The Dreadful Omen
Something beyond my understanding—something that defied all imagination—was unfolding over there right now.
My lips went bone-dry.
An event beyond imagination.
Perhaps a terror incomparable to any disaster humanity had ever faced was lurking within…
Gracia frowned.
Countless warps had opened across the entire Abyss, and an enormous number of people began to appear.
“Wh-what is this?”
“Where are we?”
Just those visible to the naked eye numbered in the tens of thousands. Across the whole of the Abyss, it had to be hundreds of thousands.
And every last one of them was an Earthling.
Why had Earthlings suddenly appeared here in the Abyss? And in numbers like this?
“Wait. Isn’t that Gracia?”
“Huh? Lord Gracia!”
“I don’t know what’s going on, but we’re saved!”
They recognized him and swarmed in. Gracia, who had been reported dead, was alive after all.
Yet Gracia found it strange.
Why isn’t anyone going mad?
Most of them were East Asian. From their clothes and the writing on them, they were Korean.
And yet none of them were affected by the Abyss. The powerful curse that had nearly driven even him out of his mind was having no particular effect on the people who had just appeared.
“Lord Gracia! I knew you were still alive!”
“Where are we right now?”
“W-we can get out of here, right?”
They surrounded him like a living wall.
—Kaaaah?
—Kaaaaah!
At the same time, the Servants of the Curse caught the scent and came pouring in.
“Haaah!”
“M-monsters!”
The people recoiled in horror. Earthlings still had not adapted to monsters themselves.
There would clearly be no time to satisfy curiosity or give answers.
“Heavenly Swords.”
Gracia drew a thousand blades. His stamina was flagging, but he was still alive. He had enough left to do what needed to be done.
—Kaaaaaaaah!
—Kieeek!
He slaughtered every Servant of the Curse that charged him.
“As expected of Lord Gracia!”
“No wonder they call him a hero!”
“Thank you, thank you!”
The people began calling his name even more fervently. In every eye he looked like a savior, a true hero.
But the fervor did not last long.
Ssssshk!
The black cocoon split open.
Gooooooooooooh!
…Baal burst out from within.
And in a form even more evolved than before.
Flap! Flap!
Its body and wings had grown incomparably larger. Every beat of those wings sent a savage wind racing through the entire Abyss.
“Th-there was a monster that big?”
“Insane! It’s bigger than the 63 Building!”
“It’s fine! We have Lord Gracia with us!”
Does my being here change anything?
Don’t tell me they expect me to fight that monster again?
Gracia bit his lip lightly. The golden goat that had entered so confidently was probably dead. Of course it was. There was no way it could have won against that thing.
He drew a deep breath, then slowly let it out and steeled himself. He had been defeated once, but this time he would show the true face of a hero. Even if he died, he would die like a hero. At the very least, he could not afford to look any more pathetic.
Goooooooooh!
Yet Baal’s behavior was strange. He had expected it to finish off the newly arrived Earthlings, but instead it kept staring into the cocoon, on guard.
What could be inside that would make it act like this?
Lord Darkan and a great many soldiers had gone into the cocoon in force. Had they driven Baal out? With Guardian Knight Pamel among them, it was possible.
But Gracia soon realized his guess was wrong.
What had forced Baal out of the cocoon—what had made it burst free as if fleeing—was the being that came charging out after it, as if pursuing Baal itself.
“……”
For a moment he lost the power of speech.
…Gracia had seen a great many things of late and had prided himself on being hard to surprise. The ancient dragon Laily, the peculiar reapers, the Constellations, even Baal—beings one might never meet once in a lifetime had appeared one after another.
But the thing that had just emerged was different even from those.
“……”
“……?”
The people watching were the same. Their reaction was clearly different from when Baal had appeared. It left them speechless.
In the end, staring at what had burst from the cocoon, Gracia could only twist his face and mutter a single line without meaning to.
“…………What… is that.”
The Demon King, soaking in a crimson hot spring, suddenly frowned.
Strange.
Truly strange. So strange that nothing could be stranger.
Unless Creation of Heaven and Earth itself had occurred, there should have been nothing left that could make him feel this kind of unease.
One of the four seals has come undone on its own.
The four seals—the shackles that were not yet meant to be released. One of them had broken free of its own accord.
But this was not scheduled. It was not part of the arrangement.
Who had undone it, and for what purpose?
…If they undid it knowingly, that means they understand the intention hidden inside the seals of the Four Calamities.
Tap, tap.
The Demon King stroked his chin, then slowly rose from his seat. At once the Demon-spawn that had filled the surroundings dropped to their knees. Just as he had grown stronger, the Demon-spawn themselves were now incomparable in quality to what they had been before.
The time of the second Invasion was approaching, and every preparation had already been completed.
Yet right now, the broken seal of a Four Calamity troubled him far more than any thrill of strengthened forces. Those seals were supposed to break only after the rate of erosion had risen much higher.
Even if someone undid it knowingly, it is already too late. Baal has become the Abyss itself. Nothing exists that can stop that infinitely evolving beast.
He shook his head. Whether it had been undone by chance or by design, there was no longer any way to capture a Four Calamity. Baal would begin shattering both worlds by pure instinct. It would keep devouring until it was satisfied. By the time it was content, at least dozens of cities would have sunk.
But… but what if, by some remote chance, the Four Calamity were captured? What if the “thing hidden inside” the Calamity emerged into the world earlier than planned?
……Then things would become a little troublesome.
Not that such a thing would ever happen. Tch. The Demon King clicked his tongue softly.
Most Brilliant Radiance is being used.
The Throne of Most Brilliant Light.
The items purchased at the Special Auction—offerings of tremendous value—had raised the prefix “Most Brilliant,” something even I was using for the first time.
With the Throne of Brilliant Light I had summoned Laily and cleared the Abyss Labyrinth. How far, then, could “Most Brilliant” go in summoning another hero?
No ordinary hero of the Six Stars can defeat Baal.
Whom should I summon? Of course, Laily, now one with the Transcendental Dragon, might change the equation somewhat—but I could not gamble on an uncertain hand.
I had to summon a being that surpassed the heroes of the Six Stars. Or become the one I myself regarded as most brilliant.
Can I finally summon Wilhelm?
Perhaps now, at last, I could summon the Knight King Wilhelm. I had used not mere fragments of the Golden Rule, but the complete Golden Rule itself.
The user is completed into the “Most Brilliant” form befitting their current state.
Yet Most Brilliant Radiance was not a summoning. It was the act of taking on my own most brilliant form.
Would that mean I could see Randolph’s full potential?
The King of Corpse Crows transforms into his most brilliant form.
……?
It was still Randolph, yet the context was entirely different. Overturning every expectation, I began to change into a completely different shape—transcending the King of Corpse Crows into another form that existed at its extreme.
Dreadful Omen.
A form more terrible than any ill omen or portent itself! I had gone beyond a mere corpse crow and become something like a phenomenon.
…So this is what “completed to match my current state” meant.
It seemed to have proceeded according to my situation. Whether it was the influence of the Baal Set, or whether the system had judged the King of Corpse Crows stronger than my human form, I did not know.
But—
Feeds on surrounding curses and ominous energy to grow even more powerful.
Even so, it was excellent. Better than I could have hoped.
There was no place more ominous than this. And was there any being that carried a curse as powerful as Baal’s?
Yet the meaning of “grows more powerful” was slightly different from what I had imagined.
My body swelled larger and larger. Before long my entire frame had ballooned until it rivaled Baal itself.
……Most giants wouldn’t even dare show their faces.
So this was what growing stronger meant.
At last the two colossal beasts began to face each other.
Goooooooooh!
Baal, reading the dread of the Dreadful Omen by pure instinct, spread its wings in threat and charged. I had never moved a body this large before, but I could not afford to lose the initiative. I too let out a full-throated battle cry.
Kaaaaaaaaaak—!
Two ultra-colossal beasts collided in midair.
Everyone who had sunk into the Abyss could only stare blankly at the sight.
“……What the hell is that.”
“A-am I really seeing this right now……?”
Every person summoned from Jeju Island stood with mouths hanging open. A goat-faced beast and a pitch-black bird that looked like a crow were slamming into each other.
Kwaaaang—!
Every impact set off an earthquake. The ground shook and raised winds as fierce as a typhoon.
“…Swords.”
Gracia spread his Heavenly Swords. A defensive stance. A thousand blades fanned out in every direction, and barriers formed between them.
Kuurung! Kuurururung!
Crazy. Just blocking the shockwaves made his hands go numb. Beads of sweat began to form all over his face.
Just what is that giant crow?
Even Gracia had never seen a monster like it. Its shape resembled a crow, yet in truth it was more like black fire wearing a crow’s form. It was pressing Baal with flames of pure ill omen.
But this was the Abyss Baal itself had created. Another being of Baal’s caliber existing inside the Abyss?
Could it be another master of the Abyss?
He had heard that masters of the Abyss sometimes fought over territory. But he soon shook his head. The Abyss domain that had entered this place was only one—the Abyss of the Resurrected. It was solely Baal’s territory; no other domain overlapped it.
If not that…… then could it be the Fifth Lord?
A monstrosity of that scale. Was it the Fifth Lord who had supposedly killed Laily in the Abyss Labyrinth? The one called the King of Corpse Crows, the one the White King himself had personally protected.
Gracia had always been curious about its true form—the existence of the Fifth Lord who had crushed, in a single stroke, the Laily he himself had failed to kill.
And that crow that happened to bear the name “Randolph”…… was it really that colossal beast?
If so, then the “Randolph” he knew and this “Randolph” were clearly different beings who merely shared a name.
“S-save us!”
“Mom! Mom!”
“Waaaaaah!”
Men and women, children and the elderly—everyone fell into panic. The sudden situation left them unable to keep their wits.
But even that was not the end of it.
“……Wh-what’s that now?”
“There’s more than one of them……?”
Amid the people’s horrified voices, Gracia shifted his gaze as well.
Burning feathers that had fallen from the Dreadful Omen during the clash. Those feathers writhed and transformed, taking the shapes of crows dressed in Taoist robes and wearing long beards, like hermit sages.
Caw!
Caaaw!
A legion of Taoist crows too numerous to count. When they all pressed their wings together in prayer and cawed as one, an ominous Black Sun formed above the Dreadful Omen.
From the Black Sun, tears of blood continuously streamed down. As that blood soaked the Abyss—
Gooooooooh—!
Baal suddenly began to scream in agony. A voice that countless people, Gracia included, had never once heard no matter how hard they attacked.
Whatever that Black Sun was, he understood what it was for.
【Death】
Absolute death itself.
……That was death itself.
If Baal’s entire domain were dyed in the blood of that Black Sun, Baal would die.
Tremble-tremble-tremble!
Facing the Black Sun, his body shook. That was an authority that brought absolute death. True, essential death of a dimension entirely different from the “poison” he himself had brought.
……There’s a real monster here after all.
That was the Fifth Lord? To think the master of the labyrinth was a monster like this.
There’s a reason the White King officially declared the labyrinth.
Why else would he go around protecting the Fifth Lord?
And so Gracia made a resolution.
The Fifth Lord’s labyrinth is forbidden ground that must never be touched.
No matter what happened, he would never lay a hand on that labyrinth. If it could kill the Transcendental Dragon Laily and overwhelm the Calamity Baal, no further explanation was needed.