When everyone rushed back to the Observatory—transformed by Kiara Sessyoin into a paradise-like Lotus Land—only she remained.
"Your Master risked his life to send you away, and now you're charging back like moths to a flame. Or... is it that you just can't forget me?"
Sessyoin looked thoroughly pleased, clearly having just indulged in a feast.
"Where is my husband?!"
Morgan raised her hand and unleashed a wide-area Magecraft blast, mercilessly bombarding the space—but it didn't harm Sessyoin in the slightest.
"Husband? So that Master was your husband. No wonder he looked so delicious." Sessyoin licked her lips. "Among the men I've seen, he was the most delectable. Standing between humanity and divinity, wielding power... Ah, if only I could have another taste. But sadly, that chance is gone."
Hearing this, Morgan's pale blue eyes flared with fury, blazing hot enough to scorch everything in sight.
"Wait… something's not right," Scáthach said, placing a hand on Morgan's shoulder. "He's… still here?"
"Eh?" Artoria's eyes widened in surprise.
There was no doubt that Tenkei Shiomi had been swallowed by Kiara Sessyoin—only Gungnir remained, lying silently among the lotus flowers.
They had still been one step too late.
Even Sessyoin herself had calmly concluded this, as if the outcome had already been sealed—
—until her body began to change.
Suddenly, Sessyoin felt her movements grow heavy, her fingertips refusing to move.
"As they say, you can eat whatever you want, but you can't say whatever you want. Then again, sometimes, you really can't eat whatever you want either," BB's voice echoed in the void. "You got greedy for what Daddy had—thought you could swallow him whole and make his power your own. But you never considered the consequences, did you?"
Just moments ago, Sessyoin had been composed, confident everything was under control. Now her pupils contracted sharply as she clutched her body.
But her abdomen swelled uncontrollably, ballooning like she was heavily pregnant, expanding rapidly to its limit.
"No… this can't be… My body is already the universe itself, a Pure Land of Ultimate Bliss… Anything absorbed should vanish from reality, be freed from the self, even have its reason dissolved," Sessyoin muttered in disbelief.
No matter how strong the body or how sturdy the armor, it meant nothing inside Sessyoin.
Everything became powerless, like a newborn—utterly neutralized and released.
But…
Tenkei Shiomi was the exception.
What now filled her insides and caused her body to swell was a Sea of Life—so vast, not even she could fully consume it.
"Ugh… Guh—!"
Unable to contain her now-rounded belly, Sessyoin instinctively opened her mouth as black and red mud spewed out.
Then her abdomen burst from within, and a black tide surged forth, washing over the clear water up to their ankles. The lotus flowers blooming atop it ignited instantly, vanishing like a fleeting dream.
Morgan and the others, veterans of the Seventh Singularity, recognized it at once.
"Chaos Tide."
The very power Tiamat used to erode worlds and reshape planetary ecosystems.
Why… is it here?
No one could make sense of it.
As the Chaos Tide spread, the group began to retreat—only to see the tide, as if conscious, flowing around their feet, deliberately avoiding them.
"Let me reintroduce myself. I am one who holds a fragment of the Authority of Life—and the child of the primordial mother, the Goddess Tiamat."
Shiomi's voice rose steadily.
Everyone looked up toward the sound.
Sessyoin, kneeling in the Chaos Tide with her arms wrapped around her swollen belly, also looked up, her gaze fixed on the figure floating in the air.
"Child of Tiamat…" Sessyoin repeated the words, mulling over their meaning.
"Seems the universe in your belly isn't as boundless as you thought. It couldn't even contain the Sea of Life that belongs to my mother for long." Shiomi slowly descended to the ground. "They say that when the Buddha achieved enlightenment atop the snowy mountain, he was once swallowed by a peacock. Later, he broke free from its belly and honored the peacock as the Mother of Buddha."
Despite the agony of her body being burned by the Chaos Tide, Sessyoin's beautiful face twisted into a strange smile.
"So… you too have been reborn from my womb, like the Buddha himself."
Tiamat's Authority could reconstruct life down to the cellular level. Even if Sessyoin wasn't eroded and reshaped outright, soaking in the Chaos Tide wouldn't leave her unscathed.
"That's why Mother is furious right now—" Shiomi began, then abruptly corrected himself, "Oh, actually… she's not that mad."
Tiamat had just rebuked him.
—After all, it wasn't as if he had literally been born from Sessyoin's body.
From across the Sea of Imaginary Numbers, the primordial mother used only a spiritual link, with Shiomi as her vessel, to send forth the Chaos Tide.
Right now, the Goddess Tiamat was watching this battle unfold.
If they still failed to destroy Beast III, she would step in to protect her child.
Shiomi slowly walked toward Sessyoin. With each step, pure white lotus flowers bloomed in the Chaos Tide beneath his feet.
When he stood before her, he had taken exactly seven steps.
"Lotus blooming with each step… Trying to play Buddha now?" Sessyoin chuckled.
"Not at all. Just mocking you." Shiomi spread his arms, and Gungnir flew back into his hand. "I was going to recite a sutra, but it doesn't really fit the mood."
"Hehehehehe~" Sessyoin let out a long, lewd, and delighted laugh. "I alone am honored above all, in heaven and on earth. Among all the humans in this world, I alone am human. The rest are just beasts. So long as I remain, humanity needs no other. Without that truth, this world is beyond saving."
Her tone was arrogant, even while chanting like a scripture, declaring it as if it were self-evident.
Shiomi thrust his spear at Sessyoin again—but this time, an invisible force stopped it.
"It was a mistake to swallow you, indeed. But had I not, I wouldn't have tasted the joy I would've otherwise missed." A torrent of magical energy surged from Sessyoin. "It may be premature, but allow me to show you my true form as a Beast. My body is the Paradise of Ecstasy, the heavenly realm like an open maw, to devour all life as if they were fruit. This time, even the boundless life of the Original Mother will become mine—!"
The overwhelming mana pushed Shiomi back, forcing him to retreat in front of the others.
Even within the ankle-deep Chaos Tide, blood-red spider lilies bloomed, jarring against the field of white lotuses.
Kiara Sessyoin's form shifted again—her white robe turned golden, and the twin horns on her head transformed, resembling the torsos of Demon Pillars.
"Yours? Keep dreaming—try again in the next life!"
Shiomi pointed his spear at Sessyoin's forehead, while the others behind him prepared to strike.