Ch.203The Final Moment (5)

When the intense darkness swallowed my consciousness—far stronger than any sleepiness that comes to a tired body—I instinctively knew that this was death.

It was right in front of me.

I was just one step away from killing the Demon Lord, saving humanity, and setting right the broken fate.

To end like this was so frustrating and unfair.

But the massive wave of death that easily erased even my intensely burning emotions didn’t seem to care about my circumstances.

Despair at failing to achieve my goal, sorrow at having to leave Silvia behind, the pain of not having properly spoken with Sister Maria, self-loathing for having made Sister Alice’s sacrifice in vain.

And even the faint hope of meeting my family again.

Before that pitch-black wave that devoured my consciousness, these feelings couldn’t spark even the tiniest ember as I sank into darkness.

As those passionate emotions were swallowed, all bodily sensations also disappeared into the beyond.

My vision was consumed by darkness, and not even the sound of wind reached my ears.

It felt like everything touching my skin was vanishing too.

I knew this feeling.

This was already the second time.

This time, it would truly be the end.

Just as I was thinking that…

I opened my eyes.

“…Ugh.”

Like waking from sleep due to the morning sunlight shining through dark brown window frames, I could no longer withstand the radiance pouring through my tightly closed eyelids and opened my eyes.

What was happening?

Wasn’t I dead?

Or was this the light of heaven?

I had thought I would surely fall into hell, but had I come to heaven instead?

As I was absentmindedly rubbing my eyes with such thoughts, my vision, blurry and trembling from the overwhelmingly bright light, gradually began to adjust to my surroundings.

I was collapsed on the floor, and someone was holding my arm before I could fall completely.

The rough hand gripping my arm was incredibly bright.

It wasn’t due to the transparent, pale skin color, but because of the golden radiance it emitted.

As I slowly raised my gaze along the brilliantly shining hand, there stood…

The Saint, the Hero.

Sister Alice with her flowing reddish-brown hair.

“…Sister Alice?”

With one hand gripping me and the other holding the holy sword that had pierced through the grotesque Demon Lord, Sister Alice’s appearance reminded me of the legendary hero from fairy tales.

An immense holy power continuously flowed into me from Sister Alice’s hand that held my arm.

That sacred energy spread throughout every corner of my body, slowly healing the wounds left by demonic energy.

“How… bleurgh.”

I tried to say something, but at that moment, something sticky welled up from inside my throat.

I lowered my head and spat it out.

A viscous black substance like mucus splattered onto the floor with a wet sound.

It was a large clot of blood.

As soon as I expelled it, breathing became easier.

“Cough, cough, urgh… haaah…”

I had survived.

Once again.

“The Saint…!”

The Demon Lord’s already hideous voice was further distorted with shock.

That Demon Lord, who had withstood hundreds of slashes from Silvia’s sword without flinching, was now completely immobilized by that single sword piercing his chest.

As the green woman had said, the previous hero party’s failure was due to the absence of a Saint.

Even with overwhelming power to dominate the Demon Lord, it was the same as not having a weapon that could kill him.

In this broken fate, there was no Saint, the Goddess Church had collapsed, and the Goddess herself had lost most of her power as the price for directly intervening in this world to warn the Pope of the crisis.

But now, at this moment.

The final blade of the Goddess who loved humanity had reached the Demon Lord.

The creator of this world had judged the Demon Lord who was backed by an outside god.

And that blade of the Goddess was named Alice Goldfield.

“How… is this possible!”

“Thanks to a certain bitch, I’ve gotten used to hanging on while being dead.”

Sister Alice growled with her distinctive tone that always revealed her boiling anger.

The Demon Lord, with his reptilian face that made expressions difficult to read, unusually displayed great confusion and bewilderment as he shouted.

“Kreeni-eek!”

The Demon Lord thrashed about with a bizarre cry.

Each time he did, Sister Alice’s body shook mercilessly.

Looking closely, she wasn’t standing.

Only her chest centered around the mechanical heart, both shoulders, the two arms extending downward, and half of her torn face remained.

There was nothing below her solar plexus.

In reality, what had pierced the Demon Lord’s chest was just the handle, with her hanging in the middle as she firmly gripped my arm just before I collapsed completely.

“…Sister.”

“…”

The Demon Lord’s hands tried to pull out the holy sword, but each time they made only miserable, futile attempts.

He seemed completely unable to touch it.

After struggling, the Demon Lord raised both feet and kicked Sister Alice’s shoulders.

“Kuk!”

The holy sword slipped out of the Demon Lord’s body from the recoil, and he seized the opportunity to roll backward and retreat.

Having instantly lost one of her supports, Sister Alice’s body plummeted toward the floor.

I pulled Sister Alice’s arm and embraced her upper body.

“Sister…”

“Sorry… I’m late, aren’t I?”

“…No, it’s okay.”

I lifted Sister Alice’s upper body as if holding a child.

Sister Alice, who had been staring intently at my face, showed a faint smile and slowly covered those brilliant golden eyes with her eyelids as she spoke.

“…Ash, there’s no time.”

“Yes, tell me what I need to do.”

There’s so much I want to say.

But there was no time.

The Demon Lord was injured.

If we missed this moment, it would be an opportunity that might never come again, perhaps forever lost.

“…It’s really unfortunate, but… as you can see, I can’t fight. My body won’t regenerate any further.”

“I know…”

“So…”

Sister Alice’s gaze shifted to the side.

There lay Silvia, collapsed, with Sister Maria holding her.

But sadly, Sister Maria wasn’t visible to Sister Alice’s eyes.

“You need to wake that bitch up.”

*

The Demon Lord groaned.

The sword wielded by the Hero imbued with holy power was painful, but the pain could be sufficiently suppressed with demonic energy, and regeneration was easy.

This was his chamber overflowing with demonic energy, and since that thick demonic energy was exhaled with his own breath, he was essentially an unkillable being.

But that holy sword was different.

Holy power was the creative force possessed by the Goddess.

Unlike ordinary holy power, which merely borrowed fragments of it, the holy power flowing from that sword and heart was the Goddess’s power itself.

It was the same holy power, but of a different quality.

A disgusting power that could purify a lake-sized amount of demonic energy with just a single drop.

Tasting holy power of such overwhelming concentration, the Demon Lord felt a great absurdity.

It was a power that, like in fairy tales arbitrarily created by humans, made it impossible for the Demon Lord to ever defeat the Hero.

“Don’t be ridiculous. When everything has already been destroyed…”

The Demon Lord trembled as he barely managed to stand.

The holy power remaining in the wound that had pierced his chest was excruciating.

It felt like continuously pouring lava into the wound.

The Demon Lord felt his vision blur.

“Humans, demons… the Goddess! All collapsed, yet what more do you intend to do… such disgusting… ambition.”

The Demon Lord prayed.

Not to the humans’ Goddess who oppressed and killed demons for what they were, nor to the demons’ god who permitted a barbaric order determined only by power, but to his own god.

To his own god who had given power to the lizardman who had been despised for having no horns and little magical power, enabling him to usurp the position of Demon Lord.

He desperately prayed for the strength to overcome this crisis.

His god had never ignored a prayer.

“…!”

The Demon Lord extracted hundreds, thousands of tentacles from his body.

Perhaps because he had extracted so many tentacles, the Demon Lord’s skeletal frame began to twist.

His shoulders curled inward into his torso, and his long arms gradually shortened.

His pelvis pressed inward toward his spine, and under that pressure, his spine curved into a round shape.

Unable to stand on two legs, the Demon Lord lost his balance and fell forward.

His arms, firmly planted on the ground, gradually transformed into forelegs, and his sagging skin split everywhere, spraying viscous blood.

The tentacles extending from his entire body and the skin that had split and transformed like worms tangled together like ropes.

The entangled tentacles took shape and slowly hardened.

“Kiaaak!”

The Demon Lord screamed.

No, it was a roar that sounded like a scream.

His shoulders that had curled inward, his shortened arms, and his legs that protruded from either side of his deformed, shrunken pelvis stood stably on the ground.

The tentacles had become massive wings.

Combined with his original reptilian face…

The Demon Lord’s appearance had taken the form of a dragon.

The Demon Lord instinctively realized what he needed to do.

“…!”

All four limbs powerfully kicked off the ground.

Simultaneously, his wings cut through the air forcefully, and the Demon Lord’s body soared into the air.

The Demon Lord charged straight toward the window.

He would escape from here.

His body was already in shambles, but the same was true for his opponents.

Silvia had collapsed, the Saint was just an upper body like a scarecrow, and the Spirit Mage was also on the verge of death, contaminated by demonic energy.

They were no longer in a state where they could recover to normal bodies.

Just by buying time, they would all die.

But the Demon Lord was different.

Given enough time, he could recover again.

He could use his unique magic mixed with spirit arts, like when he had dissolved and recreated his body in that cocoon.

Moreover, humanity was already on the brink of annihilation.

There would never be another hero after them.

If he could break through the window and soar into the sky, he would win.

“…!”

However, just before hitting the window…

The Demon Lord’s body began to fall.

The Demon Lord struggled as he fell.

As he turned his gaze backward to understand what was happening,

“After doing that to Ash,”

Silvia, who had leaped up to the Demon Lord’s eye level and cut off his wing with a single stroke, was glaring with shining eyes.

“Where do you think you’re going?”