"Nice to meet you."
The moment
And that force was here, hidden within the darkness before her.
A darkness that Gülie could not see through—but Sariel could perceive the truth concealed within.
The one who had greeted her was a woman.
She stood just one step shy of adulthood—still young enough to be called a girl, appearance-wise.
Yet her expressionless face held none of the youth that her looks suggested.
It was the same as the surrounding darkness—an expressionless void that evoked a bottomless abyss.
"Please, just call me D. Now then, introductions are out of the way, so let me get to the point. I've come here to negotiate. I'll skip the roundabout pleasantries and state my business plainly: please accompany me in my game."
It was an invitation to play, yet it sounded like something a devil might say.
In truth, that perception was not wrong.
Though she called it a game—and moreover, though Sariel had no knowledge of this—D had said she found it "interesting," yet there was not a shred of joy or amusement to be seen on her face.
Had someone other than Sariel been standing here, they would have felt terror at the eerie sight of something that merely resembled a human woman pretending to be one.
But what Sariel felt was not fear—it was pure fighting spirit.
What stood before her should not exist.
Its very existence was a sin.
Though she was a fallen angel, Sariel intuited instinctively that the being before her was a threat to the world.
She abandoned not only the vast disparity in their combat power, but even the mission she had clung to so desperately—resolved to drive her blade through both of them if it meant destroying this entity here and now.
"Oh, let's not have any of that fighting-back-or-refusing business, all right? Otherwise, I can't promise what might happen to your precious children."
However, Sariel's power was never released.
Words devoid of any power bound Sariel's body in place.
Those words were more unbreakable than any restraint magic—utterly immobilizing Sariel.
With those words alone, everything within her was sealed.
She had called it negotiation, but it was truly coercion.
"What do you want?"
"Splendid. You will serve as the core of the large-scale magic I am about to activate."
D took Sariel's words as assent and unfolded the outline of her spell.
It was something akin to a blueprint for magic—anyone with the knowledge could discern what kind of spell it was.
Unfortunately, Sariel could not understand its nature.
Sariel was an angel specialized in combat.
She excelled at destruction, but deciphering the inner workings of magic was not her forte.
"This is a technique designed to replenish the energy of this star."
Whether she knew Sariel couldn't understand the spell or not, D began her explanation.
With that very first sentence, Sariel lost the ability to respond.
She could not fathom D's purpose.
The device's developers had no intention of simply injecting energy straight into the star—the very fact that D had kidnapped Sariel the moment she stepped into a device meant to save the star, yet now claimed to be using magic to save the very same star.
When you considered the timing, it seemed like D was actually obstructing the star's salvation—yet here she was proposing the exact opposite.
Her existence was unfathomable, and her words were equally so.
"Oh my. You look thoroughly confused. About why I'm doing something like this. It's quite simple, really. A certain young dragon came to me, begging me to help you. I'm a kind person, so I thought I'd grant that wish."
At the revelation of these circumstances, Sariel was rendered speechless once more.
She let D's world-weary remark—"Being young is wonderful, isn't it?"—pass right through her.
All that occupied Sariel's mind was a single question: Why?
She considered Gülie a friend.
But the optimal solution for saving the star was Sariel's own sacrifice.
She could not comprehend why Gülie would try to overturn that.
Sariel had absolutely no understanding of how others perceived her.
And she did not think of her own life as precious.
If it meant fulfilling her mission, she would calmly throw away her own life without a second thought.
That was precisely why she could not grasp Gülie's decision to take the uncertain gamble of relying on this unfathomable god.
"Indeed. You shouldn't give me that look—as though you're blaming that dragon. It's only because he came to me that you won't have to die in vain."
"Die in vain?"
Though she was unaware of it, Sariel was in a state of considerable confusion.
D dutifully explained in response to the parroted question.
"The developers of that device would never have been able to inject energy into the star cleanly, now, would they?"
Sariel experienced yet another freeze—she had lost count of how many times since encountering D.
Every time she opened her mouth, Sariel was left stunned.
Even Sariel had heard of
Yet because the President and the others had exercised the utmost caution and proceeded carefully, she had been certain things would work out.
No—by believing that, she had been turning a blind eye to the very possibility of doubting Potimas.
That truth was now thrust in her face.
"In the first place, a device like that could never decompose a god. The unconscious defensive barrier I've woven would easily block it. It would be a different story if you could override even those unconscious defenses and voluntarily submit to decomposition—but even if that decomposition were to succeed, and even if you were to escape the clutches of that developer, the star would never be restored. Even energy, for all that it's a single word, comes in many different kinds. Injecting energy obtained from decomposing a god into the star would be like performing a blood transfusion without checking blood types. And using the blood of entirely different animals at that. There's no way it would work. Rejection is inevitable. Honestly, this is why angels are such a headache—nothing but brute force and no brains."
A rapid-fire barrage of shocking revelations.
Sariel's thought processes had frozen over completely.
"That is why I have prepared a flawless plan. If you consent to being bound as the core of this spell, it will take time, but it will be possible to restore the star's energy. Will you consent?"
D extended her hand toward Sariel.
A magical constraint was inscribed upon her palm.
If Sariel were to take that hand, some manner of contract would be forged.
With her dulled cognition, Sariel grasped at the straw that was offered to her.
She took the hand as a gesture of consent.
"Contract complete."
Had D been a devil, she might have smirked with satisfaction at having successfully closed such a deal.
But D's expression did not change.
Even now, having just deceived and neutralized a fallen angel possessing the power of an upper-tier god, not a flicker of emotion crossed her face.
Magical chains wound themselves around Sariel's body.
Invisible to the eye, they sealed her movements, drained her power, and then spread across the star.
A single star was falling under the dominion of a law set by D.
Under the law of what was called the System.