Awakening of the Saintess (5)
A few minutes earlier.
Isaac had knocked the ritual priests flat on their backs and strode into the ceremonial hall. At its center sat a summoning circle linked to a god's summons.
Passing through the circle, Isaac and his party found themselves facing a long, tunnel-like burrow—a narrow passage wide enough for only one person at a time, which must have been utterly suffocating from Isaac's point of view.
And sure enough, Isaac came stomping out of the tunnel, having ruthlessly trampled his grandfather on the way, eyes blazing.
The moment he stepped over Eli, an enormous lake reminiscent of the open sea spread out before him. On top of that, a powerful light was pouring down from the cloud-choked sky straight into the water.
The corners of Isaac's mouth had no choice but to curl upward. Uhehehehe.
As expected of a god! My delectable prey has arrived!
And that wasn't all.
That aura—now THIS is a windfall! Puhehehe-uhet!
It had taken him an instant to place it. This power belonged to the god contracted to him. Not the Supreme God—the current power broker of the God Realm, in other words.
[You mean the bastard who shoved the contract in my master's face?]
Well, yes. Ultimately, it was that one who had him sealed into the maggot—or so he figured.
Granted, it had been the God of the Penal Code's spawn and various other high-ranking deities who had come hauling the maggot along, but the one who'd cast the sealing spell had been that fellow.
Except a heavyweight like that would never descend to the mortal realm in person, so it was a given that it'd be one of his underlings. Not that it took any guessing.
This revolting aura, unmistakably—
Puheheheheh, yes. He's under that one's command, all right.
His chest was pounding so hard it felt ready to burst, and he could barely contain himself.
Meanwhile, unlike Isaac, who was whooping it up like a maniac, Eli—who had just been trampled—was pinching the bridge of his nose as if he wanted to die.
...What on earth am I going to do with this monstrous grandchild of mine...?
Where, exactly, had things gone so wrong?
Was it a lack of faith that had made him like this?
Was it?
Right—if he filled the boy up with some proper faith, maybe the problem would solve itself???
Of course, said grandchild was, at that very moment, plotting deicide rather than cultivating any faith whatsoever, but that wasn't the point.
We have to hurry.
Eli's eyes snapped open as he stared out toward the lake. In real time, a sacred summoning circle was being etched into the air beneath the torrent of light cascading from the heavens.
Once that circle was complete, the god would descend. To devour the living sacrifice and awaken the Saintess.
Joseph and Leah both seem unharmed, at least for now.
Their faces were no bigger than match heads at this distance, but Joseph and Leah were inside the temple that curved protectively around the lakeshore.
Having swiftly confirmed his bloodline was safe, Eli hurried toward the water.
"Benyamin's over there."
"!"
At Eli's words, Isaac turned to look out over the lake. At the very center of the vast expanse of water floated a small boat.
And on that boat was Benyamin, dressed in white sacrificial vestments. Worse, he was bound tight with rope to the mast and... wait. Tied up??!
For Isaac, the sight was so outrageous that profanity was the only possible response.
"For fuck's sake, you're not even being thrown down a well—what the hell IS that??"
My precious cash cow is out there playing catch of the day for some god to snap up? HUH?!
How DARE they!
Sparks flew from Isaac's eyes.
"Grandpa! Move it!"
Shouting as if furious, he hastily invoked a holy art.
⟨ Wave Walking (6th Tier) ⟩
As the high-tier holy art activated, azure holy power wrapped around their bodies.
Sreeek!
Holding that state, Isaac unleashed his high-speed dash and in the blink of an eye came skimming out over the lake.
WHOOOM!
A great spray of water erupted as two straight beams of azure light split the lake in half.
Eli, chasing after his impious grandchild, felt an odd relief well up inside him. It looked like filial impiety, and yet—watching how fiercely the boy doted on his uncle—maybe it wasn't impiety after all.
As the two of them shot toward the middle of the lake, Joseph, who had been watching, practically bounced off the walls with joy.
"Yes! Now it's over! Grandfather and Isaac are here!"
He turned to where Leah lay collapsed, his face caught somewhere between laughing and crying.
"It's going to be all right now, Leah. You'll save Father!"
In Leah's eyes—seized and puppeteered by something foreign—tears were visibly welling up. No doubt tears of joy and hope: the knowledge that she would not have to kill her own father.
The Gold Cardinal, on the other hand, was thoroughly flustered.
Why are those two here?
Hadn't they gone to Verith?
Don't tell him the Pope had failed to stop them?
No—worse, Kina had headed that way. And now Isaac of all people was here too?
Urgency clawed at the Gold Cardinal's chest. That particular pairing was an extremely bad one. The Blue Cardinal was no pushover either, but at least that man's moves were predictable.
That boy is the kind you can never guess what he'll do next.
Frankly, for a conservative house like Gold, he was the single most unwelcome enemy imaginable.
But the Gold Cardinal quickly steadied himself and hurriedly summoned the priests.
"Those are intruders attempting to obstruct the Saintess's awakening! Hold them until the god descends!"
"Under orders!"
The priests stationed inside the temple rushed frantically toward the lake.
Watching Isaac's party approach, the Gold Cardinal's brow knitted.
Even with them here, there's no real variable. The god has already been summoned. It will descend as planned and devour the living sacrifice.
And yet—why?
Why was the Skeleton Demon King's relic giving off light?
Uneasily, the Gold Cardinal looked down at the object he'd seized from Joseph. The minions he'd called in to handle the disturbance had also drawn near, startled.
"Your Eminence, that relic—!"
"Yes. The Skeleton Demon King's talisman."
"!"
So his eyes hadn't deceived him. What the man held was a brooch on a cord, recovered centuries ago as war loot when the Pope himself fought the Skeleton Demon King.
"Wasn't that kept in the Holy See's forbidden vault?"
"Then how did—!"
The Gold Cardinal frowned.
To be fair, even the "forbidden vault" was accessible to 1st-Grade Priests. The Eshua direct line had ties to priests of that rank, so it wouldn't have been easy, but if they set their minds to it, they could have gotten their hands on it.
Fine. So they'd stolen it—he could accept that much. But why was a relic that hadn't emitted a single ray of light in hundreds of years suddenly reacting?
It had never once done this before...!
Is it glowing because it's antithetical to the god?
"Regardless, stop them at once! The living sacrifice must not be taken!"
At his command, the Gold priests moved to block Eli and Isaac—but
"You worthless trash."
Along with the Head of House Blue's murderous glare, a torrent of overwhelming holy power came hammering down on the Gold priests.
BOOOOM!!!
"Gwaaagh!!"
"Aaack! Oof—hurk!"
The Gold priests were knocked helplessly head over heels into the lake, swept away without so much as a fight.
"Kkuhk!"
As expected, getting anywhere near the Head of House Blue was simply impossible.
Monsters capable of facing a Cardinal were already vanishingly rare in this world—and this was the mightiest of them all. Enough said.
"Forgive us! Against men like these, we—!"
The Gold Cardinal clicked his tongue. When summoning a god, one generally wanted to avoid mixing in other powers, precisely to prevent variables.
Left with no choice, he invoked a holy art of his own.
⟨ Exclusion of Purity (9th Tier) ⟩
In the same breath, he slammed his foot into the ground.
A colossal force of Gold erupted outward, ready to hurl the intruders clean off the lake.
WHOOOM!!!
The strike was aimed unmistakably at Isaac—but Eli reached out a hand, as if to say, not a chance.
BOOOOM!!!
Azure light and golden light collided savagely above the lake.
KUGUGUNG!
"Aaagh!"
"Kuuhk!"
A blinding flash split the air, and a massive quake shook the earth. A stupendous storm—enough to flip the entire lake on its head—swept through the ceremonial hall.
Riding the chaos, Eli flung his hand out in open fury.
"You filthy mongrel. On MY water, you dare lay hands on whomever you please?"
As Eli clenched his fist, a colossal waterspout erupted from the lake's surface as if it had detonated. A tsunami vast enough to wipe the temple clean off its foundations crashed down upon the Gold priests.
"W-water! The water's—!"
"This way! Huergh!"
Having swatted the interference aside, Eli whipped his head around.
"I'll handle things here—hurry!"
He checked on his grandson, whom he'd already sent ahead toward the lake's center. If it was Isaac, the boy could surely bring Benyamin back.
Yes. That was how it should have gone.
FLASH!
At the brilliance erupting behind his back, Eli's face—rarely ever still—froze solid. A light beyond anything the mortal realm could produce came pouring down from behind him.
There was no way Eli could fail to understand what that meant.
KUGUGUGU!!
"...!"
Divine descent.
Eli turned—and bit down on his lip in despair. Within the pillar of light streaming down from the heavens, a god wreathed in golden radiance was revealing itself.
Its writhing form was that of a beast, eerily reminiscent of a dragon.
That was no divine beast, and no magical one either.
A god.
There stood a being of a scale no human could ever hope to compare to.
Eli realized instinctively that they'd been too slow.
One step too late.
He urgently called out to Isaac, who was racing toward Benyamin.
"Isaac! Come back! Any further is too dangerous!"
If this went on, Isaac himself would be devoured by the god.
He shouted himself hoarse, but Isaac paid him no mind whatsoever, drifting farther and farther out toward the heart of the lake.
"Isaac!"
By the time Eli's voice had faded behind him, Isaac had already reached the center of the lake.
[There he is!]
He was just a tiny speck from here, but the figure lashed to the anchored boat was unmistakably Benyamin! Isaac shot straight for the boat and scrambled aboard.
TUNG!
The moment that familiar face clambered up over the gunwale, Benyamin nearly jumped out of his skin.
"Isaac?!"
Glasses off, fully prepped for sacrifice, he had gone deathly white.
"Why are you—no! Do you have any idea where you ARE!"
But Isaac, apparently judging there was no time for a long conversation, went straight to work untying Benyamin's ropes.
"Doesn't matter. Just get ready to move—fast!"
"Are you mad?! Turn back this instant!"
"Yeah, yeah, just cooperate quietl—"
"Will you not BE SILENT! Stay here and you'll be eaten too!"
Isaac glared at Benyamin, thoroughly irritated.
Ugh. Fine, should I just knock him out and drag him?
But mid-rant, Benyamin's face went rigid. Behind Isaac, a colossal golden presence had unfurled across the sky.
[Two offerings.]
"!"
It was a power so vast that human beings looked like nothing more than insects beneath it. Utterly different in order from the angels, guardian deities, and divine beasts he'd witnessed in the mortal realm.
It meant: this one stood on a different plane entirely.
[One lower-grade offering and one of the very highest. These sacrifices will be exceptionally fine eating.]
Isaac tilted his head with an irritated crack of his neck.
[Which one shall I devour first?]
At those words, Isaac clenched his fist and smiled—savagely.
"The one getting eaten is you."