Lazy Salvation

Cornelia felt nothing at first, but a creeping anxiety slowly began taking hold of her.

The blood and gore covering her body suddenly felt unbearably uncomfortable. The way her clothes hung in disarray grated on her. And when she looked at Self-Consumption and noticed one of his ears was missing, something inside her snapped.

"HAAA—!"

CRASH—BOOM!

She attacked him with even greater recklessness, paying no attention to her rapidly dwindling mana.

The monstrous man relished every strike, embracing them with devotion.

"More... more... more~"

"Die! Die! Die! Ahhhh!!!"

She only calmed down somewhat when she ripped off his other ear.

‘What is happening to me...?’

She unconsciously looked toward Mandate, and what she saw plunged her straight back into madness.

It was the most asymmetrical shape she had ever seen.

One eye was rectangular while the other was circular. One hand was longer than the other. One leg was missing. One shoulder rose higher than the other. He had two nipples, but they existed only on one side of his chest, and one cheek bore blotches while the other was perfectly smooth.

The two stared at each other for one frozen moment before Mandate unexpectedly grinned.

"Heh."

...But instead of both corners of his mouth curling upward, only one did.

"..."

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH—!!!!"

Cornelia's eyes turned fiery with rage. She didn't care about anything anymore. She didn't care about dying or living, or even the people behind her.

Now... her whole being existed for one purpose alone.

Erase that Thing from existence.

A wolf-shaped punch landed squarely across the smooth cheek, sending the Outer God hurtling right beside his friend.

"Ahh... how weak..." Self-Consumption spoke with pity toward the withering figure on the ground, but soon, his eyes turned compassionate.

"But fear not. I shall eat that weakness. And you shall be reborn anew, my dear friend."

CRUNCH.

With that, he ate.

And from within the shadows, a brand-new Mandate materialized.

And he was as mismatched as ever.

Cornelia wanted to keep going, but something else was stopping her now.

It was her own condition. The filth covering her after too many days of nonstop fighting was becoming completely unbearable.

She could feel it with terrifying clarity.

The germs. The microbes. The contamination… She wanted to clean herself so badly...

So, so badly...

...that she was contemplating setting herself on fire.

And that was what stopped her.

She was fighting an internal battle against the overwhelming urge to kill herself.

‘I'm feeling the worst case of obsessive-compulsive disorder ever.’

She ventured a glance toward the other battlefield and found that Lola wasn't faring much better.

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‘This is bad... I have to do something about this.’

*

"Why won't you change?! Is being female really that enticing? You should try other things! You might find your true calling then!"

"SHUT UP!" Lola screamed, her face red as she dodged another punch from Reshaping.

The being was trying to change her gender, but it was failing miserably, and that fact was driving it crazy.

"I'm sorry, but I can only be a woman and will only ever accept being a woman. Otherwise, I won't be able to satisfy my husband."

"What blasphemy! Who says your husband won't like your true self?!"

"This is my true self!"

It might have seemed like Lola was indulging the Outer God in conversation, but there was more to it than appeared on the surface.

She felt that if she lost the argument...

...then she might really be turned into a man, or something else entirely.

‘How creepy,’ she lamented. ‘I would rather deal with that other twisted flesh monster than this…’

Speak of the devil...

"My dear~ Please don't forget me~"

...and it shall appear.

The bellowing voice echoed across the battlefield as the flesh balloon descended from the sky, trying to engulf her.

Lola poured as much strength as she could into her fist, then empowered it with Togetherness, uniting all of her strength into a single point before striking forward.

Boom!

Tak… tok… tak…

"Ahhh... how mean~"

The flesh detonated, scattering chunks across the battlefield and making Lola's expression darken further.

‘How truly troublesome! They separated us from the start. Now I can only stall and wait for Cornelia to reach me…’

‘This is bad…’

‘At this rate... we really will die.’

*

Meanwhile, the soldiers had backed even farther away, but they didn't have the luxury of standing by as mere spectators, even in the face of this apocalyptic battle.

Because the Narkals had never stopped flooding in.

In the end, the majority gathered beneath Seraphine's Banner, where it still burned above them, because within its range, the despair pressing against every nerve from six directions had somewhere lower to rank.

Seraphine herself was absent, however.

She stood as close to the Sin Lords' battle as she dared and raised her hands above her head.

Her face was doing the one thing it had never done before in front of her troops.

It was afraid.

But being afraid was never an excuse to stop doing what had to be done.

So she let herself be afraid and kept gathering every ounce of her mana.

"In Your name, O Lord—"

Despite the Skill she was about to cast being a Path Skill, her lips moved in an unconscious chant.

Perhaps it was not a chant, but merely a prayer for the Eternal to grant her the strength she needed to keep holding on.

"—I die, and I live."

The white aura rolled outward from her position in a slow, steady wave.

And the moment it reached its zenith—

{Path Skill Activated: Concordant Infusion}

She cast it.

"Serenity!"

Cornelia felt like she was moments away from losing control.

She didn't know what would happen if such a thing occurred, because she had never heard of a First-Step Pathwalker losing control of their Concepts.

But she was about to make history.

‘I should just detonate all my mana before that happens. At least I'll take one of them with me.’

She knew that if she allowed herself to become a Wrath abomination, then her only victims would be the soldiers behind her.

So she made up her mind.

Goodby—

That was when a white glow engulfed her, banishing the irrational irritation that had been relentlessly eating away at her.

No...

The irritation remained.

It was just that her mana had become serene.

She could feel it now. Even as she wildly swung her fists, the mana coursing through them remained perfectly controlled and efficient.

She resisted the urge to glance back, because she knew that if she did, she might put the person who had helped her in danger.

But even with her thoughtfulness, it didn't matter.

Someone else had been searching for that very same woman.

And the moment Seraphine drew closer, they found her.

It was the frustrated Reshaping.

"Aha! There she is. That's your daughter, right? Perhaps you are willing to partake in the experience of having a son?"

"I already have one! So thank you, but no thank you!"

Lola moved with almost panicked movements despite her leisurely tone. That was her own Saintess under fire, after all!

"Hehehehe... you know what they say~ Two is always better than one. Especially when it comes to sons! Come here, baby!"

"How unbearably troublesome!"

Lola was about to ignore Love and focus all of her attention on Reshaping, but she didn't need to.

Because someone else had been eyeing them like prey from the very beginning.

And they had just been given the perfect opportunity with Reshaping's attention diverted.

*

Two kilometers away, a woman stood as straight as a pine, holding a long white sniper rifle aimed ahead.

Her expressionless face didn't twitch no matter what madness unfolded. And though she had maintained the same firing stance for more than half an hour, her eyes never blinked.

Behind her, nine pink ethereal tails flared with immense mana.

And all nine were being drained at a terrifying rate for a single purpose...

Her plush lips moved slowly to form a single word.

"Die."

Click—

BOOOOOOOOOM—

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM—

The mana of two tails was poured into the weapon to accelerate the bullet.

As a consequence, the rifle burned and cracked the instant it fired, before half melting and half crumbling.

Alice couldn't spare it a glance because, even with her tempered body, she couldn't withstand the recoil and was launched backward in a shower of blood.

"Kwaah..."

Bam!

She crashed into the debris behind her and coughed up even more blood.

‘That almost killed me…’

But despite that, she did not regret her recklessness.

Because that filth had been about to lay a hand on her best friend...

And, more importantly, her sister-wife!

How could she allow that?

‘I hope you like my gift... while rotting in hell.’

A ghostly smirk graced her pale face.