Chapter 85
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 085
Chapter Title: The Mirror Realm (2)
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The battle between the two outer gods dragged on far longer than expected. The dark cultists waited nearby, biding their time for this cataclysmic duel to finally end.
Lightning bolts repeatedly painted the sky blood-red. And the song that echoed without cease...
Fleeing the uproar, every living creature in the vicinity had scattered. Thanks to that, the dark cultists were able to camp in relative safety.
"It's already been four days... and there's still no sign of it ending, is there?"
A young man muttered in bewilderment.
The last time they'd seen it, the Nine Roses had appeared to be getting thoroughly trounced. They'd assumed the fight would wrap up soon, but for some inexplicable reason, the clash between the two outer gods had stretched on for days.
Hearing him, a woman seated by the campfire murmured to herself.
"One ensnared by the rose's fragrance... shall suffer the bite of its thorns."
"...What the hell was that out of nowhere?"
"Hehe, hum hum~."
Instead of replying, the woman giggled and hummed a little tune. She looked half out of her mind. The man let out a deep sigh at the sight.
"Damn it... This is exactly why you don't talk to the Rose God's followers."
The fanatics who worshipped the Nine Roses were all a few sandwiches short of a picnic. Even the dark cultists avoided dealing with them.
Splits within a religion were commonplace. The Nine Roses' followers had their own independent temples and doctrines.
'If it weren't for this situation, we never would've asked those lunatics for help.'
They'd had no choice but to request cooperation since they needed to enter Rose territory. Once this was over, he'd never have anything to do with this crazy woman again. Vowing as much, the man chewed on his preserved rations.
Bread as hard as a rock. As he gnawed at the corner like a rat...
Sudden silence descended.
"...Is it over?"
The man muttered as he scanned the sky. The blood-red thunderclouds were slowly reverting to their original hue.
The duel between the two outer gods had ended.
Sensing as much, the dark cultists rose to their feet. With the protracted battle halting and a lull settling in, they intended to confirm the outcome before heading back.
"We'll take the same route as last time. Stay quiet—no signs of life."
The old priest took the lead. The dark cultists followed with careful steps. It wasn't long before they returned to the site of the outer gods' clash.
What confronted them immediately was a scene of devastation, as if a calamity had swept through.
Collapsed mountains and ravaged forests. Scattered everywhere were large, perfectly round craters. At the epicenter of each destruction lay pitch-black scorch marks—remnants of the dragon's fiery lightning.
Rose petals were strewn across the dirt ground. The lush crimson petals resembled spilled blood.
"Ugh, uwaaa... Goddess..."
The woman collapsed to her knees, sobbing as she frantically gathered the scattered petals. She couldn't leave her goddess's sacred blood behind.
The other dark cultists gazed at the fanatic with pity. Judging by the blood splattered everywhere, the Nine Roses had clearly lost the duel, just as expected.
A zealot who lost their god became even more dangerous—like a wild beast nursing a grievous wound.
"Leave her be... We should check the rest ourselves."
The old priest made the suggestion. Nodding in agreement, the other dark cultists quietly moved on, abandoning the woman.
The deeper they ventured, the greater the scale of destruction. Craters larger than the ones they'd seen before dotted the landscape. The Nine Roses' wounds must have worsened as well, for petals clung to their feet with every step.
Soon... the dark cultists came face-to-face with a red hill. Countless rose petals piled into a mound. Beneath it lay a colossal form.
The old priest intuited it at once.
"An outer god's corpse."
The Nine Roses had been slain.
To inspect the remains, the priests drew closer to the petal heap. The old priest cautiously swept the rose petals aside.
And what lay revealed...
"...Wh-what in the...?"
The old priest's eyes bulged. Stammering, he staggered back before his legs gave out and he collapsed.
He had no choice. Buried beneath the petals was none other than the dragon's corpse.
The Dragon of Heavenly Punishment.
The duel hadn't been lost by the rose, but by the dragon—the very outer god the dark cultists revered with all their hearts. Realizing this, the old priest fell into despair.
"No!! This can't be—!"
The grief-stricken elder wailed at the top of his lungs. The dark cultists around him slumped down too, unable to trust their eyes. No one had foreseen such an outcome.
......Except for one.
"Hum hum, hehe..."
A woman approached, emitting sounds that could have been humming, sobbing, or laughter.
The Rose devotee showed no particular surprise at the situation. She believed her goddess could never fall to a mere lizard.
She merely wept tears of joy at obtaining the rose petals, akin to her goddess's sacred blood.
"Noble Rose... We shall enshrine the holy body you left behind as our church's sacred relic."
The woman murmured to herself as she scooped up the petals. Humming cheerfully, her ecstatic expression stood in stark contrast to those around her.
The enraged dark cultists shot glares at the oblivious woman, but she paid them no mind, too absorbed in her task. There were simply too many petals piled atop the dragon's corpse.
Then...
"...What's this?"
The woman cocked her head. As she cleared away the petals blanketing the dragon's body, something unexpected came into view.
She turned to the dark cultists.
"This mark. Did you carve it?"
"...What are you on about?"
"Come take a look."
She beckoned them over. The dark cultists shuffled closer reluctantly.
"Look right here."
She pointed to the dragon's nape. Etched there was a massive wound—a long, straight gash, perfectly even, as if measured and drawn with a ruler.
It resembled...
"A beheading by sword."
The woman muttered. Those words jogged the old priest's memory of what he'd glimpsed before.
Red lightning crashing down. The world illuminated in that split-second flash. Between the two outer gods stood a man wielding a blade.
...That bastard killed our god.
The old priest rose to his feet. He swept bloodshot eyes over his subordinates.
"Search the area."
They had to find that blasphemous intruder.
At their superior's command, the dark cultists combed the surroundings exhaustively. But their efforts yielded nothing.
No matter how thoroughly they looked, there were no traces of any human. Which made sense—the heart of the Demonic Realm was far too perilous for even dark cultists to venture lightly.
The young priest grumbled.
"That geezer... Isn't he just senile and seeing ghosts? A human between two outer gods?"
His mind must have snapped from witnessing the death of the outer god he worshipped.
Another priest shot back.
"Watch your mouth. The High Priest is the Night Guardian, who's served for ages."
"Did I say anything wrong?"
The young man grumbled on.
"Even supposing the High Priest saw right. Say we find the guy—what then? That's a problem in itself, isn't it?"
"How so?"
"How so? Damn it... It's the bastard who lopped off the dragon's head. What could we even do against a monster like that? We'd drop dead the instant we crossed paths."
The other priest nodded slightly. It was sound reasoning, after all.
"...Let's give it a once-over and head back."
"Fine by me."
They couldn't press much deeper regardless. Rose territory teemed with ever more powerful spider beasts the further in you went— venturing farther was tantamount to suicide.
After a cursory sweep, the dark cultists returned to their superior.
The High Priest's condition... didn't look good.
Swish, scratch.
The old priest was drawing something on the dirt. Circling the dragon's corpse, he inscribed a massive magic circle.
He turned to look their way.
"...Found the godslayer?"
"Uh... We searched everywhere, but no human tracks. Must've slipped away."
The young man made excuses. The High Priest's gaze grew icier.
"You fail the task, yet have the gall to show your faces... Search again. Return empty-handed, and you'll be punished."
"...Understood."
The dark cultists withdrew.
The High Priest watched their retreating backs with displeasure... then refocused on his work. He dipped his index and middle fingers into a potion before tracing the magic circle with their tips.
Utterly absorbed in his spellwork, the old priest was defenseless. A beast ambush now would spell disaster—but none came.
The stench of the dragon's corpse and the spider queen's blood had terrified the local beasts; none dared approach the area.
Thus, the magic circle completed without issue. The High Priest chugged several potions for a boost, then began chanting.
"Glakies, Aaeterna!"
⟨ Unchanging Freeze ⟩
Responding to the incantation, the ground's magic circle erupted in blinding light. A vortex of frigid air swirled at its center.
Crack, craaaack—
The dragon's corpse froze over in a sheath of white ice, resembling a sculpture carved from the stuff. All energy spent, the High Priest collapsed limply.
He'd forced a spell beyond his limits. His face now looked decades older than before.
But the casting had succeeded.
'Unchanging Freeze.'
A potent preservation spell. The dragon's body wouldn't thaw for at least two or three years—and even then, it was frozen too solidly to shatter by force.
The High Priest had cast it to prevent the corpse from rotting.
'Our outer god will return to our side.'
The miracle of resurrection.
He'd heard tales of ancient saints achieving it. This outer god was far more powerful and majestic than they. The Dragon of Heavenly Punishment would surely revive and return to its priests.
To prepare for that day, its flesh needed safeguarding. That was the High Priest's conviction, so he'd encased the dragon in ice.
'I must transport this holy body to our temple.'
But the corpse was enormous and heavy. Six people couldn't hope to move it.
'...Precisely five, actually.'
The Nine Roses priestess had recently departed. She'd gathered every petal, declared her business done, and returned to her own temple.
'Sharp-eyed wench.'
He'd planned to slaughter her as an offering to appease the slain dragon's soul, but he'd missed his chance.
He wanted to pursue her, but lacked the resources. Instead, the High Priest dispatched a messenger to their sanctuary for aid.
Reinforcements arrived before long. The death of one of their worshipped outer gods was a catastrophe of the highest order.
"A-aaaaah—!"
The arriving priests wailed in anguish upon beholding the dragon's corpse. Deeply mourning their outer god's demise, they personally bore its majestic, sacred remains back to the temple.
And so they waited for the frozen divinity to awaken and return to the world...
But months passed with no change in the dragon's flesh. Naturally so—it was merely a lifeless husk.
The High Priest grew ever more frantic.
'I must revive our god.'
How?
In their deliberations, the priests noticed one flaw in the dragon's body.
'...No inner core.'
The slayer had extracted it—the core housing the dragon's heavenly punishment, its blazing lightning.
To the Demonic Realm's creatures, the inner core was as vital as the heart itself. Only by implanting a replacement could the outer god return to them.
So judging, the High Priest assembled his followers for research. How to procure a fitting core?
They gathered various cores and tested them in the corpse, but nothing worked. The ones they could obtain paled in comparison to an outer god's.
After much agonizing, they reached a conclusion...
'...Let's try an abomination core.'
Abomination cores grew larger with each merger and possessed unique regenerative properties. It could work to revive the dragon.
Thus resolved, the priests hunted abominations and harvested their cores. Months of fusing later, it had ballooned enormously.
A young priest muttered.
"This... is it really okay?"
But few paid his musing any heed. Zealots bereft of their god only grew more perilous.
In time, the endlessly engorged abomination core rivaled a boulder in size.
'Now we're ready.'
So concluded the dark cultists. They shoved the abomination core into the outer god's corpse.
The attempt yielded a horrific success.
The dragon slowly opened its eyes.
......Black, pus-like rot oozed from them like tears.
"GRRRRAAAAAHHH—!!"
Roaring deafeningly, the dragon abomination exhaled upon the priests. Vile fumes billowed from its maw like thunderclouds.
"R-run, quick!"
"Gwaaaah!!"
Screams erupted from all sides. The priests, drenched in the toxins, melted away... only to rebirth themselves in novel forms.
Mutant abominations.
Thus were the dark cultists' deepest wishes fulfilled.