"...That is Beelzebub."
Just after leaving the hospital with Novia, Kiara instinctively lifted her head to look at the vast black sky—where a colossal egg now hung suspended.
Her brief words carried a faint mix of nostalgia and hatred.
Perhaps she was recalling those hundred years or more when Francesca was tormented.
"It's about time I make my move," Novia said, releasing the girl's hand and giving her shoulder a reassuring pat. "In a moment, just head to the location I told you about."
With that, his figure vanished. Around them, ordinary people continued their lives, blissfully unaware.
High above, rainbow-hued light streamed endlessly, piercing into the heavens.
---
Listen closely.
Silence resounded.
In ages long past, all humanity worshipped the gods, begging for protection.
For in those days, the world belonged to divinities. The laws of the planet were dictated by divine perception. Miracles that we would now deem impossible—such as "resurrection"—were then common and mundane.
But what of the gods who were abandoned by humanity?
When the primal gods of Canaan were forgotten, where did they go?
"Ahhh... I have descended once more."
A breath of magic, stained red and black, stirred within the egg's inner shell.
Its surface bloomed with dazzling patterns of azure and golden light—the kind of beauty mortals envisioned when imagining a god's advent.
The luminous designs grew brighter, spilling outward.
Then, with the shifting of the black void, the spilled radiance became countless smaller eggs. They drifted in the air around the shell, each one bursting open—unleashing swarms of flies. The ceaseless beating of their wings birthed a bone-chilling drone.
As the frequency of their wings rose, the glowing shell grew ever brighter, as though flames burned inside. Against the purest darkness, that vast egg seemed like a "rift" in the world itself.
It was not a boundary like night and day, light and dark. Rather, it was a harmonized realm—a middle ground where opposing extremes blurred.
Not the distinction between sorcery and True Magic, but a dividing line even deeper, separating humanity from all otherness.
It was like a twilight borderland, a mingling of dusk and dawn—colors overlapping into a single black core, less separation than fusion.
Picture the divide between wealth and poverty, hell and earth, joy and despair, light and darkness: an ambiguous threshold, a liminal place.
And there, the flies raged.
Boiling disease.
Mad lust.
Proliferating plague.
Hundreds of meters above the battlefield city built for the Grail War, a body was about to be born—sheathed in sickness, seething with hatred toward humanity itself.
Once a god. Now a demon. Yet destined to claw its way back from the abyss.
Some truths, though forgotten by mankind and planet alike, remain carved into the world.
From ancient Canaan, the god who was once king of all, sovereign of creation, lord who walked upon the clouds—
Baal.
Canaan—the ancient Levant, known through the Bible. A tapestry of myths spanning Palestine, Phoenicia, Syria, northern Mesopotamia, Tyre, Sidon, Byblos—embracing Jews, Canaanites, Arameans, Amorites, Phoenicians.
In their tongue, Baal meant "Lord." There was not one Baal, but many—each region worshipping its own. Among them, the mightiest was Baal Hadad, god of storm, sun, fertility, and thunder—the Baal spoken of in the Old Testament.
Through Phoenician trade, his myth spread across the Mediterranean, evolving into Baalos, one of the prototypes of Zeus himself.
But in the New Testament, Baal vanished. All that remained was Beelzebub—Lord of the Flies.
"Beelzebub"—literally Baal-Zebul, "Prince Baal." Some claimed him the son of Hadad. Others said he and Hadad were one. His epithet as "Lord of the Flies" stemmed from Baal Hadad's role as a god of agriculture—fertilizing fields with manure that drew swarms of flies. Thus even Zeus bore the title Apomyios, "He Who Drives Away Flies."
So the church's vilification of this pagan god-king spread far and wide, his name infamous throughout Christendom. A god debased, demonized, reviled—the clearest testament to monotheism's power to brand rival divinities as devils.
"Calamity lies in wrath, black smoke punishes, revelry, thirst, corruption, all engraved upon me—the Deadly Sin of Wrath.
Enter the city of endless torment.
Enter the pit of eternal despair.
Enter the throngs of the damned.
To shatter the exalted,
to overturn divine authority, divine will, divine love.
Creation is no eternal promise.
I shall endure with heaven and earth alike—"
A voice resounded.
It was terrifying—yet beautiful. A harmony of filth and sublimity. A poison made sound.
As though all instruments and choirs of the world had gathered to weave a deadly hymn, so sweet it shattered reason, corroded the soul.
The drone of flies spread through the air, eroding all.
Their endless buzzing became lips, screaming in alien tongues, waves of magical corruption that split space itself.
A proclamation: vengeance would no longer wait.
Then, with a sharp crack, the shell split. A hand, slick and green with filth, reached forth.
From the egg emerged a woman—her features resembling Francesca's. The difference lay in her raiment, splendid blue and gold, and her eyes—green compound orbs, like those of a fly.
A humanoid figure. At first glance, a cute girl.
But it was a lie.
Her essence was an abyss of corruption.
This was a Demon King wearing human form.
"Then... let us begin."
At that moment, the Fly King froze. Instinct whispered: a power beyond comprehension was approaching.
Dense magic cleaved the darkness, streaking toward her. A single instant, faster than light—and still its traces lingered.
Outside Snowfield City, in the forests, Enkidu watched. The light faded. No magical residue remained.
He stroked the sleeping silver wolf, smiling faintly.
"Well then. I am but a Servant, walking at my Master's side."
He knew: the inexhaustible mana filling him came only from Novia.
That man could shape entire worlds with magic alone.
And now, cold sweat ran down the Fly King's back. An impossible aura was drawing near.
"What...?"
She had felt this once before—but something was different.
Time stopped.
Not a trick of perception, not accelerated thought. Actual time, in this space, had ceased.
Who could wield such power? Satan? But even he could not freeze her time outright.
As her doubts swirled, a voice rang out.
"Should I introduce myself? But really... why do you look exactly like Francesca? Was it she who summoned you?"
The voice carried her awareness upward, and against her own will, she answered obediently:
"Yes. That woman was the vessel I left behind. By accident, she took on the form of Ate, the Greek goddess of madness. But due to many circumstances, Baal's essence grew stronger within her..."
Now Beelzebub spoke softly, unlike her earlier frenzy.
"By human reckoning, her body is Baal 6, Ate 2, Beelzebub 2. I, in turn, am Baal 2, Beelzebub 8, Ate 0. But she has already offered her body as sacrifice—to summon me here."
"Kama and Mara...?"
"Exactly. Now then, would you—"
But before she could finish, light engulfed her world.
Novia stood revealed in that radiance. Around him, a vast brilliance spread—light cascading like a waterfall, striking the swarms of flies.
"Return to Hell."
"...Oh my, how should I put this?"
Beelzebub, unfazed, smiled playfully.
"To be honest, this feels like losing a business war, then being forced to join the rival company... only to meet a boss at odds with the big boss. And though the big boss swore never to help us again—well, who takes that seriously? Words are just words. We employees know better. Who knows, tomorrow we might be fired just for stepping into Hell with the wrong foot forward."
"You talk too much."
"Naturally. It's rare to meet you. I must exchange a few pleasantries. It will make things easier in the future, O Great and Fearsome One."
"Is that so?" Novia smiled faintly. "But that's not all, is it?"
"You jest. Why would I—"
Unmoved by her frivolity, the silver-haired youth twisted space itself with high-density mana, manifesting layered ether cannons all around her.
"Tell me. What are you stalling for?"
"Tsk. That won't do. A demon never betrays a contract. We have our principles. Devils are but the embodiment of equivalent exchange."
"You intend to let Alcides wish on the Grail, don't you? To erase 'Heracles' from this planet."
"Ahahaha, come now, you overestimate me! That's such a trivial matter. No, no—I just wanted to see you. That's all..."
Her smile seemed almost innocent.
Novia's response was merciless—a torrent of light that should have annihilated her.
"Kyaaa—! Hot! Cold! Burning, freezing, numb—!"
The Fly King let out a shriek as though utterly powerless, and in the next moment her body lost all signs of movement, dissolving into brilliance and leaving behind nothing but a discarded husk.
But in the very next second—
She reappeared before that very husk she had just abandoned. Her expression calm, she slowly brought her hands together in applause, weaving words of mock praise toward Novia.
"Had I appeared only as Beelzebub, perhaps I would already be kneeling at your feet, serving as your pet... but, you see—"
Standing amidst false flesh and a pool of blood, the girl looked to her side as swarms of flies once again gathered around her. Satisfaction colored her voice as she continued:
"I am Baal-Zebub. Hatred itself. In the end, I was forsaken—forsaken by my homeworld, ravaged without mercy by my homeworld, abandoned by the faith of humankind... To plunge this planet into a disaster without precedent—surely you must admit that is no small feat. Ahh, how splendid it is. Do you not think it a beautiful thing?"
To be honest, Novia did not fully understand what kind of conflict had once arisen between the Canaanite pantheon and the Biblical system in the world of Type-Moon. After all, by the first century, the Canaanite gods had already been displaced. His greatest dispute with Judaism still lay with those who had taken the "Covenant."
But if one were to follow the scholarship of the present day, the very existence of the name "Beelzebub" was the clearest evidence of how monotheism debased, stigmatized, and demonized foreign gods.
That was why, at first, he had hoped Beelzebub would depart of her own will—because he felt it was not quite right to destroy her outright. Yet now, since the Fly King herself had embraced such a path, Novia no longer cared about questions of stigma. If you have a grievance, take it up with the Dove, he thought. It was He who annihilated your Canaanite gods, not I.
All he could do now was give her a dignified end.
Step by step, the silver-haired youth advanced through the raging swarms of flies. His pace was steady, unbroken, until finally, he stood before Beelzebub.
Knowing full well she could never win, Beelzebub gave up on resistance.
Then, in an unshakably calm voice, Novia asked once more:
"You should understand this world is not the true world, but merely a trial realm of my own making. Even if you stall for time, they cannot possibly succeed."
"Something being impossible doesn't mean one must abandon it. That lesson, I learned from you. And besides... death is not something that comes suddenly. It is contained within birth itself, as inseparable as cause and effect."
Lifting her green, compound eyes, Baal-Zebub spoke in a detached tone:
"To live, one must sacrifice other life. To be killed is simply to be judged evil by the hand that kills... Such weakness—that is the true and absolute evil. If you must assign blame, should it not fall upon the powerless? Those unable to protect themselves—being killed, being forgotten—such is only natural. Strength is the foundation of all things, whether in evil or in the execution of so-called justice."
"...I cannot cure your thirst for vengeance. For you, who long for revenge, will never acknowledge a world that has forgotten you. Yet even so, I still wish to heal that thirst. Because it was I—through the New Testament—who smeared you in blood, defamed you as a monstrous demon king."
As he spoke, Novia stretched out his left hand.
From his palm shone a dazzling brilliance—
And then, as if conjured from nothingness, an object appeared within his grasp.
It was the Primordial Holy Sword, fused with the True Magic Blade.
In that instant, the world changed.
Centered on Novia's raised hand, the transformation began.
A vast magic circle, like the face of a clock, spread outward without end, shrouding the pitch-black heavens. It seized hold of the world's laws and rewrote them.
All color drained away, leaving only black and white.
The wind ceased.
Time itself ceased.
And then, with utmost solemnity, Novia took aim at Beelzebub's form, ensuring she could not revive again through her flies.
He brought the Holy Sword down—
"Eh? Eh? Eh? Don't tell me—you truly felt a flicker of guilt just now? Ahahaha! I was only joking! My mother was Asherah, Ate was merely an accident. By that reckoning, you're actually my elder, aren't you? Don't be so serious! I've always been the Fly King!"
At that, no full release was needed. Even so—just that alone was enough.
And perhaps, the catastrophic event that should have annihilated all of Snowfield City was thus quietly resolved.
***************************
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