Under the sunlight, everything outside looked the same as usual. The traces of war and corpses that should have been everywhere were completely gone. It was as if none of it had ever happened.
Ham noticed that when she flew into the former Demon Realm, the environment had changed a great deal. The land was now covered in green, and most regions had turned into dense forests, very different from before. In the past, many areas were deserts, and even the forests were hostile places where even the grass ate flesh and drank blood.
Now things were much better. The grass still walked around and hit people, and there was actually more of that kind of grass than before, but at least the overall look was normal. Compared to the old days, this was already a huge improvement.
The old Demon Realm had been filled everywhere with Dark Power leaking from the cracks of that door, along with all kinds of polluted Magic and twisted faiths. There had also been large numbers of Demonkind from Faith Abyss and members of Abyss Church. After Belial washed everything equally, all of that disappeared.
From the rumors Ham heard, the Three Great Empires were now desperately expanding their territories. When they first heard that the Demonkind were gone, they did not say much, but they were clearly greedy for this suddenly vacant land. It was a blockbuster new territory, unpolluted, with a healthy environment, and all the strange curses had vanished.
For a while, no one dared to move. The scene had been too shocking, since the Demonkind had been wiped out in such a short time, and everyone had seen that unbelievable Black Dragon. At first, people were not thinking about how to seize this new land, but whether that Black Dragon would turn around and wash the other side as well.
No one even considered whether they could fight. Even escaping felt questionable, because any strong person with decent judgment had already given up. Fighting that was simply impossible.
If Ham had not casually mentioned during a visit to Vera that they did not need to worry and could just go ahead and take land, everyone might still be stuck fighting among themselves. When people saw Paraten Empire start grabbing territory, they finally clenched their teeth and followed, which led to the current constant land disputes. There would probably be a few more fights over this in the future, but Ham did not want to care about such small matters.
The important issue was something else entirely. If it was not resolved, the World might truly be finished.
After traveling for quite a while using spatial Teleportation, she arrived at the Great Sinkhole. She stepped straight inside, passed through multiple layers of seals and countless stacked spatial partitions, and finally stopped in front of a door.
"Chloe!"
She pushed the door open without hesitation. The moment she entered, Ham felt both hard and soft textures under her feet, and when she looked down, she saw dolls scattered everywhere along with various kinds of glue placed all around.
Just inside the door were two huge glass cabinets. Ham remembered that the amount of glue inside was at least twice as much as the last time she came. After carefully making her way through this obstacle course, she saw someone with horns on her head, headphones hanging from them, sprawled on a sofa and furiously mashing a controller in her hands.
"Ah… Ham, what's up?"
Seeing someone arrive, Chloe finally had a proper excuse to let go of the controller. She very smoothly closed the game progress. The black tentacles playing two player mode beside her were completely stunned and glanced at the big 0 to 2 on the screen.
"…Did something happen?" Chloe asked, her expression turning a bit serious. Seeing Ham's face, it was clear she was not here for a casual visit. "Is it a problem with the door?"
"It's not the door," Ham said. "It's just that a problem showed up. A slightly big one, and it might need your help."
"…I understand. What is it?" Chloe paused. "Even Belial can't handle it?"
Ham scratched the back of her head, and Chloe's expression also became more focused. Almost unconsciously, she glanced at the black shadow on the seat beside her, perhaps because she had been living too much of a lazy life lately.
When she heard the word trouble, Chloe's first reaction was why they could not go to Belial. Then she remembered that she was not just a useless shut-in, and maybe she could still be of some use. If they really needed her help, then it should only be a small matter, or so she thought.
What Ham said next made her frown. "Let me ask you something. With your current physical condition, can you still handle the load of using the Holy Sword?"
"I mean full rule resonance, complete output release."
"Holy Sword… complete release?" Chloe felt that this was definitely not a small matter. She had not even considered doing that back when she was a Chosen Hero thousands of years ago. Full release was simply on another level.
The Holy Sword could mobilize the power of the World Laws. With full output, even in the current broken state of the World, it could directly erase two or three Crimson God. The load was equally terrifying, and the required fuel was absurd, far beyond what a mere Chosen Hero could provide.
However, since Ham dared to ask, there had to be deeper reasons behind it. "With the help of Belial's Clone shadow, my condition is actually better than it was thousands of years ago," Chloe said. "There's no problem at all."
Her eyes sharpened, almost as if they were glowing. She stood up abruptly, took off her glasses, and seemed to return to the bearing she had when she was a Chosen Hero cutting through all kinds of monsters in the past. Her expression was serious, because she understood that if they needed to fully mobilize the power of the Holy Sword, then the enemy must be extraordinary.
"Tell me," Chloe said. "What kind of enemy am I facing? I will not be afraid."
She was honestly confused. With Belial around, what kind of enemy could require her strength as well? From everything she had heard, Belial had nearly wiped out all the Crimson God in the Abyss alone.
"Good," Ham said solemnly, hands on her hips. "Since you're prepared, we can try it. It's not really a difficult fight. You just need to stand in a fixed position and fire the Holy Sword at the target. Don't worry about the fuel, we'll provide enough."
"Is that so?" Chloe nodded. "Then I'll use the Holy Sword to attack…"
"Attack Belial."
"Oh, so the enemy is Belial. Got it, then…"
She froze.
"…What?"
Chloe had nodded seriously at first, but once her brain processed the name, it completely stalled and her expression locked up. Ham could almost see smoke coming out of her head.
After an imaginary reboot, Chloe spoke again. "Ham, you misspoke, right? Who was it again?"
"It's Belial."
"Haha, I didn't take off my headphones just now. Say it again?"
"I didn't say it wrong. It's Belial."
"Looks like even Ham starts talking nonsense under mental pressure," Chloe said, trying to laugh it off. "Come on, play a bit with me and relax."
"Stop avoiding reality," Ham said. "There's a reason for this."
She jumped up and flicked Chloe on the forehead, dragging her back from denial. All Chloe could think was whether this was real. Even if you added up all the combat power in the entire World except Belial, it might barely handle one or two Crimson God, yet Belial had nearly driven them to extinction.
"I'm supposed to fight Belial?" she thought. "This is completely backwards."
"So you're sure you didn't say the wrong thing?" Chloe asked again.
"That's why I said there's a reason," Ham replied. "I'll explain briefly. You should know a bit about The End, the reason this door exists."
"…I know a little," Chloe said, her face darkening. Because of that, the entire World was left with only a handful of beings, and even she had been dragged back to work.
Hamliket explained the full sequence of events, along with everything about Belial, emphasizing that he might become an unprecedented The End. If that happened, both the Abyss and the World would be finished, and even Belial himself would be powerless to stop it.
He was simply too strong and too special. Even now, with everyone working together, there was no way to completely kill even a part of his body. Even if he fell asleep and stopped thinking, it would only slow the progress, not stop it.
"We're running out of time," Hamliket said. "By the time we realized this, it was already too late. At Belial's current scale, The End might manifest in just a few years."
"The End stands in absolute opposition to all existence," Ham continued. "We've never tried this, but maybe it's not impossible. The Holy Sword is the power of the World Laws. Even though it's damaged, if we use it at a moment when things are a bit more complete, we might be able to use the entire World to erase the mark of The End."