Blight Cradle.
The Blight Cradle that Tacchia remembered was highly intelligent, wise, and truly deserving of the title of “scholar.”
“Why, though?”
But when I arrived at his residence, what I saw was him turning survivors, desperate for salvation, into grotesque monsters.
His mad laughter, devoid of any sense of guilt, made it impossible to see him as the wise scholar he once was.
“Why do you reject me?”
So I dealt with him.
I hacked apart his endlessly swelling body and flung his head before me.
“…You’re insane.”
“No! I am not insane!”
Even now, the beak-like part of his severed head was opening, spewing fervent madness in my direction.
“And you are the same. You’re just ignorant. You must be enlightened and accept the blessing that has descended upon this land into your body!”
A blessing?
How could there be salvation in this monstrous plague that was destroying people?
“Oh, yes… At first, even I thought this was just a disease.”
Yet Blight continued to zealously preach his beliefs.
“But to call it a disease is absurd. What stirs within me is simply a concept foreign to this world, which is why it feels overwhelming… But it is not harmful like a sickness!”
If Boudoin could see him now, how shattered would his heart have been?
Would he have been angry, or would he have felt pity for his once-loyal retainer, now driven mad by the situation?
“And the fact that such material has descended upon this land… must surely mean that the will of the Great Being is now targeting this world.”
But there was no longer any trace of loyalty to his king in him.
He looked up at the crumbling ceiling in awe, his eyes catching the moonlight, and began to cheer.
“Yes, this is all according to the will of the Great Being. To them, we are nothing but insects, far beneath their transcendent concepts… To survive in a world controlled by such being, we must revere them and prepare ourselves to accept their blood!”
There was nothing more to hear—just the ramblings of a madman.
Even though I understood that, the sword in my hand felt heavier and heavier.
“The ultimate…”
Taking advantage of my hesitation, he screamed.
“Seek the ultimate life!”
As if convinced of the righteousness of his descent into this horror.
He continued to proclaim his deranged beliefs without hesitation.
“Their will shall target this entire world, starting with this land! So, living beings, revere the great blood and long for their presence! That is the only way to accept the world that is to come!!!” ṛÃƝօᛒĚS̩
-Splat!
Finally, my sword, feeling as heavy as a thousand pounds, came down, and the small tentacles that sprouted from his bloodied head twitched violently.
And soon, they lost their strength and went limp.
The once-wise scholar Blight Cradle met a fate that was as pitiful and hollow as it was tragic.
“…Don’t give it meaning.”
The avatar’s sharp reprimand pierced through me as I was overwhelmed by my thoughts.
Sharing my memories, she clearly didn’t appreciate the sight before her, but her attitude was nothing if not resolute.
“What just happened was nothing but a madman’s rant. There was nothing here for you to find, and you’ve only fought a meaningless battle with a lunatic… You should just accept that and move on.”
It was just a pointless struggle.
Was that how she saw the battle and the words of the once-brilliant scholar?
“Is that really all there is to it?”
Blight may have gone mad, but he was a scholar trusted by the king.
Even if he couldn’t find a solution, he might have discovered something important about the situation.
It was possible that the truth, which fueled his madness in the end, was something significant.
“What are you trying to say now…?”
“Blight said this, didn’t he? That the plague ravaging this land is a concept that doesn’t exist in this world.”
It could easily be dismissed as the ramblings of a madman, just as the avatar said.
But I had already encountered many concepts that didn’t belong to this world.
For example, beings like myself, and demons like Merilyn, were entities from different dimensions that had been drawn into this world.
There was more. Like the witches who were granted knowledge from beyond this world that Flang explained to me, or the vampires who, as Virgil said, originated from foreign flesh. The monsters, born from a fusion of these foreign concepts, also didn’t belong to this world.
“Concepts that don’t belong to this world have interfered with it repeatedly. Perhaps the ‘Great Being’ Blight spoke of is part of that.”
“…Are you saying someone orchestrated this disaster on purpose?”
“Yes, and that…”
I slowly lifted my gaze.
Beyond the collapsed ceiling, there was only the dark sky, but I knew that somewhere beyond it, something was watching over this land.
The being that Blight referred to as “the Great Being” likely existed at the same level as something equally powerful.
“…It might be something—or someone—we already know.”
Airi Haven.
My companion, who inherited the blood of a god from the farthest reaches of the cosmos.
There were multiple beings, like the God of Destruction, whom she sought to bring forth to this land. If such beings were deliberately intervening in this world with an agenda…
-Rumble!!
As those thoughts began to take shape, the ground suddenly trembled violently.
I stopped my thoughts and stiffened, my eyes darting around in alarm.
“Wh-What’s happening? Is it collapsing again?”
“No, it’s not collapsing entirely.”
Unlike me, the avatar remained calm.
Her indifferent gaze slowly shifted toward the ruins, which were dissolving into dust.
“The remnants of the past strong enough to be recreated here tend to be the most vivid. If there’s still something near the end of the last event, it will lead us directly there.”
“In simpler terms, we’re skipping forward in time?”
Just as she said, we were still within Briton.
The only difference was that we had moved from the mansion to a church. In front of the church stood an altar, upon which a coffin was laid.
“Oh, my King.”
It didn’t take long for me to realize who it was.
The people with tentacles sprouting from their bodies, bowing their heads before the coffin, made it clear to me.
“Our Lord and King, may you be eternal.”
Boudoin Britannia.
The tragic king who fought until the end to save his people, only to lose his life miserably on this land.
His body still retained its human form, as if he had died before fully transforming into a monster.
I couldn’t tell whether he had died fighting with all his strength or had taken his own life.
“Oh, King, we remember you.”
But regardless of how it ended, it must have been noble.
That much was clear from the line of people kneeling before him, praying in reverence.
“We will remember every moment you dedicated to us…”
“We will remember the times you sacrificed your body for us… Even when the light of this land fades, we…”
“We will remember that light until the very end.”
No, most of them had already lost their human forms.
Their twisted bodies were covered with tentacles, even the hands, once folded in prayer, now buried in the grotesque mass. Their voices were distorted, reduced to guttural growls.
“We will not collapse.”
Yet they continued to pray before the altar where the king lay.
“We will remember… your death.”
Even though they had already crossed beyond the realm of humanity, they remained determined to fulfill their final act of loyalty to him.
“We will remember your nobility, your greatness… so that it may be passed down to future generations…”
The reason that scene didn’t seem entirely foreign to me was that I had seen something like it once before.
Phobia Homer.
Even though he, too, had fallen into the form of a monster like them, he had retained his humanity until the very end, dying as a man.
“…My King.”
Despite their nobility, one by one, they had fully transformed into monsters. Now, all they could do was remain rooted in place, offering their prayers.
The only one reciting the prayers aloud was a woman, presumably a priestess serving the god of this church.
“My love…”
No, she wasn’t just an ordinary priestess.
She was the saintess of this church, devoted to the god they worshipped. She had become the wife of Boudoin Britannia, recognizing the king’s nobility and marrying him.
“I will remember you…”
Gwen Hwibar.
A woman barely maintaining her sanity and form through the divine power of her faith, even until the very end.
But even she seemed to be at her limit. Her face was gaunt, and blood oozed from the tentacles that burst through her skin.
“Because I love you… I will remember all the time we shared.”
Yet, she continued to pray.
Despite the pain she felt, she stayed in place, determined to keep praying.
“I carry within me the love we cultivated together, and I wish to hold it in my heart.”
She whispered words of love to her companion, who would never return.
“Even if that child has walked the river from which one cannot return…”
Accepting that alone…
Even if living in the reality where everything she cherished had been cruelly taken away was unbearable…
“Even if the pain is a trial, I will endure it willingly.”
Even if the glorious past couldn’t return, and even if what she was doing now seemed meaningless, she clung to the belief that remembering the past itself held significance.
“May the King be eternal… May the King be eternal…”
As she repeated those words, I couldn’t bring myself to take a step toward her.
Even if she noticed me and reacted, I feared that her response would only weigh heavier on my heart.
“…Are you feeling nothing?”
I was frozen in fear for a moment.
Then, my gaze shifted to the avatar, who was watching Gwen’s back with a troubled expression.
“You… even though you share the same roots as me, you feel nothing when looking at her now?”
“No, it’s not that I feel nothing…”
“Then why aren’t you showing that misguided compassion to her?”
Her voice was filled with frustration.
It was a stark contrast from the persona she had shown before.
Until now, she had always been negative when interfering in matters, but even while scolding me, her attention was fixed solely on Gwen.
“Of course, for you, your mother is just the foster mother who raised you.”
A bitter voice followed.
Even though her form wasn’t solid, her lowered hands were clenched tightly, trembling with anger.
“Even if she gave birth to you… if the time you spent with her was short, it’s only natural you’d see her as a stranger.”
It took some time, but I finally understood the source of her anger.
“You… Could it be…”
That she spent more time with Gwen than I did…
That could only be said by someone who carried Tacchia’s personality but had spent long years with Gwen.
From what I knew, Gwen was not only Boudoin’s wife but also the one who revived him as an undead—a being who ruled as a calamity rivaling the Demon King in this world.
“…Red Knight?”
“I told you, didn’t I? I’m just the remnants of what you left behind.”
The avatar, or rather, the part of me that carried the Red Knight’s personality, glanced at me, as if confirming my guess wasn’t far off.
“It was only when you entered your mother’s domain that what could be called reason and memory properly took shape. Before that, even what could be called a sense of self had not been fully realized.”
It was only then that I understood why she reacted so sensitively to the word “Pheloi.”
She was, in truth, a being who shared the same roots as me, yet blossomed into reason and personality through an entirely different process.
“You were shaped by the hands of that dragon, and upon realizing that she was still plagued by guilt even after her death, you came to accept her as your true mother.”
That alone separated us into distinct beings.
Even though we both shared the foundation of Tacchia Pheloi, I was shaped by Tashian’s hand after her death and came to understand her true feelings more deeply.
“However, I spent far more time with the one who brought me back from death than I ever did with her.”
As one who was revived by the hands of my true mother, who had become a spirit and not Tashian, I came to understand the love she bore.
“And now, as someone who can no longer be called a spirit myself, I’ve realized I no longer need to cling to lingering regrets. What remains most vivid in my memory isn’t the stepmother who abandoned me, but the true mother who loved me deeply even in death.”
As if to show that such love remained alive in her heart at this very moment, her gaze began to move again toward where Gwen was standing.
“And now, as I reflect on it… I’ve come to realize just how agonizing her end must have been.”
Blossoming the love for her companion, a love carried on even beyond death for her true mother, and suffering in that realization.
“…Nobility, it seems, has the power to cause so much anguish for those who follow it.”
As the other me trembled in frustration at the realization, I silently turned my head from her and looked once more at Gwen’s back.
Gwen, unaware of our presence, continued to pray in front of the coffin. Her nobility made her plight all the more tragic.
-Crack! Creak!
But then, the sound of something cracking reached my ears.
My wary gaze instinctively turned to the ceiling.
Was the ceiling… cracking?
No, it wasn’t the ceiling that was cracking.
The very space itself was splitting, centered around the ceiling.
As the tear widened, revealing something beyond, I felt an overwhelming pressure crash down on me.
Just facing it made it hard to breathe, and my legs wobbled, barely able to support me under the crushing presence emanating from that place.
“…A finger?”
Yes, a finger.
This content is taken from fгee𝑤ebɳoveɭ.cøm.
What emerged from the crack was an enormous finger, large enough to dwarf the entire space.
Its full body must be incomprehensibly vast, an existence beyond anything I could fathom.
“What… What is that? Why is it…?”
“Remember what I said earlier?”
I realized what it was.
The guess I had made before arriving at this situation fit perfectly with the finger that had just appeared.
“A foreign being… is interfering with this world.”
What appeared at this moment was the very being responsible for the creation of the great disaster known as the Corpse Lord.
It was like the ancestor who passed down its blood to Airi—an Outer God, a being from beyond this dimension.