The Shattered Sky
I knew, better than anyone, how many sins the demons were committing in this world.
Murder, of course. Rape and cannibalism on top of that. And even that wasn't where it ended—they toyed with people for sport before they killed them. They force-fed parents the flesh of their own children. They herded parents and children together and egged them on to slaughter one another, with their child's "survival" riding on it, then seized the parents and drove them to kill the very children they'd been fighting for. And through all of it they snickered and sneered, offering the negative power up to the beings of the outer planes.
"The arch-enemy of mankind."
That was what the outer beings and the demons were—things that grew strong by feeding on humanity's negative emotions. The deeper those emotions festered, the more negative power they stockpiled, and the stronger they became.
"They aren't human."
Beasts wearing human skin—no, things far beneath beasts. Even calling them vermin would have been a compliment.
That was what the destruction of Earth meant. A world ruled by demons, and a humanity living lives beneath livestock.
"Hold them back!"
"Kill every last one of those defiled things before they can set foot on this land!"
Outside, chaos had already taken hold. The demons came on in endless ranks; even a rough count put their numbers well past ten thousand.
"What the—how are there that many demons?"
"It's possible."
I looked at the mage soldiers.
...Nazis.
For an empire of evil that ground human beings up, literally, and reforged them into "mage soldiers," an army this size was entirely possible. The Nazi Empire didn't normally intervene here. No—to be exact, it did meddle, but only out of a wish to see the White Temple dragged down into mutual annihilation. For it to come out in force like this, instead of scheming from the shadows...
This is going to be rough.
I looked back. Hong Yuhwa and Seo Gayeon—those two would manage somehow. And then there was Seong Hanbyeol. Her talent was what I needed.
Infinite Chalice (S).
The power of the talent and mystery she carried was absolute—so absolute that it gnawed away at Seong Hanbyeol's very life. The Book of Law (S), a mystery that gave birth to talents. And the Infinite Chalice (S), which supplied an inexhaustible wellspring of mana. The synergy between the two was monstrous. In the early stages, Seong Hanbyeol was a being you simply could not beat.
If I wanted the demons dead and the citizens saved, I had to find her. And she would be, without a doubt, in the most dangerous place of all.
KWAAAAAANG!
A pillar of light came crashing down, trailing a deafening aftershock of mana. Even without the eyes of a sage, the spectacle was plain to see—the surrounding atmosphere convulsing, the mana itself screaming.
"The demons' mana just... vanished?"
In an instant, a void had been carved into the swarm. I hurried forward. Even for Seong Hanbyeol, that strike had been overreach.
"Save the children first! All combat classes, to the front! Priests, fall back and support!"
"This is a state of war! All citizens are to join the fight! Children, get out!"
That momentary gap was a chance to counterattack, too. The time Seong Hanbyeol had bought at such cost was, right now, worth more than gold. The citizens regrouped, step by careful step—most of the people nearby had come to watch the exhibition match, after all. Mid-rankers were dotted through the crowd, and plenty more carried the strength of low-rank heroes and hunters.
"I am Andersen, a paladin in service to the God of Struggle! Everyone, please follow my orders!"
And a high-rank hero had shown up as well.
I ignored all of them and made for Seong Hanbyeol. I found her white as a sheet, a cluster of priests working to restore her.
"Insane—what price could she have possibly paid for that?!"
"It's her lifespan! She needs rest immediately—and gather the priests who serve the Goddess of Fertility!"
I walked up to Seong Hanbyeol.
"You pushed yourself too hard."
"Hahh... if I hadn't... it would have been... d-dangerous... hhk..."
I pulled a natural-restoration potion from my subspace, tipped it into her mouth, and rose to my feet.
"I'm going to use Seo Gayeon's mana."
"...You know how dangerous that is, right? Two of the Seven Evils are gathered here."
Seong Hanbyeol spoke while staring at the sky—the sky that had already begun to crack, splitting apart with an eerie grinding.
"Only the Vile Evil could pull off something like that. It's bringing the whole sky down, space and all..."
"And once that's done, we can't count on help from outside either—is that it? It's fine. The Headmistress will still be able to make it."
"...What?"
"And Gayeon is the only reason we walk out of this alive."
"Save her, and you save more than her. But she cannot come into the open. Not now."
Seong Hanbyeol's tone was resolute.
"Your life is what's on the line here, Senior."
"My life doesn't matter. If it cuts down even one more demon..."
"That's the part of you I like."
"What?"
Seong Hanbyeol's face went blank. I went on.
"Draw the talent of Amplification out with the Book of Law. Yuhwa—you still have that talent you had Erciel pull out for you earlier, right?"
"Yeah."
"Use it to back Gayeon up."
I started forward. The mage soldiers filling the void were closing in, slow and steady.
"I'll buy us time."
I strapped Baekhong to my hip. The Winter Sword had been resting inside it for ages—at maximum stacks, it would stall them for quite a while.
"Hoo."
I breathed. With a single breath, I brought every muscle in my body into tune.
Black God Martial Art. A discipline that forged and tuned the flesh, sending the blood coursing at a dead sprint. I flogged my heart without mercy. My skeleton grew denser, my muscles swelled.
Thud. One step forward. I cut off my breath and drew the Winter Sword. A flash of blue flickered—and the mana of winter froze everything around me solid.
One stroke. With the blade drawn in an instant, I simply cut. No finesse required. My opponent was the arch-enemy of mankind—a thing for which even "vermin" was high praise, one that had to be wiped from existence without exception.
Krrrk-krrrk-krrrk!
The mana of winter ate into space itself. The blade drawn from Baekhong amplified that wintry power, and a blue flash swallowed the mage soldiers whole.
"...Good God."
A thirty-meter radius. The hundred-odd mage soldiers in front of me froze solid and died where they stood.
"Magnificent, boy! I've had my eye on you since the day you so beautifully crushed our Cynthia, but this—words fail me!"
A man appeared amid hearty laughter, his bold, rugged features impossible to miss.
"Rivals we may be, but that resolve of yours—throwing your strength in for our sake—is what a man ought to have. Will you move with us?" said the man who had arrived on a white horse, an anachronism straight out of another age.
"...Good God. The Holy Cross Order."
"You know of us?"
"You're the knightly order that serves the God of Light."
"That we are. Captivated by His radiance, we took Him into our service, and He has since poured grace beyond measure upon us—but introductions first. I am Gilliam, vice-commander of the Holy Cross Order."
Gilliam extended a hand. I took it.
"Lee Seoha."
"Good. Ordinarily I wouldn't dream of borrowing a student's hand, but for what must be done, our strength falls far short. Can you help us?"
"Of course."
"Good. You're clearly planning something—can you tell me how far it will reach?"
"I can wipe out every mage soldier here."
"...So that's the astonishing thing you were doing."
"Please, help the citizens. And once the mage soldiers are dead, lend us your strength."
"Right. Understood."
Gilliam nodded, his expression hardening.
"Never mind that—Seo Gayeon has to be saved."
"It's already too late for that."
I looked up.
Krrk. Krrk. Krrk.
The sky was bursting apart like shards of glass.
"The sky just... broke?"
Not a figure of speech—the literal truth. The sky was scattering like a shattered pane of glass.
The Vile Evil. This was the work of the worst of evils, the one that had climbed to the very summit of this world. Through raw physical strength alone, it had reached into space and shattered it.
The thing Seong Hanbyeol had feared most had come to pass. The space that formed the sky had been blown apart—which meant that for the time being, neither the White Temple nor the Transcendents could intervene here.
"—Kheheheh."
A voice bleak and ghastly rolled across the field. My skull throbbed faintly. The evil at the summit could shake a mind by merely speaking.
"—With this, this place is severed from the outside. There is no longer any opening for the Transcendents to intervene. You ignorant wretches who gaze upon nothing but your gods—wait for them morning and night if it pleases you. The gods will never reach this place."
Every face on the field went rigid.
And in that same instant, starlight came scattering down. It settled around Seo Gayeon, and her black hair began to bleed silver.
Pure white—a brand-new wing of snow white unfurled from her left shoulder.
White Wing.
A flinch. The mage soldiers' gazes shifted, and the Vile Evil's stare locked onto Seo Gayeon and stayed there.
"That's..."
Gilliam stared, frozen.
"Do as your heart desires. That, after all, is your Law."
A book of light appeared before Seong Hanbyeol. The Book of Law. She spread its pages and tore one out.
Amplification.
Her mana exploded upward—and poured, unchecked, into Seo Gayeon.
Hong Yuhwa stretched out her hand, the Crown of the Red Lotus still seated on her head. Her part was coordination: the amplified mana passed to Seo Gayeon, and Gayeon converted it into Starlight Mana.
"I can do this."
With a look that carried, somewhere deep in it, a trace of euphoria, Seo Gayeon reached out toward the mage soldiers. A simple gesture. The result was anything but.
Starlight settled.
The space holding the mage soldiers turned, quite simply, to ash. With a single wave of her hand, nearly a thousand of them were gone.
"What the..."
"...what was that?"
A result beyond comprehension. It wasn't even on the level of a cat toying with mice. The Starlight Mana she carried was affirmative mana—mana that affirmed the death of demons. What I had just witnessed was closer to an illusion or a curse taking hold of its victim than to any clash of power.
At the same moment, a prickling feeling crawled over me. I turned my head.
The Vile Evil was looking at Seo Gayeon.
"—So it's you."
Its eyes gleamed with euphoria.
"—The prophesied one, who will turn every last demon to death."
"And the one who'll deal death to you, too."
"—Foolish child. This is no battlefield for you to intrude upon."
"True."
I agreed with the Vile Evil. This was not a fight at my level.
So I crushed the necklace. The necklace that could call down the Stars—though in a situation like this, Seo Yebin would hardly have been sitting on her hands anyway.
Space rippled. Alongside a colossal surge of mana, something began forcing its way through from the other side.
"—You!"
The Vile Evil roared and hurled a fist at me. More than a kilometer lay between us, yet that punch brought death itself closing in, vivid and inescapable.
Psshaaa—
The fist-wind crumbled. A hand at the end of a long, outstretched arm had caught it.
"Magnificent."
A voice familiar to me—and above all, reassuring—reached my ears.
"You did well, son-in-law. Thanks to you, I've caught the vermin I'd been lying in wait for."
"Who are you calling son-in-law? Don't tell me you're that sure about Kim Ara?"
Dull cracks followed. Paewang twisted his neck and shook out his hands with a series of pops. Beside him stood Cheongyeon, wearing an expression of pure disbelief.
"—Well, well. This is impossible. There should have been no opening left for any of you to intervene."
"Ta-da. As it turns out, there's no such thing as absolute."
I said it with a shrug.
Honestly, though, I'd been startled too. At best, I'd been racking my brain over how we'd survive with just the Emperor and Gayeon.
With Paewang and Cheongyeon— this fight was ours.