The Goddess's Might Saves the World - Chapter 9 - Part 2

He jolted awake in the silent, crushing darkness.
It wasn’t the natural close of sleep, but the sudden, forced start of a breath. The air hung thick as water, flowing into his lungs with a faint, burning sting. When the Hero opened his eyes, he saw the ‘sky’ above him pulsing—no celestial vault, but a throbbing membrane, a living skin interwoven with transparent root-veins and light-vessels. Light seeped from it, like the scattered, hazy dreams of a slumbering god.
He tried to sit up, but found himself still encased in soft, yielding tissue. His fingers brushed the ‘ground,’ and he felt it subtly throb beneath him, accompanied by a deep, resonant heartbeat. It wasn’t an earthquake; it was the world’s heart still beating.
—He was inside Yggdra.
Gritting his teeth, the Hero struggled free of his confines, tearing through the sheath of tissue—flesh, yet not flesh. A warm, humid, viscous fluid splattered across his face, a baffling mix of sweetness and fishiness. He frowned and instinctively wiped the liquid away, noticing too late that where the substance touched his skin, it began to glow green.
“…This isn’t bl00d; it’s the roots’ dream,” he murmured.
The surrounding scene slowly swam into sharp focus—it was a forest turned upside down, with massive tree trunks growing downwards, their branches stretching into an unseen abyss. The Goddess was standing right beside him.
She settled her palm over his chest. In that instant, the Hero felt the distinct rhythm of her heart—steady and strong, yet threaded with a clear resonance of sorrow.
He drew a deep breath, raised his sword high, and channeled every last drop of the Flames of the Soul into the blade.
They roared the incantation together, their voices fused.
“—’Law of Resonance: Flameheart Pulsation Harmony’!”
The Holy Sword burst with white-hot light.
The aura on the Goddess’s chest solidified into two intersecting arcs of light. These merged with the sword’s radiance, forming a spiraling pillar of golden-white energy. That spiral instantly pierced the entire core of the earth, plunging straight towards the ‘Heart Gate’ of Yggdra’s core.
The moment the Heart Gate slammed shut, a tremendous sound erupted. The noise was the sound of ten thousand souls shrieking at once, an unbearable cry that seemed to shatter the boundaries of time and space itself.
Then, the gate opened.
—Inside was a world without borders.
The Hero and the Goddess were instantly sucked into the core’s interior, plunging into weightlessness. The space had no clear orientation, only infinitely stretching bl00d-red light and countless floating root-like crystals. Each crystal was inscribed with flowing characters; every line was a ‘record of life’.
The Goddess’s eyes widened. “These are… the souls devoured by Yggdra.”
In the depths of that light, a gigantic form slowly…