"Quick! Protect the Star Core!"
Seeing the blue-and-white colossus collapse because it could not withstand Velber's impact, and the Star Spirit break free from within it, Athena's expression changed drastically. She immediately shouted in alarm and was the first to spur her pegasus toward the area where the blue-and-white orb of light was falling.
That was Gaia!
Samael's Crossed Star Eyes shrank sharply. He immediately beat his metallic wings and followed close behind.
At the same time, the gods, fully aware of how grave the consequences would be, unleashed their strongest attacks one after another, broke through the angelic army's entanglement, and rushed to aid her.
Holy! Glorious! Our Lord!
The hour of judgment has come. By this, all things shall be corrected. Heaven shall descend, and the planet shall be reforged!
The sweetness drifting from the Star Spirit, along with the might of the Infinite Light that had pierced through the World Wall, whipped the angelic army into a frenzy. The flames on their bodies seemed to respond to their surging emotions, blazing even higher.
Angels of every bizarre shape and form fell from the sky like meteors wrapped in fire, plunging toward the place where the Star Spirit was sinking.
If the planet's last remaining spirituality, the final spark of resistance, was devoured and absorbed by Velber, then Earth truly would be beyond saving.
That would be the true Ragnarok, the end of humanity.
Both sides had gone mad. Completely mad.
One figure after another charged without hesitation toward the sea being corroded by the Void, launching frantic assaults and slaughtering one another. Brilliant streams of Ether formed dazzling auroras of every color, while the Mana tides they stirred up surged without end.
Explosions from colliding Ether, blood-red flashes from shattered bodies, and the ringing clashes of divine weapons filled the air. On the sea, one living being after another threw themselves forward like moths into flame, only to be reduced to ash, disintegrate, scatter, or fall broken from the sky.
Without the Star Spirit to stabilize it, the World Wall held up by the Twelve Spears of the End trembled endlessly, on the verge of collapse.
Meanwhile, the stardust scattered by Velber's vanguard rapidly worsened the mutations across the major Ages of Gods.
...
At the same time, on Rome's eastern border.
Violent sandstorms swept over the fortress, staining the sky a dull yellow. Across the wilderness, swaying, distorted figures appeared with the wind.
Food... the smell of food...
"So hungry! So hungry!"
As the things emerging from the storm caught the delicious scent drifting out from the fortress, they instantly became like hyenas locking onto prey. Their sluggish movements turned swift in the blink of an eye, and one after another, they either sprinted forward or charged on all fours.
Boom!
In an instant, bloated figures smashed through the city wall, while slender, agile monsters climbed the broken stone and lunged madly at the panicked defenders.
"The Mad Sinners! They're Mad Sinners!"
"The monsters wandering the Wasteland of Death have gotten out! Why are there so many of them?!"
"They won't die! We can't kill them at all!"
"Damn it, the Curse on their bodies spreads through wounds!"
"The priests? Where are the priests?!"
"They're dead! They're all dead!"
"Ah! My hand... I... I'm so hungry... so hungry..."
When the sandstorm cleared, tens of thousands of mutated creatures poured through the shattered hole in the fortress wall like a crimson-black tide of death, flooding into the streets and alleys. In moments, every living thing was completely swallowed.
...
The capital of Persia.
On the broken city wall, where the breach had been hastily sealed, charred corpses were being carried down in a rush. Blood mottled the bricks and stones, and clumps of gray-white fluff were blown into the city by the wind.
Queen Boudica looked at the Persians with West Asian features beside her. Both sides remained wary of each other, and an awkward, tense atmosphere spread between them.
These Persians had originally been troops from nearby major fortresses, sent to reinforce the capital in an emergency.
However, two sudden disasters had caused the army exposed in the wilderness to lose two-thirds of its strength.
The capital had likewise fallen into a sea of flames, and the Roman legions spread out to suppress each district had been scattered.
In the chaos, both sides ended up together. Driven by the instinct to survive, they tacitly lowered their swords and worked together to activate the capital's Magecraft barrier.
No one could have imagined the war would turn into this...
Of course, the other reason forcing them onto the same side was just outside the city.
"Burn away their sins. Purify them with fire!"
In the sky, shattered like a mirror, one luminous figure after another descended gracefully, raising flaming swords and coldly delivering judgment.
...
Maya.
Dense fire rain tore across the night sky and descended from the heavens. The lush vegetation became the best fuel, and everywhere across the land, thick smoke billowed and flames shot into the sky.
The jaguar warriors, puma warriors, and eagle warriors who guarded the great tribes, wielding obsidian weapons, wearing animal-skin clothing, and crowned with feathers or beast-headed helmets, did their utmost to maintain order in the night and organize people to fight the fires.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
Yet the moment these pillars of tribal order gathered, cross-shaped beams of light descended from the sky and blasted them into severed limbs and scattered body parts, sending blood flowing freely.
Crack...
At the same time, the square Mayan pyramid suddenly split apart amid the towering flames. An old priest abruptly remembered Lord Quetzalcoatl's prophecy. He stared blankly at the luminous humanoid figures covering the night sky and murmured in a daze.
Disaster! Civilization will be destroyed by fire rain. The calamity of the Fourth Sun has come!
...
China, Kunlun.
A pillar of light shot into the sky, as if the Heavenly Gate had been reopened.
But in the next instant, the earth shook, the mountains split apart, and tens of thousands of ferocious beasts from the mountains and seas rushed out of the blazing white pillar, surging toward both the eastern and western sides of Kunlun.
For a time, the Nine Provinces to the east, as well as India and Nepal to the west, were all plunged into a frenzied beast disaster.
At the same time, beneath the shattered starry sky, twisted figures of light surged out from the pitch-black rifts, and the pupils of the cultivators on all three sides contracted sharply.
They were here. The Demons from Beyond the Realm!
...
The Hun Empire.
The sky shattered like a mirror. Within the pure white interior, sacred hymns drifted faintly. Amid the indistinct shadows, the sound of flowing water could be heard, and believers with faces full of bliss praised the radiant kingdom of the Divine Spirit at the tops of their voices.
By Eternal Heaven above, is this Heaven?
The nomads gazed at the phantom of that kingdom, entranced and ecstatic. Some prostrated themselves in worship, while others leapt onto horseback and chased the heavenly light shining through the rifts.
Puff, puff, puff, puff!
Yet the figures that entered the blazing white pillars burned violently like kindling, and illusory figures of light condensed from within the flames, coldly sweeping their gazes over their former kin.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
The next instant, flaming projectiles like falling stars dragged long tails of fire as they descended from the sky. Grass and trees withered and burned, while cattle and sheep perished to the last.
"Awooo!"
Amid the smoke and dust of the explosions, the wolves raised by the nomads rapidly swelled and mutated as pale stardust fell over them, then madly pounced on the living creatures around them.
Only the serene beauty of death was the eternity of all things.
So this was the so-called eternal kingdom. The rebirth of the world...
In the flames soaring to the sky, the old shaman's face was dry and withered as he murmured faintly.
Almost at the same time, the great and small Ages of Gods in Scandinavia, Ireland, the Celts, the Caucasus, the East, and elsewhere all suffered the catastrophe of the end.
Volcanoes erupted, tsunamis surged, the sky tore open, and stars fell. One light-like phantom after another descended from the rifts.
From plants to animals, from humans to heroes, from monsters to gods, all life began to suffer terrifying mutations and disasters amid the falling stars, scattering stardust, and descending luminous beings.
Mad. The entire planet had gone mad.