They say a cat has nine lives. The same was true for Diolan, because he was created based on folklore.
Diolan knew that although his lives were said to be nine, they were not infinite. They could be consumed at any time, and he even had a strong intuition that this too would be consumed not by his own will but by others'.
That intuition became certainty when he saw Mother Goose fighting Osian.
Nursery Rhyme, that was the name of Mother Goose's witchcraft. She inherited the power of the familiars she created, connecting her life with the lives of her familiars.
Every time Mother Goose died, a familiar rampaging in the city died in her place. The reverse was not allowed. Because of that Nursery Rhyme, Mother Goose never died. Not until all her familiars were dead, that is.
And within the range of familiars was Diolan as well. Although he was an abandoned child, he was ultimately a familiar created by witchcraft.
No matter how much Diolan tried, he could not be free from the power of Nursery Rhyme. The moment Mother Goose died, he would die too. He had never regretted that life. If it had been his former self, he certainly would have. He would have gladly sacrificed himself if Mother Goose would die, even if it meant his own death.
But now it was different.
'I've come to want to live a little.'
Mother Goose had said that this brilliant world is heading toward destruction. And Tirna is only glamorous on the surface, but is a cruel place.
The moment Diolan heard Mother Goose's story, he realized that he could never understand his mother, and furthermore, that he could not go with her.
Tirna was indeed a cruel place. At the same time, it was also a beautiful place. All sorts of curious things happened here. There were many interesting incidents, and various things were invented, bringing amazement.
'There is no place in the world that isn't cruel.'
Even if you leave the city and go to the forest, a world of survival of the fittest unfolds. The distant past that Mother Goose spoke of would surely be cruel as well. Just as conflict and strife don't disappear no matter what era or place you go to, only the direction is different.
That was the principle of the world.
Mother Goose tried to escape the principle, but Diolan did not.
That's why Diolan wanted to see more of this world and wanted to live more, in accordance with the principle, as his emotions led him.
'So to live, sometimes it's necessary to let go of something.'
Diolan looked at Osian. The most reliable companion in the world was thrusting his sword toward Mother Goose. Thunk! Osian's sword pierced the heart of Mother Goose, whom he once cherished most while harboring feelings of love and hate. Due to her heart being pierced by Osian's sword, Mother Goose couldn't move properly.
CRASH!
Osian pushed Mother Goose. Having collided with the outer wall of a huge building, Mother Goose coughed up blood. Mother Goose grabbed Osian's sword with trembling hands. She intended to push it away with force. But
Crumble! Her hand couldn't withstand the sword's energy and crumbled.
The hand quickly regenerated, but the regenerated hand crumbled again before the power of the Sun, Moon, and Stars.
Mother Goose's eyes widened. Her life, her given lives, were decreasing at a tremendous speed.
Osian continued to release power with his sword embedded in Mother Goose's heart. Like a star shining without rest, like the sun endlessly releasing heat. If she regenerates her wounds and continues to revive, then just kill her until she dies. This is the knight's way. It seems simple, but it's clear and crushes overwhelmingly.
"Kheuk!"
"Cough!"
"M-Mother! Cough!"
Familiars who had been active throughout the city collapsed, coughing up blood. The cause of death was the same for all. Intense energy struck their hearts and completely burned them.
Familiars don't have ordinary hearts. But there definitely exists a core that can be called the source of life. The familiars whose cores were completely destroyed collapsed at a rapid speed.
"No!"
Humpty Dumpty let out a scream. Soon his face contorted, and his body made of egg exploded with a bang. Golden yolk splattered all around.
"Th-the familiars are decreasing at a tremendous speed!"
An emergency was declared even at Tirna's command center. They couldn't tell whether they should be happy or flustered about the suddenly unfolding situation.
Even during this, the number of familiars decreased at a rapid pace. Diolan felt that death was approaching him.
"Mother Goose!"
The Queen of Hearts also looked back at Mother Goose, as if sensing something. She must be saved. She gripped her flamingo mallet and rushed toward Osian.
Diolan tried to stop the Queen of Hearts. But soon he had no choice but to cough up a handful of blood. His heart had been destroyed. One of his lives had flown away.
'No. I must stop her....'
The Queen of Hearts swung her flamingo mallet toward the back of Osian's head. It was a ridiculous weapon, but its power was real. Even for Osian, it would be dangerous if he was hit while off guard.
"I shall take your head!"
The Queen of Hearts tried to swing her flamingo mallet. But she soon realized her arm wasn't moving, as if blocked by something.
Before she knew it, pale fog had surrounded her.
It wasn't ordinary fog. Its density was absurdly high. It was harder to move her body than being submerged in water.
That wasn't all. The fog changed moment by moment, trying to restrain her limbs.
"How dare you!"
The Queen of Hearts glared at the source of the fog in indignation. Her ruby-red eyes saw through the culprit hidden in the fog.
Mist. Even though his location was exposed, he didn't panic and did his best to hold back the Queen of Hearts.
The Queen of Hearts summoned countless card soldiers from her cloak. The pile of cards that poured out grew limbs, picked up weapons, and stood up.
Immediately after, pure white bullets pierced through the card soldiers all at once.
"Bullets containing divine power?!"
The Queen of Hearts' eyes widened. Attacks containing divine power are very fatal to witches. The card soldiers were instantly engulfed in white flames and turned to ash. Spears made of blue magic poured down from the sky.
Seeing that scene, Diolan smiled.
'They came.'
Diolan felt someone supporting his collapsed body. When he looked back, Seren Garcia was there.
"You came. Cough."
"Don't speak. I know well enough without explanation."
At this moment, Diolan's life flew away once more. Seren laid Diolan down facing upward, then called the person she had brought in advance. Diolan looked at the approaching person with blurry vision.
A man in torn and dirtied black attire and the skeletal woman in pure white attire approaching alongside him as if protecting him.
The fixer Fernando with the alias Desperado and his companion familiar Muerte. But this is an incorrect expression.
Desperado is no longer a fixer. The current him was one who inherited the lineage of a religion that disappeared long ago.
The holy goddess of death, Santa Muerte, an indigenous goddess who has existed on this continent since ancient times. However, as faith declined, she disappeared, and just as her lineage was about to be cut off.
When a young man accidentally encountered those remains, the lineage that was about to be cut off continued like a thread.
"I didn't know it would turn out like this."
Fernando muttered softly while looking down at Diolan. To him, Muerte was a talkative partner, not something like a goddess of death.
But on that day, Fernando came to realize his true power with Osian's help. Osian didn't help directly. However, witnessing the transcendent battle with the Sea Dragon, Fernando obtained a certain fragment from that mythical scene.
That fragment wasn't his own. It was something his partner Muerte had long forgotten. Muerte regained it, and Fernando was also affected by it.
"To think I have to do undertaker work now."
[Undertaker?! Fernando! This is a truly sacred act! Do you think just anyone can do this?]
Santa Muerte, still had the same personality even though she had partially regained her old power and memories. Still noisy and chattering.
Maybe she had this personality from long ago. Perhaps the reason she wasn't that famous and only spread as a minority folk belief was because of this. Because for a deity, she didn't particularly feel dignified or sacred.
But Fernando's thoughts couldn't continue long. What had to be done was clear.
He knelt on one knee in front of Diolan.
"Muerte. I'm counting on you."
[Understood.]
Muerte approached Diolan and lightly kissed his forehead. Seren and Fernando silently watched that scene. For a moment, there was an illusion that Muerte wasn't a skeleton, but had the appearance of a kind and beautiful woman.
"Ha. Ha. Ha...."
Diolan, who had been gasping and coughing up blood, continued breathing, then slowly closed his eyes. His heaving chest stopped its rhythm, and the energy of life in his body quickly cooled.
Muerte lifted Diolan's head and embraced him like a loving mother.
Seren clenched her fist while watching that scene. She wanted to revive Diolan right now, but not yet. She shouldn't step forward at this moment.
Instead, she looked at where Osian was with a clear gaze.
"Now!"
At her shout, Osian realized with a knight's intuition that something he didn't know about had progressed. The sense that had been frustrating until then became clear as if dark clouds had lifted.
The energy embedded in Mother Goose's heart became even more intense.
"Die now. Witch left behind by the times."
Mother Goose opened and closed her mouth, trying to say something. However, Osian didn't even respond and just exploded the energy of the Sun, Moon, and Stars as is.
BOOM!
An intense explosion occurred. The outer wall of the building cracked and debris fell down.
Osian pulled his sword from Mother Goose's heart and slowly retreated backward.
Mother Goose no longer regenerated as all the familiars she had summoned were dead.
The ring made of paper floating above Mother Goose's head fluttered and scattered. The same was true for the paper spear. The pages of Nursery Rhyme scattered everywhere and disappeared with light.
Part of that light melted away into thin air, and part was absorbed by Osian.
Even amidst all this, Mother Goose was not yet dead. Her blurry gaze turned toward Osian. While bleeding from her mouth, Mother Goose smiled.
"Yes. In the end, I was defeated."
All the familiars were dead, and now only Mother Goose remained alone. She felt death approaching her.
She had thought it would be a death that would come with the world's destruction. That's why she struggled so hard to avoid it, but to think it would rather result in causing death instead.
What if she had changed her thinking and chosen the option to fight together to resist the coming destruction? Would something have been different then?
It's a meaningless supposition. At the time she made that decision, Osian didn't exist. If she had seen this man earlier, then perhaps something might have been different.
Mother Goose let out a hollow smile. It's a retrospective story. Perhaps it was fate that she would die like this.
"Ah. My beloved child."
Mother Goose discovered that among the scattering papers, only one page remained. There was a cute cat with golden eyes and pointy black fur on its ears drawn. The cat stood on two legs and wore boots.
The child she created. The cat she had wished would grant humans' wishes and grow up receiving their love.
That wish reminded her of her past self.
Mother Goose didn't dislike humans from the beginning either. They were foolish and greedy, but sometimes they showed unbelievable purity and altruism.
Diolan was the last trace created by herself when she still had even a trace of affection toward humans at that time. At the point she abandoned Diolan, she had made an irreversible choice.
And at the last moment, now that everything of Nursery Rhyme had disappeared, only Diolan's page remained.
Mother Goose stared at the page with an unbelieving gaze, then turned her head toward where Diolan was.
There, she saw Diolan being held by the skeletal woman dressed in pure white.
He wasn't breathing and looked like someone fallen into a deep sleep. But Mother Goose knew that right now Diolan was in a dead state. To be precise, he was in a state of suspended animation.
"So that's what it was."
Mother Goose, who used Nursery Rhyme, was linked in life with her familiars. When she died, the familiars died too. Because death was transferred.
But it had no use for an already dead target. Because there is no death to transfer to a corpse. The reaper's scythe bypassed Diolan.
Muerte looked down at Diolan and exhaled. It was a breath that was soft yet cold enough to freeze to the bone.
[It's all over now. Please wake up.]
As the breath tickled his face, Diolan's eyelids trembled. Soon he opened his eyes. Surprised, Diolan jerked his body up.
Looking around, he soon made eye contact with Mother Goose.
"Uh...!"
He stopped before calling her mother. Diolan had a complicated expression toward the dying Mother Goose.
As if happy yet somehow sad. Seeing such a Diolan, Mother Goose smiled at him.
"Now, live as you wish. No longer bound by anything, freely."
Mother Goose said that and closed her eyes. Her quiet breathing subsided.
Whoosh. The wind blew. It was a soft and gentle breeze. The wind handed over the last remaining page of Nursery Rhyme to Diolan.
Diolan grasped his page floating in the air. Seeing that, his expression contorted with sorrow.
A subject he once loved, and once hated, but soon thought he had cut off his emotions for. But seeing his agitated heart, it seemed it was all his own delusion.
"Farewell."
Diolan bid a final farewell because she was family and even though she abandoned him, she was the mother who created him.
Osian's gaze, having dealt with Mother Goose, turned toward where the battle was unfolding.
The fight was not yet over.