The Sky Castle, Larger Within
The Sky Castle felt even larger from the inside than it had from without. A place that bore the name of a castle ought, by rights, to be modest in scale, yet the Sky Castle was nothing of the sort. It was closer to an entire city, ringed by immense walls and floating in the sky. If that castle were ever to fall as it was, he half worried Heaven itself would vanish without a trace.
Something like the Sky Prison?
The Sky Castle seemed like another world entirely. Celestials occupied most of it, and yet the atmosphere felt subtly different from the Heavenly Realm.
When he stepped out of the room, a faint dawn was creeping in. Before long the dark would withdraw and the day would break. His body was a little stiff, though nothing actually ached. It was a petty complaint, the sort that would sort itself out once he found a Demon God Worshipper and dealt with them.
I really want to try out some magic.
When he had clashed with the castle lord's son, the situation had been so absurd that the thought of casting hadn't even crossed his mind.
He came out of a quiet back alley to find a festival in full swing along the main street. It must have been a sizable one. Countless celestials had spilled into the roads, thoroughly drunk on the mood, and the smell of food and alcohol hung thick in the air. It wasn't unpleasant, though. It had been a very long time since he'd felt anything like this. Even this world, home to players of staggering power, had its own kind of peace. It wasn't blood-spattered combat all the time.
"Chances like this don't come around often. Why not enjoy it before we go?"
"The festival? It's already winding down, so there isn't much point. Everyone's starting to pack it in."
"A shame. If only we'd arrived a little earlier..."
"We came in from the opposite direction anyway. It just wasn't meant for us. And you're undead. You couldn't enjoy it even if you wanted to."
"Does that matter? If my master is pleased, then so am I."
"...Is that so."
Yujun turned his head and looked at Manuela and Yenil.
"Mind staying here a while? I'll grab him quick and come back."
"You mean the Demon God Worshipper?"
"Yeah."
"I'll put a blessing on you."
"Thanks. We're getting good at this. One word and you already know."
"Of course. Think how long we've been together."
Manuela said it with a sidelong glance at Yenil. Yenil, busy sorting through the magic Yujun had taught her, was too preoccupied to notice the look.
"I'll be back. Keep your heads down and have fun."
"Okay."
"Understood!"
Yujun kicked off the ground and shot into the sky. Fly magic, layered with the Ruler of the Wind trait.
Oh. Not bad.
For one thing, the mana cost dropped. A pleasant, cool wind curled around his whole body, and the flight spell picked up speed. It cut wind resistance to almost nothing, so even as he accelerated, the strain on his body fell sharply. Not that his defense had ever let the strain amount to much in the first place.
Feels like someone's shoving me along from behind.
The trait was unmistakably different from how it had worked in the game. Felt in the body, Ruler of the Wind was well worth using.
I could probably apply this in combat, too.
It did more than assist his movement. It amplified the power of wind magic and lowered the mana it consumed. Projectile spells, too, would launch far faster if he ran them through Ruler of the Wind.
He's farther than before.
The gap between him and the Demon God Worshipper had widened a little, because the man had peeled off toward the outskirts.
He didn't notice me, did he?
If he had, it would be proof that this particular Worshipper's senses were sharper than the ones Yujun had dealt with before. Either that, or word had already reached him that Yujun was here. Among the Demon God Worshippers—the cult—Yujun was unquestionably their greatest enemy. They would be watching where he was and what he was doing.
Nothing's tripping my senses, at least.
He had already destroyed every surveillance orb. There was nothing more he could do about that from here. Just in case, he wrapped a shield around himself. He had wondered whether a shield cast with GX-tier Ancient Magic might be something special, but on the outside it looked no different.
That was when it happened. The Demon God Worshipper's pace jumped, faster than anything that had come before. Yujun's face hardened.
He knows.
There was no chance one of his companions was a spy. More likely the man had already guessed as much from the destroyed surveillance orbs.
I need to hurry.
His body shot forward like an arrow, past the limit of what Fly magic alone could manage. The Demon God Worshipper fled for his life. But so long as he couldn't track Yujun's position in real time, the chase could only end one way.
There.
He spotted a single Demon God Worshipper beating his wings without rest as he ran.
Let's try Ancient Magic.
When Ancient Magic had reached GX tier, he had gained a new spell—one that could be called Absolute Area, or an absolute domain. With so few people in existence who might even possess GX-tier Ancient Magic, there was no reason the spell would already have a settled name.
Absolute Area sounds about right.
Mana split into fine, invisible fragments and spread outward, and the whole stretch of sky became his domain.
KWAANG!
The Demon God Worshipper slammed into an unseen wall and dropped. He had been flying so fast that the impact cracked like a bomb going off. He hadn't blacked out, it seemed, because he immediately tried to open the distance again. This time, too, he hit an invisible wall without fail.
KWANG!
"Khah!"
The scream that tore out of him was less pain than pure, boiling rage. Yujun closed in fast.
"Stay back!"
"And why would I?"
Up close, there was no longer any doubt. This was no ordinary Demon God Worshipper. He had already undergone that process known as the Demon God's Blessing, or sometimes the Demon God's Grace. A Worshipper who had received the Blessing grew incomparably stronger than before, and the bleak aura peculiar to their kind grew thicker as well.
"You're not in your right mind."
His eyes were unfocused, the pupils shaking without restraint. It wasn't simple unease or fear. Blessed Worshippers rarely frightened easily. More often than not, their fighting spirit burned hot. The man's forehead had swollen an angry red. He must have struck the Absolute Area headfirst, and hard.
"Why are you here..."
"Why? Am I not allowed? Were you up to something bad?"
"..."
"Wait. You were? What are you scheming?"
"I am under no obligation to tell the likes of you. Hueek."
"Those symptoms are pretty severe. You didn't receive the Demon God's Blessing just once, did you?"
"Khek! Khahaha! Shin Yujun! I'll kill you!"
The Worshipper, who had been wary of him to an excessive degree, suddenly came unhinged and charged. Yujun pinned him with Space Domination.
"Kraaaa!"
Bound tight, the Demon God Worshipper thrashed, trying to tear free of the space Yujun had seized. It did him no good. Space Domination was close to an all-purpose ability, and a truly tremendous impact could still break it—but what he had used now was not the Space Domination of before. This was GX-tier Ancient Magic. On top of that, his Magic Comprehension trait had risen in rank, and the unallocated points he had spent not long ago had driven his magic stat sharply upward.
That wasn't the end of it. At the market in the Heavenly Realm, he had obtained a Synchronization Marble from Shoman, and with it a flood of items transferred from No-Pay Casual Gamer. Among them was a Demigod armor set. The options were so unhinged that looking at them still gave him a thrill. His old Ultimate Omnipotence set had only raised Strength and Agility by a percentage. The Demigod set was different.
Attack and Defense each increased by 200%.
All stats increased by 75%.
Constitution increases by an amount equal to the sum of the user's pure stats.
Add in the set effect, and every stat had risen by a full 390 percent. That was what four pieces of armor bought him. The items were, admittedly, focused on raw numbers rather than exotic options, but for Yujun those were the most efficient options of all. A 390 percent increase to every stat meant his magic stat rose by the same margin. The figure had climbed to something absurd. The other physical stats didn't land with quite the same immediacy, but mana increased in actual volume along with the stat, so he felt it plainly.
He shaped a Chain Lightning spell. This time he wasn't using a sword as a medium, so its power would likely fall well short of what it became when fused with Sword Unity. That only made the experiment more worthwhile.
The Demon God Worshipper, who had become a test subject before he quite understood how, spat.
"Filthy bastard! No matter what you do, I won't give you a single scrap of information!"
"Who asked you for information? That isn't your role."
"...What?"
Yujun's reaction was not the one he had expected, and the Worshipper faltered.
"Just don't resist. Stay still. That's your job. Oh, and if you've got a skill or an item that raises your defense, use it now. I'll allow that. It'd be a problem if you died on me right here."
Yujun began the experiment at once. Electric torture—no. A magic test.
Zzt. Pajijik!
"Nothing? So you don't need to prepare?"
A Chain Lightning heavy with a tremendous charge took shape before the Demon God Worshipper's eyes, writhing like a dragon. Yujun had meant it to look that way.
"So this works."
He had always thought he had no talent for drawing or sculpture. His sense of aesthetics and his hands were nothing special. But with mana to help him, what he pictured in his mind took form exactly as he imagined it.
Zzzzzzt. Zzt!
The lightning swelled until he wondered if it might overload. Growing larger would have been trouble enough, but unfortunately for the Worshipper, even the small sparks leaping off it carried enough force to drop an elephant. A direct hit from Chain Lightning came with no guarantee of survival. The Worshipper knew it, and so did Yujun. That was why Yujun split the Chain Lightning into fine pieces and suspended them in the air.
Lightning magic ordinarily consumed a considerable amount of mana just to maintain. Yujun didn't leave the hundreds of bolts hovering in place. He set them spinning, circling the Demon God Worshipper. A vast quantity of mana drained away, and yet his total hardly changed.
My mana really has gone through the roof.
This was the power of every stat rising together. A percentage increase, especially, grew more potent the stronger the body already was, and Yujun was reaping that benefit in full.
Zzzzt. Zzt.
"Aaaagh! Aagh!"
The Demon God Worshipper screamed. The bolts never touched him. They only whirled around him, and that alone seemed to slam an enormous shock through his body.
"Oof. That looks like it hurts."
Yujun's resolve wavered. He was on the verge of gathering the lightning and letting it burst when the man cried out.
"I'll talk! I'll tell you everything!"
"You're a Demon God Worshipper. With a geas on you, how are you supposed to..."
"I'll tell you everything that doesn't trip the geas! If there's something you want to know, ask—ask me anything!"
Worshippers like this were rare to begin with. Was this another side effect of the Demon God's Blessing? He was offering to talk. Yujun had no intention of stopping him. He left a bolt hovering so close to the man's temple that it nearly brushed the skin, and opened his mouth.