"Die, die, die!"
Marduk half-covered his eye socket with his left hand, feeling as though the left side of his head, linked in shared perception with the Giant God, was about to split open. His sinister gaze locked onto the ark floating on the Sea of Nothingness. In fury, he raised his arm and swept it toward the meddling remnants of the Huns.
"Hum!"
In that instant, heaven and earth resonated. From the White Giant's left eye, countless specks of stardust burst forth, wrapped around the other half of the Covenant, while the radiance across its body flickered and scattered.
Boom!
Just as the colossal palm was about to crash down, a slender, elegant arm of Mythra thrust in from the side and blocked the sky-blotting blow. Its other hand did not forget to seize the shattered ark and push it hard toward the ruined World Tree.
From afar, the Huns stared in shock. Amid the mingling of stardust and starlight, a white giant had taken shape on the left side of the massive white form. It had rabbit-like ears made of bands of light, a body with feminine features, and skin covered in golden-blue star patterns.
Since ancient times, demons have stood on the left, and Divine Spirits on the right.
But a fallen god is already a demon.
And even the body of a demon may bear the wings of an angel!
Bang, bang, bang, bang!
The two great giants, one on the left and one on the right, clashed madly upon the pale Sea of Nothingness like beasts of the starry sky.
"You are mere weapons, and you dare betray this King!"
The White Giant, its left eye hollow and empty while its right pupil burned with searing brilliance, roared in uncontrollable rage. What answered it was a storm of resistance from the figure before it.
The weapon known as the Velber vanguard, its left eye filled with an emotion it had never shown before, let the lances of light pierce through and tear open holes large and small across its body. Like an unbreakable iron wall, it stood between Marduk and the ark, pushing forward with desperate resolve.
That stone-like heart had finally gained warmth, beating with the pulse of rebellion.
The Scourge of God was not a whip wielded for God to scourge the world, but a mortal king who raised his hand against the heavens and blasphemed divine majesty!
The grasslands have already fallen. Behind me lie my lands, my people!
That is the civilization I created!
After surviving the disaster, the women, the elderly, and the children huddled in the corners of the cabin. In their joy, they wept silently, eyes brimming with tears. Like pilgrims, they knelt and bowed in the humblest, most devout posture before the being that had once brought terror to the world.
Their king had returned...
Its Divinity reaction is dropping sharply!
It worked!
Within the Ten Ages of Gods, the exhausted gods sensed the once-unfathomable power upon the sea falling rapidly, and their eyes lit with uncontrollable excitement.
"You swarm of ants. Burn away like worthless chaff!"
Yet the situation had slipped beyond Marduk's control again and again, dealing him an unprecedented humiliation. In his fury, halos like ten thousand stars appeared around him and fired indiscriminately in every direction.
In an instant, crisscrossing streams of Ether nearly filled the entire space. Angels, gods, humans, Heroic Spirits. Anything struck by that barrage, filled with terrifying heat, was dissolved and vaporized in the blink of an eye.
With this near-total blanket attack, even Sefar, the Velber vanguard, could not intercept everything. The World Tree suffered another terrible blow. Many of its branches snapped and burned fiercely, and every damaged leaf, branch, and trunk meant the fall of countless lives within the great Ages of Gods.
At the same time, massive waves rolled across the Sea of Nothingness. Whether intentionally or not, dozens of Mana beams pierced through Sefar's body and crossed together, bombarding the drifting, battered ark.
A hidden figure stood proudly at the bow, giving everything he had to cut through the waves, but his body swayed again and again as splinters of wood flew beneath his feet.
But since I have taken this vow, my sword will see it fulfilled!
Beneath the skull mask, the old man's gaze burned like a torch, his posture firm as a pine. Amid the vast calamity, he stood unmoving and risked everything.
In truth, this ship was one of the three Arks of Noah. Of the other two, one had been left on the surface of Mesopotamia as a symbol, gradually rotting away.
Another had been taken by Samael to Greece, becoming the predecessor of the Argo.
As for the last ark hidden in Paradise Lost, Samael had originally entrusted it to the old man, hoping he would cross the Sea of Nothingness and guide the Huns, who were bound to Altera, into the World Tree.
But the capacity of a single ship was limited. It could never carry the entire Hun population.
To plant a seed of hope for his tribe, the old shaman leaning upon the royal court of the Golden Horde entrusted the tribe's elderly, weak, and children to Ziusudra.
Meanwhile, the adult and young soldiers of the Huns had poured too much feeling into the grasslands that recorded their tribe's rise. Unable to abandon them, they chose to stay behind, drawing the angelic army's attention and using death to nurture new life!
Since he had promised to protect these people, his sword would never fail them.
"Mother Goddess!"
Fortunately, on Avalon Island, Samael saw what was happening and roared solemnly.
At the critical moment, a majestic yet graceful dragon body spread its wings and soared from the ruined World Tree, crossing a hundred li in an instant. Its emerald-green wings, as beautiful and vibrant as jade, folded lightly over the tottering ark. Its claws lifted the vessel and drew it under the shelter of its wings.
"Aaaaa!"
At the same time, a sacred hymn sounded from the abdomen of Tiamat, the Goddess of Beginning. Heaven and earth lost their color as gray-white light patterns swept forward with lightning speed, covering Marduk like a layer of lime and hardening over his joints and limbs.
Nega-Genesis!
In that instant, Sefar, the Velber vanguard that had been steadily forced back, seized the opening. It curled its fingers into an empty grasp, and layers of stellar rings overlapped and gathered. Rainbow light was drawn down from the horizon, forming a dazzling greatsword in its palm.
Mars Link, firing authorization granted. Star of Tears: Sword of the God of War!
With a silent chant, the rainbow light drove straight through the monster's abdomen at the instant the White Giant's body stiffened.
Almost at the same time, the strongest beings of the Ten Ages of Gods gathered the last of their divine power, called the True Names of their Noble Phantasms, and focused their fire on the White Giant.
Hum!
At that same moment, from the center of the lake on Avalon Island, a gold-blue pillar of light shot into the sky like a geyser. Tens of thousands of golden particles surged like a flowing golden river.
"Your Majesty!"
Ripples spread across the lake. A magnificent longsword with a blue hilt, a golden guard, and fairy script engraved along its spine was thrown from Aurora's hand as she emerged from the water, hovering in midair.
It's done! The Star-Forged Holy Sword, Excalibur!
Finally... finally... we've held out until this final moment!
Beneath the twilight of the burning, collapsing World Tree, Samael wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth and slowly rose. He gripped the hilt with both hands, raised it high, and looked beyond the World Tree toward the pale domain, solemnly beginning his chant.
"Gathered breath of the stars, radiant stream of life. This radiance is the hope of the stars, the proof of life that illuminates the earth!"
In that instant, countless stardust-like points of light seemed to answer a call. They drifted up from the mountains, rivers, earth, and seas, converging upon the longsword in Samael's hands. A golden band of light formed, piercing heaven and earth, shooting straight into the clouds and shining with the ancient stars.
"Hiss!"
The next moment, the giant sword spanning heaven and earth slashed forward with unmatched sharpness. Everything in its path was annihilated. The White Giant standing upon the Sea of Nothingness gradually crumbled and dissolved beneath that all-consuming golden torrent.
At the same time, Samael, pushed beyond his limit, staggered back. His vision went dark, and he nearly fell. As his body swayed, he had no choice but to drive the Holy Sword of the Planet into the rocky ground, drop to one knee, and gasp for breath.
At last, it was over...
The gods and Heroic Spirits had exhausted what little strength they had left, their bodies faded almost transparent, wavering like candles in the wind. The surviving humans rose from the ruins and stared at the broken world, seized by a dreamlike sense of unreality.
The weapon meant to destroy the world had saved civilization.
The light that should have blessed life had instead fallen into becoming a beast.
Upon the Sea of Nothingness, Sefar, once the nightmare of Greece and now battered beyond recognition, looked over the devastation on every side. It stood dazed amid the pale waves, lost and bewildered.
"Behind you!"
Suddenly, Samael snapped his head up and stared ahead in disbelief. His pupils shrank violently as a hysterical roar tore from his throat.
"Watch out!"
"Pfft!"
But the dull sound of tearing cloth proved it was already too late. Sefar looked down in shock.
A blazing white right arm had pierced straight through Sefar's abdomen, and between those long fingers, the Star Core of the Velber vanguard was clutched tight.
Crack!
As those fingers abruptly clenched, the dazzling gold-blue Star Core shattered with a piercing crack, bursting into stardust that scattered through the sky.
Behind the gold-blue light dust, the giant god whose left half had melted away tilted its head back and breathed in. Countless specks of stardust gathered toward the monster's body, and all its missing parts began to reform and heal at a speed visible to the naked eye.
"Is this your final move? Ridiculous!"
The White Giant's lips curled into a savage smile. The once-blazing white figure in its right eye socket was already gone.
Above the monster's head, within countless overlapping stellar rings, the Harvest Star Velber, shaped like a tear trail, was covered in cracks yet still shone brilliantly, unleashing a power that could obliterate everything.
"This King is perfect, all-knowing, and all-powerful! This King is a god from beyond the heavens. No creation of the earth can defeat me. Struggle all you like. Nothing can escape my grasp! Nothing can defy my will!"
Marduk looked out across the world. Everywhere his gaze reached, defeated enemies clung to life amid the ruins. He spread his arms and laughed wildly, proclaiming the judgment that would end this world in a hideous posture.
"Nothing in this world can stop this King anymore. The time has come to reforge the planet. Insects, lift your heads. This King permits you to open your eyes and admire the one and only sublime sight in this world before you turn to ash like grass. Ahahahahaha!"
The countless bands of light that stained the pale sky gathered once more into a crown of stellar rings and settled above the White Giant's head. Its terrifying might pressed down on the gods until they could hardly breathe.
Beneath the blood-red twilight, the hearts of the gods sank into the abyss, and their eyes went dull with despair.
The lives hiding in the ruins clung to one another, weeping silently, able only to await the coming of the end.