Chapter 32
Chapter 32
Saint, You’re So Vulgar! – Chapter 32
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Versia couldn't comprehend this chain of cause and effect.
Why the person she'd tried to save was collapsing.
Why a smile hung on that face.
Why that body was toppling over, crushing her beneath it.
Her mind wasn't sharp enough to make sense of any of it.
She just kept repeating the questions.
Why.
Why now, of all times.
In the midst of it all, Versia's thoughts finally converged on a single point.
There was only one being in her life capable of unleashing such a vicious act.
Because there existed, high in the heavens, a being who would strip away everything from her most cherished doll just to protect it.
"Ah...."
Her head burned with hatred.
Her eyeballs felt like they were searing.
Her breathing raced so fast that oxygen couldn't circulate.
Amidst it, she felt sticky, hot blood soaking her entire body.
It was the divine power ignited by that emotion.
Kiiiiing!
The halo spun.
Only Versia failed to notice it.
Even as it conjured a scene rivaling the end of the world, every nerve in Versia was fixed solely on Asher.
It was no different from a berserk state.
Versia trembled violently as she clutched Asher to her.
She forced out her voice with effort, but her cracked throat produced only a metallic rasp.
"No... don't...."
She couldn't accept Asher's breathing fading away.
She refused to believe there was a hole pierced through his chest...
"Get... up... please...."
What she invoked was a prayer of healing.
But the phenomenon defied the natural order.
Not regeneration, but reversal.
A miracle that defied explanation without such terms.
There was no logic or calculation within it.
It was no different from a child throwing a tantrum.
Versia was commanding the world that doted on her.
To save Asher Terbion, somehow.
Kwarrrung!
The backlash was borne by the sky, the earth, the air, the trees.
And by Versia herself.
"Cough...!"
Blood spewed from her mouth.
Blood vessels bulged across her sclera, bursting to shed tears of blood.
Yet Versia didn't stop.
She mended his heart, his lungs and liver, his stomach.
She mended the bones, muscles, and flesh to cover them.
She sealed the hole in Asher.
But he didn't open his eyes.
Rational thought was impossible.
Versia crushed the sightless Asher to her chest, unleashing a silent scream.
It felt exactly like her fault.
What if he hadn't tried to sacrifice himself?
If the Parent God wouldn't allow her to break, wouldn't it have sent salvation another way?
Hypotheticals spawned endless more.
At the end of such purely emotional reasoning stood guilt.
It had been wrong from the beginning.
She shouldn't have felt affection for him, grown close to him, been swayed by his logic.
She should have chosen cold rationality over any notion of the greater good.
Then this nightmare never would have happened.
What now?
If he were gone, would everything revert to how it was before?
It was strange.
She'd lived that way her entire life, and her time with Asher had been just a little over a month.
Yet Versia felt terror at the thought of returning to a world without him.
She was certain it would be moments even more horrific than before.
Her vision blackened.
It felt like plunging into the ocean depths, flailing desperately.
Her breath caught.
She would drown.
She didn't want that.
'Please....'
Wake up.
Wake up and grin like an idiot again.
Get mad when I tease you, then act all carefree like it never happened.
She kept up the healing while sending those words inward.
But it was utterly meaningless.
Piiiik
The healing of his body was already complete.
No amount of divine power poured in would improve it further.
So why wouldn't he wake up?
Versia couldn't understand.
Of course notshe'd lost even the rationality to comprehend it.
Her chest felt suffocating.
If she didn't vent it somehow, something would burst from inside.
Then, something caught Versia's eye.
[Uwahhh, so close]
It was Bourbon, giggling with his body pulverized.
Nosomething wearing his skin.
A girl's voice.
Having expended its energy, it reeked with a nauseating stench.
Ah, that thing punched a hole through Asher's chest.
That thing fired tentacles, and she'd blocked them with Asher's body.
Recalling it brought self-loathing crashing in with hatred.
She didn't care what it was or what it wanted.
No need to know.
She wanted it dead.
That reason was enough.
And with that alone, Versia could move the world.
Drip
Blood trickled from Versia's nose.
At the same time,
Kwaddddduk!
The sky crumbled down, crushing it.
* * *
Satern sensed the anomaly just as he was about to smash his fist into Bourbon's face.
He realized it was something wearing Bourbon's skinan undiscovered "artificial witch" from the depthsand promptly wrapped his body thickly in baekrin.
But he couldn't act further.
"Hup...!"
Kwaddddduk!
Versia's divine power erupted.
Glowing in an endlessly ominous red, it dyed the world.
The density of divinity in that light, its overwhelming mass, robbed Satern of his freedom.
He wasn't the only one.
Clearly, what Versia emitted was a healing prayer.
Yet, targeted solely on Asher, it sucked the life from everything in the space.
Only then did Satern grasp the true weight of the praises for Versia.
For the first time in his life, he felt fear.
'...The world's favoritism.'
It wasn't mere reverence.
The word's literal meaning.
Versia was an off-the-charts existence who could force such horrifically irrational horrors on the entire world just because her heart stirred.
Only now did it sink in.
Titles like Sword Name bearer and 1st Class Knight, feats like inheriting draconic powernone mattered.
Before her, all were equally mere creatures.
However.
If he did nothing, an irreversible catastrophe would unfold.
That was why Satern gritted his teeth and moved.
He shook off the sensation of his body being pulverized and ran.
He scooped the distant, gasping Lubena into his arms.
In that state, he rushed to the center of the missing people.
In this chaos, only he could make such a desperate stand.
"Uwoooooh!!!"
With a shout, he unleashed his divinity.
His baekrin spread beyond his flesh, enveloping the space around the missing people and Lubena.
A stroke of miraculous coincidence.
Right after the baekrin barrier formed, the space gained mass and bore down on the earth.
Kwaddddduk!!!
Satern's body swelled.
Veins crunching across his forehead.
Then,
Puhwak!
Muscles tore.
Sclera bloodshot red.
Nose exploded in blood, trickling from clenched teeth.
Tremble
His body began to shake.
"Kyaaaah!!!"
Lubena screamed.
Her face deathly pale, she clutched Satern's collar.
She desperately inscribed healing prayers on his body, but it crumbled faster than it healed.
Satern's mind went blank.
In that crisis, what brought eerie relief was the sight beyond the baekrin barrier.
The ground was caving in.
The artificial witch wasn't just crushedit lost all form.
The underground they'd fled from went without saying.
With the earth collapsing, even survivors would be buried alive.
A chill ran down his spine.
If he hadn't judged quickly and protected them?
Missing people, Lubena, himselfall would've ended up like that artificial witch.
Of course, it was too soon to relax.
Who could stop that?
How to halt it?
Dizzying.
Endlessly so, a hopeless void.
How long must he bear this weight?
Pushing even that thought aside as he endured, at some point,
Piiik!
The pressure suddenly lifted.
He knew the reason at once.
"Versia!!!"
At Lubena's cry, Satern's gaze snapped to Versia.
Her body was tilting sideways.
The red halo that had floated above her head was gone.
She'd fainted.
Breathing eased in an instant.
But his body had crumbled beyond endurance.
Satern dropped to his knees.
Shoulders slumping in exhaustion, he let out a hollow laugh.
His gaze remained pinned on Versia.
Fainting because even she couldn't control it.
A power that could only halt through such an outcome.
'Insanely dangerous.'
With his deep studies in doctrine and history, he'd never even heard of such power.
His expression twisted.
He knew it was blasphemy.
Yet he couldn't help questioning.
'Parent God....'
Why bestow such authority on that small girl's body?
What intent lay behind it?
What are You planning?
But even the strength to wonder soon faded.
Thud!
Satern felt his head spinning as he toppled sideways.
Eyes open, but beneath the lids, only bloodshot sclera remained.
"Wh-what?! Hey! What if you faint too!!! Ah, I'm going crazy for real!!!"
Lubena tore at her hair.
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