Flame.
A small heat rising from deep within my body. It’s a sensation engraved by a power I’ve grown accustomed to.
…But this wasn’t the end.
Suddenly, my vision turns black. I was definitely being carried on Lydia’s back, but when I regained my senses, my feet were on the ground.
No, should I even call this the ground? I was clearly standing in empty air.
The strange thing is that I recognized it as ground nonetheless.
Not ground in the simple sense of a floor. Solid rock and soft earth. Small pebbles rolling around, with plants growing in between and bugs crawling over that ground.
Something unseen and untouchable, yet I still perceived it as ground.
The moment I became aware of this, my perception expanded, bringing with it a small realization.
All the darkness surrounding me is also ‘ground’.
“Hey, it’s like being buried alive!!”
I faked a panic, but nothing changed. It was still dark and cozy here.
…Cozy?
As I tilted my head at this suddenly added sensation, a light flickered back into my blackened vision.
A muscular young boy with horns on his head. And a woman so large she resembled a mountain, gazing down at him kindly.
I instinctively realized. This was Asterios and the Earth Goddess.
Asterios set off on his journey, while the Earth Goddess quietly watched over him. And I looked down upon the two from above.
A slightly dizzying frame-like structure, but it was not uncomfortable.
The story of the boy Asterios unfolded quickly before my eyes.
The boy had been extraordinary since childhood, and by the time he became a young man, there was no one in the vicinity who could match him.
But this was only a tale among ordinary mortals.
His strength was not enough to hold off the gods and their armies.
Ultimately, Asterios and his clan began to traverse the continent to avoid endless war.
To the east. To the east. Always heading eastward.
Toward the domain of the Earth God, which held the tallest mountains in the Pan Continent and the widest plains.
Behind that were the familiar events that would go down in history.
The beastfolk barely reached the domain where the Earth God resided. They lost the mountains of their glorious days, but the vast plains and the underground tunnels remained intact.
The Earth God and her followers willingly accepted the beastfolk who refused to go to war.
But the War of Divine Extinction had not ended, and Asterios volunteered to be the guardian of the tunnels.
The Earth Goddess, who had been quietly observing his trials from afar, gladly shared her power with him.
Though it had crumbled, she planted the seeds of the mountains she had set aside so that they could rise again anytime.
Thanks to that, he gained enough power to wield like a tiny little mountain.
With a single cloud of dust, the ground split, and he supported even the weight of the mountains, smashing everything that stood in his way. His body was like rock, unbreakable and unyielding.
“He’s a true monster…”
An overwhelming presence that couldn’t even be compared to the Minotaur I faced.
Yet he was not an eternal being.
The mortal body gradually aged, and it was now nearing death.
The Earth Goddess still watched Asterios.
She never took her eyes off him, but there were moments she had to focus on something else.
That was battling with other gods.
The one burdened with a burning halo. It seemed the sun god was devouring the fire god, evaporating the water god, and now targeting the Earth Goddess.
“This is why the world is doomed.”
It was a battle so absurd it was hard to comprehend.
Nuclear explosions occurred every second in front of me, while a colossal giant absorbed them silently and attempted to counterattack.
Seeing something I had only known in my head was now before my eyes left me with questions.
“How did mortals survive such battles?”
It’s a miracle that the Pan Continent remained whole, and now there were still people crawling around inside it?
The clash of such immense power raised that question.
I wouldn’t have to wait long to find the answer.
A fierce battle that changed the landscape. Even in the midst of it, the Earth Goddess and the sun god were protecting their respective followers.
Indeed. Only the devotion to the deity they served allowed the mortals to survive.
If their god were a little more selfish, or if the opposing god were a little more ruthless, or if—eventually one side lost and their followers were left exposed—then over 90% of them would not escape death.
It was indeed a monumental battle, quite literally a mythical one. Yet one could not leave everything to the gods.
Gods’ powers are inherent but can also be built through faith. In other words, if one eradicated all the opposing god’s followers, then the god’s power would weaken accordingly.
This simple logic led to conflicts among mortals.
Those who followed the sun god, disregarding their species, bore golden halos behind their heads and charged forth, spewing flames from weapons or body parts.
And what countered them was the legion of earth spirits that could be resurrected as long as they had enough energy.
The Fallen Gnome I faced wouldn’t even be able to serve as a messenger for this legion.
Though it was impossible to make an accurate comparison since I saw it in a video, the spirits that seemed to be at the forefront had power equivalent to the advanced magic displayed by Benny or Morgana.
A scene of insane power inflation where such power was unleashed as normal attacks.
However, overall, the earth spirits were at a disadvantage.
And rightly so, for the opponent poured in all battle personnel, while this side was only made up of the earth spirits who could respawn.
Ultimately, as the spirits died and revived, quite a number of the sun’s forces crawled into the tunnels.
Of course, regardless of how many or how strong they were, they were all either trapped or crushed by Asterios’s hands. In the tunnels, even if he aged, he was invincible.
As I quietly watched, witnessing a war scene more magnificent than any movie I had seen, a sinister wave of color—turning purple and blood-red—suddenly engulfed the battlefield.
Mortals struck directly by this began to go mad in order from weakest to strongest.
“…Madness?”
Except for a few who had received a certain boon or had exceptional mental fortitude, every being on the battlefield mutated into monsters.
Spirits fell into corruption, and men morphed into demonic beings with purplish skin and twisted body parts.
Alarmed, the sun god withdrew his forces, while the Earth Goddess, flustered, returned the fallen spirits back to soil.
And so, somehow wrapping up the battle, the Earth Goddess turned her gaze back to the tunnels. She wanted to commend her champion like she usually did and celebrate another day of survival.
But she saw it. Her champion had become a horrifying monster, destroying everything she had tried to protect.
First off, Asterios at that time was no longer the Minotaur I knew.
He was fully under the most powerful blessing of the Earth Goddess, now steeped in madness.
Horns twisted like a devil’s. Breath mingled with dust. With each step he took, buildings crumbled, and rivers of blood swirled up to his ankles.
The horrified Earth Goddess hastily extracted the seeds of the mountains from Asterios’s body and raised the survivors to the surface.
Thus, sealing away Asterios—or rather, the Minotaur—in the underground city, leaving only the maze as a passageway.
I didn’t expect such a detailed display, but up to this point, it was all well-known lore. But why was I shown this again…
“Ah.”
A lofty perspective overlooking the entire world. Thanks to that, I could see the Earth Goddess, her image unrecorded in any history book.
She was crying.
As if the world had crumbled. As if her heart had been ripped out… or like a woman saying goodbye to her lover.
At that moment, I realized everything. The one showing me this scene was not the deceased Earth Goddess.
It was the Goddess of Love, using her power as a conduit to deliver a message to me while only viewing the entirety of the War of Divine Extinction.
“…What do you want from me?”
I said this with clear awareness of the Goddess of Love. At the same time, the past from a thousand years ago vanished, and the curtain named darkness was lifted, revealing the scenery after the end credits.
The first thing I saw was a shabby bed. Within it lay two individuals sleeping, their faces tranquil as if in slumber.
The boy, now returned to his youthful form as Asterios rather than the Minotaur, cradled a tiny woman in his arms.
Where had the enormous body that towered mountains gone? Now, it was the Earth Goddess, even smaller than an ordinary woman.
Hadn’t the name of Asterios’s comprehensive blessing been the Seed of the Mountains?
Perhaps. Perhaps the Earth Goddess longed to see Asterios grow as vast as the mountains.
So that he could become her equal. Thus, as man and woman—not as god and servant—could be eternal partners together.
Despite ending up just a little larger than mortals and eventually becoming a crazed monster, Asterios was now lying beside her on a properly fitting bed.
It was a feat made possible because the Earth Goddess had met her end and shrunk, losing all her power.
Yet somehow, they finally matched each other’s heights.
Now the Earth Goddess would no longer need to watch Asterios share his love with someone else.
And Asterios had no reason not to accept the Earth Goddess.
Embracing each other tightly, the two were akin to lovers at that final moment.
The moment I absorbed their image, I just knew.
If everything in the labyrinth were but shadows cast by the corpses of the gods as time and space burned.
Then the two before me are, beyond that flame, the ‘real’ essence.
The Goddess of Love, who adjusts the space and time of the labyrinth, shoved me into the wings of the stage.
“…Why?”
The moment I voiced the question I had first entertained, a sudden pink light fell from the empty air, landing atop the Earth Goddess’s head.
She looked like a new bride veiled.
“Was this what you couldn’t shake off your mind?”
As the Goddess of Love, she must have been displeased that their love ended in tragedy.
But then again, she couldn’t act directly due to her exhaustion, so was she asking me for help?
I wasn’t a priest or a person grand enough to officiate, but I figured it was fine just once.
Concentrating the remaining divine power onto my finger, I traced a holy sign.
“May there be blessings of unchanging love, like the towering mountains.”
Fwoosh—!
Was this the right answer? Unlike when I was drawn here, the surroundings began to turn white, and the sensations in my entire body started to dull.
My vision grew hazy. Beyond that, a shade of brownish light emanated.
It was the light radiating from where the Earth Goddess and Asterios made contact. This soon transformed into a small seed that flowed into me.
And.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
“Ugh!”
I opened my eyes on Lydia’s back.
With the seed of the mountains firmly rooted in my soul.
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