The duel ended.
The end of the world that many spirits had imagined did not arrive.
The sun seemed still able to rise during this dimension's daytime.
Even Sophia herself hadn't felt tense at the moment of the direct attack.
After the attack landed, she felt life ebbing away, felt her grasp on this dimension weaken, and yet in the end, she hadn't felt "the threat of death."
The enormous Apoqliphort Towers slowly dispersed. Sophia, with only half a body remaining, rippled the next second like waves on water and returned to her original form.
On the other side, Tierra gently nodded, as if weighing, thinking, considering something.
The humans and spirits held their breath, waiting for the two to speak again.
Although they had dueled, the scene of the two throwing a punch at each other at the start was still deeply printed in every spectator's eyes. They couldn't be certain what would actually happen after the duel.
"Withdraw from the Synchro One God War."
After a good while, Tierra seemed to finally think of something.
"Fine."
Sophia responded calmly.
The principle of accepting the bet's outcome. Sophia had always been like this.
Never mind Tierra, even a passing spirit, or a creation or alien that had stolen her divine power, so long as they could beat her or gain her acknowledgment, she would give them what they were due.
This was perhaps the fundamental difference between the two in personality, or rather in essence.
Tierra preferred to handle matters personally. She arranged all beings according to their proper progression, so no one could escape the grasp of the life-and-death cycle, so that all mechanical things could obtain eternal circulation, and everything would evolve in orderly fashion.
So she was more stubborn, more insistent.
Sophia was different. Although similar to Tierra in her absolute possessive drive over the planet's life evolution, after seizing that "authority" she wouldn't deliberately arrange the development of all things. Instead, after establishing an opening, she'd let all things run themselves and evolve naturally.
So she was more tolerant, and more receptive to fresh possibilities.
Before the duel ended, after seeing the scene in the sky, feeling this attack that couldn't kill an existence like her, Sophia had gradually understood.
It seemed she had indeed awakened too late. So late that even now she hadn't realized: Tierra, while still that Tierra, was no longer entirely the Tierra of her memory.
Tierra, cold-faced, swept a glance across the surrounding spirits, gave two snorts, and waved her hand to dispel the barrier, signaling those spirits' leaders to come over.
The Tierra of this moment was no longer the Tierra of before who could be "talked back to" a couple of lines even by the Shaddolls. After this gesture, quite a few spirits directly flew over obediently. But even after hearing her "command," these spirits still watched Tierra warily, afraid she'd make a move. Some spirits even chose to guard around Sophia, clearly ready to use Sophia, who looked "on the same level," as a shield, warily eyeing this green-haired goddess.
Tierra saw this in her eyes. Although displeased, she said nothing.
These spirits were fundamentally not their creations, but a completely new race that had grown from this world. They had no relation to her or Sophia.
The reason they'd run over to Sophia's side was simply that Sophia now looked weaker, and was easier to "borrow strength" from.
Tierra had no malice toward them, nor any fondness. She merely coldly began speaking of past matters.
She would go, one by one, in sequence, to every race's tribe to battle.
For some spirits, like the Steelswarm and Shaddolls, they had dueled Tierra before and knew Tierra's "objective." Others hadn't seen Tierra but knew that such an existence, one determined to "unify the dimension," had indeed appeared in their dimension.
It was just that they had never imagined this "existence" would be so exaggerated, a genuine god in the true sense!
If that was the case, quite a few spirits felt at ease at once.
Not directly using her exaggerated physical strike ability, but only a duel — every clan here could accept that. In everyday life, they fought each other to the death anyway, so this was nothing extra.
Then, seeing that there truly seemed to be no danger, these spirits gradually withdrew.
Today's duel would probably become an important memory for educating their clans' younger generations later.
Our dimension is dangerous, so dangerous!
The waters run deep!
Only today did they learn that their dimension had hidden gods on the level of "world-shattering, sky-destroying"!
And two of them!
Until the very end, the righteous force guarding this dimension's "safety," the Gem-Knight Order, only carefully chose to leave once there truly seemed no danger.
On departure, the current Gem-Knight Order commander, another "Master Diamond," heavily patted the captain's shoulder, praising its growth.
By now, Captain Crystal's power purity had already surpassed his own, becoming the clan's rightful First Knight. He was happy that the captain, after his disappearance, had been rescued and had even upheld justice and grown stronger than himself.
But Captain Crystal just awkwardly scratched his head, straight up saying his growth wasn't enough. It was all thanks to his lord's help that he could walk to this point, and he was far from as excellent as the commander.
But the commander just smiled and didn't continue the topic. On the other side, Tierra impatiently called Captain Crystal over.
Some trivial matters Tierra couldn't be bothered to do, so she needed him for the work.
It wasn't anything complicated. Tierra had all the spirit clans present and absent provide "extra coordinates" leading to their territories. This way, when teleporting to this DT dimension, one could land directly at the gates of the corresponding faction.
It would both make it convenient for her to visit them one by one, and convenient for Hikaru to collect cards. Very time-saving.
"Give me a copy of that too." A voice suddenly cut in.
Crystal turned to look and found it was Sophia.
At this moment, she was raising her hand, pointing at the distant mountains.
Because her duel with Tierra had gotten too heated, it had caused serious damage to this world's ecology, even smashing a small mountain clean through. She was currently repairing it.
"?"
Tierra glared viciously at Sophia.
After Sophia finished the repair, she gently patted the nonexistent dust off her hands, closed her eyes again, and lightly held her left hand out flat. "The people of the Pendulum Dimension lack experience dueling strong opponents. As a deity, I want to give my kin a small blessing."
Tierra pouted, but didn't keep glaring at her.
Declan Akaba, watching within the base, gently tapped his fingers, silent.
Indeed, the Pendulum Dimension truly lacked high-intensity dueling. Given the commotion of Tierra and Sophia's goddess duel, those spirits still dared to watch at close range, which meant they at least had confidence they wouldn't be killed by the aftershocks.
As a training ground for the Pendulum Dimension going forward, it was indeed a good destination.
But...
Too strong.
Sophia and Tierra's power was too strong.
The two's duel had been truly exaggerated, truly absurd. The scenes of world-shattering, sky-destroying at every gesture could not be brushed from his mind no matter what.
Especially during the duel, some information the two had unintentionally exposed made him all the more tense.
Destroy and rebuild?
Racial extinction?
Start a new stove?
Whichever one, applied to humans, they were absolutely terrible vocabulary.
Their dimension truly needed a strong enough support that could genuinely put them at ease. Otherwise...
If one day Sophia suddenly went ballistic, disliking their dimension's excessive urbanization, he couldn't think of a way their dimension could respond.
But these matters weren't important to Sophia.
For her, not being able to participate in the One God War meant she couldn't. She didn't care. For the sake of her own insistence, she was willing to duel Tierra one step earlier, even risking dying once more, simply because she purely hated Tierra.
But...
There was a classic saying: the one who knows you best is often your enemy.
When she hadn't taken damage sufficient for death, when after the duel the environment was still the same as before, Sophia understood everything.
Perhaps even more clearly than Tierra.
"Are you giving up your Star-Creating position?"
"How could I. No such fortunate thing. Don't dream."
"Then are you going to change yourself?"
"I will always be me."
Sophia didn't retort. She switched to another question: "So then, do you mean you'll still choose the mechanical?"
This question, for the first time, troubled Tierra.
She looked at the distant Gem-Knight Crystal, who was chatting with each clan's spirits and exceptionally busy. She murmured a moment, then asked: "How do you view the spirits?"
"A kind of... hard-to-describe wondrous life form of the new age." Sophia furrowed her brow, which was rare for her.
"They can be plants, or machines. They can grow naturally, or be reshaped and evolved. They possess their own cultures, their own inheritances, can die, can reincarnate, are both living beings and souls..." The more Tierra spoke, the lower her voice grew, seemingly more perplexed as well.
This was truly wondrous.
Sophia knew this too.
When she'd seen these strange creatures, her long-held convictions had nearly collapsed instantly.
Life could be both mechanical and spiritual?
The existence of the spirits had utterly resolved the dispute between Tierra and Sophia, and also utterly provided a "life form" that both of them could accept.
Even...
Although Tierra and Sophia were both "gods," their current form of existence was still that of spirits!
Yes.
At least in this era, the matter the two of them had argued over for tens of thousands of years had unexpectedly found an answer.
Neither she nor Sophia would ever have expected this.
But...
Under countless years, years so long even they didn't know how long had passed, they were too unfamiliar with this world.
An unfamiliar world, life forms both familiar and unfamiliar, an incomprehensible new "form of battle"...
A sense of strangeness, a sense of loneliness filled Tierra and Sophia.
This was also why Tierra had initially found Captain Crystal particularly unbearable.
But when they had found each other, that long-ago familiar feeling returned. That great war which felt as if from yesterday began slowly to brew.
Although either of them understood very clearly that everything had ended. Everything.
And now.
It was a bit of private "girls' talk."
Sophia controlled the sound's transmission, so that the voices could only be heard by her and Tierra.
"But what I find interesting is, Tierra, you've changed too."
"..."
"I thought that in this unfamiliar world, I could feel a familiar feeling. But it seems I was wrong."
"..."
"You know, you're always like this. When you meet a question that's hard to answer, you fall silent, thinking I'll give up pursuing it."
"...I won."
Sophia neither confirmed nor denied.
She thought for a moment, then took out her deck. Several cards flew out from it.
Tierra caught them naturally. She saw that the top card was Naturia Exterio.
A card stronger, more overbearing, and more nauseating than Naturia Beast!
"That human called Hikaru has always been collecting Fusion monsters, right. I've heard. This card, I'll give it to him."
"What do you mean?" Tierra grew wary, looking at this card that carried Sophia's power.
"You should understand very well what I mean, Tierra." Sophia covered her mouth, smiling. Her body slowly began to grow translucent, dissolving into the ripples of water. "Although I don't understand dueling well, feeling an opponent's soul during a duel is too easy for you and me.
There's a question in your soul. Do I need to ask it? Or, do you want me to ask it?"
But after completely dissolving into the water ripples, the smile on her face slowly faded.
"Tierra, neither your revival progress nor mine has been completed. Now that you've defeated me, this means you can prematurely gather the destruction you're better at and the creation I'm better at.
You can, one step earlier, return to the primordial."
Return to the primordial!
Return to countless years ago, return to the time when they were born, return to the time when they were still Them, return to the time when they were still Star-Creating Goddesses!
Star-Creating Goddess. That wasn't merely a title, but was literally, in the truest sense, "creator of stars"!
Star-Creating Goddesses were gods who created all things of a planet!
The Synchro Dimension had been created by the Crimson Dragon and the many Synchro Gods together. And the DT Dimension had been created by the combined power of Tierra and Sophia!
Although the current them could exercise divine authority, could change the natural environment, possessed the power to easily crush mountains and rivers, could instantly change their own life structure and form, they were still spirits.
When they completely returned to their primordial state, restored to their original "Star-Creating Goddess" form, then they would stand directly above all spirits. Because they were, in the truest sense...
The Primordial Origin!
At that point, forget all things of the DT Spirit Dimension. Even reshaping a dead, silent planet back into a form of vibrant life and myriad flourishing creatures would be trivial.
Because they were both professionals!
But... at this point, could Tierra take that step?
Could she, as she had said, casually discard the life-and-death cycle for the sake of her convictions?
Or, would the short two years spent with Hikaru be enough to change her millions-of-years-old lifelong wish and obsession?
Sophia had cast a question at Tierra.
Tierra didn't know.
She couldn't give an answer now.
She only knew that after this duel was completely finished, what greeted her return was Hikaru's genuine smile and praise.
"You fought well."
When Tierra had been able to react in an instant to the fact that Naturia Beast could only negate the activation of a card and not the activation of the card's effect, Hikaru felt that Tierra was worthy of victory.
This also proved that his time spent with Tierra had not been wasted.
Tierra was silent for a small moment. Then, against her usual manner, she didn't gloat. She smiled and said: "That's only natural."
...
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