Hestia, who had the slowest perception among them all, looked confused when Charlie's figure vanished in the blink of an eye. Quickly, she drew the wrong conclusion.
"Huh? What just happened? Where's that man? Could he have fled using teleportation?" Hestia placed her hands on her hips with an annoyed face. "After talking big, he just ran away? How embarrassing!"
Hearing that accusation, Astraea's eyebrows furrowed unconsciously. There was an uncomfortable feeling creeping in her heart. She immediately denied Hestia's speculation in a firm tone.
"Charlie isn't that kind of person, Hestia. Don't jump to conclusions carelessly."
Hermes looked at Hestia with a strange gaze, then pointed upward, toward the hole in the ceiling opening to the dawn sky. "Astraea is right, Hestia. Charlie didn't flee. He's actually directly confronting the source of the world's destruction threat."
Everyone looked up in unison. However, because the distance was so far, they could only see the second moon which was now clearly shaped like a giant bow with a light arrow ready to be fired.
Without doubting Hermes's explanation, Bell asked in a voice full of doubt, "What does Charlie-san intend to do there?"
In a flat tone contrasting with the tension around her, Aishia answered, "Charlie intends to block that attack with his body."
"What?!?!"
In unison, both humans and gods stared at Aishia with stunned and disbelieving expressions. The spirit girl remained calm, even while continuing to maintain the barrier protecting them from Antares's rampaging sporadic laser beam attacks.
"Is what you said true, Aishia?" Astraea asked with faintly trembling hands.
"Mm." Aishia nodded lightly.
"Has that man lost his sanity? That's a suicidal act!" Hestia exclaimed in disbelief. "Even if he does it, it won't change anything! That arrow will still hit the world!"
As Artemis's close friend, Hestia knew how terrifying the destructive power of that strongest arrow in Heaven was.
A mortal human blocking it with his body?
That's a joke!
"Charlie will die. Without a doubt." Hermes muttered while staring at the dawn sky with an unreadable expression. "What is he really thinking? From my observation, he's not the type to sacrifice himself for the greater good..."
"Aishia-san! Isn't there anything we can do to stop him?" Bell asked in panic.
Though his relationship with Charlie wasn't very close, his conscience refused to just watch an acquaintance die in such a heroic yet futile manner.
"Haaah... It's his choice, Bell." Welf patted Bell's shoulder, trying to gently persuade his friend to give up. "He's sacrificing himself for the world. After this ends, let's give him proper honors."
After all, they couldn't fly to follow Charlie.
"..."
Hearing the certainty that Charlie would soon die, Astraea felt a suffocating pain in her chest. She bit her lower lip with indescribable sadness.
(Astraea, you...)
Hermes's eyes widened in disbelief as he caught that subtle reaction from the Goddess of Justice. As a god skilled at reading emotions, especially women's, he immediately understood the implication.
(Not only attracting Hera and Aphrodite's interest, even the steadfast Astraea didn't escape... Charlie Avalon, you're truly a sinful man, huh... What a pity, Astraea's love story must end before it could even begin.)
"How can you remain so calm in a situation like this, Aishia-san?!" Bell was disappointed in Aishia's calmness. "Charlie-san is truly pitiful... his closest person acts as if she doesn't care about his death."
Aishia's next words, spoken in a slightly annoyed tone, shook everyone to their core.
"No one cares about Charlie more than me in this world." Her calm eyes for the first time showed a bit of emotion. "Charlie will only die once. He won't truly experience true death."
"Huh? What do you mean?" Bell asked in confusion.
Not just him, everyone stared at Aishia with uncomprehending gazes.
"There's no hidden meaning. It's literal." Aishia explained simply. "Charlie has twelve lives. He intends to sacrifice one of his lives to gain a Great Achievement in preparation for leveling up to Level 7. What remains then is just accumulating Excelia."
"..."
The room's atmosphere that had been filled with sadness suddenly changed into total stunning silence. Everyone's brain worked hard to process the information they had just heard.
"EHHHHHHHH....!!!!"
Instantly, the room echoed with an extraordinary collective shout of shock, breaking all previous tension in a completely unexpected way.
◆━⊰✿✧✿⊱━◆
Meanwhile, Charlie had no idea about his group's dramatic and shocking conversation inside the Elsos Ruins.
His mind was fully focused on the goal and challenge before him. Even with acceleration reaching Second Cosmic Velocity, he still needed about 1 minute 29 seconds of travel time to break through the atmosphere layer and reach the exosphere at 1,000 kilometers altitude.
At that extreme altitude, the environment had transformed into a deadly zone for any living creature. Without assistance, oxygen was an impossible luxury to obtain.
However, the main problem wasn't just the lack of air, but pressure.
If at sea level it provided constant pressure on the body, at this altitude air pressure approached nearly zero or a perfect vacuum. Without external pressure to balance it, the boiling point of bodily fluids like saliva and tears would drop drastically to reach human body temperature.
Normally, a human would lose consciousness within ten to fifteen seconds because the brain no longer received oxygen intake.
However, Charlie was not an ordinary human.
His body constitution had long exceeded the threshold of humanity. Thanks to all his parameters having reached EX rank before the leveling process to his current Level 6 position, his body cells had resilience that was impossible to explain biologically.
His body could withstand these extreme conditions for a while. Moreover, he was now enveloped by conceptual defense, Armor of Fafnir, which protected him from dangerous cosmic radiation capable of destroying DNA structure.
(Well, this is a good opportunity to test the Noble Phantasm, God Hand, inherited from Heracles.) He thought inwardly.
His beautiful eyes gazed at the giant moonlight bow that was already very close, far larger and more terrifying than what was visible from the surface. The bow was made of pure divine energy radiating cold aura and deadly resolve.
He opened his mouth, as if wanting to say something, but no sound came out. In the vacuum of space, sound couldn't travel. Only the vast cosmic silence enveloped him.
He waited. Standing upright in the vacuum, facing directly the source of the global threat.
He waited for the moment when that strongest arrow in heaven would finally be fully drawn from its bowstring and released.
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