Chapter 432
Chapter 432
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 432
Chapter Title: Seven Suns Fall
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Seven suns plummet from the sky.
A platinum sun devoured the black sun, flickering fiercely. Blinding flashes one after another, a storm of scorching heat. That was the moment the seven suns swelled up.
Flash.
A single blaze swept across the entire area.
Immediately after came a roar that tore at the eardrums.
————!
A deafening boom erupted alongside the intense flash.
The cataclysmic sound produced by the explosion of all seven suns couldn't be captured by any onomatopoeia. It was more like a piercing eeee ringing in the ears.
The first shockwave ravaged the area, followed by the crash of boulders flung into the air by the blast's aftermath.
Boom, boooom!
Raniel's hair whipped in the onslaught of hot winds. She brushed back her locks and looked up at the sky. There floated the black sun, partially devoured by the seven.
A hole was pierced through the sun. No longer a perfect sphere with part torn away, it resembled a crescent moon.
Siiiizzle.
Black flames like blood poured from the hole toward the ground. The sun hovering in the sky tilted unsteadily and began slowly falling toward the earth.
But only for a moment.
It halted abruptly in mid-fall, as if seized in place. The spilling flames reversed flow. For an instant, the sun—now at a lower altitude—swelled as it drank in the flames.
Kiiiiiiiiing!
Boiling beams—hundreds of them—shot toward Raniel. She clicked her tongue briefly at the oncoming bundle of rays.
...The ancient calamity, the sun that shines curses.
Raniel recalled what she had seen from the northern tower. In her memory, Cardi had said that as long as the sun hung in the sky, there was no chance of victory. Only by toppling it and smashing it into the ground could it be truly slain.
And they had done just that.
Cardi and Belial had brought the sun down, and Ganikalt—blessed by Glerea—had cleaved it in half with a single stroke.
'Of course, it doesn't have the same majesty as back then.'
Unlike the calamities the first hero's party had faced, these revived disasters had already met death once. Revived by the blood of forgotten gods or not, at the sun's core remained the scar left by Ganikalt.
A sword mark that bisected the sun's nucleus.
Even if patched with divine blood and power, it couldn't fully conceal the wound. Raniel lifted her foot as the beams surged toward her. Then,
⚡ SKILL ACTIVATED ⚡ Cataclysm ⚡ SKILL ACTIVATED ⚡ Rebuild Boom.
The ground where her boot met it quaked.
The earth heaved and rose. Amid the terrain reshaping around her, the incoming beams pierced straight through the walls of soil and rock toward Raniel.
The beams were extensions of the black sun, after all.
They bent and twisted in pursuit of Raniel. Glancing back at the trailing rays, she sprinted across the upheaved land.
⚡ SKILL ACTIVATED ⚡ Acceleration Hundreds of rays in pursuit.
Onrushing heat and winds. In the blistering inferno that threatened to evaporate every drop of moisture from her body, Raniel ran with eyes wide open. Clink, the chains coiled around her hand swayed.
Leaping across the risen earth,
Raniel fixed her gaze on the black sun ahead—and beyond it. There stood the apostate, tearing open the heavens, with ancient gods kneeling before her inverted cross touching the sky.
That was the true enemy Raniel had to face.
'...Defying Heaven, and Opening Heaven.'
Raniel knew what the apostate sought. The hole in the sky continued to widen. When that hole fully "opened," the apostate's wish would become reality.
She had to stop it.
Thus, Raniel made her choice.
Thud.
Raniel kicked off the ground and leaped skyward.
In the spot where the risen earth melted and flowed down. Reaching right before the sun, she thrust her arm toward it. The moment she clenched her fist—
Chaaaaaaaain!
Bundles of chains shot out and bound the sun.
The platinum chains didn't melt even in the sun's heat. Pulling the chains that ensnared it, Raniel hurled herself toward the sun.
'Even if it costs me some wounds.'
Though her body melted in the process, Raniel reached the sun's core. Enveloped in black flames, she shoved her hand into the sword scar etched there.
'Short, decisive battle.'
What I must face isn't the revived calamity—it's the woman who would become a god. Raniel knew the Alkeia extermination battle wasn't over yet. Only by ending it could she proceed to subjugating the apostate.
Still, it remained a battle of speed.
Hand wedged into the core's sword scar,
Raniel invoked her spell.
2.
The nameless gods bowed their heads.
Having lost all authority, intellect, and reason, they were mere lumps of power. From these fallen divinities, Glerea squeezed out their blood.
Drip, drip.
Even stripped of everything, they had once been gods. Their blood was the finest holy relic, and the divine power accumulated in Alkeia over centuries was an inexhaustible spring.
Offering it all, Glerea tore open the heavens.
Gazing at the slowly splitting sky, Glerea let slip a smile. No longer mad cackling—her lips curved in near-ecstasy. For the moment she had longed for was finally approaching.
She, the apostate, would drag down the false god and return all life to its purest state.
Beneath the opened sky, sins lived, karma accrued, good deeds, evil acts—all would be meaningless. The soot and blood would slough away, leaving only pristine souls.
'If that happens.'
If everything became pure,
'Then we can meet again.'
Glerea smiled bitterly.
'Unstained, I can stand before you. Everyone will return to their most beautiful form.'
That was Glerea's pursued salvation.
Escaping the false god's flawed rules, reverting to the purest state. And thus, becoming free.
Only that led to true salvation...
"......"
...Saintess Glerea bit her lip.
Apostate Glerea Bell Armias felt a pang in her heart. The scar engraved there—the one left by a hero—throbbed.
"It's too late already."
The apostate smiled.
She had walked too far to turn back. She was already a mad zealot, a betrayer of gods. A sinner steeped in irredeemable crimes.
Forgiveness was impossible.
And shouldn't be sought.
The apostate looked ahead. Down the path she tread. A blackened road. A road piled with corpses. She knew what awaited at its end: only ruin.
Even knowing that,
The apostate stepped toward ruin. It was the only path left to her. As she walked, she glanced back. What she saw was the broken, twisted, hideous road she had traveled.
But if she looked a bit further back...
There lay a fork.
The path she had walked before breaking. The radiant path she had tread as saintess, as hero's companion—not as apostate.
Someone stood there.
The apostate blinked. She looked not at the path, but reality. In reality too, she turned back—and her gaze fell where the black sun rose.
Flash.
The seven suns exploded, bleaching the world white. The sun still hung, but low enough now. Then the ground quaked, forging a path toward the sun.
Someone raced along it.
A mage running, trailing brilliant light and ash. Hair of gray ash fluttering, the mage hurled herself at the black sun.
For a moment.
Flash, something swelled from within the black sun. A platinum sun expanding, devouring the core. The radiant sun completely engulfed the black one.
Whoosh.
Black flames tried seeping through the platinum sun, but it dragged them down and plummeted. Like the sun setting beyond the horizon, it smashed into the earth...
Kwaaaaaaaaang!
A deafening roar accompanied the explosion.
The sun's blast dyed the horizon platinum. Hot winds whipped the apostate's hair. Scorching heat. A glittering platinum horizon. Gazing at the sun's remnant, Glerea unwittingly smiled.
She knew that sight.
Knew the heat it wrought. How could she not? That spell was none other than his.
"Ah..."
Yes, so you were there.
"Truly."
You, who resemble that person, were there.
"Again..."
Stopping me that day.
Always holding me back, that person. You, who resemble him... this time too, come to hold me back.
"Yes."
The apostate spread her arms, smiling.
"Come to stop me? To hold me back?"
Step, step. Footsteps echoed.
A human approached through the ash.
"Not to stop you."
The human answered the calamity's question.
"To beat you to death."
Gray mage, Raniel van Trias.
Picking off charred flesh with her fingers, chugging potions, she walked toward the apostate. Her body covered in burns, but her blue eyes remained unstained.
Thud.
The gray mage stood before the apostate.
"And."
The hero stood before the calamity.
"To prove."
"Prove what?"
"That your journey wasn't meaningless."
The successor stood before her distant predecessor.
"Hero, Ganikalt van Galatrick. Dragon Sorcerer, Belial van Draconic. Great Sage, Cardi van Armiel."
"......"
"And you."
Raniel stated calmly.
"Saintess, Glerea Bell Armias."
Gazing at the woman who had long ago sacrificed everything for the world, Raniel spoke.
"The choice you made at the end of your journey centuries ago. Your sacrifices. I've come to prove it all wasn't meaningless."
I've stood here to stop you from rendering it all meaningless.
"Apostate."
Raniel pointed at her.
"Receive the successor the pact foretells."
The heir of the pact. The pact's successor. At those words, the apostate's gaze wavered for a moment.
『Next, and next again.』
The being she had prayed for.
The one who would understand their will, inherit it, and reach what they could not. The hero who would shatter their calamity-twisted forms and bring conclusion.
"It was you, after all."
Glerea smiled.
"Yes, prove it then."
She gestured.
Nameless ancient gods reached for Raniel. They surged like waves to engulf her. Toward the onrushing forgotten gods, Raniel advanced.
As always, simply to prove.
3.
Roots that stretched in all directions, buried in the earth, erupted with clumps of soil. The massive roots swept and lashed the ground like whips, over and over.
Boom, boooom.
The earth shook, dust clouds rising.
Beyond the billowing dust loomed the roots' owner—the colossal presence filling the cavern. As the dust slowly cleared, it revealed itself.
The master of the cursed land.
The giant tree, Abaddon.
Even craning one's neck, its peak was invisible—like gazing upon the elves' sacred World Tree. Yet this tree wasn't meant to nurture life; it was shaped to encircle, entrap, and kill.
Thorny vines coiled around the roots.
Roots to suck dry and exploit the land's life.
At the center, the trunk gaped like a monstrous maw.
'What the hell is that...'
No clue where to even start, how to fight it. Destel's body froze before that overwhelming presence.
Scraaaaaape!
Roots upheaving the earth surged toward Destel, sweeping the area. Too rigid to dodge, the moment he was about to be caught—
Thud, someone stepped in front of him.
Belnoa, cloaked in storm winds, swung her arm at the oncoming roots. The instant wind met root, the root was repelled. Belnoa turned back after shoving it away.
"Lord Destel."
Destel looked at Belnoa.
As he did, clack, footsteps approached from the side. Looking over, Chloe passed him, walking forward. Destel's eyes followed her.
Chloe stood beside Belnoa.
The staff gripped in Chloe's hand shone brilliantly.
Chloe and Belnoa—juniors far younger than him—looked at him, eyes meeting his. They spoke.
"Your orders."
They would take it down.
They declared they would face that giant monster, that calamity.