A few moments earlier.
In the central tent of the metropolis, two women sat across from each other, sipping tea, each absorbed in her own world.
The blonde woman of almost unnatural beauty was immersed in a book, turning a page every so often, while the red-haired Supreme General busied herself reading the scattered reports covering her table.
Suddenly, they both stopped moving at the same time and looked at each other.
"..."
"Is this a new species of Narkal...?" the redhead, Cornelia, asked with intrigue.
"Perhaps. But I know that soldier, Maria, from before."
"A doppelgänger?"
"Most likely."
Cornelia gave a small nod before asking, "Are you not going to interfere? The monster seems to be targeting your Saintess."
"Her dear knight is by her side. And the monster's mana doesn't seem particularly great. It's a Gorefiend at best. They've got this."
"If you say so..."
The two briefly closed their eyes, extending their perception through their Domains to follow the battle. It did not take long, however, for frowns to mar their faces.
"..."
Lola was the first to open her eyes.
"That's not a monster." She rose to her feet. "I'll deal with it. You watch the perimeter, just in case this turns out to be a distraction."
Cornelia uncrossed her legs and stood up as well.
"Alright. You deal with it. I'll watch your back."
Whoosh.
The two vanished, leaving the tent empty.
***
Lola reappeared in the sky, directly beneath the sphere of flesh.
The monstrosity was already descending like a falling meteor.
She raised a fist, which glowed pink for a brief moment, before punching the air before her.
For a heartbeat, nothing happened.
Then, beneath the despairing eyes of the countless soldiers, daylight suddenly returned as a gigantic hole tore through the creature's center, allowing sunlight to pour through.
Around the edges of the wound, the same pink glow clung to the flesh and began eating away at it. For a brief moment, her will seemed to overpower whatever force sustained the abomination.
Then every mouth sprouted rows of jagged teeth and began devouring the contaminated flesh.
CRUNCH. CRUNCH. CRUNCH.
Lola raised her fist once more, throwing two more punches into the writhing mass.
But the teeth simply continued consuming their own flesh, while the scattered remains fused back together into additional floating masses of meat and gore that began orbiting the main body.
Even so, Lola had achieved her objective. The collision had been stopped.
The creature did not seem to have run out of tricks, however, as the surface of its flesh rippled before transforming into countless pointed droplets.
KYAAAAAAAAAAAA!!
With that screech, a hail of flesh rained down upon the metropolis.
BANG!
BANG!
BANG!
BANG!
Destruction and death descended at once as barriers rose to intercept the projectiles, to little avail. Some sought refuge beneath the rubble, while others used corpses as shields, as screams of agony and death echoed throughout the battlefield.
Lola's violet eyes shone brightly as she invoked a Path Skill.
"Togetherness With Oneself..."
The moment the words left her lovely lips, every projectile abruptly changed course toward a single point.
They streaked across the metropolis before gathering far beyond its walls, merging back into a single grotesque mass.
Lola did not stop there.
"Self-Union."
Pink mana spread across the sky, mirroring the earlier rain of flesh.
Every soldier it touched was knit back together.
Cells reunited.
Limbs reattached.
Gaping wounds closed as flesh reassembled itself.
Even those who had only just succumbed to blood loss had rivers of crimson surge back into their bodies, rushing to where they belonged before forcing silent hearts to beat once more.
She glanced downward.
A handful of soldiers were still desperately hurling spells at the skyborne abomination, but each attack merely tore it apart before its pieces fused back together, larger than before.
"Haah... troublesome."
Despite the despair unfolding below, her sigh soothed even the air around her, turning it into a gentle breeze.
"Now... who to choose..."
From her earlier display, it was clear that Lola's core abilities did not revolve around destruction...
...something this creature clearly required if it were to be put down once and for all.
As one who had mastered the concept of Lust, she excelled above all in a single aspect of it:
Union.
Lust was the union of two as well as the final act that bound two beings together. Yet the Mistress of Lust could manipulate that concept far beyond its carnal meaning.
She could unite anything.
That was why she could gather the scattered projectiles back into one.
That was why she could reunite something as microscopic as cells until a body became whole once more.
She called this phenomenon Togetherness.
Through Togetherness, she had become the greatest healer, the greatest support, and the greatest partner one could ever hope for.
What she could never become, however...
...was an absolute force of destruction.
Even so, as long as allies stood beside her, she would never run out of options.
"There you are..."
Her gaze finally settled on Ashen.
Even with her arrival, he had not stopped staring at the abomination overhead, his mind clearly searching for a way to bring it down.
"Good... that's my son."
A maternal smile graced her lips before she softly uttered,
"Togetherness~"
ZZZTTT
Tss... Tssss... Tsssss...
The crimson flesh suddenly began struggling against itself before an overwhelming force of compression descended upon it.
From every direction, scattered chunks of flesh flew back toward the central mass. The orbiting spheres, along with the grotesque lump she had previously gathered beyond the city, were dragged back as well.
No matter how violently it resisted, beneath her tyrannical will, the monster had only one choice.
To become whole once again.
That was not all.
Everything that had once belonged to 'Maria' was gathered.
Every strand of hair she had shed.
Every drop of saliva.
Every trace of her flesh.
Even her own waste.
Before long, every fragment that constituted the existence known as Maria had converged into a single point.
"Now... it's your turn~"
{Activated Path Skill: Inner Union: Lust's Embrace}
Below, Ashen, who had been contemplating whether striking that point would truly kill the creature or only make the situation worse, suddenly felt an invasive sensation.
An instant later, an unfamiliar current of pink mana flowed into his magic circuits.
As he watched his own mana eagerly intertwine with it...
...his face paled.
'What... is this?'
If the owner of this mana suddenly decided to detonate it, he'd be a goner.
The only reason he managed to keep his nerves in check was that the mana felt... familiar.
He raised his head toward the most likely culprit.
Up above, Lola von Habstein, the Mistress of Lust herself, was waving at him playfully.
He watched her lips form a little circle before flattening again and somehow understood the message.
'Give it your all~'
Right afterward, the quantity of pink mana flooding into him increased exponentially, threatening to burst his magic circuits.
Even more concerning...
He felt her will encroaching upon his own.
'Fuck... is she trying to kill me...?'
Mana Imperium flared to life, ready to wrest control of the foreign mana.
Surprisingly, it never needed to.
Her will merged with his just as their mana had.
It was so perfectly obedient that it followed his own mana's lead without the slightest resistance.
'I can work with this...'
Finally understanding the assignment, he assumed a familiar spear-throwing stance.
'Riven Convergence.'
The mixed mana unraveled into countless threads that rushed to reinforce his body.
Yet this time, with Trinity Harmony in place, the reinforcement felt fundamentally different.
As though the old method had merely been a crude imitation...
...and this was what true reinforcement looked like.
His spear gradually turned pink.
Then it alternated between blue and pink before returning to pink again.
As more mana poured into it, the shifts accelerated until the colors blurred together, finally settling into a vibrant magenta-purple.
Yet he continued feeding it.
'More... give me more...'
Lola answered like an indulgent mother, pouring more mana into him while inwardly marveling at his supreme mana control.
'How marvelous...'
She leisurely maintained the compression around the singular point of flesh despite its constant writhing, patiently waiting for him to reach his limit.
When he finally stopped asking for more mana, she assumed he had.
Except he hadn't.
A small magic circle manifested at the tip of the spear.
Then another, slightly larger than the first.
Then another.
Before long, a dozen multicolored circles traced a path through the air for the spear to follow.
'Sensory Lull...'
BANG—!
All six of his senses sealed themselves away at once.
The spear blazed with a brilliant hot pink, laced with deep blue undertones.
The price for forcibly elevating the lethality of his intent was being plunged into darkness once more.
It did not matter.
'...There.' A sweet voice whispered.
Even without sight, someone else would become his eyes.
Ashen never realized what happened next. He only knew that his body moved on its own beneath Alice's command.
'Blindstep...'
That was the final fragment of intent reaching him before the world seemed to freeze.
To everyone else...
It lasted only a fraction of a second.
Ashen's lips unconsciously moved to form a voiceless word.
Salvation.
And a brilliant white flash erupted.
Like Apollo 11 attempting to break free of Earth's atmosphere, the spear tore through each magic circle, accelerating with every one until it vanished beyond the limits of sight.
At its tip, Ashen's will and Lola's had become one...
United for the sole purpose of absolute annihilation.
And annihilation they achieved.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM—!!!!
Not only was the singular point of flesh erased from existence... So was everything lying beyond it along the same trajectory.
BOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!
BOOOOOOM!!!
BOOOM!!!
The explosion refused to cease.
Even after the spear pierced the clouds and tore toward the Shroud, it continued onward as though it intended to reach the heavens themselves.
Lola even had to restore the eardrums of every human in the vicinity...
Along with Ashen's now nonexistent hand.
"..."
"..."
Ashen slowly turned toward the primary culprit behind this entire spectacle.
She merely giggled and gave him another carefree wave.
"Good job~"