Even If I'm Reborn as a Cute Dragon Girl, I Will Still Make a Harem-Chapter 86Book 6: : The Curtain Falls

The wreckage of the fleet drifted in the freezing cold void.

After fighting with everything he had, and with nearly all his troops wiped out, the old man slumped in the command room. Alarms blared around him, and flashing lights blinded him.

Through the porthole, he watched the devourers outside that had evolved into grotesque abominations after their endless feasts.

They consumed anything within reach, even stars and suns.

They had achieved their goal—immortality.

Yet the price was their hideous, twisted forms.

The old man no longer knew whether to laugh or weep. He mourned a civilization that had once shone with brilliance, yet mocked the arrogance that had dragged it into ruin.

In the end, nothing could be salvaged.

Everything was finished.

His despair twisted into fury as he glared at the monsters, now turning on one another in their hunger.

“But there’s no room for you disgusting beasts in my children’s future!”

These creatures, who would even devour their own kind, would inevitably pursue the children once they had nothing left to eat.

Experience had shown that even without eyes or ears, they could unerringly sense their kind across the stars.

“Even if all hope is gone… even if only despair remains…”

The old man roared as he flipped open the red safety cover before him, revealing a single button—the symbol of destruction.

“…At least… I still have my children. As long as they live, I have not lost everything!”

He brought his fist down hard on the button.

Outside, the wreck of his warship was being devoured by the monsters.

But the order for destruction had already been triggered.

For every intelligent species, its gift for destruction had always eclipsed its capacity for creation.

This race was no exception.

The ultimate creation of their technology was a weapon so terrifying that even its inventors could not fathom its true power. They had sealed it away immediately after creating it, giving it a name whispered only in dread—*The Purger*.

Explanation about it had been lost in this great disaster. But even when the old man chanced upon it, the brief descriptions of what it was capable of filled him with an indescribable fear.

It would set off an infinite collapse, spreading outward from the point of release. In other words, it was an ever-expanding black hole that could devour everything.

And this process was unstoppable, unending, and eternal.

This race had created its own executioner long ago. Yet they perished not by it, but in far more absurd ways.

And so the Purger remained, left to clean up the remnants of their chaos.

As the black hole expanded outward, the monsters sensed it as a threat.

They roared and hurled themselves at it, trying to consume it as they had consumed everything else.

But in the end…

It made no difference.

All roads led to the same outcome.

◆◇◆◇◆

After an unknowable stretch of time, at the edge of a galaxy in the depths of the endless universe…

The spaceship drifted like a lone leaf on a cosmic current, only to be overtaken by a black hole whose expansion far outpaced the speed of light. *(Author’s Note: Don’t argue about this, this is a fantasy novel.)*

Just as the vessel was about to be swallowed by the abyss, a slender, pale arm reached out from within.

It grabbed the edge of the black hole.

The gesture seemed laughably futile, yet the black hole suddenly stopped expanding.

Before it, a power even more dreadful was beginning to bloom.

A black flame.

It flickered and danced like a shadowy fairy—so eerily beautiful one might sigh in awe. Yet, it was also so terrifying that the universe itself seemed to hold its breath.

It was the final blossom born from the last survivor of an annihilated race.

That energy was too vast, too pure, for any fragile body to contain. 𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢

So it transformed into something else—supreme authority that surpassed even the order of heaven.

Like the greed that had once destroyed an entire era, it was a force that could devour all.

◆◇◆◇◆

“That was the origin of the Dragon Eaters.”

The Dragon Eater finished her tale and turned instinctively toward her only listener, only to find a pair of bright eyes staring straight back.

“Holy crap! So the Dragon Eaters actually come from a technological civilization!”

Lilith slapped her thigh in sudden realization. “No wonder it felt so natural when I used black liquid to build mechs—it was the bloodline bonus!”

The Dragon Eater’s lips twitched. “…That’s your takeaway from all this?”

“What else?” Lilith shot back with a sideways glance. “You expect me to feel sorry for that civilization? Please. They brought it on themselves. Do you even know what ‘brought it on themselves’ means?”

With a flourish, she produced a brick-thick dictionary from nowhere, flipped through it, and jabbed her finger at the definition.

*Taking responsibility for one’s own foolish or harmful actions.*

“Got it? I’m not some saintly busybody who pities everyone and tries to save them. If people bring ruin on themselves, I’ll mock them without mercy and forget them just as fast. They don’t even deserve to be a joke over dinner.”

“…True.” The Dragon Eater sighed softly. “They have no rights to blame anyone for what they’ve done. Perhaps my current miserable state is also a kind of atonement.”

“Atonement? For what?” Lilith blinked her huge eyes with curiosity.

“I was one of them. I’m of that race.”

“I didn’t ask where your ID card says you’re from! I asked what you did wrong,” Lilith huffed impatiently.

“Probably… nothing,” the Dragon Eater admitted after a pause. “I was only a child when the destruction happened.”

“Then stop with the atonement nonsense! You didn’t do anything wrong. Unless…” She squinted. “Did you kill someone? …Wait, you did, didn’t you?”

She flopped back down with a dismissive wave. “Whatever. If your conscience is really bothering you, just find a ditch to bury yourself in. Then I can claim I found this body myself, and poof, none of us is guilty. Perfect, right?”

“You wish.” The Dragon Eater tried to roll her eyes at her, but ended up laughing instead.

“What’s so funny?”

“I just think it’s funny.”

“You’re easily amused, aren’t you?”

“Someone told me that before.”

“And I bet they also said you look ugly when you laugh.”

“…Thank you, Lilith.”

“There’s nothing to thank me for.”

“I haven’t laughed like this in a very long time. That alone is worth it.”

“How long is ‘a long time’?”

“…I really don’t like your habit of asking questions until you get an answer.”

The Dragon Eater closed her eyes as she searched through her memories.

After a while, she finally replied, “Nine million years, I suppose.”