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{3rd Pov}
Subaru observed the bubbling mass of poison from above.
From the air, the Black Serpent looked even more disturbing than it had from the ground.
The enormous body of black substance churned and shifted constantly, releasing faint fumes that carried layers of poison, disease, and curses.
It was less like a normal creature and more like a living pool of corruption.
'I wonder how it would feel to dive into it.'
The thought appeared in his mind without warning.
It was the kind of dangerous curiosity that most sane people would immediately suppress.
But Subaru had never been entirely normal when it came to testing the limits of things.
Instead of dismissing the idea, he allowed his body to relax.
He let go of the invisible support that had been holding him in the air.
His body dropped straight down.
There was no hesitation.
The moment he fell into the mass, the Black Serpent reacted instantly.
The living poison sensed the intrusion and surged toward him, swallowing him completely without resistance or delay.
Subaru disappeared into the black substance as if he had been dropped into a bottomless swamp.
Hot.
That was the first sensation Subaru felt.
It was not ordinary heat, but the suffocating, burning pressure of being submerged inside what was arguably the most toxic and poisonous environment within Od Laguna itself.
The liquid corruption pressed against his body from every direction.
The poison began attacking immediately.
It seeped through his skin, burning its way inward.
The curses embedded in the serpent's body tried to invade his bloodstream, while the diseases within the mass attempted to spread through his organs.
However, Subaru's body was not defenseless.
His strengthened physique reacted almost instantly.
The aura and ki flowing through his body surged in response, reinforcing his cells and accelerating his natural regeneration.
Wherever the poison burned through flesh, new tissue rapidly replaced it.
At the same time, his body began adapting.
Little by little, it started resisting the toxins and curses surrounding him.
What would normally destroy a human within seconds instead became something his body was gradually learning to endure.
He could literally feel his muscles vaporizing inside the poisonous mass before being rebuilt again almost immediately.
The process repeated again and again without pause.
At one moment his body existed, and at the next it was partially dissolved before regenerating once more.
Even his eyes were not spared.
For brief moments his vision would completely disappear as the tissues of his eyes melted under the corrosive poison.
Absolute nothingness would swallow his sight for a few seconds before his regeneration restored them, bringing the pitch-black surroundings back into view once again.
One might ask why Subaru would willingly throw himself into such a dangerous and horrifying situation.
The answer was simple.
To grow stronger.
He wanted to push his body beyond its current limits and force it to adapt to conditions that would normally kill any living being instantly.
Subaru understood that strength was not something that appeared without risk, and the environment inside the Black Serpent was the most extreme testing ground he could possibly use.
At the same time, his mental state was no longer comparable to that of his past self.
His willpower had grown far beyond what it once was.
Even a normal Subaru might not have broken down under this kind of pain, even a normal Subaru who had experienced countless horrific deaths and returned from them had already crossed that threshold.
Compared to the things a normal Subaru can already endure his willpower was 1024 times that, this pain was manageable.
Before diving into the serpent, he had also deliberately released all of his contracted spirits.
They had been sent outside so they could remain near Reina and Emilia, protecting them if necessary while he handled the problem of the final and last Great Mabeast himself.
Inside the serpent's body, the torture continued.
Subaru could feel his internal organs melting repeatedly before rapidly regenerating again in bursts of healing energy.
Each cycle forced his body to confront hundreds of different toxins, curses, and diseases contained within the Black Serpent.
His immune system was evolving under constant pressure.
Every passing moment made his body stronger and more resistant to the corruption surrounding him.
Finally, after several minutes of enduring the continuous destruction and regeneration, something changed.
The poisons stopped affecting him.
The curses failed to penetrate his body.
The diseases lost their grip.
Subaru had reached the point where his body had completely adapted to the Black Serpent's attacks.
At that moment, he felt a new wave of strength spreading through his entire body.
Subaru could not rely on normal sight while submerged inside the Black Serpent's thick mass of poison.
The black substance blocked his vision completely, surrounding him from every direction.
But that hardly mattered.
Using his Psychic sense, combined with the perception granted by his Aura and Ki, he could clearly feel everything happening around him.
The movements of the Black Serpent's body, the shifting currents within the poisonous mass, and even the subtle vibrations of its attempts to reposition itself were all visible to him through those senses.
To Subaru, the darkness meant nothing.
He calmly raised both of his hands inside the serpent's body.
Then he made a simple grabbing motion with his palms.
There was nothing physically in his hands, yet his aura extended outward, gripping the internal structure of the Black Serpent like invisible claws.
After holding that position for a brief moment, Subaru moved his arms apart in a casual ripping motion.
The result was immediate.
The entire body of the Black Serpent violently split into two massive pieces.
The force behind the action created a devastating shockwave that traveled outward through the ground itself.
The earth trembled and cracked as the pressure burst through the surrounding terrain, sending dust and debris flying across the battlefield.
For a brief moment, Subaru's eyes changed.
His pupils sharpened and his gaze turned completely dragonic, radiating an overwhelming presence that the Black Serpent could instinctively recognize as something far more dangerous than itself.
The creature shrieked in fear.
Now divided into two massive portions, both halves of the serpent began trying to flee in opposite directions.
The creature's instinct for survival had completely taken over.
Ironically, the Black Serpent had actually grown stronger during this encounter.
By absorbing Subaru's blood and portions of his body earlier, the creature had unintentionally gained several times more power than before.
However, there was a limit to what it could imitate.
The serpent could copy physical traits and absorb normal forms of energy, but it could not replicate Subaru's true advantages.
His Aura and Ki were not simple physical abilities—they were forms of life energy flowing naturally through his body.
And those powers were something the Black Serpent had no way of reproducing.
Subaru did not chase the fleeing portions of the Black Serpent.
Instead, he calmly activated his Authority of Lust: Life and Death Manipulation.
The moment he invoked that power, his perception of the world shifted completely. His vision changed in a way that was difficult to describe.
The physical environment faded into the background as something deeper revealed itself to him.
Everywhere he looked, countless black threads appeared.
They flowed through everything—through the ground, through the air, through the remnants of the serpent's body, and even through the distant landscape.
These threads represented something fundamental, something far more important than physical form.
They represented the flow of life itself.
And the points where those threads ended represented death.
At that moment Subaru felt the sensation more clearly than ever before.
The connection between life and death, something that had always existed beyond ordinary perception, now felt almost tangible in his hands.
It gave him a strange feeling.
A feeling as if those concepts themselves could bend under his will.
For a brief moment, Subaru even had the unsettling impression that if he truly wished for it, he might be able to move beyond the very framework of life and death entirely—as if those laws would simply stop applying to him.
It was an overwhelming realization.
For that brief instant, Subaru could not help but feel as if he stood at the center of those concepts—as if he were a supreme ruler standing over the boundaries of life and death themselves.
He could sense the threads responding to his intent.
They moved when he focused on them.
They reacted when he directed his will.
Subaru could not fully comprehend how an Authority could possess such terrifying potential.
Even with all the powers he had already obtained, this one felt fundamentally different.
Then he used the authority.
In a single moment, the writhing black mass that made up the serpent's body lost the concept of life entirely.
The countless threads that sustained its existence were severed simultaneously.
And in their place, Subaru imposed a single concept.
Death.
The enormous creature instantly went still.
The Black Serpent, one of the Three Great Mabeasts feared across the world, ceased to exist as a living being.
Its life ended completely.
But that was not the end of it.
Subaru did not stop after killing the Black Serpent.
Instead, he extended his Authority over Life, allowing its influence to spread outward through the vast system of Od Laguna itself.
At the same time, his authority over Death continued to function in parallel, both forces operating together as he imposed his will upon the world.
He focused on a specific intention.
The souls of those who had recently died at the hands of the Black Serpent.
Subaru could feel them.
They had already begun drifting toward the cycle of Od Laguna, the natural system that gathered souls and eventually recycled them back into existence.
With his authority, he reached out and seized them before that process could be completed.
Then he did something even more outrageous.
He used the power to resurrect.
Subaru commanded the world itself to bend to his will.
The laws that governed life and death resisted him, almost as if reality itself tried to reject what he was attempting to do.
The natural flow of Od Laguna pushed back, trying to maintain the order that had always existed.
But the Authority of Sin was not something the world could easily deny.
Even against the resistance of reality itself, the authority forced the process forward.
The souls he had captured were pulled back.
At the same time, the bodies that had been completely dissolved inside the Black Serpent began to reform.
Crusch Karsten.
Anastasia Hoshin.
Ricardo Welkin.
Julius Juukulius.
Along with countless soldiers who had died moments earlier.
Their bodies began reconstructing themselves from nothingness.
First, the brains formed, reconnecting with the returning souls that had almost disappeared into Od Laguna's cycle.
Then the skeletons appeared, assembling piece by piece as the structure of each body took shape.
Next came the nervous systems, spreading like intricate networks throughout their bodies.
After that, their organs and muscles formed, rebuilding their internal structure layer by layer.
Finally, their skin completed the process.
Within seconds, the reconstruction was finished.
Their newly restored bodies gently dropped onto the ground as if they had simply been placed there by an invisible hand.
As Subaru watched the process conclude, he could feel something else inside himself.
His Psychic sense, Aura, and Ki had all surged again, growing stronger after becoming immune to all the poisons, curses and diseases of the world.
And that still was not the only thing he felt.
Even after resurrecting everyone, the strange sensation inside Subaru had not completely disappeared.
The feeling that had appeared when he used the Authority of Life and Death was still lingering deep within him.
It was subtle now, but it was clearly present, almost like an invisible force pushing him forward.
It felt like a temptation.
The sensation gave him the impression that if he allowed it, he might be able to surpass the very boundaries of life and death entirely.
It was as if his soul itself was trying to reach out toward some unknown connection, something vast and higher than ordinary existence.
But Subaru stopped himself.
He did not allow that instinct to guide him further.
The truth was simple he did not even fully understand the origins of the Sin Authorities he already possessed.
Because of that, Subaru had no intention of trying to connect with some unknown higher-dimensional force.
Not now.
For the moment, his goal was much simpler.
He wanted to remain alive.
And he wanted to grow stronger at his own pace.
Nothing more, nothing less.
As he released the authority and allowed the power to deactivate, the overwhelming sensation faded away.
The strange feeling of surpassing humanity vanished almost immediately, leaving behind only a hollow emptiness.
It felt like he had briefly stood at the edge of something enormous and then deliberately turned away from it.
Almost like missing an opportunity.
But Subaru did not dwell on that thought.
Instead, he shifted his attention to the people he had just resurrected.
The bodies of the Anastasia and Crusch camps lay scattered across the battlefield.
All of them had been restored perfectly, but there was one obvious problem—they were completely naked.
The Black Serpent's poison had dissolved everything earlier, including their clothes and armor.
Without hesitation, Subaru activated the copied Authority of Lust: Transfiguration.
Using the remaining black substance from the dead serpent, he reshaped the material into simple towels.
One by one, the towels formed from the goo and gently covered each of the resurrected individuals.
At the very least, he made sure their dignity remained intact before they woke up.
After finishing what he needed to do, Subaru walked toward the bodies of Crusch and Anastasia Hoshin.
They were lying on the ground like the rest of the resurrected soldiers, completely still.
He snapped his fingers.
Almost immediately, both women's eyelids fluttered as consciousness returned to them.
Crusch reacted first.
Her eyes opened wide, and she suddenly jolted upright onto her feet, instinctively moving into a defensive posture.
The towel covering her slipped off immediately due to the sudden movement, revealing her well-built and impressive figure as she quickly scanned the surroundings with sharp, wary eyes.
Anastasia, on the other hand, woke up much more slowly.
She pushed herself into a sitting position but did not jump up in panic.
Her calmness seemed less like composure and more like resignation, as if she believed that whatever she was experiencing now was simply the final hallucination before true death.
"W-Where are we…? S-Sir Zero?" Crusch asked, her voice filled with confusion as she looked around.
Her gaze landed on the bodies of her comrades and servants scattered nearby.
All of them were unconscious, completely naked, their dignity preserved only by the towels covering them.
As for her own towel—it had already fallen the moment she sprang up.
Yet Crusch did not even notice or care about the fact that she was currently standing there completely exposed.
Her attention was entirely focused on the strange situation around her.
Subaru quietly bent down, picked up the fallen towel, and handed it back to her.
"Duchess," he said calmly, "while I understand your shock, I believe you should cover yourself before the others wake up."
Crusch still visibly stunned, she quickly grabbed the towel from him.
Her mind was still struggling to process everything.
"We… we are alive?" she asked slowly, staring at him with disbelief.
"How?"
"You all were on the verge of death," Subaru said calmly, keeping his tone steady.
"I managed to reach you just in time before your bodies completely vaporized. After that, I healed all of you."
He deliberately avoided mentioning the fact that they had actually died.
Crusch stared at him in stunned disbelief, her mind clearly struggling to accept what she had just heard. The same expression appeared on Anastasia Hoshin's face as well.
Unlike Crusch, however, Anastasia did not hesitate to ask directly.
"What exactly are you?" she asked, narrowing her eyes at him.
Her voice carried a mixture of curiosity, suspicion, and unease.
"It wasn't just near death," Anastasia continued a moment later, her tone becoming more serious.
"I lost all of my senses. I remember the pain of my body melting. It was unbearable… I am quite certain that I died."
Her body trembled slightly as those memories resurfaced.
The experience had clearly left a deep impression on her, and even recalling it now seemed to shake her composure.
Subaru remained calm as he listened.
"But you are still here," he replied simply.
"Alive."
He gestured casually toward the surroundings.
"After I saved you, I noticed that all of your clothes had been completely dissolved. So I made some towels to cover everyone."
His tone remained casual, as if the situation was far less shocking than it actually was.
Then, as he looked back toward Crusch, he suddenly gave a light whistle and raised his thumb in approval.
"Duchess," Subaru added with an amused expression, "I must admit, you have a very impressive figure."
For a moment, the battlefield was filled with an awkward silence.
Crusch did not become embarrassed by Subaru's remark.
Instead, she remained standing there exactly as she was, still holding the towel loosely in her hands while her body remained completely uncovered.
Her attention was entirely focused on him, her gaze fixed as if she were looking at something far beyond her ability to fully comprehend.
She was not thinking about modesty.
Her mind was occupied by something much more important.
Crusch understood that what had happened to them could not be explained by ordinary healing.
They had not simply been rescued from danger.
The memories of that moment were still vivid in her mind—the suffocating poison, the sensation of her body melting, the loss of all senses.
Even if someone had intervened at the last moment, injuries of that scale should have left permanent damage.
Scars, Poison residues, or Lingering diseases.
Yet none of those things remained.
Her body was completely restored, as if nothing had ever happened.
It was not simply survival.
It was closer to what people would call a divine miracle.
This time, Crusch asked the same question that Anastasia had asked earlier.
"Who are you?" she said quietly, her voice far calmer but filled with deep seriousness.
"Please… Lord Zero, tell us."
Subaru sighed softly.
He scratched his chin as if genuinely considering how to answer the question.
For a brief moment, he seemed to be thinking about how he should introduce himself again.
Then a faint smirk appeared on his face.
"Me?" he said casually.
"I go by many names."
At that moment, something changed.
An star symbol appeared within his eyes as the power of all six elemental forces flowed through them.
The energy surrounding him subtly shifted as his appearance began to transform.
His hair gradually turned white.
At the same time, his clothing changed as well, reshaping itself into a long robe that seemed to form naturally around his body, almost as if the fabric itself were responding to his presence.
The atmosphere around him grew heavier.
"But," Subaru continued, his voice echoing in a way that felt as though it came from every direction at once, "you can call me…"
He paused for a brief moment for the dramatic flair.
"The Great Sage."
"…"
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Crusch's mouth slowly opened in stunned disbelief, while Anastasia's eyes widened noticeably as she stared at him.
The sudden shift in his appearance and the weight behind his words left both of them momentarily speechless.
"I have already foreseen your encounter with the Black Serpent," Subaru said calmly, maintaining the presence he had just displayed.
"I have seen the possible futures where nothing but death and destruction follows this world."
His gaze remained steady as he continued.
"And that is precisely why I am here—to prevent that outcome."
The way he spoke carried an unsettling certainty, as if the events he described were not speculation but something he had already witnessed.
"For saving your lives," Subaru—now presenting himself as the Great Sage—continued, "I ask that both of you withdraw from the Royal Selection."
He paused briefly before adding the rest.
"Instead, you will assist Emilia politically in claiming the throne."
His tone remained calm, but the meaning behind his words was clear.
"The Wise Men are already dead, executed under my orders. The political structure of Lugunica has already begun to change. It is time for the Royal Selection to end."
He said it as if it were an inevitable conclusion rather than a request.
A moment later, the strange presence surrounding him faded.
The star pattern disappeared from his eyes as they returned to their normal black color. His voice also lost the echoing resonance it had carried earlier.
Only his clothing remained different.
The black robes he had manifested earlier did not revert back to his usual attire.
Subaru then looked at both of them again, his expression calm but direct.
"So," he asked simply, "what is your answer?"
For a brief moment, an unsettling silence filled the area.
Both women stood there quietly, trying to process everything they had just witnessed—the destruction of the Black Serpent, their own impossible survival, and the declaration that the man standing before them was the Great Sage.
Crusch Karsten was the first to move.
Without hesitation, she stepped forward and dropped down onto one knee.
Her posture straightened as she performed a proper knightly bow, lowering her head respectfully before speaking.
"As you command, Lord Great Sage," she said firmly.
"I, Crusch Karsten, Duchess of the House of Karsten, hereby declare my withdrawal from the Royal Selection."
Her voice remained steady despite the gravity of the decision.
"In repayment for saving both my life and the lives of my men, I will devote my support to the Emilia camp and assist her in claiming the throne of Lugunica."
Subaru nodded slightly.
"Great," he replied calmly.
"I appreciate your decision, Duchess."
His gaze then shifted toward Anastasia Hoshin.
For a moment, she remained silent.
She lightly bit her lip while thinking through everything that had happened.
Her sharp mind was clearly evaluating the situation from every possible angle.
But the reality was obvious.
"Is there even anything left to consider?" Anastasia finally said with a faint, tired smile.
"One of the three great heroes himself has asked me to withdraw from the Royal Selection."
She shook her head slightly.
"And after experiencing what I just went through… nearly dying in that way… I find this struggle for fame and the throne far more exhausting than it used to seem."
Her tone carried a mix of resignation and acceptance.
"I suppose even greed should have its limits."
She then stood up properly, adjusting the towel around her body to make sure it covered her properly before turning toward Subaru.
With a respectful bow, she spoke clearly.
"I, Anastasia Hoshin, hereby officially declare that my camp will withdraw from the Royal Selection as well."
She straightened afterward.
"And from this moment onward, we will support the Emilia camp in the race for the throne."
Subaru nodded, clearly satisfied with the answers both of them had given.
Crusch remained kneeling for a moment longer before she slowly stood back up.
However, there was still a hint of hesitation in her expression.
After a brief pause, she spoke again.
"Lord Great Sage, if I may ask something?"
Subaru waved his hand lightly as if dismissing the formal title.
"You can simply call me Zero," he said calmly.
"There is no need for such formalities between us."
Crusch instinctively wanted to object to that suggestion.
Addressing someone she now believed to be the Great Sage with such a casual title felt improper to her sense of etiquette.
However, considering who he was supposed to be, she decided to follow his request.
"Then… Sir Zero," she corrected herself before continuing.
"What did you mean earlier when you said the Wise Men are dead?"
Subaru responded without hesitation, speaking in the same casual tone as before.
"Oh, that?" he said.
"More than half of them were killed by Ram. They became an obstacle to what I consider justice."
He shrugged slightly as if it were not particularly surprising.
"I would have spared the ones who were innocent by my own standards," he added.
"But in the end, they were simply too stubborn."
Then he casually dropped another statement.
"Oh, and that also means a civil war is likely to break out in Lugunica very soon."
Crusch's eyes widened slightly at that revelation.
Subaru, however, seemed completely unconcerned.
"Don't worry too much about it," he continued calmly.
"With me and Reina involved, it should be a fairly simple matter."
Crusch opened her mouth as if she wanted to ask another question, but after a moment she closed it again.
Whatever doubts she had seemed to settle inside her mind.
Even though she would never openly say it aloud, there was a certain excitement building within her.
Standing here and speaking directly with someone she believed to be the Great Sage was something she had never expected to experience.
Unlike the Divine Dragon, the two figures she truly admired from history were the First Sword Saint and the Great Sage.
And now one of those legends was standing right in front of her.
"And it will also be up to you to explain what just happened to them," Subaru said, pointing toward Julius and Wilhelm, whose bodies were beginning to stir as they slowly regained consciousness.
Crusch followed his gesture and noticed the two of them starting to wake up.
"Duchess… I believe you should cover yourself first," Anastasia said flatly, glancing at Crusch with a completely deadpan expression.
Her gaze then shifted toward Crusch's hand, where the towel Subaru had handed her earlier was still being held but not actually used.
Crusch blinked.
Then she looked down at herself.
"Ah… yes," she said quickly, finally wrapping the towel around her body to properly cover herself.
Subaru watched the brief exchange without commenting.
After that, he spoke again.
"Meet me once you are finished explaining everything to them."
Before either of them could respond further, Subaru suddenly teleported away.
In an instant, he reappeared several hundred meters away from their location, leaving both Crusch and Anastasia slightly startled by how casually he moved across such a distance.
Now standing alone, Subaru quietly observed the people who were beginning to wake up across the battlefield.
One after another, the resurrected soldiers stirred and slowly regained consciousness.
None of them had any clear memory of their actual deaths.
To them, it would likely feel as though they had simply fainted or blacked out during the battle.
Subaru let out a quiet sigh as he looked down at his own hands.
"Great Sage… huh?" he muttered to himself.
The words lingered in his thoughts.
By this point, he had already come to a realization he could no longer deny.
The person he had become could not truly be described as an ordinary human anymore.
With the Authorities of Sin within him and the powers he had gained through countless experiences, the line separating him from humanity had already blurred.
So what exactly was he now?
A god?
Subaru immediately rejected that idea.
He had no intention of calling himself a self-proclaimed god or allowing others to worship him as one.
That path was not something he wanted to walk.
But the title of Great Sage…
That was different.
There was something about that title that felt strangely fitting.
It carried the idea of wisdom and power without abandoning the sense of humanity completely.
It described someone who stood beyond ordinary people but had not completely abandoned what it meant to be human.
For Subaru, who was still human in many ways yet no longer entirely bound by those limits, the title felt appropriate.
Perhaps it was finally time for him to accept it.
And even acknowledge it openly.
There was nothing left for him to fear.
From this moment onward, his journey as the Great Sage had truly begun.
To be continued...