When Satsuki appeared once more, her figure was already less than a hundred meters from where Caster stood.
Yet there was no anomaly here. Instead, what replaced it was a [Singularity] radiating a powerful magical fluctuation.
Satsuki had only sensed such a reaction from Irisviel and from that King Solomon Caster.
"A miniature cosmos constructed with a magus' circuits as the foundation… an individual or a space that can exist even outside the flow of time. As long as there is mana, it will persist eternally. A stable [Reality Marble]—so this is that fellow's true stronghold, the Temple of Time? Compared to the last time, when it was merely unfolded in the form of a Noble Phantasm, this one is far more stable."
After a quick survey, Satsuki discerned its essence almost immediately, sparking her keen interest in the form of its existence.
This was almost equivalent to having the blueprint for creation laid bare before her eyes. All she needed was time to study how to transform magic circuits into something like this [demiplane] structure.
Though Satsuki possessed the [Brahma Creation Wheel], she was not an omniscient or omnipotent being. On her path to power, her methods were largely to overwhelm all with sheer might.
She did not lack the insight to extrapolate and deduce, but she lacked the foundational knowledge to fuel such insight.
Thus, this Singularity before her held great value as a research subject.
With that thought, Satsuki transformed into spirit form and entered the Singularity.
...
Singularity — Within the Beast's Domain
No sooner had she entered than Satsuki felt an unprecedented malice invading her thoughts. It was a memory etched into the space itself by immense magical power.
She had many ways to dispel the erosion of such thought-imprints, yet she chose not to. As a somewhat self-unaware [Saver], she was deeply intrigued by various modes of thought.
So she did not resist. She allowed the malice to wrap around her body, twisting her vision.
Here, time held no meaning. Or rather, in this space detached from the temporal frame, time was no longer the master of all things.
When her sight returned from the darkness, what lay before her was a misty gray landscape.
It was like a carved tableau, depicting countless people—dead, wailing, despairing, praying.
They bore no distinct features. Their eyes were hidden beneath hoods cloaked in black shadows. Yet a maddening noise unceasingly echoed in Satsuki's ears.
What she saw was unbearable slaughter. What she heard was unbearable clamor.
—This was the [Truth] revealed by Caster's EX Clairvoyance, perceiving humanity's entire past and future.
But Satsuki was unmoved by the sight. She merely gazed coolly at the forms of the dead, then shifted to the next sacrifice.
The ugliness of humanity, the suffering of fate, the despair of encounters, the screams of slaughter…
All of it was laid bare before her golden eyes—seen, recorded, experienced.
Her body gave a twisted cry of anguish. The pain and despair of those people were reflected onto her own flesh. It was a torture beyond any she had endured since birth. Cold sweat dripped from her forehead, scattering into crimson blossoms upon the phantasmal corpses.
A chorus of warped whispers spilled chillingly into her ears.
"The king lacks the ability to close her eyes."
"The king lacks the ability to block her ears."
Then came hysterical shrieks.
"Ugly, ugly, ugly, ugly, ugly, ugly, ugly…"
"Forced to witness truths of unbearable filth."
"Forced to remember ecologies of unbearable ugliness."
"Naturally, one would think of resolving such vile conditions."
"But how should it be done? Even if misunderstandings are dispelled, humanity will immediately give rise to new defilement."
"The premise itself is flawed. As long as life exists, this error cannot be corrected."
"Begin again. We can only begin again, from the start, to recast everything into a perfect form."
"Not from history, not from the ecosystem, not from the continents, not from time."
"—But from nothingness."
...
"From nothingness? By your hand?"
An ethereal voice cut through the murmurs of the space.
It belonged to Satsuki, whose body had been tormented beyond recognition—her neck twisted, fingers bent, waist snapped, legs caved in. Yet her face bore no ripple of pain. Instead, the corners of her lips curved ever so slightly upward.
Around her, the stone walls shifted into scenes of twisted, depraved landscapes, playing on repeat at her side.
"Why can you remain so calm before such tragedy? Why do you smile when faced with the ugliness of this world? Are you insane?!"
The voice shrieked furiously beside her, while within her body came fresh crackcrack sounds of bones shattering beneath immense pressure.
Satsuki's answer, however, remained cold and composed: "The reason I laugh is simple. I see only a pitiful fool, blinded by colors, clutching the resolve of salvation yet walking resolutely upon the path of destruction. Is that not ridiculous?"
"What?!"
"Poor thing. Do you truly believe what you see is reality?" Her voice was faint, detached. "The 'filth' and 'ugliness' you speak of are merely [phenomena] born from your cognition when stimulated by the outside world. You then mistake these appearances for true reality, trapping yourself in misery. Is that not foolish?"
"For example, the state of my body you would have me feel—'neck twisted, fingers bent, waist broken, legs collapsed'—these are only the appearances you wish me to perceive, in order to rouse 'fear,' 'pain,' and 'despair.'"
"True existence does not reside there. All things are born from conditions, gather through causes, and ultimately return to emptiness. Matter is so. So too are events."
"What cannot be seen, heard, or touched does not exist. What can be seen, heard, or touched are merely [phenomena] fabricated by the body, mind, and spirit of sentient beings. And you… you are but a prisoner driven by these appearances."
Her conclusion poured forth, intolerable to the other: "In the end, you are no different from the 'humans' you scorn."
"Shut up!!!"
At the roar, her body was crushed into dust beneath the overwhelming force, swallowed wholly by darkness.
"You, who rely only on sophistry, would dare presume to shake our will."
But before the Demon Pillar could savor triumph, an alien sensation flooded its perception.
The ethereal voice returned.
This time it did not echo from within, but seemed to wrap from without, layer upon layer, enclosing the entire space.
"With such crude 'phenomena of cognition,' you thought to sway my mind? Laughable. Very well… I shall allow you, pitiful one, a glimpse of a fragment of reality."
Involuntarily, the Demon Pillar turned its warped gaze outward.
Beyond the endless dark, a figure appeared. She resembled the woman from before, yet subtly different. Long hair flowed behind a black robe traced with golden patterns. A massive luminous halo shimmered faintly behind her head. Her lowered eyes carried the bearing of a god who disregarded all.
Suddenly, golden light flashed in those eyes.
At once, the Demon Pillar realized with horror that it could not move a single fragment of its body. Even its ever-rolling eyeballs froze in place.
From her forehead, a ruby gleamed. She extended her right hand, summoning forth a great mass of black lines—the Death Lines—surging toward the Demon Pillar. They wrapped around it, condensing into a colossal black sphere that compressed inward, collapsing without end.
The sphere then drifted back to her hand, shrinking rapidly as it drew near. By the time it reached her, it was small enough to be grasped in one hand.
For the first time, the being that had driven countless others to despair now tasted despair itself. It forced its power to the limit, unleashing twisted, blasphemous radiance and shrieks that could fell mortals instantly.
Yet before the figure who loomed like a god, overlooking it all, these meant nothing.
The black barrier was like a curtain severing realms. None of its light or sound escaped. Even the magical energy transmitted from the King of Mages was cut off. Its inherited immortality unraveled utterly.
At last, it abandoned resistance. With its final, fading strength, it asked: "You… who are you…?"
Ordinarily, its voice too would have vanished unheard. But Satsuki had left herself an opening.
"You ask who I am?" Her golden eyes gazed coldly upon the black sphere in her hand.
Three overlapping voices reverberated through the space: "I am Māra. I am the Lord of the Sixth Heaven of the Desire Realm. I am the Demon King of the Three-Thousand Great Worlds. Enemy of the Buddha. Mother of Karma…"
With that terrifying proclamation, visions flooded the Demon Pillar's sight: Darkness scattered into fragments as a blazing meteor shower descended. From unseen depths, black lines surged forth, bringing absolute night. The seas and lands of the Temple of Time convulsed. Waters flowed backward. Mountains crumbled. The earth split. Tempests howled. Sun and moon dimmed. Even the slow-turning belt of light in the heavens faded into obscurity.
Such calamities were beyond its knowledge, beyond imagination. The winds screamed. Purple lightning roared. Magma erupted beneath the maiden's feet. Stars fell from the sky in her presence. All disasters converged around her. She alone inscribed the end of all things—the dirge of all beings.
The Demon Pillar shuddered to its core.
Yet the next instant, the visions dissolved, vanishing before its eyes.
And then, just before it was swallowed into boundless darkness, it saw her hand closing like a five-peaked mountain. In its ears rang a name never heard before.
"I am—Māra. The Demon Buddha."
..
Deep within the Beast's Domain, before Satsuki's arrival, another group had already entered this [Singularity].
They were Chaldea's Master Ritsuka Fujimaru, Mash, and Lord El-Melloi II.
Yet their situation was anything but optimistic—for they stood against a massive Demon Pillar.
It towered over thirty meters high, a colossal, blood-red tentacle. Its surface was covered with raw crimson flesh, writhing grotesquely. Nine jagged, mouth-like cracks split open along its body, each disgorging whispers and curses that chilled the soul.
Within every crack, a single massive scarlet eye glared out. Cross-shaped pupils twitched without pause, scanning the prey around it.
"Senpai, these things are…?"
"Yes. The Demon Pillar Flauros. This is one of the targets we came for."
Ritsuka Fujimaru stood behind Mash, immediately raising his Command Spells to channel mana into her.
Mash lifted her shield, standing firm against the purple beams fired toward her. Undaunted, she pressed the fight in close, even managing to inflict measurable damage on the Demon Pillar in melee.
But against the sheer enormity of Flauros' body, the harm she caused was pitifully small.
"Called the Beast of Calamity, humanity's evil incarnate… Even though we succeeded in destroying it once, it can truly be reborn again."
Could humanity's evil be something impossible to erase?
If so, then what meaning did all their struggles hold until now?
Distracted by such thoughts, Ritsuka Fujimaru revealed an opening. From Flauros' massive form, a blood-colored tentacle split off, whipping straight toward where he stood.
"Watch out, Ritsuka Fujimaru!"
El-Melloi had already noticed his state and bellowed, trying to snap him back to awareness.
At the same time, several massive pillars fell from the sky, nailing the striking tentacle to the ground—saving him at the last possible moment.
Ritsuka stared at the tentacle's front end, now less than a dozen meters away, his face pale with fright.
"Forgive me, Lord El-Melloi, for showing such weakness."
With those words, Chaldea's final Master swiftly steadied himself. From despair to resolve took only seconds. Truly, Ritsuka Fujimaru lived up to his role as humanity's last Master.
Yet El-Melloi's expression remained unusually grave. Even though the one acting through him was no longer himself, but the Heroic Spirit who possessed him—the famed strategist of the Three Kingdoms, Zhuge Liang—
Even he, whose wisdom surpassed all, found himself helpless before such an inhuman foe.
His Noble Phantasm, "Unreturning Formation," had already been deployed. Yet before this monstrosity, the formation's illusions proved meaningless. At most, it trapped the creature for a few fleeting seconds.
When his focus wavered to manipulate the formation just now, a flaw appeared in its hold over the Demon Pillar's main body. In that instant, Flauros broke free.
With a thunderous roar, the enormous Demon Pillar shattered the formation in one blow.
Having scattered the stone soldiers, it regained full movement. Its massive body swayed as it swept toward Fujimaru and his companions with overwhelming force.
"Hahahaha! Die, dregs of Chaldea! My king's grand design shall not fail again!"
The looming body, like a moving wall, crushed even the air as it descended. It left Fujimaru not even a moment to flee.
And yet—just as the Demon Pillar was about to slam into him—Mash, the pink-haired girl, planted herself before them with her great shield.
To protect her Master, she poured all her mana into withstanding the colossal strike from the monstrosity, countless times larger than herself.
The sight was so stirring that even El-Melloi II could not help but voice his admiration.
"Though born a girl, she possesses the valor of a true general."
"Mash!!!"
Just before the two forces collided, the immense Demon Pillar suddenly froze. Its wildly twitching eyes halted all movement.
Mash, braced behind her shield, did not feel the expected impact. Confused, she peered through the gap to see what had stopped it.
Mash quickly noticed the Demon Pillar's strange condition.
Instinctively, she stepped back, positioning herself protectively in front of her Master.
"Senpai, something's wrong with the Demon Pillar."
Ritsuka Fujimaru, too, realized that the massive Demon Pillar was unable to move. Confused, he turned to El-Melloi for an explanation.
"Lord El-Melloi, what is happening?"
But El-Melloi only shook his head, indicating that he was just as bewildered by the change.
As they puzzled over the scene, dark [Death Lines] began to appear across the Demon Pillar's surface—not cracks, but true death lines crawling over its body.
From the enormous form came a voice of despair:
"Impossible! How can anyone completely resist my king's thoughts—and even suppress me in return? This cannot be… cannot be!!"
Yet a layered voice, cold and unyielding, pierced the air from above.
"Why is it impossible?"
In the next moment, the black death lines bound Flauros tightly, constricting until they formed a black sphere.
The sphere floated upward. Before the stunned eyes of the Chaldeans, it shrank rapidly, then flew into the hand of a figure above.
With casual ease, that figure squeezed it. The sphere vanished into pure nothingness.
"...That form… that voice?! Could it be?!"
For the first time, El-Melloi II's voice trembled with unmistakable fear. Even Mash noticed his eyes quivering uncontrollably.
Such a reaction revealed beyond doubt the torment that wracked him within.
"Lord El-Melloi, what is it? That figure—that figure is not…"
Before Fujimaru could finish, El-Melloi turned sharply toward him. "Run! Take Mash and flee! I'll hold her off!"
"Oh? Hold me off?"
The figure above vanished in a flash, reappearing directly before the Chaldeans.
It was Satsuki, in her Demon Buddha Aspect. Her gaze swept over the group, lingering particularly on the terror in El-Melloi's eyes.
"Interesting. I have done nothing against Chaldea, yet his expression does not seem to be feigned."
Her Tenseigan could glimpse into the past, but the far and uncertain future still lay beyond its reach.
Just then, the earth beneath them erupted with violent tremors.
The skies darkened, lightning roared, and with each thunderous shockwave, massive Demon Pillars burst forth from the barren ground. They stretched outward to the horizon, countless replicas of the one just defeated.
"Hahahahaha! It is useless! No matter what you do, it is useless! Hahahahaha! We are immortal, endless. For this entire space itself is us!"