Yes.
The life force of Wallenstein has vanished from the battlefield.
To put it in the blunt terms: the veteran assassin Wallenstein was dead.
Even a seasoned warrior like Ouma Kurogane found it difficult to maintain his usual stoic composure before such a bizarre scene.
Cold sweat broke out across his skin, chilling him despite the heat of the conflict.
The massive ōdachi materialized in his grip, the blade shimmering with latent power. He grabbed the hilt with both hands, adopting a low stance of vigilance against an unknown threat.
A few paces away, Amene Shinomiya stood in a state of bewilderment.
His mind raced, struggling to process the impossible.
'Why had Master Wallenstein not killed the Calamity yet? What was the cause of this suffocating silence?'
"..."
The blond youth opened his mouth to call out a warning, but in that exact breath, Wallenstein's imposing body twisted.
Before their horrified gazes, the assassin folded in on himself, as if seized by a pair of invisible hands.
His limbs and facial features contorted into a grotesque fleshy spiral, tangling together with the sickening sounds of snapping bone and tearing cartilage.
At a single glance, the crumpled mass of flesh and fabric no longer resembled a human being in the slightest.
"Eek!"
Amene's expression paled to the color of ash.
What happened?
Could a human body even sustain such a physical deformation?
He was .... dead.
One of the esteemed Twelve Apostles of Rebellion, the One-Armed Sword Saint, had fallen in the blink of an eye!
The dark-haired boy had done nothing more than touch his face.
What kind of forbidden power could reduce a grown man to such a mangled state?
Faced with the grotesque corpse, Amene could not comprehend the grim reality unfolding in front of him.
Raw terror gripped his heart.
The only certainty in his mind was the unspeakable horror presented before his eyes.
"K-Kurogane-kun... Take care of that guy! There is something strange about him! We cannot let him live!" Amene shrieked, his voice cracking under the strain.
In his mind's eye, Amene seemed to glimpse a looming phantom lurking in the shadows behind Noah.
Possessing the unique Noble Art, Goddess's Excessive Grace, allowed the youth to prophesy future events and read the flow of fate to a certain degree.
Yet, until this very moment, he had never witnessed such a terrifying vision.
It felt like a divine revelation.
Even the Goddess herself could not permit that thing to exist in this world.
Amene lost all semblance of his former composure.
In his blind panic, he made a fatal error in judgment: he used a shrill, commanding tone with Ouma Kurogane.
An overwhelming wave of killing intent swept over the area from the swordsman, jolting the blond youth back to his senses like a splash of freezing water.
Amene fell silent, biting his tongue.
Unbothered by the pathetic outburst, Ouma stepped forward, his eyes locked on Noah.
Noah watched the approaching swordsman through a hazy, fractured consciousness.
His core body temperature spiked to dangerous levels, his brain felt ready to cook inside his own skull.
Intricate threads of crimson blood bloomed within his pale blue pupils, clouding his vision.
He exhaled a ragged breath.
Shedding the constraints of gravity, he drifted like a wandering ghost to Stella's side.
Seeing his battered bleeding state, the crimson-haired girl felt her momentary relief give way to a deep agonizing concern.
"Noah!"
She knew the boy had accomplished the impossible, and in this world, such miraculous feats always demanded a heavy price.
Noting her panicked expression, Noah wanted to offer words of comfort, but his vocal cords refused to cooperate, and his strength failed him.
Instead, he directed the last reserves of his waning power toward the motionless form of Nene Saikyo.
He opened his trembling palm toward her small frame, and a breathtaking miracle unfolded.
Brilliant golden threads rose from the depths of the Yakshahime's broken body.
They intertwined like a master weaver's loom, stitching together the torn flesh and shattered bone that had been split in two.
'How is that possible!' Amene's eyes widened in sheer fury.
He pushed his predictive ability to its maximum limit, seeking a countermeasure, but his magic had zero effect on the boy's actions.
Noah noticed Amene's desperate interference.
He felt nothing but cold disdain for the attempt. In standard mana control, human mistakes and environmental errors remained an inevitable part of the process.
The Spell-Weaver, however, operated on an entirely different set of fundamental rules.
It originated from his very core.
Every outcome produced by its effects was an inescapable certainty, errors and spell misfires did not exist within its domain.
Nene had never lost consciousness during the ordeal.
Her severe injuries had just rendered her immobile.
Everyone present on the battlefield had underestimated her resilience.
For an existence that transcended the normal boundaries of fate, such physical damage fell far short of a fatal wound.
Yet, watching the golden threads, she felt a sense of astonishment.
This bizarre ability bypassed the standard laws of healing magic, it was an act of pure creation and construction!
Her damaged body was undergoing a complete reconstruction from the inside out.
The Yakshahime grew excited, a fierce grin forming on her mending lips.
'My, my, this is far too interesting! This little brat is like a walking Pandora's box. I want to rip it open and see what kind of secrets hide inside!'
But for now… she had other pressing priorities.
The simmering embers of her battle rage flared into a roaring inferno.
Pitch-black mana erupted from her small frame, shaking the ground.
Nene Saikyo was revived, returning to her peak condition!
Noah lacked the requisite strength to reconstruct his own failing body.
Even if he managed to piece himself together, he possessed zero offensive power to defeat the remaining three enemies.
To prevent Wallenstein's twisted spirit from becoming a lingering source of mental corruption, Noah had preemptively shattered the man's soul before delivering the final killing blow, terminating the physical transformation halfway.
His magic reserves were spent, drained to the last drop.
Reviving the Yakshahime was the only viable tactic left to turn the tables on the Rebellion.
"Time's up," Noah murmured, his voice a mere whisper in the wind.
He coughed up a thick mouthful of dark blood as his internal body systems commenced a cascading failure.
Gritting his teeth against the shock, he collapsed to his knees.
His forehead struck the shattered earth with a dull thud, but the searing, white-hot pain radiating from his magical core eclipsed the minor scrape on his skin.
Agony.
The overwhelming pain blurred the thin line between unending torture and a twisted, feverish euphoria.
He had never felt his own existence with such sharp clarity.
It went far beyond heart-wrenching agony, human life itself could not endure such torment without shattering.
He was going to die.
But he would live to see the dawn.
[Denier] Grants immunity to one instance of fatal damage and purges all abnormal statuses. Activates once every 24 hours.
The moment death's embrace arrived, Noah felt a wave of peace wash over him.
He wondered if this serene emptiness mirrored the standard afterlife experience, but the deep relaxation felt so intoxicating he wanted to remain still in the dark void forever.
Thump!
A heavy pressure landed on his chest, anchoring him to the physical realm.
A warm soaking sensation followed.
He heard faint crying—the familiar voice of the girl he listened to every single day for the past two years.
But the exhaustion weighed him down, and he could not wake up to comfort her.
Despite the darkness, he knew with absolute certainty he was not dead.
The magical damage to his projection proved too severe for an instant recovery.
Although the Denier skill successfully restored his consciousness and purged his abnormal physical statuses, returning his base stats to peak health, regaining his actual mobility would take time.
Lying there in the dark risked total immersion in this addictive post-death euphoria.
This ease is dangerous.
Following the sheer agony he had just experienced, pulling his mind away from the peaceful void felt like a monumental task.
Noah mused on the sensation for a brief moment, steeling his resolve, and decided to dispel the projection binding his mind.
The sacrificial offering was complete.
Only the final chant remained to seal the act.
"Yog-Sothoth."
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