Past Arc 22

To sustain the star, sacrifice Sariel.

Those who affirm this action.

Those who oppose it.

Arguments split evenly, yet the former held an overwhelming majority.

Even with guilt over repaying past kindness with betrayal, continuing thus means death alongside the star.

Therefore, the natural human response is to wish to survive, even if ignoring guilt.

Those opposing the action spoke against it, yet only a small number actually moved to protect Sariel.

And the few who did act—Sarielar Association—were suppressed.

Refused the demand for Sariel’s surrender, resisted fiercely.

This resistance was crushed after Dazdoldia deployed military forces.

Acting under the resolve of President Dustin, hardline measures were implemented.

The suppression using non-lethal equipment, ensuring no fatalities, was not an act of the president’s conscience.

It was due to the resistance’s insistence on non-lethal methods.

They had originally been a charitable organization.

Their intent was to save lives, never to inflict harm.

Thus, based on that principle, they resisted with full force while maintaining a strict prohibition on killing.

This noble stance significantly lowered the morale of the attacking Dazdoldia forces.

Every soldier in the Dazdoldia army knew their actions were dishonorable.

Yet, they had no option to relent.

Had the Sariel Alliance not insisted on non-lethal tactics, total annihilation would have been their choice.

President Dustin had the resolve to commit such cruelty.

In the end, the Sariel Alliance’s doctrine of non-lethal force saved their lives.

When the Dazuldoria soldiers breached the Sariel’s hiding place, she was being held by children.

Dozens of children clung to her from all directions, pressing against her as if in a game of tug-of-war, effectively restraining her.

They were, in fact, restraining Sariel.

They knew she would leave if not held.

“If you force me to let go, I will bite my tongue and die. If you insist I go, then kill us first.”

The child clinging to Sariel spoke, using herself as a hostage to threaten and restrain Sariel.

The children understood.

Without such restraint, Sariel would accept her own sacrifice.

They knew she would even volunteer for it.

So they held on.

They knew that threatening her this way would immobilize Sariel.

The older children understood it was nothing more than a pitiful struggle for time.

Even the younger ones likely knew, somewhere within.

Still, there was no alternative.

Regardless of whether the people called her a goddess, a savior, or whether the dragons denounced her as a broken, wayward angel incapable of seeing the larger picture, or whether onlookers dismissed her as a fool—the children did not care.

To the children, Sariel was not some grand being. She was simply a mother who struggled with emotional expression but was kind—nothing more.

And that was enough.

Soldiers tearing the crying children away from Sariel.

The children struck, bit, scratched—soldiers offered no resistance, yet unrelentingly pulled them away.

And the last child was torn away. Sariel was taken by the soldiers.

"Everyone. Live well. Simply… in peace."

That was all she said.

Sariel accepted, without hesitation, her transformation into star energy.

"That is my mission."

She said it.

The president bowed deeply, deeply, toward Sariel.

And the day of execution arrived.

By this day, Potimas had been detained. Forced to develop the device without resistance.

Under strict surveillance, to prevent any irregularities.

Potimas, as instructed, improved the device to convert living beings into MA energy. He developed the mechanism to transform Sariel into MA energy and return her to the stars.

The surveillance was too rigorous to tamper with the device.

And with Potimas restrained, his life in their hands, compliance was unavoidable.

The president had discerned Potimas's true objective: immortality.

With his most precious possession—his life—held hostage, cooperation was the only option.

That was true, assuming this was the genuine Potimas.

The Potimas held captive in Dazdordia was not the real one.

It was a clone.

Before embarking on magical research, Potimas had explored the possibility of achieving immortality through cloning technology.

He had succeeded in producing human clones.

Yet that was not what Potimas sought.

Clones were, after all, clones.

Even if genetically identical, they were not the original.

Just another person with the same appearance.

The brain transplantation technology, studied concurrently, could serve as a spare body, but did not achieve immortality.

Even with body replacement, the brain itself would age, and eventually reach the end of its lifespan.

Yet this cloning technology would prove invaluable to future research.

Potimas mass-produced clones of himself, assigning each clone the same research into immortality.

Clones indistinguishable from Potimas in ability.

Of course, accumulated experience and knowledge could not be acquired overnight.

Yet regardless of personality flaws, Potimas was undeniably a genius, and his clones were equally competent.

Moreover, the flawed personalities were modified by the original.

The original sought only tools for research—not entities that thought identically to himself.

Knowledge for research was implanted into the clone, but only a mechanical self-awareness lacking in selfhood was granted.

There was no fear of death present, as in the original.

One of those clones was, in fact, Potimas—the very individual the Dazdordia Kingdom had detained.

The original had orchestrated this.

Potimas’s sole objective, as designed by the original, was one.

To obtain Sariel’s power.

A creature even more formidable than the dragon—a being regarded as a symbol of death.

If Potimas could acquire Sariel’s power, nothing would remain to fear.

Yet Potimas lacked the vessel capable of receiving that energy.

Through repeated trials of human evolution, it had been determined that the human body could not withstand excessive energy input.

Only a limited amount of evolutionary enhancement could be accepted—enough to slightly increase physical capability and extend lifespan marginally.

Direct absorption of divine energy would be ideal, but that was impossible.

Therefore, Potimas chose to channel Seriel’s energy into an alternative vessel.

This was the prototype for the weapon known in the future as Gloria Omega.

A bloodstained weapon, constructed by processing the souls of numerous clones of himself.

MA energy cannot be stored for extended periods without conversion into electricity or similar forms.

However, the conversion efficiency was extremely low.

To fully harness Seriel’s power, MA energy had to be preserved in its original state.

Thus, a vessel—specifically, a soul container—was required.

Potimas created this vessel using his own clones.

He channeled Seriel’s power into that vessel.

No anomalies detected in the device constructed from clones.

Potimas mobilized all available knowledge. The device was definitively assembled to decompose Seriel and inject her energy into the star.

Only one modification: the ability to extract the energy from the side during injection.

Potimas intended to recover that energy and depart from the star.

With Seriel’s power secured, there would be nothing left to fear.

No lingering attachment remained for this deteriorating world.

A journey into the cosmos. There, he would pursue immortality at leisure.

Seriel stepped into the device.

Under the watch of the presidents, Seriel’s decomposition began. Her energy was injected into the star.

Potimas would appropriate that energy.

That was the intended outcome.

At the precise moment Seriel stepped into the device, the world underwent a transformation.