The Brightest Darkness – 2

In ancient times, there was a certain goddess who deeply loved the world she had first created.

The goddess cherished her first fruit so dearly that she poured all her efforts, for an infinite span of time, into making every living thing as beautiful as possible.

She created human women of perfect beauty in her own image, erased the concept of aging so they could enjoy eternal youth and maintain their allure within their limited lifespans, and granted them robust vitality so they wouldn’t easily lose their lives.

Finally, she endowed human women with the same aesthetic sense as herself, so they could freely display their beauty. For ultimate beauty, she believed, was to reveal the body.

Since the goddess’s body was perfection itself, the human body, created in the image of a god, could only be perfect. Hiding it beneath clothes was not to be tolerated.

Because of this, the human women, each displaying their beauty, were pleasing in the goddess’s eyes. Humans, too, offered deep devotion to the god who unreservedly revealed her form.

Over an infinite span of time, the goddess’s presence grew ever larger, and fragments of power gathered, causing countless worlds to begin to be born.

However, in the Creator’s heart, there was always only one, and she poured all her love and affection into that one, giving not even a shred of interest to other worlds.

Thus, as countless worlds were born, spread, and grew haphazardly in neglect, a small crack appeared in one of these neglected worlds.

Had it been immediately after the crack appeared, the goddess could have easily dealt with it with her power, but regrettably, she was unaware of this fact. For a very long time, the crack gradually grew in size.

Finally, when the crack, having grown in extreme neglect, became large enough for even the goddess to sense its presence, it twisted into an entirely different being.

The twisted entity thus born, being fundamentally a being that grew by encroaching upon worlds, felt only one emotion.

That was a terrible hunger.

To sate its hunger, the monster devoured the world from which it originated, absorbed the knowledge of the creatures living upon it, and transformed its appearance into the greatest object of terror.

Scales that simultaneously possessed black, signifying darkness, and indigo, signifying destruction.

Red pupils, signifying the red dawn that heralded the beginning of a month-long demonic realm.

The form of a being that was the most powerful and mighty, ingrained as fear even in the instincts of all living creatures.

After acquiring all of this, the twisted entity announced its arrival with a roar born of hunger.

Only then did the goddess realize the gravity of the situation. She stopped creating the second world and hastily attempted to eliminate the distortion, but the situation was already out of hand.

From the moment it completely devoured a world, it became something beyond the laws.

Soon after, due to the aftermath of the roar, the second world she was creating became greatly distorted, and things that should not exist began to pour out. They rapidly and steadily gnawed away at the world.

Because she had to pour all her strength just to stop its main body, the goddess issued a command to the creatures of the second world. She would grant them power, and they were to eliminate the twisted beings.

But there was no success.

If she granted them enough power to eliminate the twisted beings, they would go mad, unable to handle it. If she gave them just enough power not to go mad, they couldn’t contend with the twisted beings.

That world was still too weak to endure the ordeal of ‘dying but not dying, and having to revive eternally while only feeling pain.’

Of course, there was a way. If she had ordered the creatures of her first world, which she loved so dearly, they would have been able to withstand that power sufficiently. Although there would have been some sacrifices, they would have ultimately succeeded.

However, the goddess still hadn’t come to her senses. Instead of sacrificing the life she cherished and loved so terribly, she chose another method.

It was a method of bringing in lives from beyond her own dimension.

Even while preoccupied with confronting the twisted main body, the goddess desperately struggled to protect the second world, dragging in dying souls that had lost their bodies and assigning them missions.

And all of them ended in failure.

After all her struggles ended in failure and more than half the world was contaminated, one soul, attempted as a last resort with a feeling of despair, achieved a small success.

This soul, who had lost their life in a terrible accident at the mere age of twenty, endured solely through their own will, even after being granted the mission of immortality. They never broke, even when crushed by the weight of countless deaths.

That one soul was the ‘First Immortal.’

The goddess’s last salvation, who had lost everything she tried to protect and fallen to rock bottom, and the human currently before her eyes.

-You say you will fight for the one who ruined you… You inferior… insignificant being….

“You’re mistaken about something. I’m not just blindly taking your side. First, I need to get all my memories back. Only then can I make a proper judgment.”

As I said that and glanced at her, the goddess flinched, looking incredibly sorry. Fortunately, she seemed to know what absurd things she had done.

It was a relief that she didn’t act shamelessly, like “I’m a goddess, what are you going to do about it? Go ahead and cut my belly,” because if she had, I really would have cut her belly.

“According to what it said, this is already the fourth time I’ve been dragged here. I’m curious what kind of pushover I was to end up like this. I wonder if gods just have no conscience. How can you exploit someone not just once or twice, but four times?”

Her head drooped. Her long, flowing black hair hung down limply.

“But, no matter what that side did to me, there’s a reason I have to take their side. One is that the other option is far more unappealing, but there’s another reason too.”

I twitched the tip of my sword.

“Let’s say I take your side and destroy this world. What happens to me then? Do I go back to my original world?”

-You too… will be saved… like other souls….

I knew it. The tip of my twitching sword stopped abruptly.

“See, you crazy lizard bastard. If I don’t take the goddess’s side right now, I’ll die too. Do I have a choice? Is there any reason for me to take your side?”

I had somewhat expected it, but hearing it directly made me even angrier.

Just like in hell, that bastard had no intention of saving me if I took its side. Sticking with it would only lead to being used and discarded in the end.

No, from its perspective, it wasn’t even being used and discarded. It genuinely believed that absorbing living beings was salvation, so by killing me, it would be saving my soul.

One side guaranteed 100% death the moment I took its side, while the other side, though what she did to me was unpleasant, was open to dialogue and even felt guilt. It was obvious which side I should choose.

“Goddess-nim.”

“…Yes. You.”

“I trust that Goddess-nim wouldn’t do something like that. Like that lizard, saying, ‘If you take my side, I’ll kill you later too.'”

Nod, nod, nod. Her head vigorously bobbed up and down.

“Yes, of course, that would never happen. I am always, at any time, ready to bow my head and kneel before you, and if you wish, even prepare to seek forgiveness with my body… Though, of course, that alone wouldn’t be complete atonement….”

“Do what with your body… No, never mind. We’ll think about that later.”

I said this because I was dumbfounded, but the goddess seemed to have taken it completely differently. She hastily added, as if about to grab my pants leg:

“Yes, it’s true that my past self was arrogant and immature, and I made a huge mistake! But now, I truly feel sorry to you-“

“I’m not angry. Calm down.”

“…Yes?”

“I’m just flustered. Why did the phrase ‘seek forgiveness with my body’ suddenly come up? Did you perhaps say that even before I lost my memories?”

“Huh? Oh, that, that’s…”

The goddess’s cheeks flushed hot. Wow, she really must have said that. I turned my head back towards the lizard and added:

“However, that doesn’t mean I’ll just gloss over it. For now, I’ll put it aside because there’s something more urgent, but I will definitely address the fact that you dragged me here and exploited me four times.”

“…Yes, you. I’ll be waiting….”

It was a normal answer, but her voice felt strangely suggestive in many ways. Her slightly flushed cheeks, and the way she slightly averted her gaze.

In fact, it didn’t seem like a normal answer at all. She wasn’t saying she would reflect, but that she would wait. I had no idea what she was waiting for.

And I wondered why she kept calling me ‘you’ from earlier. What happened with the goddess before I lost my memories?

‘Well, I can think about that later. First, how to catch that bastard.’

In games, you couldn’t even fight the final boss if the conditions weren’t met, so encountering the World Eater in this situation was a first for me.

I hadn’t broken any crystals, there was no Word of Power to keep it grounded, and if I tried to attack from a distance, black magic generally had a much shorter effective range than regular magic.

When dealing with it using Words of Power, there were ways to scatter its breath or block damage, but nothing that could actually inflict harm.

As I was contemplating a method, a warm sensation emanated from behind me. A golden halo of light enveloped my body.

“I will help you. Though I may have fallen to rock bottom now, I am still the goddess of this world. Lending you power is no problem at all. I, too, will join the fight once my body recovers.”

As the sweet voice whispered, the golden halo of light that enveloped my body was completely absorbed and vanished.

Paradoxically, it was a sensation I felt for the first time, yet it also felt incredibly familiar.

‘Wait, this is….’

I think I understood the feeling. It was that sensation, like my body knew even if my mind didn’t, which I felt when I first used rolling and parrying right after being possessed here.

Making its earlier growling appearance meaningless, the bastard only began to move its body once I had finished preparing to fight.

Superficially, it was an act of waiting for us, but in reality, it was closer to mockery. Like, “Even if I do this, you guys will still win.” The goddess herself had said that it was in a state of extreme arrogance.

Indeed, I would have been the same. The worlds the goddess possessed must have been enormous, and it had devoured all of them except for the one I barely protected and the one I was possessed into for the fourth time.

Still, it didn’t matter. After all, the one who wins in the end is the true victor. It was a history and tradition proven by the phrase, ‘You suck, don’t you?’

-A world soon to be saved… Struggle… Meaningless….

“What salvation? Is killing everyone here salvation?”

-The act of… gathering souls suffering under a false god… Therefore… it is the correct expression….

“Bullshit.”

I dismissed its thought and infused black flame into the Wingless Nightmare. Even if it might not work, I had to do my best.

-Foolish one… You rejected salvation… and rejected revenge….

Its massive wings unfurled. That bastard truly believed that being devoured and dying by it was salvation. It wasn’t just crazy; it was utterly insane.

Its colossal body, large enough to obscure the sun, soared into the sky. The mere flapping of its wings unleashed an immense wind pressure. Giant trees were uprooted and sent flying, and the already chaotic ground was churned up even further.

Gripping the Wingless Nightmare, I swung it diagonally as if unleashing sword energy. I hadn’t specifically done this before, but it felt like a familiar motion.

From the blade, an enormous black flame, large enough to overturn even the imperial palace, raged forth.