History cannot be changed. For the world, what has already happened is a fact.
However, the feelings and spirit of those involved are not absolute.
Because she bore the malice of mankind, "Tiamat," whose existence had been that of the Creator Goddess's avatar, the "Creation Mechanism" that nurtured life, transformed into the "Mother of Beasts" who hated life.
Loneliness and betrayal made up Tiamat's despair.
The latter, Emiya was powerless against. The rebellion against the womb, against the primordial sea, was part of the logic of life's evolution.
The only thing he could change was the former.
Because of the repulsion of the Inscription of Stars, Emiya, who had returned to the moment of the world's birth, became a "Spirit" without a true form. At the very first moment, within every span of ten thousand years, he had only one year of wakefulness.
In that brief time, Emiya would stay by Tiamat's side.
As an anchor, as the primordial Spirit, Emiya could stabilize Tiamat's spirit.
And his existence, in fact, caused Tiamat to give birth to individual consciousness.
Therefore, Emiya had to return to this moment. His actions were both the result of the world moving to its end and the cause that opened true history.
He was the [Demon King of the End (End of Anything)], and also the [Beginning of the World (Start of Everything)].
The "Principle of the Circle," which the [Falna] system could not contain, was formed here. The final ritual of level sublimation officially began.
———
[Orario]
The hero who slew the Black Dragon, [Gale] Ryuu·Lion, at this moment held a blue brick in her hands, walking solemnly across the plains.
The Black Dragon Subjugation War had already ended. In the end, the strongest of the ancient monsters was slain by the heroes, and the thousand-year wish of the lower world thus came to an end.
[Nine-tailed Celestial Fox] Haruhime destroyed its divinity. [Queen of Termination] Riveria and [Celestial Fox] Ichijo·Mashiro severed its wings. [Sword Saint] Melvette destroyed its eyes. [Sword Princess] Ais·Wallenstein, with a strike recreating the power of the wind spirit Aria, shattered most of the Black Dragon's body.
Finally, Ryuu sacrificed the ten heroic spirits recorded in [Astraea Summon], fusing the ten swords in the Starry Sword Casket into one, and struck the last blow.
Alise: 'I don't mind.'
After all, they were just "Heroic Spirits (servants)" formed of mana. Burned or not burned, once Ryuu's mana recovered, they could be summoned again.
Meanwhile, at the same time as the Black Dragon was slain, the labyrinth city Orario, already devastated beyond recognition, was finally completely destroyed.
Though [Unlimited Blade Works · Chakravartin] automatically intercepted and annihilated all monsters born from the black mud, the spreading of the mud could not be stopped. The overflowing black mud swallowed Orario, together with the surrounding land, entirely.
The essence of "black mud" was the Imaginary Sea's erosion of the real world. It did not follow the physical logic of the real world, like liquid poured from a Klein bottle, with zero mass and infinite volume.
If left unchecked, the black mud would only stop expanding when it had fully covered the planet's surface and replaced the world.
But this time, the black mud did not manage to engulf much area. It didn't even have time to fully cover the port city Meren before its erosion stopped.
By the time the adventurers returned to "Orario," all traces of the Imaginary Sea had completely vanished. Of course, so had the "Labyrinth City."
At the site where the city once stood, only a barren wilderness remained.
Fortunately, because the "black mud" had no "thickness," it completely absorbed the impact of the "Spears of Light" and "Mass Weapons."
Otherwise, after so long of bombardment by [Unlimited Blade Works · Chakravartin], the site of the labyrinth city might have looked as if it had been scoured by a meteor shower.
As the adventurer who struck the blow that slew the Black Dragon, Ryuu·Lion, representing everyone, placed the first brick for the city's reconstruction upon the plain.
The Black Dragon was dead, but the Great Pit (Dungeon) still existed, and the adventurers resolved to rebuild the labyrinth city.
However, the Tower of Babel that suppressed the Dungeon was no longer necessary.
The goddess Hephaestus, who had returned with the adventurers, raised her head. Her wine-red eyes gazed at the sky.
The children of the lower world could not see, nor could most gods. Only a few goddesses, including Hephaestus, could clearly see, the "Sevenfold" Sword Wheel of Heaven suspended in the sky, directly above the Great Pit.
Hephaestus, Freya, Artemis, Astraea, Demeter, Hera, Ishtar, and Tiamat… only these goddesses could see the still-present [Unlimited Blade Works · Chakravartin] in this world.
For certain reasons, they had obtained partial authority over this treasure.
Now, at least for monsters of the Black Dragon's class, as long as the goddesses agreed, set the coordinates, and threw down a treasure of the level of "Ig-Alima," "Sul-Sagana," or "Rhongomyniad," it could be wiped out.
[Divine Weapon], that was the goddesses' evaluation of this armament.
It was not a metaphor, but literal, a weapon of the gods.
In terms of power, this divine weapon could not yet compare with the strongest divine weapons.
[Unlimited Blade Works · Chakravartin] at most could annihilate the earth's surface, and it required quite a long span, nearly three minutes.
But Artemis and Ishtar both had arrows that could pierce straight through a planet. Furthermore, Hephaestus's divine sword could destroy the world in a single strike.
However, the power of a divine weapon could not fully reflect the rank and might of the gods. Especially as the true wielder of [Unlimited Blade Works · Chakravartin] was not present. The goddesses possessed the authority to use it, but it was hard to say whether they could unleash its full might.
And yet, even if its destructive power was not on par with the weapons of those billion-year-old great gods, this Wheel of Heaven was nonetheless a true divine weapon, driven without question by the omniscience and omnipotence of godly power.
Divine power was forbidden in the lower world. The only exception was the "God's Mirror," which had farsight ability.
But there were two "special cases" this rule could not constrain.
The first was divine power that had existed in the world before the rule came into effect.
The rules of the gods could not retroactively apply backward. Thus, "Beast Tiamat," as the only exception of this special case, could freely use divine power in the lower world.
Because of this, there had been monsters like Scorpion Antares, which could truly harm the gods.
The essence of the Assassin of the Gods was borrowing another god's authority. In the end, only a god could threaten another god.
Aside from "Beast Tiamat," the other special case was—
"A newborn god of this world...", Hephaestus laid one hand gently on her lower abdomen, looked to the sky, and softly spoke a name.
"Shirou..."
———
The existence of [Falna] not only affected the combat strength of adventurers but also greatly raised people's productivity.
Because of their participation in defending the port city, many craftsmen of the Hephaestus Familia and the Goibniu Familia leveled up.
These Lv.3 and Lv.4 dwarf craftsmen worked with efficiency equal to heavy machinery, while their flexibility was far superior.
Numerous first-class adventurers directly joined in the rebuilding of the city. With these of the world's strongest "demolition workers," the reconstruction of the labyrinth city progressed at an astonishing pace.
In less than two months, the city's overall framework was already erected.
The new city was quite different from before.
Many nostalgic gods and adventurers proposed restoring the old labyrinth city as it was, but in the end, this plan was rejected. More people supported redesigning the city.
When the labyrinth city was first planned, no one foresaw it would become the world's center. From the beginning, its design was riddled with flaws.
For example, the area. The city's initial size was only a quarter of what it would be a thousand years later. Its walls had been expanded outward multiple times.
Each reconstruction cost vast sums, and yet soon after, the expanded city would become crowded again.
As for the city walls restricting space, they were proven to be of little use. No force had ever truly laid siege to the city. Even the Kingdom of Rakia, which had declared war on Orario multiple times, had not crossed the wastelands east of the city. Their army had never even touched the city walls.
High-level adventurers were the true threat to the city. Against them, walls were meaningless. Even a second-class adventurer of Lv.3 could easily scale them. Orario was too large, and the Ganesha Familia's patrols too limited, to guard every spot.
As for blocking monsters, those the walls could stop, adventurers could also handle. And those monsters adventurers could not deal with. A single wall wouldn't stop them either.
Now, with that thing hanging in the heavens, the walls were even less necessary.
Checkpoints for entering and leaving the city were still needed, but the heavy walls were no longer required. The newly designed Orario became a city without walls.
Moreover, the city's internal layout was completely replanned. Unreasonable designs were removed. For example, the filth-ridden Daedalus Street ceased to exist.
At the same time, the redesign of the city was also a process of distributing war merits.
The Ishtar Familia's entertainment district doubled in size. The Hephaestus Familia gained five districts of commerce and factories. The Loki Familia obtained their own large marketplace. The Freya Familia gave up extra interests within the city, in exchange for support from the other familias to establish subordinate forces outside the city.
The returning Hera and Astraea Familias also received vast territories. With first-class adventurers, these familias rose to prominence. The Guild's authority, by contrast, fell to its lowest point. Nearly all of its governing functions were stripped away, leaving it only as an organization providing services and support to adventurers.
Now, at the peak of Orario's power structure, stood the goddesses of the great familias. Apart from the Ganesha Familia, which still served as city guards and had inherited much administrative authority from the Guild, all of the city's leading factions were powers of goddesses.
Surprisingly, relations between these goddesses were quite harmonious. Even Freya and Ishtar, who had once been mortal enemies, had reconciled.
Freya, once aloof and disdainful of Ishtar, now often humbly sought her advice. Although Freya's authority as a goddess of beauty surpassed Ishtar's, Ishtar, with her war authority, was physically far stronger than her fellow goddesses of beauty.
By comparison, Freya was somewhat like Lady Alfia among the goddesses. She looked impressive, but physically, she was a total weakling.
In short, because of the goddesses' harmony, the city maintained a peaceful atmosphere.
As for the fact that, four or five months after the Black Dragon War, the goddesses gradually stopped appearing in public, while people were somewhat puzzled, none dared to speculate or gossip.
Now, Orario no longer had the Tower of Babel, but the Dungeon still remained. Compared to before, however, the extremely malicious "irregular incidents" had nearly disappeared.
Every day, every month, adventurers still died in the Dungeon. But now, with the Dungeon no longer threatening the surface, entering it had become purely an economic decision and a matter of personal choice. As adventurers who hunted monsters, dying at the hands of monsters was not something to complain about.
Still, compared to before, the death rate had fallen significantly, and the manner of the defeated's deaths was no longer so extreme.
All in all, the crisis of annihilation seemed to have truly been lifted, and the whole world appeared much improved.
Only, compared to before, one person was missing.
A person forgotten by the world.
The vast majority of people had forgotten his existence. Those who still remembered were only the goddesses, and adventurers such as Ryuu, Riveria, Haruhime, Alise, Anya, Ais, Aki... and many others with [Bond]-type skills.
Surprisingly, the number was not small.
Several of them, like the goddesses, also disappeared for a time in the months after the Black Dragon Subjugation War.
Until a year later—
"Now, you can tell us how to find him, can't you, Tiamat?", Hephaestus asked.
The goddess Tiamat patiently lulled several children to sleep, then slowly spoke, "Far away at the horizon, yet right before your eyes."
"You mean..."
"Mhm! The answer is the labyrinth beneath Orario, the Dungeon."
———
[Inscription of Stars]
Tiamat awoke on time. She lifted her star-glimmering eyes to the night sky.
According to the trajectory of the star chart, another ten thousand years had passed. This time, she had awoken promptly.
The time before last, twenty thousand years ago, she had overslept. When she awoke, nine months had already passed. That time, her companionship with him had been only a quarter of the usual.
For that, Tiamat had cried and fussed for quite a while. She had thus come to understand the concept of "sorrow."
Tiamat could never see him, but they could touch. She could feel his hand on her, feel his warmth, his breath, his heartbeat.
She realized she was being embraced from behind. Feeling that warmth, she unconsciously began to smile.
Tiamat remembered clearly their 1,237th encounter. That time, he lost his reason for the first time.
The erosion of time and the Inscription of Stars had driven his reason to the limit. Once he fell into madness, he would sometimes, like a beast, bite, ravage, and torment Tiamat's body, leaving her battered countless times.
But Tiamat only smiled and endured. For one with the power of creation like her, such things did not even count as light injuries.
He woke many times, apologizing earnestly to Tiamat. But after tens of thousands of years, at their next meeting, he might again lose his reason.
Instead, Tiamat felt joy in this, because when he lost reason, each of his appearances would exceed the one-year limit, lasting until he regained clarity.
The longest time, he had stayed with her for a full century. That was Tiamat's most fulfilling time.
However, starting from about the 5,000th encounter, his spirit became increasingly stable, and his treatment of Tiamat increasingly gentle.
Though their time together was no longer so long, making her somewhat regretful, she also felt very happy.
His existence kept Tiamat from falling into despair from loneliness.
Tiamat turned, trying to touch him with her fingers. But the next moment, she froze.
"I can... see you."
———
Meanwhile, several great fae (demigods) descended into this world.
Their hair colors varied: sky blue with curved twin horns atop the head, blazing red, noble gold, elegant silver-white, pure moon-white, warm orange...
Yet their eyes were nearly identical, all were brilliant molten gold.
Deep within those golden pupils was a sharpness like swords.
["Several great fae 'accidentally' entered this world. Their existence caused the primordial life to achieve evolution."]
This was the history in the memory of the goddess Tiamat.
Thus, the elements composing the world were finally complete.
[T/N: It SEEMS my 2nd Account has been suspended 😞. I can't operate it anymore. But, if you search, you can see it still there. Novels are all there. I have made another account("Ambi_Guy") for now and will shift the novels as soon as possible. It may take 1-2 days, so I ask your all understanding. I have also sent an email to WebNovel and asked regarding the situation. As soon as I get an update, I will let you all know. Have a great read~ 👍😄👍]
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