The Blood Moon hung high.
A ruined wind swept across the wasteland.
Thunderous rumbles that shook the earth echoed as a pale Bloated Giant wandered through the ruins, clutching a mysterious black Short Club.
It was like a ghost roaming this Crimson Wasteland, seemingly searching for something.
This monster, whose eyes occasionally turned blood-red, seemed quite vengeful as it searched everywhere for that detestable "flea."
Suddenly, a moving Small Black Dot appeared in the distance, abrupt and conspicuous amid the deathly silent wasteland.
Was... that... him?
After some simple thought, it was overjoyed.
Found... you...!
But in the blink of an eye, the black dot rapidly approached it.
"Tap, tap, tap-tap—"
Swift footsteps clearly crossed the debris-strewn ruins.
A familiar face gradually entered the monster's murky vision.
That person was carrying a long... clattering Mechanical Spear behind him.
The monster gritted its teeth and widened its eyes.
—Not only was he not running, he was charging straight at it?
That flea who could only roll around and had no ability to fight head-on...
How dared he do this!
The next moment, the "flea" raised his spear.
"I'm back!"
That was what he said.
"Take my spear!"
The monster widened its eyes and looked at the spear.
Its sharp tip showed no sign of being thrust forward.
The next instant, the spear tip swayed—
The flashlight tied to it switched on, emitting an extremely blinding light.
A striking beam of light appeared on the dim wasteland beneath the Blood Moon, tearing through the darkness as it shot straight ahead—
Right into the monster's wide-open eyes.
"???"
"Roar!!!"
With nothing but white glare before its eyes, the monster roared furiously but had no choice but to clamp them shut.
Then,
With a boom like cannon fire!
The spear shuddered violently.
The gun barrel beneath its tip angrily fired a powerful "cannon shot," belching thick yellow smoke.
Several pustules burst at once. The pained monster staggered where it stood, nearly falling to the ground.
At that moment, the Swollen Giant Monster, still somewhat dazed by that sequence, heard swift footsteps again.
He was coming.
Bai Zhou raised his spear and charged at the monster at greater speed.
"Tap, tap-tap-tap—"
The "Strength Enhancement" Small Rituals activated.
The "Body Agility" Small Rituals activated.
The "Jumping Expert" Small Rituals activated.
Half the spirituality in his body lit up.
The Secret Technique Imprint activated.
Bai Zhou was brimming with energy, his entire body filled with strength.
Exerting Force with both legs, he sprang into mid-air.
His light figure raised the spear high in a chopping stance, overlapping with the Blood Moon above.
Moon Ember... Sacred Oath...
Slash!
Slash, slash, slash, slash!
Slash through pustules! Slash open fat! Slash through white bone! Slash apart organs!
Flames ignited along the spear, red at first before turning white.
Strange white flames, carrying an indomitable and majestic force along with the blinding brilliance of a small sun—
Exploded from the spear's edge and surged onto the monster, setting it ablaze.
"Roar!!!"
The giant monster within the flames howled in pain and fury.
Bai Zhou quickly withdrew, retreating at high speed as he cautiously observed the giant monster from afar.
Scalding, magnificent white flames completely enveloped its bloated, obese, hideous body, covered in foul-smelling tumors and pustules.
Tumors and pustules burned into drifting ash one after another, while layers of fat were scorched dry.
Its swollen, obese body gradually burned smaller and thinner.
"Is that about enough..." Bai Zhou stared intently at the burning Swollen Giant Monster.
"Roar..."
The monster's cries of pain, which had resounded across the wasteland, gradually weakened.
Those murky eyes illuminated by the fire seemed to grow somewhat 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 giant monster in the fire revealed a trace of realization, as though it had remembered something.
Then, under Bai Zhou's puzzled expression,
It spoke haltingly:
"Th... thank... you!"
"...What?"
Bai Zhou blinked blankly.
The next instant, that line of Last Will above the Swollen Giant Monster's head trembled as it blossomed with light.
[So Dark, so dark...]
The Last Will shattered.
Horizontal, vertical, sweeping, pressing, dotting, turning, hooking, lifting—the fragments of strokes all rushed into Bai Zhou at once, while scene after scene flashed rapidly before his eyes.
This was...
Bai Zhou suddenly froze.
How could this savage, hideous, cunning, despicable bloated monster be...
Her name was Laia. She was a little girl who feared the dark and loved beauty.
Because she was timid and afraid of darkness, she was best at making everything sparkle.
Light magic. Purification magic.
Specialized to an extreme, she only knew this one kind of magic.
That way, she would no longer have to fear the dark.
Though she possessed no combat ability whatsoever, the one magic she knew was unmatched by anyone.
Thus, Adventurer teams competed to invite her to join them.
She left her hometown and made a name for herself in Sky City.
Yet she was still that timid little girl who feared darkness and loved beauty.
Her little dresses were always adorned with gemstones like starlight.
At the center of each skirt was a white satin bow, lively and pure, as if it were her emblem.
Though everyone took good care of her and always kept her at the rear of the team...
The more they did so, the more this specialized little girl, who could "only make things glow" and resembled a small candle, became disheartened by her own uselessness.
—Until this day.
A strange virus swept across the world.
Everyone was turned into Walking Corpses. An endless army of Walking Corpses was already pressing down from afar toward the foot of Sky City.
Though timid, she voluntarily left Sky City, the supposedly impregnable fortress, and came to the front lines to defend her hometown at the foot of Sky City.
Before the battle began, she casually gave a cute Wooden Horse to a little boy from her hometown.
"We'll win."
"We definitely will."
She gently stroked the little boy's head and spoke softly.
The war began.
The little town of her hometown, a place forever bathed in warm golden sunlight in her memories, was engulfed in bloody smoke and fire.
They were more terrifying than anyone had imagined. The overwhelming tide of corpses swallowed everything.
Warriors around her fell one after another, and Laia's starlight-like dress no longer shone.
Despair covered the battlefield. Before long, only the rising and falling chewing sounds of zombies remained... along with faint, scattered resistance.
...Timid Laia heard her teeth chattering.
But a child's cry pierced the chaotic clamor, pinning down her thoughts of retreat.
When she opened her eyes again, golden flames burned within those beautiful eyes.
This world needed light.
Pushing aside the crumbling bricks and stones before her with all her strength, Laia ignored the filthy blood staining her skirt and staggered into the center of the open battlefield.
Her slender arm rose high as the Maiden lifted the war banner that had long since fallen.
"Shine!"
The Maiden who knew only one magic her entire life, jokingly called "Laia of Light" by others,
Poured all her will, all her hope, all her courage, and the hatred for darkness rooted deep in her bone marrow into it—
"Light is here—"
"Hope is here—!"
No longer was it gentle purification light. A supremely condensed, supremely blazing pillar of pure white light shot into the heavens.
Like the Spear of Judgment hurled by a Deity, the pure and domineering beam tore apart the gloomy sky with a thunderous crash.
The phantom of a massive banner manifested beneath the vault of heaven, snapping fiercely in the wind.
—A Platinum War Banner woven entirely from burning light shone in the sky!
Light poured down like a Flood bursting through a dam. Countless rushing streams of light, carrying sacred hums, judged the tide of corpses into ashes drifting across the ground.
...How could one describe the sight the Soldiers witnessed at that moment?
Perhaps it was like seeing a beacon of hope rise in the darkest hour of despair.
The torn skirt adorned with starlight was lifted by the streams of light, fluttering fiercely.
A Maiden so slender she seemed as though the wind could blow her away held one arm high, waving a banner of burning light as she declared victory.
It was like a miracle.
No soldier would ever forget that sight for the rest of his life.
The courage ignited by that miracle instantly surged through the entire battle line on the verge of collapse.
"Follow the banner! Follow... Laia of Light!"
The Commander's voice exploded like thunder, filled with the fervor of a desperate final gamble.
No words were needed. Broken shields were raised once more, and chipped blades reflected Holy Light.
The Soldiers roared and bellowed, following the Holy Light-shrouded battle banner as they launched a counterattack.
Because they firmly believed—
Hope was with them.
The Deity was with them.
The first war against the tide of corpses ended in a miraculous victory.
However, in the third subsequent war against the tide of corpses,
Laia of Light, that symbol of miracles, and her most loyal followers were ultimately swallowed by the boundless tide of corpses.
In the final instant before she sank completely, her love of beauty drove the Maiden to grope tremblingly at her waist.
—That had once been the brightest part of her starlight-adorned dress, and also her most beloved white bow.
Yet what her fingertips touched was no longer the soft, smooth texture of silk from her memories...
It was sticky, cold, rotting grease—horrifying pustules.
Her golden hair, once as pure as dawn, had also turned into swollen tumors.
The last glimmer that belonged to "Laia" was completely extinguished before the terrifying truth within reach.
The most timid Maiden met her end in the most tragic way.
The little girl who loved beauty most became the ugliest, most horrifying monster.
The girl who feared darkness most stepped into the deepest, pitch black Eternal Night.
"So Dark... So Dark..."
Until countless years later,
a youth arrived.
Only when a cluster of pure white flame burned did it disperse a little of the dense, icy darkness...
These wars were never recorded by history.
This civilization, too, silently vanished countless years ago.
Laia's story was merely a tiny ripple amid the changes of history, ultimately buried in depths no one cared to explore.
Yet that "miracle" left behind faint traces in the river of time.
Someone turned that unforgettable scene into a mural, which people excavated again several eras of civilization later.
People did not know her exact deeds and could only imagine them from the mural.
But when those still steeped in ignorance prayed to the mural, they discovered that it could emit a faint glow.
Just like a divine miracle.
Thus, based on those scattered traces of the story, people incorporated this "Goddess of War," who held aloft a battle flag, into their mythology.
That little girl who could only "shine," like a tiny candle, and always thought herself useless—
was placed upon a divine altar.
People called her...
Goddess of Light!
Goddess of Light—Aglaia.
"Bzzzz..."
Within the blazing white fire,
the blurry figure of a Maiden slowly emerged.
She wore a little dress that glittered like the stars, her manner serene and graceful.
She gently lifted her skirt and curtsied.
"Good day, Adventurer."
She spoke to Bai Zhou in a crisp, sweet voice:
"Thank you for letting me see the light again."
"—May light forever soothe your trembling soul."
Then,
before Bai Zhou, whose feelings were especially complicated, could say anything, her figure vanished from where she stood.
She became a wisp of light and rushed into Bai Zhou's body.
"This is..."
This was the first time Bai Zhou had received a gift after completing a Last Will since awakening his Destiny.
Back when he had been an ordinary person, he could only receive gifts of items.
But this time...
That wisp of pure white light passed through his body and went straight to the depths of his Destiny.
Then—
it charged directly into the ink-black Sea of Ignorance.
The echo of the boiling sea reached Bai Zhou's ears.
A pure white word-shaped imprint was branded onto the surface of the Sea of Ignorance.
This imprint resembled the Secret Technique Imprints branded upon Destiny, yet it was different in many ways.
At the very least, a Destined One's Secret Technique Imprint was not branded upon the Sea of Ignorance...
Ya had clearly told Bai Zhou that the Sea of Ignorance was the "ignorance" and "ordinariness" of an unenlightened Destiny, the most useless thing in Fate Space.
Powerful Destined Ones could even completely evaporate the Sea of Ignorance...
"What is it?"
Bai Zhou looked at that mysterious, ancient word-shaped imprint. Though it was unfamiliar and incredibly complex, he seemed to naturally understand its meaning.
—As though he had been born knowing how to use this language, almost by instinct.
Next second,
Bai Zhou opened his eyes in the ruined wasteland.
He suddenly opened his mouth and began to chant.
The instant the words left his lips, they became a mysterious, indistinct cadence, as though formed by nature itself, yet carrying the grave majesty of commanding the world.
The world seemed to come to a standstill at that moment.
Bai Zhou clearly felt his Sea of Ignorance tremble. Something overflowed from its depths, leaving his body and spreading in every direction throughout the world.
At that instant, he clearly understood the meaning of the words—or rather, the "Curse"—he had spoken.
He said—
"Light."
Then, in the next instant,
endless light erupted from him as its center,
engulfing heaven and earth.
After a while.
The Blood Moon poured across the ground.
A faint wind swirled over the weary wasteland and around the ruined Broken Wall.
The surroundings were silent.
A small earthen mound now stood there.
Bai Zhou had dug the grave with his own hands, then buried the burned ashes within it handful by handful.
Then, he tore off half of his white shirt and folded it into a somewhat ugly white bow.
The soft, pure white bow was gently placed before the mound and held down with a small stone.
It trembled in the wind, like a butterfly about to fly away with it.
"Light sleeps here, not ashes."
Bai Zhou stood before the small mound, his feelings somewhat complicated.
No matter what, he had never expected
that swollen monster to 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 flames burned out did the Maiden truly return for an instant.
—There had never been any Goddess of Light Aglaia.
There was only a little girl who feared darkness and loved beauty.
Bai Zhou raised his gaze, finally settling it on the crude gravestone he had made from half a piece of Ancient Wood.
[Laia]
The crooked words were written upon it.
This was the only thing Bai Zhou, the sole witness who came later, could still do for her.
Another passage was written there:
[There is no Long Night underground, for she is forever accompanied by light.]
Before you continue