...
{3rd Pov}
Zero floated high above the ground, watching the chaos unfold beneath him.
From the skies, he observed the scene with an unreadable expression, his golden eyes gleaming faintly in the dim light.
There was no anger, no excitement—just a calm, neutral gaze that seemed to take in everything without judgment.
Then, slowly, a faint smile tugged at the corner of his lips.
"I really thought he would change," he muttered under his breath, his voice carrying a strange mix of amusement and disappointment.
"After everything I put him through… after all the trials, the suffering, the manipulation… after I went out of my way to play the villain, to shatter their alliance, to make him question everything and everyone—" he paused, a small chuckle escaping him, "—I honestly believed that this Natsuki Subaru, the Subaru of this timeline, would finally understand."
His eyes narrowed slightly, glinting with a sharp light as he continued, his tone shifting between mockery and admiration.
"I thought he'd finally realize who deserves to be saved… and who doesn't."
Then his expression changed again.
The faint smile widened into a grin, one that carried both satisfaction and twisted pride.
"But this…" he said, spreading his arms wide, his voice growing louder, carried away by his amusement.
"This completely exceeded my expectations!"
He laughed quietly, watching the spreading black miasma devour the city below.
There was something about the sight that seemed to thrill him—like a man who had been proven wrong in the most spectacular way possible, and yet couldn't help but enjoy it.
If anyone else had been standing beside him—someone more level-headed, someone less blinded by admiration for Subaru—they might have scolded him right there.
They would have called him reckless, accused him of going too far, of pushing things beyond what was necessary.
But no such person was present.
The only ones around Subaru—the only ones who truly remained close to him—were people utterly devoted to him in one way or another.
Whether through love, loyalty, or sheer obsession, all three who stood by Subaru's side were the same.
They were either complete Subaru fanatics, or individuals who simply couldn't see a world that existed without him.
They didn't care about the consequences.
Not even a little.
The destruction, the panic, the innocent lives about to be caught in the chaos—none of it seemed to bother them in the slightest.
Their faces, their composure, their tone—none of it showed a hint of hesitation or guilt.
Did they look like people who gave a fuck about what was going to happen?
Not at all.
"Innocent people will die… yes," Subaru admitted bluntly, his voice calm, almost casual, as if he were simply stating a fact instead of acknowledging the deaths of countless civilians.
Then, with a faint smirk, he added, "But it doesn't matter. I can just bring them back in the end. I can resurrect them all once it's over."
There was no remorse in his tone, only determination—twisted, but firm.
"To make him understand," Subaru continued, his eyes narrowing with grim resolve, "to make him realize what's truly wrong, I have to go this far. If that means becoming the villain in this story, then so be it. I'll play that role myself."
As he spoke, Gloria stepped forward beside him, the air around her trembling faintly as her weapon began to materialize.
In a burst of energy, her massive axe appeared in her hands, the blade glowing with a faint aura.
"Father," she said with a slight pout, her tone half-playful, half-impatient, "can I be done with all this waiting already? I really want to fight! Just once, please, let me go all out!"
Her enthusiasm was almost childlike, her battle lust barely restrained.
Subaru turned his gaze toward her, the edge in his expression softening for a brief moment.
He reached out his hand and gently patted her head, his voice lowering into something very affectionate.
"There, there, Gloria," he said, as if soothing a restless child and not the world's strongest spirit.
"We're not here to fight—at least, not yet. But…" His eyes glinted faintly as he continued, "if things go south, if battle becomes unavoidable… then you can go wild. No one will stop you."
Gloria hesitated for a moment before nodding, her expression a mixture of obedience and disappointment.
She clearly wasn't satisfied with the answer, but she chose to listen regardless.
Her grip on the axe tightened, and though her face remained calm, her eyes burned with barely contained excitement.
Then Subaru lowered his gaze toward the ground below, his expression unreadable as the Witch's miasma continued to expand, blanketing the entire area in a suffocating wave of corruption.
The effect was immediate and horrifying.
All around, people began to lose control of themselves.
The thick, dark haze invaded their minds, twisting their sanity until nothing recognizable remained. Those strong enough to resist for a few seconds soon fell to madness.
Some turned on each other, their screams echoing through the streets as they slaughtered friends, family, and strangers alike in blind rage.
Others—the weaker ones—collapsed to the ground, their bodies convulsing violently as if their very souls were being ripped apart.
Their veins bulged grotesquely, darkening beneath their skin until, one by one, they stopped moving.
It was chaos.
True, uncontrollable chaos.
Subaru watched it all unfold with an unsettling calmness.
Then, slowly, he raised both his arms outward, his voice loud enough to echo across the city.
"Let the world know pain," he declared, his tone carrying a mix of mockery and grim finality.
For a moment, he waited, almost expectantly—as if he were anticipating someone to react, someone to understand the line he'd just quoted.
But when no one did, when all he heard were the screams of madness and death below, he sighed, his expression shifting into mild disappointment.
"Seriously?" he muttered under his breath.
"Not a single one got the reference."
Shaking his head slightly, he refocused, the faint trace of amusement returning to his face.
His voice grew colder, the smirk on his lips widening as he spread his hands further.
"Anyway…" he said, his tone now laced with dark satisfaction, "let the purge begin."
And with that single command, the city descended completely into despair.
...
Satella's presence alone was enough to drive the world into madness.
She didn't need to move, speak, or even act—simply existing there was a catastrophe.
Her miasma, thick and suffocating like a living darkness, spread through the air and consumed everything it touched.
The weaker ones died instantly, their bodies unable to withstand the overwhelming corruption that gnawed at their souls.
The stronger individuals weren't spared either; instead of dying, they lost their sanity, turning their weapons—and their hands—on one another in uncontrollable frenzy.
Among those who succumbed to the madness was Felix.
The ever-smiling healer(Pun intented), the knight with the heart of charcoal, was now nothing more than a puppet of chaos.
His mind snapped under the influence, and his eyes—once full of warmth—turned wild and bloodshot.
Crusch was the unfortunate one standing near him.
She reached out, perhaps to steady him, perhaps to calm him down—but Felix lunged before she could even speak.
Grabbing a large rock from the debris-littered ground, he slammed it down onto her head with all his strength.
Once.
Twice.
Again and again.
The brutal sound of stone colliding with flesh and bone echoed through the air.
Blood splattered across the dirt, and with each strike, the rock grew slick with crimson.
Crusch's skull gave way under the relentless assault, her brain matter bursting outward, spraying in all directions.
Her eyes bulged grotesquely, then popped from their sockets as her body went limp beneath him.
By the time she stopped moving, her face was no longer recognizable—just a broken ruin of what once was a proud and noble woman.
Then, as suddenly as it began, the haze over Felix's mind started to fade.
His breathing hitched, his trembling hands still holding the blood-covered rock.
He blinked, once, twice, his expression shifting from rage to horror as he looked down at the lifeless body beneath him.
"No… no, this can't be…" he whispered, his voice cracking, shaking with disbelief.
His knees buckled, and he dropped the rock, staring at his bloodied hands as though they belonged to someone else.
"Felix hasn't done this! No! No! It can't be real!" he screamed, clutching his head as tears and blood mixed on his face.
"Crusch-sama! CRUSCH-SAMA!"
His cry tore through the chaos—raw, broken, and utterly hopeless.
Anastasia was barely holding herself together. Even with Julius standing protectively in front of her, she could feel her chest tightening as if the very air had turned solid. The six quasi-spirits under Julius's command worked frantically, forming a powerful magical barrier around them—a shimmering dome of light designed to hold back the Witch's spreading miasma. Yet even within that protective field, the oppressive atmosphere was unbearable. The air felt heavy, toxic, suffocating.
"Damn it! This can't be happening!" Julius snarled through gritted teeth. Sweat beaded on his forehead as he focused every bit of his strength on maintaining the spell, his jaw clenched from both strain and fury.
"T-That… that's definitely—" Anastasia stammered, her voice trembling as her eyes darted toward the dark horizon where the black fog continued to spread. Her face turned pale, the color draining completely as she whispered the word that had been stuck in her throat. "—The Witch."
The moment she said it, even Julius faltered for an instant.
And then, without warning, a voice echoed through their minds. It wasn't just sound—it was a presence, intrusive and unmistakable, slipping straight into their consciousness as if the air itself had started speaking.
"How ya all doing?"
Both Julius and Anastasia froze. That tone—mocking, casual, and irritatingly familiar. They recognized it immediately.
"Zero…" Julius muttered under his breath, his expression twisting with both shock and anger.
Yes. The voice belonged to Zero—the Sin Archbishop of Pride, the Witch Hunter, and more terrifyingly, the future version of Natsuki Subaru himself.
"For those who still don't know," the voice continued with exaggerated amusement, "the Witch of Envy has been officially unsealed."
A chill ran down everyone's spine.
Those who heard it, whether they were soldiers, knights, or ordinary citizens, all felt the same creeping dread crawl over them.
Even the strongest among them felt the instinctive urge to run.
"And pffftttt…" the voice added, letting out a laugh that was half-genuine, half-taunting, "guess who's responsible for this little disaster?"
There was a pause—just long enough for the tension to build—before Zero's voice rang out again, sharper, more mocking.
"The ones to blame are none other than the three Royal Camps participating in Lugunica's Royal Selection!" he declared with twisted delight.
"That's right! The Crusch camp, the Anastasia camp, and the Felt camp! Congratulations, everyone, this one's on you!"
The moment Anastasia heard those words, her entire body went cold.
Her throat felt dry, and her hands began to tremble uncontrollably.
'Me?',she thought, her mind racing.
'I'm the reason the Witch appeared? How? Why?'
Her thoughts spiraled into confusion and fear.
Was Zero just trying to manipulate them—to turn the citizens against each other and Royal Camps for his own amusement and great goals?
Or… was there some truth hidden within his words?
Something none of them had realized yet?
Either way, the damage was already done.
Doubt had been sown—and in this chaos, even a whisper could spark a war.
"It's really simple," the voice said, sounding almost cheerful, as if what he was describing were nothing more than a casual story.
"I attacked Priestella with my goons—the very same people you all know and fear as the Sin Archbishops of the Witch Cult."
The moment those words echoed across the world, everything descended into confusion.
People everywhere, except for those still trapped inside Priestella, began to panic.
Shocked murmurs spread like wildfire as the reality of the situation set in.
A Sin Archbishop—someone who should only be able to act within a certain area—was somehow speaking directly into the minds of everyone?
No spell, no magic, no ability was known to them to be capable of that.
"Then," the voice continued, brimming with smug pride, "I offered the so-called Sage Candidate, Natsuki Subaru, a chance to join me in my grand little plan for world domination. I even went out of my way to weave a few convincing lies, just to make it more interesting."
The one speaking—Zero, the Sin Archbishop of Pride—sounded genuinely pleased with himself, as if his deception had been nothing but a well-played game.
Anastasia felt her breath hitch.
Julius clenched his jaw, his usually calm composure cracking for the first time.
The two exchanged a brief glance, and both felt the same sinking realization hit them like a knife to the gut.
'It had been a lie.'
From the very beginning.
Every word, every supposed truth about Subaru's intentions—it had all been crafted by Pride.
Manipulated.
Controlled.
Julius's hands trembled, his guilt eating away at him.
He could feel it twisting deep inside his chest, the weight of the fact that they had doubted Subaru, that they had allowed themselves to be misled.
Anastasia's expression was no better—her face pale, her lips pressed into a thin line as she struggled to process it all.
Meanwhile, far from them, in the midst of the battlefield, Reinhardt came to a halt mid-swing.
His eyes widened in shock as the realization hit him like a divine strike.
Zero wasn't lying.
'He… he's telling the truth?' Reinhardt thought, his grip on Reid tightening.
'He has the ability to deceive even my Divine Protections? That shouldn't be possible… unless…' His mind raced, trying to make sense of the impossibility before him.
'No. We were wrong from the very beginning.'
But even as that thought formed, it clashed with everything else he knew.
None of it aligned.
There were contradictions that refused to be ignored—like Reina and Gloria's very existence.
They shouldn't have been possible.
And yet, they were standing there, living proof of something far beyond his understanding.
And above all, one fact haunted him more than anything else.
Two Reids—two holy swords that should never exist simultaneously—were present in this world at the same time.
"Uhhhh! That was real fun!" the voice rang out again, filled with mocking laughter and unrestrained amusement.
"You see, our dear leader—the one and only Witch of Vainglory, Pandora—she's got this neat little trick! She can manipulate reality to a certain degree. Pretty impressive, huh? So, using that, I just made everyone believe that I was some kind of future version of Subaru! Hahahaha! Can you imagine their faces when they fell for it? Absolutely priceless!"
His laughter echoed everywhere—loud, cruel, and dripping with arrogance.
The mocking tone alone was enough to send chills down spines.
Every single person who heard it, from commoners to nobles, from knights to kings, froze in place.
In the council chamber, the Wise Men who had been listening to Julius's previous reports nearly toppled from their seats.
Their eyes went wide in disbelief, their expressions a mix of confusion and horror.
The revelation shattered everything they thought they understood.
Pride continued speaking, his tone shifting from gleeful mockery to theatrical excitement, as if he were narrating a story to an audience.
"Now then! You all know the legend, right? Our world once had three great heroes who stood together to seal away the Witch of Envy! The Sword Saint! The Dragon God! And the Great Sage!"
He spoke the names with exaggerated enthusiasm, each one rolling off his tongue like lines from a play he'd rehearsed a thousand times.
The very names invoked memories of old tales—stories every child in Lugunica grew up hearing.
"But here's the fun part," Pride continued, his tone lowering slightly, the excitement in his voice turning into something far darker.
"The Witch of Envy isn't just powerful. Oh no, that's not what makes her terrifying."
There was a brief pause.
"It's because she's immortal."
The word echoed in every mind, followed by his cruel laugh.
"You can't kill her," he said, each word deliberate, sharp, and heavy with certainty.
"No matter how many times you strike her down, no matter how many times you destroy her body, she comes back. And each time she does, she's stronger than before! So tell me—how do you stop something that can't die?"
The moment the words left his mouth, the entire world seemed to react.
Gasps, shouts, and horrified murmurs erupted across every nation.
Those who were seated jumped to their feet in shock, their faces pale as the horrifying truth sank in.
In Vollachia, Emperor Vincent stood abruptly from his throne, his hands trembling slightly despite his effort to remain composed.
His usually calm, analytical eyes were wide with disbelief.
"You've got to be kidding me," he muttered under his breath, the disbelief in his tone clear.
But deep down, he knew it wasn't a joke.
The laughter echoing in his mind was proof enough—this was no bluff.
The Witch of Envy had returned, and this time… there might be no sealing her away again.
"Her seal," Pride began, his voice filled with an almost theatrical amusement, "is maintained by three forces—the Divine Dragon itself, the Great Sage's loyal apprentice, Shaula, and the lingering soul of the very first Sword Saint."
As soon as those words reached the ears of everyone listening, shock rippled through the masses like a tidal wave.
Murmurs erupted across the world—confusion, disbelief, horror, and curiosity all mixing together into a chaotic uproar.
People had questions—millions of them—but none dared to speak them aloud.
The information itself was too heavy, too unreal.
Then, with a smug tone that dripped with arrogance and satisfaction, Pride continued, "I've already dealt with all of them, you see. The Divine Dragon? Defeated by me and put into a deep, endless coma. The Sage's apprentice, Shaula? She, too, fell before my power. And the soul of the first Sword Saint… oh, I didn't just destroy it—I recycled it into a brand-new vessel. A female avatar of my own creation. I call her Reina!"
His voice carried with it a twisted pride, the kind that made everyone listening feel sick.
The crowd's horror deepened.
The idea that someone could so casually claim to have defeated legendary beings, and then use their very essence to create something else—it was beyond monstrous.
Reinhardt, who had been listening in silence, finally realized the full scope of what was happening.
A cold chill ran through him like ice in his veins.
He clenched his fists tightly, his knuckles turning white.
The truth hit him with the force of a hammer—every single thing that had happened until now, every fight, every illusion, every hope—they had all been part of Zero's plan from the very beginning.
Beatrice…
Gloria…
Reina…
All of them—fabrications, lies, twisted creations meant to deceive and manipulate.
(A/N: Even now, everything's still a lie. XD)
Then, as if to mock the world even further, Pride sighed dramatically.
His tone shifted from gloating to something that almost sounded disappointed, though everyone could tell it was another layer of his twisted act.
"Now, originally, my plan was simple," he said.
"I was going to free the Witch of Envy completely. That was the grand design, the ultimate goal. But alas…" He paused for effect, letting the silence stretch just long enough to tighten the tension.
"There was another factor I hadn't accounted for," he finally continued, his tone dripping with intrigue and twisted admiration.
"Another person acting as a part of the seal itself. The man from another world… the next Great Sage candidate… Natsuki Subaru."
The entire world froze at those words.
Shock.
Silence.
Disbelief.
Everyone who heard that froze in stunned silence—Subaru was a candidate for the next Great Sage?!
The revelation hung in the air like a striking blow.
"I wish I could have finished him off," Zero continued, his voice casual and cruel, "but he's terrifying, you know? Breaking his will was nearly impossible… yes, nearly."
A dark amusement laced his tone as he explained his handiwork.
"So I manipulated the people around him. I turned his friends against him, framed him as the culprit, convinced them he was the future Natsuki Subaru—me—who would one day destroy Lugunica."
As he spoke, a low murmur spread through the crowd, growing into a chorus of horrified whispers.
The situation only seemed to worsen with every word.
"They broke him," Zero said, his laughter cold and mocking.
"They killed his friends, betrayed him—right after he helped reclaim Priestella for them. You see, he was the only person I couldn't simply kill outright. But I didn't need to. You did the killing for me."
His voice dripped with triumph as he taunted them, and every remaining member of the camps felt the weight of his accusation sink into their bones.
Guilt and fear twisted across many faces.
"With his mind shattered, the final piece holding the seal on the Witch of Envy collapsed. Hahaha—now she's rampaging through Priestella as we speak!" The words hit like a physical blow; the air itself seemed to tighten as countless hearts dropped.
"Prepare yourselves," Zero commanded, his tone sharpening into menace.
"I will begin the purge—starting with Lugunica. We will eliminate all the high-ranking officials. Once that's done, the Witch Cult will take control of the Kingdom and place it directly under the Witch of Envy's rule."
When he finished, the truth of the plan settled over the survivors like a heavy, suffocating fog.
The consequences of Zero's actions were only beginning to unfold—and the world had no idea how deep the catastrophe would reach.
To be continued...
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