The Fate of the End (Prologue)

Howling winds swept through the vast, empty gravel desert, carrying with them the stinging grit of smoke and the palpitating stench of blood.

Blood smeared the earth and severed limbs lay scattered in every direction; amidst this battlefield riddled with craters, such sights were ubiquitous, painting the region with the despair and desolation of the apocalypse.

The wind whimpered, as if weeping for the sorrow of the departed, while the sun hid behind a haze of gloom, unwilling to witness this abyssal scene.

A small lizard scrambled onto the shattered visage of a soldier, tilting its head as it gazed at the empty eye socket, which remained congested with madness and fear.

“Boom!!!” A bolt of deep blue lightning, as thick as a water bucket, descended from the heavens, tearing through the deathly silence.

The sudden, thunderous roar from the distance startled the poor lizard; abandoning its thought of tearing a piece of meat from the ‘giant flesh chunk’ beneath its feet to take back to its nest, it scurried away and vanished without a trace.

It left behind only that bulging, bloodshot eye, continuing its vacuous stare at the leaden grey sky.

“Crimson Slaughterer, Kovit! Do you admit your guilt!”

Suspended in mid-air was an old man with a white beard, clad in magnificent papal robes; blinding golden light surrounded him, faintly accompanied by holy hymns, while six ethereal wings beat slowly behind his back.

He appeared incomparably holy and solemn, his majestic and aged face sternly fixed upon the pitch-black figure opposite him, who was entangled in countless chains of light.

“Cough, cough… Admit my guilt? What crime have I committed? Heh… A bunch of hypocrites who look sanctimonious on the surface but are filled with treacherous machinations on the inside…” A low, sneering laugh emerged from the black mist.

“Insolence!” Thousands of Temple Priests and Knights maintaining the binding formation shouted in unison, rebuking the figure who dared to sneer.

The chains of light on the black figure gradually tightened, and the bound body emitted creaking sounds under the strain.

With a muffled groan of pain, the black smoke dissipated, revealing the figure hidden within.

Silver short hair, scarlet eyes, and a corner of his mouth hooked in an unruly, carefree smile; a slightly thin body draped in a wide grey robe.

At this moment, this handsome young man looked with disdain at the Temple believers surrounding him layer by layer.

“You betrayed the Lord’s summons, willingly fell into the abyss, slaughtered countless meritorious priests and nobles, massacred the poor, plundered vast wealth, and destroyed cities… You dare say you are without sin?!”

“Hahahahahahahahaha!!”

Hearing the Pope’s explanation, Kovit began to laugh maniacally.

“Old Bastard Tom, do you really not know the true purpose behind my actions? Are you joking? I recall that the slaughter order for Count William’s family was sanctioned by you, wasn’t it?”

A layer of gloom passed over the Pope’s expressionless face.

“And you say I massacred the poor and plundered wealth? Is this another case of shifting the blame? Those bishops under your command have long since filled their own pockets to the brim!”

“Prepare the sealing artifact!”

“Yes!” *N

The Pope ignored the continuing laughter of Kovit and issued orders to the crowd behind him.

“Haha, why aren’t you answering me? Have nothing left to say? You hypocritical Temple Order? Hahaha!”

The maniacal laughter continued, while two lines of bloody tears slowly trickled down the face of the bound figure.

“I hate this! I am unwilling! Ashe, I never expected that in the end, it would be you—the one I trusted most—who would stab me in the back!”

The bound, resentful man let out a long howl; the bitterness and sorrow contained within that cry were enough to make any ordinary person feel desolate, yet it failed to shake the blond girl wearing the moon-white priestess robes in the slightest.

The blond girl smiled coldly, her red lips parting slightly:

“Humph! The whimpering of a defeated cur! As the Saintess, how could I ever be friends with a fallen devil like you? Truly laughable!”

“Hahahaha, is that so… It turns out everything I did for you still couldn’t compare to that ethereal, illusory God; thinking about it now, it was indeed ‘truly laughable’ behavior.”

“Audacious! You dare blaspheme the Gods! How can your filthy soul be mentioned in the same breath as my Lord!”

The blond maiden shouted sharply, staring indignantly at Kovit, who had begun to cough up black-red blood under the suppression of the magic array.

“Your Holiness! The sealing artifact is ready!”

“Bring it up!”

“Yes!”

Several Holy Knights walked out carrying a crystal coffin; inside, resting on a layer of pure white roses, lay a life-sized silver-haired doll dressed in a reddish-brown Victorian bonnet and a long dress with a shawl.

The doll’s eyes were closed, but its long eyelashes made it seem as if they might flutter open at any moment; the pale, exquisitely beautiful face made one unconsciously ignore its identity as a doll.

It lay there upon the mattress of countless white roses, hands crossed, as if waiting for someone to wake it.

The crystal coffin was placed upon a nearby altar cast from high-grade light-attribute magic crystals.

After a brief moment of stunned silence, a monstrous rage abruptly surged within his desolate heart; the pain of having the last pure land in his soul trampled upon drove his already despairing spirit into utter madness.

“Sally! What are you doing! You dare… You dare! Aaaaaaaah!!!!”

Dark, ominous magic power surged violently as the devil, his mind consumed by rage, struggled frantically, roaring, wanting to break free from his bonds and snatch back the crystal coffin.

“Increase the Holy Power output!”

“Yes! Your Holiness!”

The chains made of radiance shone brilliantly once more; the skin of the bound body emitted the sizzling sound of roasting meat, and the intense pain caused Kovit to tremble all over, yet it was followed by an even more frenzied struggle.

“What are you going to do to Sally! I will absolutely never forgive you! Aaaaaah!!!”

“How ironic. The evil puppet you exhausted your efforts to create will, in a moment, become the vessel that seals you. Do you have nothing to say?”

The beautiful blond maiden parted her lips, delivering a vicious mockery.

But in Kovit’s eyes right now, there was only the figure lying in the crystal coffin; how could he hear the words of others?

That sleeping, pale cheek cut his heart like a knife, and Kovit felt as if he had returned to that dark night…

Blood, wailing, severed limbs, and that final cry: “Run!”

Consumed by fear, he had simply obeyed his body’s instinct to flee in panic, cowardly leaving behind the person he should have protected most.

By the time he came to his senses and returned, he found only his sister’s broken body.

In that moment, holding his already cold sister, his world collapsed; it crumbled away like a tower of blocks until nothing remained, and his self-blame and guilt ultimately transformed into a hatred that could swallow the heavens and earth.

It was on that night that his beautiful silver eyes, originally identical to his sister’s, turned into a scarlet, bloodthirsty red.

He had once used his broken body combined with living magical Holy Wood, begging for his sister’s awakening, but that body, refined with countless efforts and heart’s blood, ultimately could not resurrect due to the lack of a soul and could only be buried in sorrow.

But Sally, who had already been buried, was now lying in the crystal coffin carried out by the Holy Knights, which meant…

“I will absolutely never forgive you! Aaaaaah! You dare disturb Sally’s peace! Aaaaaah!!! I curse you! I hate you! You will all fall into a cycle of nightmares from which you will never transcend!!”

“Stop wasting your energy! Void Judgment, begin! Everyone, prepare!”

“Yes!” The crowd responded in unison, and amidst the surrounding holy hymns, golden runes began to flicker like fireflies in the air.

“Thirty-six Chains of Earth, bind the darkness of the Abyss. With crimson blood, pale flame, pitch-black curtain, and platinum glory, I forge the eternal curse foundation.” All the Order members began to chant the solemn incantation, filling the air with sacred light energy.

As the incantation was chanted, the devil’s body gradually became translucent; finally, under the pulling force of the light chains, he let out a reluctant hiss and was dragged through the crystal, entering the body of the doll lying in the coffin.

Thirty-six golden chains, burning with pale flames and inscribed with blood-red runes, began to emerge from the void, tightly binding the crystal coffin placed at the eye of the formation; simultaneously, a phantom of a black curtain appeared beside the coffin.

“Seventy-two Locks of Heaven, sever the vanity of the mortal world. The sins of life, the grief of death, conspiring with the Seven Original Sins to form the Array of Nothingness.”

Seventy-two ethereal locks of various sizes appeared on the chains, black mud oozing from every keyhole; in the blink of an eye, the black mud, radiating infinite negative emotions, wrapped the crystal-clear coffin completely.

“One hundred and eight Soul-Suppressing Nails, tear the light of the spirit sky. Soul perished and gone, broken into the void, construct the Banishing Black Coffin!”

One hundred and eight long coffin nails appeared, nailing the coffin—already wrapped in black mud—shut once again, making it appear even more indestructible.

“With this—return to Chaos!”

As the final word fell, the black curtain beside the black coffin turned from phantom to solid reality, instantly swallowing the black coffin until it vanished without a trace…

With the devil sealed, the surviving clergy erupted in thunderous cheers.

As for the sophistry that devil spoke of? That was surely just slander against our Lord!

[Holy Calendar Year 293, the last devil in history was annihilated by the Holy Church Knights: Lasting twenty-one days, the Holy Church Knights, at the tragic cost of three Cardinals, seven Bishops, and hundreds of Knights and Priests, finally sealed the legendary devil known as the ‘Crimson Slaughterer’ Kovit in the Greenstone Gravel Plains. This act quelled the years-long incidents of noble massacres, a contribution of immense merit. The day Kovit was sealed was termed by later scholars as the ‘Day of the Devil’s End’—Excerpt from Historical Verification of the Temple Order]