I realize that there's no way I can find Exla in the time that's left. Eleven hours until the moon falls, and she could be anywhere in Yagrath, which covers an area nearly as big as the Dominion. I don't know whether or not she can see the moon from there, but if she has, I'm sure she's already on her way here.

What I can try to do is find Asoko and my children. Flann says that she has the same ability as her father to locate a Crawling Chaos no matter how far away they are. For a world-ending event like this, I would like them close to me. And I'm sure they could help against Chaos-Juzual and later Mataku.

That's why, for the time being, I'll have to make good on my promise to take my girls with me this time. But they can't survive on the moon, so I really shouldn't have said those thoughtless words earlier. I want to protect them, but treating them too carefully could hurt their pride.

"I have found them." Flann informs me just as the number on the moon instantly switches to a ten. I've been staring at it without blinking to figure out how Chaos-Juzual does it. And in doing so, I've avoided talking to anybody for the past half an hour or so.

"Alright." I turn around to Kamii, Hestia, Aurelia, and Tokomaha. They're ready to leave with me, wearing their respective combat gear and equipment. Then my eyes fall on Rolan and his party, as well as Halthor and Svanhild behind them. So she has deigned to come out as well, huh?

"What should we do?" Rolan asks while resting his remaining hand on the hilt of his sword. It belongs to the glowing blade that he swung at Maou-mama back then, which was timed with Zenlith's disintegration beam that ultimately killed her.

"What do you think you can do?" I reply to his question with another. Not to sound condescending, but this has long since surpassed the realm of human abilities. Even if Rolan is fast with his magical sword, a Crawling Chaos isn't an opponent he could ever hope to fight. Other humans with more powerful imaginations have tried and failed.

"Believe." He suddenly replies with a strangely determined expression while looking straight into my eyes. For the first time since our reunion, he doesn't break eye contact with me immediately and holds his gaze. "I heard that Zenlith is immortal because of our belief that he is."

"You want to do the same with me?" I feel my eyebrows shoot up involuntarily at the idea. While it's true that Exla said her brother is immortal as long as humanity believes he is, it's not as easy as having just one person out there imagining it. It requires a collective unconscious imagination of millions to make that possible.

Leaving aside the irony of elevating me into godhood through a new religion, it doesn't really help with the current problem. I already consider myself pretty close to immortal. It's everybody else that I worry about.

"I already believe that." Gram states with a grin. He has slowly opened back up to me over the past months - more so than anybody else of the party. Whereas Rolan and Luna treat me with the respect that a former mortal enemy and current monarch deserves, the big man has reverted to a more casual tone. Of course, he doesn't dare to employ it in front of Rewera, but the maid leader is currently busy directing the Maid Corps. "But you're not invincible."

"Nobody is invincible." I reply with a frown.

"We know that." Svanhild suddenly steps forward and regards me with an expression that sends me mixed signals. The Drills from my academy days has grown up into a fine woman. But she still has the childish streak she so thoroughly displayed during our classes together. "But we want to believe that you can be."

This is an admittance I didn't think she could ever make. And judging by her inability to look me in the eyes, she must feel the same. She was one of the Chosen Knights directly affiliated with Zenlith and believed down to the core of her being that he's invincible and just. It was hard to make her accept the truth about the false gods, but her words mean that she has finally come around.

"Don't try to find a god in me." I reply with a sardonic smile. She glares at me before realizing that it was a joke and turning away in indignation. "But I guess it can't hurt to have people believe in my success."

"Sounds like the common shounen trope of friendship overcoming everything." Senka's sarcastic voice echoes in my mind. That's my thought as well, but I can't completely disregard it as a placebo. After all, Zenlith has been exploiting something similar to it for millennia. "Anyway, I wouldn't be cluttering the channel with pointless chitchat if I didn't have anything to report. We know where the moon will impact."

"I hope you won't tell me to come all the way to the astronomy tower and take a look at the map." I reply while suppressing the urge to smile to myself.

"I won't fall into the trap of the 'come take a look at this'-cliché." The doll girl replies, and once again, I can imagine her shrugging. "It's going to land in the ocean north of Kairaki."

Considering there's about twice as much water as there is landmass on this planet, it's not surprising that the impact area is an ocean. And the fact that it's near Armeria makes it quite convenient since we're heading there anyway. It's also a continent nearly as big as Enorath and Ceogath combined.

"Can I ask you to hold down the fort for when Exla arrives? I can't wait for her here." I ask in my mind while turning to my girls to give them the signal that they should gather around so that Flann can teleport us. "Rolan, go pay Kleihn a visit. She could have something for you."

"Huh?" The one-armed man blinks in surprise.

"And stay in the castle. I believe something will happen here." Glancing at the other members of the party as well as Halthor and Svanhild, I silently include them in this statement. The bard left for Enorath to propagate the truth about the gods shortly after my coronation, so these two will have to make up for his absence. "See you after all this."

With this short farewell that sounds too casual for the grave situation we're in, I look at Flann. She walks over and into our midst before peering up at me with a questioning gaze.

"Where to?" She asks, not at all daunted by having to teleport so many people at once.

"Kairaki." I reply, assuming that she knows where that is. But then I realize that this is a dumb request and shake my head; Kairaki is bigger than Arkaim. At least it's not as bad as Mithra saying that I should meet Mataku on the dark side of the moon. "To Asoko."