Chapter 464
Chapter 464
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 464
Chapter Title: The Fruit of Myth (2)
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“Hmm, I had deliberately held back, gathering everything at once to crush them in one fell swoop in case something like this happened...”
The chairman of the Pantheon’s 12-member council stroked his mustache roughly as he let out a deep sigh.
He, who had survived through countless trials and tribulations, knew well that humans, when cornered, threw caution to the wind.
That was why he had bided his time, preparing meticulously to finish things decisively without giving them any openings...
“Chairman! The remnants of the evil god are starting to expand again!”
“The evacuation of nearby citizens isn’t complete yet. At this rate...”
“Ahh, who could have unleashed such a horrific disaster?!”
Even he hadn’t anticipated a situation like this.
To think that the shadow of a god from another world had been summoned to Earth.
How could anyone have predicted such a miracle was even possible?
‘Whew, but I don’t have time to just sit here agonizing.’
With everyone plunged into chaos by the sudden crisis,
he—one of the Pantheon’s top clerics—couldn’t afford to just issue orders from the rear when every hand was needed.
A chilling divine power flowed from the chairman’s narrowed eyes.
Shaaaaaa—
The authority of a god that froze all things in the world, bringing everything to a halt.
Though its power was less than half of what it was in that other world, the nature of divine power—positioned above all other energies—made even that impossible to ignore.
Squirm, squirm—
But even that force was woefully insufficient to suppress the evil god’s shadow.
The amorphous mass writhed violently, resisting the divine power squeezing it.
Its tentacles, now stretching out from a body the size of a small hill, swept through everything in all directions, devouring all they touched.
“Urgh.”
“Ugh, what the hell is this?!”
Not just the chairman—even the other council members and renowned clerics from various churches joined in, to no avail.
Staunching the disaster’s rapid expansion and buying a momentary respite was the best they could manage.
‘...The matchup is the worst possible.’
It wasn’t that the clerics’ borrowed divine authorities or their own abilities were lacking.
The problem was that, unlike the evil god’s shadow—which inherently carried a god’s majesty—
they had to forcibly drag divine power from beyond dimensions to manifest it on Earth.
‘It’s what they call a difference in class. It’s ignoring most of the coerced force we’ve pooled together. We’re barely holding on thanks to our numbers, but...’
As long as it couldn’t match the imperfect divinity within that existence, it was merely a stopgap.
For now, their limit was minimizing sacrifices and holding out until reinforcements arrived.
‘Even if reinforcements come, exterminating that thing will be tough. Still, it’s the only option right now. If we can just buy time, we can put our heads together and find a way to send it back.’
It wasn’t unreasonable for the chairman to think that way.
However, in his natural assessment amid the sudden crisis, he had overlooked one thing.
“Huh?! W-What’s that...?”
“From the sky...!”
There was another being present who transcended his common sense.
Fwaaaah—!
In an instant,
a fierce gale and blinding flash erupted simultaneously.
Along with a sharp prescience that made their bodies tingle.
Most people instinctively shut their eyes and averted their gazes, but those with ample combat experience kept watching and witnessed the change that occurred in that moment.
———!
A massive sword of light plummeting from the heavens
pierced and scattered the writhing indigo form on the ground in one stroke.
“......!”
The chairman’s eyes widened as he watched the clash of the two divine powers.
And he wasn’t the only one reacting so intensely.
“No way... What did I just see?”
“On equal footing? Even if it’s incomplete, that’s still a god’s shadow!”
Leaving their shock behind, platinum radiance and indigo mist tore at each other in relentless, furious collisions.
House-sized tentacles bursting from the mist were severed by a single flash like lightning, only for the ensuing fog to devour the attacker and the surrounding ground.
Kwaaang—!
Such exchanges raged dozens of times in a single second.
It was a battle so transcendent it made one question if it was truly happening in the mortal world.
Thanks to the divine barrier the clerics had erected, the aftermath didn’t spread far—otherwise, the area would have been reduced to rubble long ago.
‘Oh no!’
The chairman snapped out of his daze as he stared in awe.
No matter how he looked at it, wasn’t this the golden opportunity he’d been praying for?
He couldn’t just let it slip by watching idly.
“Everyone, get it together!”
He rallied the clerics, who had finally caught their breath, and reorganized their formation.
All while stealing awestruck glances at the mythic battlefield, unable to fully hide his admiration.
Of course,
he wasn’t the only one harboring such reverence here.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ Heinrich’s time accelerated to its limit.
In the midst of everything around him slowing to a crawl,
he cleaved a tentacle lunging at him at unimaginable speed with his holy sword, utterly unperturbed by the flow of time.
———!
The angel’s heart pulsing ceaselessly in his chest continuously supplied power throughout his body.
Unlike other clerics who needed to draw divine power from gods in another dimension to wield their authorities,
he possessed his own internal energy generation, allowing him to act faster, more efficiently, and more powerfully.
Endless slashes of light dominated every direction, carving through the fog perpetually targeting him.
It was a display of overwhelming splendor.
But inwardly, he wasn’t pleased at all.
‘This thing has no end.’
How many times had he swung his sword since plummeting from the sky and piercing the evil god’s shadow with that initial strike?
He had unleashed full-power attacks from the start to end it quickly, but hoping to finish a god’s shadow in one blow had been greedy.
At least he could take solace in having blown away a significant portion of its massively expanded mist.
However, this fog was merely a manifestation of the phenomenon.
To truly end it, he needed to destroy the core...
Yet, even with his senses heightened to the max and spamming wide-area attacks to shred the mist entirely, there was no meaningful progress.
———!
Then, strands of energy—imperceptible as to when they’d approached—clung to his body like spiderwebs.
They multiplied in the blink of an eye, wrapping around him in threads.
Not even his transcendent senses, nor the world’s causality and laws, could resist such deceptive encroachment.
⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙ ["Kuhahaha! Foolish wretch! To dare resist a god’s authority with a mortal body! I’ll turn you into a servant of the great Luseni!"] Unlike him, the other side seemed unaffected by the mist obscuring vision, as the Joker’s cackling laughter echoed from somewhere.
His initial strike and follow-up combos had all targeted it, yet the voice sounded as lively as ever—clearly ineffective.
‘...A god’s authority. That explains why my attacks weren’t landing properly. It was all because of this.’
Heinrich’s eyes cooled to ice.
He could easily infer what power it was.
After all, the moment it touched him, his mind had been twisting tumultuously.
‘The power to alter perception... Lies and deception, huh? A fitting authority for an evil god.’
It had twisted the surrounding laws to deflect his attacks.
With the divine seed within him, Heinrich’s own class wasn’t low, so it couldn’t nullify them completely—but even that allowed endless possibilities.
Hadn’t it successfully reached even him?
‘To wield such immense power and conclude by capturing and brainwashing me? Its imagination is more lacking than I thought.’
Well, it was probably a matter of capability over creativity.
Heinrich paused as he moved to surge his power and break free.
After pondering briefly, he abandoned resistance entirely, relaxing his body.
‘This could work.’
This ‘god’s shadow’ contained no trace of the deity Luseni’s will.
The Joker was the one fully wielding this authority after summoning it.
But a mere human, not even sprouted with a divine seed, couldn’t possibly control a god’s power perfectly.
⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙ ["Now you’ve given up, have you? Wise choice. One like you will surely be favored by the god. Return to Luseni’s embrace..."] The babbling echoed in his ears, but he didn’t respond.
There was no need.
‘If I wanted, I could hold out indefinitely. But that would just waste time with nothing to gain for me.’
Continuing like this would inevitably turn into a war of attrition on Earth.
He would win in the end, but doing so would exhaust the foundation that had summoned this evil god’s shadow to Earth.
What a shame.
‘Can’t let that happen. It’s power capable of dragging an outer god’s shadow to Earth—something the Reverse Heaven Society prepared over the past twenty years. Why pass up the chance to swallow it whole?’
To do that, he first needed to lull the enemy into complacency.
Heinrich didn’t resist the power tampering with his perception.
Even as his Mighty Spirit shook and his cognition twisted under the god’s authority, he focused on one thing alone.
‘It’s fine. As long as I regulate it so it doesn’t backflow...’
He was merely a terminal, after all.
As long as it didn’t backflow to the main body beyond him, overseeing everything—
⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙ ["Kuhahaha! It worked! To think it actually succeeded! Now you’ll be the sword of the Luseni Church..."] —twisted perceptions be damned.
Opening his eyes amid a subtle sense of dissonance, Heinrich slowly surveyed his surroundings.
The world, warped by Luseni’s authority, visible only through twisted perception, came into view.
‘As expected. No wonder there was no progress.’
A separate space, divorced from the outer world’s laws, causality, and principles.
The sword wounds riddling it were undoubtedly his handiwork.
But seeing the space heal and expand in real-time, he couldn’t guess how much longer it would have taken to fight on.
‘Found it.’
And there,
it was.
A fist-sized orb embedded in the chest of Jason—or Joker—approaching with a triumphant grin, emitting a faint glow.
Heinrich stared at it silently, then met the man’s eyes and returned a smile.
“...So that’s what it was?”
“Huh?”
“Looks tasty.”
“...What?”
The Joker halted at his words.
His face hardened with suspicion, and he moved to surge his energy—
Puuk!
But it was far too late for that.
With the distance closed this much, the moment had passed long ago.
“Gahk! H-How...? I confirmed the authority took hold perfectly...!”
“Who knows?”
Heinrich gazed coldly at the Joker, whose chest his hand had pierced, then slowly clenched his fist.
A bizarre heat pulsed in his grip.
The crystallized power of unknown origin slowly detached into his hand.
“N-No... That’s...!”
The man crumpled to the ground, desperately pouring divine power into the hole in his chest, but his condition didn’t improve.
No, it was worse than that.
As time passed, his body withered and twisted, crumbling to ash from the extremities.
“G-Give it back! Guhk! Quickly, the ‘Fruit of Myth’ to me...!”
The result of wielding a god’s power with an unworthy body.
Heinrich watched him perish—body and soul alike—for a moment, then turned his gaze to the crystal in his hand.
Not even Hans, the Immortal King, could do anything with it, let alone him.
Unless returned—which he had no intention of doing.
‘Why give this treasure to anyone?’
The Fruit of Myth, was it?
Whatever its name, now that it was in his hand, it was his.
Especially regrettable with the losses from the fight so far...
Crack—
As if angered by his selfish thoughts,
a crack suddenly spiderwebbed across the orb in Heinrich’s hand.
“Huh? What’s this?”
He hadn’t even figured out what this Fruit of Myth was yet!
He hurriedly glanced back at where the Joker had been, but only his priestly robes and some odds and ends lay scattered.
‘Wait, did the medium’s annihilation cause this?’
The thought flashed through his mind,
and before he could react, the situation escalated rapidly.
Crack!
With the sound of shattering, the ‘Fruit of Myth’ exploded into fragments,
and dazzling light burst forth in all directions.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ On the outskirts of the Pantheon.
“Gasp! Look over there!”
One of the clerics desperately holding the line to halt the writhing indigo mist’s expansion shouted loudly.
But no one turned to him.
The change was too vivid—everyone was already staring at the anomaly.
———!
Dawn light leaking through the squirming mist,
swelling in an instant and spiderwebbing outward.
Fwaaah—!
Finally erupting from within, it tore the confining fog to shreds.
An anticlimactic end that mocked the resolve of those gathered to buy even a moment’s time, helpless to intervene.
“W-What...?”
“Wait, that can’t be...”
And at its center stood he,
amid the shimmering, dispersing glow.
A lone man standing tall, eyes gently closed, head raised toward the heavens.
An inexplicable heaviness lingered around him, exuding subtle pressure on all who beheld him.
“Heinrich Saint Landgard...”
The Pantheon chairman, directing the clerics, murmured unwittingly.
Silver-haired angel beneath glittering specks of light and cascading sunlight.
He was indistinguishable from a divine messenger out of legend.
All the more so as the lone savior who vanquished the disaster.
Then, the angel’s closed eyes opened,
golden orbs like the sun piercing all who gazed upon them.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ Heinrich blankly surveyed his surroundings.
Coming to his senses, he found crowds staring at him with eyes full of awe and reverence.
“......”
But he had no attention to spare for them now.
Right after the Fruit of Myth shattered and light exploded,
in that frozen instant, the scene he’d witnessed lingered in his mind.
⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙ <<The dimensional inflection point has exceeded a certain level. Connecting to the Akasha System.>> Along with that single line,
the future visage of this Earth.