Chapter 670: The Tower Without a Ceiling and the Intermingling Humans - 1
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 670: The Tower Without a Ceiling and the Intermingling Humans - 1
The Crossword, with its wide blade and long guard, was a sword meant for defense. It was perfectly suited for blocking an opponent's strikes with its blade and catching them on its guard. It was, in essence, both a sword and a shield. When combined with Qi Arts specializing in combat foresight and defense, it could even parry the attacks of a master who had reached the Axiom.
…Or so they had believed. Until now.
“Hee.”
The poison centipede woman glanced at the cross-shaped sword and swung her own long sword with indifference.
The Crossword, forged solely for defense, was sturdy. It only dented when it met her blade.
The crosses were bent, shattered, and crushed, sending the paladins flying. Bones broke and flesh tore. The paladins groaned and bled, but their groans turned into song, and their flowing blood became butterflies that fluttered away.
“Hee hee. Ah! The world is so beautiful!”
A master who had reached the Axiom could not be measured by common sense. The paladins gasped for breath as they pushed themselves back up.
The difference in skill was obvious. The only reason fewer paladins had died was that the hallucinating woman wasn't actively confirming her kills. It was ironic; the very hallucinations that neutralized their combat foresight had also reduced her lethality.
But it didn't matter. Her long sword was sharp and deadly, and a single cut was enough to leave one crippled.
Her movements were like a solo dance. Her blade arced gracefully, sometimes with explosive force, crushing the Crosswords. She was, in fact, more blatantly attacking the Crosswords than the paladins themselves.
“Butterflies! It’s a butterfly!”
It seemed that in her hallucinations, the crosses looked like butterflies. The paladins could not abandon their crosses, so they were sent flying, clutching the swords to their chests.
“Keuk!”
“That heretic bitch, she’s aiming for the crosses!”
“O, Sky God…”
Blood splattered and limbs twisted. A master of the Axiom was truly beyond comprehension. The paladins wiped the blood from their lips and struggled back to their feet.
They rose again. The paladins who had been cut down and fallen, as if nothing had happened.
Kuram watched the paladins rise again and again, muttering to himself.
“As expected, they don’t stay down.”
Behind the wall of paladins stood Cardinal Elton. And behind him, a congregation of priests prayed with their hands clasped. Halos of holy light glowed behind their heads as they recited their prayers.
“O, Saintess of Origin, who blessed us.”
“You raise the one who has fallen, and through him, you deliver your word.”
“A hundred of the sick and ailing came to you and were healed.”
“You stopped their bleeding, mended their wounds, erased their scars, and restored their vitality.”
“Your grace spreads like the waves, to care for all of humanity.”
The priests chanted ceaselessly, healing the paladins’ wounds and invigorating them. A constant stream of vitality coursed through the paladins’ bodies, pulling them back to their feet.
This was the strength of a structured order of paladins. They saved their own lives with combat foresight and restored their bodies with prayers of healing and purification. By dedicating their bodies to their faith, even a paladin who had only mastered the Heaven and Gon Qi Art could fight on equal footing with a superior practitioner. Overcoming skill with faith—this was the true power of a paladin.
“Our will is steadfast.”
“Not even death shall make us yield!”
The priests’ ritual even restored the cross-shaped swords, the Crosswords. The paladins once again gripped their swords and swung.
Cardinal Elton, seeing the hallucinations encroaching upon reality, clapped his hands together and roared.
“All things in creation flow according to principle! Begone, foul thing!”
A holy light flashed, and the encroaching phenomena vanished. The paladins’ blood, which had turned into butterflies, reverted to mere liquid. Holy Power, which normalized magic, returned even the world twisted by the woman’s Axiom to its original state.
Cardinal Elton was a monk. He was old now, but he had once been a monk who undertook pilgrimages alone and unarmed. The fact that he had survived such long journeys by himself was a testament to his powerful and exceptional Qi Arts.
His Qi had waned with the years, but faith had filled the void.
Having driven back the hallucinations to some extent, Cardinal Elton immediately targeted Kuram, who was standing behind the fray.
“This is a crusade!”
I’ll leave the woman who practices demonic arts to the paladins! That man is far more dangerous than she is in her drugged state!
Cardinal Elton had not missed the quiet yet venomous killing intent emanating from Kuram. He charged toward Kuram, who was in the middle of preparing something. A massive fist, thickly veiled in Holy Power, slammed into him.
Kuram, who had been taking out a vial of poison, took the blow to his face defenselessly. His neck twisted a full 180 degrees, snapping backward to dangle loosely. It was an instantly fatal blow.
“Tsk.”
But Kuram, who had pickled his own body in drugs and poisons, had even altered his bones. His neck snapped back to its original position as if it had never been broken.
“Just as I thought! An attack like this won’t kill you!”
“Unfortunately, death does not love me.”
“Life and death are the will of the Sky God! Today, you shall be judged in the name of the light! Hundred Heavens Divine Fist!”
Cardinal Elton threw a punch wreathed in Holy Power. Without even checking if it landed or was dodged, he retracted his fist and struck again.
The Holy Power created dozens of afterimages. The fists of Holy Power he created repeatedly battered Kuram’s body. Like a branch in a storm, Kuram’s gaunt frame shuddered violently with each impact.
Thwack. Kuram muttered as a fist buried itself in his abdomen.
“Fists won’t work. You can’t kill me with those.”
Kuram blocked Cardinal Elton’s divine fist with his thin, emaciated arm. Compared to the robust Cardinal, his arm looked as if it would snap at any moment.
The instant Kuram’s and Cardinal Elton’s arms met, Kuram’s arm bent in a bizarre way, absorbing the force.
Kuram the apothecary knew no pain. His body was so susceptible to drugs and poisons that he had used this very constitution to test them. After countless cycles of poisoning and detoxification, his body had reached a strange state of being.
An arm as pliable as a reed withstood the tempest of fists. It slid diagonally inside Elton’s punch, then used the elasticity of his long arm to spring back with great force.
“Your body! You’ve dabbled in the forbidden!”
Elton was also a monk. His mastery of martial arts was greater than Kuram’s. However, Elton’s martial arts were designed to be used against humans.
Kuram was far from human.
Kuram’s bones stretched as if he were a mollusk. Having absorbed most of the impact, his arm bent unnaturally and shot out like a snake. His sharpened fingernails tore a chunk of flesh from Elton’s arm.
The cardinal retreated. A wound, as if from an animal’s bite, appeared on his arm. But only for a moment. As the cardinal uttered a short prayer, the wound vanished as if it had been washed away.
“To modify the body given to you by God! Do you not fear your soul will be cast into hell?!”
“Not particularly.”
Having created some distance, Kuram finished his preparations. He took a deep breath and blew it into the air.
“Fuuu.”
Kuram exhaled. A purple smoke that anyone could tell was poisonous spread in an instant. The toxic mist enveloped Cardinal Elton’s face.
A moment later, a flash of light shot from Cardinal Elton’s eyes as he bellowed, and the purple mist instantly dispersed.
“Not a chance! This body is watched over by the Sky God. You will never harm it with such foulness!”
Purification and restoration. The holy light instantly returned Cardinal Elton, who had inhaled poison and shed blood, to his peak condition.
Combat foresight. Healing. Purification. Protection.
The Order of Paladins was a combat group specialized in defense. They would not be easily defeated, no matter the opponent.
The problem was, it was also difficult for them to win. Groups weaker than the paladins wouldn't bother to fight them, and the paladins themselves wouldn't wield their power unless against blatant heretics.
Thus, the paladins always fought against the strong, held out for a long time, and then were defeated. This was why, despite their formidable reputation, they had become a symbol of defeat.
Unless they used their trump card, the paladins were ultimately destined to lose.
I knew that, but I had no time to intervene in that fight.
Right after the battle began, while everyone was still stunned by the sudden turn of events, the mages of the Lower World, who had silently finished their preparations, began to chant in unison.
“Low Fahrenheit, Thermal. Fire Storm!”
“Grand Pascal!”
Their targets were the mages of the Floating Castle. Perceiving them as rivals, the mages of the Lower World took advantage of the attack on the paladins to break the peace and launch a surprise attack.
Avant-garde was no exception. She hastily chanted a spell.
“Aah! Crystal Block. Over the Wall!”
A hastily created crystal barrier severed the space. The spells of fire and wind collided with it, and the red-hot crystal soon shattered into pieces. Avant-garde screamed and covered her head.
In magic, the one who prepares first has the advantage. The very fact that she had blocked the attack with a makeshift crystal wall was a testament to Avant-garde’s skill.
However, magical prowess and combat ability were two different things.
“Why, why? Why are you suddenly attacking?”
Avant-garde tried to talk, bewildered. But her opponents didn't give her a straight answer.
“We weren’t aiming for you! We were aiming for that mercenary!”
“R-really? But the trajectory was clearly aimed at me…”
“You believe that, you idiot!”
They had spoken to her only to distract her, and now they unleashed the mana they had gathered. It was the simplest form of attack magic, but Avant-garde, caught off guard by the psychological trick, couldn't even react.
“Uh, uhh?”
“What are you just standing there for?!”
Skyblade Art, Dragon Slayer.
A technique that extended Chun-aeng to sever the flow of power. Shei unleashed a storm of slashes, protecting Avant-garde from the torrent of magic.
…Yes. Shei. You’re a bit slow, but you have a good heart. Thank you. Thanks to you, I can still hide my true identity for now.
She hadn't been in any real danger since the Blue Tower Master was standing behind her, but his actions still had some meaning. Shei glared at the mages of the Lower World and shouted.
“Why are you all attacking at once, as if on cue? Who are you people?”
The mages of the Lower World shamelessly directed their anger at Shei.
“Ugh. Why are you interfering?!”
“Get out of the way! We don’t want to attack you!”
“They’ve already ascended to the Floating Castle! We’re just eliminating those who are trying to steal this opportunity from us!”
“Don’t you think it’s unfair, too?”
“…W-what? Why are you telling me that?”
To climb the Gateway to Ascension. The moment they made that decision, the mages had accepted the risk of death. The mages of the Lower World had naturally come to this gateway prepared for battle.
Though they had been suppressed by the paladins’ authority, they were all competitors. The mages who had already ascended to the Floating Castle were nothing more than obstacles.
Of course, they still had some reason left.
Those three over there. Hughes, Lankart, and Shei. It’s better not to touch them.
Judging by their attitude so far, they’ll mediate but won’t stop us by force.
I don’t mind if Hughes ascends. He might even share his knowledge.
Besides, he and his companions are far too powerful and skilled.
They didn't foolishly attack Shei, instead appealing to her with words to justify their actions. Because of this, Shei couldn't bring herself to use excessive force.
“You ignoramuses…! How dare you attack us?”
“We’ll show you magic you could never hope to wield!”
Meanwhile, the mages of the Floating Castle, who had been attacked, prepared their counterattack. Moisture rose from the damp ground, transforming into ice lances aimed at the mages of the Lower World. It was a high-level technique that conserved mana by making maximum use of the surrounding environment.
“Die!”
Sporadic battles broke out everywhere. No one could properly respond to the sudden chaos. People screamed, burned, fell, sobbed, and died.
The once peaceful and beautiful lawn was now stained red with fire and blood. Amid the chaos, a voice whispered in my ear.
[So it has come to this! Hmm. A sufficiently predictable outcome.]
That’s right. I had expected this, to some extent.
[This is what happens when different types of humans form a group! There are humans who cannot form groups… no, who cause the groups they form to collapse. Punishment, surveillance, restraint, education. If they are allowed into a group without proper processing, they will always reveal their true nature!]
In this case, it was Kuram and the poison centipede woman. Villains who had been locked away in Tantalus, agents of chaos whose actions were unpredictable. They had only submitted to the greater power of Lankart, but they were the type to strike the moment they saw an opening. A clash with the paladins, who revered order and good, was inevitable.
[Even humans of the same kind cannot always coexist. When there is a clear class difference, the inferior group feels a sense of inferiority toward the superior group. Eventually, unable to overcome this feeling, they justify their actions as a ‘struggle’ and shatter the order!]
The mages of the Lower World and the mages of the Floating Castle were flinging spells at each other. By now, even Shei had given up trying to stop them. She wasn't meddlesome enough to stop the fight between those two groups.
Order was collapsing. But even so, they couldn't fully concentrate on the battle.
[But, you see? Even as they do this, they are relying on you, Hughes.]
Subtle glances were directed my way. Even in the midst of fighting, they were mindful of me, Lankart, and Shei. They were hoping I would take their side and put an end to this situation.
[Humans want someone to protect them. To care for them. To rule over them. They want you, the leader, to take their side.]
I had remained neutral, acted as a mediator, and possessed the power of Shei and Lankart. To anyone watching, I was the current leader.
Ruel, the Saintess of Light, whispered to me with light.
[Order is necessary. Because humans desire it! This is the conclusion I have reached!]