Chapter 447
Chapter 447
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 447
Chapter Title: Alkeia Extermination War Chapter 2
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"From now on."
Alkeia Extermination War, Chapter 2.
"The Heretic Subjugation Battle begins."
Commencement.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ I let out a long breath.
Opening my eyes and looking straight ahead, there stood the Heretic, having vomited up every last shadow she had swallowed. Staring at the overflowing darkness, I couldn't help but think back to the past.
"It's similar."
Kyle had given off the same vibe.
A chuckle slipped out, utterly out of place for the moment. I swept back my hair and steadied my breathing.
『In the end, we've come this far.』
"Yeah, tell me about it."
The ground trembled beneath me. The air quivered.
Looking up at the sky revealed nothing but the fully opened heavens.
"Somehow, we made it here."
I lowered my head.
My gaze fixed straight ahead captured the Heretic. She had been close enough to touch just moments ago, but now she felt impossibly distant.
Under the open sky, providence itself wavered.
The natural order turned unnatural.
The crumbling landscape of the world looked both mystical and utterly wretched. Gazing at the space creaking under the strain of the shadows, I spoke.
"It took a long time."
I had trampled and stripped away everything the Heretic possessed.
I stole her leisure, crushed her mercy, wrecked every stage she had prepared, driving her into a corner. All to force her to bring out that.
Black lightning arced upward.
The foul sludge that had festered in her heart for over five hundred years. The curse she had swallowed for humanity's sake in the past.
This subjugation battle meant nothing unless the Heretic drew that forth. If she were felled while still harboring it, her death wouldn't belong solely to the Heretic. The one dying in her place would be... the hero who never let go of the curse she swallowed for humanity until the end.
That would be meaningless.
That would only repeat the path of the Goddess of Ashes.
I would trample only the Heretic.
The one meeting death here must be solely the calamity, Gletus. I had no intention of leaving even a shred of nobility in that death. The 'Heretic' was an existence that deserved to be utterly crushed.
...That way, they would accept it.
There were superhumans who had spent their entire lives resenting the Heretic.
Superhumans who lived solely to deny her words, those who had lost so much to her. I had a duty to answer their lives and sacrifices.
'And the answer I must give them is...'
To separate the deaths of the Saintess and the Heretic.
The calamity must die solely as a calamity, and the hero solely as a hero. This was the answer I would give them—and also the one I owed to a certain mage who had awaited only this day.
『...Thank you.』
"We haven't even started yet. Save the thanks."
『Isn't this a difficult path?』
I smiled.
He was right. It was indeed a difficult path.
"Yeah, a difficult path."
Complicated, tedious, finicky.
But the best paths were always like that. They were called the best because they led to destinations reachable only by traversing the roughest roads.
"My future self proved that easy paths lead only to barren wastelands."
I hadn't forgotten the tale the Goddess of Ashes told me, nor the end she reached. That was why I had to walk the opposite path.
"So now, it's my turn to prove it."
I closed my eyes, then opened them.
A platinum ring of light floated in my pupils. Amid the suddenly slowed time, I let out a chuckle. So this was the speed at which that guy Kyle saw the world.
"If you choose the roughest path and give it your all... the place you reach will be one where..."
Those who shed blood for me, those who died for me, those who passed this power to me. Bearing their lives on my shoulders, the place I must reach together with them.
"Everyone can smile in satisfaction. I have to prove that."
I didn't need an ending grudgingly accepted after endless rumination and resignation. Only an ending where all could smile contentedly held meaning for me. Call me a madman. Mock me as a dreamer.
No matter what anyone said.
"That includes you too, Cardi."
That was how I lived.
"So wait for me."
I smiled.
"I'll grab you by the hair and drag you along if I have to."
This was my way of killing the Heretic.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ 2.
The Heretic closed her eyes.
With her eyes shut, screams filled her ears.
Sounds emanated from the churning sludge centered on her. Screams, grudges, voices cursing the stars shining above in the sky. She knew what these voices were, for she understood the origin and essence of the shadows.
The screams of those who could neither live nor die.
Listening to their screams, the Heretic extended her arm. Her slender, outstretched fingers resembled a conductor's baton. To her eyes, the overflowing sludge appeared as countless instruments.
King of Ten Thousand Demons, the Demon King.
The role bestowed upon this flawed existence was to answer those screams. To let the echoing screams flow where they rightfully should. To guide the screams. And thus, to resolve their grudges—that was the Demon King's duty.
'But they can never be resolved eternally.'
The Heretic smiled bitterly.
These grudges could never be assuaged. They belonged to those unable to live or die. Unable to be freed, they persisted. And because they persisted...
'The shadows are near infinite.'
That was why her people had suffered so greatly.
The Heretic swung her raised finger.
The swirling sludge churned in its wake, taking form only to collapse repeatedly.
So this is the feeling.
She slowly opened her eyes.
Her pupils gleamed a dark crimson. Those eyes gazed at the sky. Beyond the open heavens lay the providence encircling this world—the very providence she had so desperately yearned to defy.
It was there, yet beyond reach.
The Heretic touched her heart.
The wound etched into it. The scar pierced by the holy spear hindered her completion. A chuckle escaped as she exhaled deeply.
"How ridiculous."
To be held back at this point.
But it didn't matter.
Even if she couldn't complete herself, there was an overflowing abundance of materials here to make her whole.
She snapped her fingers with a click.
Corrupted divinity sprang forth above her snapping finger. The power once held by the Saintess closest to godhood. Gloria possessed aptitude for all divine arts, but if one had to name the one she wielded most masterfully...
It was undoubtedly this.
Divine Art: Life Weaving.
The weaving—or creation—of life.
This was a divine art only Gloria Bell Armias could wield, and even then, it had been designated forbidden alchemy. The church deemed the creation of life the sole domain of the gods above, labeling it heresy.
Thus, in her days as Saintess, she used only the miracle of resurrection, an extension of life creation. Bound by her conviction that others' lives must not be treated as tools.
But that conviction crumbled with her heresy.
As the Heretic, she learned to use life creation more efficiently, in diverse ways. Fusion, mixture, melting, corruption of life... birthing new lifeforms. Mocking countless lives, she became not a saintess, but an alchemist and summoner.
"Ah..."
And now, in this moment, the Heretic felt it.
A shock like the first time she had shaped a familiar. She sensed the countless lives within the churning sludge. She heard the curses and grudges melted into it.
The vibrations of life pulsing from even deeper within.
Gazing at the shadows mingled with the sludge, the Heretic exulted. The finest materials. The ultimate offerings.
"Rise, my children."
...To a summoner touching divinity, a heretical saintess, an alchemist ascending to mastery, the greatest materials had been granted.
"Let them hear your screams too."
With every swing of her finger, the shadows took form. The shadows churning at their master's touch were no longer mere sludge. No longer screams that simply flowed and scattered.
"Make your screams echo."
The shadows she harbored—no, the mere sludge—now assumed the most fitting shapes. The overflowing shadows formed grasping hands.
Crunch. Crack. Grind.
Hand seized hand.
They clawed at each other. From this arose stairs. Stairs leading toward the hole pierced in the heavens. Step by step, the Heretic ascended the stairs toward the sky. Toward completion.
As she climbed, she swung her hand.
The sludge overflowed in excess, allowing her to birth an excess of hands. Hands surged from the sludge pooling on the ground, from the sludge shooting skyward, from the gods' blood flowing across the earth.
Watching the rising hands, the Heretic suddenly thought.
Five hundred years ago, in the Temple of Shadows, the princess she faced must have looked like this. Truly nostalgic. And also, a memory not worth laughing at.
"Now it's my turn to ascend."
The Heretic looked down and smiled.
"Stop me if you can."
Just as we did back then.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ 3.
Belnoa flinched involuntarily.
Gazing at the hands surging from all directions, she took an instinctive step back. An ominous sight. A grotesque scene that made any onlooker want to retreat.
...How do you even fight this? Where do you start?
Belnoa's eyes darted ceaselessly across the overflowing hands. She wasn't the only one hesitant to approach; Chloe, Rak, and Natty too— even Resti's familiars— recoiled before the hands.
It was a god. They faced a fragment of a god.
All living beings felt it: the indescribable terror from the unknown...
Breath caught in their throats. Their bodies stiffened under the overwhelming pressure crushing the area.
"Guh... hup..."
She thought she was used to demonic energy, but this was on another level. Different from the presence of calamities. The crushing air, the unknown voices whispering in their ears.
Kneel.
Kneel before the god, before the king.
An existence forcing all it faced into submission. Before the Demon King they met for the first time, everyone's bodies went rigid. The hands reflected in their eyes shook, then began slowly growing enormous. As if to blanket the sky.
『First.』
A shrill ring echoed in their ears, followed by a clear voice resounding.
『Release the breath you're holding. Exhale deeply.』
Sounds of held breaths escaping rose here and there. As Belnoa exhaled, her eyes widened. She recognized this voice.
"Old man Cardi...?"
Cardi offered no reply to her mutter.
With a short laugh, he continued.
『Once you've exhaled, open your eyes wide. Don't face it with shaky eyes. Focus and stare it down.』
Cardi said curtly.
『See its essence. Without fear.』
Only then did the image of the Demon King in the subjugation force's vision settle. The enormous hands shrank back to their initial size.
『If you've grasped its essence.』
Cardi's voice grew even clearer.
『Listen to my words.』
The subjugation force began to move again.
Gripping their weapons, they attuned to the voice echoing in their ears. A voice ringing pure and clear.
『I am Cardi.』
『Cardi van Armiel.』
Cardi declared his own name.
In this place where the heavens had opened, the stars' taboo did not bind Cardi. Thus, he shouted his name without hesitation.
『The great sage who subjugated the Demon King five hundred years ago.』
The great sage, Cardi van Armiel.
『Now, I shall teach you.』
He cried out.
『How to subjugate the Demon King.』
『How to destroy those black hands.』
『How to reach its center.』
The archmage who had clashed with the Demon King for ten days and nights smiled. Power lost did not mean knowledge lost. His voice echoed across the battlefield.
『Follow my instructions.』
『I'll get you to the center.』
Cardi stood upon the battlefield in his own way.
Once more, to reach the place he couldn't that day. To prove his millennium.