"We won...?"
Reise, who had just been resurrected by my Mercy power, lunged at Wakaba with her lower half missing and bit down on her.
Even though she'd been revived by Mercy, there was no way she could survive long in that state.
The moment Wakaba shook her off, Reise drew her last breath once again.
And I couldn't afford to miss that brief instant when Reise created that opening.
I hadn't charged in with some clever plan.
I just instinctively sensed that now was the only chance, and I raised my sword and rushed forward.
Wakaba's interception magic was blocked by Kathia's barrier.
Surely, through some combination of luck and coincidence, my sword reached Wakaba.
"Don't space out, kid! Get to the door! Hurry to the System core!"
Guen's roar came through telepathic communication.
Right! There's no time to stand around dazed!
With Wakaba defeated, the path to the door was open.
"You're not going anywhere!"
No—this person was still here.
The Demon King herself rose from her chair and stood before us.
But her complexion was terrible, and it was obvious she was pushing herself beyond her limits.
The power I could sense from her was weak.
She'd originally been far stronger than any of us, no doubt.
But for reasons I couldn't understand, she'd been drastically weakened.
If that was the case, maybe even we could beat her.
"We're pushing through!"
"Like I'd let you—ghh!"
The Demon King screamed, wringing out every last drop of her strength.
In the next instant, the aura that had been so feeble suddenly swelled with overwhelming force.
That pressure far surpassed that of the Queen Taratect!
Impossi...
She still had that kind of power...?!
"Guh!?"
But the Demon King immediately collapsed to the ground.
The intense aura that had surged so violently dissipated in an instant.
"U...ggh!"
The Demon King was straining her arms, trying to stand, but her body only trembled with convulsions—she couldn't get up.
It seemed that even after squeezing out her very last bit of strength, she was far too weakened to even rise to her feet.
"Thi... this! We... we can't afford to lose!"
Even speaking seemed to be agony for her, and the volume of her words was small.
But her resolve, her fighting spirit—it was enormous.
Too enormous.
This was the indomitable will of the Demon King who had fought alone against the entire world and made it this far.
Kathia was being pushed back by the sheer force of that spirit.
"Let's go."
I tapped Kathia on the shoulder and sprinted past the Demon King.
"Wait...! Wait—!"
With the Demon King's anguished cry at my back, I ran on without stopping.
Just as the Demon King had steeled her resolve to face this battle, I couldn't afford to stop here either.
Kathia and I arrived before the door together.
When I touched it, the door blazed with light and opened automatically on its own.
Beyond it lay a scene utterly unlike anything we'd seen before.
Unlike the cave, the floor, walls, and ceiling were all covered edge to edge with a magic circle.
"It's beautiful..."
Kathia let the words slip out involuntarily.
She was right—this room, blanketed in magic circles, was beautiful.
But when I saw the person at its center, that impression changed entirely.
"Proficiency has reached a certain threshold."
"Level has increased."
The same voice echoed countless times over.
It matched the Voice of the System that I had grown accustomed to hearing in this life.
The source of that voice was undoubtedly the woman floating at the center of the room, suspended as though crucified.
The woman's lower half simply did not exist.
And yet she was kept alive, forced here to keep reciting the System's words over and over.
She was—no, she was none other than the Goddess
This... this was how they treated a Goddess...?
The Goddess had been here, all alone, for who knew how long, supporting this world while her very body was being carved away.
The room I'd thought beautiful moments ago now looked like a foul prison.
...And even fouler than the prison was us—humanity—who had abandoned her here and tried to survive alone.
I finally understood why the Demon King had fought so desperately to set the Goddess free.
Seeing is believing.
No matter how many times you hear about the atrocities humanity committed against the Goddess, you can't truly grasp the horror unless you witness it with your own eyes.
And I was witnessing it right now.
"I'm sorry. Even so, I have to do this."
I spoke aloud, giving voice to my resolve.
For the sake of everyone who had sacrificed themselves along the way to get here.
I couldn't back down now.
I wanted to stop the System's collapse immediately, but how was I supposed to do that?
I had no idea what I was supposed to do once I got here.
If the Pope were here, he might have known what to do, but he was probably in no condition to move right now.
He'd used the Skill called Harmony—a Skill with an enormous recoil—to protect me from Wakaba's attack.
A Skill that left his entire body drenched in blood after a single use, and he'd activated it twice.
In the worst case, he might already be dead...
And it wasn't just the Pope.
Guen, who had thrown me forward at the very end, had also taken a brutal beating from Wakaba's attacks before that and lay crumpled on the ground.
Hyuban, Nia, and
Even as I hesitated here, someone could die at any moment.
There was nothing to do but try everything I could think of.
First things first—the Goddess, who was the first thing to catch my eye.
If I touched her body, maybe I'd learn something.
When they said the System core, maybe they meant the Goddess herself.
With that thought, I took a step forward. And right at that moment— Something fell from the ceiling.
It was a white spider.
About a meter long.
Roughly the same size as a Small Taratect—one of the Taratect species' young.
The white spider swung the sickle-like blades on its front legs.
"Guh!?"
I blocked with my sword, but the terrifying strength behind the blow sent both me and Kathia flying as if we were nothing— And just like that, I lost consciousness.