Their earlier receiver and craft had been destroyed by Beast of the End in passing, so after Belial began fighting, they hurriedly deployed another prepared setup to check the situation below. What they saw was Belial sitting by his bed, holding a thinker-like pose.
Bella asked if he had won, and she and Ham both let out a sigh of relief. Ham frowned and said that winning had no meaning here and that it was more likely the thing had been dragged to death. He added that it was surprising Belial could endure it, and although he had looked badly beaten before, he seemed fine now.
There was a slight change in size, but Ham did not care, because surviving the end was already impressive enough. Compared to that, a small change in size was nothing. He reasoned that if Belial could endure the end, then as long as he was careful when fighting Evil God in the future and picked off isolated targets, the end would not be triggered so easily.
Even if it did appear again, as long as the next step went smoothly, it might still be possible to push it back. As long as Belial was protected, things would be stable. Unfortunately, bad news tended to strike at such moments.
When Bella noticed the screen go dark, she screamed that something was wrong and that her signal was gone. She cried out about a Rift. Ham turned around in confusion and saw a shocking scene.
The Black Mist Avatar that had been acting as a deployment device and return-point signal for Belial, lodged at the edge of a Spatial Rift, was now weakly clinging to the boundary. Under some immense pressure, it was being slowly forced out.
It was being squeezed out of the world entirely. Ham screamed, asking what was happening now.
After waiting for several days, Belial flew back to the place where he had entered the Rift before. After merging with the End Godzilla Template, his endurance had greatly improved. He could now rush forward at a much higher speed than before, without slowing down at all, and it did not matter who he crashed into along the way, since there were no good people here anyway.
Because Belial's Clone had previously been kicked out by the world the Lord, Ham became more cautious. She tore open a Rift herself and went out with a pile of strange instruments provided by Bella to investigate what had happened to Belial. This was done carefully, since even a clone had been expelled before, let alone the main body.
"His size has grown a bit, but not even doubled, so that part is nothing special and not worth worrying about."
Bella checked all possible abnormal data, but every scan of Belial's body always shredded her previous database summaries into fine Shard. She was already used to this by now. That part no longer surprised her.
"In terms of energy values, even before he ignored the Law of Conservation of Energy, but now the efficiency has increased far too much. But what does that even connect to?"
Not only that, the strength of his muscles and bones had also risen sharply compared to the last examination. Bella had already grown accustomed to this as well, so she skipped over it directly. There was no need to linger on something that always happened.
What felt strange was that even the basic particles forming his body now felt abnormal. If pressed, Bella could not really explain it, like the cells in a body had suddenly gained their own will. It was just strange in a way that was hard to describe.
Forget it, since it could not be analyzed anyway. Bella gave up cleanly, because every meeting with him always came with some new trick. Still, these data suggested he could easily smash the small planet below into Shard, but it should not be this extreme.
So why was the world so eager to kick him out? Bella could not quite understand it. Ham decided to observe personally with her own eyes and soul, drifting around for a long time without finding a reason.
Only later did she notice the trace of red at the wound where Belial's body had once been pierced by an atomic beam. Her eyes twitched as she stared at it. Fine, the reason had been found.
"I think I found the reason, though the process is a bit ridiculous."
Ham flew back to report the result, and for now Belial could only stay outside for a while longer. Even the Clone had been expelled before, so there was no chance the main body would be allowed in. This much was already clear.
"What is the reason? You found it?"
"Uh, it is what I told you before, The End. From what I can see now, it is not as simple as just dragging things out until The End disappears."
"It is very likely that those two actually fought down there, but just like we predicted, Belial's strange resistance means even The End cannot erase him at will."
Ham still looked uneasy. From that wound, everything was only speculation, and she had no idea what truly happened below. But she was certain that Belial had done something extremely absurd.
That red color could not be mistaken. It was the color symbolizing The End, the same endless crimson that once covered the entire Void. Now, that color had stalled on Belial's body instead.
"There have only been two cases of The End appearing that I know of, including Belial. If I am not wrong, this should be something like a mark."
When Ham said this, her tone wavered, and her curiosity about what Belial had done only grew stronger. What kind of hatred would make The End personally slap a mark on him? The End itself had no concrete desires and no reason to focus on any single individual, since everything would eventually become the void of The End anyway.
Now it was like a stubborn plaster, stuck firmly to Belial. This mark could not even really be called a mark. More accurately, it was a trace of The End's concept left behind in reality, like an eye planted beside Belial.
The consequences were extremely serious. For example, the world's rejection meant that the Clone which tore open the Rift before was kicked out without mercy. This was not the world being heartless, but more like a living body instinctively sensing a lethal threat and having its immune System automatically expel harmful substances.
What kind of concept was The End? Once it appeared, it meant that this long and rotten play was finally close to its ending. On Belial's body, the signs of the finale had already appeared.
"The current Belial is roughly like this. Just by existing, he would cause the ground to crack with Rend, riverbeds to dry up, plagues to spread, and wars to break out."
"This is the earliest descent of the end aimed at life and similar existences. Disasters would come one after another, and judging by the intensity, even the sun swelling up and swallowing us in the next moment would not be impossible."
Bella's expression grew stranger the more she listened. She had just realized why Belial could not be allowed inside, when Ham continued, counting on her fingers without pause.
"After that, once everything that can be called life is dead, a planet that might have lasted tens of billions of years will rapidly collapse and break apart. This process usually does not last more than a year."
"After matter and most orderly things fall apart, rules themselves will be smashed into Shard. All the principles and laws we know will be mixed into chaos."
As Ham spoke, her face grew paler. She clapped her small hand and said, "After that, I do not know anymore, because we would not live to see it. When everything ceases to exist, The End will descend."
"And this process would likely accelerate with Belial's actions. In the later stages, it is even possible that the Beast of the End could appear again to harvest everything."
This was why the world's self-protection instinctively kicked Belial out. Tearing open the Rift by hand was clearly causing direct damage to the world. Before, the scale was small compared to the entire world, so it was tolerated, but after Belial was marked, the Black Mist Avatar got stuck at the Rift and the progress bar shot up fast, making expulsion unavoidable.
In fact, Ham, Bella, and others closely connected to Belial, along with people like Chloe who held parts of Belial's Shard, not being kicked out directly was already quite generous. Letting the main body in was completely out of the question.
Leaving aside how a body that had absorbed massive amounts of Dark Power plus a g-particle perpetual engine would affect things, even ignoring that, Ham estimated that if Belial entered now, the first thing to erupt across The Continent would be a world war. Natural disasters would then multiply in frequency.
The barrier between Abyss and reality would rapidly weaken. All kinds of resentment and Dark Power from Abyss could invade. In short, everything would head straight toward total collapse.