Sure, some of the tree trunks had struck her and torn her clothing at the shoulder, drawing blood. Even so, she wasn’t in a critical state. Yet, she couldn't easily regain her composure. The living beings she saw in the memories were just that horribly ugly and evil in their actions.
Of course, she knew not all living beings were like that. Yet, nonetheless, the memories she was seeing were apparently authentic.
The problem was that the more of those memories she saw, the more her anger toward living beings began to grow. Having peered into the deepest parts of the inner mind that others couldn't sense, Willow felt like throwing up.
“Why the heck would you let things like this live... Hup!” Willow, who was murmuring instinctively, clutched her mouth shut. She reminded herself, “Snap out of it! This is just a miniscule example picked deliberately. I can't generalize just by looking at a few bastards.”
If she hadn't lived through so many experiences, including her past connection with Bae Seung-Woo, she felt like she might've instantly crumbled right there before the disgusting memories.
The pain she felt while trapped in the sword and the pain now were totally different.
Swoosh!! Boom!!
Then, two strands, much thicker than the others, fiercely dug toward Willow. She managed to wrap her hands around them and hold off their advance.
“You dense idiot!! You're trying to overpower me now?!”
Thud!!!
“Kyaaak!!”
At the same time, tree trunks whipped at her back like lashes, leaving large wounds. She worried that they were so severe that they would leave a scar.
The trunks showed her terrible memories every time they came in contact, as if determined not to let her compose herself and approach the statue.
The memories had nothing to do with Darian or Willow, instead being memories filled with fundamental hatred toward the existence of living beings.
She saw a kind elf who saved and healed suffering humans be betrayed by the man she saved. Her village was burned, and her family was taken as slaves. She herself was caught by that man and suffered unspeakable pain.
Another memory showed a man who dedicated himself to entering the elven forest, appealing to the notion that humans could become good. Striving for harmony between humans and elves, he was instead betrayed by them and torn into pieces by demonic beasts.
A human and demon fell in love, but the intense conflict between the two races ultimately led the couple to tragedy.
An infant who hadn't even been weaned was brutally murdered under the pretext of an inquisition.
There were dozens, even hundreds more. Entrenched in that storm of memories, which could make anyone with even an exceptional level of mental fortitude go insane, Willow gradually failed to even register the things coiling around her body.
The tree trunks very carefully coiled around her. She slumped down with empty eyes, and they began to slowly encroach her.
A normal human wouldn't have suffered so much under their particular type of attack. Alas, since she was a goddess who could see what others couldn't, the grief, agony, resentment, and overwhelming malice contained within those memories were transmitted directly through to her as if she’d experienced it all personally.
The sheer intensity of it nearly shattered the mind of the young and inexperienced Willow in an instant.
The tree trunks had coiled around her body like snakes. She could only feel her divine power at the tips of her fingers now, though even that little bit was slowly fading away.
That was when it happened. A certain power seeped into her.
It felt like it was amplifying her strength.
“This is...”
It was a power she'd seen recently.
It was the power of the Awakened individual, Bae Seung-Woo. He was Super Ribbon’s peer, and a person who had once been connected to Willow.
Once upon a time, she had entrusted one of her sacred artifacts to him for safekeeping. It would seem he had activated his ability the moment he sensed the artifact's power weakening.
It only provided her a very brief window for action. Even so, that was enough.
Willow, whose consciousness was being sucked into the deep abyss, slowly regained awareness of her surroundings.
Her fist tightly clenched, ready to fight back. Her chance had finally come to turn the tables once more.
Gleam!!!
At the same time, beams of light burst from between the tree trunks coiling around her, and she began to ascend into the sky. The lifting she demonstrated was somehow able to override her inability to fly in Doomsday’s space.
The tree trunks put up further renewed resistance by tightening around her, trying to keep her from rising. Nonetheless, she continued ascending, eventually tearing every last trunk apart.
As she rose high into the sky with fragments of the shattered trunks still clinging to her, her closed eyes suddenly snapped open.
Boom!!!
At that moment, her true divine form revealed itself to the world once more. The tree trunks that had been coiling around her scattered into pieces and were strewn everywhere across the space.
Inadvertently adding a sense of majesty to the descent of an unapproachable goddess, the tree trunks that had been lunging toward her were instantly reduced to dust.
In her powerful state, she wore a different winged dress than the one she usually wore.
The power she possessed hadn't changed much, but it had certainly become much more refined.
“Neltarid...”
It was all thanks to a power slumbering within her. The power that Neltarid had forcibly awakened and made bloom in her, all the power that had been half-asleep until then, was finally completely released.
Her mental fortitude became much more solid with the transformation, while her holiness created an even higher level of radiance.
Swoosh!!
Desperate, tree limbs poured out toward her from all over the forest. Their number easily reached the thousands, even tens of thousands.
Watching them shoot up all at once as if to stab her, she directed her shimmering eyes downward. Then, she raised one hand to her chest and spread her palm.
Crack.
White sparks began to gather in her hand, soon transforming into a single rifle made of light.
It looked like a musket, the type which might have been used in centuries past. However, it was closer to a ceremonial gun with many decorations rather than something for actual combat. Regardless, the outward appearance didn't really matter.
Willow silently hovered, slowly pointed the muzzle downward, and took aim.
Sizzle.
She heard the distinct sound of something burning, the chain reaction of firing having begun.
As the tree trunks rushing toward her split apart and bloomed into grotesque flowers, countless particles gathered behind Willow.
Suddenly, wings of light, stretching what seemed like thousands of meters, unfurled behind her at tremendous speed.
“You must've thought you could mess with me just by showing me one depraved side of the world, Doomsday. Lucky for Darian, your big sister isn't that weak.”
She pulled the trigger.
Boom!!
Accompanied by a heavy reverberating boom, a brilliant light burst out. At the same time, her wings scattered for an instant, and the particles dispersed everywhere around her.
They swelled up like a giant sun rising in the world, pouring out even more immense light. Their inconceivable power swiftly burned the entire black forest, as if purifying it.
When the light finally vanished, the forest was already gone, reduced to ashes.
“Living beings are selfish, filled with the capacity for extreme violence and malice, but that's not a reason to kill good people.”
If she were to let that happen, she’d be no different from those evil jerks in the deplorable memories.
Willow slowly descended onto the statue's head. It was of her own volition, as it no longer had the power to stop her from floating.
Even though a brief glance still gave her a black obstruction in her vision which made it hard to see, she didn’t stop.
As she approached the gem, she tried to reach for it.
That's when it happened.
A voice that shouldn't have been there suddenly rang out, declaring, “The time has come.”
“You?!” Willow, startled by the sudden voice, turned her head.
She didn't even have a moment to spare to wonder how he had gotten there.
The figure she saw had a black suit; a single tentacle instead of a head; and a colossal eye.
Solomonia instantly grabbed Willow.
At the same time, the faintly vibrating gem shattered and fired a black blade that left a large wound on her arm.
“Kyaaak!!!”
Black mist poured out from her wound and she instantly collapsed.
Completely incensed by the betrayal, Willow furiously screamed, “Solomonia!!”
In sharp contrast, Solomonia looked at her with a calm face. “It took a very long time for things to fall into place. You wouldn't believe how long I've been forced to just wait, helplessly sitting around and planning, just for this moment.”
She trembled, stricken by the wretched sense of betrayal, and lashed out, screaming, “What did you say?!”
“Even for your sake, I absolutely cannot deviate from my plans. Not this time."
* * *
The goddess's footsteps softly rang on the floor. She was a being who couldn't be stopped from going anywhere she wanted in the world.
Goddess Freyja slowly approached the black-haired young man.
He calmly called out, “Goddess.”
The young man, or rather, Davey O'Rowane, turned his head, and then he smiled softly. Yet, there was sadness in his smile. He continued, “You've come from the past.”
Goddess Freyja quietly nodded.
Davey let out a bittersweet smile.
“That means... Solomonia succeeded, right?”
“Do you regret it? Letting him live?”
“Regret? I suppose I do have something I regret. But I don't regret not killing that guy—I regret that my past self didn't have enough power to change things.”
Hearing the sorrow in his words, the goddess moved closer, trying to stroke his hair.
Instead, he pushed her hand away with a stern face.
“You won't accept my touch anymore.”
“I'm sorry,” he replied, unable to allow it.
“Everything's gonna be fine. Even if it's just self-satisfaction for you.”
“Of course it will be fine. Willow's a goddess, after all. Whether she's here or there, Willow's still Willow. As long as she stays alive, there's nothing more I can really ask for,” Davey lamented, smiling bitterly.
The Goddess calmly added, “You sent Abel to the past to awaken Kouna, and by returning his power to the world's law and changing the past, this place became isolated from the past.”
“And you forgave Doomsday—Solomonia, who should've died by your hand—and sent him to the past.”
She wept and embraced Davey. “You will... be able to protect Willow this time.”
“I have to... I've prepared for this by even changing the causality. However, I just feel sorry for him.”
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