Bella tried very hard to explain, and Ham's expression gradually turned strange. It was not that he could not understand, but that it felt disturbingly familiar. "Let me put it this way. Is it similar to those detectors you keep replacing, the ones that get wiped out directly by the Mark of Finality on Belial's body?"
"…When you put it like that, it really does sound the same. It is just that before, it was not me being deleted, so I did not feel it at all." Ham's tightly furrowed brow relaxed for a moment, but he still could not draw a conclusion. He flew out himself to take a look, seeing a star-river-like trail outside, feeling the faint points of light that were the dispersed energy aftereffects of Belial's Spiral Heat Ray.
Ham did not try to grab anything directly. Instead, he carefully pulled out a single strand of hair and tossed it over. "The result is confirmed. You ran into The End. It was deleted."
With only one arm left, Ham flew back. The other arm was slowly regenerating, but his expression was serious. "This time it was not the passive effect of Mark of Finality. It is another, much worse possibility."
"Ah?" During their research, losing parts of their bodies had become routine, but from Ham's tone, this was clearly not something so simple. "Is this not just the usual being deleted?"
"Yes, but the nature of it is the difference between active and passive actions by the Lord." Ham shook his head and had Bella send a message to Belial according to instructions. The content was simple and strange, release the smallest possible attack without destroying Nanometal.
It sounded impressive but unclear, yet Bella still did it. The test result came quickly, and although Belial also felt it was odd, he released a very weak Heat Ray. It was roughly a hundred thousand degrees of Spiral Heat Ray, about the level of a breath he once used in the snow. In theory, this kind of power could not possibly penetrate Bella's Nanometal block.
The metal block they brought back had only a large crater on it. However, at the very center of the impact pit, there was an eerie, extremely smooth gap, with no bulges or tearing at all. The surrounding areas showed melting and damage, but only this small central portion was so clean, like two sharply divided surfaces.
Bella rescanned it thousands of times in an instant and still could not calculate any possibility that Belial's Heat Ray could cause such a mark. "Why is this happening? This kind of trace should be impossible to leave. High-temperature explosions simply cannot do this."
"Because this is not a high-temperature explosion, and it is not even Belial's attack." "Ah?"
After confirming this terrible possibility, Ham took a deep breath. His face twisted as he began to explain. "I told you before that The End is only a phenomenon and can never exist as some Crimson God's Authority. The reason is that The End is the result itself."
"No matter who it is, the moment they make contact, they meet an instant end. Soul and body are the same. But now there is a cursed situation." "Belial bears the mark of The End, and the effect of this mark is constantly expanding. Anyone else would be gone in seconds, but for some reason, Belial has been able to endure it."
"At first, I thought the mark was just something to settle accounts later, waiting for fate to grow back to its former scale before striking again. But now it seems far more complicated." A horrifying possibility surfaced in Ham's mind, and his face turned ugly, as if he had swallowed a fly. What was this, losing and then joining instead?
Ham turned to Bella and said, "Let us assume this. If the The End on Belial grows back to its former scale, and he can keep enduring it and stay alive…" "Then a being whose appearance itself signals the arrival of The End, leaving nothing but destruction everywhere except itself, with all things heading toward an end while only itself exists forever. What would you call that?"
"From another angle, the so-called god of The End cannot appear because no one can endure The End. Existence itself and The End are opposing concepts, so of course it cannot happen." "But what if there really is one that can endure it? An existence that cannot be erased by The End. Would that not be the perfect vessel for The End itself?"
Ham stopped there, but Bella already understood. Running it through his mind once was enough to reach a horrifying conclusion, and his expression darkened as well. "Why is it always another case of losing and then joining? This…"
The End, long restricted by conditions and unable to truly appear, had found its optimal vessel. The one existence absolutely opposed to it, yet uniquely qualified.
Why could that mark not be erased? Bella finally understood White Tier. It was not that it could not be erased. In fact, Belial could always erase it directly, but the mark would keep reappearing.
It always existed, simply because every time it was erased, Belial would be selected by The End once again. An existence that could never be worn away by itself became the best container for itself, and the The End placed in the infinitely distant future constantly yearned for the final destruction of all things.
Now it had finally found a chance to bring that end forward, and so it kept entangling itself with that infinite existence. That was why the signs of destruction symbolizing The End appeared on Belial and in the surrounding area, and were also present in the recent attack.
The result was not caused by Belial's power alone, but by a fragment of the end brought forth by the mark that had expanded to this point. Bella's Clone and the directly hit Nanometal block were both affected by The End the moment Belial showed the intent to attack, activating automatically.
"What is this supposed to be? The End cannot handle losing, so it plays like this?" "I would really like to know too. This kind of nonsense…"
Ham looked terrible, and Bella's expression kept shifting. What were they supposed to do about this? He had thought it was just a long-term negative debuff, but now he was being told it was a traitor progress bar. It was like being carried through the Hell dungeon all the way to the final stage, almost clearing it, only for the team's main carry to suddenly sit on the throne of the Demon King. What were you supposed to do then?
They had been stuck in a misconception until now. Only when the flaw finally showed did they see the truth. What if the The End effects around Belial were not a revival progress bar for The End at all? What if, after being chosen, Belial was simply rushing headlong toward The End, and those effects were passive stages reached along the way?
If this effect had no end and kept expanding endlessly, what would happen then? Wherever he passed would become The End. At that point, what difference would there be between the so-called god of The End and Belial? "Wait… if that is the case?"
Bella's pupils shrank. If they kept following this line of thought, was it possible that the earlier God of Darkness had fled so quickly for this very reason? Did it see this and run? "Then is there any solution?"
"Haha…" A solution? This was not even the same situation anymore. This was outright betrayal from the main carry. At first, what Ham imagined about The End was nothing more than the dozen or so surviving Crimson God in the Abyss trying one last gamble to avoid starving, calling upon The End.
Or that one day, as Mephist said, the mark would directly grow into a Beast of the End. For that scenario, someone would just have to work harder later, fish out Twilight, and use the old method to let The End end itself. But Belial becoming The End was something no one had considered. The End now had the perfect vessel to exist endlessly in the world, and the previous method of stopping it halfway was no longer useful.
As for the other side. Alba woke up in a daze, lifting her blanket. Sunlight that was a bit too bright fell by the bed, and it was clearly close to noon.
A familiar prompt sounded in front of her, one she had heard many times before. "This simulation has ended. Thank you for using it."
She rubbed her eyes and looked again. Yes, she had not misread it.
"Damn it, what the hell? I put in so much effort, and this was all just a simulation?" She had paid an enormous price and suffered terribly to clear a Hell-level dungeon, only to find it was a simulated battle. Did that not mean reality would make her do it all over again soon?
Alba did not believe it. That battle involved several Evil God, including the one behind her personally stepping in. How could there be no trace at all? She opened the window of her room and looked outside. It was still the familiar estate of Lynna, and it was indeed nearing noon.