Chapter 251
Chapter 251
Chapter 251
Temple of the Creator God (1)
CRUMBLE!
It had been a beautiful flower, brimming with life force.
But in just a few seconds, it had transformed like a withered old tree, crumbling into powder.
The woman who had turned this place, the Temple of the Creator God, into hell.
Abel Retsutain quietly called out the name of the one responsible.
"...Rebecca."
"......"
There was no response from her.
Her reason had already been lost, subordinated to another, crossing a river from which there was no return.
Demon Eater.
The natural enemy of demons that devoured magic.
Its origin traced back to an experiment by Baal, one of the Seven Great Demon Kings, who had used his authority of 'Vlemya' to cultivate an 'Army of Predators.'
However, that experiment failed spectacularly, and Baal carelessly discarded the final test subject, scheduled for disposal, somewhere in the Middle Realm.
But through divine providence that even the gods could not predict, the test subject miraculously succeeded in adapting to the Middle Realm's environment and surviving.
That test subject mated with primitive races of the Middle Realm and bore children, which became the beginning of the Demon Eater clan.
Gray, who was beside Abel, let out a slight groan.
"She really became a monster. To think she'd become an existence that devours not just magic but even chaos itself..."
"...Don't say that, Gray."
Abel's eyes turned to the young man standing behind Rebecca.
"Everything is because of that bastard."
The young man's name was Berus.
The leader of the Seven Great Gods, and a name that had now become Abel and Gray's mortal enemy.
"Baal achieved quite satisfactory results. Even if it wasn't his original intention."
Berus spoke while looking at Rebecca, who stood before him like a doll.
"He confirmed that the descendants of the test subject he carelessly discarded met a singularity after over ten thousand years, and as a result, far exceeded his expectations."
From that point, Baal discarded all the plans he had established.
He abolished the Seven Great Seats and Seventy-Two Demon King system, and shifted direction toward making Rebecca solely the true queen of demons.
"It was a wise decision. If I hadn't intervened, Baal would have achieved all his goals. Well, even if he had achieved them, Baal's end would have been the same."
Whether in the 'previous history' or 'now,' Baal ultimately lost his life to the sword named Abel that he himself had sent.
Berus smiled self-deprecatingly and said:
"For someone who's supposedly the creator god of this world, even pouring out the power to create a planet doesn't go as planned. Unlike that properly awakened Demon Goddess, this became such an incomplete state."
At his words treating Rebecca like an object, Abel erupted in fury.
"From the beginning, your purpose was... to use us as test subjects!"
Even at Abel's hateful cry, Berus paid no heed and continued speaking only what he wanted to say.
"All Eater. But this isn't bad either. Because it's incomplete, it's rather similar. This can be seen as an incarnation of destruction that awakened in a different way. Of course, it would be much weaker than the original created by the Creator God..."
After muttering to himself for a long time, Berus finally turned his gaze to Abel.
"And your words are contradictory. Weren't you the first to try to stab me in the back? Now that things have come to this, you have no right to complain about whatever happens to you."
"...Whether we plotted or not, the ending we'd have to face would have been the same anyway."
"Well, I acknowledge that."
Berus nodded readily.
Seeing this, Abel was about to explode with rage, but Gray beside him desperately stopped Abel.
"Now I understand."
"What do you mean?"
Gray glared at Berus with sunken eyes.
"'Back then,' you weren't defeated by the Avatar of Destruction. You deliberately 'let yourself be defeated.'"
"......"
"And the Avatar of Destruction we defeated... was you all along!"
It had been a hypothesis they hadn't pursued further since everything was over, but now that hypothesis regained meaning.
Hearing Gray's confident words, Berus nodded readily.
"Hmm, probably... that's right. If I hadn't obtained Deus' fragment in the past, I would have planned to steal the Avatar of Destruction body."
's final boss, the Avatar of Destruction. It was the moment when the true identity of what had blocked the protagonist party in the original work was revealed.
"Why... why go that far? You're the successor to the Creator God, practically the most noble existence in this world!"
"Does that have any particular meaning?"
"What?"
"Even if I'm the supreme god, what meaning does that have in a world where the ending is predetermined?"
"......"
"Let me tell you one thing. A fact that neither the Goddess of Fate nor others knew..."
Berus calmly brought out the greatest secret he had wanted to hide.
"On the Day of Great Liberation, when that happens... I, who was the ruler of the previous world, will lose all my power."
"Wh-what!"
Not only Gray and Abel, but even Medaiel, who had been quietly observing the situation, widened his eyes.
"They call it the Day of Great Liberation, but it's essentially the day of destruction. A chaotic period when all beings in this world engage in infinite struggle to qualify for passage to the next genesis."
"......"
"But in such times, who would be the most advantageous, most powerful, and most likely existence?"
No one spoke, but even a child would know the answer.
"Normally, it would obviously be me, Berus, sitting at the pinnacle of the divine throne."
No matter how much all divinity escaped from causality, if it were Berus, he could quickly quell the chaos by reuniting the Seven Great Gods. If that happened, Berus' throne could continue eternally and immortally no matter what destruction came.
"To prevent that, the Creator God established one constraint from ancient times."
"Is that the constraint of losing power?"
"That's right."
Throughout eons of time, countless ages of genesis and destruction had passed. And each time those eras passed, without exception, the absolute ruler of the previous era could not pass to the next era.
"This is a binding by the Creator God that even I cannot do anything about. And I've done much thinking and attempting to escape this binding."
This was also the reason why Berus had disappeared early in the original work, and why he was doing such things now.
"And one more thing."
Berus' finger pointed toward Abel and Gray.
"You are not beings summoned from the 'future.'" "What?"
"You are remnants of the previous era... precisely, those designated as 'protagonists' in a completed past story. You might also be the greatest victims of the Creator God's mischief."
"......?"
Abel tilted his head, and Gray bit his lips as if realizing something.
"Restoring you who were buried in the cracks of spacetime was never an easy task. I barely succeeded by borrowing Deus' power. Even then it was incomplete."
At that moment, Gray glared at Berus as if to kill him.
"As expected, that adjustment wasn't just causing physical changes."
Each time his companions went in and out of that mysterious glass tube, they began to regain memories and powers they had lost. But each time, Gray found something suspicious. Why go through such troublesome procedures, why would a being called a Great God handle things so sloppily. And why were all the summoned companions from mismatched time periods.
"We weren't summoned beings but created beings."
"......!"
"You're quick to catch on."
"It was the worst assumption I had considered... but to think this would actually be correct. Ha, haha...!"
Gray let out a dry laugh. He had thought that Berus used temporal interference to summon them, but to think he had performed 'creation' rather than 'summoning'! Berus sent applause to Gray with a gentle smile.
"But even though you're created beings, you two were strong enough to notice and break free from my restraints in that short time. I applaud your ability."
"The one sending compliments tried to eliminate us using our companions?"
In front of Abel and Gray stood not only Rebecca but also Crux and Evangeline side by side. They too, like Rebecca, existed only as living corpses with eyes black as death.
"It's an experiment, after all."
"...An experiment?"
"I've always been curious."
Berus said with a slight smile.
"If they succeeded in continuing to survive against fate, how far would they reach..."
Rebecca, one of those results, had already overcome her self-destructive future and awakened to a new future as 'All Eater.' Then what about Evangeline and Crux?
"They don't have the Seven-Colored World, but they're still beings full of possibilities."
That was a fact Abel and Gray, who had been their companions, knew best.
"Even if Eden's function is limited to simple restoration, if combined with the creative ability I possess... creating 'possibility' itself is sufficiently feasible."
WHOOOOSH! The moment those words ended, ominous energy began bursting forth from Crux and Evangeline's bodies.
"I will escape this damn fate."
A bloody smile formed on Berus' lips. ...This happened shortly before Rudian and his party met Metatron. *** Satera's head whipped around. A crack in space that appeared nearby. Satera herself had prohibited spatial movement. Yet the fact that this crack occurred now meant it was the work of one of the deputy administrators Satera had appointed.
"This can't be..."
She had told them to use this authority to handle any intruders in the Pantheon... but she never imagined they would send them here. Ruura smiled broadly at the familiar energy felt from beyond that crack.
"You fell into your own trap, Satera."
Even at Ruura's mockery, Satera's expression remained calm.
"We'll have to see about that. Rather, this is something I intended."
Not long after, Rudian and his party appeared in droves through that space.
"You came?"
"Lady Ruura."
"Well done coming. Since things turned out this way, you all lend a hand too."
"However, before that, there's something I must tell you..."
Rudian informed them that all areas of the Pantheon had been sealed, and due to this, there was a very high possibility that the archangels who had entered first had fallen into a trap. After hearing Rudian's words, Ruura nodded.
"I wondered why... It was strange that this corpse of a woman was blocking me with just those things, excluding the small fry." 'Those things' referred to lower deities who couldn't exert their power while being blocked by Ruura's subordinate deities.
"Ruura... how dare you!"
"Did I say anything wrong?"
Ruura grinned and bared her teeth at Satera.
"I'm the goddess of love, but there are a few beings I absolutely cannot love, and that woman is one of them."
"......"
"More than a few deities were unjustly driven out because of that woman's damn politics."
There were many like Kuliak, the mountain god, who originally didn't particularly follow Mars but still fell from grace. It was natural that such actions by Satera appeared quite unpleasant in Ruura's eyes.
"Since the situation has come to this, it's now a race against time."
Ruura looked at Rudian's party.
"Satera will definitely lift the Pantheon's closure and bring the deities here."
If that happened, it would be game over. There would essentially be no answer.
"I'll block that as much as possible, so you eliminate Satera in the meantime."
"What's the time limit?"
"10 minutes."
"......"
Rudian's expression twisted sharply. Even so, to subdue one of the Seven Great Gods in 10 minutes! Actually, it was impressive that Ruura could buy 10 minutes in what was essentially the enemy's stronghold... 'Actually, if we consider the odds, they're not that low.' What Ruura meant by 'blocking' was blocking Satera's administrator authority over the Pantheon, but it also meant sealing part of Satera's power. 'This way, it's cheaper than breaking through the Pantheon's traps head-on.' Just as Rudian finished his calculations and was about to enter battle stance: "Wait."
For some reason, Satera sighed deeply and stopped Rudian.
"...What?"
He didn't lower his guard, thinking she might be plotting something, but unexpectedly, the words that came from Satera's mouth were completely beyond expectation.
"I surrender."