Chapter 431
Chapter 431
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 431
Chapter Title: Pandemonium Awakens
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Black rain fell.
Rain poured from the sky that should have been blocked by the ceiling. Thick black raindrops pelted the ground with a steady plip-plop.
Shwaaaaa!
The scattered droplets turned into a downpour. Black water splashed in every direction. Filthy sludge flowed along the engraved circuits on the floor. It kept flowing and flowing.
"......"
Raniel's expression hardened.
Black rain was a symbol of demons, a mark of the shadow cast by false gods. Why was it falling here? What was the heretic plotting?
Thud, rrrumble.
The temple walls shook. The ground trembled. The sky quaked. Amid the echoes, everything began to crumble. In the midst of the collapse, Raniel looked up at the sky.
There lay the answer.
This was unmistakably Alkeia, at the deepest end of the vertical cavern, the edge of the abyss. Yet gazing upward revealed a starry night sky—not an illusion, but the real thing.
And that sky was shaking.
As if it might collapse at any moment.
⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙ 【Come in.】 Raniel lowered her head at the voice.
Tilting her gaze downward, she saw the path straight ahead. A severed spatial plane had crumbled away, revealing a straight road leading to the temple's heart.
⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙ 【To my land.】 The path opened not just for Raniel.
Draka saw it too. Kelrhalm did. Destel did. Everyone gathered here looked ahead.
⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙ 【To my sanctuary, my forge, my womb.】 The temple's heart.
There stood a tower.
⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙ 【This is Pandemonium, Alkeia.】 Not a pantheon of all gods, but a pandemonium of all demons.
Not a pantheon, but Pandemonium.
A colossal tower that seemed to pierce the heavens. It wasn't built of timber or stone. Not human corpses, nor monster remains.
⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙ 【The tomb of nameless gods.】 Nameless gods.
From beneath the tower piled high with the corpses of primordial deities, the heretic let out a laugh. She cackled in ecstasy. Her laughter echoed amid the pouring black downpour. Even in the chaotic din of her voice reverberating and rain battering eardrums...
Crack.
Everyone heard the same sound.
At the eerie noise resounding through the chamber, all eyes turned skyward. Faces hardened. Pupils trembled.
⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙ 【Now.】 The sky.
⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙ 【The time to open the sky has come.】 The sky was opening.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ 2.
The first saintess, Gleria bel Armias, was betrayed by god. In her final moments, she realized the truth. The salvation she sought could never come under the stars. Everything she had devoted her life to was meaningless.
In those final moments, the stars turned away from humanity.
The stars did not answer the saintess's prayers.
In that instant, Gleria felt it. She understood.
She was the saintess connected to the stars, closer to them than any other. Thus, in her dying breath, she comprehended why the stars had forsaken her.
...The stars were beings of balance.
Not the perfect, beautiful, benevolent saviors spoken of in church doctrine. Their true nature was closer to the scales magicians described.
Scales, balance, equilibrium.
A force that maintained the world in stable equilibrium.
"It was wrong from the start."
Gleria let out a laugh.
"We sought to purge the shadows in god's name, but that was never god's will. God never desired the shadows' extermination."
Gletus sneered.
"The stars only wished for the shadows' power to wane. To bring them to the same level. To drop them into a state where they could balance the stars."
A task to level the scales.
Not by removing the opposite weight entirely, but by reducing it.
"Once that balance was achieved."
Gleria despaired.
"The stars abandoned us."
Gletus rejoiced.
"In the end, we were used. My salvation, Ganikalt's pride, Cardi’s blind faith, Belial's hopes—all mere tools for the stars. We received no true salvation."
For eons. Eternally. Without end.
"And yet."
Gleria looked up at the sky.
"I still desire salvation."
Gletus had not forsaken salvation. Even if the path was flawed, twisted—even then, Gleria yearned for it.
Under a false god, salvation lost its value.
The deceitful god had tricked them all.
What then must a betrayed priest do? What must the first saintess become? Closest to god, what must she do? She had pondered this for ages.
And at last, she found her answer.
In a place untouched by stars.
This land, Alkeia, the deepest place in the world, was both a pantheon and a gods' graveyard. Tens of thousands of years ago, when the sky opened, countless gods had plummeted here. Their corpses lay buried—proof of one undeniable fact.
That gods could be felled.
False gods cast down.
And a single true god enthroned in the heavens.
The taboo shattered by the ancient dragon mage—she understood it. The atrocities of one human—she comprehended them. And in comprehension, she chose.
"I have not forgotten that day's promise, vow, wish."
She pressed her palms together as if in prayer.
Creeeak.
She tilted and twisted her clasped hands.
Hands perpendicular to the sky became level. Left palm faced up, right faced down.
"As I desire."
The saintess Gleria was betrayed by god.
The madman Gletus chose to betray god.
"Open the sky, cast down the false god."
The martyr Gleria deified herself.
The heretic Gletus coveted others' purity.
"And hang my god in the heavens."
Gleria thrust her left hand downward.
Gletus extended her right hand skyward.
As their joined hands parted, she opened her eyes. No more mad cackles. No more ecstasy. No splitting of her psyche.
The heretic, Gleria bel Armias, opened her eyes.
⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙ 【Rise.】 【Open your eyes, forgotten ones.】 The divine power accumulated in Alkeia over centuries responded to her voice. The falling raindrops halted entirely. Amid the suspended black droplets, Gleria's eyes gleamed green.
⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙ 【You shall regress to your most radiant era.】 Divine Art: Resurrection. ⟨ Revival ⟩
A black inverted cross surged toward the sky.
Raindrops began ascending along the inverted cross. No longer falling earthward, as if providence itself had reversed—the stagnant filth on the ground too shot up the cross into the heavens.
Black raindrops soared skyward.
The sludge born of humanity rose to the heavens.
Plip-plop-plip.
In stark contrast, black blood dripped from the eyes and mouths of the forgotten gods, falling to the earth. Their blood stained the ground crimson-black. The bodies of the forgotten gods began convulsing violently.
Rrrumble.
In the midst of the colossal echo.
Ancient Tongues 【■■■■, ■■■■. ■■■■■■■■■■■■.】 【■■. ■■■■. ■■■■. ■■■■■■.】 【■■. ■■■. ■■, ■■■■■.】 【■■. ■■■■. ■■■■. ■■■■■■. ■■■■■■.】 The forgotten gods opened their eyes.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ 3.
The black inverted cross piercing toward the sky.
The slender pillar of light finally touched the heavens. With a crack, the parting sky was impaled by the cross, widening the rift enormously. The sky split, revealing the world beyond.
"What... is this...?"
Destel groaned, stumbling back instinctively—but the moment she took a step, she realized. There was something more urgent than this mythic scene.
"...Blood?"
Destel looked at the floor.
Black blood flowed along the furrows. Blood trickling from the tower at the temple's center. And where did that blood flow?
To the colossal tree at the cavern's heart.
The moment the blood seeped into it.
Thoom.
A massive presence crushed down on the cavern.
In the suddenly heavy air, Destel watched. The giant tree at the cavern's center—the charred roots of the burned tree began to move.
Right then.
The lord of the cursed land opened its eyes.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ The moment the black blood from the tower touched the stagnant pool at the cavern's center. The foul water rippled briefly—then a torrent surged from the heart of the cavern. Water swelled in an instant, flooding the vast space.
The lake corrupted by curses overflowed.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ Bones modeled after the Beast King. The black blood seeping into them became flesh and muscle. The beast gained a body in an instant and slowly rose. In the darkness, its eyes glowed blue.
Shing.
The Beast King drew its sword.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ Raniel van Trias let out a laugh.
She gazed at the sun rising before her. The black sun that had drunk the blood hung in the sky. In an instant, the air scorched, and suffocating heat filled the cavern.
Heat haze rose. The ground cracked and split with a crack, craaack under the onslaught.
A sun illuminating the curse had risen.
Beneath the risen sun, Raniel surveyed her surroundings. The path to the heretic was blocked by ancient calamities. Same for Destel, Kelrhalm, and Draka. To reach the heretic, the ancient disasters had to be purged.
"...Tch."
Raniel took a step forward.
She advanced, eyes fixed ahead.
The smile on her lips was gone. Face set hard, Raniel slammed her foot down with a thud.
Her gaze fixed on the temple's center.
There stood a lone woman ringed by forgotten gods. Beneath her, the gods knelt, heads bowed. As if swearing fealty to their resurrector—the one true god to come.
The woman who opened the sky looked at Raniel.
Raniel stared at the heretic.
Their gazes crossed. The heretic smiled softly at Raniel and parted her lips. Her voice, too distant to reach, echoed in Raniel's mind.
"This is the salvation I sought."
This is my final destination.
"If you wish to prove my salvation wrong."
If you would show my path astray.
"Come here. Stand before me."
And prove it.
"Deny everything I am."
The heretic, Gleria bel Armias, smiled.
"My dear junior."
Raniel answered that gentle, almost affectionate smile with a sneer. She cracked her knuckles with a pop-pop. Tapping the ground lightly with her boot a couple times, she exhaled shortly.
"Fine."
Raniel spread her arms wide.
"If that's what you want, I'll show you."
Her clothes billowed.
Sleeves swayed.
The muffler around her neck fluttered in the wind.
Hummm—mana crushed the area.
Circuits etched across her fingers, hands, arms, collarbone—her entire body—ignited. Platinum light blazed brilliantly, rings of light forming in Raniel's eyes. Dragging the halos, she walked.
Clack.
Not even glancing at the sky, Raniel strode toward the heretic. Mid-step, she snapped her fingers. With a resounding snap, a platinum sun matching the black one's size appeared before it—without warning.
Clack.
She kept walking, snapping again. Once, twice, thrice, four times...
"Hey."
Raniel smirked.
Her smile aimed at the woman overlooking her from the temple's heart. Sneering at the heretic.
"That one enough for you?"
Pointing at the sky while facing the heretic.
Only one black sun floated there.
"I've got seven."
Seven platinum suns encircled the black sun. Pointing at them, Raniel chuckled.
"Bring it, you fucking bitch."
Raniel swung her arm.
The seven suns plummeted.