[cheesie]

Originally Posted by manifla

Spoiler for It begins:

Alice is in a horrible place emotionally and mentally. She asks him what he thinks about all of this.
He honestly wasn't thinking about that, his mind was on the puzzle of the star swords and what Crosswell had in mind for him and the words he was left with.
He's not in any position to understand how Alice and Rin feel, nor is he going to pretend to know. He has no idea if they instantly lose it all, if it would take days or decades. But he honestly is not interested in knowing the lapse of time.
Alice asks him if this means he's no longer going to be interested in her once it's all over. But he asks Rin if she's going to stop being Alice's servant once they lose their powers. Rin answers no without thinking, then double takes.
Iska hasn't changed what he said back in volume 3. To him, Alice is herself, no matter what's on her skin or what is or isn't inside of her.
And what could have been a very emotional couple of hours....gets interrupted because Elletear sent corrupted Astral spirits after the Oasis.
One is the corrupted spirit of the Sun, a faceless lamia attacking from the perimeter, May senses something else inside the Oasis and the group splits up with Iska, Kissing and May fighting the Sun and everyone else going rushing inside the oasis.
And as Talisman and crew descend into the eruption site far away, Elletear appears before them.
As proper nobles, Talisman and Elletear have cheerful, polite and threatening words to exchange before the violence breaks out.

The Corrupt Sun is ridiculously fast enough that May has trouble dodging unscathed and Iska is also in trouble. But it has little sense of self preservation, and gets turned into swiss cheese by Kissing's power.
Except the catch is that it regenerates fast enough for this to not matter.
And as Iska goes to save Kissing, he's in for another one of those "miss by a hair" dodges as the Sun was willing to feint out in order to kill him. But barring that, taking away the black star sword will serve just as well as the monster has no issues sacrificing a (quickly replaced) arm for that reason.
That's enough time for May to set up her gun and blast the monster viciously into a puddle of flesh from a different angle. But who are we kidding, that's not enough to put the monster down either.

According to Elletear, the sun is a symbol of rebirth. No matter how long and dark the night is, the sun rises again in a beautiful manner.
And cheerful Talisman says that her power is now so wonderful that she can clearly express the inferiority complex inside of her. Elletear agrees but it's not enough, she needs more and more power, speaking of her dream and goal.
Vichy interrupts with fire to the face, Talisman goes for body blows and calls her drunk on power, dull and no longer as sharp as she used to be.
Neither attack works, but it bought Mizerhyby time to finish powering up the soldiers and just blast Elletear with the enhanced astral powers.
Which is painful to Elletear, and it might hurt her a bit had more purebloods been around rather than Talisman (who has most of his power locked into physical enhancement rather than throwing around waves of astral power).
So Elletear decides that the family finally knows enough despair and fear because of how hopeless they are in front of her, shows her monstrous form and sings. There's no shield around the heart that can protect people from the Requiem of the Stars, and the Hydra family falls.


Or does it?

Spoiler for Phase 2:

Things are not going well over by the Oasis. Destroying the core of the Sun means a little bit more time spent on regeneration, but the spirit shows no sign of slowing down.
Things get worse! The spirit is becoming more and more resistant to damage from both the thorns and the bullets, will become immune over time, and it is prepared to do all that is necessary to keep the black sword out of Iska's hands and him away from it.
Even if it means encasing the area in a layer of fire and turning up the heat to cook all the humans black.
Everyone is running out of time and Iska is down to his last gamble. May and Kissing have to put aside their bad feelings against each other and just go for broke together while he charges.
"Kissing. Working alongside the Imperial Army for a moment. Or losing to Elletear despite doing your very best. What's more unforgivable?"
"...!!"
Iska doesn't wait for her choice, and isn't going to complain if she can't forgive him. He chases after the sun spirit as it throws everything it's got at him.
Which ends up being a good distraction as May makes her choice as well. Using the Tempest with all her bullets (plus a knife) to add on to Kissing's thorn dragon are finally enough to erase the sun.

May's out of munitions, and Kissing is exhausted, being carried on Iska's back again. They continue to talk a bit, and May doesn't have the Nameless's disgust at Iska or hold what he did a year ago against him. She's got no problem seeing him as a comrade.
But she's still no fan of witches, contrasting the Imperial Army to the Sovereignty's empty and pointless internal conflict. Kissing elaborates quietly that her uncle said the fighting was just fate, that he felt it served as a form of evolution for all the families.

Spoiler for Fate?:

And Elletear is very confused. Only three people out of a large group are slowly trying to get on their feet, Vichy, Mizerhyby and Talisman. Vichy is like Elletear and can resist the song to an extent because of Nightmare compatibility, but Mizerhyby and Talisman?
Talisman calls it pure luck. Because while astral power can help repel the influence of the Nightmare in theory, the Reqieum of the Stars would still get a mage's heart, because the astral spirit and most of the power is concentrated on the astral crest. And the song enters the body from all directions.
Since Mizerhyby's astral power flowed through her whole body in great amounts, it deadened the effect enough for her to not fall into a total coma. Talisman through his training is the same way, although he is holding his chest from seeming exertion.
And now Elletear is mad. Seriously mad. Mad enough to freeze Mizerhyby and Vichy in terror.
If their heart can't be broken in a gentle way, all that's left is to break their bodies in a brutal and thoroughly unpleasant way.

Talisman sinks one fist into her body, calling Elletear drunk on power again. Elletear finds it hilarious that now he's trying to protect the princess like a knight in shining armor, though his pointless struggle is pretty sad at this point.
Talisman acknowledges that his strength will never hurt Elletear at all. She does have the power to change the world and make everyone kneel before her in terror.
But the terror of the mad scientists that created her is why she's about to lose

Spoiler for And that is :

because Talisman wasn't holding his chest from exhaustion.
His sleigh of hand was concealing a syringe. Filled with a overdose of the formula jointly developed to transform people into carriers of the Nightmare. And Elletear has finally let her guard down enough for him to successfully inject her with it.
True, Elletear already had a large amount of the Nightmare in her body, but needed time to fully adapt and transform.
And a hot overdose is enough for her to start melting down, losing her mind and identity.

Spoiler for Endings and beginnings:

Back at the oasis, Alice and everyone had a epic battle against the spirit of the moon and infinitely growing illusions!
A fight full of effort, friendship, tears and Sisbell's insight, except Iska doesn't have time to hear Alice's tale and Sisbell is bickering again with Alice and Rin about who gets the credit for figuring out the secret.
And Alice's communication device has had 13 missed calls from the Queen. It takes a half day to get out of the Catalyst zone and back to a area of better reception, where Alice gets the news that all Zoa and Hydra loyalists are heading for the Empire.

Going back in time, Mizerhyby can't help but admire her uncle Talisman for the clutch. He's honestly just too much of a man.
Talisman coldly pronounces Elletear's end as she dissolves into the Nightmare.
But Elletear has no intention of going by herself, and grabs Talisman when his guard is down, gleefully telling him that they'll enjoy despair together
And all weakened Mizerhyby can do is watch and listen to the screams.

According to the afterword, volume 14 will be Mizerhyby's time in the spotlight, the start of the final phase of the war, also featuring the clash between Shanorotte and Mismis

I’ve resurrected my account here from the dead to let you know that I’m devouring every single one of your spoilers and I’m waiting for your summary of the final volume. Please share romance info as well because I just finished the anime today and I swear Iska and Alice have insane chemistry, more so than most romcom series I know.