Chapter 237
Chapter 237
Chapter 237
Heaven's Fall (2)
A place where time seemed to have stopped. A place where only a quiet, poorly maintained garden and stone pillars with holes everywhere existed. Who would acknowledge that this was truly the place where the Creator God, the absolute deity of this world, was worshipped?
"Abel."
"......"
In such a quiet place, a blonde man was silently sharpening his blade. He turned his head at the voice of a young man calling him.
"What is it, Gray?"
Gray Bellatrix. Effectively the second-in-command of Abel's party and the man called the God of Magic.
"Three people just entered the adjustment chamber."
"......"
"Crux was very enthusiastic. It seems he was quite shocked after encountering Maria Kepler's power."
"Is that so?"
Abel answered briefly with his usual indifferent attitude and turned his gaze to his sword. Gray smiled bitterly at Abel's cold demeanor.
"I remember you being more talkative before, but your personality has completely changed."
"I suppose."
"It's certainly a bit absurd. We all share the same memories, but our last memories are actually all different."
Gray's words were true. In Crux and Rebecca's case, they had just entered Chapter 3 and were in the midst of the space war. For Evangeline, she had just joined and was building friendships as a companion. And Abel, the center of the group, was in the situation of eliminating the alien gods Krakar and Ktuna to conclude Chapter 3.
"The absurdity is the same for me."
Abel said this while maintaining Grandia.
"I can't believe that you, who was summoned last, was the one who saw the 'end' of all of us..."
"Hahaha..."
One who reached divinity through magic. One who survived to the very end and saw the 'last' of this world together with Abel. That was Gray Bellatrix, who stood before Abel now.
"Ah, I still remember. Even after defeating the Avatar of Destruction, everything was destroyed, and in that world of nothingness where nothing remained, I squeezed out my last strength to open the path to the Creator God for you. I have no memories after that either."
"...Did I do that?"
The heroic tales Gray occasionally boasted about were somewhat unfamiliar to Abel. The space war had been quite the mythical adventure, but the fight with Heaven was on a different level.
"It's certainly understandable that Berus didn't perform 'adjustment' on you, Abel. If he adjusted you too, you'd become uncontrollably strong."
The Abel that Gray remembered was omniscient and omnipotent to an unimaginable degree compared to now. Even the current Berus would be no match for him.
Abel seemed to remember something upon hearing this and raised his head to look directly at Gray again.
"Gray, do you... think we can trust Berus?"
"What are you talking about? Of course we can't trust him."
Gray's answer was immediate.
"I can't make a judgment since I died pointlessly in the original world, but thinking about what Berus is trying to do with this world now, doesn't it seem obvious?"
"......"
"You know what? Looking at the current situation, I suspect the original world's Berus was also suspicious. I wonder if Berus wasn't behind all the events we experienced..."
"Even so, we're not in a position to do anything about it."
"...That's true. Realistically speaking."
Gray said this as if chewing on something.
"Right now, we can't even be certain whether we were summoned from another world or created by Berus."
A situation that even Gray, who prided himself on having encountered all the truths of the world, couldn't be certain about. The reason for this was none other than that Berus had placed his companions inside mechanical devices under the name of 'adjustment.'
'Certainly, they weren't very strong at first, but the moment they came out of that device, they completely changed.'
Just entering for about a week and coming out, they achieved tremendous growth that couldn't be obtained through normal training or actual combat. Berus said it was work to recover the power and memories he originally had using causality, but Gray, who had a deep understanding of that causality, absolutely couldn't believe it at face value.
Abel asked again.
"If we were created, would you accept it and live as a tool?"
"Of course not."
"Then that's settled. For now, we cooperate. If we want to remain ourselves, we need to kill that guy called Rudian who twisted this world's fate."
"Certainly, that guy is... even stranger than us, someone who suddenly popped up."
Gray crossed his arms and clicked his tongue slightly.
"But will it be alright? We don't want the destruction of this world, do we? If we kill both that guy and our past selves, the world's fate would be twisted even more severely than what that guy did..."
"We can fix that ourselves."
"How do we face Heaven? The current Heaven has preserved its full power. Even for us, it would be impossible."
"...Did you forget what you said yourself? The angels' rebellion will happen soon."
"......"
Gray was momentarily speechless.
"We just need to help them. Then we can achieve balance."
"...Even with Berus and Medaiel watching with wide-open eyes?"
"From what I see, Berus knows about it too but is deliberately staying silent. The angels' rebellion is definitely Berus' scheme."
"Ha... Normally I'd dismiss this as nonsense, but seeing how things are going, I sadly can't deny it."
"Our final battle with them... will be after the angels' rebellion succeeds and Heaven's forces are greatly reduced."
"Anyway, we can't leave this temple without Berus' permission, but... we should be able to help with the archangels' rebellion."
Step, step. Gray slowly approached someone in the distance.
"Isn't that right, Luciel?"
"......"
An angel guarding a massive seal alone, having lost her original luster and become haggard. The archangel Luciel, who once built the infamous reputation of the Seven Seats, slowly raised her head at Gray's call as if she had just regained consciousness.
"What is it, victims of twisted fate?"
Twitch! Gray's eyes twitched for a moment.
"You should be able to eavesdrop on our conversation, right? We're saying we'll help. Your reckless plan."
"......"
Though she was greatly weakened, her eyes still burned intensely. Such eyes met Gray's.
"We don't need your help."
"...What?"
"You claim this world has been twisted from its original flow, but from the perspective of those living in this world, the current flow is not twisted but the true history."
"...This!"
"Rather, by cooperating with you aberrant beings, this world would be stained with even more unpredictable chaos. So we decline that help."
Gray's face instantly began turning red and blue. It was a natural reaction since it was a statement that directly denied their reason for existence.
"Ha, how irritating."
But that anger didn't last long. Gray's level wasn't so low that his mental cultivation would be broken by a single word.
"Even if you say that, you won't be able to shake off our help. We'll see through to the end, the path we believe is right."
"......"
What did she think upon hearing those words? Luciel's expression darkened.
"Then, I can only hope that the result won't be catastrophic."
Generally, when beings outside fate intervene in fate, the result makes everything catastrophic regardless of good or evil intentions. Luciel, who had experienced this once before, could only bow her head bitterly.
***
After the middle realm was settled like this. Just when they needed to ascend to Heaven, Rudian's group hit an unexpected snag. It was none other than Rudian himself who was the problem.
"Hmm... Suddenly secluding himself for training, that's unusual for Rudian."
Maria looked worriedly at the door of the office that Rudian had sealed himself in. The degree of that seal was something Maria could easily break.
But still, neither Maria nor the others touched that seal. Even though it was weak, the very fact that he had created a seal proved Rudian's resolve.
"Well, until now Rudian has only done personal training sporadically, he's almost never devoted himself seriously to training alone..."
In fact, since the Tower of Trials, Rudian had never concentrated intently on training. Even in the Hall of Heroes, he was the first to leave and focused on devising schemes.
"But what I can't understand is why he secluded himself when he himself says there's no time."
Elvin, who was sitting with Maria, held his forehead.
"The guy who was singing about having to ascend to Heaven as soon as possible, now suddenly..."
The fact that the archangels would soon rebel in Heaven had already been conveyed to Rudian. It was just the day before yesterday that all his companions had resolved to join him, saying they needed to help them to achieve true peace on the continent.
It was Luciella who answered Elvin's words.
"The realization of insufficiency, and the longing for it, doesn't consider the situation. Of course, Rudian wouldn't create a situation where priorities are reversed."
"That would be true..."
In the end, there was nothing Elvin and the others could do. They could only hope that Rudian would open the door from inside and come out...
***
-Master, are you really sure about this?
"Yeah, I'm fine."
-No matter how much you adjust the time ratio, there are limits due to the suppression of causality. Considering Master's current level, training for a few months at most has little possibility of advancing to the next stage.
"It doesn't matter. It's not that kind of training."
Those outside were mistaken in thinking Rudian was doing some intense life-and-death training... In fact, what Rudian was doing now was completely unrelated to that.
-What exactly... are you writing now?
"The most powerful weapon I can use."
For Rudian, his secret weapon was undoubtedly Adi. But along with Adi, the most powerful weapon that had brought Rudian to this point was...
'Knowledge of the original work.'
Until now, Rudian had only organized the general storyline and pulled knowledge of the original work from memory according to situations to formulate strategies.
-What are all these? Heaven's character relationship chart...? Each location of holy relics and divine weapons? Heaven's Fall episode progress table? The incarnation of destruction's... weakness?
But now, feeling that the end was truly approaching, he felt the necessity to organize the knowledge of the original work that he had used vaguely into something certain and accurate.
"As you said, there's nothing that would change if I, who has relied on item advantages until now, trained more."
Even while speaking, Rudian's hand didn't rest and continued moving the pen.
"So I need to establish a plan that can maximize my advantages."
Of course, in the end, it would be power against power, an absolute power struggle that would determine victory. But power struggles were also the strength of groups, not individuals.
'Whether it's the God of Magic or having the Creator God's power, what do I care?'
Rudian looked at the gradually completing compilation of original work knowledge and laughed like a mastermind.
"I'll really twist it. Perfectly and certainly."
The resolve he had determined when he first obtained Adi. Whether the opponent wanted it or not... this world would soon meet Rudian's happy ending.