Chapter 773 Fujimaru... Dead?
It was as if everything had returned to the beginning. In the depths of an unknown forest, the Savior of Humanity and the Beast Goddess crossed blades once more.
[SET (Load)]
[MoonCancer·King of the Moon Cell]
As the goddess's pupils contracted, a violet-black aura expanded outward. Everything it touched rapidly turned to stone—the signature ability of the monstrous creature known as "Gorgon." Under those terrifying petrifying mystic eyes, beings with low magical resistance would turn to stone unconditionally. Even those with magic resistance would suffer nearly unbearable pressure!
A streak of light flashed as heavy armor manifested layer upon layer over the young man's body, greatly weakening the mystic eyes' interference. In an instant, he transformed into a charging chariot. The black holy sword roared ferociously as it cleaved through the writhing serpentine hair in one stroke, then smoothly swung forward for another.
Clang!
The serpent's tail met the blade, producing a metallic ring. The recoil shot straight up Fujimaru's arm, but he used the momentum to twist aside, dodging Gorgon's attack while pressing forward again:
"Gorgon!!!"
Facing Fujimaru's roar, the purple-haired goddess remained silent, as if she had surrendered all reason to her bestial nature, attacking mindlessly. Soon, the edge of a war scythe swept horizontally from left to right. The gust of wind lifted Anna's black robe, revealing a flash of pale skin before it vanished, leaving only the sharp glint in her violet eyes lingering.
Of the two combatants, perhaps only her resolve was absolute.
If her other self had fallen into darkness, then she would personally exorcise it!
"Merlin!" The call made the sage, who had been observing from the sidelines, freeze momentarily before his expression softened.
"Have you had enough, Anna? Shall I release the divinity you've suppressed until now?"
"Yes, I permit it." The girl brushed her hand across her forehead, and a hairband concealed by illusion appeared, only to dissolve into motes of light moments later. "Fujimaru, lend me your strength!"
Fujimaru, who had been holding the front line, turned back in surprise. Not just him—even Gorgon suddenly focused on Anna, who had released some kind of restriction, and waves finally stirred in her eyes. Under everyone's gaze, rings of mystery spiraled into existence, spreading in all directions and taking the form of a fortress.
Under this divine power, Anna reopened her eyes. Those amethyst-like orbs now gleamed with rectangular mystic light.
The form symbolizing the highest grade of mystic eyes—identical to that of the Beast Goddess, Gorgon!
"Her mystic eyes will be canceled by mine!" The fierce wind exposed Anna's skin and face, but the timid little girl could no longer be described as merely pretty or cute. Those soul-piercing mystic eyes even made Gorgon's expression turn grave.
The crushing pressure of the petrifying mystic eyes had been nullified!
As the pressure abruptly lightened, Fujimaru felt their power flowing smoothly again. After a barely perceptible hesitation, they twisted their wrist and decisively released the holy sword's restriction:
"Hammer of the Vile King, reverse the light of dawn, devour all radiance—Excalibur Morgan!"
Black draconic energy skimmed along the ground, kicking up earth and stone over ten meters high as it surged toward the Beast Goddess with visible destruction in its wake.
A Noble Phantasm without charging would be blocked by the goddess. Seizing the brief moment when she was restrained, he would use displacement magecraft to move behind Ms. Gorgon, attempt one last communication, and if that failed, fully unleash the power of the Moon-Cell's King to end the battle as swiftly as possible...
Fujimaru nervously calculated the possibilities, organizing his thoughts in the blink of an eye. But when the powerful beam of light struck its target, his mind went completely blank.
"Why...?"
It pierced through.
An attack that should have been easily blocked—yet Gorgon made no attempt to stop it. Instead, she relinquished control over her serpentine hair, allowing the roaring black radiance to tear through her abdomen!
Blood rained down like a storm. Amid the goddess's mournful cry, her golden wings shattered, and her elegantly curved body collapsed to the ground.
The malevolent aura surrounding the goddess dissipated. Only then, in their dazed stupor, did the people realize her true weakened state.
"How could this...?" Even Anna widened her beautiful eyes at such an unexpected outcome. She stared intently at Gorgon's face, and when she caught the faint glimpse of relief in her expression, her pupils trembled violently.
Divinity condensed in an instant. Fujimaru only felt a gust of wind beside him as Anna, cloaked in her mantle, rushed to Gorgon's side. Instinctively, she pressed her hands against the wound, but the gash left by the holy sword was nearly as large as her own body. Furious, Anna clenched her small pink fists and struck Gorgon hard.
"You idiot! Why would you do this?! You weren't even under control!"
"Heh..." Gorgon let out a weak, breathless laugh. Old wounds unhealed, new ones added—even with her formidable constitution, her divine core as a goddess was on the verge of shattering. Even with death just a step away, her face still wore that same look of serenity.
"My Authority ultimately belongs to Tiamat. It cannot be controlled by my will. Now that she has awakened, as long as I live, I will be forced to endlessly produce demonic beasts."
Anna froze for a moment, but her anger quickly returned. "Then you could have returned to Uruk! With Fujimaru and Sakatsuki there, they would have found a way to help you!"
"No..." Gorgon shook her head. "I could never go back."
"From the moment the first demonic beast was born, I lost all right to step foot in Uruk again."
The forest fell silent. At the center of the ever-expanding pool of blood, the Beast Goddess wore a bitter smile as she whispered, like a dream, to the tiny goddess in her arms:
"Did you know... when I was in Uruk, I once helped a little girl find an amulet left behind by her father. But the amulet wasn't lost—it had been hidden by the girl's neighbors. And the reason they did that..."
Gorgon closed her eyes. Even now, the memory made her heart ache. "...was because her father had been killed by demonic beasts."
"I see." Fujimaru overheard Gorgon's confession. He pressed his lips together, his gaze complicated. "So that's why Ms. Gorgon was so desperate to leave the city back then."
What right did the murderer of countless humans have to remain in the peaceful city of Uruk?
"I am a sinner. Every demonic beast in this Singularity was born from me. I killed Uruk's soldiers... Back then, I couldn't even bear to look into that little girl's grateful eyes."
The bleeding hadn't stopped. Gorgon's pupils were already beginning to dilate, but when she lowered her head to look at Anna, that delicate face appeared clearer than ever before, finally making her aware of fate's call.
"So that's it... I remember now."
At some point, the winged serpents formed from half of Gorgon's divinity had coiled around Anna's neck, pressing against her cheeks and affectionately flicking their tongues. Anna tilted her head slightly in discomfort, only to meet Gorgon's gentle gaze. Her body stiffened instantly, unsure how to react.
"Don't be afraid. I can finally see you clearly." Looking at the petite and endearing little goddess, Gorgon actually smiled. "You're different from me. You're innocent—the purest version of us."
"You... you remember?!" Anna's face lit up with joy at Gorgon's words, but it quickly dimmed again.
What good would remembering do? Gorgon... was already dying...
"Don't cry for me, kind-hearted me." Spiritron light rose as Gorgon calmly embraced her end. Anna hung her head low, unaware that Gorgon's serpent tail had draped behind her, silently transferring vast amounts of divinity.
"Please walk on in my stead—whether to atone or to protect humanity." As her massive divine form dissipated, only the goddess's soft plea lingered in the air. "Take care of Fujimaru for me..."
"Miss Gorgon!" Fujimaru's nose stung. He hadn't expected Gorgon to think of him in her final moments and couldn't help but step forward. But just then, Merlin's expression suddenly changed, an unprecedented look of terror crossing his face.
"Damn it, I should've realized sooner—Fujimaru, Anna, we need to leave now!"
The usually lazy sage showed no hesitation this time. With a sweep of his staff, surging magical energy rippled out. In mere seconds, a grand teleportation array—one that would take even a Grand Magi hours to construct—materialized, enveloping the stunned Anna and Fujimaru as if ready to depart.
But when an eerie fluctuation rippled through the air, the grand teleportation array let out a groan of strain before shattering into scattered petals the next instant!
The light illuminated Merlin's grim expression. Just as Fujimaru was about to speak, someone tugged at his sleeve. He looked down to find Anna wearing the same horrified expression as Merlin, her trembling finger pointing skyward.
"Fu... Fujimaru, look at the sky!"
Fujimaru instinctively looked up—but before his vision could process anything, an earth-shattering roar exploded in his mind.
CRACK! CRACK!!!
When his vision finally caught up, the sight before him made the boy's pupils contract, freezing him in place like a statue.
The world was collapsing!
The once-clear blue sky now resembled a fragile glass wall being smashed apart. Amid the flying shards, a void-like darkness seeped through the cracks. Yet within that abyssal blackness, an enormous silhouette began to emerge.
Curved horns, a dragon's body covered in hard scales, deep blue hair writhing like thorny whips, and those indifferent, crimson cross-shaped pupils that burned like calamitous stars—
Wait! Were those eyes... growing brighter...?
This was Fujimaru's last coherent thought before his consciousness faded into darkness.
The Absolute Demonic Front, Uruk
With Siduri joining the workforce, the efficiency of the throne room skyrocketed. Countless documents and decrees flew like snowflakes to their respective destinations—the sudden relief from the overwhelming workload allowed a certain king to secretly breathe a sigh of relief. Freed from the threat of overwork, his back no longer ached, his legs no longer hurt, and he even found time to flirt with his best friend.
Unfortunately, the voodoo doll Ishtar had secretly made seemed to have worked its magic. No sooner had he caught a break than devastating news came crashing down on him.
"Wha—Fujimaru Ritsuka?!"
A shocked exclamation rang out. Even the usually unflappable Gilgamesh couldn't help but rise from his throne at the sight of the unconscious boy carried into the palace by the priests. Pushing through the crowd, he strode to Fujimaru's side in three quick steps, took a closer look, and gasped in astonishment:
"He's still alive?!"
Though the words might have seemed offensive, no one around showed any displeasure—instead, they nodded vigorously in agreement.
Indeed, surviving this defied all natural laws.
A horrifying circular wound gaped in Fujimaru's chest. Though the blood had evaporated instantly upon contact, forming a scab, anyone could see that the boy's heart had completely and utterly vanished.
How could a human possibly live without a heart?!
Snapping back to reality, Gilgamesh lunged at Merlin like an enraged golden lion, roaring, "You bastard! How could you let Fujimaru Ritsuka suffer such a fatal injury?!"
"What could I do? I'm just as desperate!" Merlin wailed, the very picture of wronged innocence. "Who could've predicted Tiamat would appear right after Gorgon died?! My Spirit Origin couldn't stop her!"
"Mother?"
"Tiamat?"
Gilgamesh and Enkidu exchanged glances before speaking in unison: "You encountered Her?!"
"Hey, now's not the time for that!" Anna, hopping anxiously nearby, interjected. "Fujimaru's about to die!"
Though information about Tiamat was crucial, if the last Master were to perish, Human Order itself would collapse—forget about fixing the Singularity.
"Hey, Chaldea," Gilgamesh circled Fujimaru, brows furrowed in bewilderment. "Any ideas? How is he maintaining this state?"
"Honestly, we don't understand it either," the doctor in the control room replied, rubbing his temples—he had just been resuscitated from a heart attack. "For a moment, I really thought it was over..."
"It wasn't your doing?"
"Of course not! No matter how capable we are, we couldn't possibly block an attack from Tiamat—ah, Da Vinci just came out of the simulator... Whoa!"
With the doctor's startled cry, a clear, feminine voice took over the communication: "No time for explanations. Here's the conclusion—Fujimaru is still alive because of the Class Card [Mooncell Automaton]."
"Mooncell Automaton? Wasn't that the Master's power...?" Enkidu pondered for a moment before suddenly realizing. "Wait—could it be the Third Magic?"
"Bingo! That's right!" the Universal Genius declared. "The Third Magic—Materialization of the Soul—is precisely why Fujimaru didn't perish despite losing his heart."
Huff... Just as everyone breathed a sigh of relief, Da Vinci promptly poured cold water on their hopes. "However, there are limits to this. After all, it's not Fujimaru who wields the Third Magic, but that Class Card. In other words..."
"In other words, once Fujimaru's magical energy is exhausted, there will be no way to save him," the doctor cut in urgently, grabbing the microphone. "King Gilgamesh, though it may be presumptuous, does your Gate of Babylon possess any treasures capable of reviving Fujimaru?"
"Regrettably, I cannot provide one," Gilgamesh shook his head. "The elixirs of immortality in my possession all come with restrictions. If they interfere with the Third Magic's operation before taking effect, the loss would outweigh the gain."
After a pause, he added, "Moreover, why should I intervene? Isn't the one who can untie the bell right before your eyes?"
"You mean..." The doctor caught on, suddenly relaxing.
That young man possessed a certain magic about him—as if any problem would be effortlessly resolved once he took action.
"Indeed, that is my thought as well," Gilgamesh smirked, then clapped his hands.
"Summon that chef to the palace!"