Free Web NovelChapter 325: Final Lesson [3]
Vanitas had awakened from a long dream.
A dream that never seemed to end. A dream he never wanted to wake up from, yet a dream he ultimately had no choice but to leave behind.
There were many words he wished to say to Fyodor.
The man he had once thought was merely disgusting had revealed himself to be an absolutely vile and repulsive being who deserved to die an innumerable number of times for everything he had done.
Rumble——
However, none of that was possible anymore.
The opportunity had already passed. The man known as Fyodor no longer existed in the form Vanitas had known.
Before his eyes, a complete metamorphosis unfolded.
What had once been the Saintess’s body, then later occupied by Fyodor, gradually succumbed to something. The Saintess’s flesh twisted as mana surged, reality itself seemingly distorting around the transforming figure.
The process was neither natural nor beautiful.
It was horrifying.
It was wrong.
But Vanitas couldn’t deny it.
It was beautiful.
———!
Before him, Araxys, the Black Dragon, was descending.
Its massive form eclipsed the sky itself as the space shook before its presence. The sheer pressure emanating from it was enough to make it feel as though the world itself was struggling to withstand its arrival.
As the room continuously shook, Vanitas reached out and grabbed the nearby Kafka.
Chunks of stone and debris began crashing from above as the structure rapidly collapsed around them. Yet despite the destruction, none of it could penetrate the wind barrier Vanitas had raised around the two of them.
Crash——!
Eventually, the entire place caved in.
But still, the barrier remained intact.
Rooooooar——!
The roar shook the heavens.
Kafka instinctively clung tightly to Vanitas’s clothes as he stared upward. The sight of Araxys was beyond anything he had ever imagined, and for a brief moment, he faltered.
This...
This was the abyss he wished to drag everyone into?
This was the suffering he wished to inflict upon others, just as the world had inflicted suffering upon him?
"P-Professor..."
Kafka could barely comprehend what he was seeing.
The creature above them was not something humanity was meant to oppose. It was not something armies could defeat, nor something kingdoms could prepare for.
"Listen closely."
Yet despite this hellish nightmare, Vanitas’s voice remained calm.
"From now on, Kafka Rossweisse, you are free."
"Wha—"
"As of this moment, this world is free."
His gaze remained fixed on the descending dragon.
"Because I say so."
The statement was utterly absurd.
This was a man who bordered on a god complex, declaring the liberation of the world before a being that stood closest to the gods themselves.
Any other person would have sounded insane.
Any other person would have sounded delusional.
Yet for some reason, Kafka could not laugh.
"...."
His gaze alternated between the two figures.
Vanitas Astrea.
Araxys.
One was a man.
The other was a legend feared throughout history.
Yet even so, Kafka found himself questioning something.
For just a brief moment, he genuinely wondered which one of them was the deity.
Was it Vanitas Astrea, the man who had summoned a being no human could ever hope to face?
Or was it Araxys itself, the ancient existence that history had feared for countless generations?
"We need some distance."
Vanitas grabbed Kafka and moved away from the wreckage.
Around them, the landscape continued to collapse as Araxys relentlessly expanded.
Yet even now, Araxys had not moved.
It remained largely stationary, and despite its rapid growth, Kafka could immediately tell this wasn’t its true form. If a creature of this size was still incapable of moving properly, then what they were currently witnessing could not possibly be its full size.
"...."
Kafka stared upward.
His sense of scale had already broken.
Every second that passed made the creature larger than before. What he initially thought was the entirety of its body turned out to be only a small portion of it as more and more of Araxys revealed itself.
Meanwhile, Vanitas already knew just how enormous Araxys truly was.
From what he had witnessed before, a single wingspan of Araxys alone was capable of covering nearly all of Aetherion, stretching from the distant countryside all the way to the capital itself. Even that comparison failed to properly capture its scale.
Its figure was larger than the continent itself.
At that size, concepts such as armies, nations, and wars became meaningless. Even geography itself felt insignificant when compared to a creature whose body dwarfed the land humanity called home.
"Professor..."
Kafka’s eyes remained fixed upon the descending Black Dragon, unable to look away, no matter how much he wanted to.
"Is this... the end of the world?"
The wind howled around them.
"It is." fɾeeweɓnѳveɭ.com
"...."
"And it’s also a new beginning." Vanitas’s gaze remained fixed on the horizon. "I might be overreaching. I’ll admit that much. I might have made a mistake somewhere along the line. I might have overlooked something. I might have arrived at the wrong conclusion."
A faint smile appeared on his face.
"Even so, change doesn’t happen because people wish for it. Change happens because something forces it to happen. And sometimes, destruction has to come first."
Vanitas slowly closed his eyes.
"Sometimes, people have to lose what they’re desperately trying to hold onto before they’re willing to move forward."
"...."
"That’s why one must be willing to let go."
It was not a novel concept.
Throughout history, humanity had only ever progressed by abandoning what it once believed to be absolute. Entire civilizations had been built upon ideas that later generations would eventually discard.
There was a time when scholars believed the Earth was at the center of the universe. The greatest minds of their age dedicated their lives to defending that belief, only for later generations to overturn it.
Men such as Copernicus and Galileo were not merely introducing new ideas, but were forcing humanity to let go of an understanding of the beliefs the world had followed for centuries.
Science itself was built upon this process.
Isaac Newton’s understanding of the universe was so influential that generations treated it as the closest thing to an objective truth.
Yet centuries later, Albert Einstein arrived and demonstrated that even Newton’s magnificent work was incomplete.
Humanity did not move forward because Newton was correct. Humanity moved forward because people were willing to move beyond him.
That said, every era produced thinkers who challenged the foundations laid by those before them.
Socrates questioned accepted wisdom. Nietzsche questioned inherited values. Countless philosophers spent their lives abandoning ideas that previous generations had considered sacred.
Progress was, in many ways, the act of letting go.
The people living through those transitions rarely viewed them positively.
To those experiencing them, change often appeared indistinguishable from destruction.
Perhaps that was why Vanitas had reached this conclusion.
Because to create something new, one first had to accept the death of what came before.
Step——
Yet faced with this ideology, Kafka instinctively took a step back.
The boy, whose eyes had been as lifeless as a dead fish ever since Vanitas first met him, suddenly showed a spark of life within them. For the first time, there was genuine emotion there.
"This..."
Vanitas glanced at the boy from the corner of his eye.
Kafka was muttering to himself. His lips were trembling as though something buried deep within him had finally begun resurfacing, and with it came regret.
"...Mother... Father... I..."
Kafka’s pupils shook. The detached composure he had maintained all this time gradually crumbled, revealing the frightened child that had been hiding this whole time.
Slowly, his fingers loosened.
He let go of Vanitas’s hand.
"...I’m sorry..."
Then he ran.
Without another word, without looking back, Kafka fled from the scene as fast as his legs could carry him.
"...."
Vanitas watched him leave.
A faint smile appeared on his face before he turned his attention back toward the horizon.
"A child should act like a child."
After everything, after the boy’s calm detachment throughout their journey, after all that talk about how others should suffer, after all those attempts to convince himself he had nothing left to lose, Kafka still remained a child in the end.
He could still feel fear.
Much like any other child his age.
A child burdened by hatred was still a child. A child consumed by grief was still a child. No matter how much Kafka tried to convince himself otherwise, there were parts of him that had yet to be broken.
And perhaps this resolution was for the best.
Because if Kafka had truly maintained that same detached demeanor until the very end, if he had stood there without fear while staring at the end of the world itself, then there would have been only one thing left for him to do.
And Vanitas had already stained his hands enough.
* * *
"Holy Goddess..."
"What in the world is that?!"
"Lord... why have you forsaken us?!"
"Please! Hear our voices!"
The moment people laid eyes upon the monstrous silhouette dominating the heavens, reason began to crumble. People fell to their knees in prayer, screamed in terror, or simply stood frozen in fear, unable to comprehend what they were witnessing.
To witness such a horrific sight was not something anyone could process calmly.
The human mind naturally sought understanding. Yet standing before them was an existence that defied both reason and comprehension.
Even those who had never been particularly religious found themselves clasping prayer beads and falling to their knees.
In the face of such overwhelming terror, faith ceased to be a matter of conviction.
People prayed because they did not know what else to do. They screamed half-remembered prayers to a Goddess they had never truly believed in.
They begged for salvation from a deity they had ignored for most of their lives.
Only when confronted with something beyond human understanding did they realize just how desperately they wanted something greater than themselves to exist.
"Mommy...!"
The child’s terrified scream echoed.
A massive chunk of debris broke free from a collapsing structure and came crashing downward. Frozen in fear, the child could do nothing but stare upward as the shadow rapidly grew larger.
———!
Then mana surged.
A powerful wave of magic swept through the area.
In that instant, the Archmage, Soliette, appeared.
The debris shattered before it could reach the child, exploding into countless fragments as Soliette swooped down and scooped the child into her arms.
The force of the impact sent dust and rubble flying in every direction, yet neither the child nor the surrounding civilians suffered so much as a scratch.
"You’re okay."
The child’s mother stumbled forward.
Tears streamed down her face as she desperately pulled her child into her embrace. Her entire body trembled from relief.
"Thank you... thank you so much..."
Soliette merely nodded.
There was no time for pleasantries. The situation around them was getting worse by the second, and every moment spent standing still was another moment someone else could die.
"Everyone, an evacuation point has been established outside the city limits!"
Her voice, amplified by mana, echoed throughout the surrounding district.
"Remain calm and move toward open ground. Do not gather near buildings, and do not stop moving unless instructed otherwise!"
The crowd immediately reacted.
"If you’re able to walk, then help those who can’t! Parents, stay with your children! Do not separate from your families!"
Archmage!"
One of the mages stationed nearby rushed toward her.
"We have reports coming from every district! Buildings are collapsing, and several evacuation routes have already become blocked!"
Soliette clicked her tongue.
The situation was escalating faster than expected.
"Redirect them."
"Huh?"
"Redirect the civilians toward alternative routes. Prioritize the injured, the elderly, and children."
"U-Understood!"
The mage immediately hurried away.
Despite the end of the world before them, there were still those who refused to yield. There were still those who chose action over despair, even when every instinct told them the situation was hopeless.
Such was the indomitable will of the human spirit.
Even in the face of catastrophe, those with true power refused to abandon humanity. While countless others cowered in fear, paralyzed by the sheer scale of the disaster, there remained individuals who continued moving forward.
In such a situation, the healers continued treating the wounded. The soldiers continued maintaining order. The mages continued reinforcing evacuation routes. And the rescuers continued digging through rubble in search of survivors.
No one had any guarantee their efforts would matter.
No one knew whether humanity would survive the next hour.
Yet they acted anyway.
Perhaps that was what separated those who merely possessed authority from those who truly deserved it.
Power was easy to wield when circumstances were favorable. Leadership was easy when victory was assured.
But when faced with annihilation itself, when confronted by an enemy so overwhelming that resistance appeared meaningless, only then was one’s character truly revealed.
——Move! This way!
——Help the children first!
——There are still people trapped over here!
Humanity had always been fragile. Yet for all its fragility, there was an extraordinary stubbornness.
Infighting? Civil war? Rebellion? None of it mattered in the grand scheme of things. When death loomed near, the human instinct was to gather together rather than stand apart.
When faced with a foe far greater than themselves, humanity hunted in packs.
That was humanity’s greatest strength.
For all its flaws, for all its greed, selfishness, and cruelty, when faced with extinction itself, humanity possessed an almost miraculous ability to unite against a common enemy.
This was a fact proven time and time again, dating all the way back to the prehistoric era.
"...."
Soliette slowly looked up.
The pressure emanating from the Black Dragon continued to apply its overwhelming pressure upon the world. Even as she coordinated evacuations and rescue efforts, a part of her attention remained fixed on that impossible silhouette dominating the heavens.
She bit her lip.
"...Vanitas... Is this what you wanted?"
