Chapter 585: The Last Gambit

"What did I do?!" Panic crashed over Uriel; she clutched her face so hard she gouged it with her nails.

She couldn’t stop. Images poured through her. Uriel had been directly linked to every angel circling the world, and she’d seen everything through their eyes.

She saw how millions died in answer to her own words. She realized she had caused all those deaths—had exploited their blind faith and directly midwifed the monster Frey Starlight was now fighting.

Uriel had always been the type to bear pain alone, to hide it deep and show the world nothing but her gentle smile.

But this time she couldn’t hide it. The pain was immense. The guilt, greater.

Uriel shattered, sobbing as the faces of those who’d sacrificed themselves in obedience to her words surged up to meet her.

"No ... NO!!!" she screamed, bursting into tears as her nails raked bloody furrows across her beautiful face.

Snow grabbed her, stopping her before she could hurt herself further, shouting for her to get a hold of herself.

It was no use. The memories kept streaming in, and Uriel was forced to carry a guilt no girl like her could possibly bear. Even if it hadn’t been her will, it didn’t change the fact that she had been the cause of those millions of deaths—and the direct reason Blattier had become what he was.

A monster who might soon kill Frey Starlight—and countless more besides.

Realizing all of that, Uriel wept blood as fresh cuts opened across her face.

It was a moment of total collapse.

Uriel screamed her grief and pain at the top of her lungs—but her voice was a whisper beneath the explosions still rolling out from the fight.

In the end, Snow managed to stop her from hurting herself any further, clinging to her, scared she might try to end her own life.

Beneath the World Tree, which kept shuddering overhead, the hero and the saintess sat together before the tableau of death and ruin Frey and Blattier had painted.

Those two had been trading blows for a long time now, and the battle refused to end. Every time Frey fell, he rose and went back at Blattier.

But even Frey’s monstrous regeneration had limits.

He dropped to one knee, chest heaving, fighting just to drag in a breath.

Breathing itself had become a task.

All around him lay nothing but the wreckage of his desperate struggle to hold Blattier at bay.

Blattier stood before him, looking down.

"Seems you’ve reached your limit," Blattier said evenly.

Frey let out a hollow laugh. "Trust me—you haven’t seen anything yet."

"..."

He tried to stand again, bracing on his swords, clawing up whatever strength was left to force his body upright.

He made it back to his feet—but the fight looked finished. Aside from the arm Frey had taken (and Blattier had regrown), the high priest was essentially unscathed, while Frey was a ruin.

Frey Starlight had given Blattier a world of trouble; it wouldn’t have been strange for Blattier to kill him on the spot. Yet, against expectation, Blattier remained perfectly calm.

"To be honest with you, Frey Starlight, I’m grateful. Because of you, I’ve learned to handle the power that’s been granted to me." Blattier raised a hand toward the sky, admiring a body ripened by a might he’d never dreamed of.

"This is the perfect form befitting a ruler—the overwhelming force that can accomplish anything. I wouldn’t have reached it without the pressure you put on me. You even fought me as an equal for a time, forcing me to draw out everything. But it seems you can’t push me any further—not in that pathetic state."

He took a single step. The pressure of it alone drove Frey back to one knee.

"I see no reason to keep you alive. You’ll die now. But be proud, at least—you’re truly strong. The strongest I’ve faced."

"Your praise means nothing to me, so keep it in your pocket." Frey sneered, straining against the crushing pressure.

Staring at the maddened high priest, Frey realized Blattier was no longer the same man. His very nature had changed, as if the millions of souls inside him had reshaped what he was.

He’d become something beyond—colder, more composed, thinking past the human range. A nightmare of an opponent, one who would make them all suffer if he lived.

This was the first SSS-class foe Frey had ever faced. He had always assumed the first would be a demon.

Fate had other ideas. The opponent he’d waited for turned out to be human.

The fight made the gap brutally clear. Blattier was likely the weakest SSS alive—and still, Frey’s weapons and trump cards had amounted to almost nothing.

All that struggle, all that hard-won power, had bought him a single severed arm. That was the ceiling.

The difference between SS+ and SSS was absurd—two different worlds entirely. No amount of "skill" erased that gulf.

"You can’t defeat an SSS-class combatant except with another SSS."

There was a reason that absolute rule existed. Everyone in this world lived by it. Frey was no exception.

And yet, even at the edge, Frey refused to bow to the logic of this world. Long ago he’d chosen to defy fate itself—to break any law that tried to shackle him.

So he stood again ..and fought again.

Blattier intended to kill him, and took his time about it after realizing Frey couldn’t win.

Then he paused, frowning as aura began to surge from Frey’s body once more.

"Hm?"

Before Blattier’s eyes, power poured out of Frey and rose above him, condensing into a sphere of pure violet—a sun that kept swelling until its shadow fell over Blattier himself.

"This power..." Blattier murmured, genuinely surprised. He hadn’t expected his broken opponent to have something like this left.

In front of him, Frey Starlight forced himself upright and kept feeding aura into that growing star—a raging violet sun whose pressure made even Blattier flinch.

"I had been saving this technique for the day I’d be forced to fight Zeibar and Geppetto... It’s still incomplete, but it seems I have no choice but to wager everything on it now."

Frey clearly struggled to control whatever he was building; gaps opened all through his stance and flow.

Blattier had every chance to strike him down before the technique was complete.

But he chose to wait, curious to witness his enemy’s final weapon.

"What now, Frey Starlight? Planning to throw that at me?" Blattier asked, real interest in his voice.

The sun’s pressure was truly frightening ...even he felt a prickle of fear.

But his confidence in the power born of millions of sacrifices was absolute, so he deliberately let Frey finish, eager for one more clash.

By now, most of Frey’s SSS-class aura was crammed into that ravening star—the full reserve he had never been able to wield at once. He had only recently found a way to haul all of it out of a body that still couldn’t properly channel it.

Having fought him, Frey expected Blattier not to interfere; the high priest saw this battle as a chance to master a strength he believed would place him atop the world.

So Frey wagered everything on this technique.

Blattier gathered himself to meet it head-on .. but Frey never hurled it at him.

"Sorry," Frey said with a thin laugh, drawing a deep breath, "it doesn’t work like that."

And before Blattier ..and every watcher from afar ..Frey Starlight finished externalizing his aura... and then threw it with all his might.

Not at his foe, but at himself.

In a baffling scene none of them understood—least of all Blattier—Frey let the violet sun swallow him whole, erasing his body from existence.