Hell Erodes Reality
Kalia lifted a hand, light and easy. The sword in his grip was coiled in the Light of Destruction.
He swung it down in a slow, simple arc, from high to low, a low pulsing hum rolling off the blade.
It was nothing more than a simple swing, but Kalia knew: this single stroke alone was something his opponent could not block.
The Light of Destruction poured forward, spitting a radiance that crawled over the skin.
Sword Gang…
An exceedingly dangerous power—one granted only to those standing near the very summit of the world. High-tier and supreme-tier. The line dividing the two came down to a single thing, and yet that single thing was an absolute gap. The light that reduced all things to ruin boasted absolute offensive power.
If I take that head-on, I die.
Lee Seoha crouched low. White Rainbow flashed—Heukcheon left its sheath—and in the same breath a dense power of negation coiled around the demonic sword, composing itself along the blade's edge.
The holy knights reacted as well.
Gilliam, a holy knight of the high tier, was the first to raise the invocation. From high in the vast heavens, an immense light gushed forth and lent its strength to theirs.
In the space of an instant, Heukcheon met the Sword Gang head-on. A searing grind—Reverse Heaven's Ki denied the Sword Gang. Yet the Light of Destruction merely had its strength pared away, still spitting deep violet.
Then Gilliam raised his greatsword, wreathed in a brilliance where every shade of divinity churned.
Divinity.
A power forged by fusing ten divinities into one. Unlike most abilities, divinity mixed well—whether because it flowed from an integrated space called Baekshinjeon, or simply because that was divinity's nature, no one could say. Such was its quality.
Gilliam felt that, for this one breath, he had stepped just past the limit of his own tier.
"How clumsy."
"Shut your filthy mouth, spawn of evil."
Gilliam swung his greatsword. Kalia swung his blade, lips curling into a wicked grin.
KRA-KOOOOOOOM—!!
A single collision. The shockwave rippling out from it blew every window in the vicinity to shards.
Gilliam gritted his teeth. He had been driven back. That Light of Destruction had crumbled the divinity that made up his power.
No—rather…
The black, utterly ominous power of negation that boy wielded seemed to have gnawed even deeper into his Sword Gang.
"Hey."
"Yes, speak."
"Is there anything we can do to help?"
"…Such as shaving down his power?"
At Lee Seoha's words, Gilliam narrowed his eyes. That negating power the boy carried—his own god had called it a force rooted in Law itself, one that, should it gather divinity, might well stand as their equal.
The word of a god is absolute. Gilliam could not comprehend it, but the God of Light was a being greater than himself, and he painted his doubt over with faith.
I cannot understand it. That power of negation denied everything, friend and foe alike. Perhaps it was the price of such strength—a flaw one might rightly call a weakness. It seemed to deny even a blessing itself.
"Finished talking? Or have you still not grasped reality?"
Kalia said it smiling. Inwardly, Gilliam conceded the point—and precisely for that reason, he could not let that fiend slip away from this place.
At the very least, I will maim him. If the price was his own life and his knights', it would be enough. Baekshinjeon was merely raining down divinity, refusing to intervene in the battle of transcendants—which meant something had gone wrong within Baekshinjeon itself. If so, that fiend could not be allowed to run wild.
Meanwhile, Lee Seoha was thinking.
…This is tougher than I expected.
The parasite, Kalia, had yet to draw out anything like his real strength. All he had used was the Light of Destruction, the very symbol of the supreme tier. He hadn't unleashed his mental world. He hadn't unleashed the power gained from the being of the Outer Realm.
—Seoha.
What is it.
…Run. If it's now, you can still get away.
No.
Without a flicker of hesitation, Lee Seoha answered, absolute.
Paewang and Cheongyeon might die. Beyond them, the Emperor might die. Seo Gayeon might die. Seong Hanbyeol and Hong Yuhwa might die. Kim Ara, Kim Seohyun, Erciel, Seol Hwaryeon—they might die too. These were people who could never be allowed to die here.
Do I have to use it? Lee Seoha still had a card left to play. No—could that even be called a card? That technique, closer to a berserk frenzy than a move, would devour Lee Seoha's very life. And even that gave him no certainty it would kill that thing.
Light flared.
"…What—"
Kalia faltered. From where Lee Seoha had pressed his hands together, golden light was erupting. Faith—the belief of those who could rightly be called his faithful, made manifest.
"Focus your divinity on that boy—now!"
Gilliam didn't know what was happening, but he commanded his knights first all the same. Here, now, he judged Lee Seoha to be the only one capable of wounding Kalia—and a power like that would fuse with their divinity without resistance.
Divinity was added to faith, and the light grew brighter still. The whole district had long since drowned in gold. And now, he added the Flame of Imagination.
Flames roared up across the golden world. Every divinity swirled, merged, and became fire.
"Ah-ha. So you were that famous Masked Man who appeared in Korea. Hiding your identity all this while—rather sly of you. But to think you carry two powers at once. How unexpected."
Kalia spoke through his grin, and in truth he was delighted. Parasitism—one of his talents. He held the power to migrate between bodies. The vessel he wore now was a fine one indeed… but the vessel called Lee Seoha had begun to look far more tempting.
"Then—shall I serve you a little more despair?"
Kalia began to move, slow and unhurried. If he so wished, killing them would be simple. But that would not sate his palate. A demon becomes pure greed; one who reached his realm could restrain it—he simply did not. Laughably enough, that very indulgence had pushed his realm even higher.
He had despaired of the world. Born with a hideous face, he had been hated by all. Pointed at. Sneered at. For nothing more than that one face, stones had been hurled at him, and in the end his own parents cast him away.
And then he met the being of the Outer Realm.
And Kalia awakened his talent—the talent called Parasitism. With the power to leap from body to body, he dragged his own village into ruin. Sons killed their fathers; parents killed their children. He set neighbor against neighbor until blades flashed in every street.
And it had been, truly. A delightful thing.
Kalia drew out one of his cards. The beings of the Outer Realm were powers that existed outside the Law. Cruel, and grotesque—and for that very reason, strong. Their power knew nothing of creation. It only crushed, ground down, destroyed, and erased.
The extreme radiance of darkness descended. Kalia reached out, and a force of darkness mingled with violet bloomed in his palm. The Light of Destruction went dark; he moved with deliberate slowness.
Lee Seoha moved in answer—golden flame draped about him, the frost-gleaming Winter Sword in hand. A flash of blue and golden flame entwined, with divinity surging close behind. And opposite them hung a sphere of darkness shot through with violet.
The sphere hummed, and space warped. The power his patron had granted him was Distortion—and that power, which distorts all things, collided with the Winter Sword bearing golden flame.
…What is this.
Kalia felt a creeping unease. He couldn't have said why. Only that something here was dangerous.
Lee Seoha thrust out his hand. In an instant too brief for the word 'moment,' Reverse Heaven's Ki flooded over his palm—a dominion over the Reverse Heaven's Ki that had now surpassed even the Heavenly Demons of old. In a single beat, the negating force wrapped around Heukcheon denied a portion of the violet sphere, exactly as Lee Seoha willed.
The flash of blue and gold pierced straight through the darkness.
Kgh! I hacked up dead blood and spat it out, then fine-tuned the Reverse Heaven's Ki, adjusting my ruined body through the Black God Art.
My gut's been run clean through.
Kalia had countered my attack. At a speed even I hadn't registered, he flicked his blade out and stabbed through my stomach. I was rubbing elixirs into the wound, but at this rate, rejoining the fight would be difficult. Recovery's too slow. On top of that, mine was a body divinity didn't work on—I'd likely be out of the battle for some time.
But.
More bitter than any of it—
—Khh…
—was that I hadn't landed a single proper blow on Kalia.
—You truly are an absurd existence!
A laugh rang out, madness and jealousy braided together, drunk on delight.
Kalia had taken on a different form. Jet-black demonic energy sheathed his whole body. His arms had multiplied to four, each reshaped into something like a living blade; eight tentacles writhed where a tail should have been, and his head had deformed into the likeness of a mask.
—Don't even think about fighting. You are, right now, a vessel more precious than anything.
The ground trembled with every step he took.
—First, let me kill these false prophets. Then we'll talk.
So saying, Kalia turned his gaze upon the knights.
—What you see before you is a power far beyond your reckoning. Die, and count it an honor.
[World Erosion]
His words engrave themselves into the world.
Red light burst from his chest—there could be no more ominous a glow. The sky eroded into crimson, and from beneath the buildings, tentacle-like things began to surge upward. Despair flooded the knights' faces, and Kalia laughed as though it delighted him.
Hell had begun to erode reality.