Adela completely forgot what she was going to say and stared up at the Death King.

Morse was swallowed whole by the very monster he created. One of the Holy Church’s greatest enemies, second only to the infamous Archbishop in danger, had met an utterly anticlimactic, pitiful end.

No one could have predicted it. No one could have imagined it.

No matter how brilliant his schemes were, a single misstep before a deranged demi-god led to his own ruin. The Death King’s body was a mass of ectoplasm made from hundreds of thousands of souls. No matter what exolaw he used inside that mass, the chance of escape was nearly zero.

What am I supposed to do...? I have no idea what kind of effect absorbing Morse is going to have on Nex.

Leon didn’t know whether this sudden turn was good or bad for them. One dangerous foe had self-destructed, and that should be good news. However, absorbing Morse might bring unpredictable changes to the Death King.

If Morse’s madness fused into the Death King’s unstable mind and overturned even his decision not to escape Apophis, that would be a disaster. 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

Meanwhile, El-Cid laughed and said, —Hahahaha! It should be illegal to be this lucky!

El-Cid? What are you talking about?

Leon was bewildered by the laughter echoing inside him. What could El-Cid possibly be finding amusing? Thankfully, the answer came immediately.

—Grrrk?! G-ggggk! Gugh! Gah!

The Death King, who had spent a few seconds savoring Morse, suddenly twisted violently, his upper body convulsing as if retching. If Apophis hadn’t held his lower half down, it looked like he might have rolled across the ground.

Is it... indigestion?

Leon thought, but the Death King wasn’t even a biological creature, and he didn’t have organs or a digestive system. The thought came anyway.

—Indigestion? Well, it’s not entirely wrong. He did eat something he shouldn’t have.

What...?

El-Cid explained bluntly.

—That lump of a creature just made a colossal mistake. It’s strange for a madman not to make mistakes, but this one is particularly bad.

The Death King, Nex, was still incomplete as a transcendent being. His ectoplasmic body existed on the boundary between the spiritual and the material. He held hundreds of thousands of souls together in the form of the Death King, but if the knot loosened, they would scatter.

And then he ate Morse.

A wielder of exolaw whose entire body—brain, heart, every inch—had been altered. A soul polluted by dozens of outer dimensions. A creature with not a single fragment of purity left.

—An abomination that was supposed to be putting all its effort into unify a legion-body just had to absorb chaos itself—and while being in an incomplete state, no less. Something was bound to break. Give it a moment and see what happens.

Right then, with a distasteful gurgling noise, the Death King’s massive body suddenly ballooned outward. His ectoplasmic form lost its human shape immediately. Several arms burst out, then twisted into insect-like forelimbs, then warped again into tentacles resembling limbs of an octopus.

Eyes, too many to count, bulged across his surface, only to be covered next by reptilian scales. Anyone with even a shred of normal sensitivity would feel disgust.

The pain of that transformation must have been immense. The Death King screamed in a sound that no longer resembled a human voice. The roar turned into a shockwave that swept across several kilometers.

Leon cut through the oncoming cloud of debris with one swing and continued watching the transformation. Even from hundreds of meters away, his golden eyes tracked every detail as if the monster were right before him.

Is that...?

Leon’s eyes widened as he took in what shouldn’t have been visible.

Faces. Human faces, to be exact, were blurred beyond recognition, but they were clearly human, rising all over the Death King’s surface like countless Death Masks. It was as if trapped souls were writhing inside the ectoplasmic flesh, clawing to escape.

—The collective cohesion has weakened. The consciousness forced to unify within the Death King can’t be held together anymore.

Then...!

—Yes. You can carve that thing down by chunks now.

Hearing El-Cid’s words, Leon opened his eyes wide. Recovered Aura surged through his body, and golden wings of flame, Icarus Wing, spread from his back. Before anyone could call out to him, Leon raised his Holy Sword overhead and cut downward.

“Grand Chariot, Heavenly Core, First Form: Dubhe.”

A descending arc of golden blade light slammed into the Death King’s abdomen. Just minutes ago, the attack would have been practically meaningless, and the ectoplasm would have melted a little and then regenerated without an issue.

A pale mist burst from the torn belly, followed by a chorus of wails as the souls dispersed into the air. They were the vengeful spirits who had become living sacrifices—souls of what used to be the citizens of the capital Calelum—stripped of every shred of memory.

The Death King tried to hold them in and pressed his own abdomen with both hands, but more than a thousand souls had already escaped back into the natural cycle.

The Masters weren’t fools. Seeing the Death King recoil, seeing its strength falter, their extinguished fighting spirit reignited.

We can do this!

We can win!

They could win. Just as a single ray of light breaks through overwhelming darkness, Leon’s blade cut through their despair.

The Holy Church struck first.

“Saintess! At my timing!” Adela shouted.

“Yes, Cardinal!”

Elahan and Adela leaped toward the same spot, judging the perfect moment. The Death King still couldn’t free himself from Apophis, and both his hands were pressed against his torn stomach. His malformed body twitched and bulged uncontrollably, covered in protruding, grotesque growths. He was completely defenseless.

“Tremolo, Quartet of Fist.”

Adela hammered her fists forward four times. The space before her warped and struck out like a crashing wave, smashing the Death King’s flank.

Ectoplasm existed on the border of matter and spirit; a shockwave of material collapse would partially affect it. And then, Elahan launched herself forward, empowered by a sacred spell.

“Goddess, grant this blow your light of judgment!”

Her Aura and divine energy merged into a platinum radiance that gathered into her Holy Iron Breaker, delivering a blow with the resolve to kill in one strike. With the impact of a collapsing mountain, Elahan’s hammer smashed into the Death King’s left side and blew it apart.

The Death King’s massive body lurched for the first time. It wasn’t from the impact, but because thousands of souls spilled out through the wound in its flank, throwing its balance off. Attacks that never should have been effective were turning into clean, lethal blows.

Cedric realized the shift as well and raised his sword.

“Hoh... It looks like my attacks are finally going to work on him.”

With power raging this wildly, he could afford to use “it” a little. No one had the leisure to care about the cursed energy of the Dainslife right now.

A baleful force surged from the blood-red zweihander. From the day he left the Kingdom of Jugend until now, that demon sword had drunk at least three thousand lives. Finally, it was permitted to reveal its fangs once more.

Kehehehehehe!

Only Cedric heard the mad laughter as the blade extended the reach of Ten Thousand Severing Strikes nearly fourfold.

Ten full meters. Its greatest flaw—its short range due to its dense Aura—vanished without a trace. Cedric smiled, satisfied with its newfound reach, then swung with a blank expression.

Another wound split open across the Death King’s body. Not wide, but deep—hundreds of souls poured out, and before the wound could close, another slash carved in.

The strength of Ten Thousand Severing Strikes lay in its efficiency. By sustaining it with concentrated Aura alone, he could keep it active far longer, and far more lightly, than any Aura Blade that required venting or rapid combustion.

“Pitch-Black Dance, Shadow Manipulation, Fourth Form: Impaler.”

Four spikes of shadow, each nearly twenty meters long, drove up into the Death King’s upper abdomen.

Karen’s technique lacked power, even if its binding force was good. Valter’s blade compensated for it by erupting in flames.

Next, Valter’s ultimate technique roared forth with not one, but nine dragons.

“Explosion Technique, Nine-Headed Dragon-Shaped Sword: Hydra.”

A single flame-drake was enough to burn a thousand men alive. Now, nine tore into the Death King with multiplied ferocity.

The wound Karen had opened ballooned severalfold. His strategy was working perfectly.

“What the? You’re way stronger than I thought, Uncle Moustache!”

“Who are you calling moustache...?” Valter muttered weakly, drained to the bone, but Karen ignored him and looked straight ahead.

The Death King’s presence was withering. If he’d become a transcendent being by consuming hundreds of thousands of souls, then losing all of them would drop him back into mortality. They had to finish him now. Another chance wouldn’t come. Gilbert and Anna, lacking wide-area techniques, focused all their strength on striking him down.

Seconds passed. Or perhaps it was minutes. No one could tell.

The eight Masters poured out their full strength, forgetting the very passage of time. The sight was nothing short of heaven and earth overturning. The sky and ground seemed to flip inside out with each impact.

—N-no...! Do not leave Me...! This world is hell. Only I... Only I can save you all!

The Death King was speaking like a human again. Perhaps losing such a vast number of souls had shed the parts corrupted by Morse, but his mind still hadn’t fully returned, and he rambled in delirium. He flailed his arms as if trying to catch the souls leaking from the wounds across his body, muttering broken fragments of obsession.

—My... my people... my kingdom is falling...! Goddess of Calamity, will you torment me again?! You took my mother and tried to kill me with my father’s hand!

He no longer referred to himself as a superior, but the Death King himself didn’t seem to realize the change. His unfocused eyes, not fully sane, glared at the distant sky with hatred.

That gaze wasn’t the Mad Emperor’s, nor was it the Death King’s. It belonged to a boy from long, long ago—one whose dreams and hopes had been crushed, staring up at the sky with nothing but resentment.

Then, Elahan shouted, “Be quiet!”

Her warhammer smashed into his jaw. The mouth spewing curses snapped shut, his head snapped back, and his gaze wrenched away.

The Death King’s body had shrunk to barely a hundred meters. That was small enough that Elahan could leap up and strike his chin. More than half the souls inside him had already drained away. At this rate, he might not even remain transcendent much longer.

—Y-you... lowly... wench of that... harlot...!

As Elahan fell after the strike, the Death King reached out to grab her. However, Cedric stood in the way. His slash sliced off his index, middle, and ring fingers all at once, ruining the attempt.

The others didn’t stand idle either. Two flame-dragons streaked into his vision. A shadow-spike shot for his throat. Shockwaves and golden sword-light tore into his exposed abdomen.

—GRAAAAAAH! You worms crawling on the ground! How dare you fail to understand my will!

Once he had transcended, but now pain and loss cascaded over him. He could feel the rank he’d ascended to as a transcendent was collapsing. Even mortal attacks were beginning to injure him.

At this rate, he wouldn’t become a god. He’d fall all the way back to being human, a helpless being, stripped of everything by merciless fate.

—I will not allow this. Never... Never...!

He tried to unleash the last of his power in a final frenzy, but at that moment—

“Divine Judgment.”

The divine, holy energy accumulated over half a century, and the sacred spell barrier maintained by thirty Holy Iron Inquisitors surged upward. With the help of Elahan and Adela, the sacred spell grew even stronger.

Cardinal Anna, standing at its center, raised her staff toward the heavens. She aimed precisely at the Death King’s head.

“Execute!”

The heavenly gate—the one in which the Goddess dwelled—opened wide. Light poured down. A holy radiance that swept away every trace of darkness beneath heaven.

The Holy Church’s strongest holy spell, unleashed at maximum output, struck squarely atop the Death King’s skull.