Chapter 365: About the Sins (3)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 365: About the Sins (3)
The ruined capital of Ashtalon had become so eerie it felt as if Pandemonium itself had been transplanted there.
"Brother, all preparations are complete. I'll head down now."
"I'm counting on you."
"Yes, sir."
Just as he had when facing Sloth, Alon stood high in the sky aboard a massive vessel. He watched Ladan leap down without a moment's hesitation, then turned his gaze toward the ground.
Are the preparations... finished?
The first thing he saw was the earth, stained a blood-like red, the shattered capital of Ashtalon, and the mountain of corpses.
Next, he saw the troops from various nations forming a massive circle around the ruins.
"Penia."
"Yes."
"Are the calculations perfect?"
"Yes. According to your instructions, Marquis, once they move thirty steps inward, they will enter the domain."
"The probability of error is—"
"Zero. I ran additional calculations as soon as we came up here, just in case."
"There won't be any problems," Penia said firmly.
Alon nodded slightly and let out a long sigh. He looked down at the Sin below.
Just like before, the Sin stood still as if waiting for something. Even at this very moment, Alon couldn't fathom why it remained so passive. However, he soon pushed those doubts aside.
Ultimately, two things mattered to Alon.
One was the fact that the Sin remained stationary.
The other was that, because of that behavior, Alon’s plan could be executed successfully.
"Let's begin."
"Yes."
As Alon murmured softly, Penia channeled mana into a crystal ball as if she had been waiting for the signal.
Simultaneously, the soldiers began to march forward, one step at a time. Tension and dread were etched into their eyes—tension toward the unspeakable, and fear of the unknown.
The soldiers' gazes, a complex tangle of those two emotions, were fixed on the Sin. Their steps faltered. Their hands gripped their weapons tighter. Their hearts hammered against their ribs.
The scenery before them, the Sin itself, and the horrors of their own imagination slowly pushed the soldiers into the depths of terror.
However, the moment their march exceeded twenty steps, the look in their eyes—previously filled with dread and horror—began to change.
The fear clouding their vision gradually vanished. The dark terror born from that fear dissipated as well. Their slow, dragging footsteps regained their natural rhythm, and the white-knuckled grip on their weapons loosened. Their racing hearts began to steady.
And finally, when the soldiers reached the thirtieth step—
Wooooong—!!
A massive veil began to form in front of the advancing soldiers. A gargantuan, hemispherical barrier blocked their path.
"W-what is this?"
Confusion momentarily flickered across the soldiers' faces. But it was fleeting.
"Release this—!"
"We can't complete our orders like this!"
"Open it! We can't—we can't kill the monster!"
"Let us through!"
"You damn mages!!"
Resentment began to pour from the soldiers' mouths. Unlike their initial display of fear, they were now desperate to kill the monster, their eyes burning with rage. To any observer, their behavior was clearly abnormal.
"…It happened just as expected."
"Indeed."
Alon looked down at the ground with a calm expression. After all, he was the one who had devised this entire plan.
In Psychedelia, the Sin of Wrath has two representative abilities.
[Mountain of Corpses]
[Wrath]
[Mountain of Corpses] literally involved piling up bodies. The more corpses the Sin accumulated, the wider the range of its unavoidable status ailment.
The second skill, [Wrath], made the Sin of Wrath stronger based on the number of people afflicted by that status ailment.
It was a simple yet incredibly powerful ability: it grew stronger in proportion to the number of targets affected by its skill.
In other words, because of the troops gathered from the United Kingdoms, the Sin of Wrath had become unimaginably powerful.
Yet, knowing this full well, the reason Alon had brought the soldiers and orchestrated this situation was because of another characteristic of the Sin of Wrath.
While this Sin grew stronger based on those afflicted by the 'Wrath' status, its defense dropped in inverse proportion.
Since the Sin of Wrath's defense was currently at its lowest point, Alon had formulated this strategy.
"Blackie, I'm counting on you."
[Kyu—!]
Alon entrusted the single strike—which would drain a terrifying amount of mana—to Blackie. He then immediately used his remaining mana to move toward the magic circle Penia had drawn in advance.
Soon—
Uuuuuuuung—!!!
The magic circle emitted a massive mechanical hum, and a brilliant white light poured down toward the barrier created by the mages on the ground.
Then—
Kagagagak—!
New magic circles began to manifest. They layered over one another like Matryoshka dolls.
At that moment, the Sin, which had been standing motionless and merely watching Alon's plan unfold, moved.
Click—
It raised its sword—a worn, notched greatsword.
And then—
[This is as far as I wait.]
It spoke words Alon couldn't understand in a quiet voice.
Flash—!
The Sin, which had been silent until now, vanished. It moved at a speed the human eye couldn't follow.
Having reached the barrier in an instant, the Sin raised its sword to shatter it. But at that moment—
Crunch—!
As if waiting for it, a Golden Tube lunged forward.
"!"
The Sin reflexively pulled back to evade the tube. With that as the signal—
Kagagagak—!!
The Golden Tubes buried in the ground began to whip through the air inside the barrier, relentlessly targeting the Sin.
The Sin twisted its body, charging toward Line, who was controlling the Golden Tubes from within the barrier.
However—
Screeeech—!
The Sin's left hand, which had almost reached Line, was severed with pathetic ease.
"…A shame. If you had come just a bit closer, I could have killed you in one go."
Appearing alongside those words were purple threads intricately woven around the Golden Tubes—and Deus, who was stepping up beside Line.
No, it wasn't just them. Seolrang and Ladan took positions behind the Sin as it twisted its body to avoid the threads and the tubes.
"Ugh—!"
Seolrang's kick and Ladan's spear missed the Sin's back by a hair's breadth. Watching the four of them confront the Sin, Alon let out a small breath.
This, too, is as expected.
The Sin of Wrath's attack power had become so immense that it didn't matter how much the mages or Alon reinforced the defenses. Even if they managed to block an attack, they could only do so once at most.
Therefore, instead of choosing to reinforce the barrier, Alon had made a request to Line, Seolrang, Deus, and Ladan.
He asked them to stall for a certain amount of time inside the barrier.
Naturally, it was an incredibly dangerous request. But it wasn't impossible.
Currently, the Sin of Wrath had to pay extreme attention to even the smallest attacks. In other words, it couldn't ignore Line's Golden Tubes or Deus's Purple Threads.
Of course, the Sin could have dealt with the gold and purple threads with its own attacks, but that was also fine. Seolrang and Ladan were there alongside Line and Deus.
As long as the four of them didn't stop their offensive, the Sin—for whom every single hit would be a critical blow—couldn't easily continue its own attacks.
The plan was proceeding much more smoothly than Alon had anticipated.
"Phew—"
Alon wiped the blood trickling from his nose and looked up at the sky.
In the sky, a spell was unfolding, continuously expanding as it absorbed Alon's mana through Blackie.
The Bullet of Bion—the same spell that had finished the Sin of Sloth.
It hovered loftily in the sky, all preparations complete.
"Ugh—!"
Alon took over control from Blackie and immediately dropped the spell.
Kagagagagak—!!!
The sphere, forged into physical force by magic, tore through the air as it plummeted toward the Sin.
Slowly.
But surely.
"Marquis!"
Penia shouted. But Alon didn't answer yet.
Not yet.
Not yet.
Not yet.
Not yet.
Not yet—
………………
"Penia—!"
"Yes!"
At Alon's call, Penia, who had been gauging the timing, reactivated the magic tool. Simultaneously, Seolrang, Line, Ladan, and Deus—who had been marking the Sin—used pre-prepared artifacts to escape outside the barrier.
And then.
────────────!
White light overlaid the crimson world.
* * *
As the cluster of light that had seemed ready to devour everything subsided, the thought that surfaced in Alon's mind was this:
…Was it that easy?
No, in truth, it hadn't been easy. Alon had spent nearly a month obsessing over this plan, and the entire strength of the Allied Forces had been gathered for this single objective.
Despite that fact, Alon felt a strange sense of unease as he looked down.
As the dust that replaced the light gradually cleared, Alon could naturally see the situation on the ground.
The first thing he saw were the soldiers, who were frowning as if they couldn't understand what they had been doing just moments ago.
Next were Ladan, Seolrang, Line, and Deus, who had escaped just in time.
And finally—
In the center of a black crater stood the Sin of Wrath.
"…!"
The Sin was not in good condition. Its already worn armor was fading, turning a pale, ashen gray as if on the verge of extinction. Its left hand, which had been struck earlier, was completely severed.
However, the reason they were shocked was—
…Its form remains?
The Sin's physical form was still intact. The Sin of Sloth had also maintained its form after being hit by Alon's magic, but that was only possible because its defensive power as a Sin had been preserved.
Given the nature of the Sin of Wrath, however, it was extremely strange to Alon that its form remained, especially since it had been weakened enough to be severely wounded by Deus's threads.
The moment he felt that doubt—
"?"
Alon found himself standing on the ground.
It was bizarre. Alon, who had been in the sky with Penia just a moment ago, was now standing before the Sin.
The moment he realized this—
Flake—
The faded armor of the Sin, which had been standing motionless, began to fall away.
Like an insect molting.
Slowly.
Slowly.
The worn armor fell.
The faded helmet.
The notched sword.
Everything fell away, bit by bit.
And what was revealed was something in the shape of a bizarre knight.
The armor covering its entire body was a pitch-black color, as if forged from obsidian fished from the abyss of night and melted starlight, with a faint red glow shimmering beneath the surface.
Unknown runes and patterns reminiscent of red constellations—not veins—were engraved on the surface of the armor.
And in the center of the hollow chest—
There was a single star.
A star that was infinitely close to the abyss, yet undeniably shining.
And the Sin—no, the entity—that appeared with a loftiness that seemed to erase all noise, spoke.
[Can you... bear the karma of sin?]
Suddenly, it posed a question.