Half an hour later, Shiomi and the others departed from the observation station near the Persian Gulf. Each of them rode on a pterosaur summoned by Quetzalcoatl, soaring through the skies above the gulf.
The skies over land remained clear, but above the sea, storm clouds had already gathered.
A massive number of Magical Beasts and Laḫmu swarmed through the air. Fighting as they advanced, Shiomi and the others forced their way through the barrier of creatures, heading straight for the source of the Spirit Origin reaction at sea—Tiamat's location.
During the flight, Shiomi looked down from the back of his pterosaur and saw thousands upon thousands of Laḫmu emerging from the ocean.
But these newly born Laḫmu showed no response to their group. According to Quetzalcoatl, they hadn't yet developed proper sensory awareness and could only grasp simple directives like "go ashore" and "kill the old humanity."
Before long, though, these Laḫmu would begin sharing consciousness with others and reach the same level as the ones that had backstabbed Kingu and stolen the Holy Grail.
Quetzalcoatl was clearly displeased.
After all, the planet had finally birthed gods capable of expressing individual traits—yet now, it was reverting to the collective. As a goddess herself, she was the first to oppose such regression.
Suddenly, a sound—like singing, but not quite—echoed from over the sea.
"Aaaa——————"
The voice came from a goddess floating above the ocean, breathtakingly beautiful yet radiating profound sorrow.
"That's… Tiamat?" Shiomi asked in disbelief. He couldn't immediately associate this figure with the Mother of Magical Beasts.
Ereshkigal also looked surprised. "Y-Yes. I've never seen her in person either. But those horns that symbolize the earth… and those eyes, reflecting the Inner Sea of the Planet… there's no doubt. That's the Creator Goddess, Tiamat!"
"Are you sure?" Shiomi asked.
"When Ishtar and I were born, Tiamat had already been discarded after the act of creation," Ereshkigal explained. "She was abandoned as a womb, reduced to the soil that gave life."
Artoria spoke up. "In mythology, Tiamat was slain by the gods, and it was Marduk's axe that severed the Mother Goddess's throat."
"I'm afraid myths and reality don't always align," Scáthach said, having just arrived. "According to Ereshkigal, Tiamat wasn't killed—but abandoned. Cast away by the very world she gave birth to. Or rather… by her own children."
"That's right," Ereshkigal confirmed. "Once the planet stabilized, Mother was discarded like something useless."
"And she wasn't banished to the old world beneath the 'fabric' either," Ereshkigal continued. "She was cast into the Imaginary Number Space—a lifeless void."
"The Sea of Imaginary Numbers?" Shiomi blinked, caught off guard, but he understood.
That realm was broader than the world itself, with no fixed coordinates or navigational markers—a dimension of nothingness, utterly inaccessible from the physical world.
"...Yes. For a primate species that has acquired the Tree of Life System, she—who might give birth to the 'next world'—is far too dangerous," said Quetzalcoatl. "It's like trying to lay a new foundation over one that was already built with great difficulty, and so..."
Shiomi lowered his gaze. "So the gods... or maybe humanity sealed her away?"
Now that the Goddess Tiamat had returned from the Sea of Imaginary Numbers, it didn't matter anymore whether it was the King of Magecraft who awakened her, or human reason that summoned her.
To the current human history, Tiamat is an existence that should not be on this planet.
"Master," Artoria said, staring at Tiamat, "when I parted ways with you before, there was one thing I didn't get the chance to tell you. In this Singularity, there may exist a form of 'evil' beyond your imagination. Now I can say with certainty—this being who surpasses even the King of Magecraft, this great demonic force, is the sin at the root of humanity. It's the Goddess Tiamat."
"Evil?"
Shiomi, riding the pterosaur with her, turned slightly and looked at her in confusion.
"Not evil in the ordinary sense," Artoria nodded. "It's the 'evil of humanity.'"
Shiomi sensed the topic would quickly spiral into complexity. He chose not to press further, simply accepting her answer as he refocused on Tiamat's condition.
"...Wait. Her hands and horns... are those chains?" His eyes widened. "Am I seeing things?"
"No, you're not," Scáthach confirmed with a nod.
The three goddesses had noticed it too.
As they closed in to within a hundred meters of Tiamat, the Primordial Mother Goddess simply opened her mouth and released a chant that resembled a song. The resulting storm nearly made it impossible for their pterosaurs to maintain altitude.
Then, suddenly, Tiamat raised her head—and looked straight at Shiomi.
"She's... looking at me?" Shiomi murmured in disbelief, eyes widening.
Without realizing it, he reached out a hand toward her.
Why? Why extend a hand?
Was it as a human, reaching for the forsaken mother of all things?
Or... as a child reaching out to their mother?
"No, Master! Don't use your Authority!"
Artoria was the first to notice something was wrong and shouted to stop him—but she was a moment too late.
The crimson tide enveloping the Persian Gulf—Tiamat's Authority, the primordial sea from which life is born—began to change.
The Chaos Tide beneath her feet shifted. What emerged from it was no longer Laḫmu or Magical Beasts—but strands of dark green seaweed.
"Aaaa——————"
Tiamat let out another voiceless cry.
Standing atop the pterosaur, Shiomi suddenly clutched his chest. His heart tightened—and then stopped.
Ordinarily, this abnormal state wouldn't have concerned him. But now, it drained every last ounce of his strength.
His body lurched forward, uncontrollably. Artoria reached out and caught his wrist.
"Master..." she gritted her teeth and pulled hard.
Winds raged across the sea. The pterosaur bucked like a fragile skiff caught in a storm. Artoria struggled to maintain flight, let alone free one hand to pull Shiomi back from falling into the Chaos Tide.
Scáthach made an instant decision.
"Goddess Ereshkigal—can you use Ishtar's Noble Phantasm!?"
In this situation, neither magecraft, nor her spears, nor even her Gate could land an effective strike on Tiamat.
They needed something that could deal overwhelming damage from a distance—right now.
"Of course I can! But how effective it'll be against Mother... I can't say."
Ereshkigal was visibly tense. This would be her first time using Ishtar's Noble Phantasm in the outside world.
"Then use it."
A voice suddenly echoed in her mind.
...
(100 Chapters Ahead)
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