Chaos at the Entrance Ceremony (Interlude)
"..."
Cold sweat beaded on Arhen Isis's brow as her eyes traveled down the parchment before her. She had believed the amethyst gouged from that demon's flesh would hold the answers, which was why she had covertly commissioned the imperial magitech analysis division under absolute secrecy. Now, their official report had finally arrived. She had suspected something was amiss, but this surpassed her worst expectations.
— The large amethyst is presumed to be the heart of a Supreme Devil.
"So it really was a heart..."
Having watched it burst from the creature's chest, she had harbored her suspicions, but confirming it was another matter entirely. Arhen scratched vigorously at her bangs, a scowl of sheer irritation creasing her youthful face. For a mere High Demon to have the heart of a Supreme Devil embedded within its chest was fundamentally unnatural.
— A barrier magic circle presumed to be at least Archmage-tier, along with the supreme spell ⟨ Explosion ⟩—castable at the cost of the user's demonic energy—has been memorized within...
"At least Archmage-tier..."
The magic circle itself had proved entirely impossible to decipher. The report concluded with an addendum explaining that while it bore the structure of a defensive barrier, its reliance on demonic energy as a fuel source—coupled with the undeniable touch of an Archmage—rendered full analysis impossible.
Just as I feared...
There was an insider. Nothing else could explain the current situation. It was the only conclusion that made any sense.
They didn't break through the barrier I erected, either.
The barrier blanketing Arhen Academy was no ordinary formation. Woven through her personal magic, the Power of the Word, it functioned as an absolute domain. Piercing such a sanctuary was outright impossible for anyone who had not reached her level—an Archmage capable of defying the very laws of the world. Even if someone had managed to breach it, she would have sensed the intrusion the exact instant it occurred.
In other words, they had bypassed it.
And that was infinitely more dangerous. How they had achieved it mattered little; the terrifying reality was that the conspirator possessed enough skill and influence to bypass her grand barrier entirely and smuggle a demon onto campus grounds.
A cautious bastard, too.
By ruthlessly dissecting the demon's memories and consciousness, she had confirmed two critical facts: the Demon King had indeed resurrected, and a traitor lurked within their midst. She had even unearthed the full scope of the demon's objective—to rip open a gate directly connecting the Academy to the Demon Realm. Yet the traitor, anticipating this very outcome, had never once revealed their identity to the demon.
When dealing with an adversary presumed to be an Archmage, even someone of Arhen's caliber could not easily unmask them.
If I make a clumsy move to hunt them down, I might lose their tail entirely...
She had to conceal her investigation completely, tracking their faint traces in secret until she could snap the jaws shut before they could even react. An Archmage... Could the mastermind behind this be a Supreme Devil? Or perhaps something even worse?
If that skeleton has started moving, this is bad.
If that entity was involved, every step she took had to be calculated with utmost precision. One slip, and she would be swallowed whole. Sweating from a prickle of unease, Arhen crunched down hard on the hard candy in her cheek and swallowed it in a single gulp.
Right at that moment, an arcane circle ignited in midair, and a brilliant silhouette clad in pure white materialized from the glow.
Looking up from her papers, Arhen's face soured into a deep frown as she let out a heavy sigh.
"You're late, Aselina."
"I came as fast as I could, you know..."
Aselina Sunlight—a striking blonde woman bearing a singular silver horn that emanated a gentle, radiant luminescence—answered with an awkward, troubled murmur.
"Honestly, playing the Pope has made you far too comfortable taking your sweet time, hasn't it?"
"My, look who's talking, Arhen. Don't you put on that crotchety grandmother act whenever the children are watching?"
"...Well, given my actual age, can you blame me? If the headmaster of the Academy acted like one of their peers, the brats wouldn't take me seriously."
Arhen turned her head away with a huff, grumbling that teasing her about such trivialities was foul play. Watching her with an affectionate, amused gaze, Aselina crossed the office with practiced familiarity and settled onto the sofa.
"So, what brings your grand self all the way out here?"
"Oh, come now, as if you don't already know."
"It's about the Saintess, isn't it?" Arhen grumbled, her face tightening.
Good grief. She had intentionally suppressed the news and buried the incident to prevent public panic, yet somehow this Guardian Dragon had caught wind of it and come flying over. Arhen stared at her in exasperation, but the moment she caught the melancholy shadowing Aselina's eyes, her irritation dissolved into a weary sigh.
"Eris is dead, Aselina."
"I know... My heart is just a little conflicted."
"She fought with everything she had, and she's resting peacefully at the side of God now. Stop projecting the people of the past onto the children of the present."
Arhen added that now was hardly the time for reminiscing and urged her to get to the point, fishing another hard candy from her pocket and popping it into her mouth. Still looking upon the archmage with sorrowful eyes, Aselina finally spoke.
"You're aware there's an insider, aren't you?"
"I haven't pinpointed them yet. It's merely an educated deduction for now."
"I see you've already figured it out." Aselina offered a faint, self-deprecating smile before letting the atmosphere turn solemn. Arhen's shoulders involuntarily tensed at the sudden shift. "To be completely honest, I originally came just to ask what had happened."
"Well... naturally."
Even as a Guardian Dragon, Aselina was not omniscient. Arhen knew that better than anyone, just as she knew why a being who rarely stirred for anything had personally intervened today. The ancient dragon doted on this generation's Saintess to an absurd degree; anyone blind to that would have to be an idiot.
However...
Aselina's voice took on a strange, tremulous cadence.
"The thing is, I noticed something rather bizarre."
At those words, Arhen stopped skimming her documents and glanced up, her brow knitting in confusion. "Something bizarre?"
"Bizarre... or perhaps I should call it a stroke of miraculous fortune? I happened to see it on my way here." It was something Aselina had never imagined in her wildest dreams—a relic long thought lost to the annals of history, resting squarely in the hands of her precious Saintess. A bead of cold sweat rolled down Aselina's cheek. "Aria possessed Lord Solios's sacred relic... the Red Stone of Radiant Sunlight."
"What...?"
The candy slipped from Arhen's lips, clattering onto the desk. Her eyes were wide with genuine shock; the mention of a divine relic had caught her entirely off guard.
A holy relic of the gods drew forth the absolute pinnacle of a bearer's divine power. To be precise, it dragged out the user's inherent affinity for sacred energy to its utmost limits. The Red Stone of Radiant Sunlight was an artifact that amplified purifying divine power, allowing its wielder to unleash the maximum purification authority their mortal vessel could withstand.
And such a relic was in Aria's possession.
"Why would the Sun God's relic be in that Saintess's hands...?"
"Lord Solios's relic was lost within the Demonic Realm centuries ago. Aria must have unearthed it during her time there."
Then the situation made even less sense. If it had been any other relic, perhaps it could be excused—but why would Aria, holding the sacred relic of the Sun God dedicated entirely to purification, fail to defeat a mere High Demon and instead allow herself to be battered half to death?
"That makes no sense... Before I arrived, that girl was being thoroughly ravaged by the demon..."
"..."
Aselina offered no answer. In truth, she was just as blind to the truth as Arhen.
The Aria she knew was a tragic, selfless girl who threw herself into endless sacrifice solely to save others. Her journey to the Demonic Realm had been spurred entirely by hearing that countless souls were dying along the northern front lines to hold humanity's final defense. Aselina had tried to dissuade her back then, but unable to break Aria's noble resolve, she had ultimately yielded and sent her north.
Just what happened to you out there, my child...?
When she had dispatched Aria to the Demonic Realm, she had withheld her divine draconic blessing. Whatever had transpired in those frozen wastes remained known only to Aria and the soldiers stationed there. The only certain fact was that she had saved countless lives, dying and sacrificing herself over and over in their stead. What horrors had she faced? How had she recovered the ancient relic?
And most baffling of all...
"Why didn't she use the relic...?"
Why had she refused to draw upon its power? Aselina desperately wanted to understand.
Purifying a High Demon was a monumental feat in its own right, and capturing one alive was an achievement beyond compare. Even so, it was impossible to believe that Aria had willingly thrown her frail body into torment just to secure a live captive. Things had miraculously resolved because the Hero happened to stumble onto the scene, because a clever mage devised a plan, and because Arhen—returning to the Academy by sheer chance—sensed the anomaly, followed the girl's trail, and barely managed to capture the demon alive.
To claim this sequence of events had been orchestrated from the start required far too many impossible coincidences layered one atop another. Unless she possessed the power of absolute foresight, planning such an outcome was completely beyond mortal capability.
Aria...
What could that gentle child possibly be thinking? Why did she persist in tormenting her own body and spirit to such an agonizing degree? Not as the Pope, but simply as Aselina, she wanted nothing more than for that little girl to find happiness.
Aselina turned her sorrowful gaze toward the distant sky, haunted by the memory of another Saintess born centuries ago into an era steeped in bloodshed—and the wretched, heartbreaking end that had claimed her.