166. “World’s Comedy.”
The ground under Arima's feet acted strangely. It was as calm as ever. No sound was produced, not even a small vibration. But it was silently cracking like glass. The fissures spread with no restriction and the affected area fitted perfectly the form of the giant magic circle in the sky created by Arima. Those cracks then started releasing light as if something was illuminating it from underground.
Arima waved his hand a little and the ground immediately faded away like a mirage. When the earth was gone, a bright red sphere the size of a planet was exposed. It was, of course, Hell's core.
Arima extended his hand. The number above him glowed ominously along with his eyes. After that, still in complete silence, the core moved and begun to ascend. After a few seconds, the core had clogged the circular hole and now looked like an enormous dome sticking out of the ground.
It wasn't the end. Afterward, the fissures resumed their propagation again and spread across Hell with the dome's circumference as the start line. Circularly, for tens of thousands of miles, Hell's surface became branded with glowing fissures that also reached the Téra.
The 'bear' and 'human' looked at each other when they saw the changes and accelerated.
Arima's magic circle was also expanding dangerously. It almost looked like the sky had always been covered by that circle.
"[Actum Tertium] (Third Act)."
The Téra felt something really wrong and hastened themselves but Arima had already entered the last step of his magic.
"[Quam exprimere hunc finem?] (How to express this End?)."
"[Quo modo enim non ostendit?] (How can we show it?)."
"[Quomodo potestis vos testimonium perhibetis abyssi deambulasti?] (How can you witness the abyss?)."
"[Nolueritis] (You won't)."
"[Nec lux et tenebræ iaculis] (Grab either your Light or your Darkness)."
"[Salvatores esse vana sunt et per] (Both are your saviors in an empty existence)."
Arima closed his eyes and Hell's landscape below the magic circle abruptly lost every kind of color or shade. One could still see forms, but there wasn't wouldn’t be black or white in their vision.
The Téra were dazed. They had not even lived for an hour but they had gotten used to the world as it was. They stopped moving. They couldn't even hear any sound as if it never existed. They couldn't see any color but there was still light. But even that soon vanished, and in the darkness, which couldn’t even be described as black, the only thing they could see was the radiance coming from the fissures in the ground.
As they were hesitated between advancing or retreating, Arima had already reached the point of no return.
"[Nunc, quod non vestris tamquam mundo?] (Now, what does your world look like?)."
"[Id est pulchra? Autem sola est? Frigus? Hilaris?] (Is it beautiful? Is it lonely? Cold? Cheerful?)."
"[Ego te huc ad nuntium] (I'm here to give you a message)."
Arima opened his eyes. If anyone was in front of him at that exact moment, he would have either died because of the pressure or turned into a speck of dust.
His look couldn't even be described as a dragon’s or human. They shined with a color that directly interacted with your mind and didn't match with anything your brain was capable of translating. He had now petrifying eyes filled with runes. But the scariest was that he had gained two new irises.
To be exact, he had now four of them, with two in each of his eyes. And it obviously included his pupils as well. It could sound sordid for some people, mystical for others, and alarming for the rest. But the fact was that these odd eyes perfectly matched the domineering presence of a dragon.
Arima blinked and teleported just above Hell's core, right above the center axis.
"[Suus 'non custodierit, suus' a damnationem] (It's not a warning, it's a sentence)."
"[Haec ultima rerum] (This is the last line of the story)."
He finished his chant and landed on the core. He deployed his wings and inhaled.
"[First Destruction Art, Comoediae Mundi] (World's Comedy)."
He slowly invoked his magic and starting from where he was standing, the core was drained of its life and turned gray. Absolutely devoid of any glow or hue, it was nothing more than a dry color. The entire core which was the size of a planet became like that in no time.
Then, it was the turn for everything else under this heavenly magic circle. The ground turned gray and brittle as if all humidity was being vaporized and every mineral extracted. The Téra felt that the land they were standing on had become incredibly frail.
After a few minutes, they thought that it was the end but immediately regretted their thoughts when they saw that the same phenomenon was directly happening to their body. Their limbs became dehydrated and weak.
When the entire body had been affected, most of the Téra died without any possible struggle. Only the stronger ones could barely survive the decay of their brain. Afterward, it was the air itself that was affected. The humidity similarly disappeared and the Téra were now breathing nothing more than what you could call dust.
The more they stayed in that zone, the stronger the deterioration became… Until the moment Arima finally moved again and gently tapped the core below him with his tail.
From that point onward, everything was over. The core, from the top, started to separate into microscopic ash-like particles. The section of the core which was above the surface of Hell turned into nothingness just after ten seconds, like a sandcastle falling apart.
When the core had completely disappeared, there was a blatant, perfectly circular crater in the middle of Hell's landscape. The hole was larger than the planet Earth. And just like that, a magical core, as big as a small planet, powering an entire portion of Hell, vanished in an instant like powder.
But even after that, Arima's eyes were not relaxed the least. The Téra who witnessed the departure of Hell's core suddenly felt some vibrations going through their weakened body and jolting their minds.
The ground was shaking but it was subdued and no sound was coming out. If the Téra could speak, they would definitely say that the ground below was gradually becoming unstable. As if it couldn't withstand their weight as it did until now.
It didn't take long for the answer to be given. When the first Téras roared and disappeared from its companions' sight. The leaders turned around to look at what happened.
What they saw made them waver. If they didn’t know fear before, it wasn't the case anymore. At the location the Téras went missing, there was a hole in the ground. A bottomless hole. The Téra had been deprived of their ability to see colors and both black and white had become blurry in their minds as if they couldn't recognize them anymore.
But what they saw in that hole, was darker than black. If they would have called it darkness before; in their actual state, it exactly felt like an endless abyss where everything would be crushed. Time, colors, light, darkness, matter, life… nothing could exist in it.
After the first Téras, multiple others fell after him. Furthermore, the time between each fall kept decreasing. Some Téra tried to jump to get out of this area, but they ended up falling because of the strength they put on their legs caused the collapse of the weak terrain.
Arima stared at them from afar with an emotionless face. He saw them falling and then closed his eyes once again. After that, he merely sighed.
That sigh, contrary to everything else there, actually produced some wind and sound. With this small stimulus, the ground around Arima fell apart and turned into the same ash-looking particles, leaving place for the abyss.
The disintegration of reached the Téra's group in an instant and made them fall into the abyss. Even the huge bear and the ten-meter-tall human couldn't do anything to escape.
The aerial Téra just couldn't fly anymore with their dry body and fell along with the rest. As they were falling through the endless abyss, their fear made their heads turn blank. After a moment of continuous fall, they finally began to turn into ashen powder like everything else.
Those particles joined with all of the others and were all swallowed by the abyss. Arima gasped when everything was over. His eyes suddenly pained him and the world returned to normal as the colors and sound returned. The magic formation in the sky also shattered and was dispelled.
"{Arima! Don't lose consciousness!}" Night shouted but it was in vain. Arima's eyes returned to normal but he was then knocked out by the exhaustion. His aura weakened and the huge dragon started falling.
Below him was a literal, bottomless hole. Since the Art had stopped, he won't be turned into dust anymore. But, even Arima himself didn't actually know how deep this hole was.
Night tried to pull back Arima's mind with Karma's help but he didn’t succeed even after many tries. Meanwhile, Hell started collapsing just like Heaven and even reached a worse level of damage than the latter in just a few seconds.
"{Dammit,}" Night cursed. "{The entire core was destroyed in one go. It's not like Heaven who gradually deteriorated. Right now, Hell is like a table who suddenly lost its legs.}"
"{So, are we doing it after all?}" Karma asked as Arima was slowly falling in the darkness. She seemed to be unnaturally calm about the situation.
"{Well, Arima told us to do it if it happened,}" Night sighed. "{Hey, wake up! We need your help.}"
***
"Go! Quick!" Chulainn and Zeus shouted. They had finished opening the Gates just when Arima had turned the core into dust.
The gods, angels, devils, and demons went through their respective Gate while shivering in fear. If Hell was already collapsing, it meant that Arima had completely destroyed the core in just a few minutes.
It was simply unreal. The cores of an Original Land are the toughest things in the known existence. Arima said that he would destroy it but they never thought that he would do it so quickly and easily. What they didn't know was that he also had made disappear an even larger chunk of earth and the Téra along with it.
To offer a scale, the range of Arima's magic was large enough to destroy around five Earth if they were put close to each other.
"Where is Layla?" Chulainn frowned and muttered when he noticed her absence.
166. “World’s Comedy.”
The ground under Arima's feet acted strangely. It was as calm as ever. No sound was produced, not even a small vibration. But it was silently cracking like glass. The fissures spread with no restriction and the affected area fitted perfectly the form of the giant magic circle in the sky created by Arima. Those cracks then started releasing light as if something was illuminating it from underground.
Arima waved his hand a little and the ground immediately faded away like a mirage. When the earth was gone, a bright red sphere the size of a planet was exposed. It was, of course, Hell's core.
Arima extended his hand. The number above him glowed ominously along with his eyes. After that, still in complete silence, the core moved and begun to ascend. After a few seconds, the core had clogged the circular hole and now looked like an enormous dome sticking out of the ground.
It wasn't the end. Afterward, the fissures resumed their propagation again and spread across Hell with the dome's circumference as the start line. Circularly, for tens of thousands of miles, Hell's surface became branded with glowing fissures that also reached the Téra.
The 'bear' and 'human' looked at each other when they saw the changes and accelerated.
Arima's magic circle was also expanding dangerously. It almost looked like the sky had always been covered by that circle.
"[Actum Tertium] (Third Act)."
The Téra felt something really wrong and hastened themselves but Arima had already entered the last step of his magic.
"[Quam exprimere hunc finem?] (How to express this End?)."
"[Quo modo enim non ostendit?] (How can we show it?)."
"[Quomodo potestis vos testimonium perhibetis abyssi deambulasti?] (How can you witness the abyss?)."
"[Nolueritis] (You won't)."
"[Nec lux et tenebræ iaculis] (Grab either your Light or your Darkness)."
"[Salvatores esse vana sunt et per] (Both are your saviors in an empty existence)."
Arima closed his eyes and Hell's landscape below the magic circle abruptly lost every kind of color or shade. One could still see forms, but there wasn't wouldn’t be black or white in their vision.
The Téra were dazed. They had not even lived for an hour but they had gotten used to the world as it was. They stopped moving. They couldn't even hear any sound as if it never existed. They couldn't see any color but there was still light. But even that soon vanished, and in the darkness, which couldn’t even be described as black, the only thing they could see was the radiance coming from the fissures in the ground.
As they were hesitated between advancing or retreating, Arima had already reached the point of no return.
"[Nunc, quod non vestris tamquam mundo?] (Now, what does your world look like?)."
"[Id est pulchra? Autem sola est? Frigus? Hilaris?] (Is it beautiful? Is it lonely? Cold? Cheerful?)."
"[Ego te huc ad nuntium] (I'm here to give you a message)."
Arima opened his eyes. If anyone was in front of him at that exact moment, he would have either died because of the pressure or turned into a speck of dust.
His look couldn't even be described as a dragon’s or human. They shined with a color that directly interacted with your mind and didn't match with anything your brain was capable of translating. He had now petrifying eyes filled with runes. But the scariest was that he had gained two new irises.
To be exact, he had now four of them, with two in each of his eyes. And it obviously included his pupils as well. It could sound sordid for some people, mystical for others, and alarming for the rest. But the fact was that these odd eyes perfectly matched the domineering presence of a dragon.
Arima blinked and teleported just above Hell's core, right above the center axis.
"[Suus 'non custodierit, suus' a damnationem] (It's not a warning, it's a sentence)."
"[Haec ultima rerum] (This is the last line of the story)."
He finished his chant and landed on the core. He deployed his wings and inhaled.
"[First Destruction Art, Comoediae Mundi] (World's Comedy)."
He slowly invoked his magic and starting from where he was standing, the core was drained of its life and turned gray. Absolutely devoid of any glow or hue, it was nothing more than a dry color. The entire core which was the size of a planet became like that in no time.
Then, it was the turn for everything else under this heavenly magic circle. The ground turned gray and brittle as if all humidity was being vaporized and every mineral extracted. The Téra felt that the land they were standing on had become incredibly frail.
After a few minutes, they thought that it was the end but immediately regretted their thoughts when they saw that the same phenomenon was directly happening to their body. Their limbs became dehydrated and weak.
When the entire body had been affected, most of the Téra died without any possible struggle. Only the stronger ones could barely survive the decay of their brain. Afterward, it was the air itself that was affected. The humidity similarly disappeared and the Téra were now breathing nothing more than what you could call dust.
The more they stayed in that zone, the stronger the deterioration became… Until the moment Arima finally moved again and gently tapped the core below him with his tail.
From that point onward, everything was over. The core, from the top, started to separate into microscopic ash-like particles. The section of the core which was above the surface of Hell turned into nothingness just after ten seconds, like a sandcastle falling apart.
When the core had completely disappeared, there was a blatant, perfectly circular crater in the middle of Hell's landscape. The hole was larger than the planet Earth. And just like that, a magical core, as big as a small planet, powering an entire portion of Hell, vanished in an instant like powder.
But even after that, Arima's eyes were not relaxed the least. The Téra who witnessed the departure of Hell's core suddenly felt some vibrations going through their weakened body and jolting their minds.
The ground was shaking but it was subdued and no sound was coming out. If the Téra could speak, they would definitely say that the ground below was gradually becoming unstable. As if it couldn't withstand their weight as it did until now.
It didn't take long for the answer to be given. When the first Téras roared and disappeared from its companions' sight. The leaders turned around to look at what happened.
What they saw made them waver. If they didn’t know fear before, it wasn't the case anymore. At the location the Téras went missing, there was a hole in the ground. A bottomless hole. The Téra had been deprived of their ability to see colors and both black and white had become blurry in their minds as if they couldn't recognize them anymore.
But what they saw in that hole, was darker than black. If they would have called it darkness before; in their actual state, it exactly felt like an endless abyss where everything would be crushed. Time, colors, light, darkness, matter, life… nothing could exist in it.
After the first Téras, multiple others fell after him. Furthermore, the time between each fall kept decreasing. Some Téra tried to jump to get out of this area, but they ended up falling because of the strength they put on their legs caused the collapse of the weak terrain.
Arima stared at them from afar with an emotionless face. He saw them falling and then closed his eyes once again. After that, he merely sighed.
That sigh, contrary to everything else there, actually produced some wind and sound. With this small stimulus, the ground around Arima fell apart and turned into the same ash-looking particles, leaving place for the abyss.
The disintegration of reached the Téra's group in an instant and made them fall into the abyss. Even the huge bear and the ten-meter-tall human couldn't do anything to escape.
The aerial Téra just couldn't fly anymore with their dry body and fell along with the rest. As they were falling through the endless abyss, their fear made their heads turn blank. After a moment of continuous fall, they finally began to turn into ashen powder like everything else.
Those particles joined with all of the others and were all swallowed by the abyss. Arima gasped when everything was over. His eyes suddenly pained him and the world returned to normal as the colors and sound returned. The magic formation in the sky also shattered and was dispelled.
"{Arima! Don't lose consciousness!}" Night shouted but it was in vain. Arima's eyes returned to normal but he was then knocked out by the exhaustion. His aura weakened and the huge dragon started falling.
Below him was a literal, bottomless hole. Since the Art had stopped, he won't be turned into dust anymore. But, even Arima himself didn't actually know how deep this hole was.
Night tried to pull back Arima's mind with Karma's help but he didn’t succeed even after many tries. Meanwhile, Hell started collapsing just like Heaven and even reached a worse level of damage than the latter in just a few seconds.
"{Dammit,}" Night cursed. "{The entire core was destroyed in one go. It's not like Heaven who gradually deteriorated. Right now, Hell is like a table who suddenly lost its legs.}"
"{So, are we doing it after all?}" Karma asked as Arima was slowly falling in the darkness. She seemed to be unnaturally calm about the situation.
"{Well, Arima told us to do it if it happened,}" Night sighed. "{Hey, wake up! We need your help.}"
***
"Go! Quick!" Chulainn and Zeus shouted. They had finished opening the Gates just when Arima had turned the core into dust.
The gods, angels, devils, and demons went through their respective Gate while shivering in fear. If Hell was already collapsing, it meant that Arima had completely destroyed the core in just a few minutes.
It was simply unreal. The cores of an Original Land are the toughest things in the known existence. Arima said that he would destroy it but they never thought that he would do it so quickly and easily. What they didn't know was that he also had made disappear an even larger chunk of earth and the Téra along with it.
To offer a scale, the range of Arima's magic was large enough to destroy around five Earth if they were put close to each other.
"Where is Layla?" Chulainn frowned and muttered when he noticed her absence.
