The Seat of Evil had seen enough death to know better than anyone—
The man before her was finished.
Forcing the Seat of Evil's armor into motion had always been going to cripple him.
The 'Soga blood' lying dormant in his body, or rather… the 'Aberrant blood,' worked in concert with the Seat of Evil's armor. It gave him tremendous power, and it ate away at his body while it did.
But power like that was only borrowed strength, in the end.
Before Kujou Iruka, the Seventh Sequence Seat of Garan, Soga Ishikawa Irube, boosted by the armor until he was nearly a Sixth Sequence, was still nothing more than a target.
And now… the moment had come for the target to shatter.
"Where's the Priest Corps?!"
"Save him!"
"Somebody save him!!!" the Seat of Evil roared.
Just as Soga Ishikawa Irube had seen his own daughter in the Seat of Evil, she had seen the shadow of an old comrade in him.
But this wasn't the Holy Royal Court. There was no Priest Corps here to pull a man back from the brink of death.
And besides… what use were priests against a high Sequence Aberrant?
If priests were of any use, the Seat of Evil would never have existed in this world to begin with.
As things stood—
the man before her had only two fates left: death, or a fall into the Edge of Aberration.
Yet in all of history, there had never been a male Aberrant.
Even the male Aberrants the Eye of Insight had manufactured with vast numbers of Aberrant Activation Devices were nothing but monsters called Chimera Amalgams, half Aberrant and half Catastrophe Beast.
Saint Michael understood that the situation allowed her no more time to think.
She turned to look at the fanatical female researcher and raised a thumb at her.
It was the signal they had agreed upon.
"Begin."
The woman, so wild with fervor a moment ago, turned solemn and almost devout the instant Saint Michael raised her right hand with its thumb up.
Far away, in the neon-lit city glittering against the night, the lights suddenly began to die, one district after another.
The researcher hadn't been exaggerating.
Powering up this Concept Armament, an imitation of the sun, truly did take the electricity of an entire city.
With a roar like a massive surge of current exploding, a white light flared.
The next second—
the whole earth seemed to light up.
Kujou Iruka's pitch-black erosion domain was lit as bright as noon by the sun rising from within her own domain.
"Aaaah!!!"
"Hot, hot, hot, hot!!!"
"Where's the heat-shield button? I can't see anything!"
From the blinding world came the woman's voice, utterly out of tune with the desperate battlefield.
But… the corners of Saint Michael's lips curved upward.
Sometimes she had to admit it. Humans… truly were creatures worth singing hymns for.
If a Concept Armament like this had existed eighteen years ago, she wouldn't have had to sacrifice herself and give up her life.
Only… was it her imagination?
Why did it seem to Saint Michael that the radiance of this Concept Armament was no different from the radiance that had burst forth when she sacrificed her life?
But none of that mattered now—
Saint Michael took a single step forward. "He said—"
"Let there be Light."
"And there was Light."
The dazzling, white-hot glare of a moment ago softened once Saint Michael's words fell, as gentle as Lyudmila in front of Su Yuzu.
Her fingertip lightly touched Soga Ishikawa Irube where he lay on the ground.
Saint Michael looked down at the dying man. "Do not die—"
Soga Ishikawa Irube coughed up a mouthful of blood, but the Seat of Evil could clearly feel it: his condition had stabilized.
She stared at Saint Michael. "The Fourteenth Saintess… the Saintess of Salvation?"
The power of the Word of Command came from far, far back in time.
"I suppose… so~" Now that the Word of Command was fully released, even Saint Michael's bearing seemed to belong to someone else.
On her earlobe, the Holy Relic called the Sanctuary of the Sacrificed swayed gently.
The story of Saint Michael and Lyudmila
seemed to have played out once before, long, long ago.
Only… that Saintess of Salvation had not lived on within a Lyudmila the way Saint Michael had.
Because she had believed… that any interference from herself would only lead them down the same road, as it had for Lyudmila and Saint Michael.
They would still be the same person.
She had wanted to live as an ordinary person~
And so, several hundred years after… her era had ended.
But that Saintess of Salvation, no—
the Michael of long ago, should rather be said, had never imagined how amusing and how merciless the years could be.
In the end, she had become herself again.
She had… walked the same road after all.
Saint Michael had tried so hard to set her naive self on a different path.
She had shown her the world, every flower and blade of grass, and in the end, what she had raised was… still that same Lyudmila.
"The Royal Court will probably be glad to see you're still alive…" Halfway through, the Seat of Evil's expression suddenly went dark.
Saint Michael understood why Lady Godmother's face had clouded over.
Everything had changed, and the people with it… the Holy Royal Court of today was nothing like the one Lady Godmother had left.
Perhaps—
it had been no bad thing that the Saintess of Salvation had let her memories vanish entirely.
All she could do was comfort the Seat of Evil. "The Royal Court will be just as glad to see that you are alive…"
Before the two could finish catching up, both of their expressions turned grave.
Far away, Kujou Iruka, squinting as she gazed in their direction, had already drawn her bowstring again.
An arrow took shape, inch by inch.
If Kujou Iruka destroyed the Concept Armament behind Saint Michael, the consequences would be unthinkable.
Besides Saint Michael losing the right to wield the power of the Word of Command… it would be exactly as the researcher had said earlier.
"She'd be delighted to see a surface temperature of 6,000°C."
It was one enormous bomb.
A bomb like a sun.
Kujou Iruka had already released the string.
Blue light flickered.
Garan had been activated.
The arrow, striking after yet arriving first, seemed beyond any hope of being stopped.
But!!!
Before Kujou Iruka had even let go of the string, Saint Michael had already taken a step.
"He said—"
"Wherever I tread shall be sanctuary."
The black, catastrophe-ravaged earth began to turn a brilliant white from beneath Saint Michael's feet, inch by inch.
Across the white ground, pools of clear blue water shimmered like gems set into the land.
The arrow grazed past Saint Michael's ear.
But it could never catch up to the sun again.
The holy girl fixed her gaze on the woman who had spread jet-black wings within the sacred domain.
"So that's how it is—" Kujou Iruka glared at that hateful creature who had somehow come back from the dead.
"Of all those hateful bastards…"
"The one I hate most—"
"is you."
____
________________________________________
💖 Gift for Everyone: Once we hit 10 Powerstones, I'll release +1 bonus chapter to warm your hearts.
🚀 Community Reward: If we reach 20 supporting members, we'll have a +5 chapter marathon across all stories! The romance won't stop.
👻 Come to our secret corner: Search for GirlsLove on (P). You know that's where the magic happens... 😉