Hum—hum—!
Stepping out of the violet-glowing portal, Esdeath found that the water beneath her feet had already been replaced by liquefied, high-concentration Honkai energy.
Some of it had even crystallized, forming a vast crystalline plain resembling a magic formation.
Including Legion Commander Roboute of the Thirteenth Legion, large numbers of Astartes warriors and officers of the Imperial Auxilia stood upon it.
"Your Majesty, the Spirit of Origin, Mio Takamiya has been brought..."
Esdeath immediately knelt on one knee, lowering her head without daring to raise it. Without Selene's acknowledgment, she simply remained there in silence.
As for Selene's intervention in her battle with Mio Takamiya, Esdeath did not harbor much resentment.
Though she was unwilling that Mio had not been defeated by her own hands, her actions showed not the slightest trace of negligence.
Esdeath was not the type to grow arrogant through favor. She would execute Selene's orders unconditionally, regardless of whether they aligned with her own desires.
As for showing displeasure toward Selene for interfering in her fight? She would not even dare to imagine it.
Esdeath was a battle maniac who relished combat and had wanted to fight Mio Takamiya to the very end—but she was not a fool.
On the contrary, needing her sovereign to step in and save her after defeat left her with nothing but humiliation and hatred toward her own weakness.
She was still too weak...
Even though Selene had warned her beforehand that her raw strength did not match Mio Takamiya's, the shame of inadequacy still lingered in her heart.
Esdeath understood her own position clearly. She was merely a subordinate. Her power, status, wealth, authority... all of it had been granted by Selene.
Based on her understanding of Selene, though she appeared poised and graceful before everyone, with a faint smile that made her seem like an easygoing empress—
That was all an illusion.
The foundation of being "easy to talk to" was obedience. The moment a servant dared to show attitude or displeasure, one would see what followed.
She would smile and ask you: beheading, firing squad, hanging, flaying, waist-severing, dismemberment by chariots, the Five Punishments, death by a thousand cuts, boiling... Which one suits your taste? Choose one.
And if your defiance was deemed severe enough, even your entire family would not be spared—women, men, the elderly, children, none excluded.
A ruler of absolute authority like Selene was soft to the compliant, hard to the defiant.
When you were close to her, you could joke, play around, even act spoiled. If she was in a good mood, she might indulge you.
But the sort of "yasashi/tsundere" fantasy where everything you have is granted by your master, yet you can throw tantrums and show attitude when dissatisfied—reversing status as though the master were raising an ancestor instead—
Such a scene would never appear before Selene. The moment it surfaced, you would vanish from this world.
From the very beginning, Esdeath's battle with Mio Takamiya had been fundamentally unfair. This was not a personal grudge—it was war.
And from the outset, Selene had already set the tone of the battle.
Its purpose was to temper Esdeath's mastery over the Herrscher of Ice's authority while satisfying her desire to challenge a powerful opponent.
The fight would generally stop at a certain point.
Selene: There are only two possibilities. Either Esdeath kills the opponent, or when Esdeath is about to be killed, I step in. I've raised this child for so many years—I'm not letting her die.
Like a conductor of a symphony, Selene paused her modification of the ritual array in her hands, turned around, and lightly raised her palm, signaling Esdeath to rise.
"The battle is over. You forced Mio Takamiya to reveal both her Angel of Laws and her Angel of Void. It seems your level of mastery is quite respectable," Selene said with a light laugh.
It was the truth. The gap between Esdeath and Mio lay in one point: the ability to rewrite the present world around oneself into a domain advantageous to oneself—a world uniquely her own.
Mio Takamiya's Second Angel—Angel of Laws: Ain Soph—possessed a freely controlled territory capable of altering all rules. It was an ability bordering on omnipotence.
Against equals or superiors, the outcome was uncertain. But against those weaker than her, she could utterly crush them.
"No, Your Majesty. Defeat is defeat. If not for the Imaginary Space usage rights you granted me, I would have lost long ago."
Rising to her feet, Esdeath let out a sigh and spoke with shame.
Beneath her right hand lay the unprecedentedly weakened Mio Takamiya.
"Then... continue striving."
"...As you command!"
Thud!
Selene examined the pure white figure Esdeath had thrown before her.
"Mio Takamiya... hmm. So you are the reason Westcott and Elliot, once as close as brothers, went their separate ways?"
Of course, the rift between Westcott and Elliot may have stemmed from deeper ideological differences—but Selene had no intention of considering such subtleties.
Hearing this, Elliot and Karen, who were being pinned beneath the boots of the Imperial Auxilia not far away, merely opened their mouths silently.
There was nothing left to say now...
"Tsk tsk. A beauty that brings calamity."
With the air of a bystander stirring trouble, Selene remarked lazily, unclear whether she was speaking only of Mio or also including herself in that judgment. "Wouldn't you agree, Westcott?"
"Ah? Oh—yes, Your Majesty." Startled from his daze, Westcott bent deeply at the waist, his attitude exceedingly humble.
After experiencing Selene's gravity suppression and then a soul-search, Westcott had learned his lesson. Even though the woman he had yearned for over thirty years stood before him, he did not dare plead for her.
With a soft chuckle, Selene turned her gaze back to Mio Takamiya and said without preamble, "The era of the Spirits is over."
At this moment, the halo behind Mio had grown nearly illusory, fading into gray-white. Her silver hair had dulled, and even opening her eyes seemed to require all her strength.
"The final 'material' is ready..."
As she spoke, Selene turned to Roboute at her side. "Bring them all up."
"Understood."
In the next instant, a squad of fierce blue-armored Astartes stepped forward, each gripping captured "materials" in their left hands, their right hands resting on the hilts of their Honkai energy power swords.
Shido Itsuka was thrown out first, crashing heavily onto the violet-crimson crystalline ground.
After him, Tohka Yatogami, Kotori Itsuka, Yoshino Himekawa, Yamai Kaguya, and Yamai Yuzuru—Spirits who had been defeated by Esdeath and her Jaegers—were cast down one after another.
"I... what happened to me?"
"Shido!"
"Kotori's voice?! No... what happened before I lost consciousness? Where... is this?"
In an instant, Shido regained full awareness and sprang up from the crystalline ground.
"You... who are you people?"
The first thing that entered Shido Itsuka's vision was the towering blue-armored giants filling his entire field of view.
His younger sister Kotori lay weakly on the ground. Tohka, Yoshino, and the Yamai sisters were unconscious, their breaths so faint they were nearly imperceptible.
Then Westcott and Ellen stepped into his sight.
Realization struck him instantly.
"It's you again—DEM!" he roared.
"Impudent—!"
Accompanied by Roboute's thunderous shout, a semi-materialized shockwave erupted like the blast of a high-explosive bomb. Originating from him, it slammed directly into Shido and knocked him flat onto the ground.
By the time Shido reacted, he realized he was already kneeling upon the cold violet-crimson crystalline surface.
Cold sweat streamed uncontrollably down his forehead...
Click-click-click!
Vrrr—!
The sounds of bolters chambering and chainswords revving rose one after another. Several leading Astartes glared at Shido with ill intent, as though they would tear him apart the next second.
"Ahem... boy, look behind you. Look at your mother, your beloved. Do they seem familiar?"
A cold female voice drifted from not far away.
In an instant, overwhelming fear and reverence flooded Shido's heart.
Before he even consciously registered it, his instincts had already surrendered to that voice.
The next moment, the silver-haired girl lying beside Snowstorm Esdeath burned into his mind.
"Shinji... is that you? I'm sorry... to meet you in such a pathetic state..."
Opening her lifeless azure eyes, Mio Takamiya revealed a sorrowful smile, her voice trembling.
"Y-you are...? This sense of familiarity... what is it?"
The moment Shido saw her, he felt as though bound by a destiny from a previous life. Even his genes and soul seemed to yearn for her.
"She is your mother—and the mother of all Spirits."
Watching Kurumi Tokisaki fall into deep killing intent upon seeing Mio, Selene spread her hands lightly.
"However, this 'mother' does not appear to be loved by her own children. Shido Itsuka—or rather, Shido Takamiya—do you wish to know everything? The puppet-like life you have lived?"
With a flick of her finger, fragments of memory extracted from Westcott and Kurumi Tokisaki were injected directly into Shido's mind.
"AAAAAH!"
A torrent of information flooded his brain. Agonizing pain overwhelmed his nerves. Shido collapsed to his knees, his muscles convulsing violently.
He clenched his fists and slammed them against the ground. His nails tore, his hands turning bloody and mangled.
But the pain of the flesh was shallow compared to the truth.
What Mio Takamiya—his mother, his lover from a previous life—had done hurt him far more.
In order to resurrect Shinji and live eternally as his lover, Mio had refined Sephira Crystals, treating human lives as worthless. She had used the bodies of innocent girls as purification vessels, sacrificing an unknown number of lives to produce ten bloodstained refined Sephira Crystals.
To accelerate her plan, she had deceived Kurumi Tokisaki with the lie of becoming a "hero of justice," causing Kurumi—unaware of the truth—to personally kill Spirit-turned victims one after another. Even her closest friend had died by her own hands.
...
"AAAAAAH—!"
When the information transfer ended, Selene glanced at Shido, who sat lost and broken after learning the truth, and coldly proceeded to the next step.
"Miku Izayoi. Natsumi Kyouno. Nia Honjou. Mukuro Hoshimiya."
Extending her hand, four crystalline Sephira Crystals appeared in Selene's palm.
These four Spirits had never been "sealed" by Shido. One was still a singer, one continued her pranks, one had been captured in DEM's London underground laboratory, and one drifted peacefully in outer space.
They were merely passersby without hatred or emotional entanglements.
Selene was not bloodthirsty. She simply extracted their Sephira Crystals and allowed them to remain ordinary humans in this conquered world.
"Go."
With a flick of her hand, the Sephira Crystals sank into the core of the ritual array beneath her feet.
Gulp—
As more "materials" were added, the inland sea that had formed over thirty years within the crater left by the Eurasian Sky Disaster—fed by groundwater, rainfall, and glacial melt—was completely corroded by Honkai energy, turning into a distorted violet-crimson expanse.
"Now it's your turn."
"No..."
Hearing Selene's words, Shido sensed what was coming. He lifted his head, about to plead—then stopped midway.
Mio had created so many tragedies to revive his previous life. How could he claim innocence?
"Your Majesty... may I... take their place and atone?"
"No."
Selene had already seized the moral high ground.
Relying solely on brute strength was insufficient—one needed strategy. Standing upon the righteousness of Earth reclaiming what belonged to it, she pronounced her judgment.
"I know what you intend to say, but it is impossible. Take her with you—die together."
Her tone was calm, stating an unalterable cruelty.
"I guarantee that I will not unleash massacres in your world. On the contrary, they may live even better."
It was an empty promise, offered casually.
And in truth, this world would be governed by the Thirteenth Legion, the Ultramarines. With their administrative and agricultural capabilities, a world with sufficient population, complete industrial lines, and habitable conditions would not fare poorly.
"...I understand."
With a heavy heart, Shido rose to his feet. He cast one final, lingering glance at Kotori and the others lying on the ground.
"Kotori... if there is a next life, let's be siblings again... Everyone, goodbye."
"Goodbye... Shido... brother..."
No threats were spoken.
The overwhelming gulf in power left Shido almost grateful that Selene had promised not to conduct mass slaughter.
What more could he ask from a ruler beyond the stars?
Carrying the increasingly weakened Mio, whose strength was being drained by the ritual, Shido forced a faint smile.
"Let's go."
Without turning back, he walked toward the core of the Kabbalah Ritual before Selene.
"Shinji... I'm... sorry..."
Clinging tightly to Shido's neck, Mio choked on her words. Within her voice lingered a faint sense of fulfillment and release.
Hum—hum—!
A violet-crimson torrent erupted. Their bodies gradually disintegrated, breaking apart inch by inch into fine dust, transforming into pure spiritual power that flowed into the ritual's core.
Then the process repeated.
Until every Spirit in the world had vanished, reduced to pure power and returned to Earth.
Beneath the surface, the Kabbalah Ritual—modified by Selene—expanded once more.
Thump-thump-thump—!
From outer space, it was clearly visible: centered upon the Eurasian continent, an immense cross-shaped pattern composed of diamond formations pulsed like Earth's newly awakened arteries, throbbing within a magnificent crimson glow.
At that moment, Earth resembled a womb nurturing something within.
Thud—boom—!
With each "heartbeat," every living being born in this world heard a muffled thunderclap echoing close beside their ears.
"Simulation · Imaginary Tree—grow."
Screeeeeech—!!