Okay bookworms, this is a LONG one so buckle up.
<So I'm a Spider, So What> Volumes 15 & 16. Honestly, a bit of a disappointment. Not that it was bad but 15 seems to set up for something really great and then 16 ends up being mostly predictible with little payoff. Like, the payoff in volume 14 was HUGE! But volume 16 leaves barely any room for epilogue.
And like, the cover of Volume 16 shows Ariel and White sitting happily together. Like they just won and where so exhausted they collapsed there on the spot. SPOILER: THAT DOESN'T HAPPEN!
And then there's this art!

When I saw that I was like "OH SNAP!" I had already suspected something was up from the wording before about "An evil god wants to sacrifice half of humanity". It's initially implied by the context that it's White but "evil god" has always been D, so maybe because White is D's protoge she's also evil? I also thought maybe the "evil god" could've been Guli-Guli because he was on the wrong side of the conflict and Team Ebony's plan would result in a worse fate for humanity than Team Ivory. But no, it's D. Which could've been okay except I don't feel the author handled it well.
I DO like how if you pay attention to the wording it actually becomes obvious that the ivory god and the ebody god are not the evil god because the adjectives have changed! But anyway...
I really feel the author wrote themselves into a corner and didn't quite know how to finish the story, especially given his self-imposed time constraints. Like one of the strengths of the series is that defeating the bad guy doesn't solve the world's problems. It isn't just your typical "defeat the demon lord and save the world" iseaki. And that means you can have a DEEP villain with lots of backstory and motives. But since he's the cause of the problems and not the source you still have to deal with the problems afterward. Which means you need another villain or challenge to overcome so the story doesn't just become a laundry list of chores to check off.
Concerning the ending as written
So the author decides to make D the final boss? D is already established as the most powerful being in the series. You can’t have a fight with someone like that unless the author gifts everyone a package labeled "Plot Armor: Pre-Activated." Barring some insane turn of events that was never going to work well. And we don't get any insane events; just your standard predictible showdown.
And no, not the showdown between White and Guli-Guli. Turns out that didn't matter AT ALL. Not even the prayers to decide who would win. All meaningless. The "world quest" is instead completed by less than a dozen side characters. Yay?
And even just to get to the ACTUAL showdown it was a stretch. D making a big empty void and just casually waiting for people to teleport to her? Rondalt uses never before seen magic to do the teleportation? Ariel just letting her enemies waltz into the System Core even though she's in a weakened state and has basically already won? Even the message Oka gets is ham-fisted. "Oh, D made your skill so she must've messed with it to give you a personal message" my foot!
And why was the Sword of the Hero even there at all? And Ariel just GIVES it to Shun? It was stupid! And wait, didn't using the Sword of the Demon Lord last time drain a MASSIVE amount of MA Energy from the planet? Shouldn't Shun's wasteful use of the Sword of the Hero have basically ruined the planet forever? And D made the thing so of course it's not going to be more powerful than D herself.
And do I even need to mention that Shun&Co are so underleveled and weak that they don't even matter?
So of course D was going to wipe the floor with them until White shows up. I will say White "spawn camping" D was pretty hilarious though.
One more thing... according to D, the Pontiff's plan to sacrifice Guli-Guli, White, and Sariel wouldn't have given them enough energy but White's plan to suck Guli-Guli dry (but keep him alive) and then use all her own energy to save Sariel and all of humanity would have worked? That doesn't make any sense. I guess the Pontiff wasn't planning on shutting down the system? But without the Gods there would be no core! Anyway...
So what was the payoff for getting through that ridiculous ending? One or two lines about what happened to each person with a good chunk of them being "We don't know what happened to them." Ridiculous.
