The world was murdered.
If an explanation had to be given for Jibril actions, Sū ěr could only think of such a simple phrase. After all, it was fundamentally no different from "putting an elephant in a refrigerator."
Strike, kill Amaterasu, withdraw.
The closer one is to failure, the more insane they become. When everything she had meticulously planned neared collapse, Amaterasu chose the most frantic path: to drag everything down with her. If she successfully ascended, wonderful; if not, the world would die with her.
Refining Ashihara no Nakatsukuni into a pill, using Yomi-no-Kuni as the catalyst—Amaterasu had prepared this secondary plan long ago. She would devour the world, using everything within it as the organs and nutrients required for a newly evolved world.
Then, She would be called the God of Creation.
Sū ěr decision to abandon his authority added fuel to Amaterasu fire. She was like a pig that saw a trough, greedily thrusting her head forward to claim every inch of the world she could touch.
She gave up everything, and She became everything. The moment Amaterasu touched the boundary between form and formlessness, her life reached its end.
Saving a world is difficult. It's like performing surgery to remove a tumor from a patient's brainstem—removing the threat without damaging vital structures is incredibly hard. But making the "disease" vanish from the body entirely is simple: one just needs to stab the body with the scalpel.
Jibril was that sharpest blade. Sū ěr, having severed his link to the world, suffered no backlash. Because everything happened in a heartbeat, Amaterasu didn't even have time to use her full authority to retaliate against them.
The Galaxy was like the world's lifeline, its source of nourishment. To Sū ěr, it felt similar to the Suniaster, though far weaker. But then, Amaterasu wasn't an Old Deus—a being of abstract concepts—was she?
The dispersing Galaxy, guided by Sū ěr, flowed into Jibril. The pink-haired Flügel used the last of Tet divine power to bind the tentacles Amaterasu had extended after devouring the world—and then, a single killing blow.
The world was perishing.
Jibril piercing strike perfectly fulfilled its mission. It gave this box-like world no chance to struggle, annihilating all life along with Amaterasu. There was no escape.
Those light sources—the false stars—finally vanished. The false sky became what it truly was: a void of pitch black. Aside from nothingness, there was nothing to be found.
No, perhaps not nothing.
Like a wall peeling after years of neglect, the fabric of the world began to fall away in strips, leaving jagged marks. When Sū ěr looked closely, he saw they were fractures in space.
After Amaterasu death, the sphere of Ashihara no Nakatsukuni she had swallowed shattered completely. Amidst the compressed chaos of mountains, rivers, mud, animal carcasses, and plant remains, some gods, yōkai, and resilient beings had survived.
Sensing the end of one crisis—or perhaps the start of a greater one—black shadows began to leap from the broken fragments of the world. Having escaped death, they noticed the presence of Sū ěr trio.
Specifically, they noticed Jibril. A race with massive wings and beautiful, iridescent pink hair was something they had never seen before. Furthermore, Jibril was radiating a white glow from within. In this broken world lit only by the faint remnants of the Galaxy, she looked like a second sun.
But Sū ěr was focused elsewhere.
"Was the choice I just made the one needed for the world to progress toward that 'future'? Or has that future been changed?" Still enveloped in Think healing spells, Sū ěr was mending his physical wounds.
Amaterasu was dead, but his brow remained furrowed. Even Think didn't know the answer. Only those who could observe time in its entirety could say.
"What are you muttering about?" Jibril asked, returning to his side. As a newcomer to this world, she knew nothing of its future.
"Just worrying about which direction this world will go," Sū ěr sighed.
"What? Have you decided to lead the world yourself?"
"Not really... Look, we won, right? Even if the world has been 'killed' by us, what happens to those who are still alive?" Sū ěr pointed to the shattered remains below. "If we leave them alone, they'll surely die in this dead world. How could a modern society led by humans ever emerge?"
"...You two seem to have gone through some things I don't know about. You'd better tell me everything later," Jibril said, giving Think a provocative smile. "As for your question, it seems you don't need to worry—look?"
"Eh?"
Exclamations rose from below. Sū ěr eyes widened, and then he let out a soft laugh.
Yes, this world's moon was fake, the sun was fake, and the stars were fake. But if there were no "real" versions, how could these fakes have been modeled so accurately?
The cracks in the world grew more numerous. Within those once-black voids, as they merged into a single expanse, the survivors saw strange, wondrous colors.
Until the moment of total fracture.
An ocean that seemed to have no end—the sapphire-blue surface lay right beneath them, drawing closer. Beyond that, a massive landmass spanned the horizon, with high mountains, winding rivers, lush forests... and above, a sky filled with a million true stars.
And the faint, shimmering crescent of a real moon.