“Morjan.”
The mont I called that na—
Craaaack...!
this vast space—
a space larger than an entire major city—
twisted violently from end to end.
A world filled with red blood.
There was nowhere for light to enter, so the blood alone had illuminated this world.
And into that space, so completely filled with crimson—
Paaaaaaaaaak...!
that color
began to change in an instant.
Crkcrkcrkcrk...!
The world that had been filled with red light—
as if scorning that blood-red hue itself,
another light surged forward, smashing through it without the slightest hesitation.
{So be it.}
A brilliant blue radiance bright enough to hurt the eyes
covered the entire world.
When I first called that na,
I had expected the lump of flesh I had once seen to appear before .
At the very least, that had been the form it took when it entered .
But.
Kuuung...
contrary to what I had expected,
the one that actually appeared was... a little unusual.
‘...It’s huge.’
Ariella’s inner world had expanded to an absurd extent through her repeated advancents in rank.
Even so—
this thing was so massive it looked like it might touch the ceiling of this world itself.
A giant of blue light.
Even the tallest spire of this enormous castle barely reached its waist.
‘I see.’
And at the sa ti,
it was a form I felt like I had seen sowhere before.
‘This is inside a ntal image.’
Which ant
that even a being of whom only fragnts of the body remained now
could exist here in a form different from its physical shape.
{What...!}
And.
...It wasn’t just its appearance that was overwhelming.
{This mana...!?}
From what I had learned so far,
to a godhead, a na was not rely a word used to refer to that being.
It was a word that expressed that being’s identity and essence exactly as it was.
And the divine na of that giant of blue light—
‘Morjan’—
was
‘infinite mana.’
For now, only a few truly tiny fragnts of it remained.
Even so—
infinity, no matter what great number you divide it by, remains infinity.
Kugugugugugugung...!
That literally “endless” mana
made this enormous space begin to shake as if it were about to collapse at any mont.
And.
As I looked up at that giant, I thought,
‘...I can’t feel a soul.’
It had appeared in answer to my call,
but the will remaining inside that body was extrely faint.
The fact that it answered was probably no more than a kind of reflex.
Its soul had already passed on when it t , to begin with.
So the will left inside it could only be a tiny handful.
“I have not forgotten the promise I made to you.”
But.
What mattered was that even that tiny handful of will still remained.
“I will keep that promise soday, no matter what. But for that to happen, I have to stay alive until then.”
And.
A single handful of will dwelling within a being so overwhelmingly powerful.
The content of that will
was very simple.
“Help .”
{So be it.}
Help .
Srrk.
When I raised my arm,
the giant’s arm moved with mine in response.
And then—
Saaaaaahk...
in my hand,
I saw blue energy begin to gather.
This blue light was not the glow caused by [Combat Power asurent Device].
It was simply the light of pure mana itself.
Ordinary mana was certainly supposed to be formless and colorless,
and yet
its quantity and density were so overwhelmingly great ⊛ Nоvеlιght ⊛ (Read the full story) that it emitted a blue radiance.
Once I confird that,
I seized that mana, which moved according to my will,
and swung my right hand once.
[Soul Cooking Mastery]
Then—
Paaaaaaaaang!!!
the cluster of blue light gathered in my hand
spread outward as a massive wave.
The red waves that had been raging through Ariella’s inner world—
their force had clearly been overwhelming.
But the mont the opposing wave of blue light touched them—
...ssrrrk.
the sound of those roaring waves,
so deafening until then,
fell silent in an instant.
A full quarter of this vast world
had gone quiet with a single gesture.
Swiish.
I did not stop there.
This ti, I lifted my left hand and gave it a light wave.
—Kyaaaaaaaaaaak...!
The souls that had been screaming piercing cries filled with pain and rage—
when the blue wave touched those twisted souls,
—...Ah.
the souls that had been bound inside the blood
were set free,
—and at last...
and with endlessly peaceful expressions on their faces,
they drifted upward into the sky and vanished.
Paaang...!
I turned and swung my right hand once more.
Paaang...!
Then I swung my left toward the opposite side.
A re four motions centered around my body.
They were no more than extrely small movents, insignificant enough to look like nothing at all.
But the result was anything but small.
Paaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaak...!
This space, sticky and ominous,
filled with the hatred and rage of the trapped souls—
blue radiance spread through every direction,
thoroughly sweeping away all of that dark energy.
“...This.”
And a mont later,
what remained was—
‘...Beautiful.’
It glowed softly like a jewel,
a beautiful world that looked as though it belonged in a fairy tale.
***
Soft vegetation was growing across the ground,
and the castle that had resembled dark and gloomy Bimana was now shedding beautiful light and illuminating the world.
Here and there, seas of blood still rolled and swelled,
but even that red glow gave off the elegant beauty of rubies.
Blood symbolizes death,
but at the sa ti, it also symbolizes life.
Once I [prepared] every last soul dwelling there,
what remained was the pure force of life,
untainted by any impurity.
Its essence was unbelievably beautiful and full of vitality.
‘...So that’s how it is.’
This place was Ariella’s inner self.
If so,
then the grim and sinister space I had seen until now had been a distorted form brought about through blood-draining.
And this beautiful place—
this was the inner world she had originally possessed.
“So it really was... true.”
And.
I was not the only one looking at that scenery.
“This is...”
The place that had been most deeply hidden within this castle.
The woman who had co up from underground to the surface
stared blankly at her surroundings and spoke.
“This child...”
Maybe she was marveling at its beauty.
Or perhaps it was as though she had seen sothing dearly missed.
With her voice trembling, steeped in emotion,
she spoke.
Only after seeing that did I realize it.
This beautiful world was certainly a little different, but—
...it also resembled Isabella’s domain, at least a little.
“Ella...”
And whatever it was she was thinking,
when she slowly walked forward and placed her hand against the castle wall—
Gugugugugung...!
the world began to change.
Kwaaaaaaak...!
With a trendous tremor,
the world began to transform rapidly.
And at the sa ti,
I felt a pressure as though it were gently trying to push aside,
as if asking to step back for a mont.
‘Is it asking to move?’
With the giant’s help supporting now,
I had more than enough power to resist.
But...
‘...Fine.’
I decided not to.
Because—
Craaaack...
from the sky above,
I could see a figure descending into this space.
‘Isabella, who had been hiding in the deepest part of Bimana... in a place even the owner of this space did not know about, had revealed herself outside.’
And.
If a being appeared like that,
‘there’s no way the owner of this space wouldn’t beco aware of it.’
So.
Well, that was all it was.
‘...If the two of them want to talk.’
Stepping aside for a little while
was not that difficult.
Paaang!
And then,
driven out by the force of this world,
my body was pushed outside.
Floating up in the sky,
I stared blankly at this vast and beautiful world as it underwent upheaval,
and thought,
‘Ariella’s advancent in rank was carried out when Grand Duke Valarak raised her status.’
But.
This part had never sat quite right with from the beginning.
Because—
‘Ariella’s blood ca from Isabella.’
If so,
then the one who should have presided over her advancent in rank as well—
{...Thank you.}
“You don’t need to thank for that.”
—should have been Isabella.
***
Paaang!
With a sound like that,
my body was flung back out onto the surface.
I barely managed to steady myself after being thrown out.
But at the sa ti—
‘...!’
I could not help but be startled
by the enormous force I felt inside my body.
It was not difficult to realize what it was.
‘Morjan.’
Simply by existing,
it had nearly collapsed even the inner world of a being as powerful as Ariella.
And now,
the power of sothing like that was running loose inside my body.
“Ghk...”
A pressure so intense it felt like my whole body might explode
was hamring every inch of .
‘The reason it took the form of a giant in there... was for my sake...!’
Inside the ntal world, that power had taken the shape of a giant on its own
and passed that power to from the outside.
Because of that, I had not suffered from a force I could not control.
‘...I knew it wasn’t a power I could handle lightly...!’
But now that was no longer the case.
Back in the underground mine, when I let Morjan’s soul pass on and opened the gate,
even Bimana had been affected by the mana that burst out of that gate like an explosion.
If that enormous fortress had been affected,
there was no way I could be an exception.
Paaaaaaaaang...!
A transcendent quantity of mana trying to burst out
even if it had to tear my body apart in the process.
It felt as though the explosive force might rip my body to pieces—
and then, at that very mont,
[Divine power with form begins to move!]
another force inside my body
began to move as though wrapping itself around that mana.
‘Divine power with form...’
Originally, it had only remained inside my body.
It was a power even I had not been able to use properly.
But after several awakenings of insight,
that power had now reached a level where it could even exert a slight amount of physical force.
Srrrk...
That divine power gently wrapped itself around the exploding mana.
Only then
did I feel the pressure on my body ease sowhat.
‘This won’t last long either.’
Thinking that,
I was only just managing to pull myself upright when—
“...My dear.”
soone beside
spoke to .
“From inside there... I felt a familiar presence.”
When I turned my gaze,
there was soone with head bowed low, face covered with both hands.
“I thought perhaps sothing had happened to you... so I entered as well.”
It was Ariella.
And.
With a strangely trembling voice, she said,
“Inside there... Grand Duke Isabella—”
At the sa ti,
from her, a taste ca pouring toward —
far too deep and rich—
the taste of several emotions at once.
“I t Bella.”
“...I see.”
Ti inside that veil flows differently from reality.
For , only a few seconds had passed while I struggled to control Morjan’s rampaging power.
But during that span—
“I spoke with Bella... for a very long ti.”
inside there,
more than enough ti may have passed.
“She told many things besides what you had already told . Why she had no choice but to treat the way she did... and things about Father as well.”
“......”
“She also told what she learned from my mories and yours. The process by which I was sealed away... and what happened after that. What beca of Bella and Father, and why it happened that way.”
The Isabella inside there would have been the one from the point when Ariella was becoming a noble.
But if Isabella had read both my mories and Ariella’s mories,
then for soone on the level of a grand duke,
understanding the entire course of events would not have been difficult.
“It was a truly absurd story.”
“Well, I can’t say I disagree.”
“But...”
As she spoke, she seed to choke up
and curled in on herself.
“It seems I was not as abandoned as I had thought.”
“...That’s true too.”
After saying that much,
she took a breath.
“Thanks to you, all the souls inside are gone.”
“It must be pretty quiet now.”
“Hehe, yes, that much is true. But...”
Lowering the hands that had covered her face,
she lifted her head and said,
“Thankfully, it is not all that lonely.”
The one who had been sitting on the ground rose unsteadily to her feet.
And with her—
Srrrk...
from that body,
a massive, black, flickering shadow rose along with her.
“Instead of the many who vanished,”
it resembled the pillars of shadow I had seen before,
but there was a slight difference.
Those earlier pillars had been closer to tools Ariella directly controlled.
“Bella decided to remain inside them.”
...These shadows were not being controlled by Ariella.
They moved as though they possessed wills of their own.
[Ingredient Identification (Enhanced)]
I glanced at those shadows,
then turned my gaze back to Ariella.
[Head of the Karshtein Bloodline]
[Marquis Ariella Bimana of the Karshtein Bloodline]
Co to think of it,
it was quite a moving mont.
[She is the new successor of the Karshtein Bloodline, a bloodline that was once great but ultimately fell into ruin.]
[In the past, she was no more than a fringe noble of the bloodline, yet even so, her talent shone brilliantly.]
[The great first head of the bloodline, Grand Duke Isabella, did not overlook that talent!]
It felt like only yesterday that I had teased her for pretending to be a queen when she was just a re viscountess.
And now—
[Having earned Grand Duke Isabella’s recognition, she has been appointed the new head of the great bloodline.]
[Her domain, Bimana of the Otherworld, is hereby proclaid the new capital of the bloodline!]
now she had risen to the highest seat in the bloodline,
to the point where calling her a queen no longer sounded strange at all.
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