Having traversed countless realms, can you possibly be as clever as me?

An unusually bright "spark" appeared in the sky, like a retrograde meteor, silently hovering and gathering above the city. More and more sparks gathered, slowly rotating above the city center, forming a huge, burning vortex.

At the center of the vortex, there were enormous shadows.

What is that...?

Their mouths gaped open; they were bewildered and terrified, for they saw giants emerging from the sky, their outlines gradually revealed as if born from flames.

They possessed enormous sizes beyond human comprehension, resembling statues from an ancient temple. Their skin was like cooled, cracked lava, with veins or electrical circuits resembling patterns that faintly flowed with a dark red light.

Smooth, bone-white faceplates, deep, crimson "eyes" that seem to glow with embers. Expressionless, yet radiating an ancient compassion and absolute indifference. Six spear-like wings of light sprout from his back, while he holds a spear that appears to be made of solidified flames.

'A miracle of extinction has occurred: Seven days of fire!'

Meanwhile, Tsugumi, watching this scene from the moon, blinked and remarked...

"It used to be the Disney universe, and now it's the Miyazaki universe, right? Wow, you really have a childlike heart these days!"

Changing styles doesn't stop the killing spree! : 149. Seven Days of Fire

The sound disappeared.

It wasn't silence, but an absolute, vacuum-like stillness. All the noise of the city—traffic, voices, machines—was sucked away by some force. People opened their mouths to shout, but couldn't hear their own voices; cars collided, but there was no sound of impact; glass shattered, but it was like a silent film.

And in this absolute and torturous silence, 'they' descended.

From the burning vortex, three enormous knuckles made of lava and bone slowly tore open the boundary between reality and some higher dimension. Then came the arm, covered in black carapace formed from cooled magma, its patterns resembling a dried-up riverbed. Next came the shoulder, the torso, another arm, and the legs.

The landing of these enormous objects took a full six hours.

Slow and cruel, it imprinted every detail on the eyes of the silent and immobile witnesses: the dark red energy veins flowing on the skin; the exposed biomechanical structures at the joints; the undulating spine on the back; and the face, with its smooth, bone-white mask, devoid of mouth and nose, except for two deep eye sockets burning with a deep red light that was not flame.

When these giants finally stood upright, people realized the proportions: their ankles were level with the top of a fifty-story building. The Tokyo Tower only reached their calves; their sheer size made even the term "giant" seem insignificant.

The sound suddenly returned.

What followed was an earthquake—not a geological movement, but a tremor caused by the giant adjusting its stance. It slowly turned its head, sweeping across the city. Its gaze was devoid of emotion, anger, hatred, or even contempt. It was the gaze of a scholar observing microorganisms in a petri dish, the gaze of a gardener examining shrubs that needed pruning.

Panic and screams spread instantly among the people who could speak. They couldn't understand what these things were. This fear, which went beyond what they felt when facing Gastrea, was a strong fear of the unknown that made them feel a deep sense of dread.

They seemed to realize that the person's prophecy of world destruction was not a joke.

But they still couldn't move.

As if to punish them, after these giant warriors descended, they regained their vocal cords, but were deprived of their freedom of movement.

Ashes began to fall

Ash, seemingly appearing out of nowhere, fell like rain for seven hours straight, settling on building surfaces, streets, and people's hair and shoulders. It neither melted nor dissipated, but simply accumulated.

Then, the giants began their operation.

Here with Rentaro Satomi, he watched as the colossus turned eastward, facing Tokyo Bay, and opened its "mouth"—if the cracks in its smooth armor could be called a mouth. Protruding from the cracks was not a tongue, but something like a cannon barrel, its surface as smooth as a mirror, reflecting the shattered city.

Light began to gather deep inside the cannon barrel.

The light was so pure that anyone looking directly at it would temporarily lose their color vision, and the world would turn black and white.

There was no sound when the first beam of white light shot out.

It wasn't silence, but rather sound suppressed along the path of the white light. People saw the container terminals, cranes, and warehouses of Yokohama Port disintegrate in the white light, but heard no sound. Matter wasn't shattered by an explosion, but rather broken down into elementary particles, like sandcastles dissipating in the wind.

Then, the shockwave arrived.

It spread outwards from the center of a white light path, shattering windows in pieces and destroying everything in its path. Just as Rentaro Satomi was watching helplessly as he and everyone else were swallowed by the light—

No, there's nothing at all.

The light covered him, but it felt like a gentle breeze. He felt no pain or injury. He was like a photograph fixed in place on the collapsing and destroyed building, unable to move but also unharmed.

Nothing could harm them; there was no pain, no death, and some people began to feel fortunate and happy about it.

But what Rentaro Satomi sensed was a deep-seated malice!

Death is but a fleeting moment, annihilated in that instant by these lights. This is not punishment; how can such peace be called suffering?

Only living things can feel pain and endure torment.

In a daze, he thought that God created the world in seven days, and perhaps they would witness its destruction within seven days.

White light engulfed everything.

On the first day, surface civilization was reduced to ashes.

They raised their flaming spears high above their heads, the tips pointing skyward, then slowly lowered them, pointing towards the ground.

The next day, all things in nature vanished.

Spear-like wings of light unfurled from the back of the colossus, which then soared into the air before plummeting downwards.

On the third day, the continent sank, leaving behind a vast ocean.

The spear of fire pierced the ocean, stirring it up; its heat, far exceeding that of stars, evaporated and annihilated the seawater.

On the fourth day, the water source dried up, and the sky fell.

The colossus soared into the sky and vanished from the earth.

On the fifth day, the moon disappeared and the sun went out.

On the sixth day, all light was lost, and all things were in chaos.

All of humanity in this world was forced to witness firsthand the gradual destruction of their world.

Their initial joy, happiness, and ecstasy at surviving the ordeal turned into disbelief, pleading, screaming, and despair.

They are now in this dying world.

Rentaro Satomi is still alive, but he is incapable of feeling, moving, or speaking.

He stood blankly in the void where nothing existed. The planets were gone, the sun was gone, the moon was gone, and perhaps even the universe was gone.

In this chaotic scene, he could not sense anything.

He began to feel fear—fear that he would not perish, fear that death would not come, fear that he would remain awake forever in this desolate ruin.

He began to pray, along with many others, to God, to the Lord, to Allah, to Buddha, and to every deity they could think of.

Or more—he prayed and pleaded with Tsurugi and the children around him, who were observing all this from within the ark in the void.

He wasn't lying; he truly is a saint.

Sound the horn, summon miracles, unleash divine punishment, and annihilate the world.

In a daze, Rentaro recalled questioning him about his qualifications, but this supreme authority was precisely the qualification that allowed him to annihilate everything.

On the seventh day, all things ceased to exist, and peace and joy prevailed.

Countless beams of light descended from the sky, taking away the dead, the living, and the valuable souls—first and foremost the children, most of whom were innocent, whether they had died tragically during those seven days or were left behind by the Dongjiang River; most of the souls deemed innocent were taken away.

Then there are the few good people left in this ditch world.

Rentaro Satomi watched as the pillar of light took away the Holy Emperor, Tendo Kisara, and a small number of others.

Then, it took away Aihara Enju, who was beside it. Although she cried and clung to Satomi Rentaro, refusing to let go, she was still mercilessly taken away by the pillar of light.

Is this the light of salvation? So, am I someone who is not worthy of salvation?

Just like the wicked Kikunojo Tendo next to him, he deserves to suffer for eternity; that is the destiny of the footprints.

Rentaro Satomi closed his eyes resignedly, and in this almost infinite time, he finally had the opportunity to reflect on his life.

A good-for-nothing, incompetent, and self-righteous fool.

Tsugumi is right. He may not be a bad guy, but he can't bring about any truly positive change.

To live forever in this endless nothingness—that seems to be his destiny.

No one knows how much time passed, so long that Rentaro Satomi's sense of self was almost fading away, so long that the other sinners had gone mad countless times, when a faint light still shone down and took his soul away.

After all, although he was an incompetent fellow, he wasn't exactly a bad person. He might not get into heaven, but he wouldn't suffer in hell forever either.

Now that he has atoneed, let him begin a new life.

That was the last ray of light; with that, the radiance was completely extinguished.

The world fell into absolute and eternal annihilation. The virtuous ascended to the heavens, embarking on journeys to other worlds, reincarnations, or other fates. The sinners remaining in the darkness were condemned to eternal life in the inability to move, speak, or stand still.

This is the punishment they were given.

Dongjiang witnessed the entire process of the world's destruction. He let out a long sigh of relief and wiped away his tears with emotion.

Brilliant, absolutely brilliant! This is the first time he has truly and completely summoned the Great Extinction to destroy the world.

How should I put it? The scene was truly magnificent! It's exhilarating to see this world reduced to rubble, but I wonder how long it will take before this place can be restarted again.

However, there is still one small problem with Tsurugi River—

"Hey, why didn't you take them with you?" Tsugumi pointed at the bewildered little girls behind her and the ten remaining Zodiac Beasts in the void, and shouted at the sky.

The light in the sky paused, then a sentence was heard.

"They belong to your soul."

"Huh?" Tsurugi exhaled for a second, then realized that it was indeed true.

He is a demon marquis, at least when he uses Goetia magic, so these brats basically agree to sign a contract with him.

Can Heaven take away the soul that made a deal with the devil? Easily! Poor Mephistopheles had Faust's soul snatched away by Heaven just before he was about to eat.

I don't want their souls! Send them away!

When Tsurugi's voice went unanswered, she turned around and looked at the little girls staring at her pitifully with longing eyes. She gasped and felt a chill run down her spine.

You told me to kill, and I didn't say a word, but you asked me to take care of the aftermath of these little devils, and you told me what to do.

Or should we just send them all to the UC to become aliens...? It feels like we're just conscripting them into the army. Besides, considering they're carrying Gastrea viruses, just throwing them away randomly could cause a lot of trouble.

However, before he could figure out what to do with these brats—

“I can... place them... as your... legion.”

A somewhat simple-minded voice came from behind Dongjiang's head. He looked up and saw a colossal warrior carrying out the destruction of the world.

Tsugumi knew that the one speaking was definitely not this giant soldier that God might have taken from the Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind set. Through this body, there must be some kind of will making a deal with him!

Moreover, Tsugumi has already seen through the other party!