Osian, who had defeated the void insects, came to a halt. His gaze fixed on the rift in the sky. The rift was no different than usual. It was still gloomy and bizarre in form.
However, something had clearly changed.
"......!"
It wasn't only Osian who felt this sensation. All the comrades who had come to fight froze in place. It was an instinctive reaction. It was a principle that any living being would inevitably display.
"At last, He has arrived!"
The only one moving and shouting violently in the frozen world was Solenon.
"The darkness that devours the world! The one who suppresses light! The primordial void that has existed since distant ages!"
Wuuuuung!
The rift vibrated as a massive wave swept across the entire holy city. The world was wrapped in silence as if time itself had frozen.
The void soldiers who had been fighting, the Black Star Order, the void beasts, all suddenly stopped fighting and prostrated themselves.
"Aah! He has come!"
The Shattering Star General Agraphilia raised her six arms and let out a joyful shout. Ken-Ush also lowered his head, placing one hand on his chest as if in silent prayer.
"The beautiful end of a harsh world!"
The allied forces also felt something. That something enormous was approaching. Everyone's eyes turned to the rift that had formed in the sky. From beyond the mercilessly torn rift, a massive form appeared.
It was difficult to express in words. Its rippling surface seemed like flowing liquid, or like smog scattering in the wind.
The thing with its strange, pitch-black bulk protruded from outside the rift. It was a gigantic hand.
The rift was already of a size difficult to gauge, yet the hand was so massive it could grasp that rift. Two hands grasped both sides of the rift and tried to widen it.
Kigigigigigik.
A bizarre sound of space twisting echoed. It seemed as though the rift would widen at any moment and that massive being would burst through.
"Ahhk! Uaaaahk!"
"Gweeeeeek!"
Many of the allied forces who faced that being complained of headaches and stomach pains; the severe cases screamed while bleeding from their eyes or retched.
They weren't vomiting what they had eaten. What they vomited was massive amounts of blood. Allied soldiers who vomited blood collapsed right there. They were dead.
Allied soldiers who lost their minds removed their face masks and gouged out their own eyes with both hands. Someone foamed at the mouth while strangling their own neck with their hands. Such situations were occurring across the entire battlefield.
The officers and commanders who should have calmed them couldn't properly restrain them either. They too were barely holding onto their minds that seemed ready to go mad.
Even during this, the massive hands continued trying to widen the rift. The rift could actually be seen slowly opening.
It was eerie. The moment the rift opened wider, it was unimaginable what would happen.
That's when it happened.
From beyond the darkness of the rift where the massive hand had extended, light flashed. The light flickering in the darkness was small but clear and numerous. However, the arm that had been trying to widen the rift could be seen hesitating.
The owner of the massive arm no longer widened the rift. Instead, should one say, it spat something out through the narrow rift.
It was a pitch black massive sphere. On the surface of that sphere, the face of a screaming person was drawn like a shadow. Around the sphere, peculiar rings rotated in three layers in different directions. On the surface of the rings too, the faces of screaming people were engraved.
It seemed like the appearance of angels written in scripture had been bizarrely corrupted.
"Ah. Oh God."
A bishop of the Petra Order with deep faith offered a prayer. That voice was trembling and filled with despair.
The massive sphere revealed its presence and slowly descended to the ground beyond the rift. It was the place that had been the plaza of the corrupted holy city.
Osian raised his head and gazed at the thing slowly descending.
'The Primordial Void.'
That's not the main body. The main body couldn't cross the rift. At the decisive moment of crossing, the veil of stars interfered.
But it wasn't completely blocked. The Primordial Void sent a part of itself beyond the rift. What was descending now was precisely that. The void's avatar.
Just looking at it seemed to drain one's mental strength. An even more tremendous sense of oppression could be felt. It wasn't a metaphor of oppression by presence.
'Gravity.'
Gradually, it grew stronger. As the thing grew stronger, this was becoming clearly apparent.
"Kugh!"
All the comrades composed only of skilled individuals let out groans. The void's avatar looked massive, but it clearly contained an even more tremendous mass beyond that.
If this was only an extremely small part, what about the main body? Even such thoughts were quickly erased as the avatar finally descended to the ground.
The sight of rings rotating around a massive sphere looked like viewing a planet with faces. Would it fight in that state? How would it attack?
In the midst of such idle thoughts the avatar changed. Its body suddenly collapsed like mud. That massive mass changed to a much smaller size. Rather than change, it was closer to compression, or evolution.
The thing that changed while writhing finally stood upright completely alone. For a moment, there was an illusion that all the gravity in the world was directed toward it. It wasn't an illusion. The earth rumbled, and the surrounding structures crumbled and headed toward it.
The reason could be understood immediately.
It was because of the sphere embedded in its chest. The accretion disk spun fiercely. The accretion disk flowing as if to make the pitch-black center stand out was in the form of light. However, the color was an ominous purple.
What stood up with that embedded in its chest was a knight wearing violet armor.
Normally, outer gods have bizarre forms because they cannot manifest their forms in this world. Just as they erode the world, it's also the result of the world resisting them.
However, that doesn't mean their forms are greatly distorted. Like the Red Eternity, there was a case where the form of a disgusting and massive pine tree was its main body.
But still, they inevitably looked strange somehow. It was so with Glamhator, with Ken-Ush, and with Agraphilia.
But the Primordial Void was not so.
It was literally a knight. It wore armor and a helmet. Though its appearance was quite menacing, unlike other outer gods, it didn't give the feeling of being unwatchable or bizarre.
A knight wearing violet armor. Yet inside the wide-open breastplate, a black hole was embedded. Light flowed from its helmet. It was a gaze that made one's spine shiver just from meeting it.
"Oh Void. Welcome to this humble star."
Solenon, who had come to face the Primordial Void, took the utmost courtesy toward it.
"I am called Solenon, the only servant on this star who worships you."
The Void's gaze turned toward Solenon. Solenon smiled even more triumphantly and spoke extremely respectfully toward the Void.
"I opened the rift. I paved the way for the Void to come to this world conveniently."
It was to claim his merit and occupy a higher position in the legion. The opponent was the ruler of the legion. If the Void's favor touched him, he calculated that he could rise to a considerable position even as one of humble mortal origin.
The Void only gazed at such a Solenon. There was no answer.
"Oh Void?"
Solenon asked, sensing something strange.
Kwajik!
His body was crushed to the ground. It was as if an invisible giant's arm had pressed down. What had been Solenon spread as if crushed on the ground. Solenon could not regenerate.
"Huh?"
It was a scene no one could understand. No one had thought the Void would suddenly kill Solenon like that.
Solenon's final moment was truly futile. He had made a contract with the Void and possessed an immortal body but Solenon died. The immortal body was of no use. The Void simply gazed, and with just that, his very existence disappeared.
Was it intentional? If not that, then just unconsciously?
The Void's head turned. Its gaze headed toward the distant battlefield. It was where the airships flying in the sky were located.
Immediately after
──────!!!
One corner of the field of vision collapsed. It wasn't a metaphor. The things visible in the field of vision disappeared like magic.
That range was too vast. It was as if a photograph had been taken and one side of the landscape cleanly carved out.
Nothing remained where the aftereffects of the power swept through.
That power, which started from the plaza, widened in range as the distance increased. It looked like a fan shape. Everything in the trajectory disappeared. The structures of the corrupted holy city, the void soldiers, the void beasts, the allied forces.
If they were in the trajectory, even if they were in the sky, they couldn't be safe. The massive airships all disappeared at once. It happened so suddenly that it looked as if they vanished from everyone's eyes.
But Osian saw it properly.
'Something massive crushed everything.'
It was the same as killing Solenon. When the Void gazed, everything in that direction was crushed. Osian couldn't help but realize, seeing the massive sense of mass felt from the Void.
'Black hole. Its very existence is a dead star. And it endlessly craves light. This oppressive feeling it emits is gravity generated by the excessive mass of a black hole.'
What was visible in the field of vision didn't disappear. Crushed by massive gravity, their forms collapsed and disappeared in an instant.
And that just from looking at it, across a tremendous range.
The command center was truly in an emergency state.
"Just now, what was that?"
"Answer! What just happened!"
The distant operations command center receives situation reports in real time. But from a certain moment, the reports suddenly cut off. It was as if the agents who had been transmitting information in real time all froze at once.
"Connecting the cyborg's vision!"
The scene the cyborg was seeing unfolded identically in the command center. And the moment they saw the unfolded devastation, the command center couldn't continue speaking.
"What is this......"
Everything visible in the field of vision had disappeared. It was a scene as if cleanly carved out. This phenomenon didn't distinguish between friend or foe. Those who had been caught in the aftereffects of gravity had disappeared as if carved out just along the boundary line.
"The damage range is......"
The communications soldier spoke in a trembling voice.
"Incalculable."
The wave of gravity that started from the plaza extended long beyond the holy city. Crossing the contaminated plains to a much greater distance beyond. Crossing the earth, passing over mountain ranges, and even crossing borders. It reached a human city in the neighboring kingdom of Switl, adjacent to the Kingdom of Baienrus.
"S-Switl is contacting us. They say the city near the border has disappeared."
"Helling! Utenbori! Batrode! All those cities aren't responding!"
"The map! Bring the map!"
At the commander's order, a soldier immediately brought a large map.
The commander traced the trajectory from the Baienrus holy city to those cities. He quickly calculated the damage range.
And the moment he saw the result, he fell into despair.
The wave of gravity emanating from the holy city was spread in the shape of a long funnel. That range was massive enough to span several hundred kilometers.
Such an attack, happening in an instant without any warning signs? More than that, just how many died?
The allied forces' damage was actually closer to the center of the attack. So the range wasn't very wide. Even so, tens of thousands must have died. The problem was the places touched by the end of the gradually widening gravitational wave.
If the distance was far, the power should have been halved, but cities caught in the trajectory completely disappeared as if that wasn't the case. If small villages nearby were included as well.
The death toll was estimated to exceed at least 5 million.
5 million was the number of people who died from just one strike. This was even the minimum estimate.
"Just what are we fighting against?"
"Sen, senior?"
Alensia called Sestain with a trembling voice.
Sestain looked back at Alensia but instead of his usual playful expression, a faint smile was formed at the corner of his mouth.
"Senior!"
Alensia’s eyes widened as she looked at Sestain. His right side didn't exist. His shoulder had been completely and cleanly cut off.
Sestain was rather fortunate. The others who had been fighting together disappeared without a trace along with the Black Stars. Among them was another executor of Tirna. He died without even leaving last words. There was also a witch of Tirna who had been fighting alongside. No trace could be seen. She was dead.
"Uah! Uaaaah!"
"Damn it! What is this! What the hell is this!"
The reason of the allied forces who had lost comrades returned belatedly. They fell into a panic at the suddenly occurring situation as the chain of command became a mess in an instant.
"Damage! Report the damage!"
"T-too many! The people in the trajectory, they're all dead!"
"Damn it! What the hell just happened!"
Despair spread, and the void soldiers who resonated with it began to move again.
"They're coming! They're coming! Get ready!"
"Sob. It's over. We're all going to die."
"Save me. Mom."
People giving up. People sitting down and crying. People shouting desperately trying to resist somehow. The void soldiers rushed toward them like a wave.
The Void, which had unleashed its power once, now drew its sword. Just from drawing it, the sense of weight around the Void seemed to increase 30-fold.
The Void grasped the sword and was about to swing it.
However, the Void could not do so because before its eyes, an intense light blazed.
Light should never reach the Void, which possesses powerful gravity because light is warped by gravity but Osian's light was different.
Osian's Sun-Moon-Stars-God collided with the Void's gravity sword.
The brilliantly shining star and the darkness that devours light faced each other.