The Price of Betrayal

Light pours down.

Blue flowers bloom dense and thick all around me until they fill my vision, and at their center sits a small bed arranged like something out of a garden. It is softer than any bed the surface world could ever hope to produce ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠— and my mood could not be worse. Anger wells up hot in my chest, and I kick the covers away and rise to my feet.

An unpleasant power saturates the sky from horizon to horizon. Divinity.

I am in the Celestial Realm.

"So how much longer is this insane 'regulation' supposed to last?"

"Tell me about it. Hah... honestly, why are we expected to care about bugs of all things."

"Last time I traded blows with a demon, my wing got torn because I was busy watching for the wretched things. If we'd simply swept them aside, we could have pulped them in a single blow."

"Well, they say the border situation is turning serious, so it should end soon enough. Let's choose to believe that, hm?"

......

A corridor in a colossal temple, whiter than white.

Two celestial knights in armor of divinity walked straight past me without a glance. My presence suppressed to nothing, I had already clenched my fingers around the White Savior in its spear form.

Should I kill them?

From the moment Drak revealed that I carried power connected to the celestials, I had braced myself for something like this.

The being who issued the mission was a celestial.

The power had been handed down by a celestial, and I'd assumed the trial of the Multicolored Successor must likewise be a trial imposed by one. What I hadn't anticipated was that the trial would take place inside the Celestial Realm itself.

I had only set foot here two or three times in my life, and even then I'd done nothing but circle the outskirts before leaving. Not because my power was insufficient, and not because infiltration was difficult.

Because this place is crawling with disgusting things.

A single celestial is enough to make my blood boil, and here they live swarming together in droves. Their numbers don't rival humanity's, but they're hardly few, either. There is not one shred of me that wants to linger among them.

I'd sooner have gone to the Demon Realm.

"......"

Judging by the scale, the architecture, and the knights on patrol, this had to be the Celestial Realm's interior. And with demons and celestials still at each other's throats, this was clearly a snapshot of the past.

The wing-shaped crest the knights just now had been wearing was one I recognized — and the knight order that bore that crest had been wiped out to the last man by a single flick of a high-ranking demon's wrist.

Their souls had been split into thousands of threads. Regeneration had been impossible.

"...What is this 'regulation'?"

The topic those celestials had been discussing keeps nagging at me.

'We must care for bugs.'

When celestials say "bugs," they mean every race but their own — and above all, humans.

Celestials, caring about humans? I had never once heard of such a thing. If anything, it would be no less absurd than celestials suddenly losing their minds and going door to door to heal sick humans.

The same logic as demons wandering the roads collecting garbage.

—Hahaha!

Other knights patrol past, laughing that same grating laugh.

Kwaaaah...

I take stock of my power. I am partially settled into my mental world, but as with the Kraken, the fit isn't perfect. In this state, the most I can draw out is a shade better than my fourth tier.

"...!"

"Who the—"

KWAAANG!!!

The fourth tier — the tier that grants not only healing, but destruction. One celestial knight craters into the floor, and the other fumbles his spear out in a panic and shrieks at me.

Distinctly a knight's bearing — and true to celestial form, blisteringly fast spearwork.

Lower rank... edging close to mid, though?

Strong enough to chew through players and most world bosses without breaking stride. Of course—

KWAAANG!!!

—only by those standards.

"Kgh...! Who... who are you...!"

"You lunatic, do you have any idea where this is─!"

"Scream all you like. No one will hear you."

I had already sealed the area in a barrier — from the outside, nothing here looks but an ordinary corridor.

I hoist one celestial's head up off the ground, fragments crumbling away to reveal the smug face beneath. The blue eyes that mark his race quiver uncontrollably, and his disheveled hair has lost its pure-white radiance, fading back to blue.

Sturdy, for a celestial, I'll give him that...

'Weaker than I expected, though.'

"Why so flimsy? And here I thought you were a knight."

"Y-you! Who are you! I am a knight of Lady Lorelies─?!"

Crack!

"Guh-huuuugh?!"

"I'm the one asking questions here."

The celestial crumples in a heap, frothing at the mouth, his arm bent the wrong way.

That's all it took? A bent arm?

I had laced my divinity through him to quiet his mind ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠as much as anything, but I hadn't expected him to fold from just this much. Demons aren't immune to every strain of demonic energy and poison, after all — and celestials, likewise, can't absorb every form of divinity.

Even so. A knight order, supposedly, so I'd at least put some weight behind it...

"Haaah..."

Thud.

I leave the unconscious one where he fell and turn to the other celestial. His face is considerably improved from that arrogant sneer of before.

"Feeling like a conversation now?"

"...Just ask."

"Then recite your identity for ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠me."

"I am Ervino — a member of the Ross Knights, sworn to guard Lady Lorelies' Holy Sanctum. I was patrolling the sanctum's interior with the comrade you just felled."

"Ross."

It matches, beyond doubt, the name of the knight order I watched get slaughtered by demons. The name Lorelies, though, I'm hearing for the first time.

"What is the regulation?"

"The regulation... Hah. You mean that?"

Ervino's face soured the instant the word left my mouth.

"That damned regulation has us in an uproar from every direction these days. So you truly haven't heard."

"No."

"Then I'll tell you plainly: the regulation commands us to avoid killing 'humans' wherever possible."

"...What?"

Don't kill what?

"Absurd, isn't it? I could not agree more. They nag and nag at us to mind vermin. I don't care that it came down from above — it makes no sens─"

WHACK!!

I brought the shaft of my spear down across Ervino's skull. His head dented inward and he slammed into the floor, but being a celestial, his body knitted itself back together at speed.

Truly, this is what I like about them.

'I can beat on them over and over without worrying about breaking anything.'

"D-did I... did I do something wrong?"

"Not exactly. Well — actually, yes."

"Pardon?"

"Keep talking. And leave out the editorializing."

"...Yes. In any case, that is the situation we find ourselves in. The regulation forbids the killing of the vermin — forgive me. The humans."

"......"

Celestials, forbidden to kill humans.

Having already swallowed Hwangyeolgong Loberian's nonsense in the future, the shock doesn't hit as hard as it might — but this is the past. The past, in the very era when the war raged at its peak.

Naturally, demons and celestials alike had regarded every race but their own as vermin, and humans ranked lower than the pebbles scattered on the roadside. And yet this preposterous regulation existed.

'No. Hold on.'

Unlike demons, celestials do cherish one another — but only within their own clan, their own house. Just as Revelatio, who fashioned the first Saintess, celestials occasionally birth true mutants. It's possible a celestial with a warped temperament and way of thinking commanded those ranked beneath him. But then the decree would have spread only among his followers. It would never have reached the rest.

And yet this reached an entire knight order.

'At the very least, someone above the high tier. Perhaps higher still.'

The Eight Seats is a stretch... no. Even that much I can't rule out. The Eight Seats is, after all, where the truly deranged gather.

"...What are you muttering about?"

"Wh-what do you mean?"

"Never mind. Where is this Lady Lorelies?"

"In her chamber within the sanctum. She is always there to receive her revelations, though of late she has left her seat several times, so─"

"Lead the way."

"Yes."

As I walk behind Ervino, I think.

This place is the trial of the one who crafted the Light of Heritage. This era of the past must, naturally, be tied to its maker — and from the moment "revelations" were mentioned, it became all but certain.

'Lorelies is very likely the maker.'

Mistress of the Holy Sanctum, and the being who, in the far-flung future, entrusted Drak with his mission. Whether I could defeat her as I am now was an open question — but this place itself was an orchestrated trial. They would never have set something utterly beyond my reach in my path.

"Th-this way."

Having guided me before a white door, Ervino steps back. An immense door, two or three times my own height.

Clunk!

The moment I draw near, the massive door swings open and light spills out. Beyond the glow, a gigantic throne looms into view.

Disgusting.

The loathsome divinity makes my brow crease all on its own.

KU-GUNG!

Right on cue, the door grinds shut behind me, and a massive figure concealed within the light turns his gaze on me. A blue-haired man who looks to be twice my size. A long spear rests across his shoulder, and his blue eyes gleam brighter than the light itself.

"What is the meaning of this."

"So you're Lorelies—"

"An intruder, Sir Captain!"

?

The voice echoes from beyond the sealed door.

"What is it, Ervino."

"He appears to be of another house — he invaded the sanctum and ambushed two of our knights! We were utterly outmatched, so we lured him here to you!"

"Oh ho. Is that so?"

The Knight Captain closes his grip around his spear and looks down at me with naked interest.

I draw the White Savior in turn and cast my gaze back beyond the door.

"...You do know celestials don't get a second chance."