Chapter 295 : Sin of Greed (6)
Drrrrrr~!
As Alon murmured, eyeballs began to emerge from Blackie's previously blank body.
One, then two.
Two became four.
Then four quickly multiplied, and red eyes spread across Blackie's entire body.
"Wood Spirit."
At Alon's whispered command, Blackie's tail slithered like a snake and wrapped around Alon's body.
"Linked Chain."
Soon, black shadows and red eyes began spreading over Alon's entire body.
"Transformation."
Blackie's body, which had been resting on Alon's shoulder, melted away like snow and vanished into his body.
Then, "Darkness."
The shadows cloaking Alon's body formed a black circle behind him.
Like a halo, the black shadow gathered behind Alon's head and quickly drew a massive ring.
Immediately after that—
"Reverse Heaven."
As soon as Alon chanted the spell, from the black halo that formed behind him—
Fwooosh~!
A red eyeball appeared.
Alon's fluttering black coat began rippling like a shadow.
And then—
Woah.
In a sky scorched and filled with ash,
A Milky Way began to form.
'It feels peaceful.'
That was Alon's first thought as he gazed at the Milky Way created in the ashen world.
The Reverse Heaven spell requires endless creation of stars to release ever-multiplying mana, forming a Milky Way.
Normally, this brought brain-melting pain, but now it was tranquil.
'I should've learned this earlier.'
Alon was only able to open this spell so effortlessly thanks to a spell he learned recently from Kylrus.
The spell's effect was simple.
It allowed Alon to fully merge with his shadow dragon—Blackie—and offload part of his mana calculations to it.
Because of that, Alon could calmly analyze the current situation with a clearer mind than ever before.
'Still, it's unstable. At most... I've got maybe two minutes left.'
Naturally, the spell Alon received from Kylrus was extremely incomplete.
There was one reason.
Alon hadn't mastered Kylrus's magic in full—he had only learned the portions necessary at this moment.
In other words, the Awakening he learned from Kylrus had no other effects besides aiding computation, and its duration was frustratingly short.
It was nearly identical to the time Alon could forcibly maintain Reverse Heaven.
But even that much was enough.
"Hoo—"
With a light exhale, Alon leapt from the fortress wall, flicking the fingers of his gauntleted hand.
Crackle~!
Frozen earth spread across the ashen world.
Ash rushing toward him froze instantly, forming mountains of gray dust.
Landing atop one of those peaks, Alon formed a hand sign without hesitation.
Then, as if waiting for this, the stars that embroidered the air like a Milky Way began to fall to the ground at his will.
—Hmm. For an unfinished prototype, it seems decent enough..... But Marquis, you really shouldn't use this carelessly, okay?
Penia's warning echoed in his mind.
And it was a valid warning.
This spell had been created with Penia.
Not only was it unfinished, but Alon hadn't even come close to completing it.
Therefore, it wasn't something to be used lightly.
The uncontrollable power from the calculations wouldn't just fall on the ash beings—it would destroy all of Greynifra.
Yes, under normal circumstances, that would be the case.
But that only applied when Alon no longer had the computational power to control the Milky Way.
If Alon had enough computing power and a solid image to control it, then the side effects could be mitigated.
Alon looked up at the sky.
Mana spheres floated across the ashen heavens.
Even with his current computational support, they were too many to fully control.
But that didn't matter.
Because now, Alon had an image in mind that could handle it all.
Bzzzzzz~!
As Alon formed a hand seal, the mana spheres above his head turned into thin threads and spread in all directions.
What he envisioned was the blue fissure Radan had shown him as a Magic Orb.
While others saw only a crack, Alon had seen something else inside it.
A rule that allowed the control of countless weapons at once.
Crack! Crackle~!
Red fissures appeared in the sky.
They looked identical in shape and function to the one Radan had shown.
However, the ones Alon created were extremely crude.
He had simply cobbled together the structure as simply as possible to replicate it.
The mana consumption was so massive that other methods would have been more efficient.
Even so, Alon continued to multiply the fissures.
For Alon at this moment, the massive mana consumption from the spell's crude form was practically irrelevant.
Just like when Radan had summoned the Magic Orb—
The red fissures that began forming in the sky quickly devoured it.
And then—
"What... is that?"
"No way~"
"This... This is the work of the Primordial Elf..."
The soldiers gazed in awe at the Milky Ways glowing red within the sky full of fissures.
"...!"
"Whoa—"
"That's—"
Even Historia, Seolrang, and Radan—who had just been slaughtering ash creatures—looked up at the sky in a daze.
And finally, with all the mana spheres now under control, Alon stretched out his hand, fingers extended, toward the source of Greed—the Mother of Greed.
Toward the sin of greed itself.
"Launch."
He spoke softly.
And from the sky, an uncountable number of flashes rained down toward a single point.
Then—
The light blinded everyone.
"No way…"
After the light engulfed everything, Ramu muttered in shock as his vision returned, his face dazed.
Even having seen it, he couldn't believe it.
The Ash Seeders, who had seemed ready to consume the earth itself, had all vanished.
And that wasn't all?
The ash particles that had been flying toward Fildagreen were now, quite literally, turning to ash and scattering.
Because of that, hope began to rise in Ramu's wide, astonished eyes.
However—
Alon, the one who had caused all of this, didn't look pleased at all.
It was true that the Mother of Greed was no longer visible.
But—
It was still there.
With pale white skin.
And green eyes fixed intently on Alon.
The Sin of Greed
Was still standing in that very spot.
Her condition was far from good.
Her body looked barely able to stand.
Her lower half had been blown away.
Her right arm hung loosely.
And more than half of her face was gone.
She was in a state closer to death than life.
And yet, the reason Alon's face was frozen—
Regeneration.
She was healing those devastating wounds like it was nothing.
At an unbelievable speed.
Alon felt a wave of disappointment, but quickly gathered his thoughts.
Even so, he couldn't give up on stopping the Sin.
The moment he tried to move his mana—
Alon realized something.
'My mana… won't move?'
And just as he recognized this—
[How fascinating.]
The Sin's voice echoed.
One of the many paper talismans floating behind her fluttered down to the ground.
At that moment, as if by instinct, the three of them charged forward to stop her.
Seolrang appeared above the Sin in a flash of light, aiming directly for her head as he fell.
Rang-chang rang-chang—!
Historia dashed to the Sin's front and drew her sword in an instant.
Four-Style—
Radan emerged from behind with a trident in hand.
And then—
What came next—
Or rather, what they heard—
KABOOOOOM!!
A thunderous explosion rang out.
"Aaaaargh~!!"
"P-Please, someone help!"
They were screams from the elves.
When Alon turned to look—
He saw the shattered fortress wall.
And beyond it—a desolate wasteland, everything inside annihilated.
And at the edge of that destruction—
Tremble tremble
Stood Historia, gripping her sword with shaking hands, her entire body drenched in blood.
"My... Lord—"
She didn't even finish her sentence.
"Run—"
And collapsed.
Only then did Alon understand.
That they had all been defeated by the Sin.
As he turned his gaze, just as he suspected, huge clouds of dust were rising from all around, as if bombarded.
And then—
[Why is something I clearly erased still lingering here?]
The Sin of Greed had suddenly appeared in front of Alon.
Alon immediately tried to move his mana.
But still, it didn't respond.
No—worse—
Hack—!
Alon coughed up blood.
At the same time, the Reverse Heaven spell was broken.
And then he realized why his mana hadn't moved.
"My magic—"
[Its structure was simple.]
When using Reverse Heaven, Alon's magic was deployed based on the mana spheres floating in the sky.
The Sin of Greed had reversed that structure and taken control of his mana instead.
Just like how Alon had just used a reverse method to control the spheres via fissures—
An utterly ridiculous feat.
But something only a Sin could pull off.
Alon looked at her.
The Milky Way had disappeared, and the world had turned gray once again, with the Sin standing against it.
Her blank, detached gaze looking down on him alone made him feel overwhelmed.
Everyone who had once been filled with awe and hope now wore expressions of pure despair.
And then—
When the Milky Way Alon had created completely disappeared and the world turned gray once more—
[So, what will you do now?]
The Sin, who had been staring intently at Alon, suddenly asked.
[There's nothing more you can do.]
"...You're well aware."
[And yet, you still haven't abandoned hope.]
The reason the Sin of Greed said those words was because she had noticed that the emotion in Alon's eyes was not resignation.
[What are you placing your hope in? You shouldn't have anything left to try.]
Her words were true.
No matter how positively one looked at the situation, it was undeniably grim.
The three who had fought alongside Alon were rendered unable to battle by the Sin, and Alon himself wasn't in much better shape.
Even if he used divine power to engage in combat temporarily, with his mana under control, he had no remaining weapons to rely on.
And yet, despite that worst-case scenario—
Alon
Said calmly, "I don't need to do anything."
From the beginning, Alon had never thought he could defeat the Sin with just one blow.
He knew all too well that something that incomprehensible—something capable of destroying an entire continent—couldn't be dealt with this easily.
And yet, the reason Alon still chose to strike the Sin was for two reasons.
One was to confirm whether this Sin of Greed, manifested in another person's body, was the same Sin he had faced multiple times in the game.
And the other—
"The alarm's already gone off."
[...What?]
The Sin asked again, but Alon turned his gaze elsewhere.
Far off in the distance, smoke was rising beneath the World Tree encircling Fildagreen.
Where the other mana spheres, launched during Alon's earlier attack, had landed.
And then—
[...Was it just delusion?]
The Sin of Greed, who had shown a hint of interest, soon erased that expression and looked ahead.
There, stood the elves.
Countless elves, all staring at her in terror and despair.
And then—
[I'm bored now.]
From the Sin's body, mana began to pour out explosively.
"Guh—"
A simple act of mana release.
Yet that alone was enough for the Sin of Greed to scatter mana throughout all of Fildagreen.
"Ah... Ahhh…"
"It's over... it's the end…"
The elves shrank back in horror.
Even Magrina, who had been expressionless just moments ago, widened her eyes in realization of what was happening.
[Let's just end this all at once.]
She was sure of her victory, and began to cast a spell—
But she couldn't.
Because of a strange sense of discomfort.
The Sin looked again toward the elves.
They were still trembling in fear.
Likewise, when she glanced below, Magrina still wore a stunned expression.
Nothing had changed.
And yet—why?
'Ah.'
As she blankly observed the scene, the Sin soon realized the source of her unease.
It was simple.
...'They're not looking at me?'
The elves were not staring at the Sin.
Even Magrina wasn't looking at her.
And the moment the Sin grasped that fact—
She realized something else.
That the dull sky above had darkened.
She looked up.
In the once ashen sky of Greynifra, a wall had formed.
As if a surface had been built in the heavens—
[?]
No.
It wasn't.
It wasn't a wall.
It was—
[A... hand?]
A hand.
One so massive that it covered the skies above Fildagreen.
A giant hand.
Cold sweat ran down the back of the Sin of Greed, a being who had cast off desires and emotions to become a transcendent being.
And only then did she—
[!]
Realize.
[This is... something like me—]
That behind her, there existed a being just like her—
"No. Please don't think that way."
Said a voice.
"I don't want to be treated as the same as you by Father."
When the Sin looked around, the first thing she saw was hair like living vegetation.
[You are—]
"Yes. That name suits me just fine."
The next thing she saw
Were green eyes, radiant even in the dark.
And finally—
"Longing."
A woman who smiled and nodded.
"Call me Longing. I like that."
[!]
And then—
A massive hand fell, sucking in the gray clouds like a whirlpool, descending straight onto her.