The pope, with eyes gone wild, rushed at me recklessly!
BAM!
I can clearly see he’s being devoured by the Power of Darkness.
If it were the previous pope, even if he got heated, he wouldn’t have been that passionate!
SWISH!
I grinned as I raised my shield.
In the last two attacks, the pope’s hands pierced through my shield.
At first, I thought I made a mistake, but nope.
That was definitely his power!
The process of his punches disappearing left only the start and the end.
If I knew what my opponent did, the countermeasures wouldn’t be that hard.
Since I possess the Authority of Purification!
I infused the shield Garad gave me with both the Authority of Purification and the Authority of Embrace.
My Authority of Embrace isn’t just about hugging the opponent.
It’s a selfish desire to embrace only what I wish!
So if I resolve to reject the opponent’s power, I can definitely push back!
THUD!
The impact flowed through my shield, filling the air with a heavy sound.
I may have failed the parry, but that’s okay.
I confirmed that I could block his power!
The moment the shock subsided, I immediately cast healing magic and gritted my teeth.
I saw the fist coming at me again but didn’t move my shield.
I spotted Frey’s sword strike beside me.
To ensure the pope wouldn’t regenerate right away, hundreds of sword strikes rained down, turning the pope’s power into dust.
“Hey, Sloppy Duo! Are you all set?!”
“The design is complete! We just need to recreate the erased magic!”
“That works!”
It’s like saying to endure! If it’s that, then it’s easy! A fight to hold on is simpler than a fight to win!
“Meh, for all the noise you made, there’s nothing special, huh?♡ Sloppy!♡”
As if responding to my provocation, the pope suddenly disappeared from sight.
POOF!
But I still felt his power lingering.
Turning my gaze, I spotted Phoebe and Joy.
Can they really target that even when they’ve lost their sanity? Is the final boss still a final boss?
As I hurried toward Phoebe and Joy, a cold feeling hit me from the side.
As I sensed it and turned my head, Arthur stood there with a shield, taking the impact for me.
“I’ll watch your back! You focus on what you need to do!”
I want to, but it’s not easy! With the fairies’ sight, when it disappears, I can’t see anything around me!
I need those fairies! I squinted in thought, recalling when the fairies called me out.
I don’t know what they did, but they called me back to the land again.
Then can I call them too!?
The moment I resolved to summon them with the Authority of Embrace, I felt the connection between the fairies and me.
Even though we hadn’t made a contract.
As I pulled on that line, a clamorous voice filled my surroundings.
– Lucy!
– Lucy!
– Lucy called for us!
I shared my power with the fairies, and light enveloped their wings, while simultaneously, my view switched to third-person.
SWOOSH!
Grinning in satisfaction, I extended my shield toward the pope, who had appeared behind me.
A refreshing sound rang out as my fist connected.
The sound proving I succeeded in the parry.
The sound indicating a gap had formed in my opponent.
Hearing that, I raised the corners of my mouth and struck the pope’s head with my mace.
The sensation of bones breaking made for the most delightful experience ever!
Seeing my grin, the pope screamed in frustration despite his head crumbling.
“No!”
“Huh?♡ What’s up?♡”
“You should not be saved by others! The Apostle of the Lord must bear all burdens alone!”
“Well, I’m not a loser like you~♡ No need to indulge an isolated person’s whining, right?♡”
“I must correct this. No, I will correct it. I will definitely fix this.”
The pope unfurled his power once more, but I’m not dumb enough to fall for the same trick twice.
I’ve gotten used to using my powers. In the end, it’s a battle over who can stubbornly insist better!
And there are hardly any people as stubborn as that Mesugaki in this world.
Unless you’re some kind of human trash.
“Get lost, you scum!”
“You get lost!♡ Dummy!♡”
As I pulled my friends into my Authority of Embrace, darkness couldn’t grip their ankles.
Indeed, the light I scattered put fear in them, making them retreat slowly.
No matter how mad they pretend to be, they can’t be more stubborn than me, huh?
Huh?
Huh?
Sloppy idiot!
Huh? Thinking back, isn’t that guy’s recovery related to the Authority of the End?
If I grant him purification, wouldn’t recovery become impossible!?
Of course, simply giving him power wouldn’t work, but if I trap him in a zone of purification…
I took a deep breath and leapt forward lightly.
The Fairy Dance infused with divinity at my toes.
WAHOO!
“Haha♡ You’re not doing anything worthwhile!~♡ Loser♡ Scrap♡ Trash♡ Has-been♡”
I moved my feet based on divine magic symbolizing purification.
I thought the pope might notice, but in his heated state, he couldn’t even sense the divine magic!
“Mad?♡ But you’re not doing anything!♡”
I danced with the pope.
In such a way that he wouldn’t even grasp that he was dancing.
It was far too beautiful in the fairies’ vision.
“Here!♡ Right here!♡ Is your old age creaking in your joints?♡ Not moving well?♡”
Before I knew it, a magic circle made of divinity and power formed on the ground.
The magic circle, founded by the Fairy Dance and completed by aesthetic sense, kept emitting faint light even in darkness.
“…Wait a minute.”
“Too late!♡ Dummy!♡”
The moment I stomped on that magic circle, a domain formed around me made of divinity.
It was once the Lord’s, but now, it had become mine.
– Sloppy!
– Bad Sloppy!
– Dead!
From within that domain, clear shapes emerged, embodying the fairies’ forms.
“It’s warm.”
“It feels good.”
“This is Young Lady’s domain.”
“I feel like I can do anything.”
My friends gained their will.
The surrounding darkness lost its footing, and I couldn’t help but smile at the power surging from deep inside me.
“…Oh, God.”
And in the pope’s eyes, clarity returned.
Ah. Crazy.
“Is this also a kind of righteousness?”
No. But it’s okay. In this place, even the pope can’t regenerate at will.
So if we push him, he shouldn’t behave recklessly like before.
Let’s push here!
“Fool!”
“Yeah!”
Frey’s sword easily sliced through the pope’s arm.
The pope, stripped of the Evil God’s power, was now merely human.
He could no longer boast the same strength.
And he shouldn’t have.
His grotesque regeneration should have vanished.
Among the incomplete Evil Gods, the pope should’ve lost everything to be normal.
“It’s a nice place.”
But reality was different.
The pope casually reinstated his broken arm as if it was nothing and cast divine magic.
Divine magic?
“What are you so surprised for? You know my status.”
He can still cast divine magic under these circumstances?
He’s not just someone who holds the Evil God’s power; he’s more like the Evil God himself!
Sloppy Lord! Are you not taking care of your divine management properly!?
How much do you want to hear insults from me to be acting like this?!
Cursing the damn god, I rushed towards the pope, who was trying to meddle with the domain of purification.
Yet, a wall of light surrounding him pushed me back.
“I understand. What you intend to do. To stop him, I’ll have to create a disaster in this world.”
“You won’t be able to do anything!”
As the domain began to slip away from our control, Phoebe and Joy intervened. Those two, unmatched in magical prowess, easily contended for control against the pope.
“Do you know?”
In that situation, the pope calmly withstood our combined assault.
It seemed death was unable to hold back as he only blocked fatal strikes.
“The myriad dungeons that must not exist in this land are sustained solely because of my power.”
Such useless drivel!
As I rampaged inwardly and outwardly, I began to reflect on the pope’s words.
Suddenly, I became aware of the fundamental issue buried therein. If that statement were true…
“Insane!”
Desperately wanting to dispel the Authority of Purification, I discovered that the domain hadn’t vanished as I intended.
The domain that Joy and Phoebe had forced to maintain against the pope remained intact.
Realizing this, I shouted at them, but it was already too late. The ground’s darkness split, and monsters surged out.
Not one, but countless!
The monsters from Soul Academy I remembered were bursting forth from the darkness.
The mad rush of the dungeon was born as the pope’s power collapsed. I hadn’t anticipated this.
I was already shocked by the appearance of the dungeon, but how was I supposed to foresee its rampage too?
“Lady! A miracle!”
“Not yet!”
Not yet. Not yet. I can’t activate the holy relic.
Especially now when the pope has regained clarity.
If I perform a miracle, I could backtrack the undead army, but then there’d be no future!
“This isn’t the time! If this continues, we’ll be killed!”
“Still!”
“Lucy, listen! Give it your all! Pitiful Prince!”
“We need to do our best with what we can!”
That must be kept as a last resort.
For now!
“Lucy Allen.”
Distracted by the undead legion, I felt the presence of a man behind me.
“Keep your eyes forward.”
Erginius’ darkness swirled around, swallowing all the monsters rushing toward us.
The pope, seeing this, tried to unleash his power to block the darkness, but almost simultaneously, a knight appeared, slicing at the pope’s form.
“Lucy! I came to help!”
Benedict’s armor was ragged from the fierce battle, but the strength reflected in his eyes was clearer than ever.
“Even if you do this, you can’t handle all these forces yourself!”
“Do I look like I’m alone?!”
Just as he shouted, human forces appeared from behind.
Allan’s knights. Kingdom soldiers. The priests and holy knights of the Holy Land. The wizards of the Magic Tower. The warriors of the Empire. Fairies that should be in the forest. Those who ought to protect the forest.
Facing the legion of monsters.
“With our strength, we will save the world!”
