A glimmer of light.
By the time Bishop registered the name Godslaying Strike in the gap between the violent wind pressure and an instant divided ten thousand ways.
It was already over.
As though placed in a high-speed centrifuge, Bishop's mummy-like body began to develop a certain characteristic from within under the rotation produced by a million trillion units of power.
This caused even Bishop, who had already merged with the Six Paths incorporated into himself, to gradually crumble from the vibrations of his flesh.
Before the next instant could arrive, the Demon God Bishop, who had once transcended the Six Paths and attained Buddhahood, would become a heap of ashes that left not even a trace.
This truly was...
"A fitting end for a willful madman like this old man."
After receiving Roland's killing intent, unadulterated by any other factor and disregarding even his own world, the impaled Bishop instead gave an inexplicable little smile.
"I've seen plenty of people like you. Always going on about saving humanity, yet trapped by obsessions born of your own experiences, dreaming up fantasies on your own, then falling apart over them on your own."
"Rather than persuasion or help, death is your only salvation. There are some things you can't understand without dying once."
Roland lowered his eyelids slightly, watching Bishop, whose eyes had lost their focus and who was gradually turning into particles of light as he struggled.
"Well? Do you feel a little relieved?"
"Of course-"
A measure of peace returned at last to Bishop's face, so often marked by hatred and anguish.
His ritual was one of seeking higher states and wisdom through death.
Although obsessions and fate troubled him while he lived, since he possessed the aptitude to become a Demon God, at this instant of death, there