Admittedly, their strikes had landed... But it was nothing very serious.
Nothing, except perhaps on the forehead — the precise spot where the majority of magical shots had concentrated since the beginning of this assault.
Blood finally began to flow, tinging the top of the monster's massive, pale face with a light veil of dark vermilion red.
For the very first time since the beginning of this dantesque clash, the soldiers caught sight of the flesh of the god of the skies tearing open.
Finally. It was bleeding.
But that wasn't all. The beast began to feel slight stings across the rest of its colossal anatomy.
On its flank, in the back, the pain continued to accumulate — thin but real gashes, left by the repeated blows that kept raining down.
The assaults continued to surge without the slightest restraint.
Three figures were still clinging to its back.
Ricardo : « Raaaaahahaha ! Take that, filthy vermin ! » cried the demi-human, tearing through the thick flesh with blows from his oversized blades.
He roared with laughter, claws out, continuing his massacre.
Wilhelm : « You won't escape me ! » Wilhelm exalted.
His blade sank deep into the monster's skin, rushing at maximum speed along its spine, leaving behind a reddish furrow from which blood trickled in fine rivulets.
And finally:
Priscilla : « Ah ! »
She stood at the very top of the creature's skull... Her Yang Sword brandished high toward the night sky, the heat of the blade already making the air crackle around her.
The Leviathan almost seemed to look her straight in the eyes with its immense yellowish pupils.
She smiled.
Priscilla : « Lower your eyes before your goddess ! »
Her sword illuminated with a light so incandescent it rivaled the sun itself.
A suffocating heat swept across the sky.
In a movement of absolute and merciless grace, she brought her blade down directly onto the creature's already bloodied forehead.
A halo of pure energy tore through the sky in a blinding flash.
Priscilla : « AHHHHHHHHH ! » she cried with all her might.
Her firepower seemed to grow in an almost absurd manner as the blade sank in, melting the creature's invulnerable hide, devouring the flesh, charring the edges of the wound in an acrid smell of burning.
The Leviathan screamed with its entire body — a real cry, this time, drawn from the depths of its gigantic lungs that made the earth tremble for miles around.
Subaru : « Come on ! » shouted Subaru, fist outstretched toward the skies.
Crusch : « Go ahead, Baroness ! » ordered Crusch, her voice strong yet tinged with a nascent hope.
The entire army began to roar, cries of joy, hope, expectation, and relief rising up.
The soldiers saw in this masterstroke sinking into the monster's flesh the promise of a happy ending.
As if, finally, the end was near.
The Leviathan now bore a gaping wound on its forehead, blackened crusts spreading all around the injury, surrounded by charred callosities.
Finally, its skin — this skin believed to be impenetrable — had been fatally struck.
Priscilla brandished her sword high as a sign of triumph, while Wilhelm and Ricardo continued to rage on its back.
The entire army was shouting. Cries of victory, of relief, of grace, convinced that the abomination was going to collapse.
As if everything was finally over.
But... Something was wrong.
If the beast had truly been defeated... why? Just why... why wasn't it falling back down?
« Why... why isn't it falling ? ... »
He barely whispered this thought, his blood instantly freezing in his veins as he began to understand.
And then, the monster's half-closed eyes suddenly opened wide. Wide. Too wide.
In a terrifying transition, its previously dull yellow pupils slowly turned orange, then, within a second, to a scarlet blood-red, almost incandescent.
The titan roared with all its breath, no longer in pain, but out of pure and simple destructive rage.
Ricardo : « What ?! What's happening ?! » cried Ricardo, losing his balance as the mass beneath his feet went into convulsions.
Wilhelm : « Be careful ! » warned Wilhelm, driving his blade up to the hilt to anchor himself in the beast's skin.
Across the entire body of the beast, pores suddenly began to open — dozens, hundreds, spitting a thick, corrosive fog in all directions at once.
The creature transformed into a field of deadly traps.
The monster arched violently, shaken by spasms, the fog literally beading from every centimeter of its body like cursed sweat.
Ricardo : « Damn it ! » cried Ricardo, swept away by a blast of pressurized vapor.
He lost his footing instantly, falling from the creature's back into the void, several dozen meters below.
Wilhelm clung on with all his might, his blade planted in the flesh as his only anchor point.
Wilhelm : « I will not fail ! » the old man persisted, tightening his grip on the hilt.
But a massive geyser of fog opened directly beneath him, hitting him full force, violently expelling him from the monster's back in a messy arc toward the void.
Wilhelm : « ARGHHH ! »
He fell in turn — and it was at that precise moment that Ricardo, already falling, changed his own trajectory with a brutal movement, positioning himself beneath the old man's body.
Ricardo : « Not this time ! »
The impact was violent — a dull thud, a bone crack that even the surrounding din could not completely muffle.
Ricardo took the brunt of the fall for both of them, rolling on the ground in a spray of dirt and dust, his body already covered in the damage accumulated in the fog.
He wouldn't be getting up anytime soon.
Wilhelm, dazed but alive, rolled a few meters away from him.
Wilhelm : « ...Thanks... Young man. »
He breathed these words, his throat tight, understanding at what price this rescue had been paid.
Priscilla, for her part, was caught completely off guard.
Priscilla : « WHAT ?! »
The monster rapidly tilted its head with a sharp movement, propelling her high into the night sky.
Right above her, the titan's shadow covered the sky.
Crusch : « No... » murmured Crusch, her face decomposed by terror.
She began to understand the horror of the situation, her blood freezing in her veins.
Subaru : « No... no no no ! » shouted Subaru from the ground.
The monster opened its colossal maw, paved with rows of teeth as sharp as tombstones... right beneath Priscilla's falling trajectory.
« Damn... damn... what can I do... ?! SHIT ! »
He screamed inwardly, completely paralyzed by his utter powerlessness, nailed to the spot, incapable of the slightest useful gesture.
Priscilla, in free fall, displayed a haughty and fearless smile in the face of death rising to meet her.
Priscilla : « Hmph... Let's go ! »
TRACK !
The creature's immense teeth closed upon her with a deafening snap.
Blood instantly welled at the corners of the immense jaws.
A pure, icy, absolute silence anchored itself across the entire battlefield.
Everyone was in shock, petrified. Purely, totally shocked.
Priscilla... had Priscilla Barielle really just died before their eyes?
Devoured by that thing?
But the horror didn't stop there.
The fog expelled by the monster's body surged across the plain and began to cover all the surrounding space, engulfing the entire clearing in a fraction of a second, plunging the army into a blinding darkness.
Subaru : « What... » Subaru barely managed.
In an instant, the world had vanished.
He suddenly found himself alone with Rem on Patrasche's back, completely isolated without even realizing it, unable to see more than two meters ahead.
Nothing left around him. Nothing left to see. Just this gray, opaque, suffocating wall.
Subaru : « Good grief... »
Rem : « Subaru-Kun, watch out ! » cried Rem.
Patrasche leaped on instinct, launching herself into the air,
Beneath them, a gaping maw had just passed in a foul breath, scraping the earth dragon's legs before disappearing back into the mist.
Subaru : « But... but what... »
Around them, screams began to rise. Howls of pure terror. Rattles of agony, muffled suffering, and the sounds of torn flesh.
The monster, lurking in its element, was massacring their entire army, methodically, invisibly, as if nothing were amiss.
Subaru : « Damn it, move, Patrasche ! » shouted Subaru.
The earth dragon let out a cry of vigor and began to run straight into the fog.
She ran, dodging blind assaults, attacks coming from all directions without even seeing them coming, guided by pure instinct.
Rem was launching ice spikes to deflect what she could guess, but the damage was felt — a dull impact here, a muffled cry there, a silhouette glimpsed a fraction of a second before disappearing.
Terror was omnipresent. Until they heard a groan on the ground.
Then, a sound. A voice.
They drew closer, and finally saw her.
Crusch Karsten. On the ground. Her earth dragon had vanished somewhere in the chaos, her armor split.
Subaru : « Crusch ! What... what happened ?! » shouted Subaru, rushing to her side.
Rem : « Lady Crusch, you're injured ! » worried Rem.
Crusch : « Our forces... our forces have been reduced to nothing in this fog... » she said, her voice broken, her gaze fixed.
She replied in a resigned voice, almost extinguished.
But Subaru refused to lose hope.
Subaru : « And... and what if I lured it again ? What if I served as bait like before, so we could bombard it again with everything we've got ?! We could still— »
Crusch : « No, Subaru... »
She cut him off flatly.
Crusch : « We gave everything in the previous attack. We have no more ammunition, no more mages fit to fight... We had prepared ourselves to face the White Whale as legend described it... But this monster... is beyond the reach of our reality. »
She murmured these last words, defeated. She was defeated.
They had prepared to face the White Whale — and perhaps they would have defeated it.
But this monster, this white and majestic Leviathan that now reigned in the sky, was far beyond anything they had imagined.
Their worst nightmare, literally incarnated.
Crusch remained on her knees on the ground, arms dangling, accepting defeat and death.
Subaru : « Fuck! fuck! FUCKING SHIT ! » shouted Subaru with all his soul.
He grabbed his head in his hands, pulling at his own hair until he tore out strands.
Rem : « Easy, Subaru-Kun... Don't hurt yourself... » murmured Rem, placing a soothing hand on his shoulder.
She wanted him to stop, to breathe.
Subaru : « But what can we do, Rem ?! » he cried, his eyes nearly in tears.
Subaru : « Priscilla is dead ! Our soldiers are being massacred, and we have no weapon left to face this thing ! »
He shouted this, his voice broken, tears beginning to flow despite himself.
Subaru : « Damn... damn... there's nothing we can do... Nothing... »
His tears flowed down his cheeks
« Even now... even after all this... even together... can we really do nothing ? »
The thought crossed him, bitter, void of all light.
The world was cruel. Extremely cruel.
Suddenly, the fog parted, far above them. The titan's gigantic face emerged from the darkness.
The monster was there, right in front of them, already preparing to annihilate them.
Rem : « Subaru-Kun ! » cried Rem, trying to throw herself in front of him.
She was ready to sacrifice everything — but the monster was going to swallow them all in a single movement.
It was the end. Again.
The jaws began to open, ready to swallow them whole.
And then —
BINNG !
Against all odds, the monster violently crashed against something. Something invisible in the air, and yet infinitely harder than steel itself.
Crusch : « Huh ?! »
She didn't understand what had just happened.
A brutal shock echoed across the entire plain.
In the wake, a gigantic pulse then swept across the entire area, instantly dissipating the fog in a single blow and propelling the Leviathan high into the air several hundred meters up into the skies, out of immediate reach.
The place could finally be seen in its entirety.
Visibility returned all at once. The battlefield was devastated :
Bodies on the ground everywhere.
Ricardo lay on the ground, severely injured, motionless not far away.
Wilhelm was laboriously getting back up, at the end of his strength, his sword still raised by pure reflex.
The remaining soldiers were in total rout.
The entire army was in a deplorable state.
And in front of Subaru, the one who had just blocked the attack.
Kurisu : « Ohh, I see you guys are struggling a bit there. Huh ? » said Kurisu, approaching with a nonchalant stride.
An amused smile stretched across his lips.
Kurisu : « So ? Do you want me to help you ? »
He asked the question with that little mischievous smirk characteristic of him.
Subaru : « You... damn it, it's... ! »
He wanted to scream, to accuse him, to remind him that it was because of him — of his deliberate choice to strengthen this creature — that they were in this state. But he stopped dead.
« Without his help... I would already be dead, at this very moment. »
In fact... That might have been for the best if he had died.
To save everyone who had perished. To be able to revise the strategy and better prepare for the new confrontation, thus avoiding all problems and complications…
This thought crossed him for a fateful and macabre instant before he brutally chased it away.
He remembered the past lessons Kurisu had taught him through pain :
His own life was not a simple tool to be used in case of trouble.
« No. He already told you. Do not take your life as a bargaining chip. »
He instantly swallowed back his anger, his gaze plunging into that of the man in white.
Subaru : « Yes... please. »
He said it reluctantly, but without hesitation deep down.
Kurisu : « Ohh, so Subaru has finally learned to use his head, huh ? »
He laughed to himself, which visibly annoyed the boy.
Kurisu : « But hey, since you ask so nicely... your master is going to give you a hand ! »
With a theatrical gesture, he pulled something from his pocket.
A thin, somewhat long object.
It looked like a long needle made of dark metal, engraved with complex runes.
Kurisu : « Here is my gift. »
He handed it to Subaru, who looked at it with blank eyes.
Subaru : « And what am I supposed to do with this ?! Didn't you have anything better ?! » shouted Subaru, looking at the small object with dismay.
Kurisu raised a hand, annoyed, resting it against his face.
Kurisu : « Ohh, you see this thing ? It allows you to create a weak spot. »
Subaru : « A what ? »
Kurisu : « Well — if you take it and plant it on the Whale, let's say... the touched spot will become extremely vulnerable. It will cause it unbearable pain in addition to being able to inflict colossal damage at that spot. Not bad, right ? »
He asked the question with a small smirk, before adding casually:
Kurisu : « But since you don't want it, that means you can handle it on your own, right ? »
He began to pretend to put the object back in his pocket.
Subaru : « No, no, it's fine ! I'll take it, thanks ! »
He shouted this precipitously, almost snatching the needle from Kurisu's hand.
Kurisu : « Ohh, wonderful ! Then, entertain me... Understood ? Kekekekeke... »
And he immediately disappeared from their view, without another word.
Subaru turned his face toward Crusch, completely overwhelmed by the situation.
Subaru : « Crusch... »
Crusch : « Yes... what is it ? »
She asked this, still in shock from everything that had just happened.
Subaru : « Reform the troops. I think I have an idea to defeat this thing. »
At these words, Crusch inhaled deeply, swallowing her temporary defeat, and straightened up proudly.
She sighed longly then — got back up regardless, resuming her command position.
Crusch : « Very well. We must win... For those who fell in battle ! »
Subaru smiled, a fragile yet determined smile.
The troops then reformed at high speed — what was left of them.
More than half of the army's forces had already gone up in smoke.
Ricardo was out of commission; although alive, he had suffered too much damage saving Wilhelm in the fog to be able to get back up.
But the survivors, led by a Crusch whose body was covered in injuries but with a gaze of steel, took their positions.
Most of the soldiers still standing were at the end of their strength.
But Subaru wasn't giving up.
Wilhelm, for his part, was still there, ready to fight despite a body covered in injuries from the blows received earlier. His sword remained upright, ready to finish it.
Crusch : « Very well, Subaru. We are counting on you. »
She said this, out of breath, but with rediscovered confidence.
Subaru : « Yes. »
And yet, during all those long minutes as the group painfully reformed into formation, the monster hadn't attacked.
Why? Simply because someone was holding it back.
After all, if the beast had struck while the group was still on the ground, disorganized, it would have been a crushing and definitive defeat — and Kurisu couldn't allow that.
Not now. Not before the final act.
And of course, he had prevented it from splitting as well.
It was already a living nightmare for the troops, no need to make it even more unkillable.
If he had left that power active, the army would have died right at the start of its division; the show could by no means end on such a tragic conclusion.
Even if their despair at the sight of three simultaneous Whales might have been more than amusing.
Kurisu : « Well... I think the final act is being written now, huh? »
He murmured this to himself, his gaze turned toward the ground, observing the scene from the heights.
Kurisu : « Come on, show me a spectacle! »
He finally released the pressure he was maintaining on the monster.
The latter, finally freed from its invisible straitjacket, immediately roared with a frantic cry and charged straight toward what remained of the group on the ground.
Subaru : « Come on, Rem! »
Rem : « AHHHHHHHHH ! » cried Rem with all her might.
She channeled all the magic at her disposal, giving birth to a gigantic ice spike, sharp as a blade, which she projected straight toward the monster.
But the latter completely scoffed at it — with its massive horn, it shattered the attack without slowing down, as if it were mere twigs.
It thought that was everything.
But this was only the preparation.
This was only the beginning.
At the top of its horn, tens of meters long, a silhouette was standing.
Voice : « You're even worse up close, huh... you filthy fish!»
The voice rose from the very tip of the horn.
The Leviathan's eyes instantly locked onto that precise spot — and saw him.
Natsuki Subaru, gripping the base of the horn, right where Rem's ice spike had just shattered, scattering debris of ice all around him.
That was exactly what Subaru had been waiting for.
At the moment of impact, he had leaped onto the still-intact fragments, hoisting himself in an instant onto the horn itself — the exact place where the monster had just destroyed Rem's attack.
Subaru : « Come on... let's see who wins! »
He began to run along this oversized horn, tens of meters long, charging straight toward the creature's skull.
The wind hit him full force, howling in his ears, almost tearing tears from his eyes.
Beneath his feet, the surface was smooth, slippery, wet with dried blood — and below, the void.
A dizzying and staggering void of hundreds of meters, the entire clearing reduced to a carpet of tiny lights far down below.
The monster, annoyed by this presence on its own body, began to violently shake its head to make him fall.
Subaru : « Damn it! »
He gripped the horn with one hand above the abyss, dodging the fall by a hair, his body tossed about in the void for a moment before he managed to pull himself up again, resuming his run without slowing down.
Suddenly, the monster roared and lifted its skull with a sharp movement.
Subaru : « WAAAAHHH ! »
He was thrown into the air — and the beast immediately lunged at him, jaws wide open, ready to swallow him in one bite.
Subaru : « SHAMAK ! »
A thick, opaque black fog instantly covered the space around him, enveloping the beast's head, disorienting it for a brief moment.
The monster, caught off guard, snapped its jaws on empty air — and when it reopened its eyes, the man was no longer there.
Subaru : « Heheh... Just watch, you'll see! »
He had taken advantage of that second of blindness to let himself drop directly onto the monster's back, dodging the closed jaws by a hair. He immediately sprinted off at full speed.
Pores opened beneath his steps, spraying corrosive fog.
Subaru dodged each jet with precise leaps, jumping from stele to stele across the beast's hide.
« All this fucking training is finally paying off. »
The thought crossed his mind as he ran, jumped, and rolled to avoid every obstacle.
All that hellish training Kurisu had put him through during that month of hell — those blows taken over and over, this endurance forged in pain, which had never truly served in any of the previous loops — was finally finding its use.
« Next to his sadism... these fog jets are practically a walk in the park! »
Pores opened again on the monster's body, expelling fog in powerful jets all around him.
Subaru : « Hop! There you go! »
He dodged them one by one, without slowing his run, his body strained in an almost superhuman effort.
Suddenly, a more massive geyser hit him from the side, wider, almost impossible to avoid — but he had seen it coming.
Rather than running away from it, he used it as leverage, utilizing the pressure of the fog to propel himself even further forward, all the way to the top of the monster's skull — right where its only still-open wound was located.
Subaru : « Take this! »
He pulled out the needle, gripping it tightly in his fist.
Subaru : « YAAAAAAHHH ! »
He drove it with all his might straight into the heart of the monster's wound.
SLHICK !
The needle sank in entirely.
CRIEEEEEEEEEEECCCCHHHHHHHHHHH.
The roar that followed was thunderous, a cry of pure pain that made the air itself tremble, tearing the sky apart.
Where the needle had planted itself, the flesh began to transform.
Dark vines of red and black light, resembling swollen veins, began to race in all directions, spreading like roots from the point of impact across the titan's entire head.
In the center, an enormous red spot formed — pulsing like a living heart right on the surface of the skull, surrounded by this grotesque venous network.
Subaru was already falling, ejected by the jolt, thrown into the void by the monster's startled jerk, while the Leviathan continued to roar.
As he fell, he let slip in a breath:
Subaru : « I can return by...! »
The world stopped. His heart was gripped in an invisible vice.
The Witch's invisible hand squeezed his heart. The grip tightened.
Then the world resumed its course.
And the Witch's Scent exploded from his body in a devastating wave.
Subaru : « Ahh... still just as intense... »
He barely gasped these words, still suspended in his fall.
His Witch's scent instantly filled the entire surrounding space — and coupled with the immense and excruciating pain caused by the needle, it drove the beast literally frantic, nearly mad with rage.
Its eyes, already red, seemed to darken further, turning to an almost black blood-red.
It plunged in a dive toward Subaru without the slightest hesitation to devour him.
The jaws opened, ready to swallow him in free fall — but suddenly, a steel chain wrapped around Subaru's waist and pulled him toward the ground at high speed.
Rem : « I've got you, Subaru-Kun ! » cried Rem, rescuing him onto Patrasche.
Rem had just caught him, while Patrasche continued to run tirelessly below.
Subaru : « Wohh... thanks, Rem. »
He resumed his place on the earth dragon's back, breathing heavily.
Rem : « You're welcome, Subaru-Kun. »
She replied with a smile, despite the palpable tension.
But the titan was bearing down on them at a breakneck speed, ready to crush them against the ground.
Subaru : « Damn it, Patrasche — we need you. Give it everything you've got! »
Patrasche let out a proud howl and began to run at full speed. The monster was just meters away from their heels.
Yet, the beast was gaining ground, ready to swallow them.
It was close to the ground. Very close to the ground.
Crusch : « Damn it, Subaru! »
She shouted from a distance.
Crusch : « Good grief, they're too far... » worried Crusch, unable to intervene at this distance.
The plan was in motion, but they were still too far away to attempt anything.
But suddenly, the monster abruptly stopped its run. Its immense body was shaken by violent retching.
Subaru : « Huh ?! »
He rapidly sped toward Crusch while observing the scene with incomprehension.
Wilhelm : « What's happening to it? »
He wondered this, already ready to leap at the slightest signal.
The monster then began to writhe, over and over, until it opened its jaws in a convulsive movement, revealing its teeth in a grotesque grimace.
An unbearable heat made itself felt. Beneath the skin of its throat and torso, a bright orange light began to glow.
BOOOOOOOOOOMMMMM !
A massive and gigantic explosion resounded from the titan's insides, reaching its throat, violently rising all the way up to its gullet.
The beast roared in pain, twisting in every direction, before finally vomiting a torrent of flaming blood, burning gastric juices, and ashes.
In the middle of this eruption, a mass wrapped in smoke was projected and crashed heavily onto the ground in front of everyone.
Everyone widened their eyes at this sight.
When the smoke dissipated, a silhouette was standing there:
Priscilla : « Ah... it's not over yet… » spoke a weak voice but tinged with unshakable arrogance.
A weak voice, yet marked by an immediately recognizable tone, rose from the ground.
Priscilla Barielle. On her knees, the Yang Sword still gripped in her trembling hand. Alive.
Her entire body was covered in a strange dust, mixed with viscous and smoking residues — the charred remains of what she had left behind inside the monster.
Her clothes, once sumptuous and immaculate, hung in burned shreds, her skin marked with dark traces where the acid had tried, in vain, to eat away at her.
She hadn't simply survived — she had unleashed herself, for a few minutes, within the very bowels of the creature, slashing, burning, ravaging everything in her path before being violently expelled.
Priscilla : « Come on! »
She got back up, sword in hand, staggering but proud.
Priscilla : « Did you really think... you could digest the sun, cursed beast? » she cried as she painfully picked herself up.
Priscilla : « I'm going to make you taste my power. This divine being will defeat you... »
But exhausted by the outpouring of energy she had had to deploy to destroy the monster's interior, she collapsed forward, purely drained of her strength.
Fortunately, before hitting the ground, she was caught just in time by Crusch, who had joined her in all haste.
Crusch : « Good job, Baroness… »
She murmured this softly, almost with tenderness, before turning her gaze toward what remained of the soldiers.
Crusch : « CHARGE! »
Subaru : « Damn it, shoot the red spot! » shouted Subaru.
All the still-functional artillery took position.
The remaining mages, uniting their forces, drawing upon their very last ounce of magic, launched their most devastating spells straight at the creature on the ground.
Pouring a rain of projectiles onto the pulsing heart formed by the needle at the top of the skull.
BIMMMMM !
The sound echoed, pure and brutal.
The blow had hit the exact spot where the needle was planted, the weak point.
The beast roared in pain, twisting violently under the impact.
But it wasn't over.
Subaru : « Come on, Rem! »
He felt victory approaching.
Rem : « AL HUMA ! »
She concentrated all her remaining magic to create the most enormous ice spike she had ever formed, and immediately projected it toward the weak point.
She propelled it with fury. But the monster had seen it coming.
In a final reflex, it twisted its massive body to deflect the trajectory — and it almost succeeded.
But…
SHLOC !
The ice lance sank deep into its eye, rather than into the targeted red spot.
A new cry rang out, even more heart-wrenching, and the beast collapsed on itself for a moment.
It then wanted to flee. To rise desperately into the air, to escape this nightmare it had provoked itself.
Subaru : « Damn it, it's escaping! »
He could do nothing more — and the rest of the group was already at the end of their strength.
But something happened.
Crusch : « You won't escape! » cried Crusch, stepping forward.
She stood tall, alone, her last reserves of mana converging into her blade.
Crusch : « Ahhhhhh ! »
She raised her sword with both hands and released her most powerful attack — a gigantic wind blade, larger than a massive tree, sharp as a razor.
The blow cleaved the atmosphere at a terrifying speed straight toward the pulsing red spot.
SHHRIK !
The blow landed, sinking into the bruised flesh, cleanly slicing off a part of the main fin that should have allowed it to resume its flight.
CROAOOOOOOO !
The monster roared, now unable to flee.
Unbalanced, the titan crashed heavily to the ground in a final shudder, unable to resume its flight, struck down by suffering, defeated by pain, nailed to the ground by Crusch's attack.
And finally, a man stepped forward.
Alone facing this monster, this giant, this white Leviathan against which he was merely a grain of sand by comparison — this man stepped forward regardless, without the slightest hesitation.
The monster could no longer move. Or at least, it was far too dazed to be able to escape into the air anymore.
He walked with a firm step.
The man jumped. With a long, graceful bound, almost unreal for a body of his age.
He landed on the monster's hide, climbing with a fluid movement all the way to the top of its skull, sword in hand.
Wilhelm van Astrea.
He stood straight in front of the weak point — that red spot, still pulsing faintly, surrounded by that venous network spreading across the creature's entire skull.
He raised his sword high into the night sky.
For a fraction of a second…
The memory of a woman with red hair, blue eyes, and timeless beauty floated for a moment in his mind.
Wilhelm : « For... my wife! » he cried.
He lowered his weapon in a final gesture, delivering a precise thrust straight onto the pulsing red spot, driving his blade up to the hilt.
There was no sound. No cry.
Just silence.
Only absolute silence took hold of the world.
For a moment… Nothing. The void.
And finally, softly, the beast's last still-valid eye lost its color.
Slowly, the red turned to orange, then to yellow, before continuing toward a dull white — and extinguishing completely, the eyelid closing in a final movement.
It collapsed definitively to the ground in a final hoarse gurgle.
The beast moved no more. Never again.
The old man withdrew his blade and raised it toward the sky as a sign of triumph.
Wilhelm : « It's over, Theresia. Finally... Theresia, I... »
He clutched his face in his bloodied hand, groaning, his voice broken.
Wilhelm : « I... I... »
The image of a woman with red hair, motioning for him to come observe flowers by her side, danced before his eyes one last time.
He wept bitter tears, at last.
Wilhelm : « I love you! »
He shouted this atop the still-smoking carcass of the White Whale, his voice echoing across the entire clearing.
Then, a firm voice, imbued with the harshness proper to a true leader, rose.
Crusch carried her leader's voice, echoing across the entire battlefield:
Crusch : « It's over! The White Whale has been defeated! »
She brandished her weapon high, Priscilla still cradled in her other arm.
Uncontrollable cries of joy then rose throughout the entire army.
The soldiers wept, hugging one another in a collective embrace of pure relief, falling to their knees.
Crusch finally lowered her sword, a smile on her lips, letting two tears roll down her cheeks despite herself.
Crusch : « It's finally over... »
She murmured this softly, to herself.
For his part, Subaru remained completely silent. Extremely silent.
His body trembled slightly from fatigue and emotion, still seated on Patrasche's back.
Subaru : « Rem… »
Rem : « Yes, Subaru-Kun? »
She asked this behind him, her voice soft.
Subaru : « We won… didn't we? »
He asked the question very softly. Very softly.
Rem : « Yes, Subaru-Kun… We won. »
She replied in a natural voice, without the slightest hesitation.
Subaru : « And I... I was useful, right? »
He asked this even more softly, almost imperceptibly, as if fearing the answer.
At these words, Rem smiled tenderly, and hugged him tight against her.
Rem : « Yes, Subaru-Kun… Without you, we wouldn't have been able to make it. »
Uncontrollable tears began to well up on Subaru's face, which he tried in vain to hold back.
Subaru : « Thank you... thank you... »
He murmured this as he broke down in sobs, his voice broken by a mix of relief and exhaustion.
At last. Subaru was no longer useless.
At last, he had accomplished something with his own hands, of his own free will.
At last, Subaru had grown up.
And at the top of the great Flügel Tree, a being observed this spectacle with undisguised amusement.
Kurisu observed the scene, an amused smile on his lips.
Kurisu : « Ohh... they didn't even need to destroy this damn tree this way. »
He commented on this, referring to the massive trunk on which he was seated.
Kurisu : « Well... I must admit he impressed me, despite everything. »
He feigned a few silent rounds of applause.
And finally, a smile formed on his face — a smile so wide he had to hide it for a moment behind his hand.
Kurisu : « Ahh... here we finally are. I've been waiting for this for so long… At last, things are getting serious. Kekeke… »
He burst out laughing, a clear, almost childlike laugh, echoing alone in the night silence.
A sinister sound that did not belong to this world.
The Whale was merely a prologue.
At last, the true beginning of this terrifying story was about to see the light of day.