Often, when it comes to the final boss of a game, most people want a sense of power and weight that matches that iconic position. After all, it’s the ultimate challenge, right?
If the boss were comedic from the start or had been built up in a way that seemed insignificant in the story, it might be different. But if the final battle is lackluster, you can bet there won’t be any good words about it.
In that regard, the final boss known as ‘the Creature that Devours the World’ in Brightest Darkness 4 met the players’ desires perfectly.
Uniquely, it features four phases, each with a distinct concept, and each phase is incredibly difficult even in vanilla mode.
The backstory is solid, showcasing its strength in the game, and the changing concepts of each phase satisfy the fantasies of players to a high degree.
So it’s hardly surprising that modders creating enemy enhancement mods put extra effort into the Creature that Devours the World.
In fact, the number of mods that strengthen only the Creature that Devours the World surpassed ten. The Darkest Light Mod even combined all those variations into one.
However.
In no enemy enhancement mod did the Creature that Devours the World come barging in at the very beginning of the main story.
ROOOAAARRR!!
A massive intangible mass erupted from its head, too great to simply call a roar.
I could see buildings cracking and even collapsing under the force beyond the corridor window. Just by letting out that monstrous sound, it smashed buildings to pieces.
I watched the dust clouds as they kicked up the wreckage, then snapped to attention and moved my legs. Following Kaiquilia’s advice, it was urgent to get outside the imperial palace.
I hurried back to my room, grabbed the Blood-Stained Sword, and checked Lize’s room just in case. The spot where her Twin Daggers should have been was empty. Thankfully, it looked like she managed to take them with her on time.
As I headed towards the outside of the imperial palace, I sighed inwardly.
“I really hope I won’t have to fight that thing here.”
Fighting the Creature that Devours the World wasn’t a problem in itself. I already had its strategy locked in my head, and I would have to take it down eventually anyway.
But nobody can win right now.
The issue was fighting here, right now.
The Creature that Devours the World was in a state of invincibility until a specific quest was completed, during which it would take no damage at all. That specific quest appears only in the final act of the main story.
The final act of Brightest Darkness 4 consists of the protagonist realizing the truth about the Creature that Devours the World and uncovering its secret.
In other words, unless I uncovered that secret, I wouldn’t be able to kill it.
Even the protagonist suffers a decisive defeat upon their first meeting with the Creature, unable to inflict any damage at all. There’s even a special gimmick just for the first boss fight, so that speaks volumes.
But still, it’s alright for now.
For now, before the player actively meddles in the secrets of the Creature that Devours the World, it wouldn’t see humans as enemies.
The reason for the first boss fight was almost a misunderstanding. The protagonist was investigating strange waves and coincidentally ended up near a secret connected to it.
After reading the memories of the protagonist upon their defeat in battle, the Creature realized that its purpose for coming here wasn’t to investigate its secret, so it simply left, allowing them to survive.
I absolutely can’t fight that thing right now.
As long as I’m careful not to be read or to initiate a conversation, I should be able to avoid combat.
Fighting the Creature that Devours the World at this moment would be akin to signing my own death warrant.
“Delta! Are you alright?”
As I stepped out through the main gate of the imperial palace, I was greeted by the tense expressions of the knight commanders who were preparing for battle. Since I had left my armor at the mansion, I had no choice but to be in my conquest attire.
Beside them were the Golden Dusk Knights, clad in golden armor, lined up in formation. Their weapons varied. Swords, greatswords, spears and shields, axes. There was a mix I had seen all too often before.
Next to the Golden Dusk Knights stood silver-armored knights, and beside them were robed mages holding their staffs, all with serious expressions on their faces.
This was likely all the manpower deemed useful in the battle against the dragon.
“I’m fine, naturally. What’s the situation?”
“It’s not good at all. You inquiring about the situation rather than asking what happened suggests you’ve heard the news, Delta. If that’s the case, I won’t explain further.”
I forced a bitter smile. Iris was also making a worried face. I felt the same way. If that was a regular dragon, I wouldn’t have to worry at all.
With the emperor wielding the Holy Sword, the centuries-old archmage, and students trained under that archmage, plus the best knights of the empire, why would I worry about an ordinary dragon?
No matter how much of a natural disaster a dragon may be, with that level of strength, I could take it on by myself if it came down to it.
It was just that if a battle broke out here, the empire would bear the full brunt of the consequences. But the Creature that Devours the World was different.
Even summoning ten or a hundred times the manpower currently preparing for battle wouldn’t change the fact that as long as it remained invincible, not only winning but even inflicting a scratch would be impossible.
Therefore, the battle must not happen.
“We’re evacuating the citizens with the rest of the knights gathered here. Depending on when it arrives, we should brace for some damage, but…”
Ordinary knights wouldn’t even stand as meat shields against a dragon. With one breath, dozens or even hundreds would be wiped out. It would be no better than a pointless death.
So naturally, the remaining task was to evacuate the civilians.
“The emperor is arriving. Follow me, Delta.”
Before us, a blue magic circle appeared. Iris turned back at the sight. I followed her to where the knight commanders were positioned. The other three also had expressions of tight tension.
A pillar of light ascended, and within it, Kaiquilia and Minerva appeared. Everyone present knelt and bowed their heads in respect.
“Raise your heads. It’s foolish to show vulnerability with pointless actions.”
We corrected our postures. Minerva was still dressed like she just stepped out of a bathrobe, while Kaiquilia was donned in the formal suit she wore when she had called me to her bedroom.
Seeing her outfit made me guess roughly what that suit was originally.
It’s a battle formal suit.
Apparently, it was the combat attire they donned when entering the second phase against the emperor. There were only two types of clothing associated with the emperor.
…Wait. What was she doing while wearing that before calling me?
If the emperor’s battle formal suit was now a suit, I wondered what she had been doing before calling me.
Did she have a fight with someone?
“Everyone, prepare.”
Kaiquilia drew the Holy Sword and murmured shortly. Although it was a brief command, it was enough. The mages led by Minerva began channeling mana into their staffs, and the knight commanders readied their weapons.
I had to intervene.
I needed to tell them that we couldn’t inflict any damage on that creature and that rushing in would only lead us to disaster. We could potentially pass without engaging in battle, so I had to urge them to hold on just a moment.
But…
I really didn’t know if I could halt this situation. The knight commanders might hesitate but still listen to me, but what about Kaiquilia and Minerva?
They showed great interest in me, but I wasn’t confident they’d comply with my request to talk instead of fighting at a time like this.
Moreover, if luck ran out, the Creature that Devours the World might take interest in my words and attempt to read my memories.
If that happened, we would all be finished.
…For now, I’ll just observe.
Kaiquilia and Minerva would want to avoid a fight with the dragon at all costs too. Surely they wouldn’t initiate a preemptive attack for purely emotional reasons, right?
A gigantic, ominous shadow began to approach from afar. Just flying through the sky, it whipped up an incredible wind at ground level.
It looked just like something out of the game. A huge head figure, two towering horns, and scales densely covering its body in two different colors.
With four massive wings, arms and legs built of bulging muscle, and a long tail extending from its backside.
…Why is it so big?
Apart from being several times larger than what I had seen in the game, nothing had changed in appearance.
I gasped inside. In the game, the weapon the protagonist wielded had managed to touch its head, but at this moment, even stretching my arm might not guarantee reaching it.
Murmurs broke out among the Golden Dusk Knights. Some knights were already trembling and dropping their weapons. The other knight commanders didn’t look much better either.
At least Kaiquilia and Minerva seemed to be holding up a bit better, but their hands gripping the Holy Sword and magical staff were tense with force.
So this is how it’s manifested?
Just the appearance of the Creature that Devours the World filled the living beings around it with fear. Only the protagonist was typically free from this effect.
Why was I so calm? I wasn’t sure if it was because the protagonist in the game was unaffected or if it was due to the dark magic hanging over my head.
ROOAAARRR!
The Creature that Devours the World spread its enormous body before us as it landed. The impact alone shattered the nearby buildings like twigs.
Even from a distance, the tremendous size was apparent, but having it land right before me heightened the sensation tremendously.
It was comparable to the size of a high-rise apartment or even bigger. Just to look at it, I had to bend my neck back uncomfortably.
NOOOOOO!!!!
From its mouth came a roar that could hardly be called a sound. I instinctively covered my ears, not out of fear, but simply because it was too loud.
Thump, nearby knights started collapsing one by one. Iris, Claudia, Erica, Lize, and even the Golden Dusk Knights were not exempt. Everyone present here was under the same fate.
The mages, whose physical abilities lagged behind the knights, were the first to faint, followed by the ordinary knights, and eventually the vice commanders and knight commanders lost consciousness.
In the end, the centuries-old archmage and the emperor, chosen by the Holy Sword, could hold out no longer and crumbled.
….
Just one roar.
Simply one roar had passed, yet only I stood here.
The terrifying red pupils of the creature turned toward me.
The next chapter will update on October 29th at 01:00.
The moment I saw the massive eye radiating a crimson glow, I felt my entire body stiffening. That one eye’s size could easily match my height.
However, when considering the entire body, that eye was nothing at all. It was ridiculously huge.
It was an enormous beast. The protagonist from Brightest Darkness 4 was said to have somehow brought it down? It felt completely absurd. I thought I’d just be blasted by its breath without a chance to dodge.
The threatening vertical pupil focused on me. I was prepared to draw my Blood-Stained Sword and charge in the moment I sensed it trying to read my memories.
After all, if it read my memories, that would be the end.
For the creature, it would have to eliminate me, someone who knows its secret, without a doubt, and with that enormous body, it wouldn’t single me out; this area would likely vanish completely.
If I was going to die whether I attacked or not, I might as well give it my last shot.
Thank goodness it doesn’t seem to want to fight right now.
For whatever reason, it seemed to be just staring at me without any intention to attack. For a moment, a hopeful thought crossed my mind—could it possibly just leave like this?
NOOOO!!!!
As if to mock my hopeful thoughts, its maw opened wide, unleashing a fierce roar. I reflexively covered my ears again. It was just painfully loud.
The roar of a dragon was an act that must far exceed human comprehension. In fact, excluding me, everyone else had fainted.
Even the emperor couldn’t withstand it, making me consider my case extremely special.
‘That just now… Had to be Draconic, right?’
According to setting, that roar was the language of dragons, known as Draconic.
It wasn’t the type of speech containing power like those often depicted in fantasy; it was just a simple conversation. Of course, that “simple” was on the dragon’s scale.
So the roar I heard in the palace corridor and the one it let out after landing could be interpreted as an attempt to communicate from the Creature that Devours the World.
The humans couldn’t endure it and collapsed, while the protagonist who took it casually couldn’t understand what it was saying either.
To understand Draconic, one had to slay a dragon and absorb its power. This was why a dragon hunt became a mandatory quest around the middle of the main story.
However, just learning Draconic didn’t mean one could use it. The protagonist was human, after all, so it made sense.
So what it just tried to do was talk to me…
For now, it seemed it hadn’t come here looking for a fight. Just knowing that was a relief.
But while I was relieved, there was nothing I could do here. For dialogue to continue, the other side would have to change the way it conveyed messages.
I remained silent and waited. The creature roared several times, as if realizing the human before it didn’t comprehend its words, and then stopped moving.
Suddenly, pure mana surfaced before me and began to coalesce. The mana itself twitched and gathered, forming a human shape.
First, two legs grounded themselves, followed by a torso. Arms sprouted from its shoulders, and a round-shaped head materialized. Finally, ears and a mouth appeared.
Overall, it resembled a blue-hued human shadow. The fact it even formed a shape like this spoke volumes about its strong desire to communicate with me.
“Truly… peculiar…”
The shadowlike mana figure spoke, sounding like human speech but carrying an awkward tone that made it hard to classify as human.
“You hear our language… yet do not collapse… however… you do not comprehend our language…”
It seemed challenging for it to communicate through such a small form, resembling a dragon’s finger, as its speech was somewhat stuttered. Nevertheless, it was understandable enough.
“It doesn’t matter to me whether I’m peculiar or not… So, why are you here?”
For a moment, I hesitated on whether to be polite or casual, but since it would probably matter little to it, I decided to use casual speech.
I wondered if a dragon had any concept of manners like humans do.
“I came to… meet a human…”
“A human? Which one?”
“Created by the god… yet abandoned by the god… the creature… that was defeated… by that human…”
Wait, is it me again?
I felt dizzy for a moment. It came to meet me? The main story had really twisted itself. I never intended on dealing with something like this. I didn’t expect the actions taken to take down the lord in the game to spiral into this.
I didn’t know that simply defeating the creature abandoned by the god would lead to something this significant. It all began from that point.
Kaiquilia taking interest in me, Stella seeking me out, heading towards the Holy Kingdom, and defeating the creature abandoned by the god—all of these actions stemmed from my acquiring that book inhabited by a demon.
Now, due to that, the Creature that Devours the World had appeared—it was an utterly hopeless situation.
…How did you find out that human is here?
“How its power… was absorbed… by one human…”
The phrasing was vague, but circumstantially, it likely referred to experience points. Given that the experience points from defeating the creature abandoned by the god went to me and leveled me up, it wasn’t entirely wrong.
It wasn’t strange for the Creature that Devours the World to be concerned about the creature abandoned by the god.
As evident from the end result of allowing it to roam free, leading to the destruction of not just the Holy Kingdom but the world itself, the creature abandoned by the god was the only thing, excluding the protagonist, that could contend with the Creature that Devours the World.
It couldn’t help but be a concern.
But why hadn’t it crushed this potential threat earlier? The answer would be that even the Creature itself couldn’t assure victory in its home ground, the Abyss.
Regardless of trying to moor itself with runes to prevent its influence, the protagonist had accomplished something ludicrous, charging in there and cutting its head off.
But that was me.
“So, that human who absorbed that power is me?”
“Correct…”
“And now that you realized it, what are you planning to do? Are you going to kill that human?”
“Kill…?”
The creature’s tone seemed to rise slightly in pitch before it suddenly roared again. I had to cover my ears once more.
“If you wish it… I shall do so…”
“No, that’s unnecessary.”
I cut off and rejected decisively. I didn’t want to risk ambiguous answers that might land me a breath and send me to oblivion.
“The reason I’m here… was to confirm with my own eyes…”
“To find out who killed the creature abandoned by the god, I presume?”
“Correct… If that human… is a threat…”
It should be chill now, right?
With those words, the malevolent light emanating from its pupils intensified, but the ominous atmosphere faded, returning to a vertical pupil.
“However… the human before me… is weak… far weaker… than the fallen human…”
That’s true considering the stats.
While I had indeed become overwhelmingly stronger since first waking in prison as the Forsaken, from the perspective of the Creature, I was just barely above that level.
Even Kaiquilia and Minerva, who lay collapsed with no strength, must have held stats that far surpassed me by player standards.
If it was a matter of being an NPC or a boss capable of transforming into a monster like the creature abandoned by the god, it was nearly impossible to convert to player stats.
The more stats you invest in, the smaller the increase in ability becomes, so even if I tried, I might end up with health stats in the low hundreds and strength stats in the thousands.
Compared to those monsters, my level 62 stats were practically nothing.
Well, this works out.
It’s much better to be seen as an inconsequential human than getting marked by that thing and risk its interest.
Please, let it proceed with this misunderstanding as I was imploring inwardly.
“There must be another kind of power… that dominates the human… who defeated it…”
That’s annoying.
Hearing the change in tone made me clutch my head. It seemed this wasn’t going to wrap itself up easily.
When will this end?
While other bosses could be dealt with even if it turned into a bit of a grumbling negotiation, the Creature that Devours the World could not be treated that way.
What way could I win if I couldn’t inflict damage physically?
Moreover, with its size being several times more substantial than it was in the game, it could easily just take to the skies and blast me down with a breath attack. What was even worse was that such a pattern actually existed.
“I want the truth…”
Damn it.
The creature’s pupils turned black. At the same time, the mana human’s head also sprouted a pair of pupils. Much like the dragon, they were black-veined vertical pupils.
As soon as I spotted those vertically split pupils, I swiftly drew my Blood-Stained Sword and swung it. The blade cleanly severed the head. The detached head rolled on the ground.
The severed head rolled near the wall before stopping but then began reforming a new eye and mouth on the back.
The newly formed mouth on the back began vocally expressing words.
“Why did you… attack this…?”
…Here it comes.
As the creature attempted to read my memories, my arm acted reflexively. I was already prepared, but even still, as it came close, my mouth felt dry.
If this were to be a conversation between humans, my defense would hold; there might be an explanation due to its suspicious actions. But this was a dragon. The dragon named the Creature that Devours the World.
Without realizing it had acted suspiciously, I could only expect it to think I had something to hide now that my attempt to prevent my memories from being read was interrupted.
I recalled a similar scenario from the game.
“Speak…!”
The eyes of the severed human head opened wide, and the creature’s main body emitted a blood-red glow.
