Ch.354[Final Chapter] The End (1)

The Queen’s X-1 series black hole had been difficult to pinpoint, but Renatus was a much easier opponent to subdue.

After all, I had known the location of his black hole from the beginning.

“Renatus.”

I confronted the mist flowing through the torn space.

“……Rheinland.”

People who had been caught up in euphoria took their positions. After defeating one outer god, another appeared. Everyone tensed at this fact.

Wooooom!

The gravity cannon immediately set its next target.

[Target: Sgr A*]

[Locked on.]

The Sagittarius black hole is the most extensively studied black hole. And now, its master was not Cartesia but Renatus.

“My daughter.”

Rustle rustle.

Cartesia, who had emerged first, hid behind me. Due to the crowd, no one but me could properly see her face.

“To think that you, born as food, would dare to humiliate me like this. You’re like a baby snake tearing through its mother’s belly.”

He was speaking to Cartesia.

“A child should show proper duty to their parents. Dedicate yourself to your parents and sacrifice yourself for their entertainment. That, Cartesia, is the reason you were born.”

People tilted their heads in confusion. Only a few people, including me and my wives, knew her name.

Of course.

Cartesia didn’t answer. She grabbed my collar and whispered.

“…Destroy him.”

A declaration of impiety.

It was a request that human reasoning couldn’t easily accept. But knowing the pain Cartesia had suffered from Renatus, I decided to grant her wish.

Click.

I pressed the button and asked.

“Any last words?”

“……”

Renatus’s shadow distorted.

Thanks to the effect of the Great Triangle, he was essentially immune to mental attacks. There was almost nothing he could do here.

If he abandoned the black hole and fled, he might have had a chance. It takes at least a few weeks for an outer god to “occupy” or “escape” a black hole. It’s like moving houses.

In other words.

Checkmate.

“…Ha, hahaha.”

Renatus laughed with a chilling voice.

“Ahahaha, hahahaha! Sex!”

Boom!

The gravity cannon emitted light once more.

The mist scattered like particles and gradually faded away. Even an outer god, once losing its form, was destined to be forgotten as a mythical being.

[— ■■■■ ■■ / Existence deleted.]

Lingering chaos.

A fitting end for a deity of that name.

***

Aurore and Renatus were consecutively annihilated.

Sturm couldn’t have failed to sense it. He reorganized his forces and waited anxiously.

“Lord Sturm, what should we do now…?”

Matonica, an avatar holding a flagpole and trumpet, approached and asked. Matonica was Sturm’s long-time servant who had distinguished himself in numerous wars.

“Wait.”

Sturm was also troubled.

‘The gravity bomb has been completed. I can no longer stop him.’

However.

Unlike Aurore, who prioritized violence and conquest, or Renatus, who prioritized pleasure and procrastinated on important matters, Sturm was an outer god with a plan.

He had already succeeded in “concealing” the location of his black hole.

He had also finished clearing his original base. Sturm had successfully moved to the outskirts of the universe, as far as possible from the galaxy where the Federation civilization existed.

‘For now, there’s no risk of annihilation.’

Even with a gravity cannon, it’s useless if they don’t know the location of the base. Of course, with Eidel von Rheinland’s skills, he could find Sturm’s black hole within a few months at most.

‘I must kill him before then.’

Fortunately, the cult was still functioning. Sturm decided to summon the research spy he had dispatched earlier.

“Warden.”

A man with horn-rimmed glasses wearing a lab coat appeared.

“You called for this humble servant, Steel Outer God?”

Warden handed over all the valuable information to Sturm. The location of the gravity cannon, its operating mechanism, and its vulnerabilities. Everything. Without exception.

“What do you think?”

“…This.”

Sturm wagged his tail in excitement.

“With this information, I can destroy what they’ve created. Human… I personally commend you! Thanks to you, this universe will see Idea before the end of the world!”

“Really?”

“Of course. I’ll especially give you the opportunity to be the first to step on the threshold of paradise.”

“Before the Saint herself?!”

“Naturally.”

“Thank you, thank you!”

While some believed in Eidel’s research, many did not. Warden was one of them. Born and raised in the Western Frontier, he had always hated those born with silver spoons in their mouths.

‘Rheinland’s research only accelerates the end.’

That conviction.

That opinion contrary to the mainstream.

Was now leading a man named Warden Friedman toward Idea.

So happy that his head felt bleached…

“…Huh?”

His vision blurred.

Tears.

Tears streamed down his cheeks, persistently wetting them.

‘Am I too moved?’

Warden wiped his eyes without concern. Then he immediately realized that blood was on his white sleeve.

“Human?”

“…What? Urrrgh!”

Dark red vomit erupted from Warden’s mouth.

It felt like his intestines were being sucked out and the world was turning upside down.

Warden, splattering blood, collapsed with a thud. And he never got up again. It was the end of a man who had betrayed humanity and sided with an outer god in pursuit of immortality.

Sturm couldn’t believe his eyes.

‘A different level of madness.’

It killed him instantly, like a nanomachine with a built-in killing function. And it happened inside Sturm’s domain, the black hole.

‘Unless another outer god did this, it’s inexplicable.’

With an ominous feeling, Sturm turned his body.

“L-Lord Sturm…!”

Matonica pointed somewhere, trembling.

Darkness.

A darkness deeper and darker than a black hole was crawling up from beyond the event horizon.

Absolute nothingness.

Destruction.

Or.

‘The End.’

The complete death of this universe was approaching.

Death is a concept feared by all living beings. Even Sturm, the iron fortress who could play with humans like lab rats, felt the emotion of fear toward eternal rest.

Whoosh.

The dark light gradually brightened its flame.

Subordinate outer gods and avatars fell into confusion and fled one by one. Even Sturm’s forces, usually bound by solid unity, were in this state. That light had the property of melting even the minds of transcendent beings.

The number of deserters kept increasing.

In such a situation, only Matonica remained by Sturm’s side. She tried to analyze while suppressing her fear. Though she didn’t understand well, it was certain that the End was targeting this black hole.

“…Matonica.”

Sturm firmly grasped Matonica’s mechanical arm.

“I raised you like a daughter. Whenever you returned victorious from the wars I waged, I was happy, but at the same time, I was sad wondering if you were hurt somewhere.”

Perhaps this is the end.

So he thought it best to speak.

“It’s the same this time.”

“What? What do you mean…?”

“The moment I witnessed that, I was as good as finished. So, at least you should survive until the very end.”

[— (…)]

Thud.

Matonica felt something breaking.

‘No way.’

It couldn’t be.

‘You’re revoking my power?’

It was impossible. The contract between an outer god and an avatar is maintained until one of them dies. After all, the contract between them is also bound by the “restraint” according to the laws of nature.

But.

‘Why?’

Strength gradually drains away.

Whoosh.

A dimensional gate opened.

“Matonica, you no longer need to return here. And I will give you my final order.”

“…L-Lord Sturm?”

“Kill Eidel von Rheinland before the complete end comes! That is the only way you can live out your natural life!”

Crack!

Sturm’s body crumpled like a ball sinking into the deep sea. Soon he lost even his original form and contracted, shrinking into a small ball shape.

‘To sacrifice your own life…’

Sturm accepted death resolutely. He offered himself as material for the storm. Falling through the dimensional gate, Matonica could understand everything.

Boom.

The “End” swallowed Sturm’s body, which had just become a corpse.

***

Just as the atmosphere brightened after repelling two emperor-class outer gods, the sound of the status window updating was heard.

Ding.

[— Gravitational contraction begins.]

“What, what is this…?”

I wasn’t the only one who received the message. People stared into the void, flailing their hands. The others and I couldn’t take our eyes off the following message.

[— (…)]

There was nothing.

Really, nothing at all.

I tried casting a simple technique as a test. It was the mind-reading ability that reads other people’s thoughts. Normally, when using mind reading, I could roughly tell what someone was thinking or what emotions they had.

But.

Now.

‘Gravitational contraction begins? What the hell is this?’

‘Damn it, one mountain after another…’

‘Strange. The status window isn’t working. This has never happened before?’

Their inner voices flowed directly into my head.

‘This phenomenon is the arrival of the End. It’s finally here… But it’s too fast. Shouldn’t we at least have time to catch our breath?’

Ireh was thinking with a hardened gaze. I felt exactly the same way. I thought we would have at least a few months to prepare.

That’s when it happened.

“Cough, cough, cough!”

I heard coughing. With a chill down my spine, I turned around. Seti, who had been catching her breath, slowly lowered the hand covering her mouth.

“…Huh?”

Drip.

Blood trickled down Seti’s lips.