Chapter 6 | Endsingers, Extremes, and Odin's Bargains (Part 1)

  The Final Day. Ultima Thule. The útgarer.

  The Endwalker, a Flow Close in the Distance

  ManMan looked around the floating ruins of The útgarer that she and her party were standing on. This was the final confrontation against the Endsinger, and they were about to face her at the far edge of the universe, where there were nothing but a graveyard of celestial debris and the corpses of once-vibrant worlds adrift in the silent, empty void.

  "ManMan-san, don't forget to eat your food buffs (′? ω ?`)!" Momonga's voice reminded her. He pointed a bony finger at a nearby crab-like heteromorph— if crabs had faces, magnificent beards, and fancied monocles on both eyes. "Amanomahitotsu-san over there can repair your gear if you've got any that are about to break (;???)."

  The crab-blacksmith of Nine's Own Goal waved one of his large crustacean clippers at her, sending a friendly (ノ′?\)ノ` wave emoji her way. A sizeable contingent of clan members had turned up to join her for the completion of her final MSQ quest; a farewell to her Sprout-MSQ-ness and a welcome to the "full game," as they called it.

  Looking around, she saw two full parties of players, excluding the non-combatant blacksmith. Her brother Touch Me, Momonga, her good friend BubblingTeapot, and her dame-ningen little brother Peroroncino, and Ulbert were in her primary party of six. Warrior Takemikazuchi had come as well, and a ninja she recognised as Nishiki Enrai was there too. Though, ManMan still had no idea what heteromorphic race he belonged to as he had elected to cover himself from head to toe in ninja garb, nary a peek of his real body exposed. Yamaiko's burly Nephilim was clad in her usual robes and her signature Female Sensei's very angry gauntlets.

  Punnitto Moe, the clan's vegetable Kong Ming, was present as well, looking appropriately calm and collected. Along with him was a twisted-looking heteromorph she recognised as Ancient One, clad in yellow and green robes that hummed with arcane energies. Beside him was a member of the angel-race who called himself LuciFer— though in ManMan's mind, he probably should have made himself a fallen angel considering the subtle bondage motifs hidden beneath his artfully torn cloth scraps. He also had a known tendency to yap for longer than was welcome and crack wildly inappropriate practical jokes at the worst possible times.

  "Alright, everyone, a Ready-Check (???)!" Touch Me called out, his voice full of heroic resolve. A Ready? notification box popped up in front of ManMan. She clicked Yes after hastily finishing some cardboard-tasting burger given as an old quest reward and stood ready with her comrades.

  "I'm starting the Trial!" Touch Me gestured to a glowing ring of light and a floating ! icon in the middle of the arena. The moment his gauntlets touched it, ManMan sensed an immediate and visceral shift in the atmosphere. A primordial cold started creeping into her bones and the very stars seemed to dim and die as all light began to fade. In that instant of absolute despair, the Endsinger arrived.

  This was no humanoid, but it was no known heteromorph either. She was a being of absolute, sorrowful beauty on a cosmic scale.

  She had a pale, almost greyish, elegantly elongated face, devoid of any expression other than an eternal, haunting melancholy. Her eyes and lips were dark, resembling voids or pools of starless midnight. She had no arms, only vast white wings tainted at their edges with the truest, most absolute black. There was also no torso and instead, behind her head floated a smaller, second pair of feathered wings that extended from where her ears would have been, and a ring of an unholy, cracked golden halo framed her visage like a tragic crown on a weeping willow.

  As the Endsinger floated serenely before them, ManMan realised just how immense she truly was. Her wings were the sky, her sparrow-like tail the horizon. The length of her body exceeded ManMan's ocular vision, forcing her to crane her neck to look up at that expressionless face, those eyes devoid of all but an infinite, impersonal sorrow. The music that heralded her— a dissonant, layered chorus— exerted a palpable pressure ManMan could almost feel weighing down her avatar's body.

  But those terrifying details were secondary. Though she was the final villain, the source of YGGDRASIL's foundational tragedy, ManMan had to admit the Endsinger was a being of extreme, terrifying beauty. Her pale colour gradients were flawless transitions without a hint of harshness, shifting seamlessly from void-black to the deep, sorrowful violets of a dying nebula. She had no singular striking colour, being formed entirely of dreary and dark shades, yet the entire colour scheme was one that felt utterly harmonious, unified in its finality.

  I can create colours invoking joy, energy and life, she thought, but this… this is a harmony I never would have thought possible.

  Her black wings were beyond dark; each individual feather possessed lifelike texture and depth, appearing to drink the very light from the distant stars. They were absolutely captivating, and ManMan would have spent several more minutes utterly mesmerised by the Endsinger's visage had her brother, Touch Me, not gestured sharply for her to pay attention with an (；一_一).

  Executing another quick gesture, a bright twenty-second countdown timer materialised in the air above the group and a smaller counterpart appeared in her interface.

  "ManMan-san, this would be a good time to cast your pre-battle buffs (???)." Momonga advised from beside her, his skeletal fingers already weaving through the intricate patterns of his own pre-combat buff rotation with undead efficiency.

  She hurriedly nodded, tearing her eyes away from the universe-devouring but very pretty despair lady. "Ah, got it, Momonga-san! ?(ˊ?ˋ)?"*

  Her Astrologian class tree was a complex web of spells and skills that demanded foresight and preparation. Although she was level 94 now, she had only used enough skill points to fill out a total of 75 levels, including her High Elf racial classes, opting to save the extra for later as she was still deciding how to specialise her build.

  Unsheathing her Astrometer with a practiced flick of her wrist, ManMan began her own pre-combat ritual, a sequence she had learned through constant practice but suspected was probably not quite the most optimised.

  "[Magic Caster's Blessing]

  [Greater Full Potential]

  [Astral Realignment: Diurnal Sect]

  [Star's Breath]

  [Ordained Horoscope]

  [Aspected Astralise]!"

  Waves of shimmering stellar energies erupted from her and encased her party members in protective shells of radiant cosmic power. Her Aspectarian subclass had shifted her fundamental energy alignment from simple positive and negative into the more stellar polarities of Astral and Umbral, a modification that allowed her restorative abilities to knit together even necrotic undead flesh and repair shattered golems.

  She watched as the combined effects of [Ordained Horoscope] and [Aspected Astralise] layered a series of lingering heal-over-time (HoT) effects and a respectable damage-absorbing shield over her party. Once this foundation was set, she would then proceed to the more dynamic part of her rotation: drawing her Arcana and Crown cards.

  "[Astral Draw]!"

  Holding her Astrometer aloft, it hummed with resonant energy and flashed with the light of a nascent constellation as a random card was chosen. She reached into the focal point of light and pulled forth a card that seemed to have been forged from solidified starlight. Looking at the sigil of the Radiant Sun on its surface, she saw it was the Arcana of [The Balance], signifying equilibrium— a buff that would increase a single target's magical attack power by 7%.

  She followed it up with her other draw, shifting her stance.

  "[Umbral Draw]!"

  This time, ManMan held her Astrometer level. The device glowed with the shimmering darkness of night, its lenses dimming as if eclipsed by an unseen moon. From the resulting pool of shadow within its frame, she plucked a card that appeared to be cut from a fragment of the night sky itself. This was the Crown card of [The Lady], signifying sustenance. It depicted a serene, matronly figure robed in starlight, holding a chalice that spilled forth an endless stream of tiny, glittering stars. Its effect was protective: it would restore the HP of nearby allies and, if their health was full, erect potent fortified stellar shields around them.

  With her cards drawn and her buffs active, she felt more or less ready. She readied her floating Astrometer once again, her body tensing as the countdown timer in her vision approached zero.

  3…

  2…

  However, she noted that some of her fellow casters— Momonga, Ulbert, and Ancient One— had already begun their incantations, their hands moving through complex somatic components a full two seconds before the start. ManMan then realised this was a subtle optimisation; by beginning their long-cast-time spells now, they could unleash devastating opening salvos the very instant the countdown reached zero. Noting this advanced technique, she made a silent mental note to incorporate it into her own gameplay from now on.

  1…

  Engage!

  "[Divine Intervention]!"

  With a flashy sonic boom that seemed almost certain to be a cash shop addition, Touch Me blasted off the ground the instant the timer ended. ManMan stifled a giggle and sent an (￣▼￣*) emoji as her platinum World Champion brother catapulted straight into the Endsinger's nose, seemingly aiming specifically for a thorough inspection of her colossal nostrils. The cosmic entity registered this unwelcome nasal incursion as a hostile action, and a creeping, pulsating aura of pure despair immediately washed over the entire group, afflicting them with a damage-over-time (DoT) effect and a global -5% status debuff.

  With that, the music swelled into being. To ManMan, this was no simple boss theme, but a musical eulogy for the entire universe, delivered by the very entity singing it into oblivion. She realised the Endsinger was not experiencing triumph nor malice and instead, she was grieving as she performed what she saw as a merciful end to all suffering. This was her funeral aria for existence itself— beautiful, haunting, and utterly, terrifyingly hopeless.

  Woven into the dissonant chords, ManMan could hear the twisted ghosts of melodies from her past adventures: echoes of Answers, Dragonsong, Storms of Blood, and Tomorrow and Tomorrow. She heard all their leitmotifs, but the Endsinger's rendition was a perversion, devoid of their triumphs and hopes, carrying only the weight of their tragedies.

  The song weaponised her memories. Visions flashed before her: the dead Alliance soldiers in the Praetorium; her fallen Aesirguard kin; a dying Haurchenault slipping from her arms; the youth bleeding out in the Pyrekeep's courtyard; and Emet-Soul's final, fading moments, his desperate plea. With each warped leitmotif, the song seemed to whisper directly into her soul:

  "Remember your struggles? Remember the civilisations that fell? The enemies you slew? The worlds you failed to save? The people who died for your 'heroics'? All of it... all that pain and loss... has led only to this moment. It is all meaningless. Your entire history is just a prelude to this final, silent note."

  Her song was a persistent and relentless argument for despair, every melody a not-so-subtle reminder that her every past victory had simply being a temporary respite against the inevitability of entropy.

  But ManMan did not want to give in.

  She had come too far and witnessed too much death in order to reach this point, to confront primordial despair at its source and to truly appreciate its deathly harmony. For those she could not save, and for those she could yet save, she would reject its conclusion. She would stay and fight, if only to continue admiring the lustrous, light-drinking texture of the Endsinger's wings and her mesmerising, sorrowful eyeshadow a little while longer.

  That, and she really, really wanted to enjoy herself in the final, spectacular Trial of YGGDRASIL's MSQ.

  In front of her, BubblingTeapot started using her Aegis shield, [Knight's Challenge], and other tank skills in perfect sync with Yamaiko, ensuring the Endsinger's immense attention never settled on the more fragile party members for long. The physical DPS wasted no time and they launched themselves airborne with practiced ease, becoming a whirlwind of blades and projectiles against the giant Lady of Despair.

  Warrior Takemikazuchi had become a blur of controlled motion, executing a flawless series of weaponskills. His katana flashed in a flurry of strikes, chaining advanced Hissatsu and Iaijutsu skills ManMan did not recognise but whose visual spectacle and raw power were absolutely breathtaking

  Nishiki Enrai became the proverbial ninja, teleporting in brief bursts all over the Endsinger. He executed precise, lethal cuts and stabs with a pair of twin kodachis, weaving intricate Ninjutsu hand signs between his physical assaults.

  The bondage angel LuciFer and local bird-brain Peroroncino dominated the air. LuciFer conjured lances of punishing holy light while Peroroncino's natural wings gave him effortless flight as he fired off a seemingly endless barrage of enchanted arrows.

  Back behind the frontlines, the magical artillery was in full force. Momonga, Ulbert, Ancient One, and Punitto Moe maintained a relentless, surgical barrage of spells. The attacks from her Nine's Own Goal friends had been executed with such perfect timing and synergy that it was a far cry from the chaotic, unoptimised spell-and-skill-spamming of the public Duty Finder parties that she was used to. ManMan was momentarily mesmerised by the elegant, terrifying beauty of their optimised efficiency.

  Clearly, what she had witnessed during their casual open-world farming sessions were merely the surface. Here, in the crucible of a Trial, their true combat prowess was on full display, and it was utterly awe-inspiring

  "Hahaha, snap out of that blur, ManMan-san ( ′?｀)σ)?`) ," the familiar, cackling voice of their local demon-goat, Ulbert, echoed over to ManMan's ears. "Else, we are all going to die a very sparkly and very final death real soon."

  True to the demon-goat's bleating prophecy, the party's health bars were slowly but steadily wilting under the dual assault of the Endsinger's pervasive aura of despair and her wide-arcing magical attacks. While the entity was primarily focused on swatting the persistent annoyances that were Touch Me and BubblingTeapot, their offtank and healer Yamaiko was treading a razor's edge, juggling tanking duties with emergency healing. The strain was showing; she was being taxed.

  "I'm sorry! I'll stop staring now (；′?｀)!" ManMan hurriedly apologised, spamming a flurry of (′；ω；\)` sorry emojis which only drew more chuckles from her teammates.

  Flicking her wrist, she released the stored power of [The Lady]. A wave of warm, benevolent stellar energies washed over the party members within range, closing the worst of their wounds and— most importantly— halting the despairing, necrotic decay visibly eating away at Momonga's skeletal frame. She then quickly flung the [The Balance] card straight at Ulbert.

  The demon-goat sorcerer returned the gesture with a quick nod and a ヽ(★ω★)ノ cheering emoji as he dramatically threw his arms wide and bellowed the incantation for his flashy signature spell, "[Grand Catastrophe]!"

  The spell's catastrophic magical energies erupted against the Endsinger, carving a noticeable chunk from her health bar.

  "So early, Ulbert-san (?_?);?" Momonga asked, the efficient tactician in him unable to ignore the practicalities. He gestured vaguely at the demon goat's MP pool, which had indeed plummeted well below half. "Your MP's already less than half!"

  "Heh, some spells require a grand entrance! Never mind the MP cost (￣ω￣)!" Ulbert retorted with a theatrical flourish. A round of knowing laughs rippled through the party; this really was classic Ulbert.

  Seeing her chance to contribute, ManMan gestured another spell directly at the MP-drained goat-man-demon. "Here! I'll top you up! [Lunar Grace]!"

  A small, luminous, and perfectly translucent moon— like a pearl of captured pale light— manifested into existence just above the space between Ulbert's twin horns. It began a slow, serene orbit around his goatly horns, each complete rotation granting a soft, silvery pulse that gradually restored his precious mana reserves.

  "Thanks, ManMan-san (′?`人)!" The goat gave his signature bleating laugh amidst a string of enthusiastic nodding emojis. "Though, wasn't there a party-wide damage skill from the Astrologian tree? A divination something something? Did the pretty lady's eyeshadow hypnotise you into forgetting it (￣ω￣)?"

  Ah, I do (；￣Д￣), ManMan realised with a jolt. She had been so utterly enamoured while admiring the Endsinger's finely crafted, universe-ending features that she had completely forgotten to cast it during the opening burst.

  "Sorry! I forgot! Uh… here!" ManMan's High Elf avatar began flustering, her hands making embarrassed little circles as she desperately gestured through her hotbars. Finally finding the spell, she gestured grandly.

  "[Divinated Symphony]!"

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  A vast and intricate Celestial Mandala descended from the void above ManMan, gently encasing the entire party in a rotating wheel of shimmering constellations and arcane sigils. Its patterns swirled in a complex rhythm, sending individual threads of brilliant, star-dusted light onto each member, tailored to their role.

  Her tanks were soon wreathed in the steady, gravitational pull of crimson stars. Her physical DPSes crackled with the explosive, kinetic energy of miniature supernovas. Her magical casters glowed with the focused, potent light of nascent quasars. Yamaiko and ManMan herself were surrounded by a gentle, sustaining radiance reminiscent of a nurturing nebula.

  "Hahaha, no worries, ManMan-san (????)??," their vegetable-man strategist, Punitto Moe, laughed warmly. "Just remember to cast it at the same time as everyone else's openers and other powerful abilities next time. Let's not waste all this beautiful cosmic power on the scenery, yes? That skill is one of the most powerful party-wide support skills in the game!"

  ManMan nodded vigorously while maintaining her own casts of [Aspected Malefica], her cheeks burning with a mix of embarrassment and determination. "Got it! I'm so sorry (;′▽`;')!"

  Several chuckling clan members sent a wave of (′? ω ?\)` emojis her way as they seamlessly continued their complex rotations, now supercharged by her long-overdue buff.

  As the Endsinger's HP dropped decisively to half, a violent crack in reality tore open beside her, signalling the start of a terrifying new phase. ManMan gaped in awe as the despairing bird lady congealed two massive chunks of dead planets from the rift, each one pulsating with malevolent yet mesmerising magical energies. They began to rotate around the outer edges of the arena, their orbits accelerating with each pass before suddenly slowing, their trajectories set on a catastrophic collision course to the northeast.

  "That's Elegia Unforgotten!" Touch Me yelled while blocking a volley of seeking magical missiles of despair. "Evade! Get out of its telegraph, now!"

  ManMan, however, was still utterly captivated by the haunting beauty of the spiralling planetary doom. By the time she blinked back to reality, she realised with a jolt of ice-cold panic that she was the only one still standing dead-centre in the arena, right in the middle of a massive, growing orange telegraph marking the impending point of impact.

  "Ah!"

  With a belated yelp, she could only watch as the two dead planets slammed into each other in a cataclysmic, fiery eruption of cosmic annihilation. A moment of silence was followed by a deafening implosion as their cores collapsed, sending a terrifying ring of destructive purple energy exploding outward— hurtling directly toward the spot she was still rooted to.

  I need to run! I need to get out of here! she panicked internally as her mind raced to compel her body to seek shelter from the incoming cosmic disaster. But a horrifying mundane and utterly terrifying thought followed: …how do I run again?

  The command would not come. Her mind, so adept at weaving complex spell sequences, drew a perfect and paralysing blank on the most basic of motor functions. Her muscle memory for the simple act of moving her avatar's legs in a sprint had been dulled by weeks, if not months of intricate, stationary caster rotations.

  However, the root of the failure went deeper. It was a chilling disconnect that reached through the virtual world and into the hospital suite of a different reality. In that moment of digital peril, the two realities fused. The memory of the impact that had severed both her legs at the mid-thigh— on the same night she had stood atop the Olympic podium— flooded back.

  In the real world, her movement post-accident was defined by the whir of servos and levitation engines in her advanced mobility aid; there was no "walking" to be had there. While the game had given her the miracle of a full, bipedal body, it was also a body she had only ever "briskly-walked" in. The neural pathways for the frantic, desperate flight of a run had become ghost limbs from faint memories, as it was a function her physical brain had not needed to command since the accident.

  She had, quite literally, forgotten how to run, and needed a few moments to remember and reconstruct the movements. Her hospital therapy sessions had unfortunately, not included imaginary running classes as part of its curriculum.

  "[Osiris's Rescue]!"

  A brilliant flash of light and a sudden, violent tug at her torso later, ManMan found herself yanked unceremoniously from her spot, landing right next to Yamaiko with the same comical woosh! she remembered hearing from a certain Lalahell in her first dungeon.

  "Still admiring the Lady's despairing beauty eh, ManMan-san (￣▽￣)?" her off-tank co-healer offered a lighthearted jest as a giggling BubblingTeapot joined in the teasing.

  "ManMan-chan! Is she your type? I didn't know you were so fond of giant, universe-ending bird-ladies (??ヮ?)?:???!"*

  "Thank you!" ManMan hurriedly replied, "And no! Teapot-chan, I don't! But her visual design is really, really pretty (? ???ω??? ?)!"

  "Hahaha— so you do find her attractive (★ω★)!" Her friend's amorphous amber slime avatar wobbled with laughter as BubblingTeapot continued her merciless, good-natured teasing.

  "Nice rescue, Yamaiko-san," Nishiki Enrai offered from the shadows, "ManMan-san, I know the graphics are amazing, but always watch the boss's cast bar. It will tell you what attacks are coming and let you prepare in advance (???)."

  ManMan nodded, feeling a fresh wave of determination that was mixed in with embarrassment. True enough, she had been too mesmerised by the giant, beautifully-rendered planets to notice the ominous cast bar ticking down above the Endsinger's health bar.

  "Hehehe. If you don't mind, I can help keep an eye out for you too, ManMan-san (￣ω￣)!" Peroroncino's bird avatar loomed from the left of ManMan's vision as he teased, instantly earning his Onee-slime's wrath as a gelatinous tentacle flew his way from BubblingTeapot. Thankfully, friendly-fire was off, or the Bird-Man might really have been sent flying out of bounds and into the void, leading to a very unpleasant instant death in the form of several servings of roasted fowl.

  "Focus, everyone." Touch Me's voice settled over the banter with the steady authority of a raid leader. "We've still got halfway to go."

  The collection of heteromorphs replied in a chorus of acknowledgments as the planetary attack ended, slipping back into their positions with practiced ease while continuing their relentless assault. A flood of AoEs, tank-busters, raid-wides, and multiple colliding planets later, the two parties managed to claw their way into the final phase of the fight.

  The Endsinger was now at a critically low 20% of her health bar. Here, the music shifted dramatically. Gone were the constant, replaying warped leitmotifs of fallen heroes, replaced by a sudden, overwhelming chorus of pure oblivion. The Endsinger had stopped singing of memories and was now beginning the final verse— one that would unmake YGGDRASIL's reality. Her vast wings shifted as she gathered her power, condensing the despair of a thousand dead stars into a single, planet-sized orb of violent violet and abyssal black energy. The final aria had started, and its chorus grew clearer, more powerful, each line filled with the terrifying purpose of finality. Her cast bar read: Katastrophe.

  A new gauge also appeared beside the Endsinger. Its name was Despair, and it was filling up rapidly. Every second that passed was a second her orb of oblivion enlarged in size, swelling without limits, threatening to consume the entire arena.

  "Your time has come. It always does. Resistance is futile. Submit to my sweet embrace."

  Oblivion was coming. ManMan and her party were still fighting, giving their all, but the countdown had already begun. A system-wide alert pulsed with ominous urgency.

  10 seconds until oblivion is realised…

  5 seconds until oblivion is realised…

  4 seconds until oblivion is realised…

  "Okay, party wipe incoming! Looks like we're all about to get a very intimate, very final lesson in existential despair (′-ω-｀)!" LuciFer called out, his joking tone somehow both cheerful and utterly morbid at the same time.

  "Prepare! Ultimate attack incoming!" Touch Me's voice overrode the gallows humour. "Gather at the centre! I'll use all three bars of our Super-Gauge and cast my Super-Tier Skill, [The Final Bastion]! ManMan, stack with the party!"

  "Got it, brother!" ManMan yelled out in acknowledgement, scrambling to gather with her friends in the centre of the arena. She had no idea what that Super-Gauge meant, but the fact that it required three entire bars and caused her brother's most serious voice to come out suggested it was probably something that could mean the difference between victory and becoming a very pretty but very dead stain on the floor.

  Looking frantically around her interface, she found a triple set of glowing bars that she had noticed before but never really known its use. Perhaps that's the Super-Gauge? she wondered.

  Her thoughts about the interface were abruptly cut short as the Endsinger's ultimate spell finished its cast. The air hummed with the sound of a thousand silent screams as the manifestation of oblivion was hurled directly at the party, intent on erasing them from history itself.

  "[The Final Bastion]!"

  In that very instant, a colossal, seamless wall of living platinum erupted before the party as a gleaming monument to protection, radiating a divine light that felt like a direct contradiction to the void itself. Intricate sigils, reminiscent of Touch Me's own armour, ignited across its surface, weaving an aura of absolute, unbreakable defence.

  ManMan then understood. The Super-Gauge, once full, allowed for an instant cast of what was essentially a divine intervention— a Super-Tier skill or spell.

  Behind the magnificent wall, she felt a wave of complete and impossible safety. The cosmic dread emanating from the orb was still there, its psychic digital weight persistently trying to crush her spirit, but it was now filtered, distilled. In that moment, her brother's will was a more fundamental law of the universe than the Endsinger's despair. It was the most complete protection she had ever known.

  And for a single, suspended heartbeat, the universe vanished. The onrushing orb consumed and swallowed all light, all sound, all existence into an instant of absolute, airless black.

  Then came the apocalypse in reverse.

  A silent, blinding flash erupted. It was a light of a searing radiance from an impossible spectrum, containing the fires of a thousand dying nebulas. Light purple, deep violet, and searing magenta burned themselves onto her vision, a retinal scar of colour so intense ManMan briefly wondered if her non-existent virtual elven eyes would suffer from permanent blindness and how much the fantasy medical bills would compare to her own.

  When the vision finally cleared, swimming reluctantly back into focus, she saw the battered but unyielding figures of her friends from Nine's Own Goal. Touch Me's bastion had achieved its purpose: it had shielded them from instant, total annihilation, but the party had still suffered catastrophic damage as a staggering 80% of their collective health had simply vanished.

  The Endsinger, however, gave them no time to process the sheer scale of their survival. ManMan and Yamaiko began a mad, frantic rush to restore their party's health before the cosmic entity spoke again.

  "You still possess hope? No matter. You only delay the inevitable."

  She raised her vast wings once more, and space itself fractured as she began casting a new attack: Fatalism. ManMan watched in horror as sinister, amaranthine energies coalesced once more, ripping from the fabric of their reality to form a second, equally massive orb of oblivion.

  "Your fate is sealed, as it always had."

  The second orb was hurled. And this time, they had no Super-Gauge left. There were no more divine bastions to summon. The personal cooldown of four Supers a day and fifteen minutes between each party cast was absolute.

  ManMan desperately looked around at her heteromorphic friends, her voice tinged with obvious panic. "What do we do? We can't cast another Super! I don't have anything that could protect us like Touch Me did (；′Д｀)!"

  The response she received was… not what she expected.

  "Well… Just watch, ManMan-san (???)." Momonga reassured her, accompanying his calm words with a perfectly placid emoji.

  "Like Momonga-san said," her brother, Touch Me, added, gesturing almost lazily at the planet-sized oblivion hurtling toward them. He sent a winking emoji. "Keep calm, sister. Just wait and see. This is one of the best moments in the entire game ?(???)?."

  Bewildered and utterly unconvinced, ManMan could only watch as the second oblivion swallowed her and her party whole, encasing them in an impenetrable shroud of the blackest night. They were submitting to it. They were enjoying it. Had they all finally lost their minds to cosmic despair (′-ω-｀)?

  For a breathless and agonising second, she could feel and sense nothing through her avatar. There was only darkness, and it was absolute.

  Then, a faint ripple of light. It grew larger, stronger, and brighter, until it defiantly punched a hole through the emptiness. And with it came a voice.

  "You will not take from them what you have taken from me."

  ManMan recognised it. Hydae-Lynn's voice.

  A blinding, merciful burst of radiance ruptured through, shattering the dissonant darkness and bathing the arena in a gentle, nurturing radiance. Light had returned, and she could see again. They were all still there. A magnificent, radiant, white crystalline shield— a perfect, geometric lattice of aetherial energy— dissipated around them, having absorbed the killing blow. Her health bar was a trembling 1 HP, but she had lived. They all lived.

  Hydae-Lynn's voice, softer than she had ever heard it, whispered into her ears. "Now, ManMan Lai. Strike!"

  And then, the music shifted.

  The haunting funeral dirge vanished, and in its place erupted a melody that was its absolute antithesis. It was no longer a lament of despair, but a hymn of hope, pure and defiant. ManMan peered down at the bottom of her interface. The song was called "With Hearts Aligned".

  Our song of hope

  It dances on the wind

  Higher, oh, higher

  A brilliant and warm symphony of light enveloped the entire raid. Hydae-Lynn was channeling the very last vestiges of her power, infusing ManMan and her party with a massive, divine empowerment. ManMan watched, awestruck, as her spells and her friends' attacks were now wreathed in a sublime, crystalline light. Each strike against the Endsinger ignited the despairing entity with purifying aetherial burns.

  Our vows'll endure

  Forever standing strong

  In the endless dark, still we carry on

  The Endsinger reeled back as each empowered blow seared into her, her perfect aria of despair strangled into a dying gasp. The majestic (and in ManMan's eyes, still sublimely pretty) harbinger of despair was gone, her form wavering. The terrifying cosmic entity was replaced by the frail, terrified visage of a scared little girl, all alone in the void.

  On wings of hope

  You'll rise up through the night

  Higher, oh, higher

  Her previously calculated and confident attacks broke down into frantic, desperate, haphazard swipes of her wings. She was no longer trying to unmake them, but to push them away, to create distance from the very thing that seemed to be undoing her. The song of hope was an anathema to her very being.

  Cradling our song

  Carried fast within your arms

  That its chorus might ring for all!

  This little girl was being forced to confront the one thing she had found at the edge of the universe and could not bear: the terrifying, illogical, beautiful fact that she had not been alone, that there were others who were willing to share her pain rather than let her be consumed by it. She had just never had the opportunity to find them.

  Whatever unspeakable loneliness had crystallised her into the Endsinger, ManMan could not know. But in that final moment, watching the entity of despair cower from the light of hope and connection, ManMan felt a sense of pity, as well as a small, desperate desire to save her, too.

  ———

  When the final attack reduced the Endsinger's HP to zero, what was left of the once mighty visage was silence and a small, broken figure where a goddess of despair once stood.

  A little girl sat crying on the ground. She was no god of oblivion, just a terrified child, tears streaming from her eyes. She flinched as ManMan took a hesitant step forward, trying to inch herself away in fear.

  ManMan paused immediately, her heart aching. She wanted to help but had no idea how to approach without causing more fear.

  A gentle fading light then coalesced beside her.

  Hydae-Lynn, her form now eerily translucent and flickering like a dying ember, knelt down beside the girl. With infinite tenderness, she gathered the weeping child into her arms.

  "Do not be afraid, little Seren," Hydae-Lynn whispered, her voice the barest echo of its former strength. The child, Seren, continued to weep, but now she clutched tightly at Hydae-Lynn's fading form, clinging to the only presence that offered understanding instead of judgment.

  Seeing her so, Hydae-Lynn began to sing a soft, ancient lullaby.

  "Well come and well met

  my weary little spark…"

  Holding Seren close, Hydae-Lynn gently patted her back. The child shuddered with each comforting touch, her sobs beginning to soften as she hid her face.

  "…How long you've wandered

  all alone in the dark

  Oh, long have I waited patiently

  to bring you back home…"

  She pulled back slightly, lifting Seren's chin to look into her eyes. Once lifeless and devoid of emotion, they were now pools of sorrow, loneliness, grief, and guilt.

  "…I'll catch your tears

  quell your sorrows release…

  'til you reach the shore

  Where the weight you hold shall find its peace..."

  Hydae-Lynn bent down, her song fading momentarily, and whispered words meant for Seren alone.

  "I have seen the path you walked. I have seen the despair you found. You were never meant to carry that weight alone. You do not need to apologise for breaking under a burden that would have shattered any soul."

  Seren's cries softened to quiet tears, the fight finally leaving her. She leant into the embrace, exhausted. Hydae-Lynn continued her soft lullaby, now rocking the child gently in her arms.

  "…Hush, love, close your eyes

  and in sleep abide

  Let my fading light

  be your guide to dreams far beyond…"

  The edges of Hydae-Lynn's presence began to fray. Pieces of the crystalline guardian deity of YGGDRASIL broke off, shimmering in arrays of brilliant light as they floated away and dissolved into the aether. Her previous translucency was now almost fully transparent.

  ManMan realised it then. Hydae-Lynn was dying. Her essence was almost entirely spent. She stepped forward, her Astrometer instinctively raised in a healer's futile gesture, yet stopped as the crystalline goddess lifted her gaze. She looked from the sleeping child in her arms, to ManMan's comrades, and finally, to ManMan herself. Her expression was one of heartfelt gratitude, serene acceptance, and final peace.

  Her last two lines were sung with a new, stirring resonance and filled with hope. It was a blessing and a charge, entrusted not to Seren, but to the living. She sang.

  "…But you will awake

  on winds rise again

  For this quiet end

  is but one step onwards to tomorrow."

  With that final promise passed onto her successors, Hydae-Lynn looked down at the now sleeping Seren. Gently stroking the child's cheek, ManMan watched as creator and creation faded together into motes of gentle, silent luminescence, becoming one with the stars they had once been born from.

  It was done. YGGDRASIL's oblivion had been averted.

  As the last echo of Hydae-Lynn's voice faded into an eternal, respectful silence, ManMan finally understood. She had not just been playing a game. She had been a chronicler of stories, a vessel for emotions, and a traveller of beautiful, digital worlds. Virtual, yes, but every bit as real in the ways that truly mattered.

  She had found her new purpose. She was home. And she was—

  "YOOOOO! Congrats, ManMan-san (??ヮ?)?:???! You beat the MSQ! Finally not a complete Sprout anymore! How good was that? Absolutely insane, right? The writing was long, but the music! The feels! I cried man, ngl. Welcome to the endgame, baby!"

  ManMan flinched at the sudden and acutely unwarranted interruption. She looked up and saw the eternally annoying bird-visage of Nine's Own Goal's NumberOne Bird-Brain. The swirling sadness for Hydae-Lynn, the pity for Seren, and the complex hollowness of the victory were still wreaking havoc within her. She absolutely, certainly, and definitely did not want to talk about her "feels" with a hyperactive pigeon right now.

  "I uh… Yeah," she managed, "Yeah… It was something else. Really… Something (?ー?)".

  Fortunately, Warrior Takemikazuchi and Momonga were about two thousand percent more perceptive than their local avian attraction.

  "Uh, ManMan-san," Takemikazuchi began, his voice carrying a note of genuine concern. "You okay (???? ﹏ ????)?? ...Want to blow off some steam? We could run you through an Extreme Trial if you'd want."

  "Yeah," Momonga added. "We could do an older extreme trial, say, The Emerald Weapon EX. It's challenging, but fun. A good intro to endgame content."

  ManMan paused briefly.

  Yes, this would be perfect, she thought. A new problem to solve. New mechanics to learn. No emotions to digest, just patterns to recognise and a battle to lose herself in.

  She replied, her voice firming up. "Yeah. Yes, actually. Let's do that. I'm looking forward to my first EX Trial."

  "Great, that's perfect!" Takemikazuchi replied, sounding pleased.

  "Mmhmm! Hmmm," Momonga paused briefly before continuing, "Anyone else want to stick around for an Emerald Extreme run? Me and Takemikazuchi-san are going to show ManMan-san her first EX. Peroroncino-san, you're automatically included as the designated floor tank (￣ω￣)."

  "Eh!? But I have my own grind—"

  "Shut up, little bro (｀?′)Ψ ." BubblingTeapot interrupted, her voice containing a sinister level of Onee-sama authority. "You're going, or I shall rearrange your room."

  A wave of agreement came from the rest of the clan. It seemed everyone was either unwilling to defy Teapot's wrath or pass up the chance to see Peroroncino suffer.

  "Emerald EX, huh… that's a nostalgic one," Ulbert mused, a hint of sadistic glee in his voice. "I do miss watching arrogant first-timers get launched into orbit by Tertius Terminus Est during Party-Finder runs. Good times."

  "Yeah, I loved its theme song too," Yamaiko agreed, ignoring Ulbert's bloodthirsty nostalgia. "'The Black Wolf Prowls Again', it's brilliant."

  Touch Me was also nodding with a proud smile on his emote. "A true classic. It really gets the blood pumping before you wipe for the tenth time."

  "Gimme five," Nishiki Enrai told Momonga. His hands then went on a comprehensive inventory check. "I gotta withdraw some more gold from the bank. Gonna need a fortune if Bird-Brain here is coming along (′-ω-｀)."

  "Oi, Nishiki-san. What—"

  "Ah, a wise precaution," Momonga nodded sagely. "If that's the case, let's all meet at Sisyphus's Summit in Helheim. We can show ManMan the basics of endgame raiding and how not to be a burden like Peroroncino-san."

  A murmur of assent and laughter signalled the collective's agreement on their next objective. As ManMan prepared to teleport, she glanced back at the now-empty arena. For a split second, she thought she saw the familiar, sleek black silhouette of what appeared to be the Omega Weapon, its single red eye gleaming on its circular faceplate as it silently observed her and her group from the shadow of a nearby asteroid… before vanishing without a trace.