「 ✦ Rimuru Tempest ✦ 」
She struck first.
A blurred silhouette of black and green cut through the wind, her whip snapping toward me. I stepped forward instead of dodging. My sword met it in mid-air, and the impact cracked the ground beneath us.
A silent shockwave rolled out as sand flew in all directions.
I followed up fast, pressing forward. My sword spun in my grip, slashing wide, but her whip wrapped around the blade and yanked it downward, trying to disarm me.
So I let go, and the moment she tried to capitalize, I reached down and touched the ground with my left hand.
Belzebuth.
A section of the desert disappeared in an instant, devoured without warning. Hel leapt back just in time, her boots landing softly on the air itself.
I stood up slowly, and my sword returned to my hand with a thought.
Still silent.
She rushed again—this time from above. Her whip cracked through the air like a flash of black lightning. My sword came up instinctively, intercepting the strike, sending sparks flying in the swirling winds.
She moved fast.
Not impossibly fast—not compared to me, not anymore—but exactly fast enough to keep me from completely overwhelming her. Her form was clean and precise and she wasted no movement. Every time she attacked, her strike was sharp and deliberate, calculated to probe rather than devastate.
I stepped in close, blade sweeping low, feinting for her knee before twisting upward in an arc toward her ribs. She spun to the side, her whip trailing smoke and heat as it curved around and lashed at my back.
I used Godstep, avoiding the hit by a hair's breadth, and I felt the air pull against me like I'd just dodged a meteor. The sand where I'd been standing turned to glass—melted and fused by the sheer heat of her weapon.
I narrowed my eyes. That thing would tear a hole through anything. Maybe even through me if I wasn't careful.
She lunged again, whip unraveling like a blade of pure destruction. The weapon seemed to eat the light around it, leaving trails of darkness in the air. I ducked under it, reversed my grip on the sword, and went for her shoulder. She blocked me—not with her weapon, but with a strange force around her. A sudden, invisible shockwave threw my blade just enough off course to miss by inches.
"Tch."
She was using various Ancient Magics in subtle ways, and was turning the space around her into something brittle, something dead.
Raphael processed the data shortly after.
<
I nodded internally. Thanks, partner.
I dashed forward again, putting more speed behind my movements. This time I didn't aim for specific targets.
Blades clashed. Flares of light cracked across the battlefield like miniature lightning storms. Each time our weapons met, energy burst outward, kicking up spirals of sand. The desert around us began to reshape itself under the pressure of our exchange.
I used Uriel's Law Domination to twist my steps, change gravity mid-motion, reverse momentum when she least expected it. I made myself unpredictable, but she kept up anyway. She fought like a ghost made manifest. Never in one place for long and definitely never sloppy.
I started to press harder—my blows got heavier, my strikes faster. I stopped defending and went on full offense. Slashes that ripped the dunes open, shockwaves that carved lines into the horizon.
I even fired a high-density energy slice straight from my open palm, the air screaming as it was torn apart. It was a capsule of my aura containing the effects of Decomposition, but alas, my punk ass missed. The energy slice instead detonated as it made contact with the ground not far from Hel.
I felt heat rising from my cheeks. How embarrassing. Should've let Raphael aim-assist me.
Hel raised an eyebrow like she just watched me trip over my own ego. I swear I saw her smirk. Great. Now I was embarrassed and insulted.
Another strike.
Another dodge.
I ducked under a horizontal lash and lunged forward, stabbing Dark Plasma at her chest. She caught it.
Eh!?
With her bare hand!?
A split-second later, I realized it wasn't her hand at all—it was the distortion around it. Her magic had thickened the space, turned it into something like dense fog, but sharper than steel. My sword didn't even touch her flesh.
"Oops—" I unconsciously muttered.
A small grin tugged at her lips.
And then she raised her other hand.
The world in front of me cracked. No—rippled.
I saw the distortion form like broken glass rearranging in midair, floating shapes and shifting symbols spreading toward me in slow motion. But it was already too late.
It wasn't an attack.
Rather, it was a door.
And it swallowed me whole.
I slammed into a flat, hard surface—but it didn't feel like earth. It felt like glass. Cold, smooth, reflecting everything and nothing. And yet, somehow, I was standing on solid ground.
I stood up quickly and looked around, trying to get my bearings.
Everything was wrong here.
The sky, the sand, even the air looked the same at first glance. But they weren't. They were distorted and tilted in unnatural ways that made my eyes hurt if I stared too long.
This was the same place, but not.
Is this a mirror dimension?
My senses picked it up instantly—dimensional displacement, folded space, mirrored structures that repeated endlessly in all directions. It was like being trapped inside a kaleidoscope.
Hel had dragged me into another world, one where she made the rules.
And she hovered across from me now, still calm, still hubris, her whip coiled at her side like a pet snake waiting to strike. In this place, she looked even more otherworldly—more goddess than ever.
She moved her hand, and the ground bent upward.
Not the earth itself, no—the idea of direction changed! The floor turned into a wall, and suddenly I was standing sideways, gravity obeying her will instead of physics.
I rebalanced instantly, stabilizing myself midair.
I used Uriel to readjust my orientation automatically, but for the first time since we fought, I felt tense—urged, even. I had no idea she was this strong. This was a far cry from the assumption I had of her power back when I wasn't a demon lord.
I would've lost back then—badly.
But there was no use in dwelling over something that never happened, so I focused back on using Godstep to switch positions over and over. Fighting against the fundamental laws of a hostile dimension took effort, after all.
But still—this was her domain. Her advantage.
<
Geometry. Of course.
This was a world of shape, angle, form. It wasn't about terrain—it was about rules. Mathematical principles twisted into weapons.
I was abusing Godstep and Godspeed at this point.
Hel raised her hand again, and the sky split open into dozens of floating shards. Each shard spun around and turned into panels of mirrored glass. They rotated slowly at first, then faster, and then they launched toward me like a swarm of crystalline bullets.
I darted sideways, my body flashing in and out of space as I dodged.
And then I activated Universal Barrier.
The air around me shattered like glass, fracturing into protective layers of overlapping and severed space. The panels struck my barrier—only to be redirected, caught in folded space and curved away.
Each redirected panel shattered on impact with the ground, but as they did, they multiplied—one mirror became two, then four, then eight, restricting my movements and twisting my view of the battlefield. Everywhere I looked, I saw myself, saw her, saw fragments of the fight from impossible angles.
It was hard to tell what was real anymore.
Each version of her, each reflection, mimicked her movements perfectly. She was everywhere and nowhere, a thousand Hel-s moving in perfect harmony.
I felt my breathing quicken. This was designed to break concentration, to make me doubt my own senses.
I calmed myself.
Breath in. Breath out.
I closed my eyes, shutting out the visual chaos.
Raphael spoke clearly inside my mind.
<
A diagram appeared in my mind—a massive lattice of angles, folds, and numbers. A full analysis of this world's foundational design, broken down into its component equations.
I understand it now.
Hel may have built this world—but I could take it apart.
"Do it," I whispered.
Raphael started rewriting the equations that held this dimension together.
Each mirror I passed shattered in my wake from misalignment. Raphael was forcing the world to reject its own logic, fragment by fragment, unweaving it thread by thread.
Hel's expression finally changed. Her eyes narrowed. She saw what I was doing, saw her perfect trump card crumbling around us.
"What would you do if I stopped fighting?" I asked her amidst the chaos. She could never beat me now anyway.
She just donned a small smile as she responded. "I'll just kill you before you change your mind."
"Now that's just cruel."
"Is it?" She readied her whip once more as she settled on a stance. "Weren't we always meant to end like this?"
She charged at me this time. Her whip came down in a flash, spinning with enough force to slice mountains in half. I dodged, then ducked again, then grabbed it mid-air and pulled hard.
She slid toward me, using the momentum to slash me across the side. Pain flared through my ribs—real pain, even when I should be beyond such sensation. But I didn't let go of her weapon.
I spun around, used her own movement against her, and slammed my palm into her chest.
Belzebuth.
Invisible tendrils of power exploded from my hand, tearing across the world like a virus. The mirrors cracked. The sky splintered. Every shape began to twist in on itself as the Lord of Gluttony devoured the very concept of this dimension.
This world couldn't hold me anymore.
Raphael forced the core structure to collapse.
And Belzebuth devoured it all.
The Mirror Dimension shattered like glass hit by a hammer.
I landed in the real world, knees bent, hand to the ground. Wind rushed past me, carrying the familiar smell of sand and heat. The solid earth felt reassuring after that maze of reflections.
Hel crashed a few meters away, sliding through the sand, her whip flickering and evaporating from her grasp like smoke.
My soul stung, though. I used Belzebuth too suddenly and too intensely. The power of an entire dimension was more than I'd expected to consume after all.
But I was still fine. I swayed slightly as I stood but I walked upright.
And I stared at her.
She looked up at me from where she'd fallen, hair whipping in the wind, expression tired but not surprised. There was something almost peaceful in her green eyes now, as if a burden had been lifted.
She knew this would be the end.
I raised my hand again, power gathering around my fingers like dark fire.
...
And just as I was about to deliver the final, killing blow—
"So this is how it ends," Hel said in a whisper. "In your arms, dying, defeated. I always assumed I'd be alone in a grave of stars."
I glanced down at her, confused. "Girl, I ain't holding you, though?"
"Shut up. Don't ruin it." Despite everything, there was a small smile on her lips. "Let a girl die pretending someone loved her."
"I don't love you," I said honestly.
Her green eyes met mine. "But did I matter in some way?"
I hesitated, but the truthful answer came easier than I expected. "...Yes. You did."
"Then that's enough."
The wind picked up around us, carrying sand across the battlefield we'd created. In the distance, I could see the glass formations where our clash had melted the desert floor. I turned my eyes back to her.
"Say something beautiful before this ends, would you?" I asked.
She was quiet for a while, those green eyes studying my face like she was trying to memorize it.
"Hm. I have nothing to say, but..." She paused, and when she spoke again, her voice was softer. "Hey, Rimuru. Did you think of me when you crossed that line?"
I knew what she meant. When I evolved—when I stepped into the realm of divinity and left my old self behind.
"Just a teeny tiny bit," I admitted. "I thought that you were the first one who wouldn't flinch if I did."
"Right." Her smile grew a fraction wider, and somehow, it was the most genuine expression I'd ever seen on her face. "That is love... in our language."
Her breath grew fainter and fainter, each one more labored than the last. I raised my hand one final time—
"Even now... knowing it ends like this... I'm still glad it's you."
—and I struck down to finally end her.
Belzebuth consumed her voraciously, devouring every trace of her until not a speck of her existence remained. The Goddess of Death simply ceased as if she had never been at all.
I was alone in the desert now, the wind the only sound breaking the silence.
This was always how it was going to end.
I'd made a vow—to kill every god. That promise hadn't changed, not even after everything that happened thereafter. Some lines, once drawn, couldn't be uncrossed.
Hel knew that.
And maybe that's why she never really tried to change my mind. She could have pleaded her case, could have tried to convince me she was different from the other gods. Could have argued that she wasn't like the ones who had caused so much suffering.
I feared that I really would've almost considered it if she genuinely opened up to me.
But that was the point—she didn't.
Even if she did adore me—and I think, in her own surreptitious and lackadaisical way, she did—she would have stood against me eventually. Her nature demanded it. Death—the gods of Tortus—doesn't compromise.
And I still didn't understand why she'd been so fixated on me from the beginning. What was it about me that drew the Goddess of Death's attention? What made her watch me at every turn?
Was it curiosity as she had claimed?
Loneliness, perchance?
Something deeper that even she couldn't name?
I'd never find an answer to that question now. Hel had taken whatever drove her obsession to the grave. Maybe it didn't matter anyway. Some mysteries were meant to stay unsolved.
But maybe, just maybe, in another life, things really could have been different. Maybe we could have found that dead tree she talked about, could have sat together drinking something vile while I said stupid things and she pretended to laugh.
Maybe we could have learned to understand each other better, to bridge the gap between what we were.
But not in this world. Not with the choices we'd made. Just as I resolved to kill her, she resolved to kill me. And she faced her end without flinching, without begging, without trying to make me feel guilty for what I had to do.
That was her final gift to me, I realized. She let me do what needed to be done without leaving me a curse of her regret.
I looked up at the sky, feeling the solitude settling more comfortably in me.
One more god down. Five more to go.
The desert wind picked up again, erasing the traces of our battle. Soon, it would be like this place had never seen violence at all. Like Hel had never existed.
But I would remember.
That was my burden to bear. The price of the path I'd chosen.
I turned my back on the empty desert and began to walk away, already planning my next move in the war I'd started. There were other gods to face, but for just a moment, I allowed myself to mourn the goddess—no, the woman—who had understood me better than she should have.
The one who wouldn't flinch when I became a monster.
The one who called it love in our language.