"The ground is shaking—what's going on?!"
Even as they struggled to keep their balance, everyone was in a flurry of panic.
"The fate of Belobog is sealed. Its future unfolds in our hands."
"You will become the cornerstone of this new world."
Eyes closed, Cocolia stood there, emanating icy air currents that lifted her body into the sky.
She opened her palm.
"Without destroying the old, there can be no new."
A spear of frost manifested in her hand. Raising the frigid spear high, she shouted:
"In the name of the Great Guardian, heed my command—
Rise Engine of Creation!"
Boom!
With a thunderous roar, a colossal mechanical hand emerged from behind Cocolia. Each finger alone dwarfed a human body many times over. The gigantic metal hand swung down on March 7 and the others.
"Forged by ice and snow, this will stands unending!"
A resolute, ringing voice echoed. Before the descending mechanical hand, a defensive wall of ice like a shield shot up, solidly blocking the Creation Engine's blow.
"Who… brother!"
Hearing a surprised, joyful cry from Serval, everyone saw it was Gepard.
"What are you doing here?"
Serval immediately guessed he must have witnessed the spectacle. Confronted with this scene, Gepard realized the Great Guardian had indeed abandoned Preservation.
"Sis, this isn't the time to talk."
Shield in hand, Gepard kept his guard. BOOM! The enormous hand slammed into the ground, causing a powerful shockwave. Then the hand pressed down, lifting an even taller, massive robotic form from beneath the earth.
March 7 gasped in astonishment, "A robot ten thousand times bigger than Svarog?!"
In the chat group's livestream, those watching also saw the ultra-giant robot rising from the ground.
Tushan Honghong: "Wow! That…that's huge!"
Exusiai: "A giant robot, indeed, countless times bigger than a medical machine."
Ainz: "Huh! With such a weapon, how did this planet end up like this?"
Tatsuki: "I recall this thing originally wasn't a weapon but a geological transformer."
Tatsuki: "The Antimatter Legion is strong. The beast I fought before was one of their war machines."
Tatsuki: "Jarilo-VI was first targeted by the Legion, then ensnared by the Stellaron. This planet can't catch a break."
Ainz: "Ah, so a giant geological machine… If only my world had that, maybe we wouldn't be living in such toxic air…"
Nami: "Hey Tatsuki, aren't you going to step in? Can they handle such a huge machine themselves?"
The Creation Engine hammered the ground, forcing everyone into frantic evasive maneuvers.
Tatsuki: "Relax. Silver Wolf's here, right? She can handle it."
Silver Wolf: "Hehe, you're not wrong. I've got this."
She tapped a few keys on a virtual keyboard.
"Stop!"
Boom!
At her command, the lights on the Creation Engine blinked out, and its arms crashed to the ground.
"Yay, it's not moving! Great job, Silver Wolf!"
March 7 jumped in excitement.
"Silver Wolf? The Stellaron Hunter? What's she doing on Jarilo-VI?"
A female voice crackled in over comms, sounding like Himeko.
"Is that Himeko?!" March 7 exclaimed.
"It's me. Walter and I noticed a huge robot activating on Jarilo-VI. We were about to deploy an orbital strike when it suddenly stopped. So it's the Stellaron Hunter's doing?"
Dan Heng responded curtly, "Yes."
"Huh… The Stellaron Hunter ended up on Jarilo-VI—that's unexpected."
March 7 hurried to add, "She's, um, sort of my friend! She came with Tatsuki's group."
"Ah, that mysterious traveler from another world…makes sense.
March 7, Stelle, Dan Heng, keep up the good work with your trailblazing. This isn't over yet."
"Got it!"
…
"Creation Engine…"
Cocolia couldn't understand why the machine had lost all function.
"Dealing with machines is simple—hack the system. Too bad I don't have time to seize full control; that might've been fun."
Silver Wolf sighed as if disappointed she couldn't pilot the big fellow herself.
"…"
A brief look of confusion flickered across Cocolia's face, but then her eyes glowed bright blue, the cold air around her intensifying.
"Its power… surging…singing…"
"The promise It gave me is the only hope for this world."
"Seven hundred years ago, the Antimatter Legion was driven away by Its power. Today, I'll likewise wipe you from existence!"
"Humanity is weak. I shall bestow despair upon you all!"
As she spoke, freezing blue energy coiled around Cocolia's entire body, gradually transforming her.
Her skin was overgrown by an abyssal-blue substance, turning her into a massive monster, with several spear-like shards of ice levitating around her.
"Tch, you can still give her power after all that?"
Tatsuki patted the Stellaron beneath him, already half-devoured.
"Heh, it sure is committed to the act."
The Stellaron flashed frantically. It only hoped that by boosting Cocolia, she could defeat the others and drive away this man. Otherwise… it would truly be eaten whole!
"Mother!"
Bronya trembled, frozen in place. She couldn't believe her mother had turned into this.
"That's not your mother anymore," Silver Wolf cut in. "She's just a Fragmentum fiend wearing a human face."
"I've had enough! I'll hack that twisted shell to pieces!"
Seele snarled, boiling with rage at the witch who had plunged the Underworld into darkness. She just wanted to bring her down.
"Let the butterfly swallow you—shadows of the past!"
Seele's figure became a flutter of bluish-purple moths, rushing swiftly at Cocolia.
"Vermin! Be crushed by Its power!"
"Damn—!"
Alarms blared in Seele's mind as a deadly chill overcame her. Cocolia swept her arm, conjuring countless towering pillars of ice like a meteor shower.
"What…"
Seele's eyes shook with fear—there was no escape! Bronya and Seele both were caught in the barrage.
"Bronya! Get out of there!" Serval yelled, frantic that Bronya stood motionless. She never imagined Cocolia, whom she once knew, could be so merciless as to slay her own daughter.
"Seele!"
Natasha also cried out, her voice cracking, firing her cannon. Svarog likewise launched rockets.
Boom!
Explosions struck the ice pillars, barely making a dent.
"Careful!" Clara shouted.
The monstrous Cocolia pelted ice spears at Seele and Bronya. Stelle, who was nearest Bronya, reflexively tried to shield her from the ice, but…
Crack!
The next second, just as Stelle seemed about to be impaled, the ice suddenly disintegrated, blown away by a fierce gust.
"You're getting anxious, Stellaron."
Tatsuki's voice now reached everyone's ears for the first time.
"You! It told me to destroy you!"
Cocolia shrieked, exhaustion and fury flooding her. She'd realized the Stellaron's real target was Tatsuki.
"You saved us? I thought I was about to die…"
Seele watched Tatsuki in awe; he'd rescued them.
"Little Stellaron…"
Tatsuki was about to mock the Stellaron further—but his surroundings shifted without warning. Cocolia was gone, and Clara vanished from his arms as well.
"Huh…?"
Stelle blinked at her own intact body, still in one piece. She looked around, confusion plain—no injuries. But the environment had changed again to that same cosmic starfield they had experienced meeting the Aeon of Destruction.
"Some weird domain," Tatsuki commented, hearing a sudden voice. Stelle turned, seeing him there.
"Why are you here too?"
Tatsuki shook his head. "No idea."
Stelle remembered nearly being skewered by ice. "Did you save me?"
"It was no trouble. Let's see what's ahead," Tatsuki said offhandedly, taking Stelle's hand and leading her toward a distant glow.
"Mmph…"
Stelle's cheeks flushed at having her hand held, but she silently followed him toward the golden radiance ahead.
Images flickered in the void, presumably recounting Jarilo-VI's history—Cocolia and the Stellaron. They witnessed the invasion by the Antimatter Legion 700 years ago, the previous Great Guardian forging a deal with the Stellaron, the unstoppable eternal freeze that buried both the Legion and the planet's future. They watched the despair Cocolia faced, how the Stellaron whispered relentlessly into her mind, until she finally succumbed and made a pact.
Even though Tatsuki already knew most of this, it still stirred some emotion. Cocolia's choice was wrong, but one couldn't deny that few people, placed in her hopeless position, would have resisted the Stellaron's insidious voice forever. Maybe someone like Jing Yuan, from the Xianzhou Luofu, could have. But for the ordinary folk of Jarilo-VI, even its Great Guardian was just a strong human, not a mighty superhuman.
"…"
At last they reached their destination. There before them stood a figure outlined by light.
"Who's that?" Stelle asked uncertainly.
Tatsuki gave a casual reply. "Likely the collected will of past guardians."
The figure turned its gaze upon Tatsuki, as though sensing the powerful outsider:
"Mighty stranger… have you come to save Jarilo-VI?"
Tatsuki shrugged, neither confirming nor denying.
The figure's eyes held deep sorrow.
"This city cries out… The power of Preservation fades…"
"In the end, we failed to overcome the Stellaron's designs…"
Stelle concluded, "Cocolia abandoned Preservation."
"Indeed… Yet we cannot blame her."
"For seven hundred years, the Fragmentum spread each passing moment. All we left to our successors was no faith or fortune, only despair."
"Watching the homeland you vowed to preserve fade away is a torment. Coupled with that haunting, seductive whisper…"
"Even the strongest will might waver. This day was inevitable. 'Its' blessing would eventually leave us."
They bore no hatred or condemnation for Cocolia's decision, only sorrow for the world's approaching end. Tatsuki watched quietly, wondering how Stelle would respond.
She hesitated, empathizing with this world's despair but still longing to save it. She lacked the raw might Tatsuki possessed, but…
"Do what you want to do. I'm behind you," Tatsuki said calmly, a hammer of conviction to smash her doubt.
Feeling the reassurance in the hand he was holding, Stelle's apprehension turned to resolve. She voiced her thoughts:
"In that case, let someone else preserve it!"
The figure's gaze grew complicated, puzzled.
"You…You…"
"A mere passerby, yet you'd shoulder an entire planet's fate…?"
"…Then so be it. There's nothing left to lose…nothing we can't try."
"Approach the amber glow, Trailblazer. Let's see if your will to preserve is strong enough… strong enough to catch 'Its' attention."
Amid a spiral of blue energy, a scarlet-gold glow revealed itself: an amber spear.
Stelle glanced at Tatsuki.
"Go on." He released her hand, arms folded, smiling encouragingly. He had no interest in claiming the power meant for Stelle.
"Right."
Stelle walked forward to the Amber Spear. Reaching out to grip its handle—
"!"
Flames erupted from the spear, causing her to instinctively pull back. Only pausing briefly, she resolutely extended her hand again, grasping the blazing spear. It seemed lodged in midair, so she clenched her teeth, mustering all her strength, trying to yank the Amber Spear free.
Fiery energy rippled through the void. As Stelle's determination grew, so did her power. Crack! A fissure formed in the space around the spear's tip.
"She… is actually succeeding…"
murmured the voice of the guardians' collective will.
"Hyaah!"
In a burst, the void shattered. Stelle tore the Amber Spear from its place, flames surging skyward around her.
"Is that the Aeon of Preservation, Qlipoth?"
In Tatsuki's eyes, the ephemeral cosmic vision showed the colossal Amber Lord, the Aeon known for building cosmic bulwarks such as the Heavenly Comet Wall, Subspace Sentry Walls, and the Gravitas Keystone. Devotees called 'It' the Amber Lord.
Vast and magnificent, this cosmic titan gazed at tiny Stelle. Raising a gigantic hammer, 'It' swung it down into the infinite cosmos.
Clang!
The blow of the Amber Lord's hammer reverberated through the universe.
The old Amber Era had ended.
A new age was dawning.
...
1 extra chapter every 50 stones