What the hell?!
Goetia felt like he had just seen a ghost!
If his reaction in his Solomon form could be described as confused and bewildered, then right now, as Beast I, he was experiencing pure, unadulterated "terror"!
That's right! Terror!
'Was that slash just pure speed?'
'No, no! It's absolutely impossible for that to be just speed!'
'At the very least, it involved... causality reversal? Spatial overlapping? Teleportation?!'
'My mind and thoughts actually lagged the moment he struck. It felt like my very perception of time was slowed down... A Reality Marble?!'
'Every single swing of his sword creates and destroys a localized Reality Marble, forcefully interfering with my connection to the world and my own perception! It was like my physical body was thrown into one dimension while my consciousness was dragged into another... No, wait! There's something else—'
Reconstructing a new physical body from the scattered chunks of flesh a safe distance away, Goetia locked his gaze onto the [Sword of the Heart] in Takumi's hand.
'That sword is actively interfering with my mind?!'
'Not only is my perceived time being disrupted... the actual, physical flow of time around my body is being actively slowed down...!'
Realizing the terrifying mechanics behind the attack, Goetia felt a chill run down his spine.
Even though he had managed to systematically analyze and break down Takumi's abilities, what good did it do?
If it were just one or two of those abilities, he might have been able to formulate a countermeasure. But with all of them flawlessly combined into a single, cohesive combat style? Even if Goetia racked his hyper-intelligent brain, he couldn't think of a single viable way to counter it in a direct clash.
'I can't win a straightforward fight. My only option now is...'
Goetia silently clenched his fists.
Wait!
Goetia's eyes narrowed. He suddenly noticed a peculiar change in Takumi's state.
The blazing [Heart of Fire] had suddenly extinguished. His plasma-like hair had reverted to its normal black color. His chest was heaving slightly more noticeably. His grip on the sword tightened involuntarily, and the deep-blue glow in his eyes flickered, dimming for a fraction of a second. Yet, Takumi kept his eyes dead-locked on him, as if waiting to see what he would do next...
"Hahahahahaha!"
"I see! I understand perfectly now! While I admit your previous assault was truly impossible to counter, maintaining that level of output must place an unimaginable, crippling burden on your human vessel, doesn't it?!"
Goetia immediately deduced the situation, pointing a mocking finger at Takumi and laughing uproariously.
He had been so rattled by the sheer, terrifying suppression of Takumi's ultimate attack that he hadn't noticed it at first. But thinking about it logically: an attack capable of effortlessly suppressing Beast I couldn't possibly come without a massive cost!
It wasn't that every single one of Takumi's standard attacks was that absurdly powerful; it was that Takumi had to utilize his absolute maximum output to suppress and kill him as fast as possible!
"Heh. So, let me guess. How many more times can you execute that specific attack? Once? Twice?"
To gauge Takumi's reaction, Goetia deliberately lowballed the number.
Takumi didn't answer.
He simply stood his ground, staring at the Beast. He adjusted his grip on his sword slightly, but made no move to attack.
Keenly catching that subtle micro-movement, Goetia sneered internally. The mocking, disdainful look returned to his eyes.
With a mere thought, clusters of black light materialized around Goetia. Dozens of dark-red magical beams, each over five meters in radius, rained down toward Takumi's position.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
A series of deafening explosions rocked the temple floor, but not a single beam hit its target. Long before the attacks even landed, Takumi had already sprinted out of the blast zone.
This only cemented Goetia's theory!
Furthermore, if Goetia wasn't mistaken, Takumi had been constantly using the power of "Death" to probe his conceptual structure. Even now, he hadn't given up observing him.
Why was Takumi so stubbornly relying on the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception? Was it because hacking him to death with raw speed was too sudden?
No, there was only one logical explanation!
Takumi's raw power, and even his Mystic Eyes, were fundamentally incapable of breaching Goetia's conceptual Immortality within the Time Temple!
Honestly, he should have realized it sooner. Aside from the absurd baseline durability of his Demon God King form, the nature of his "Immortality" was entirely different from other entities. Not only was he intrinsically linked to the seventy-two Demon God Pillars—meaning as long as even one Pillar survived, he could instantly regenerate—but more terrifyingly, the entire Grand Temple of Time itself was an extension of his "body"!
In other words, to truly kill him, Takumi would have to completely obliterate the entire Grand Temple of Time!
But what level of absurd firepower would it take to completely obliterate an auto-regenerating "conceptual universe"?
Right now, the only thing Goetia could think of capable of doing that was his own Band of Light.
Realizing Takumi essentially had no win condition, Goetia's absolute confidence returned. His tense posture completely relaxed.
—Since there's no way to counter his burst attacks anyway, I might as well relax. He can't kill me.
"Hahahaha! I was wondering why you went through the trouble of summoning all those Heroic Spirits. I see your plan now. You intended to use their combined strength to wipe out the Demon God Pillars while simultaneously engaging me, effectively severing my lifelines to secure a kill, correct?"
Goetia looked down at Takumi with a mocking sneer.
"Let me tell you, if you truly believed disrupting our grand undertaking would be that simple, you are incredibly naive. However... I have no intention of even giving you the chance to struggle."
Saying this, Goetia raised his hand.
Seeing the motion, Takumi's pupils violently constricted. He instinctively took a step forward, but immediately stopped himself.
Catching the reaction, Goetia smiled slyly.
"[Nega-Summon]. I assume you are familiar with this specific Authority?"
After witnessing the Demon God Pillars suffer multiple, entirely unexpected defeats, Goetia—serving as their collective consciousness—was naturally far more cautious than his original counterpart.
Relying on the power of friendship and bonds to defeat him?
Keep dreaming!
He absolutely wouldn't give Takumi the chance!
"Speaking of which, that bizarre power currently empowering you only exists because of their presence, correct?"
Goetia pointed at the "shooting stars" orbiting Takumi. He could clearly sense the massive parameter boost they provided.
"But no matter how miraculous that power may be, if every single Servant outside is forcibly dismissed, you won't be able to maintain it, will you?"
Without waiting for Takumi's response, Goetia continued, a look of sadistic amusement flashing in his eyes.
"—And don't even think about blitzing me right now. Slicing this body to pieces won't stop me from using [Nega-Summon]. This Authority is exclusive to me; I can activate it with a mere thought!"
Seemingly anticipating Takumi's intention to strike while he was talking, Goetia suddenly sped up his sentence and raised his voice.
He wasn't lying. [Nega-Summon] truly only required a single thought to deploy. It would instantly shatter every summoning formula in the temple and forcefully banish every Servant back to the Throne of Heroes. Even if Takumi hacked him to pieces, the Authority would still trigger.
Which meant...
Takumi stood frozen in place, glaring at him, his fingers nervously tapping against the hilt of his sword.
"Checkmate, Foreigner!"
Seeing the profound unwillingness and frustration in Takumi's eyes, Goetia narrowed his own, his tone practically dripping with smug satisfaction.
With that, Goetia prepared to snap his fingers and activate [Nega-Summon].
And right at that exact moment.
A black shadow suddenly materialized directly behind Goetia.
"?!"
Goetia's single red eye violently constricted.
"—[The Angel That Announces Death]!"
A chilling, ethereal blue sword flash carved straight through Goetia's back.
But before the conceptual effect could even begin to manifest, the infuriated Goetia whipped around and delivered a devastating backhand punch, violently blasting King Hassan away.
Furthermore, the exact second the punch landed, the passive effect of [Nega-Summon] completely shattered King Hassan's summoning formula. As the heavily armored Grand Assassin flew backward, his physical vessel immediately began to dissolve into golden spirit particles.
But in an area Goetia failed to notice...
The exact moment the armored figure was blasted backward, the blue ghost-fire burning within his skull-visor shifted, locking directly onto Takumi's position.
'This is the final lesson!'
For the fourth time, King Hassan directed that profound, instructive gaze toward him.
Takumi didn't miss it.
Reflected perfectly within his fiery pupils was the memory of the previous strike, perfectly overlaid with King Hassan's current, ultimate technique. Takumi absorbed every single nuance, staring blankly ahead as a profound realization hit him.
I see... So that's how it works...
***
Meanwhile, outside the throne room.
Sensing their Spirit Origins rapidly destabilizing and realizing they would be forcibly banished in a matter of seconds, Jeanne and the other Servants couldn't help but stop their attacks, looking anxiously toward Takumi's direction.
'Please... let our efforts be enough to help him...!'
They all knew they weren't the protagonists of this specific battle. Everything rested on Takumi's shoulders now.
"Tch. I suppose this outcome was inevitable."
Looking down at his rapidly fading, transparent hands, Gilgamesh clicked his tongue in annoyance.
Having continuously deployed Ea since his arrival, he had already noticed that the Noble Phantasm's destructive output was being severely dampened and suppressed by some overarching Authority. Otherwise, how could a weapon capable of tearing apart reality fail to completely obliterate a single sector?
The other Servants felt it too. While they had virtually limitless mana thanks to the Heart of Fire, every time their Noble Phantasms struck the Demon God Pillars or the temple floor, the resulting damage was noticeably nerfed.
"Eh? We have to leave already? [[(>_<)]]"
Tiamat, who had hastily crafted a temporary Servant vessel just to manifest here, was also caught in the area of effect of [Nega-Summon]. Realizing she was being forcefully evicted, she immediately pouted, clearly incredibly unhappy.
The Demon God Pillars, having just been absolutely brutalized by a fully unleashed Gilgamesh: "..."
Thank God that Beast of Regression only came here to simp for the Foreigner and didn't actually fight us. Otherwise...
Having already endured the absolute peak of human firepower, the Demon God Pillars couldn't even bear to imagine how brutal things would have gotten.
***
Back in the throne room, the orchestrator of this mass banishment, having recovered from his brief moment of panic, felt only insulted fury and overwhelming disdain.
What a joke! Did you really think landing that sneak attack would accomplish anything?!
[Nega-Summon] possessed the absolute Authority to entirely nullify, absorb, or drastically weaken any Noble Phantasm—the very symbol of a Heroic Spirit! Even if Goetia had just stood there and taken the hit, King Hassan, operating within a standard Servant vessel, fundamentally lacked the conceptual weight to actually harm him!
To think he actually managed to startle me for a second... Completely unreasonable! Absolutely unforgivable!
Goetia cast an annoyed glare at the dissipating golden particles that used to be King Hassan. Then, he immediately turned his attention back to Takumi, fully expecting to see the Foreigner completely broken by despair.
Instead... his body instinctively tensed up.
It was the primal reaction of a beast encountering its natural predator, the undeniable premonition of absolute death...
'But how is that possible?!'
Goetia's eye widened in sheer disbelief. He possessed the omnipotence to completely command the laws of heaven and earth! He was an almighty entity that even King Solomon had failed to reach!
How could I possibly be feeling this kind of terror?!
—Then, he noticed the "shooting stars" still actively orbiting Takumi's body.
Wait! My [Nega-Summon] has already fully activated! The Heroic Spirits have all been banished! So why hasn't that bizarre power surrounding him disappeared?!
Under his shocked, bewildered, and deeply confused gaze, the ethereal blue light burning within Takumi's fiery pupils suddenly grew infinitely more intense and mesmerizing.
[Skill Altered]
[Mystic Eyes of Death Perception - True (A)]-> [Mystic Eyes of Death Perception - True (—)]!
It was true. King Hassan's final strike hadn't inflicted a single point of damage on Goetia. But—
If neither of them possessed the firepower to actually damage Goetia... why did King Hassan bother attacking him in the first place?
Takumi could clearly see the "Lines of Death" on the physical body Goetia had manifested. He could cut them flawlessly. He had already tried it twice, successfully "killing" the vessel both times. Yet, Goetia simply manifested a brand new body, completely unharmed.
This was entirely different from the situations with Kingu and Tiamat, leaving Takumi genuinely feeling stuck—until he noticed King Hassan perfectly executing his stealth approach.
A massive burden?
Even if he didn't regenerate a single drop of stamina or mana, Takumi could casually execute his previous hyper-speed barrage another hundred times without breaking a sweat.
Using the Servants to destroy the Pillars and sever his lifelines?
Fully aware of the [Nega-Summon] Authority, Takumi had never once considered that a viable strategy.
Assuming his buffs would vanish the moment the Servants were banished?
The Flames of Connection possessed the absolute conceptual weight to pierce through the boundaries of space and time.
As long as the Servants still believed in him and genuinely wished to lend him their strength, even if they were separated by endless galaxies and entirely different dimensions, the [Miracle] would continue to empower Takumi.
Every single one of Goetia's arrogant deductions was completely, fundamentally wrong.
The only reason Takumi had stood there in silence, playing along with Goetia's villainous monologue without launching a single attack... was purely to act as a distraction so King Hassan could successfully maneuver into position.
And then.
He witnessed King Hassan's seemingly completely ineffective strike.
Even if Goetia didn't possess [Nega-Summon], King Hassan was currently manifesting with a standard Spirit Origin. He no longer held his Grand title. How could he possibly inflict lasting conceptual damage on an entity operating on the exact same apocalyptic tier as Tiamat?
Furthermore, Goetia's physical vessel already possessed the concept of "Death." What good did it do to forcibly impose the concept of death on something that could already die?
That was the realization. He had been approaching this entire battle from the wrong angle!
Takumi's true target wasn't just "Goetia." It was the entirety of the Grand Temple of Time, including all seventy-two Demon God Pillars that formed its foundation!
Literally speaking, he had to completely and utterly burn the Grand Temple of Time to ash!
Without a microsecond of hesitation, Takumi turned and bolted.
A full-speed, absolute sprint!
He didn't even spare a final glance at the golden Demon God King. He simply bolted straight out of the throne room.
Simultaneously.
Goetia didn't hesitate either.
Driven by the overwhelming, paralyzing threat of impending death, Goetia instantly initiated the ultimate attack he had been secretly charging this entire time.
His Third Noble Phantasm, fully deployed.
By the heat of the planet, I hereby declare the end of humanity—
Did anyone genuinely believe Goetia had completely bought into Takumi's act of helpless despair?
Just as Takumi found Goetia's Immortality incredibly troublesome, Goetia found Takumi's very existence equally horrifying!
Talking so much?
That was merely to buy enough time to fully charge his Third Noble Phantasm! He had been constantly accumulating mana while monologuing.
The probing attacks?
Those were highly concentrated, targeted tracking beams. Yet, they had completely failed to even lock onto Takumi's afterimage.
After that brief exchange, Goetia understood with absolute certainty: standard attacks were fundamentally useless against Takumi. Even landing a single glancing blow was a delusional fantasy.
Now that Takumi—the only entity currently capable of genuinely threatening his life—had utilized his absolute top speed to sprint outside the throne room, did Goetia really need to think twice about what to do next?
[The Time of Birth hath Come, He is the One who Masters All (Ars Almadel Salomonis)]!
Target: The absolute entirety of the Grand Temple of Time. Omnidirectional, total coverage!!!
—I will absolutely not allow you to ruin our grand undertaking!!!
Goetia let out a silent, furious roar.
***
BOOOOOOOOM——!!!
The "sky" instantly transformed into a blinding, sickly white expanse tinged with a horrifying, apocalyptic red.
Sprinting at absolute top speed, Takumi glanced up. The suffocating white light was perfectly reflected in his pupils.
The band of light that announced the end of humanity. An incomprehensible convergence of hundreds of millions of individual beams of light, every single one possessing destructive power equal to the A-Rank Noble Phantasm, Excalibur.
There was absolutely nothing on Earth capable of surpassing the sheer, apocalyptic heat generated by this Noble Phantasm.
This was the true, terrifying reality of Goetia's Third Noble Phantasm.
Takumi had constantly run simulations based on a terrifying hypothesis:
If the attack that completely vaporized Mash in the game wasn't actually the Noble Phantasm's maximum output... what do I do?
If the fully deployed 'Great Light Ring' is actually massive enough to completely engulf the entirety of the Grand Temple of Time... what do I do?
How am I supposed to defeat Goetia then?
And now, Takumi's terrifying hypothesis had become reality.
As for his answer... he had formulated it a long time ago: A race against time.
If he wanted to survive and return home, he had to absolutely minimize the amount of time he spent exposed to the direct bombardment of the omnidirectional Human Order Cannon. Every single second, every single millisecond, had to be ruthlessly optimized!
[My Heart Remains Thus (A++)]!
Pushing his defensive output to its absolute, absolute limit, an impenetrable barrier enveloped Takumi like a perfectly sealed eggshell.
He had been meticulously preparing for this exact moment. Even his reckless decision to face-tank the Lion King's divine judgment back in Camelot had been a calculated test run. Everything was specifically designed to ensure he could survive the full, unmitigated bombardment of the Human Order Cannon.
The Beast's Domain II, the Information Room.
A fraction of a second before the Human Order Cannon made full contact, Takumi arrived.
Guided by the absolute perception of his [Mystic Eyes of Death Perception], Takumi swung his world-severing sword.
The Information Room—Detached.
Orias, Vapula, Zagan, Flauros... Conceptually severed.
Executing the two flawless strikes, Takumi didn't pause for a microsecond. He instantly bolted toward his next target.
Simultaneously.
The apocalyptic bombardment of the Human Order Cannon finally descended upon him—
Ugh...!!!
His upper and lower teeth slammed violently together. A muffled, agonized groan tore itself from his throat.
CRACK... CRACK... CRACK!
The exact microsecond he left the absolute safety of his shield, it felt as if an entire mountain range had been violently dropped directly onto his head. Under the unimaginable, crushing pressure, his flesh compressed agonizingly, and every single bone in his body screamed in protest.
Takumi, who had been sprinting across the "ground," was instantly, violently driven deep into the earth.
HRAAAAGH—!
Letting out a silent, furious roar, Takumi desperately channeled every last ounce of physical strength his body possessed, forcibly pushing back against the apocalyptic pressure of the Human Order Cannon to drag himself back onto the surface!
But... this was the absolute, accumulated weight of three thousand years of human history.
His movements became agonizingly slow, like a turtle wading through molasses.
The absolute, crushing power of three thousand years of history beat down upon him from above and surrounded him on all sides. Submerged entirely within a torrent of light capable of instantly incinerating any physical matter on Earth, Takumi—who believed his speed had reached the absolute zenith of physical capability—had never run this incredibly slowly in his life.
Every single step felt exactly like trying to sprint at full speed while submerged entirely in a vat of non-Newtonian fluid. Unimaginable, suffocating resistance violently suppressed him from every conceivable angle.
Thud, thud, thud...
Takumi kept running, his boots shattering the rippling, unstable fabric of space beneath him with every agonizing step.
There was no sound. There was no visibility. His vision was entirely consumed by an incredibly pale, blindingly bright "color." Engulfed entirely by the light of the Incineration of Humanity, the world around him had practically been reduced to absolute "Nothingness."
The exact microsecond his defensive barrier failed, he would be instantly, flawlessly incinerated into nothingness.
Yet, the Miracle continued to manifest.
[Heads up!][The tracks are running.][Across the plains, where shadows hide...]
The lingering, ethereal song continued to echo faintly in his ears.
Terrifying, apocalyptic waves of heat managed to bleed through the outer layers of his flag's defense, searing his physical body.
'This feels exactly like a carp trying to leap over the Dragon Gate...'
Except the carp wasn't swimming through water. It was swimming through a raging waterfall of pure, super-heated magma.
Takumi felt exactly like a fish desperately swimming through a magma waterfall, stubbornly forcing its way toward the absolute peak.
A fish that couldn't see a single thing, yet refused to stop swimming.
Fortunately, the "shooting stars" orbiting him weren't just providing a massive parameter buff; they were actively, flawlessly guiding his path.
Fortunately, his fully awakened [Mystic Eyes of Death Perception] didn't require physical eyesight to "see" the conceptual Lines.
Takumi swung his sword again.
The Beast's Domain I, the Melting Furnace—Detached.
Naberius, Zepar, Bathin... Conceptually severed.
Time felt as if it had been stretched to absolute infinity. Every single second felt as agonizingly long as an entire year.
Should I run away?
Takumi couldn't help but ask himself.
If he truly wanted to escape, it would honestly be the easiest thing in the world.
While his "intangibility" ability had a fatal flaw—if he deactivated it while still submerged in the light, he would be instantly incinerated—the five seconds of absolute invulnerability it provided was more than enough time for him to fully escape the blast radius.
His mind felt like it had gone completely blank, running on pure instinct. But his body had already definitively made its choice.
Two more swings of the sword.
The Beast's Domain III, the Observation Room—Detached.
Forneus, Glasya-Labolas, Bune... Conceptually severed.
He didn't want to run away anymore.
Keep running.
The flag in his hand emitted agonizing, terrifying creaking sounds. Every single cell in his body felt as if it were screaming in absolute, overburdened agony.
Should I swing my sword to temporarily cleave the light apart and catch my breath for a second?
Utterly exhausted, the thought briefly crossed Takumi's mind.
No.
Running against the apocalyptic current, constantly accumulating the kinetic energy required to sever the Demon God Pillars' connections, and systematically destroying the nodal points of the Beast's Domains was already taking absolutely every ounce of his focus and stamina. Wasting energy swinging his sword to part the light would only waste precious time.
Takumi swung his sword.
The Beast's Domain IV, the Control Tower—Detached.
Barbatos, Paimon, Buer... Conceptually severed.
Running toward the next target.
'I'm so tired... I'm so incredibly tired... I'm so exhausted I literally want to cry...'
It felt exactly like a completely out-of-shape student being forced to sprint a thousand meters at gunpoint. Tears and snot were streaming down his face, completely beyond his conscious control.
Takumi desperately tried to think about anything else to distract himself from the agonizing, all-consuming pain.
His battle strategy was incredibly simple. Since Goetia's unified, collective form was fundamentally impossible to breach, he just needed to systematically sever his "body" into smaller, isolated segments, and then "kill" those segments one by one!
In other words: Isolate, then execute.
Swing.
The Beast's Domain V, the Armory—Detached.
Halphas, Furfur, Marchosias... Conceptually severed.
In truth, this entire battle was an incredibly high-stakes, apocalyptic gamble.
Deploying the "Great Light Ring" in such a reckless, unmitigated manner obviously inflicted massive, conceptual damage upon Goetia and the Pillars themselves.
The only reason they weren't instantly incinerated was because, as the owners of the Noble Phantasm, they possessed a significant degree of conceptual immunity to its effects.
Therefore, Goetia was gambling his entire existence on one absolute certainty: he would successfully vaporize Takumi before the Human Order Cannon completely obliterated the Grand Temple of Time.
Takumi didn't dare gamble on that same outcome.
His only option was to bet absolutely everything on his ability to completely dismantle Goetia before his own defensive barrier shattered.
It was a terrifying, apocalyptic game of chicken where neither side could afford to flinch.
Therefore... Swing!
The Beast's Domain VI, the Voyeur Tube—Detached.
Amon, Baal, Agares... Conceptually severed.
He wasn't truly running anymore. Under these absolute, apocalyptic conditions, Takumi hadn't taken a single breath in what felt like hours.
Thanks to the [Protection of the World's End] and the [Blessing of the Stars], his mana reserves were constantly, endlessly replenishing. But his physical stamina and mental fortitude were rapidly, violently draining away, like water pouring out of a bucket with a massive hole in the bottom.
His eyes felt like they were being physically roasted over an open flame, sending waves of agonizing, stabbing pain straight to his brain, making him want to squeeze them shut and never open them again.
His limbs felt like they had been injected with solid lead. Every single agonizing step required him to forcefully command every muscle in his body.
His chest, his lungs, his internal organs... everything felt like it was actively burning from the inside out. Piercing, unimaginable agony violently assaulted his brain, making his already sluggish thoughts feel incredibly heavy and muddled.
CRACK—CRACKLE...!
Under the terrifying, apocalyptic pressure, massive fissures began to spider-web across the pole of his flag. A few tiny, glowing fragments violently chipped off the shaft.
'Ah... so even you can't hold out much longer...'
Looking at the weapon that had been his constant, unwavering companion since the First Singularity, Takumi felt a sudden, sharp ache in his chest.
'Just hold on a little longer. Please. Just a little longer... please...'
Gently rubbing his thumb across the rapidly expanding cracks on the pole, Takumi prayed silently in his heart.
Why only a little longer?
Because—
'Goetia... you're actually terrified, aren't you...'
Takumi smiled. It was a complex, painfully strained smile.
Sensing that distinct, undeniable emotion radiating through the void, Takumi suddenly found a hidden, final reserve of strength from deep within himself—he could already clearly see the absolute victory line.
Goetia's "human-like" intelligence and consciousness were fundamentally driven and maintained by impulsive, primal emotions like [Anger] and [Resentment]. He didn't truly, genuinely possess the complex emotional spectrum of a living human.
But under the relentless, soul-piercing strikes of the [Sword of the Heart], as his Domains were systematically severed and destroyed, and as his absolute connection to the dying Demon God Pillars was forcefully severed... Goetia had finally, genuinely experienced true human emotions: Absolute Terror, and a desperate, pathetic yearning for "Life."
Swing.
The Beast's Domain VIII, the Wastehole—Detached.
Andromalius, Murmur, Gremory... Conceptually severed.
Swing.
The Beast's Domain VII, the Life Institute—Detached.
Sabnock, Shax, Vine... Conceptually severed.
The blood in his veins was boiling. His entire body felt like it was burning up, yet he was simultaneously shivering from a bizarre, inexplicable chill. He couldn't even force his eyes open anymore. His limbs felt entirely numb, completely devoid of strength.
After consecutively severing the final two nodal points, Takumi honestly had absolutely no idea how he had managed to drag himself to the final, absolute "Core."
But feeling the violently trembling flag in his hand—now covered entirely in dense, glowing fissures and constantly shedding fragments—Takumi knew exactly what he had to do.
It was time for the final swing.
The exact microsecond he brought the sword down, through his blurred, fading consciousness, Takumi thought he heard Goetia's terrified, apocalyptic roar—and the unified, deafening battle cry of countless voices urging him forward: "GO!"
The sword fell.
VMMMMM—
The apocalyptic torrent of light that had completely engulfed the Grand Temple of Time violently froze. It began to rapidly compress, shrinking inward at terrifying speed, until it finally, completely vanished without a trace.
SHATTER!
The exact second the light faded, the flag in Takumi's hand violently exploded, shattering into countless, glowing fragments that scattered into the void.
In that final, absolute moment, completely devoid of all physical and mental strength, Takumi could no longer control his body. Like a kite with its string brutally cut, carried entirely by residual momentum and the fading shockwave of the light, he plummeted helplessly into the abyss below.
[97 seconds. 17 slashes. So... this is your ultimate end...]
Goetia...