Chapter 546: You Were Born to Be Blessed
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 546: You Were Born to Be Blessed
Even in the long history of the Sanctum, few beings have ever received the title of ‘Sky.’ This was even truer for a Saintess. To the Sanctum, which served the Sky God, the sky was the sacred space where the divine resided. How could a mere creature of the earth dare to usurp its name?
And yet, she was the Saintess of the Sky. No one questioned it or raised an objection.
The Seer. The Saintess of the Sky had been decided from the very beginning.
Mayel, the Saintess of the Sky. A secret existence within the veiled Sanctum, known only by her title. A Saintess so close to the Saintess of Origin that to even hear her voice was a blessing.
Mayel was not in this space, but she watched over us as if she were.
“Sister Yegcheria. Though it is your hobby to create difficult situations, you have chosen a very troublesome person this time. ‘That thing’ is not a being that distinguishes between good and evil as you think.”
Before Yegcheria could answer, Mayel continued.
“I know. You do not make that distinction either. You believed until the day you died that even the most wicked being could repent and spread good. But Sister Yegcheria, if you, who know how good a human can become, also know how wicked they can become.”
What is she talking about? Did she see Yegcheria’s death in the future?
Her manner of speaking was as if she had already heard the answer and seen the result. Was it because she was a Saintess who could see the future? I couldn’t know. Because she wasn’t physically present in this space, I couldn’t read her thoughts.
Yegcheria, seemingly accustomed to this strange way of speaking, replied.
“Then, does that not mean he is also a human capable of repentance? No matter how lowly or wretched, if they listen to my words and follow my teachings, they can stand beside the Sky God. So it was written in the gospel. Likewise, the Saintess of Origin blessed all people. She believed that even the wicked would become good if they received her teachings.”
“Yes. I, too, was fond of that side of you. But I could not be fond of all of you. You posed a dilemma too premature for humanity and then irresponsibly watched from the sidelines. Goodness and savagery are different, Sister Yegcheria. There are things one should not do, even if one can do anything.”
Cutting off the conversation as if there was nothing more to say, Mayel turned her head toward me.
“King of Humans. The reason you sought me is to ask about the Dog King, I presume.”
“How did you know… Are you a real prophet?”
I could find out through mind-reading, but how did this Saintess, who had never even met me, know a question I hadn’t even asked yet?
I had called the Regressor unreasonable, but limited to this timeline, she wasn’t all that unreasonable. She simply knew what would happen in the future, and even that could be changed by variables.
But in this world, prophets existed. And those prophets grasped and twisted fate itself.
Mayel spoke with the certainty of someone who already knew the answer.
“To get straight to the point, your guess is correct. The perfected Dog King is a being chosen by the Saintess of Origin. A saint… no, I should say a holy dog. In any case, it is truly a monumental event.”
A chosen being. That must mean the Saintess of Origin had foreseen its existence from the distant past, just like all the other Saintesses.
“I knew it. You people were the ones who made Azzy and Fenrir like that.”
“‘Made’ is not the right word. The Saintess of Origin saw this scene in that long future, and it is merely being realized according to the natural course of things. What creates things, in the end, is history and civilization.”
Prophets who saw the future didn’t scheme. They saw the tangled web of cause and effect and made only slight adjustments to ensure that future came to pass. Their intentions were diluted through thousands upon thousands of links, their influence spreading throughout all of humanity.
That was why no one could hold them responsible. They were the ones who saw the backs of the cards in the deck. They saw in advance which cards would be turned over and to whom they would be given. They subtly manipulated the order to give their allies the strongest hand and ruin the enemy’s, but it was difficult for the one on the receiving end to know.
It was cheating. Compared to me, who could at best read someone’s mind and see their hand, they were far more malicious. To them, this wasn’t even a game. Someone needed to lock them up.
While I was inwardly complaining about the unfairness, Mayel continued to speak.
“Dogs, while being beasts, are obedient, loyal, and above all, weak. Much weaker than wolves. Unless they are hunting dogs, they do not harm humans, nor do they have the strength to do so. The Saintess of Origin saw a trace of order in dogs. She saw that if the wolf’s savagery was stripped away from the dog to make it perfect, it would become a pillar of this order for all eternity.”
“Strip away its savagery? How do you strip away its fundamental nature?”
“Humans possess a wicked nature. Petty envy, sordid jealousy, base desires. They harbor an innate wickedness that drives them to achieve their desires even by harming others. But most endure and suppress that wickedness. Having learned goodness and norms from order, they struggle and agonize to overcome that wickedness and desire.”
Mayel looked toward the distance, where Azzy was, and spoke.
“That is why the Dog King continuously fought its own wickedness, the Wolf King, and ultimately achieved victory. Thanks to that, the Dog King has become perfect. The promise has been fulfilled, and an eternal pact has been forged. The Dog King has now become a bastion that humans can trust and rely on.”
It was just as I had predicted.
Dogs and wolves were originally one. But dogs, domesticated over a long period by human hands, had become too different from wolves. It wasn’t strange that they would have different kings.
But there was no reason for the two to fight each other. Beasts don’t fight that way.
“Humans distinguished dogs from wolves, but it was the Saintess of Origin who distinguished the Dog King from the Wolf King and made them fight, wasn't it?”
Mayel didn’t affirm it, but she didn’t deny it either.
“It was meant to be, and so it was left to be.”
“Just to create a single friend for humanity? That seems a bit too grandiose for that.”
“Of course, that is not the only reason. It is for a much grander rule and order. That is something you would not understand even if I told you now…”
What do you mean, I wouldn’t understand? You and I need to meet. I’ll read your thoughts right away. Then I’ll understand perfectly well.
…But I must never, ever show any sign that I use mind-reading. The moment I do, that fact will be ‘read’ by them. They would avoid meeting me even more adamantly, and it would become virtually impossible to ever meet them.
The moment I, with my mind-reading, read the future they have read, I can play on equal footing with them.
I have to wait until the Regressor takes me to the Sacred Mountain Yullim. Ugh. What should I say here? I need to choose my words carefully so as not to arouse suspicion. It’s difficult when I can’t read her thoughts.
It was then that the Regressor, who had been silent, spoke up.
“You’re talking about killing the King of Sins who will exist throughout the future, right? I know that much. You can just tell us. About the Great Principle.”
‘I’ve heard this kind of talk countless times since the eighth timeline. Mentioning the King of Sins lets me skip the useless procedures, so I might as well say it now.’
Even the Saintess of the Sky seemed to hesitate for a moment, as if she hadn’t foreseen the Regressor’s action.
She’s such a Regressor in moments like these. She said she’d received help from the Sanctum until now, right? I don’t know how much information they shared, but it seems the Sanctum has shared quite a lot with the Regressor. Thanks to her, we can move the discussion along quickly.
Mayel looked at the Regressor with a somewhat sorrowful expression.
“…My last hope. Do you intend to help the King of Humans?”
“It’s not really about helping Hughes. We’re just getting what we both want. It’d be great if everyone worked together to stop the King of Sins.”
“How idealistic. But that will make a mess of everything. It is a path closer to despair than to hope.”
“But it could work out, couldn’t it?”
“That is throwing yourself into foolish optimism. It is no different from standing still in the path of a landslide, believing it will avoid you. The King of Humans is a savage being who contains even wickedness itself, and he is the Beast King. ‘That thing’ is an enemy we must face.”
“That’s not true. Hughes may be extreme, but he’s not an evil being. He can definitely help me and you.”
‘Mayel has helped me countless times, and she’s given me her blessing many times, but in the end, she failed to prevent the ruin. I have to find another way. If we can’t stop Sin and can’t kill the King of Sins, then using Hughes to prevent the King of Sins from appearing seems like a good idea.’
It seems the goodwill I’ve built up wasn’t in vain. I’m touched, Regressor. That you think of me that way.
Mayel clasped her hands and prayed, her voice filled with a sorrow that was palpable even from her illusion.
“…That is why you must be my first despair. Oh, Saintess of Origin who blessed me. Why did you bless me, and yet…”
The Saintess’s devout prayer continued for quite some time. Just as I was starting to get fidgety, Mayel cleared her throat again and spoke.
“For order and norms to be established, promises are needed. The promise that the other will not harm me. The promise that what is mine will be guaranteed safety. The promise that order will protect me. And, above all.”
Mayel seemed to glare at me as she continued.
“The promise that if I break the order and spread evil, I will be trapped in the shackles of sin for all eternity and be punished. A reward for virtue, punishment for evil. Only with such faith can humans endure without destroying one another.”
“But, such promises don’t actually exist, do they?”
“The promises exist. Like the laws, morals, and norms that maintain order in this world.”
Mayel answered immediately, then let out a small sigh.
“However, yes. You are right. As you say, human promises are petty and trivial. Without an eye to watch over sin and the power to deliver punishment, promises are weak things that can be cast aside at any moment. A weak, base, and easily broken promise casts doubt on the very idea of a promise itself.”
It seems that being a Saintess doesn’t mean she’s a fanatic who only follows the will of the Sky God. Then again, she couldn’t be.
Yuel, the Saintess of Foresight, became a cynic after seeing all sorts of human ugliness and becoming worn down by it. A Saintess who sees even what cannot be seen couldn’t possibly fall into baseless fanaticism. They have seen and shouldered far too much for that.
“We need a more fundamental promise. A promise of immutability and truth, on a different level from the base promises made with human tongues and fingers. An absolute, unchangeable covenant made by a conceptual being, staking its very concept. The Dog King… was a test of whether such a covenant could exist.”
A conceptual being is the personification of a concept itself. The individuality of a conceptual being does not change.
Of course, it’s not absolute. If the concept itself changes, the conceptual being will also change. Just as the wolf was tamed into a dog, becoming the Dog King.
“The Dog King fought against its own wickedness and ultimately forged it. Now, no beast will feel hostility or fear toward the Dog King. For the Dog King has become the being that represents and speaks for the gentleness and mercy of beasts.”
Beasts have a gentle side. That, too, is a natural principle. A predator has no reason to hunt when its belly is full. It needs to save its prey for when it’s hungry later. Prey animals form herds and get along well with other beasts. They need to reduce the probability of being the one caught when a predator appears.
Azzy became the incarnation of that aspect. Thanks to that, she is not attacked by other beasts.
“In short, you succeeded in changing the Beast King to your liking, is that it? Hmmm. In that case, you could try the same thing with the King of Humans. Perhaps you already have.”
“Your question… Ah, I see. Realizing that the King of Sins exists, you suspected that it, too, was a being chosen by the Saintess of Origin.”
What the. How did she really know?
It was a question I was likely to ask, yes. But it was strange that she knew and brought it up immediately. It was as if she had seen the conclusion in advance and was giving me the answer.
She was called a prophet, but there had been no true prophet since the Saintess of Origin. Indeed, the ones I had met, like Yuel and Feruel, possessed only abilities that were like fragments of prophecy.
But the Saintess of the Sky seemed to have plucked out only the largest core from among those fragments. It was clear that she could see the future on a level equal to, or nearly identical to, the Saintess of Origin.
“King of Humans. But you are mistaken. Even if the King of Sins is what destroys humanity, and even if we encouraged the birth of the King of Sins, it cannot be our responsibility.”
Was she evading responsibility? But Mayel looked too confident to be evading. On the contrary.
“Because sin belongs to humans.”
It looked as if responsibility was fleeing from her, and she wanted to chase it down and seize it. Mayel continued, her face looking as if she were sneering coldly.
“It is not the King of Sins that destroys the world. It is human sin. The King of Sins, like all other conceptual beings, is merely a proxy for it…”
The Wolf King can be hostile to humans. But it cannot destroy humanity.
Because, fundamentally, wolves are now weaker than humans. They cannot accomplish what they lack the ability to do.
But the King of Sins, who represents sin, possesses the power to destroy humanity.
And sin is a part of humanity.
Which means.
“All problems begin when humans obtain the power of the Divine. When they use power beyond their station to kill other humans. And when they realize that this power is not so special, that anyone can obtain it by following the same procedure. At that moment, the future of humanity ends. An eternal night falls upon the world, the infinitely branching paths are all severed at once, and all of humanity falls asleep, never to dream again. That is how the end comes.”
One day, you open your eyes and see nothing.
Not because your eyes are closed, nor because the lights are out. There is simply nothing. No light, no sensation, no pain. The future that flowed like a river, shone like the stars, and branched out like a tree vanishes all at once, and the eyes that saw the future become blind, reflecting nothing. An end so empty it is horrifying arrives.
That was the future Mayel saw.
I wasn't reading her mind, but it was as if the future Mayel ‘saw’ was visible to my own eyes. It wasn’t a delusion. I, along with the Regressor and Yegcheria, ‘saw’ a fragment of the end Mayel spoke of.
Mayel, whose pupils reflected the darkness, glared at me with eyes that held endless void and despair.
“That is why you must not exist, King of Humans. You, who are nothing more than the Beast King, cannot overcome this. You cannot overcome the ever-growing malice of humans. You cannot stop the humans who reach the demonic, who touch the forbidden knowledge that will destroy even their own foundation.”
What is this?
My instincts as a living being were screaming alarms. An irresistible force seemed to be crushing me. Something, something was hostile to me.
And yet, I felt nothing.
It was neither killing intent nor power. Mayel was not in this space. I, with my mind-reading, knew that better than anyone.
But my beastly instincts were telling me. I could die.
She’s not even here, but I could die? What is this? This feeling, as if the entire world is rejecting me?
“On the contrary, you affirm them. On the slope tumbling down to the abyss, you will smile and see off the dying rather than save them. As long as humanity’s enemy is humanity itself, your existence is useless. It would be better if you were gone…”
“Stop it, Mayel. Hughes has lost all his power.”
At that moment, the bizarre pressure I felt from Mayel vanished in an instant.
I wondered if she had withdrawn her power because of the Regressor, but something about that didn't feel right. It was as if the future that rejected me had been overturned the moment the Regressor intervened.
Come to think of it, the Saintess of Causality had said the Regressor’s causality was twisted. Perhaps the Regressor was a hidden card against prophets?
Mayel spoke resentfully to the Regressor.
“…Shei. Did you see hope in him? But you know as well, don’t you? Even without his power, he is dangerous.”
“It’s not like killing him would do any good, right? Hughes doesn’t have the ability to do anything. He’s weak and easily swayed. If that’s the case, then I just have to hold onto him so he isn’t swayed in that direction.”
The Regressor, who had replied nonchalantly, suddenly clapped her hands as if she just remembered something.
“Oh, right. There’s something else I wanted to say. I want to go to the Sacred Mountain Yullim. I promised to take Hughes to Yullim if he helped me with this.”
“You despair me in so many ways. The Sacred Mountain Yullim with the King of Humans. That land is…”
The Regressor seemed accustomed to making such demands, as if this wasn't the first time. Unreasonable demands are usually ignored, but it seemed that Mayel, the greatest and most blessed Saintess, could not do so.
Now looking resigned, Mayel brought her hands together and closed her eyes.
“But though you may be my first despair, you are also my last hope. Shei, I will place my thread-like hope in you and bless you. However, there is one condition.”
“A condition? Why?”
‘She used to grant my requests without any conditions before.’
If Mayel could hear that thought, she would probably burst with frustration, but of course, she couldn’t know.
“In the lands of the old Manguo, an ancient evil that has been sleeping is about to awaken. A dark and terrible malice that brought fear and chaos to this world in the distant past, in the age of savagery. If, Shei, you defeat ‘that thing,’ the remnant of savagery, and if even in that process your thoughts on savagery do not change… I will guide you to the Sacred Mountain Yullim.”
“Ah, that? Can I do it alone?”
“It will not be difficult. For I will bless you.”
Clasping her hands tightly, Mayel closed her eyes and prayed for the Regressor.
“My last hope. And you, savage one. To the Saintess of Origin who blessed me, and to the lofty Sky God who protects her. Your devout child prays for their boundless glory and blessing.”
Mayel’s voice gradually grew louder. At first, it was just a murmur, but it gradually swelled to the volume of a shout, and soon it spread as a roar that filled the entire chapel. By the end, it had become a force that was no longer even sound, spreading through the world as if it would crack reality itself.
[May a damn blessing be upon you all.]
And the world clicked into place. Click. Along with that foreign sound, like a great shackle being forged, that echoed in my ears.
The Regressor and I had received the Saintess’s blessing.