Ch.1247The Left Arm of the Dead Goddess

“Kekeke… After gathering so much blood and death, all I could manifest was just a left arm…? Garmerlic’s secret wish seems far from being fulfilled….”

Erzsebet laughed painfully, staggering as if she could barely support herself. Her voice was thin, almost breaking.

…Garmerlic’s secret wish?

I’ve heard about that before. He blabbered about it right in front of me.

The resurrection of Belliona, the ancient goddess. Wasn’t it about reviving that ridiculous ancient deity who, despite being called the ‘Goddess of Death,’ ironically died and disappeared herself?

I think he said something about using me as a vessel, filling it with death to complete the existence of the ‘Goddess of Death’….

“Don’t tell me that arm is Belliona’s…?”

…So it wasn’t just the delusion of a madman after all.

I had inwardly laughed it off, thinking it sounded as absurd as claiming you could resurrect someone by carefully collecting their cremated ashes from a river and putting them in an urn.

“Ha… You knew? That half-dead corpse truly has… an unbelievably loose tongue….”

Erzsebet nodded slightly as she spoke.

“Yes, this is the seed of power that Garmerlic planted within me. An imperfectly bloomed, faded death—Belliona’s left arm… that’s what it should be.”

“Should be?”

Either it is or it isn’t—what’s with this uncertainty? She summoned it with her own body, yet she’s not sure?

“…Or something incredibly close to it.”

I guess she isn’t sure.

Anyway, I understand now.

Why Erzsebet, who had lived for ages as a demigod, lacked the skill to properly control her power.

The true nature of the power she had displayed—power too vast to comprehend for a mere demigod.

That power originated from that left arm. She must have twisted the power of death with her own divinity, manifesting it as a tide of blood.

Simply put, she was forcibly twisting and using someone else’s excessive power as her own, making it difficult to control and resulting in mediocre output.

She could somehow maintain that state while her body was intact… but that was only until recently.

Perhaps because half her body was completely blown away? Erzsebet now seemed incapable of such control.

As a result, the power of death itself—not transformed into ‘blood’ as would befit a vampire—had emerged in its pure form as that massive left arm and scythe.

“But, whichever it is… what difference does it make? The result will be the same.”

And whether that truly is just Belliona’s left arm partially resurrected, or merely something of similar essence, that power seemed to cause fatal harm to Erzsebet herself just by manifesting it.

“Please struggle as much as you can… die as miserably as possible. To match the value of everything I’ve lost—my power, my life, my eternal future…!”

Judging by how she’s been muttering what sounds like last words in a dying voice with a face like she’s lived her full life since summoning that arm…

Perhaps it’s a power that, true to death itself, kills its master first, or a power that can only be properly wielded by the dead. Something like that, I guess.

Garmerlic and his subordinates were corpses revived by the goddess’s miracle from the beginning, so they had no issues. But this Erzsebet is different.

She merely stopped being human and became a blood-sucking monster that survives by drinking others’ blood, but she’s still a living creature, not an undead.

That’s why she’s probably dying moment by moment, affected by the power of death rapidly consuming her entire body. Probably.

And once that arm has emerged, she herself likely can’t stop or reverse the process.

If she could, she would have tried to save her life by either attacking me or fleeing, rather than wasting time muttering last words.

‘…If I leave her alone, will she self-destruct?’

In other words, I might not need to fight and eliminate her—she might just die on her own if I leave her be….

[She will self-destruct, yes. After rampaging until her last breath and taking all nearby enemies as companions on her journey to the afterlife.]

Hersella snorted as if to say I shouldn’t even hope for that.

[And perhaps, even after her life ends, it won’t be over—she might rise again as undead.]

‘Tch… I figured as much.’

Thinking about it, it’s obvious.

If I just leave that monster woman alone, would she quietly die like some enlightened sage after countless self-consolations? Not a chance.

She’ll definitely put on one final slaughter show out of resentment for such a pathetic death—the grand finale of Grandma Erzsebet’s thousand-year life.

And that’s not the only problem.

What’s the fundamental nature of that power? The divinity of Belliona that raises the dead as undead—or something similar?

So even death might not be the end.

If I cut her down with Durandal, she would perish without mercy, but if she dies naturally, she would likely be revived as undead.

If she revives that way, would she lose her free will? Erzsebet herself seems to consider that state no different from a corpse….

Well, that’s not my concern. Whether she loses her free will or not, the fact that she’s my enemy won’t change.

Maybe she’ll become even stronger? If there’s such a thing as aptitude for handling death’s power, her aptitude would be much higher after death than while alive.

Anyway, for these reasons, I couldn’t just leave her alone to die naturally.

So—

“…Well, let’s fight. I’ll consider it a rehearsal for later.”

I need to eliminate her now, completely—so thoroughly that there’s no possibility of undead revival.

“Later… Ha, do you think such a thing exists for you?”

“…Well, we’ll see about that, won’t we?”

At that point, I stopped my wandering thoughts and raised my golden-tinged blade toward Erzsebet and her left arm, rekindling my fighting spirit that had wavered slightly.

“Well, it’s clear without waiting that there won’t be a ‘later’ for you.”

The aura I felt was truly terrifying and chilling, befitting the Goddess of Death, but when actually fighting, it might crumble surprisingly easily.

Even if that truly is the flesh of the ancient goddess of death—Belliona, it’s still just a single arm.

If the goddess herself had been resurrected and descended, that would be different, but how strong could a mere left arm be?

Even with Invidius, the difference in power between when only an arm was summoned and when his true form descended was so vast that words like “dimensional difference” couldn’t fully express the gap.

The same would apply to the left arm Erzsebet summoned. If only an arm was summoned, its power would be at most 20% of the original deity’s.

Even with the most pessimistic estimate, it wouldn’t exceed 40%.

Despite appearances, I’m a human who defeated an evil god’s arm even when I was just a hero without divinity. How could I not defeat a mere 0.2 ancient deity now?

Impossible. I can win. No, if I fight, I will definitely win. I convinced myself with such determination.

The momentary freezing of my limbs was just because I was startled by the chilling aura emanating from that arm—that’s how I explained—no, clarified to myself.

– Kuguugugung…!

And that gigantic left arm moved.

Like the grim reaper announcing death, carrying something chilling that seemed to freeze limbs just by looking at it. Like drawing a new horizon on the earth.

It was a slash that seemed slow but was lightning-fast, that looked simple to avoid but was overwhelmingly impossible to dodge.

“Kyaaaaat!”

I fired a severing slash toward that scythe.

A maximum-level slash unleashed without considering energy distribution, pouring out strength without reserve. A mighty strike comparable to the Sky Slash from when I was still human.

– Kwaooooo—!

And so, the pale golden slash that spread like a calamity with thunderous sound collided with the pitch-black scythe—

– Pusssss….

The next moment, starting from the point of contact with the scythe, it crumbled like dust and vanished pathetically in an instant. As if naturally fading after exhausting its power.

“No, what is that? It just disappears like that?”

It wasn’t blocked by spatial authority. Nor was my slash’s power depleted by projecting an equal or overwhelming force to offset it.

If it had been blocked that way, there should have been at least some spatial distortion or fracturing—the typical aftermath of spatial techniques.

This was completely different.

It was as if the ‘ability to cut space’ imbued in my slash disappeared along with the slash itself the moment it touched that scythe—a sight that couldn’t be explained otherwise.

“Do you want to know why…? Then… I’ll teach you as a gift for your journey to the afterlife.”

Erzsebet opened her mouth with a smirk, as if she had expected this.

“Death… death is the end of all things. Eternal silence… an irreversible conclusion.”

With her entire body except the left arm looking completely drained of strength, her attempt at arrogance only made her look utterly pathetic.

“Before it, everything loses the power to move and stops… and eventually loses form and scatters, like a corpse returning to soil. Your power is no exception.”

That is the authority of Belliona, the Goddess of Death. Erzsebet declared this with a grin, then collapsed as if her life had ended.

According to her explanation, only the left arm wielding the scythe remained, having eliminated my slash by stopping the spatial severing power within it and scattering it.

“…Ah, so in other words, I need to fight without touching it?”

I let out a hollow laugh and muttered to myself, knowing no answer would come. Inwardly sighing deeply at this strategy that sounded simple but would be anything but easy in practice.

It seemed this wouldn’t be easy after all.

Well, when has it ever been?