“Morjan.”

The moment I called that name—

Craaaack...!

this vast space—

a space larger than an entire major city—

twisted violently from end to end.

A world filled with red blood.

There was nowhere for light to enter, so the blood alone had illuminated this world.

And into that space, so completely filled with crimson—

Paaaaaaaaaak...!

that color

began to change in an instant.

Crkcrkcrkcrk...!

The world that had been filled with red light—

as if scorning that blood-red hue itself,

another light surged forward, smashing through it without the slightest hesitation.

{So be it.}

A brilliant blue radiance bright enough to hurt the eyes

covered the entire world.

When I first called that name,

I had expected the lump of flesh I had once seen to appear before me.

At the very least, that had been the form it took when it entered me.

But.

Kuuung...

contrary to what I had expected,

the one that actually appeared was... a little unusual.

‘...It’s huge.’

Ariella’s inner world had expanded to an absurd extent through her repeated advancements in rank.

Even so—

this thing was so massive it looked like it might touch the ceiling of this world itself.

A giant of blue light.

Even the tallest spire of this enormous castle barely reached its waist.

‘I see.’

And at the same time,

it was a form I felt like I had seen somewhere before.

‘This is inside a mental image.’

Which meant

that even a being of whom only fragments of the body remained now

could exist here in a form different from its physical shape.

{What...!}

And.

...It wasn’t just its appearance that was overwhelming.

{This mana...!?}

From what I had learned so far,

to a godhead, a name was not merely a word used to refer to that being.

It was a word that expressed that being’s identity and essence exactly as it was.

And the divine name of that giant of blue light—

‘Morjan’—

was

‘infinite mana.’

For now, only a few truly tiny fragments of it remained.

Even so—

infinity, no matter what great number you divide it by, remains infinity.

Kugugugugugugung...!

That literally “endless” mana

made this enormous space begin to shake as if it were about to collapse at any moment.

And.

As I looked up at that giant, I thought,

‘...I can’t feel a soul.’

It had appeared in answer to my call,

but the will remaining inside that body was extremely faint.

The fact that it answered me was probably no more than a kind of reflex.

Its soul had already passed on when it met me, to begin with.

So the will left inside it could only be a tiny handful.

“I have not forgotten the promise I made to you.”

But.

What mattered was that even that tiny handful of will still remained.

“I will keep that promise someday, no matter what. But for that to happen, I have to stay alive until then.”

And.

A single handful of will dwelling within a being so overwhelmingly powerful.

The content of that will

was very simple.

“Help me.”

{So be it.}

Help me.

Srrk.

When I raised my arm,

the giant’s arm moved with mine in response.

And then—

Saaaaaahk...

in my hand,

I saw blue energy begin to gather.

This blue light was not the glow caused by [Combat Power Measurement Device].

It was simply the light of pure mana itself.

Ordinary mana was certainly supposed to be formless and colorless,

and yet

its quantity and density were so overwhelmingly great ⊛ Nоvеlιght ⊛ (Read the full story) that it emitted a blue radiance.

Once I confirmed that,

I seized that mana, which moved according to my will,

and swung my right hand once.

[Soul Cooking Mastery]

Then—

Paaaaaaaaang!!!

the cluster of blue light gathered in my hand

spread outward as a massive wave.

The red waves that had been raging through Ariella’s inner world—

their force had clearly been overwhelming.

But the moment the opposing wave of blue light touched them—

...ssrrrk.

the sound of those roaring waves,

so deafening until then,

fell silent in an instant.

A full quarter of this vast world

had gone quiet with a single gesture.

Swiish.

I did not stop there.

This time, I lifted my left hand and gave it a light wave.

—Kyaaaaaaaaaaak...!

The souls that had been screaming piercing cries filled with pain and rage—

when the blue wave touched those twisted souls,

—...Ah.

the souls that had been bound inside the blood

were set free,

—and at last...

and with endlessly peaceful expressions on their faces,

they drifted upward into the sky and vanished.

Paaang...!

I turned and swung my right hand once more.

Paaang...!

Then I swung my left toward the opposite side.

A mere four motions centered around my body.

They were no more than extremely small movements, insignificant enough to look like nothing at all.

But the result was anything but small.

Paaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaak...!

This space, sticky and ominous,

filled with the hatred and rage of the trapped souls—

blue radiance spread through every direction,

thoroughly sweeping away all of that dark energy.

“...This.”

And a moment later,

what remained was—

‘...Beautiful.’

It glowed softly like a jewel,

a beautiful world that looked as though it belonged in a fairy tale.

***

Soft vegetation was growing across the ground,

and the castle that had resembled dark and gloomy Bimana was now shedding beautiful light and illuminating the world.

Here and there, seas of blood still rolled and swelled,

but even that red glow gave off the elegant beauty of rubies.

Blood symbolizes death,

but at the same time, it also symbolizes life.

Once I [prepared] every last soul dwelling there,

what remained was the pure force of life,

untainted by any impurity.

Its essence was unbelievably beautiful and full of vitality.

‘...So that’s how it is.’

This place was Ariella’s inner self.

If so,

then the grim and sinister space I had seen until now had been a distorted form brought about through blood-draining.

And this beautiful place—

this was the inner world she had originally possessed.

“So it really was... true.”

And.

I was not the only one looking at that scenery.

“This is...”

The place that had been most deeply hidden within this castle.

The woman who had come up from underground to the surface

stared blankly at her surroundings and spoke.

“This child...”

Maybe she was marveling at its beauty.

Or perhaps it was as though she had seen something dearly missed.

With her voice trembling, steeped in emotion,

she spoke.

Only after seeing that did I realize it.

This beautiful world was certainly a little different, but—

...it also resembled Isabella’s domain, at least a little.

“Ella...”

And whatever it was she was thinking,

when she slowly walked forward and placed her hand against the castle wall—

Gugugugugung...!

the world began to change.

Kwaaaaaaak...!

With a tremendous tremor,

the world began to transform rapidly.

And at the same time,

I felt a pressure as though it were gently trying to push me aside,

as if asking me to step back for a moment.

‘Is it asking me to move?’

With the giant’s help supporting me now,

I had more than enough power to resist.

But...

‘...Fine.’

I decided not to.

Because—

Craaaack...

from the sky above,

I could see a figure descending into this space.

‘Isabella, who had been hiding in the deepest part of Bimana... in a place even the owner of this space did not know about, had revealed herself outside.’

And.

If a being appeared like that,

‘there’s no way the owner of this space wouldn’t become aware of it.’

So.

Well, that was all it was.

‘...If the two of them want to talk.’

Stepping aside for a little while

was not that difficult.

Paaang!

And then,

driven out by the force of this world,

my body was pushed outside.

Floating up in the sky,

I stared blankly at this vast and beautiful world as it underwent upheaval,

and thought,

‘Ariella’s advancement in rank was carried out when Grand Duke Valarak raised her status.’

But.

This part had never sat quite right with me from the beginning.

Because—

‘Ariella’s blood came from Isabella.’

If so,

then the one who should have presided over her advancement in rank as well—

{...Thank you.}

“You don’t need to thank me for that.”

—should have been Isabella.

***

Paaang!

With a sound like that,

my body was flung back out onto the surface.

I barely managed to steady myself after being thrown out.

But at the same time—

‘...!’

I could not help but be startled

by the enormous force I felt inside my body.

It was not difficult to realize what it was.

‘Morjan.’

Simply by existing,

it had nearly collapsed even the inner world of a being as powerful as Ariella.

And now,

the power of something like that was running loose inside my body.

“Ghk...”

A pressure so intense it felt like my whole body might explode

was hammering every inch of me.

‘The reason it took the form of a giant in there... was for my sake...!’

Inside the mental world, that power had taken the shape of a giant on its own

and passed that power to me from the outside.

Because of that, I had not suffered from a force I could not control.

‘...I knew it wasn’t a power I could handle lightly...!’

But now that was no longer the case.

Back in the underground mine, when I let Morjan’s soul pass on and opened the gate,

even Bimana had been affected by the mana that burst out of that gate like an explosion.

If that enormous fortress had been affected,

there was no way I could be an exception.

Paaaaaaaaang...!

A transcendent quantity of mana trying to burst out

even if it had to tear my body apart in the process.

It felt as though the explosive force might rip my body to pieces—

and then, at that very moment,

[Divine power with form begins to move!]

another force inside my body

began to move as though wrapping itself around that mana.

‘Divine power with form...’

Originally, it had only remained inside my body.

It was a power even I had not been able to use properly.

But after several awakenings of insight,

that power had now reached a level where it could even exert a slight amount of physical force.

Srrrk...

That divine power gently wrapped itself around the exploding mana.

Only then

did I feel the pressure on my body ease somewhat.

‘This won’t last long either.’

Thinking that,

I was only just managing to pull myself upright when—

“...My dear.”

someone beside me

spoke to me.

“From inside there... I felt a familiar presence.”

When I turned my gaze,

there was someone with head bowed low, face covered with both hands.

“I thought perhaps something had happened to you... so I entered as well.”

It was Ariella.

And.

With a strangely trembling voice, she said,

“Inside there... Grand Duke Isabella—”

At the same time,

from her, a taste came pouring toward me—

far too deep and rich—

the taste of several emotions at once.

“I met Bella.”

“...I see.”

Time inside that veil flows differently from reality.

For me, only a few seconds had passed while I struggled to control Morjan’s rampaging power.

But during that span—

“I spoke with Bella... for a very long time.”

inside there,

more than enough time may have passed.

“She told me many things besides what you had already told me. Why she had no choice but to treat me the way she did... and things about Father as well.”

“......”

“She also told me what she learned from my memories and yours. The process by which I was sealed away... and what happened after that. What became of Bella and Father, and why it happened that way.”

The Isabella inside there would have been the one from the point when Ariella was becoming a noble.

But if Isabella had read both my memories and Ariella’s memories,

then for someone on the level of a grand duke,

understanding the entire course of events would not have been difficult.

“It was a truly absurd story.”

“Well, I can’t say I disagree.”

“But...”

As she spoke, she seemed to choke up

and curled in on herself.

“It seems I was not as abandoned as I had thought.” 𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚

“...That’s true too.”

After saying that much,

she took a breath.

“Thanks to you, all the souls inside me are gone.”

“It must be pretty quiet now.”

“Hehe, yes, that much is true. But...”

Lowering the hands that had covered her face,

she lifted her head and said,

“Thankfully, it is not all that lonely.”

The one who had been sitting on the ground rose unsteadily to her feet.

And with her—

Srrrk...

from that body,

a massive, black, flickering shadow rose along with her.

“Instead of the many who vanished,”

it resembled the pillars of shadow I had seen before,

but there was a slight difference.

Those earlier pillars had been closer to tools Ariella directly controlled.

“Bella decided to remain inside them.”

...These shadows were not being controlled by Ariella.

They moved as though they possessed wills of their own.

[Ingredient Identification (Enhanced)]

I glanced at those shadows,

then turned my gaze back to Ariella.

[Head of the Karshtein Bloodline]

[Marquis Ariella Bimana of the Karshtein Bloodline]

Come to think of it,

it was quite a moving moment.

[She is the new successor of the Karshtein Bloodline, a bloodline that was once great but ultimately fell into ruin.]

[In the past, she was no more than a fringe noble of the bloodline, yet even so, her talent shone brilliantly.]

[The great first head of the bloodline, Grand Duke Isabella, did not overlook that talent!]

It felt like only yesterday that I had teased her for pretending to be a queen when she was just a mere viscountess.

And now—

[Having earned Grand Duke Isabella’s recognition, she has been appointed the new head of the great bloodline.]

[Her domain, Bimana of the Otherworld, is hereby proclaimed the new capital of the bloodline!]

now she had risen to the highest seat in the bloodline,

to the point where calling her a queen no longer sounded strange at all.