11:43 PM. Inside the Great Tree House of the Hestia familia, lights still burned brightly in a certain meeting room.
Four goddesses sat side by side, while the lone figure seated opposite them was the focus of tonight's gathering—Bell, who was expected to confess honestly.
"Smack!"
Hestia slapped her palm against the table, flashing a radiant smile.
Yet that very smile made Bell swallow hard.
Gulp~
If he wasn't imagining things, he could practically see an Asura king standing behind Hestia, swinging a blood-stained butcher's blade.
This was the first time a family meeting felt this solemn. Bell realized this wasn't some staged scolding—this was real.
"Bell, we need to get a full understanding of everything you've been hiding."
"So, will you tell us yourself? Or should we drag it out of you bit by bit?"
It was basically: confess and earn leniency, or resist and face the consequences.
In a moment like this, Bell could barely imagine what kind of situation would come next.
He wasn't afraid of danger; when facing real danger, strength was always the best shield.
But against this kind of danger, strength was completely useless. Only a sincere attitude could change his chances of survival.
At this point, Bell had no way to keep hiding it.
"I'll confess."
There was no point in clinging to denial when everything had already been exposed. And with four goddesses interrogating him together, Bell truly couldn't hold out.
Seeing Bell choose honesty so decisively, Hestia gave a slight smirk, dropping the icy expression she had worn earlier.
"Since you choose to confess, then start with what happened inside your soul."
Hestia didn't bother with small talk—she struck straight at the core.
"I saw the remnants of a soul."
"!?"
All four goddesses' expressions darkened instantly.
Bell hurried to add clarification.
"I'm certain it really was a fragment, and it definitely wasn't targeting me for no reason."
"Bell, how exactly are you sure of that?"
Freya didn't accept his statement as is; she immediately sought the deeper cause.
She didn't doubt Bell himself—she doubted the so-called soul fragment he encountered.
After all, anyone could deceive Bell. Even if Bell was cautious, he couldn't match the gods' skills in deception. And the question wasn't easy for Bell to answer.
He absolutely had to avoid mentioning the "Miniature World" at all costs. Any connection to that place would be disastrous.
"Freya, I'm very sure about this. As for evidence… Freya, take another look and you'll understand."
Freya frowned, but she didn't believe Bell would attempt to deceive her. She invoked the power of Shakah and entered the depths of Bell's soul.
When she opened her eyes again, she stood once more before the massive gateway known as the "Wall of Lamentation."
Only this time, the place felt completely different.
The oppressive gloom still remained, but it no longer felt endlessly deep. The difference was the faint white light leaking through the cracks of the door from within.
The outside was still shrouded in a chilling darkness, but the inside now seemed to shine with a vast source of bright white light. The enormous door blocked all of it, and the outer layer of black mist still desperately tried to obscure it.
Yes, it had changed.
Freya was certain that Bell's inner soul had undergone a significant transformation—one that appeared right after his awakening.
She was absolutely sure of this.
But had the soul remnant truly vanished?
Freya couldn't be completely certain, and she couldn't recklessly enter the deeper regions of the soul.
Still, even without confirming the remnant's fate, the transformation inside Bell's soul clearly explained the changes happening to him.
Satisfied with this, Freya withdrew from Bell's soul.
She was the first to speak.
"Bell's inner soul has indeed undergone drastic changes. I didn't enter the 'Wall of Lamentation' itself, but there is now white light escaping through the cracks of that gate.
"From this, I can confirm that Bell's inner soul has changed."
"But whether it was caused by the disappearance of that soul fragment—I can't be sure yet."
A clear transformation, yet uncertain details. Freya's conclusion immediately drew the attention of the other three goddesses.
Although Freya explicitly said it was unconfirmed, to them, that already counted as a strong basis.
But exploring the deepest layers of the soul wasn't something that could be done casually. Too much force could harm Bell's soul.
Even so, Freya's words proved Bell wasn't lying.
Hephaestus made a decisive call.
"Bell, once everything here is settled, you'll work with Freya for a detailed examination. We need to make sure nothing was hidden within your soul."
The matter of the soul's interior could be set aside for now.
But the answers found in that inner soul?
"What about that endless flow of power?"
"That… I've figured out."
The answer turned out to be nothing like Bell's earlier bold speculation. It was honestly a little embarrassing—his earlier guesses had been completely wrong.
"That black power is called Despair. Since I've gathered all Seven Deadly Sins, every despair faced by this world has begun gathering onto me. That's why it keeps flowing endlessly.
"All desires, all darkness, all Corruption ultimately converge into it."
"And because of that, that power keeps endlessly feeding into that sphere."
Freya had kept her attention on Bell this whole time, so she knew he hadn't been corrupted by that power.
But Bell's words—"desire," "darkness," and "Corruption"—were the exact components of that black mist.
Then the black sludge under the stone bed where Bell had slept… was that also the condensation of those elements?
"So those pitch-black things—were they also affected by your power?"
"Well… I really can't say for sure."
Those pitch-black creatures were almost certainly Laḫmu, but the issue was: he wasn't Tiamat. At best, he could be considered a successor to Angra Mainyu, but he absolutely could not be that Tiamat.