Chapter 446
Chapter 446
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 446
Chapter Title: Apostate Subjugation Battle
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Raniel gripped the Apostate's right fingers and thrust her arm forward. Thrusting it out, she seized the Apostate's shoulder. Clutching the ragged arm that had been pierced through by the holy spear, she parted her lips.
"I told you."
⚡ SKILL ACTIVATED ⚡ Smash "Strip everything you've got."
What erupted from her clenched fist were overlapping spells.
The Apostate's fingers snapped and twisted. Dozens of heavy blows hammered into the captured arm. Blood sprayed long and far from the Apostate's right arm, pierced through by dozens of sharp, icy-blue thorns.
"Or it'll end right here."
The moment the Apostate grimaced from the brain-rattling pain, Raniel twisted her waist while keeping hold of the arm. She planted her right foot firmly on the ground and lifted her left. Bending her knee, she yanked the Apostate's arm.
Kieeeeng.
Dragged along by the gripped arm, the Apostate saw it.
Raniel's raised left foot, the sole of her combat boot flashing white. The spell engraved on the boot burned away in pure white. Right after, the searing flash surged forward.
Thud.
Raniel snapped her bent knee straight.
The fully extended leg whipped straight into the Apostate's heart. Raniel relentlessly targeted the spot pierced by Destel's javelin throw.
"...Kuhk."
A gush of dark red blood spewed from the Apostate's mouth. For a moment, her pupils shook from the physical impact.
Her body floated into the air on the burst of shockwave. In that split second, the Apostate heard something tearing. After tumbling across the ground several times, she barely managed to push herself up. Or tried to.
"......"
She pressed her hand to the ground to rise, but her right arm was gone. Still face-down, the Apostate stared ahead. There stood her successor, tossing her severed right arm—torn off at the shoulder—up and catching it over and over.
"I swore to deny everything of yours, to trample it all underfoot. That's the promise I made with Cardi. That's the only way it'll mean anything."
Cardi. Cardi van Armiel.
Clack. Raniel took a step forward.
Face-down on the ground, the Apostate let out a laugh.
"Really."
The Apostate pushed off the ground with her left arm and stood.
She staggered to her feet and clutched her shoulder. The spot where her arm had been torn away. Gripping the shoulder oozing sticky blood, she let out a long breath.
"You're both so kind. You and that one."
Even after coming this far, did she hope for my salvation?
Even knowing I have no right to it, was she willing to let me dream of it? That dream was something she'd clung to all this time.
'But...'
The Apostate 'Glethus' still yearned for the end.
The time she'd lived as an apostate, her twisted convictions—they whispered in her ear. Would she end it here? After running this far, was she still wavering?
The Apostate's gaze dropped to the ground.
Flowing along the earth was blood. Stagnant filth. Blood of the gods mingled with the screams of humans she'd crushed with her own hands. A landscape reeking of decay.
"...Aha."
The Apostate let out a long laugh.
Laughing, Glerea Bell Armias raised her head. She stared straight at her successor approaching her.
"What do you want from me?"
"I told you. Spill it all."
Raniel clenched her fist tight.
The Apostate's severed right arm she'd ripped off burned away into ash. Amid the scattering ashes, she slowly raised her arm. The fingertip of her raised hand pointed straight at the Apostate's heart.
"That thing you've got."
The filth pooled in her heart.
Pierced twice by the spear, endlessly leaking sludge. Raniel knew what that sludge was.
"The curse you swallowed that day."
The shadow that sought to devour half the world—three heroes had taken it into their own bodies that day. As long as they carried it, they could never truly be freed. Raniel knew they could never be truly free.
...Back when she didn't know of the contract, the black dragon she'd subjugated died as a disaster to the end.
But now that she knew the contract, she couldn't do the same. She had to walk a different path from the Goddess of Ashes, who had crushed them all as disasters even after learning the truth of the contract. To reach a perfect ending, this was the only way.
So, Raniel said,
"Spit it all out here."
Raniel looked at the hero of old.
"Pour it all out."
Her words only drew a laugh from the Apostate.
She who wished to lay everything down and meet her end—even she had something she couldn't release. The burden and chains she'd borne with her comrades.
"You can't handle it, successor. Don't trample my consideration. This is beyond you."
"Spoken like Cardi's girlfriend."
Raniel snorted.
"You and that elf—gotta respect the boomer vibes."
The Apostate frowned.
Raniel jerked her chin at her. As if to say, look around. Only then did the Apostate glance back.
Thud. Thud.
The colossal gods crumbling.
Figures approached, trampling the corpses of the colossal gods. The ones the Apostate had ignored—those living in this false era. Pointing at them, Raniel spoke.
"Think it's time for consideration?"
"...Insolent child."
"Tell me something I don't know."
Raniel shrugged.
"Actually, that's what I want to ask."
"......"
"You really think you can handle them without coughing that up?"
...Well then. The Apostate exhaled.
Her successor was right.
She couldn't face them all without breaking those chains. If she'd fully opened the heavens, if the holy spear hadn't pierced her heart, if the disasters hadn't fallen so quickly... she wouldn't have needed this.
If even one thing had gone according to plan, she wouldn't be cornered like this. But every plan had gone awry. Unforeseen variables piled up, driving her into a corner.
And so, Glerea finally stood at the crossroads of choice.
'Meet my end like this.'
Or.
'Spill everything and struggle to the last.'
She had words to shout to this world. A salvation to show this false world. That's why the Apostate had come this far.
...It was more important than her own salvation.
Even if she wasn't saved, even if she never reunited with her dream, it had to be done.
"Fine. Just like you said."
The Apostate lowered the hand clutching her shoulder.
Tick, tick. Divine power corrupting.
Normally, it would end there... but the Apostate slowly moved her hand—now filled with the corrupted divine power—toward her heart. And clenched it tight.
Screeech. Screeeeech.
Black lightning arced from the leaking sludge. The lightning brought screams of humans. Curses from those who could neither live nor die.
"Maybe this is for the best."
The Apostate smiled.
Just like her successor said.
No need to hold back anymore, no pity for those children. Hadn't they overcome trials to stand on the same stage as her? Weren't they heading to the same place she once had?
"This might be better."
So the Apostate knew.
The destination awaiting those children, the conclusion that awaited them. The tragedy that would repeat as long as the stars existed. The truth they'd face amid that tragedy.
"Your journey ends here."
There.
The first saintess knew that at the end of trials, there was no salvation.
"One ending like this is enough for us."
The saintess smiled bitterly.
Smiling, she raised her head. What she saw was a half-open hole. Black raindrops shooting toward the sky.
The Apostate reached toward the opened heavens.
In that instant, the skyrocketing raindrops halted. The colossal gods writhing and bleeding halted. Belnoa and Rak charging between them, Cloe chanting spells, the magic bone dragon rampaging with Resti aboard—all halted.
Everything froze.
Amid it all, only two moved.
The guide who artificially earned qualifications by opening the heavens, and the one chosen as guide. In the same scene, the two saw different things.
"Open."
The Apostate cried out.
Lightning erupted from her heart and coiled around the fading black cross. The grasp meant to pull down the stars surged up the cross toward the sky.
The hand of black lightning seized the hole in the heavens and tore it wide open.
Beyond the fully opened sky lay the world's exterior. What mages called truth. Staring at it, Raniel let out a long breath.
⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙ 『Raniel.』 "Yeah. Speak."
⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙ 『...Didn't I say not to let that open? I think that's what you said.』 "That's why I said it. It'll be tough, but I'll give it a shot."
⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙ 『You sure?』 "Gotta be."
Raniel smiled bitterly.
It wasn't just the Apostate whose plans had gone awry. The picture Raniel had originally envisioned differed greatly from the current one. So she'd thrown down a gamble.
"And besides."
Raniel gazed at the Apostate's heart.
The heart pierced moments ago by the star spear. Staring at the two strokes etched into that heart by two heroes with the same weapon, Raniel smiled.
"I have a feeling it'll work out somehow."
Raniel cracked her neck and arms as she spoke.
"I've done it once before, after all."
2.
Stopped time began to flow again.
Yet the colossal gods didn't move. Thud, crash—they began kneeling and collapsing. As if the life granted them had been stolen away.
So where did the stolen life go?
The blood, divinity, and authority draining from the colossal gods' bodies all converged in one place. At the center of the surging sludge stood the Apostate.
The fully opened sky.
The vanished cross.
The fallen forgotten gods.
It looked like everything had ended, but the Apostate's presence didn't fade. If anything, it grew vaster. Amid the overwhelming pressure crushing the area, she opened her closed eyes. Her pupils were no longer green.
Dark red eyes symbolizing demons gleamed.
The moment the surging sludge touched the lightning arcing from her heart, it took form. The sludge-formed grasp seized her right shoulder in place of her lost arm.
Tick, tick tick.
The black lightning bursting from her heart granted form to the formless sludge. It gave direction to the blood carrying aimless human screams, to the blood carrying the gods' screams.
It pointed where their screams, resentment, and curses should go. For that was her duty as their master.
Hummm.
Amid the massive resonance, the Apostate swept back her hair. She brushed down her blood-soaked locks and tied them into a single ponytail. The subjugation force advancing toward her halted mid-step, inadvertently swallowing hard.
...That wasn't just a mere disaster there.
For a moment, their pupils wavered from the indescribable unease, the instinctive fear crawling up their spines. Had they ever felt a presence like that before? That was no longer a disaster...
"...Demon King."
Resti murmured.
She'd seen it before. Fragments of that ominous presence, back in Aphria.
Demon King, lord of ten thousand demons.
Something on par with it had appeared.
As everyone hesitated to act rashly, clack—a footstep echoed long and loud through the silence.
"Operation continues."
The operation's overall commander.
The hero, Lania van Trias, called out.
"Alkeia extermination battle, entering Phase 2."
Drawing a cluster of platinum stars, she stepped toward the Demon King. Continuing as she advanced.
"From this moment."
Shrouded in shadow, locking eyes with the Apostate touching divine might, Raniel declared,
"The Apostate subjugation battle begins."