Deep underground, The God of Scars had crossed nearly the entire planet and was about to reach Belial. Its lower body had completely disintegrated, leaving only the upper half, and only a few of the blade weapons on its back remained. In that instant, it seemed to fall into a tide of old memories, where only scars and pain could still be pulled out.
Behind it trailed what looked like rolling sandstorms, but were in fact massive aggregates of scar concepts and shattered soul resentment. Mountains of corpses, seas of blood, and the remains of countless battlefields surfaced within them. On the surface, a massive funnel-shaped void formed as metal weapons faded from the material layer and dissolved into the raging tide behind it.
It no longer carried blades on its back, but instead bore the karma of countless scars with its own body, its soul wounded beyond wounding. The surrounding scar storm effortlessly sliced apart anything ahead and surged straight through. Come, let us clash with this move.
Come! You unknown Black Dragon, if you have the ability, then withstand the karma of my endless scars and try to blast down me, Crimson God, me, The God of Scars, head-on!
As you wish.
When The God of Scars broke through the final barrier, it entered a dreamlike land filled with towering Crystal, every branch and leaf glowing with extraordinary light. Above, however, loomed an unnatural darkness, and The God of Scars suddenly realized it was being covered by something very familiar, called a shadow. For something like this to cast a shadow over it, there had to be something far higher or vastly larger overhead.
It forced its eyes open to look. A full third of the sky above the planet was shrouded in pitch-black darkness, dotted with sparkling Crystal that made it look like a beautiful starry night. Yet what hung at the center was not a moon, but three pairs of blood-red eyes like gashes torn open by Rend.
That existence darker than anything else opened a bottomless mouth, faint light outlining its form. The answer to how large it was became clear, even if The God of Scars stretched itself straight, it still could not reach the other's thigh. As the colossal shadow nearly covered everything and saw the true the Lord arrive, Belial split into a grin and snapped his fingers.
"Y.M.C.A!!"
A powerful song from ancient Terra's 2k era echoed into existence through Belial's controlled vibrations. For some reason, The God of Scars suddenly felt a chill, as the ground shook and several massive, powerful figures rose up. They were fierce-eyed, towering, radiating strength, planetary and Space dark triple Godzilla ecological Clone.
"Add my main body, and the ultimate skill that can only be used when the ecosystem is fully deployed." "Magnetic Field Rotation Dark Eternal Art, Ultimate True Form!" "So the result speaks for itself. There is no doubt, you have already lost."
"Anguirus, you have fallen beneath my unsurpassable fivefold war god power. How does it feel?"
The largest Clone behind him was not something Belial built himself, but was powered by the countless resentful souls here, with the ecosystem merely serving as the payment channel. At first, he quietly sent out dark Clone to gather resentment as fuel and see if he could attract investment, and somehow every nearby soul jumped in without hesitation.
Now, he had been waiting here for this true the Lord for a long time, and every Clone had prepared a generous gift. You should die.
"Roar!!!"
After a brief stunned pause, The God of Scars let out a furious final roar, its body accelerating in collapse into Shard. Carrying endless scars and rolling smoke, it rushed forward and in an instant nearly sliced all Crystal ecology and darkness into dust. The momentum was terrifying, staining everything blood-red and shaking the entire planet, but that was all.
Belial remained calm, allowing the myriad scars to cut through him while regenerating at the same time, as did all the Clone present. They slowly began to move. "Magnetic Field Rotation…"
"Antimatter realm power!" x5 "Final killing move… damn it!!!" "Space Detonation Punch!" "Burning charged blade!" "Super Spiral Fusion Reaction Beam!" "Corona Beam!"
Behind them, the dark true form raised its massive claw and brought it down in a heavy step filled with vengeance and the weight of countless souls. The shock was felt even on the far side of the planet, hurling untold billions of tons of metal and weapons into the sky. If not for the planet being larger than Earth and made of metal, it would have collapsed on the spot, yet even so, dense Crack and massive depressions appeared elsewhere.
Blinding light surged on a planetary scale, forming a torrent that pierced deep into the endless Void. At the battlefield, only Belial remained, everything else erased by that single strike. He lowered his head slightly, not even a speck of ash left in his hand.
Then he began to think seriously.
"I hit too hard just now." "And those resentful souls were a bit too kind, they even scattered the soul… I have not gotten the route map for the next stage yet. What am I supposed to do now?"
After sitting there in thought for a while, Belial shook his head. Since it had come to this, he might as well eat first. It was fine, there was more than one target anyway, and if dozens of them were only at this level, there was nothing to fear. He could quietly take them out one by one.
The gains were not zero. The victor naturally claimed everything from the defeated. The massive amount of Crystal dispersed by that attack had already covered the entire planet and begun the largest-scale corrosion, almost coating the surface completely now that there was no suppression.
It had reached the final stage, so it was time to begin. Planetary devouring.
He had asked, and Gen Urobuchi had no objections. Belial slowly opened his mouth, fully disintegrated himself into Black Mist Form, and spread an ecosystem-scale invasion over the entire planet, then drew it all back in.
The Crystal ecosystem squeezed the planet dry, stripping away every bit of energy and material down to the deepest layers. During the final contraction, the internal Crystal supporting the planet vanished, and the immense energy was swallowed and absorbed by a single being. What remained, shrunken and worthless like trash, collapsed silently within the Void.
"Are you saying that Belial rushed into the Rift, and there is a high chance he went to look for Dawn?" "That seems likely. I caught a glimpse at the time, so it is possible."
"…Smack!" Ham wailed as she slapped her hand onto her own forehead, her face twisted with pain and disbelief. She felt both speechless and miserable, because who could have guessed such a ridiculous mix-up would happen. She had thought that if the sky ever fell, she could let the tall one hold it up, but the tall one suddenly ran off, throwing the burden straight back onto her shoulders.
Chloe scratched her cheek in embarrassment, then casually licked away the potato chip crumbs at the corner of her mouth. Even in this awkward situation, she tried hard to suppress the burp that was about to come out. She looked guilty, but clearly not guilty enough to stop snacking until just now.
"Ahhhh!" Ham rolled all over the floor for a while before finally sitting down with a pitiful, cat-like expression. She grabbed the tip of her own tail hard, as if that might calm her down.
She then looked at Chloe, who was sitting on the sofa and no longer dared to eat chips, and slowly scanned the surroundings. This place was originally the entrance to that cursed Rift, so it was never supposed to look pleasant. It used to be full of massive ruin-like structures, strange runes everywhere, and constant corrosion and whispers from Abyss, making it the literal closest place to Hell.
But now everything was different. It was just a modest-sized room, with soft foam mats on the floor and walls covered in posters of mecha, women, and dragons. A cabinet full of model kits stood to the side, along with all kinds of manga, novels, and classic game cartridges, all collected in complete editions.
Near the sofa sat a PS5, a curved screen, controllers, and a full set of equipment. A headset hung from the corner, placed there by Chloe, and next to it was a still-warm serving of Golden Arches from who knew where. As for where all of this came from, the answer was obvious if one looked at the large black fog hand floating nearby, which had drifted straight out of someone's body and was even now trimming excess plastic from a model kit.
Ham looked at Chloe, who was still dressed like a hardcore shut-in, and found it hard to keep a straight face. After all, this kid had been working shifts in their place for so many years, so enjoying herself and reclaiming some humanity was understandable. Still, was this descent, no, this recovery of humanity, not happening a bit too fast?
"Uh, could you please stop looking at me like that and explain what is actually going on?" "…Sigh."