Maria continued on her way and just destroyed all the villages and towns in her path. Any creature she encountered on the way wasn’t spared from her deadly attacks. Instead of the Category-4 Apocalypse that was descending to the world, Maria was bringing her own apocalypse around and ending the lives of every creature she saw.
It was just a quest and Maria didn’t particularly care about killing the monsters and animals she encountered along the way.
She only felt a little bit guilty and wrong for destroying all of the villages and killing all of the NPCs that had the misfortune of running into her. Of course, they threw profanities at the sight of her so Maria’s guilt only lasted for a single moment before she made them disappear from her sight.
The planet's civilization was very backward as the inhabitants were still living in the iron age. They weren’t technologically advanced nor were they well-versed in magic. In fact, the planet was completely void of magic.
No one knew what it was and there were no magicians here. If there were, the planet’s inhabitants would probably have been able to detect the apocalypse crashing down on them and maybe find a way to prevent it from happening or avoid it.
These human savages were just pitiful since their demise was already at hand. Maria just decided to hasten their death and offer their souls up to Death ahead of time. It sounded like there wasn’t any difference between her actions and the eventual apocalypse that would come.
Instead of killing these people, why not save them? Well, Maria had the [Angel of Death] title and was Death’s champion. She didn’t need to save the lives of these people but instead liberate their souls.
Maria didn’t know this but in the game, ‘souls’ couldn’t be collected during an apocalypse. This was because an apocalypse would eradicate not only a creature’s physical body but also their astral bodies, otherwise known as their souls. Death gave her this mission so she could collect the souls of these people for him.
Since they were bound to die anyway, it was better to give their lives to Death instead of having them completely deleted from existence.
Maria just did what the quest wanted her to do, but she didn’t think about trying to destroy all of this world’s living species. Even though it’s just a sub-planet, Irchol was still too large for Maria to circumnavigate and completely explore in under 24 hours.
According to her estimations, the planet only had less than 24 hours left before its moon crashes and destroys all life on it. The quest timer was unknown but this was only because the apocalypse event was random with no set time.
It could even suddenly drop down on them without warning and the quest could end in the next hour or minute.
She had re-read the quest details carefully so Maria was hoping that her hunch was right and she didn’t have to kill everything on the planet, only the Higher Life Forms because there was simply no time for her to kill all of the planet’s creatures. If the quest requirements were exactly that, then Death wouldn’t have sent her here on Irchol―a planet that could die within a day or an hour.
Maria made haste in her travels and sped her way to the mega-city. She left behind a trail of decimation but that was the least of her worries since the broken pieces of Irchol’s moon were raining down on the planet even more than before.
“...Crap, I hope this planet holds up for at least half a day! I don’t wanna die!”
Despite Maria cursing at the planet’s accelerated destruction, she was feeling a slight thrill in all of this. It took about another two hours before she arrived at the mega-city she found on her map.
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“Please...please let those Higher Life Forms be here!” Maria inwardly prayed.
A lot of the Irchol’s inhabitants were moving towards this city and she could see the small dots of people traveling below her. Maria was obscured high above the clouds so the people below couldn’t see her.
“I better take care of all these pests.”
Maria swooped down and pulled out her Calamity. She flapped her wings once and sent a rain of black feathers down at the humans below. The pitiful beings quickly took notice of her but it was far too late at this point.
“M-Monster!”
“Get away! Get away!”
“Too late~”
Maria cut down the humans with a flourish of her scythe as if she was reaping wheat. She was reaping their lives instead of wheat and this realization slowly sank into her when she heard their screams of despair.
Previously, when she was eradicating the villages and towns, she used her spells from a long-range and just destroyed the places and eliminated the humans without warning. They didn’t even have any time to feel fear, say goodbye, or know of their approaching doom before the humans of those unfortunate villages and towns disappeared from existence.
Since she couldn’t hear their screams of pain and terror, Maria didn’t think too much about things and since the ones she did meet would hurl insults and profanities at her, she did away with them without a single shred of hesitation or remorse.
Bad people like them deserved to die in her eyes, but now when she heard those people calling her a monster as their bodies fell dead on the ground, blood pooling up underneath, Maria finally felt bad.
“Is this...the right thing to do?”
Ever since coming here, she didn’t receive any instructions or guidance from Death. It was just the quest prompt and that was it. She only struck down the first people because they attacked and hurled curses at her.
What happened later was all just because Maria wanted to quickly complete her quest so she leveled numerous villages and towns on her way here. She continued contemplating this guilty feeling she had as she made her way to the mega-city just ahead of her while she cut down all of the humans in her line of sight.
Some tried to run but they were pierced in the back by a flaming red laser or were shot dead by a few black feathers. Maria didn’t even hesitate to use her magic spells to kill all those that tried to run en masse.
“I’m sorry...but this is all just a quest to me…”
Maria paved a bloody path all the way to the mega-city’s gates. She didn’t once look behind her because Maria knew that if she did, she would definitely hesitate in continuing the quest.
Her face was already showing a clear look of reluctance but she needed to complete her quest or face annihilation by a moon that was going to drop on her head.
The intensity of the moon’s debris hitting the planet had grown to the point where the sky had turned a deep red now thanks to all of the meteorites streaking through the air. The temperature had permanently risen at this point and it was still climbing.
Maria looked up at the mega-city’s walls and noticed many cannons and other types of ordinances were pointing down at her. She didn’t know why they hadn’t fired and rained hell on her just yet, but this was fine.
She waited at the closed city gates for a while, before finally, Maria brandished her Calamity and was about to strike down the city gates when suddenly, all of the city wall defenses unleashed their fire on Maria.
The thunderous roars of cannon firing and the sound of the city wall’s ballistae bolts cutting through the air were like a chaotic cacophony of noises that came together to spell Maria’s demise.
The soldiers on the city walls all cheered in unison when they saw Maria not move a single inch when they had fired all of their weapons at her. They believed that even if Maria was a strange monster abomination, there was no way for her to live after being bombarded like that.
Contrary to their beliefs, however, Maria was still alive and kicking. She hadn’t even moved a single step from her spot either.
“This world’s civilization...really is too weak.”
Maria had only cast an enhanced double-layered [Barrier] and [M. Barrier] to protect herself and that was all she needed to withstand the earlier barrage of attacks. She glared up at the castle walls and slowly floated upwards with a single flap of her wings.
The city guards on the walls were all shocked at her unharmed appearance and some even began to despair. They saw how cruel she was earlier when she butchered the lives of every living creature that was just outside the walls.
Their deadly barrage of attacks was shaken off by Maria like it was nothing and this greatly scared the soldiers on the walls.
Maria reached the top of the wall and landed on one of the cannons that fired at her earlier and stomped down lightly. The cannon began cracking before it broke apart like a shattered mirror.