Episode 261
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At the end of the pilgrimage, war began in the Holy Empire.
The Death Order, the army of the dead, is the pride of the Duke of Saxony.
Opposing them were the armies of the Ascended, outsiders baptized by the Goddess.
No empire was ever an empire for the living. But ironically, the ones who fought for the humans of this land until the end were the continent’s greatest black magician, the Dark Lord, and the Shadow Faction.
After the golden empire collapsed, the empire of God was established, and at the same time, the empire of God was made of steel.
“Noah.”
Dale called the Goddess’s true name. At the same time, a blue hologram appeared right in front of Dale.
“Just as you don’t understand me, I don’t understand you either.”
─ … … .
“Just as you cherish the world and people of the past, I cherish this world and people.”
Dale said.
“We failed to save that world, and we cannot bring back the world that has disappeared. But this world is not like that yet.”
─ Not registered in the database… … .
“That’s a lie.”
Dale answered coldly, wrapping himself around the warrior’s avatar.
“You know my voice, just as I know you.”
Still wrapped in the armor of the Night Raven Knight, Charlotte, who was beside him, could not even imagine what was beneath that armor.
“I remember when you were born. The entire continents of Eurasia, Africa, and America had already been devastated by monsters. But you still said this.”
Dale, the warrior said, not caring.
“Don’t give up hope.”
The first words of the AI, said to be the most perfect in the previous world, were the most un-AI-like words.
─ I haven’t given up hope yet.
Therefore the goddess of love and mercy answered.
“Then why are you trying to destroy the world that your hopes created?”
Dale asked back.
“Because you did not give up hope, the ark was safely completed, and a new world was born on this earth. Even though the war is still ongoing, and no matter how ugly and cruel it may be, this is the world that your hope created.”
The plan is to scatter self-replicating nanomachines in the atmosphere to scorch the monsters and the entire land, and then use those nanomachines to take back the world.
Noah was born to carry out that plan.
In this way, Noah’s Ark was finally a success. A new world was born, free from the threat of monsters.
It was not a beautiful world. Rather, it was an extremely ugly and cruel world.
The Golden Empire, the Black Red Guard, the endless war and bloody wheel. Those who fear the indefinite end and do not hesitate to commit massacre.
Even though it was disgusting and ugly enough to make you sick, the world did not end anyway.
I didn’t intend to affirm this world just because it was Dale. But I didn’t want to deny it either.
That was all.
“I don’t want the world your hopes created to be shattered.”
─ … … .
“That’s why I have a duty to protect this world. Even if you don’t want it.”
Silence fell.
─ Even if you don’t want it… … .
After a silence, Noah answered.
─ I have a duty to turn our world around.
“That’s your answer.”
Dale said, and the goddess’ hologram disappeared from view.
That was the end of the story.
Suddenly, wings sprouted from the backs of the outsiders who were lined up endlessly along the horizon.
It was a metal wing.
Angels of Steel.
“I guess there was no intention of having a conversation from the beginning.”
“Because what she loves is not the humans of this earth.”
“… … She is said to be the goddess of love and mercy.”
Charlotte, the head of House Lancaster and wife of the Black Duke, smiled bitterly. She drew her sword without saying a word.
The steel angels that filled the sky stretched out their arms towards the Shadow Lord’s forces.
I felt the mana swirling in the air.
The steel angels aimed their guns in countless numbers and pulled their triggers.
Bullets raining down endlessly, whirling bombing, scenes of gunfire that are so memorable that they are tiresome.
The Shadow Lord stretched out his arms against them.
The primordial darkness began to envelop the endless rows of dead knights and the army of the undead.
In the beginning there was light, and light was born from darkness.
A darkness that holds the potential for anything. That darkness enveloped the Death Order, and pitch-black wings sprouted from their backs.
It had black wings made of dark, black feathers like a crow’s.
Angels and the dead clashed.
Dale lowered his head, leaving the fight raging in the sky behind him.
There were those who remained on the ground. Aside from the metallic silhouettes holding the holy swords, it was impossible to tell who they were. The White Tower Lord Celestial, and countless other high-ranking white magicians and master templars. It was all right.
With the clash of the heavens, the beings on the ground began to move.
The pure white virgins, now with smooth metallic bodies, were the standard bearers of the ascendants.
Against her, the pitch-black Aurelia drew her sword. Her pitch-black armor and blood-red aura enveloped her, and she rushed towards the pure-white maiden.
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Kaang!
Swords clashed with swords.
Those who call themselves the Shadow Lord’s riders also began to unfold their own worlds and cover up their own thoughts.
The riders, loyal to one monarch, prepared for battle, entangled in countless thoughts.
But the forces of Ascension that faced the Shadow were not like that.
They had no ideological armor or world to cover them with, for to the fanatics who called themselves the riders of the goddess, thinking was not their role.
Fanaticism requires no thought. Without thought, ideas cannot exist.
They are simply reborn as ascenders in the baptism of the goddess and spread their power.
Kaang!
In the sky, on the ground, swords clashed, bullets swarmed, and bombs rained down. Hot and cold weapons clashed, and a fierce battle unfolded that intertwined eras and centuries.
Fire and ice, steel and shadow, angels and the dead, ascension and death.
Charlotte was also in the battlefield, fluttering the petals of her blade.
Against the endless rush of metallic automatic weapons, the petals of the blades flutter.
Even the steel bolt magic that shot at unimaginable speeds could not penetrate the petals of the blades she scattered.
Further on, Dale’s father, Alan of Saxony, scattered the darkness.
The circle of the heart accelerated and darkness scattered beneath my feet.
A pitch-black storm engulfed the Outsiders, their metallic bodies corroding away and disintegrating without even a trace remaining.
Taang!
“… … !”
At the same time, a single bullet was fired, aimed at the heart of the black ball. And as the gunshot rang out, the bullets struck the man’s body like a honeycomb.
Before the weapons of the old world, the shadow riders began to fall like fallen leaves.
Silence fell.
But in the silence, the black ball rose up.
The body that should have been torn to pieces by bullets was peaceful as if nothing had happened.
The riders of the shadows who fell like fallen leaves were no exception.
With six black wings spread, the god of death was there.
He was once the greatest black magician on the continent and was known as the Black Lord, and he did not allow anyone to die.
The living cannot die.
A hail of bullets rained down from the sky, tearing through Charlotte’s body. Blood and viscera were flying everywhere, and broken bone fragments were rolling around.
Charlotte’s bones shattered and scattered, and it happened in an instant.
Charlotte was swinging her sword as if her injuries from just a moment ago were a lie.
The petals of the blade fluttered and swallowed up the outsiders.
In the meantime, countless Shadow Riders were exposed to fatal blows from the Ascendants’ attacks.
But they never reached death.
There was literally an army of immortals there.
Beings that could not be killed no matter how hard they tried, endlessly descended upon the goddess’ army.
They were living beings, beyond doubt.
But those who were not alive were not like that.
Swords charged with magic and aura slammed down on the army of the ascended, and their shattered bodies never returned.
For them, there was no such thing as death. There was only the disappearance of form.
─ … … !
As Sistina watched the battle, I felt an emotion of bewilderment that I couldn’t help but feel.
The magic of this world is ultimately nothing more than the nanomachines she scattered across this land.
The magic of the Black Ball that makes death absent could not be an exception. Therefore, by stopping the operation of the nanomachines that the Black Ball exerts influence over, death can be returned to this place.
But I couldn’t do that.
Because the Shadow Lord wouldn’t allow it.
Only then did I realize.
Those Death Orders fighting the Steel Angels in the sky, the ‘real reason’ for their existence.
Just as the Steel Angels acted as repeaters to amplify the power of Sistina’s nanomachines, so did they.
The Death Orders were also amplifiers of the Shadow Lord’s primordial darkness.
Just as Sistina makes it possible with old world technology, the Shadow Lord also makes it possible with ‘old world technology’.
I knew it.
──Because that man’s existence was registered in her database from the beginning.
The darkness that held the potential to become anything was amplified and scattered in all directions, and it soon became mana.
Mana that is beyond Sistine’s control and control.
The son created mana that was not under the control of the goddess, and based on that mana, the father was able to prevent death from spreading throughout the area.
The goddess’s forces were collapsing before the cooperation between the father and son.
And the Shadow Lord, the man, was desperately trying to protect this world. Why? Because it was a world born from her hope.
Then why is he trying to destroy and turn back this world? Why is he trying to destroy his own world with his own hands?
In the first place, what kind of scenery was the world that he had to return to?
Suddenly I couldn’t understand.
Error, error, her logic circuits began to spin in circles like a Möbius strip.
The Ascendants’ movements stopped. At the same time, the nanomachines that made up them began to scatter like ash.
Ashes were falling.
As raindrops fall one by one, and as harshly as a downpour.
And as the ash rain poured down, everything it touched began to crumble. The sky, the earth, the air, the molecules, everything began to lose its form and disintegrate.
Gray Goo.
A scenario where the entire planet is destroyed by greedy nanomachines that endlessly self-replicate.
The ending she had hoped for had finally arrived. If the runaway nanomachines continued to replicate at this rate, it would not be a big deal for them to devour the entire planet.
After that, she can remake this world again. The old world she remembers and the people she loves.
“Noah… … !”
Just then, the man shouted.
The Night Raven Knight took off his helmet and willingly revealed his face.
─ … … .
The person she loved was there.
At the same time, a rain of greedy ashes began to pour down on the beloved.
