Chapter 402 Foolishness
The golden arrow with a red gem heart on the back, covered with yellow-white energy, moved through the air like some meteor moving through space. The evil spirit standing before the golden coffins, created dark shields one by one by squeezing all its power.
-Swiiiiiiiiish!
The arrow moved through the air and reached the dark shields. Naturally passing through all of them like a hot knife passing through butter.
The arrow was strong and the power it carried was meant to kill the evil spirit... but the evil spirit who looked no different from a human with that desperate look was not letting go of its wish.
The arrow pierced the last of the shield but when it was about to hit the evil spirit, a gray murky light suddenly appeared before him and shot toward the arrow!
-Boooooooom!
The golden arrow covered with white light, and the gray light of darkness collided! And the explosion they made was enough to cause great shockwaves.
-Wuuw. Wuuw. Wuuw. Wuuw.
The shockwaves were great enough to shake the whole room, but the arrow wasn't changing its path. Instead, its speed was increasing with each passing second.
And the evil spirit wasn't letting go of its gray light, either.
It was a strong force, but it also was used at the cost of all of its reserved energy.
-Zuuuuuuuuu! 𝒇r𝙚𝙚𝓌𝙚𝑏𝗻𝑜𝘷𝗲𝘭.c૦𝑚
But maintaining this one light wasn't the only thing it was doing.
Its whole dark purple body shined with a darker purple light, its eyes glowed with red, and the spiritual robes around its body fluttered as every single bone on the ground started vibrating!
And there were thousands of them, so... it was obviously dangerous!
The bones started floating after shaking for a bit and all the bones, all the thousands of white bones, flew toward the evil spirit.
-Dooooooo...
The bones gathered before the evil spirit, started taking a new shape, and in just a few seconds the gray light was stopping the golden arrow, they became a thick shield of bones!
-Swiiiiiiiiish...!
But the golden arrow didn't take that long to actually pierce the gray unholy light and passed through it, creating even bigger shockwaves.
-Wuuuuuuw! Wuuuuuuw!
It was also powerful enough to almost crack the silver pillars supporting this room.
But it definitely pierced the light and collided with the newly created shield!
-Boooooooom!
They were strong and it would have been difficult if they were devoid of their undead energy, but the bones still contained some amount of undead essence, so they couldn't block the arrow for that long.
-Ktktktktkt...
The arrow covered by white light destroyed the bones and passed through them. Its energy was now starting to get lower with each moment!
The evil spirit also felt this, so it felt some form of hope... only to feel despair the next moment when the red gem on the arrow blinked with crimson light and the yellow energy around the arrow decreased... accelerating the speed of the arrow once again.
It was despair for the evil spirit. Despair even greater than its own red nightmare.
It was dangerous and the evil spirit would get destroyed by it if it stayed like this!
It would die if the arrow continued to advance like that. It knew this would be its demise if it stayed like that.
It should just move away and let those coffins be destroyed. It was foolish to sacrifice so much of its energy just to protect some coffin.
-Swiiiiiiiiish...!
The arrow was still pushing the wall of bones that was increasing with each second without stopping.
New bones were sticking in the wall to make it thicker, but the arrow carried more power than the creation speed of the wall.
The evil spirit should just give up now. It didn't even have much energy after moving those thousands of bones. But still, it was just stuck in its place.
The evil spirit didn't move. It just stayed there, used up all its last remaining power to block the arrow, and when all of its energy was used up and it was visibly noticeable that it was no longer the majestic evil spirit that once terrorized the whole island, killed countless creatures, and did bad things, the bastard, instead of moving away, did even more crazy thing.
It was something that Eon wasn't expecting it would do at all.
It was just too shocking for him. And if even his eyes were wide open from the shock, the enraged Rein's shock was naturally something far greater than anything she had felt during their whole expedition.
The evil spirit was doing something no one, not a single alive person in this whole place would think it would do.
It was just that absurd...
The evil spirit, the creature which should have been a selfish being from nature, was using up its own life force, its own soul energy, its own last remaining essence, to power his skills!
Its purple-glowing body was now dull. There were many places that had started degenerating, and the spirit was using its soul energy and giving its own life to protect the coffins.
It created more dark shields and continued using the bones to strengthen the wall like a shield.
[< KHAAAAAAAA! >]
Its screams as the pain from its own spiritual body degenerating must have been worse than any alive person aside from Eon might possibly fathom!
It was just too great, but the weapon they were trying to stop wasn't going to stop until it achieved its purpose.
Its purpose is to just pierce anything in its path and crash on the other side of this room.
It was an Ego weapon and currently the second law binding it, [Acceleration], was temporarily broken. It would use all the energy provided to it and achieve its goal, just accelerating with each passing moment.
And it did just that...
-Swiiiiiiiiiiiish...!
It continued accelerating, absorbed the white Solnova around it after the red glow from its gem heart, and pushed the bones, the light, and even the shield.
The evil spirit had done everything it could to protect the thing it wanted to.
And in the last efforts of protecting the coffins, the evil spirit even poured down half of its soul energy and... managed to just slightly change the direction of the arrow.
It was difficult because of the white energy surrounding the arrow but it actually succeeded and the arrow, which was just slightly curved upwards, passed through the bones, slashed the wall, passed through the gray light, the weak darkness shield, and lastly, it passed through the evil spirit who's body was now almost translucent...
It already had some part of its body disintegrating into nature, but after Asta passed through it and just passed from above the coffins, it sighed weakly and slowly descended on the ground.
-Swiiiiiiiish! Booooom!
It wasn't that loud, but Asta crashed on the other side of the wall and returned to its normal state.
It had achieved its goal, and the evil spirit was the same. It had protected the reason for its existence.
But still... it couldn't protect it forever like it wanted to do.
All it wanted from the start was to protect this place and one of the coffins and just stay with it till the end of everything.
The reason it woke up was the humans who interrupted its long slumber. The reason it killed the weaker creature of the island was to gather useful toys that can kill the future intruders in his home.
All it wanted was to spend a slow, eternal, quiet life with its special someone and protect her body.
Her soul wasn't with him anymore, but it was determined to at least keep the body that homed her soul for her whole life safe.
The evil spirit gave its life to the being that was already dead. For just a corpse that was of little value before the lives of countless lives, it had been destroyed.
Maybe the value of its own peace and this place was too great for this one. Maybe it was the most selfish being in existence. Maybe it was evil and bad to do the things that it did.
Maybe all of that was wrong, but by doing those things, it definitely had achieved its goal.
It protected this place and the body of the one he devoted his life to.
He protected and gave his life doing the thing it was reborn to do.
Maybe all it did was wrong. This was the karma of those bad things. But at this moment, in these last moments of its life, the evil spirit... it was smiling.
Its body was scattering into the particles of purple light.
Its life had ended now...
It was becoming one with nature.
And Eon couldn't understand why an evil spirit, a creature which, though bound by its past human desires, would actually follow those mortal goals and do something like giving up its life just to protect a dead body.
He had some questions... so he didn't hesitate to ask. The one who could give him answers was on his deathbed, and they both knew there was no point in fighting anymore.
Both of them gathered around him. The three spectators watching from the corner of the room also gathered around the evil spirit.
They had great resentment in their eyes. Especially Mave and Zuroro.
Their families had been killed, and they were left alone with no one to look after them.
One had healed because of the children she had to look after in a dark place with nothing, while the other just sharpened his blades for the day so that he could get his revenge on the evil bastard.
Rein was still angry, but her anger was like a frozen flower. Something that would melt away with just a few rays of sunlight.
They were standing around the evil spirit that they all hated with their hearts. And the bastard that was on his deathbed had a smile on his face.
[< You all... I'm not sorry for whatever I did. >]
They were just staring down at the evil spirit silently, but the one who broke this silence was the evil spirit itself.
It meant the words it spoke just now. But, aside from Rein, Eon, and the lich, the two others couldn't understand what it was speaking.
But what it said made sense to Eon. And he accepted it. He even thought that he didn't regret the things that he had done until now.
There was nothing to regret when you had done the things that you desired. The current situation was also something that he desired and managed to achieve. Even though the cost was its life.
[< You... >]
Then, the evil spirit looked at Eon. Its ghost-like eyes, which had been sharp enough to cut a tree a while ago, were now almost like a dead fish.
He was looking at him with anger and resentment, but right now, there was no hate anymore.
[< Can I ask for something? >]
It spoke few words, but the eyes, its scattering body, and the deeper meaning of words were enough for Eon to understand the true heart of the evil spirit.
[< "I was never going to do anything to these coffins. Asta would naturally have changed paths. You were foolish to do this to yourself...
Is this... your love?" >] Eon asked with the same deep meaning with few words while answering the request of the evil spirit.
He was never going to cause harm to the tombs. They were equally important to him because of the value of the materials they were made of and the [[( Rune )]] inscribed on them.
They were important and valuable. So the actions of an evil spirit were something only real love could cause in his eyes.
But the evil spirit said something different...
[< It's not love anymore when you are willing to give your life, young boy.
It's... foolishness.
I am a fool. I was a fool... and you two are fools. >]
It looked at him, then at her.
The look in his eyes was now suddenly warm. And she didn't like this look. After all... both of them were thirsty for each other's life just moments ago.
But Eon smiled at this answer. His view of this whole world and the great nature changed once again at this moment.
[< "I will make sure nothing happens to both of them." >] Eon said as he crouched down. He had a somewhat sad expression and a smile on his face. Both contradicting each other.
[< Don't make that absurd face you fucking young boy... you are strong. I was weak. That is it.
I was an enemy you had to defeat.
I did bad to the ones close to you. I did bad to countless creatures. I knew my death would be anything but painless... and this fucked up white light is hell...
You defeated me and this is my end... you have great beings around you. You also have great powers. You are special. And you have someone you can do most foolish things for.
I was weak so I couldn't protect her body till the end. I believe... you will do better than me... >]
And with those last words... the hole in his body, the wound made by the white light covered Asta, expanded, and the whole being of the evil spirit... vanished into the particles of light.