"...Yes. Which Pillar was it that wavered?"
After facing each other in silence for a moment, Mash's eyes darkened slightly. With some difficulty, he asked Goetia this question.
Goetia did not answer immediately. He merely looked at Mash quietly.
"I cannot simply ignore you, nor do I wish to. I do not want the final record of this existing planet to become a [tragedy]."
"This is what you call wavering."
Although Goetia had posed a question to the three of them due to the wavering of one among the seventy-two Demon God Pillars, in the end, this question was directed at Mash.
"Though I do not know how your life was replenished, the beauty that once reached its end truly moves the heart."
Their conversation was interspersed with silence, and the atmosphere was as still as death.
Edmond Dantès watched from the side, the black flames around him flickering brightly and dimly.
Goetia had not asked him a question, but he was waiting for Fujimaru Ritsuka's answer.
Watching alongside Edmond Dantès was that little white beast. It crouched on the other side of the battlefield, and not a single Demon God Pillar dared approach it. It merely watched, taking in every sight on the battlefield. Though it looked like nothing more than an insignificant little animal, its eyes held a complicated expression.
What was it thinking about? What was it mourning?
No one knew.
"...A life destined to die has no meaning. I will not deny your answer, Goetia. Or rather, Professor Lev."
Mash pressed his lips together and did not look at Goetia.
"Because I, too, have feared and wavered before the fact of death. I have doubted whether my existence was real."
"And so?" The core in Goetia's chest, resembling a giant eye, slowly rotated, as though showing