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"We know you're trying to create a Formation using the Dimensional Rift underground to summon the Presence and Consciousness of your evil goddess," Gustaf said. "But you're missing one last ingredient, aren't you? A Sinner."
"Hahah, I guess you know..." Soma nodded without lying. "I am indeed trying to accomplish that! However! It is not out of bad intent nor because I aim to harm anybody! It's the contrary! The moment my beloved mother descends upon this wretched land, she will liberate all people from their pain. Every single soul will be granted salvation and will live in eternal happiness by her side!"
"That's not true," Louis countered. "The truth behind your evil goddess is already well known. She is a starving creature that only desires to devour all life. She absorbs souls into her stomach, feeding them a false dream, a false heaven. The happiness she offers is nothing but a fabricated narrative, a fantasy."
"Hmmm..." Soma fixed Louis with his sharp, fox-like eyes. "Oh my dear prince, you seem to speak a lot of nonsense! Are you that much of a fanatic of your mother? Well, where is she now? Where is she? She's not coming to help any of these people; she's not bringing anybody to salvation. Your goddess is the false one—she's rotting away, dying, while all of her children fight to protect her! Is that a real goddess to you? Not at all!"
"Don't you dare speak the name of my wife!" Gustaf roared, his face contorted in rare fury. "This is my last warning, Soma Ferrera."
RUMBLE!
The Sixth Strongest Esper on Earth unleashed his Psychic Power. The surroundings flattened instantly. Cracks spread across the ground, and even Soma's Fantasy World Domain began to bend beneath the invisible force radiating from him.
Gustaf discarded his glasses and lab coat, loosened his tie, and prepared for battle. His eyes glowed completely gray, and white strands appeared in his black hair.
"Leave."
As Gustaf threatened him, Soma smiled brightly and laughed, opening the grimoire in his hands. Countless black runes began to manifest.
His response was...
"No."
In that instant, after hearing the refusal, an invisible force like a natural disaster descended upon Soma Ferrera.
A gigantic pressure split the sky and formed a small storm of thunder and wind.
At the same time, the nearby evacuated houses vanished as the invisible force consumed everything.
BOOOM!
Everyone froze as they witnessed the raw psychic might of Gustaf, Ranked Sixth among the strongest Espers in the world.
"Huhuh... How incredible. So this is the power of the Sixth Esper...!"
Soma was alive.
Laughing, covered in blood, kneeling on the ground. The floor beneath him had become a deep crater.
Black shadows wrapped around his body, forming hundreds of hands with crimson eyes.
His grimoire remained intact, glowing mysteriously.
"He's still alive after that?!" Mirai exclaimed in shock.
"That man is not human anymore...!" Zorba muttered. "Hahah... that's a monster wearing the skin of a man!"
"Haaa... How pitiful. Violence is the last thing you should ever consider when arguing with someone, my dear King..." Soma sighed.
Gustaf's face twisted. Then...
"Guuah?!"
He vomited blood, his body wracked with tremendous pain. His eyes locked onto Soma as a black sigil glowed above him out of nowhere.
"Father?!"
Louis rushed to his father, unable to comprehend what had happened. One moment his father stood tall; the next, he was kneeling.
Then realization struck.
"Damage Transfer?!"
One of the many abilities of the Compassion Spiral, originally meant to transfer damage to the user to heal another.
At Tier 4, this power could be reversed, returning up to 50% of the damage suffered by the Spiralwalker back to the attacker.
Thus, his father had received half the damage he inflicted on Soma.
"Do you know why I won't give up, Prince Louis?"
Soma stared directly at Louis. The prince groaned in agony, black blood pouring from his eyes, nose, mouth, and ears.
"Guaaaaah!"
"It's because my mother is watching..." Soma said. "I cannot prove my faith if I simply leave! Even if I must put my life on the line...! My faith must be relentless! Undying! I will save these people! And I won't stop until I accomplish my grand goal!"
"Y-You damn...! Crazy son of a bitch...!" Louis roared, expanding his Fantasy Aura and resisting the Stare of a Tier 4. "The only thing you wish for is for everyone to die! You damn lunatic! I'm going to kill you! I WILL KILL YOU, SOMA FERRERA!!!"
"Hmm, haha, how adorable... Children sure are full of themselves, right Gustaf? Oh? Are you alright? Should I heal you?" Soma asked from a distance.
Gustaf slowly patted his son's shoulder, using his psychic power to reverse Soma's influence on Louis in an instant.
"Father?! Wait, you're still...!"
"It's fine," Gustaf said quietly, glancing down at Soma. "Frostbane Kingdom's Knights, VPI Agents... Commence operations."
Before Soma Ferrera's wicked smile, over a hundred Knights and VPI Agents charged together. Spirits were summoned and unleashed elemental attacks. Large robots emerged from portals, firing missiles and beams of light. Espers hurled psychic assaults with all their strength until blood streamed from their noses and eyes. Knights advanced with their strongest Martial Arts, while Magicians and Shamans summoned the Elements of the World, powerful magic raining down upon the insane priest.
They knew Damage Transfer posed a constant threat. This is why robots, machinery, summoned spirits, and shamans' natural disasters were used to attack indirectly. Yet the Knights and Espers who fought him directly were sacrificing their lives.
"Hahah... Hahahaha! How beautiful!"
Soma laughed as countless attacks struck him. Explosions of every color bombarded his body, yet he remained standing, a wide smile on his face. His often-closed eyes opened, revealing pitch-black voids.
"Oh my dear mother, let us bring them all salvation."
A magic circle manifested beneath him. An eternal black shadow surged upward, and thousands of giant black hands emerged, attacking everyone around Soma.
The first to fall were the Summoned Elemental Spirits—creatures of pure elemental energy exploding one by one.
Then the machines were crushed into fragments by his countless Abyssal Hands.
Dozens of knights and Espers followed, crushed into masses of flesh.
"Aaaah! How wonderful!"
Zorba laughed as he summoned all his Zombies and sent them forward. His two strongest attacked Soma with powerful strikes, only for their limbs to explode in contact. Then dozens of hands seized their bodies and twisted them apart into countless pieces.
"It doesn't matter! WITH ALL THESE INGREDIENTS HERE!!!"
Zorba laughed, blood streaming from his eyes and nose. His black aura surged. The countless bodies of the fallen rose from the ground and began assembling into monstrous abominations, stitched together.
"How disgusting..." Soma said, showing genuine anger for the first time as he looked at Zorba—a wielder of the Desecrated Soul Spiral, the complete opposite of the Spiral of Compassion. "A monster like you doesn't deserve salvation but judgment!"
As this unfolded, Gustaf rushed forward. Helena emerged from the skies at the same moment—she had arrived slightly late but immediately joined forces with Gustaf, their Psychic Power perfectly synchronized.
"Gustaf! What is that bastard doing with the people?!"
"Leave him be. We'll punish him later, but we need every bit of strength we can get!"
"D-Damn it!"
Helena was revolted and furious at Zorba's actions, yet she had to admit his Necromancy was buying them time. Soma, enraged by him, ignored everyone else and focused solely on Zorba's creations.
"Your majesty, will you be alright?!"
"It'll be fine. Go meet your friend, Melisa."
Louis released Melisa. She ran through a portal created by an agent using a Dimensional Stone, entering the deepest level of the VPI where the people of Nameless Streets and the Capital were being rapidly evacuated.
Gustaf and Louis had planned for the worst. They immediately enacted the contingency to move everyone underground to the lowest level, a place designed to withstand nuclear warfare or attacks from countless Grievances.
As the portal closed behind her, Louis looked at Soma with pure disdain. Mirai stood by his side, concern etched across her face.
"Louis, are you okay? You were bleeding—"
"I'm fine. Mirai, are you ready? We might die here."
"Yes... I am ready."
She didn't hesitate.
"But I have a request..."
"...What?"
"If we survive..."
Mirai glanced at the terrifying battle raging behind them, explosions reverberating in the distance. She looked back at Louis.
"W-Would you go on a date with me?"
"..."
The words had clearly taken immense courage.
Louis honestly didn't know what to say.
But he laughed.
Not at her, but at the sheer absurdity of the moment.
"Couldn't you have asked for that at another time?"
"This time... was the only time I could muster the courage."
Louis closed his eyes for a moment, regulating his breathing. Ashen Frost manifested as scales across his body. He began to transform slowly, fusing with his Incarnation and the two other Incarnation Fragments.
"Indeed, you're the protagonist after all."
"Huh?"
Louis recalled how the protagonist in the game always asked out the characters she was interested in. Once their bond reached maximum level, they would begin a relationship.
After the time skip, they would marry, and by the game's end, the protagonist and her chosen partner would have a child.
Or at least, that was how the "happy ending" routes usually concluded.
Louis knew that rejecting her now would be too anticlimactic and might diminish her fighting spirit.
"Very well... if we survive, and win... I promise to go on a date with you."
It was indeed a ridiculous request in such a dire situation.
But it was also a Promise.
Mirai nodded, her Aura surging with greater power than ever before.
"Although we've spent only two weeks together... I've learned a lot about you, Prince Louis...!" Mirai said, smiling at him. "You were not the ideal prince I secretly hoped you to be..."
"Is that so?" Louis finished transforming. His Aura surged with the combined force of three different Spirals.
"But even then... the real you, as flawed as you are, is the man I... I like..." she murmured.
"Hah... you're such a foolish girl," Louis said, shaking his head. "Easily enamored..."
"I want to know more of the real you..." Mirai said, her eyes full of hope and blazing with demonic flames. "That's why we have to win no matter what."
"Indeed," Louis agreed. "Our power... might not even be capable of doing a single thing against him, and yet we have to try. Because what else can we do now except fight and die?"
"Winning, of course!" Mirai declared.
"Hah, I wonder if I could give myself the privilege of winning..." Louis said with a bitter smile, glancing back at the Castle his Mother had built. "Let's try."
Thus, the battle for the fate of the Frostbane Kingdom began once more.
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