Its body was already completely devoured, and finding this Rift was only a matter of time. Thankfully, that also meant its remaining soul could barely squeeze through the Rift and flee into the world. As long as most of it passed through, even being stuck in the barrier between worlds was better than facing what was behind.
Unexpectedly, as it struggled outward, it sensed another life in the chamber. That life was running madly toward the center, toward the ritual focus and the crucial book. "What?" "Roar!!!"
In an instant, hundreds of eyes snapped open and locked onto the tiny figure. How could there still be a living ant at its arrival point? Then it understood at once that this was not a true physical presence, but something like a projection from another timeline, similar to a save point.
The realization terrified it. In its current state, something capable of this could easily crush a soul-only existence like itself. "Why am I so miserable?" "Just arrived and already trapped from both sides?"
Its rage howled through the wind, and madness surged even stronger in its pupils. There was no choice now. The ritual had to succeed, because this was its lifeline.
Even while resisting pressure from behind and the world's rejection ahead, crushing this ant would be easy. It struck first. The Authority that halted everything, even thought, spread across the cavern and froze all within it.
Collapsing shard stones, surging Rift, even the smallest movement of air and insects all stopped. Everything froze except Alba. In such an environment, she should have died instantly, but a ring of light appeared around her, a glow that made Hedorah strain in fury, shielding her.
That light, and that hammer, were unmistakable. "It is you. The one who took what should have been ours." "Again you block us, again you interfere."
"So a god-favored ant thinks it can stop me?" "Die!"
With a roar that tore at the senses, countless eye-covered tentacles smashed down amid screaming mouths. The impact shattered half the space, grinding everything it touched into dust smaller than ash through pure slowing force. Alba rolled away in a panic, barely dodging with the protection of Holy Light, and for a moment saw a vision of herself crushed into paste before it vanished.
"An illusion? No, something is wrong. I have to destroy that book!" Her body throbbed with phantom pain as she forced herself forward again.
The huge, chaotic monster lashed out wildly, splitting into countless fine tendrils that flooded toward her. She hid behind a rock, which was half eaten away within seconds. By draining her mind and forcing out a fragile Holy Light barrier, she endured and continued to charge.
"So tired… my head hurts. I have to hold on." Death visions kept flashing before her eyes, and in her haze she stepped on a slanted stone.
She sucked in cold air, nearly twisting her ankle, but still forced herself onward, barely able to breathe. Her vision dimmed further, her lungs burned, and her body felt unbearably heavy. She did not even realize blood was already seeping from her eyes, ears, and nose, as the weak Holy Light could no longer protect her in the frozen air.
She stabbed her thigh with a small knife to shock herself awake, nearly cramping as she recovered a bit of clarity. The distance to the book was now less than thirty meters. Above, the enraged Hedorah kept whipping its tentacles, each strike rebounded by the thin Holy Light layer, again and again.
In truth, this ant should have died long ago. Each time it was smashed into pulp, it refreshed on the spot, reloading as everything reset, inching closer in broken steps. At twenty meters, Alba spat blood and went blind, but she could still sense the book through its twisted malice.
At ten meters, the Holy Light barrier tore open, costing her a leg and an arm. At five meters, she stumbled and fell, then crawled forward with one hand, gripping the hammer. She did not know that the shattered System interface had appeared in the corner, forming a final shield that blocked the last mad strike from Hedorah.
"Just a little more…" Her world was pitch black, cold spreading through her body like a winter night, yet she kept repeating it. Just a little more, and the sun would rise.
Three meters remained. "Roar!" The enraged Hedorah smashed down with all its strength, screaming in disbelief at why this thing would not die.
Two meters. "Do you know how much it hurts when I take hits for you? Hurry!" One meter, within reach.
She gathered the last of her strength and brought the hammer down.
The book was just like an ordinary book. When the hammer struck it, it fell to the ground as expected. Along with a sound like mountains crashing down, the huge twisted thing also slammed into the ground, or rather, it was repelled and forced back into the Spatial Rift behind it.
"Ugh… roooooar!!!" No!!!!
Sensing the enormous pressure from outside, it let out a mad roar. Its tentacles nailed themselves into the surrounding rock walls, carving deep grooves as it struggled, but in the end it was still kicked out helplessly.
Absolutely not, it could not be like this. And it absolutely could not go back, because going back meant facing that guy for sure.
At this point, what other options were there? Its soul mass was far too huge, unable to withstand the pressure, and it could only be forcibly expelled in the end. Without the book as the node linking the entire ritual, it could not even maintain its current state, and there was no suitable vessel either, so there was no solution at all.
…Really? Not necessarily.
"Sigh… how is this… not over yet…"
Alba lay weakly on the ground, strangely still conscious. Then the relief of survival was instantly scattered by a new wave of fear, because she felt something long coil around her waist and lift her entire body up.
Who else could still do this here? Anyone could figure it out without thinking.
"Did I guess wrong? Even destroying the book cannot solve everything?" "This thing even looks kind of like a tentacle monster. Wait, I am basically a Saintess too, so could it be…!"
Before Alba could imagine some extremely terrible outcome, she felt herself being dragged into somewhere unknown.
The good news was that it was not the kind of terrible scene Alba had imagined. The bad news was that it was even worse, because although she did not know the details, she could feel that terrifying existence pouring into her body from every corner.
That existence, with an absurdly massive quality, was squeezing into this tiny ant-like body.
"Wait, what is this trying to do? I am not about to…!"
Alpha felt that familiar malice and feral roar again, but this time it echoed directly inside her head. At the same time, a horrifying fact she had never heard before but now understood clearly appeared, and that was that her body was being gradually occupied.
Yes, that existence directly chose the only remaining Alba as its vessel, pouring all of its soul into her. Surprise, it still had an escape route.
When forced into a corner, since it would be repelled itself, it could just drag in a native, the least likely to be repelled, and use them as a shield.
"No… don't… ugh…"
Alba watched helplessly as her consciousness kept sinking, like falling into a bottomless deep sea. Darkness surrounded her until salty water flooded her mouth and nose, and she returned to some distant place.
While frantically forcing its way in, it kept cutting off its overly bloated parts in pain, while also disguising them, hoping those discarded pieces could deceive the hunter chasing it from behind. The body of Alba, which had been lying in a pool of blood, now stood up in a bizarre way, twisted like a puppet, eyes filled with blood-red light as huge crimson halos merged into the body.
Its lips trembled, releasing strange rhythmic syllables. It was a kind of prayer, a prayer aimed directly at itself, using this method to achieve an effect similar to divine descent and allow it to possess Alba.
The prayer did not dissipate, lingering in the stone chamber. A chain of twitching images like lines of code flashed before Alba's eyes, though she could no longer see them.
"Heh heh heh… haha!!!"
That face twitched as it laughed twice, then looked around. It picked up the book again and linked the remaining ritual power, using itself as the anchor to chant and reconstruct an alternative descent ritual.
The fuel was used lavishly, its own crimson soul, without question top-tier material. Through reckless consumption and chanting, it successfully poured itself into Alba's mental space, where a gigantic black shadow spanning almost the entire starry sky appeared.
Its eyes scanned around, then it moved without hesitation toward the deepest part. As long as it firmly grasped this pitiful ant's soul, everything would be secure.
As for the original the Lord of this body being someone's favored one, so what? It was a true god. What kind of low thing could beat it here?