Chapter 152 : Despair (6)

[You’re not the will of stars… you too are just fragments of the star.]

[…]

[Were you so afraid that you wanted to send me back that badly?]

I understand now.

The goddesses who became so weak that they tormented humans with curses.

And you who try to seal wounds with ridiculous grand violence called the ritual of return.

You’re not omnipotent beings deciding the direction of this world.

You’re not absolute beings announcing the end of this world.

The world is still alive.

You’re just using deception while hoping the world will die.

[Hope] Magical Girl’s Unique Skill

Flow of All Things

Everything flows and changes.

I shouted to everyone still fighting on the red-dyed surface of the star.

To all those still shining like candles while believing in each other amidst unreasonable curses, unreasonable miracles, and unreasonable violence.

[The ‘Goddess of Hope’ announces to all people living on this star!!]

[Our fight is not over yet!!]

[The future of humanity is not over yet!!]

Responding to my voice, very faint starlights revived.

Though diminished to the point where it could no longer be called infinite, there was still enough left for one massive miracle.

As power affirming the human world flowed from my halo, it prevented the collapse of sky and earth, and transmitted protection to imbue warmth to all those trying to protect the human realm.

[Haah, so we end up fighting like this after all.]

As the Magical Girl of [Stars] waved her hand once, the gate that had been reflecting mother’s listless back like a mirror until just now closed. At the same time, a pain like being stabbed with an awl came to my chest, but I didn’t show it.

‘I’m sorry, mother. Please wait… just a little longer.’

The Magical Girl of [Stars] took out another fragment of a goddess from her bosom, and as soon as I confirmed it, I created and threw a white shooting star. The brilliant white starlight approached the barren gray earth and created a massive explosion with countless dust clouds.

Faaaash―!!

[Stars] Magical Girl’s Unique Skill

Eternal Return

The Magical Girl of [Stars] didn’t try to go back in time, but tried to complete the miracle using the goddess fragment while recovering her body. Unlike her relaxed attitude until now, she had changed to an extremely cautious and careful attitude.

Those wielding enormous authority all take an extremely conservative attitude when things go beyond their expectations. Probably because the things happening from now on are things she hadn’t experienced during her returns.

‘Was it all deception?’

But the feeling of despair from the Earth burning with red and chaos was real.

Humanity’s destruction.

Magical girls’ defeat.

What’s the reason she can’t show composure as if she’s achieved her goal even now when these are right before her eyes? Her ability born from the star cannot be imitated by the Flow of All Things that can only protect the human realm.

‘No, I myself defined them as not being gods of the star.’

Magical Girl of Chaos

Magical Girl of [Stars]

She said she came across dimensions from a time when destruction was already certain.

It was also strange that a magical girl was born out of nowhere after everything returned to chaos.

‘Your true nature is…’

Appearance resembling Yuki.

Yuki was the magical girl who remained until the very end in the destroyed world.

‘No way.’

I deployed the most threatening unique skills I could against the Magical Girl of [Stars]. Although I couldn’t use the power of Flow of All Things on the moon outside the human realm, the abilities of the girls still fighting the dragon of destruction while believing in me were enough.

Free World

Imitating the green starlight of the girl who swings her fist connecting present and past while dreaming of freedom, I created a white goddess’s fist. A massive avatar of the white goddess appeared and swung her fist towards the Magical Girl of [Stars] hurriedly preparing a miracle.

Rushing white fist

Pillar of light

Baaaang――!!

[Stars] Magical Girl’s Unique Skill

Idol Manifestation

Soldiers from old myths wrapped in chaotic starlight appeared and took the punch instead, and the massive white goddess charged towards the chaos soldiers and swung her fist once again. As the lunar plains were carved away, and summoned beings lost their balance and flew further than on Earth each time they attacked each other in the vacuum where no sound could be heard.

“Animus…”

I deployed another unique skill in the lunar plains that had instantly become a chaotic battlefield.

What I deploy is the flame of the girl who loved me.

Recalling her warm touch and gentle smile.

I poured out lotus flowers containing true flames to this fake divinity who dared imitate her noble face.

White flowers of love

White beyond red.

The flower buds hundreds of meters in size that bloomed over the battlefield split into thousands of petals as they fell towards where hundreds of soldiers and the white goddess were fighting. The dazzlingly burning petals fluttered down and blocked all directions the Magical Girl of [Stars] tried to advance, and finally she was completely surrounded by petals and burned without leaving even ashes.

[Kugh?!]

But the Magical Girl of [Stars] who barely revived with Eternal Return hastily retreated and emitted a beam of light towards me. It was the scream of countless souls trapped in one body.

Massive white beam

Plague’s strike.

“…Erebos.”

After blowing away that strike completely with Sumire’s unique skill Violet Blade Storm, I summoned Himari’s unique skill surgical tools and Hana’s unique skill Milky Way, and attacked the Magical Girl of [Stars].

[This is why head-on battles are…!]

The Magical Girl of [Stars] poured out unique skills of 2-star magical girls that I had ‘seen somewhere’ but were ‘weaker than the current ones’, and blocked those attacks.

White starlight and chaotic starlight intertwined in hundreds of ways, illuminating the barren lunar plains.

Only after seeing all of those did I feel like I knew the identity of the Magical Girl of [Stars].

Not the unique skills of apostles who had bloomed into divinity, but the unique skills of apostles when they were 3-star.

Unique skills with firepower vastly inferior to current magical girls.

The Magical Girl of [Stars] was chaos grown from the remaining starlight of magical girls in the destroyed world.

A divinity born from the starlight of magical girls that had melted into chaos, the memory of destruction that Erebos shot while cursing the goddesses, and the ritual created by the three goddesses to summon a massive curse existing in another universe.

A glass star born after the history of destruction.

The turbid color of chaos contrasting with white that gathered all brilliant lights.

A magical girl who witnessed the true extinction of humans on a star where even Yuki had disappeared.

[You too were a divinity belonging to human history.]

[No, I’m from the chaos of stars…]

[Then I define you as the first human who witnessed you.]

[What are you saying? You don’t even know that time period.]

[No, I saw it.]

The Shim Hyun-woo living in my soul saw it.

The record of the destroyed world.

The outrage of unreasonable fragments.

The soul of an ordinary human who witnessed history is alive in me.

Like human history that defined the three goddesses, the perception of an ordinary human who witnessed destruction.

The birth of divinity.

It is made from the hearts of humans who feared something in history.

Then as a witness who saw the sacrifice of magical girls who feared while seeing the record of destruction and unknowingly gave birth to a new divinity, I will define you.

As an ordinary human.

I, Shim Hyun-woo, will be the final recorder who recorded the false divinity born in the destroyed world.

I will call the final goddess like this.

“Nyx.”

The first night. Goddess of chaos. Darkness that is terrifying beyond measure.

You are not an unknown being born alone on a star.

You are a human descendant born from fragments of countless girls.

Your time is no longer disconnected from our time.

The Magical Girl of [Stars] was a being that had assimilated with the star and transcended the human world, but at this moment, she was incorporated into human history in a different way.

[What meaning is there in this action.]

[There is meaning, of course.]

If you have become a divinity belonging to the human realm.

I can now use your abilities.

I will receive and use that power handed down by goddesses, abandoned by girls, and salvaged from chaos.

Human history that has overcome destruction will pass even the outrage of stars as one past.

If the time of stars is connected across space, human time is now connected across space too. The world’s power was unstable due to repeated rewinding, but we always found hope in an uncertain tomorrow.

[Hope] Magical Girl’s Unique Skill

Eternal Return

[No!!!]

Within dazzlingly shining white starlight.

The Magical Girl of [Stars] wailed as she saw the flow of stars breaking, and chaos disappeared from the star dyed in chaos, and humans who died in trials revived.

I rewound time as much as I could rewind.

And so—

I returned to before the ark was launched.