### Chapter 207: The Remnants of the Deity (Part Four)
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh—
The wind howled in my ears.
The rock beneath me cracked and crumbled. I failed to grab onto the dancer’s hair, and suddenly I was weightless, tumbling through the swirling dust and debris. I collided with a chunk of floating dark rock and severed from the dancer in midair, each of us plunging deeper into the collapsing mountain.
“Cough, cough…”
Dust and ash filled the air, choking me. I squeezed my eyes shut and coughed violently, only to hit a hard stone shortly after, my unhealed right arm nearly dislocated in the process. I opened my mouth in pain, but a fresh impact silenced my cries. Body after body, I smashed into floating stones, my head buzzing, and just as I felt myself slipping into oblivion, I hit the ground hard with a thud.
“Ugh…”
Half of my body wedged into a crack in the rock. I couldn’t breathe, my face blue and red, and my neck, filthy and smeared with bl**d, was straining against the pressure. My delicate features twisted in agony as pain and dizziness consumed me, and it took forever to finally drag in a desperate breath.
“Ha—”
Ash and dust filled my lungs again, igniting another round of coughs.
“Cough, cough!”
bl**d spat from my mouth, splattering the rock wall in shades of crimson.
“Ugh… Ahhhhhh—!!”
I shouted like a wild animal, feeling my left arm still functional. I gritted my teeth, widened my bloodshot eyes, clawing at the edge of the rocky crevice, using every ounce of strength to scramble out of the dark stone’s grip. I rolled over onto my back, utterly exhausted, gasping for air.
Crash, crash, crash…
Countless rocks rained down like a torrential downpour, smashing into the cliff to my left, crashing against the rock layers beside me. I saw the previously towering peak nearly shatter, while larger boulders, propelled by an inexplicable antigravity force, began to ascend into the sky. The thunderous roar echoed endlessly, ringing in my ears.
What a lucky day…
If those giant stones came raining down too, I might really be finished…
I couldn’t help but feel grateful, panting as I turned to look for the dancer among the collapsed rocks.
Where did she fall…?
My gaze darted across the fragmented, misty rocks, and soon I spotted a red figure slumped beneath another rocky wall, slowly rising.
There she is…
The dancer stumbled up from the ashes of debris, her red dress now a mess. A breeze lifted her tattered hem as she bent down and discarded one of her dance shoes, turning her head to search for something amidst the rumbling chaos. Shortly after, her gaze fixed on me.
Then she started walking in my direction.
Boom—
With a loud bang, the rock wall beside me shot up into the air, rising slowly in that bizarre antigravity. The ground shook more violently beneath me, and the rocks below creaked ominously, prompting me to hold my breath, fighting against the pain and itch crawling up my body, rolling swiftly to the side.
“Ugh…”
As I rolled, my injuries flared up again, and I winced in pain, sucking in a cold breath. After a long pause, I turned to see the dancer now standing not far from me.
I was taken aback and struggled to get up.
“Don’t move. I don’t want to fight you again,” the dancer said, her voice still light and emotionless, as if her previous turmoil was just my imagination. But as I propped myself up painfully and looked at her face, I saw her eyes, slightly red and dull, glinting with something unsettling.
“d*mn…”
I had no idea what had happened.
But I had a horrible feeling about it.
Just as I was about to ask her something, another anguished roar echoed from afar.
“Roar—”
This roar sounded weaker and more pained than the last two. My heart sank as I suddenly turned my head toward the source of the cry.
The rock wall next to me had risen high into the air, and without the dark rock blocking my view, the once-narrow vista opened up dramatically. I could see the tallest peak in the distance again.
A massive, bl**d-colored tumor still hovered above the peak, slowly writhing. Below, a web of bl**d spread out, more tendril-like veins reaching out from the tumor, slithering into the rock pit below. As those veins sank in, the quaking ground grew even more intense—the fairies I had seen earlier were long buried beneath the swirling dust, gone without a trace.
They… are all dead?
That tumor… seems to be tearing this world apart…
Big White…
Panic surged in me, and I desperately tried to rise, wanting to rescue Big White once more.
“It’s useless…”
The dancer seemed to sense my intent. She spoke softly, “The goddess’s flesh is hatching and regenerating. The seal, using the dragon’s body as a medium, is beginning to break. This process is irreversible; none of us can stop it. Silvya, give up.”
“…What?”
I looked at her with wide eyes.
The goddess’s flesh… the seal is breaking…
That horrid thing really is…
Thoughts raced through my mind, sifting through this information rapidly. I exhaled deeply, a complex turmoil beginning to unfold in my heart.
Somewhat suffocating.
The Redeemer… Rabishixemos’s apostle… the Land of Dragons… the Dragon’s Tomb… the sealed flesh… the source of the heretical power… Diana… the Goddess of Sin… the filthy traitor…
That tumor… the flesh of the Goddess of Sin…
This place…
Is clearly where the Goddess of Sin is sealed… There’s no mistake…
And those dragons that make up the foundation of this world are mere vessels holding the sealing power… They’re just vessels… So, I really am standing on the corpse of a dead dragon…
“So, there really are… no demons here…” I couldn’t help but mumble.
“Demon, ha.” The dancer chuckled lightly.
Her laughter felt less like a jab at my deception, more like self mockery.
“There are no demons; it’s all just the church’s lies… But perhaps they aren’t entirely wrong.” She walked past me, looking straight ahead, tilting her head towards the direction of the tumor. “Soon, we will see what truly represents a demon.”
“What… do you mean…?”
My right leg… seems to be regaining feeling…
I stayed stoic, quietly wiggling my toes and flexing my quickly recovering left arm. The dancer seemed dazed and didn’t notice my subtle movements behind her.
“It deceived me…”
She didn’t directly answer my question.
It felt as if she was talking to herself, her words light and airy, void of emotion yet somehow infusing the air around us with overwhelming sorrow. “Hundreds of years have passed… It deceived my father, deceived all of us… Now, I bear all of this, risking everything, finally standing here, having seen the truth, yet looking back… only to find…”
Her body swayed slightly.
Her silver hair danced in the ashes, the bright red hem of her dress fluttering with each vibration, her haunting voice entering my ears like the whispers of a ghost in the night.
“The establishment of the Gate of Truth… so many generations persevering… the change we fought so hard for turned out to be nothing more than a bittersweet, laughable daydream, an utterly foolproof yet profoundly misleading farce… For hundreds of years… what we held onto… was merely this…”
