, turning past the broken, crumbling walls.

Everything was quiet.

A small mound of earth had appeared here.

It was a grave Bai Zhou had dug with his own hands, burying the ashes after the burning, handful by handful.

Then, he tore off half of his white shirt and folded it into a somewhat unsightly white bow.

The soft, Pure White bow was gently placed in front of the mound and held down by a small stone.

It trembled in the wind, like a butterfly about to fly away.

"Here sleeps the light, not the ashes."

Bai Zhou stood before the small mound, his mood somewhat complex.

No matter what, he had never imagined.

That bloated monster would have such an original form.

But he also knew that the monster and the Maiden were by no means the same person.

The real Laia had died long ago.

Perhaps, only when the fire burned out did the Maiden truly return for a fleeting moment.

--In truth, there was never any Goddess of Light Aglaia.

There was only a Little Girl who was afraid of the dark and loved to be pretty.

Lifting his gaze, Bai Zhou's eyes finally settled on the simple tombstone he had made from a piece of Ancient Wood.

[Laia]

The crooked characters were written upon it.

This was the only thing Bai Zhou, the late and sole witness, could still do for her.

It also bore this passage:

[There is no Long Night underground, for she is forever accompanied by light.]