Chapter 671: 521 ’Beast
It had been said before that this world was incredibly grand, with a vast worldview that extended far beyond what Reiger had seen up to now.
This time’s Dimensional Travel brought Reiger to the Fairy Country Britain as part of an anomaly zone, but Fairy Country Britain was just one of many such zones in this world. The crumbling phenomenon occurring here that had a noxious impact on human history was but one of the many disasters threatening humanity.
Hence, organizations such as Chaldea that safeguard humanity were born.
Its purpose was to repair the foundations of humanity, protect human history, and ensure that it could continue to develop and persist amid a plethora of threats.
Fujimaru Ritsuka, a Master, wasn’t facing a threat to human history for the first time. Before Fairy Country Britain, he had already faced many incidents, some of which posed even greater danger than the crumbling phenomenon in Fairy Country Britain.
Thus, Fujimaru Ritsuka had repaired many anomalies potentially damaging to the foundations of humanity, and not just one, and had excised several anomaly zones that threatened the survival of human history, totaling five; Fairy Country Britain was the sixth. For him, it was no longer something so rare.
However, each of Fujimaru Ritsuka’s glorious achievements signified a disaster had once emerged.
Beryl Gate was just a person who opposed Chaldea, hardly a disaster threatening human history.
But, Koyanskaya was different.
She was a true disaster.
She was an enemy of humanity.
She was one of the seven great calamities rejected by human history, an entity known as "Curse of Humanity."
The so-called Curse of Humanity referred to the personification of various disasters threatening human history, disasters that would lead to the annihilation of mankind.
They originated from human civilization and grew stronger with human development.
They would destroy civilization from the inside, akin to cancer cells of the world.
They were the blight of humanity, the sludge settled in the chronicles of human history, an evil that had to be destroyed by humanity itself.
They were born from the beastly nature of humans, hence, they were called "Beast."
If Heroic Spirits were beings who would answer the world’s call to arms to protect humanity and the world when times were dire, then the Curse of Humanity was the opposite, dedicated to the destruction of humanity and the world.
The relationship between the Curse of Humanity and the summoning of Heroic Spirits could be seen as humanity’s self-destruct mechanism and safety device, fundamentally different in nature.
Koyanskaya was one of these Curses of Humanity, dubbed the Beast of Pleasure, the fourth Beast—Beast IV.
To be more precise, she was the larval form of Beast IV, an unfinished Curse of Humanity, an incomplete fourth Beast.
Yet, even unfinished, when this infant beast revealed her true nature, she remained a terrifying disaster capable of threatening all of mankind.
Chaldea had previously encountered two fully matured Beasts, Beast I who wielded the concept of compassion and Beast II who wielded the concept of regression.
One of these Beasts had once incinerated all of humanity, turning the Earth into a sea of fire, while the other had wreaked havoc at the end of the age of gods, nearly annihilating all life on Earth.
To defeat these two Beasts, Chaldea struggled through countless hardships and received assistance from numerous heroic spirits, finally, against all odds, they managed to emerge from the brink of despair and vanquish the two Beasts.
In other words, these were not beings that could be defeated by an individual or a single power, nor were they existences that humanity could conquer. Without unifying various conditions, mysteries, and powerful aids, amalgamating the strength of all human history, and working together, there would be no chance of victory.
Now, one of these fearsome beings, an unfinished form of it, had appeared before Reiger.
"Boom!"
As the world itself let out a mournful roar, a pitch-black storm began to appear.
It was different from the Curse of Mors.
It was a manifestation of the power of another dimension.
The terrifying black storm, like darkness devouring the world, rapidly expanded from Koyanskaya, spreading in all directions.
"Be careful!"
"Everyone, come over here!"
"This is bad!"
Altoria and the others exclaimed in shock, barely managing to take any significant action when the black storm, quite literally, engulfed the entire world, dragging it into darkness.
Within the dark, the black storm continued to rage, the howling winds drowning out the voices of the group.
Reiger too tensed, a somber expression gradually emerging in his eyes.
In that moment, he felt an unprecedented pressure and a fatal crisis unlike any he had faced before.
Before, the more perilous the predicament, the more excited Reiger became, even if the enemy was stronger and the situation extremely dire, he was thrilled by the challenge, following his inner instincts and desire to advance rather than retreat, willingly plunging into danger and fighting to the bitter end.
But this time, despite feeling an unprecedented pressure and a fatal crisis, Reiger found himself entirely unable to get excited.
Because what appeared before him was not a danger targeting him alone but a catastrophe aimed at the whole world, all of humanity.
He could sense, understand, and recognize this indiscriminate malice, hostility, and killing intent directed towards the whole group of human beings.