"Now, what do you have left to say?" Takeru stood beside MagnaAngemon, bathed in holy light as intense as solar flames, looking down from a superior position.
It was all over now.
The current Joe had no remaining means to reverse the situation. The Apocalymon mark, Dagomon, his kidnapped mother... all potential variables had been utterly erased by the most unreasonable force of all, the 'Hope' Crest, which could explain away everything.
"Hah, haha, ahahahahaha!"
Joe looked up at Takeru from below, gazing at that majestic, sacred, towering figure, and laughed. He laughed maniacally, twistedly, hysterically.
"Since I was a child, I was always the most unnoticeable one in the crowd. Average grades, average height, plain looks, not even a single so-called special talent."
"Back then, I wondered, why is the world so unfair? Why, despite putting in so much effort, I still couldn't catch up to even the faintest shadow of people like you?"
Takeru frowned slightly, looking coldly at Joe.
He didn't understand why Joe was saying all this now. But as the 'hero', the 'protagonist', he felt he should grudgingly listen to the final words of the villain.
Joe glanced at Takeru, a meaningful smile curling his lips, and continued his monologue.
"Later, I understood."
"In this world, there exist things called talent, bloodline, luck, and family background."
"I put in ten times the effort you did, just to get into a prestigious private school, secure a scholarship, and eventually become an ordinary salaryman."
"And you? You just sit at home, writing pretentious words, strumming a half-learned guitar, sighing over spring and grieving for autumn, yet you can sit in the same classroom as me. One day, you might even become my direct superior."
"This chasm between us is called 'Class'!"
The smile on Joe's lips grew increasingly sarcastic and bitter. Streams of thick black aura continuously flowed from between his fingers and palms, silently tracing a mysterious hexagram on the ground.
"Becoming a Chosen Child should have been the greatest opportunity of my life, a precious experience gained by using up all my luck just this once."
"But you, so lightly and effortlessly, shattered my illusion once again."
Joe looked at MagnaAngemon, not hiding the envy in his eyes in the slightest.
"A Champion-level Digimon capable of fighting Devimon, an extremely rare Holy-type, and you got it."
"The evolution trigger I fought for with my life, you obtained just by watching us get beaten up and yelling a couple of times."
"What did you sacrifice? Nothing! You were born with everything. Destiny favors you, the world pampers you. Even when I accounted for everything, you could still pull a cliché comeback, pinning me to the floor and trampling me at will."
"This chasm between you and me is called 'Fate'!"
Joe laughed self-deprecatingly, straightening his chest under the pressure of the holy light.
He raised his right hand high, pointing at Takeru hovering in the air.
"Now, use your 'Hope' to tell me, what does my defeat by these two chasms have to do with you?"
"You…!" Takeru's face turned pale, he was speechless.
Hope is an emotion that requires confidence and strength even in adversity, believing miracles will happen.
Hearing this as a child, it felt incredibly inspiring, stirring the blood. Growing up, you realize it's all nonsense. To escape adversity, what you need is courage and knowledge. The courage to charge through difficulties, the knowledge to find the way.
Believing miracles will happen?
Humanity's progress from primitive civilization to its current state was never built on miracles. It was courage that allowed us to fight beasts and contend with nature. It was knowledge that enabled us to create tools and erect skyscrapers from the ground.
Miracles? Who believes in that stuff used to fool children?
From Joe's perspective:
Courage? After obtaining the Apocalymon mark, there was nothing left to fear.
Knowledge? Interlocking schemes, well-planned rhetoric, deeply hidden cunning… he lacked none of that.
So why couldn't he defeat this damned 'Hope'?
The answer was obvious.
"What you rely on is just the will behind the Digital World! It has nothing to do with you, nothing to do with hope! All your miracles are pre-arranged!" Joe laughed wildly, shouting.
"Shut up!" Takeru's emotions erupted at this moment. He didn't dare think too deeply, as he was afraid of being swayed by Joe's words.
If even he stopped believing in the power of Hope, MagnaAngemon, who had evolved to the Ultimate-level, might very well degenerate back to its initial form.
"Don't you dare try to bewitch me, you Apocalymon-corrupted fiend! MagnaAngemon, no more talk, defeat him!" A cold light flashed in Takeru's eyes as he waved his hand, commanding the MagnaAngemon beside him.
"Finally can't hold back from attacking? Good. But it's too late." Joe sneered, an endless black aura emerging behind him.
The hexagram traced on the ground was fully completed, shimmering with a profound dark luster as it materialized in the void.
"Thanks to your hypocritical sense of justice, listening to all my rambling."
"Do you know why I sought you out, why I must kill you at any cost?" Joe licked his lips, his eyes filled entirely with envy and madness.
"Because just seeing you makes me recall our adventure ten years ago. Every bit of you being favored by destiny replays in my mind."
"Envy, endless envy, envy vaster than the abyss, continuously born from the depths of my heart alongside these images!"
Now, everything was truly about to end.
Joe laughed unrestrainedly as the black aura behind him gradually wove into an incredibly thick giant cocoon.
The cocoon enveloped Dagomon's body, constantly reforming and restructuring it. The power of emotion washed over its source code again and again.
The endless fires of envy even surpassed the limits an ordinary Ultimate-level Digimon could withstand.
Only that one... one of the Seven Great Demon Lords, the Beast of the End symbolizing Envy, Leviamon, descend!
As the black aura dissipated, a primitive-looking giant beast, entirely crimson-red with long, ferocious pointed jaws and eyes flashing with savage light, slowly emerged from the rolling black fog.
Takeru's pupils contracted sharply, his gaze immediately fixing on the giant beast.
Judging by appearance alone, it seemed no different from an ordinary Mega-level Digimon. Like Joe, Leviamon possessed the most mediocre exterior.
But within, Leviamon, representing 'Envy', possessed abyssal jaws capable of devouring the Digital World. Its ambition could extend infinitely, reaching the ends of the world, the end of the universe.
Joe stood atop Leviamon, looking down upon Takeru from an even more superior position.
"Now, your hope is useless."
"My power is named 'Envy'. The first thing it devours is Hope."