Union VS Isera
Something was wrong.
The moment Union checked his inventory, the full weight of the disaster hit him.
Wrong. Not merely wrong — catastrophically, unforgivably wrong.
All those experience potions… gone?
A wave of vertigo washed over him. Those weren't just any potions. They held every scrap of power he had accumulated over long years — a desperate measure to cushion the backlash of leaping between dimensions. And now that precaution had become a knife at his own throat.
Who the hell—?
It made no sense. An inventory was something only its owner could open. In all his life, no one had ever laid a hand on his. That privilege belonged solely to him — the Mage of the Golden Rule.
Only the experience potions are missing. Someone took them on purpose.
And the more astonishing part: everything else had been left untouched. Only the potions were gone.
Union stroked his chin. Could Isera — the one who held his soul as collateral — be the culprit? He shook his head almost at once. If Isera had already stolen his authority through that soul, there would have been no reason to drag him all the way to Earth. No reason to grant him fourteen days, either.
To spy on my private space and steal from it, you'd have to be near me. And the one who's been coming and going around me lately is…
No one.
Union did not travel with the demons. He moved alone, carrying out Isera's orders in isolation.
No — wait. There was one.
Exactly one.
The being that had suddenly torn open a warp and appeared before him.
An Orthodox.
…An Orthodox that had lost its master.
Kakakaka!
The tiny Death God floating before his eyes was laughing with the same thunderous glee as always. Union couldn't help but ask.
"The one who pulled the experience potions out of my inventory… was that you?"
Kakakakaka!
…Apparently so. The Orthodox nodded with great enthusiasm.
Good heavens. Union slapped his forehead.
"Why? Who put you up to it?"
Kaka?
A vigorous shake of the head. No one had ordered it.
It didn't sound like a lie. Orthodoxes were simple creatures by nature — none of them possessed the wit for deception.
Still… to freely reach into an inventory and take what it wanted.
Orthodoxes manipulate space. This one must have a deeper affinity for spatial arts than the others.
It was different. Fundamentally different from any Orthodox he had known. An inventory was no mere pocket dimension. It was a rigorously sealed space, accessible only to the chosen. To pierce it without permission and touch what lay inside meant a mastery of space bordering on the divine.
And if no one had ordered it…
"Haha. I won't be angry — just give them back, won't you? No one else can use them anyway."
He had no choice but to coax. The taste in his mouth was bitter, but he had no way to find them. He hadn't even noticed the Orthodox removing the potions from his inventory — how was he supposed to know where they'd been hidden?
Of course, they wouldn't have vanished entirely. No one else could use his experience, after all. The potions were sealed, and only he could break that seal.
"There's a good little one. Just return them, and I'll grant you anything you want."
Kakaka!
"Yes, yes. Is there something you want? Something you'd like to eat?"
Kakakaka!
"What's that? Ah — a soul, is it? Of course, Orthodoxes love souls. But right now I don't have any— wait. That soul looks strangely familiar. …Don't tell me that's mine?"
Kakakakaka!
"Hah."
Union exhaled and looked down upon the earth. Countless "sinners" stared up at him, chattering away. Their voices never reached his ears.
Damn it all.
He could only despair at his own predicament. How had it come to this?
One thing was certain: from that moment on, his age of suffering had begun.
Every single weakness I had, seized in an instant.
By some incomprehensible means, the Orthodox had not only stolen every last experience potion but was also holding the soul Isera had taken as collateral.
From that day forward, Union had done every bizarre task the Orthodox demanded of him. Saving an old man about to be hit by a car. Helping a child chased by a dog. Catching a fleeing thief… mostly, helping people.
Oppose the demons. Is that what this is?
The reason the Orthodox had opened a warp here was surely the same. Help the humans of Earth. Fight the demons.
But Union had come to destroy a world. He had crossed dimensions to slaughter the humans of Earth. He had believed this realm of sinners deserved annihilation.
My experience. My soul. And…
Union turned his gaze. Those two were not the only leverage held against him. There was something far more fatal than either of them.
Beautiful.
The Orthodox. That being, now fully "transformed" into the complete form of a Death God, had captivated Union's heart. It had forcibly sealed countless warps shut. He had never witnessed an Orthodox of such majesty. It was dazzlingly, breathtakingly beautiful.
The King of the Orthodox.
And so he wanted it. Desperately. That one-of-a-kind existence in all the world.
Isera, the demons — none of them had ever truly mattered to Union. He had knelt only for the sake of his goal. If he could claim that Orthodox, he would gladly turn against the demons. Once the contract was complete, he could still sweep Earth clean afterward.
Whoosh! Whoosh!
Alongside two hundred thousand demons, Isera himself began to move. Under ordinary circumstances he would never have acted in person — but the situation had changed.
Something closed the portals. Someone with power I don't recognize.
The demons who had crossed first had been annihilated. Not a single one had returned alive. He had no clear picture of what had happened — only the certainty that a force capable of forcibly sealing the portals existed. An unforeseen and massive variable.
Thirty thousand demons who crossed ahead of us, dead. So absurdly easily.
Isera scowled. At this rate, he was no better than that King of the Dead, Ahram — the one he had so thoroughly scorned — vanishing before the invasion had even properly begun.
So he would confirm it himself, and crush it.
And that purpose was fulfilled soon enough.
"Inventory — Rain of Repentance."
Ssssshhhhh—!
Yellow raindrops fell from the sky all at once — rain steeped in holy power that weakened demons. An attack before even reaching the Dragon Vein, then?
Gazing at the figure who had deployed a sacred domain in the far distance, Isera spoke.
"…Union."
So Union was there. Just as expected. True to Basara's warning that the humans of the Empire could not be trusted — he had betrayed them.
"Have you forgotten the contract we made?"
Isera raised his left hand. Above his palm, a soul rose, radiating light. Union's soul — his very own.
"If I so much as move a finger…"
The soul would be extinguished, and Union would die on the spot.
Then it happened.
Fwoooosh!
Flames suddenly erupted from the soul — and in the blink of an eye, it was gone.
What…?
A situation he had never encountered. Isera looked at Union. But the man floated in midair, perfectly intact. His soul had evaporated, and yet he was fine.
Which meant—
Was the soul a fake?
A dummy. If the soul itself had been false, it was possible. But that couldn't be. A contract was absolute. No false soul could ever have sealed one.
"You… what have you done?"
"So you got hit by it too, I see."
Hit by it? Union spoke of something strange. Isera couldn't make sense of it — but in that instant, Union's demeanor shifted completely.
"Inventory — Seeker Set."
"Inventory — Sacred Disposition."
"Inventory — Candle of Purification."
"Inventory…"
Equipment and tools appeared without end. And that was not all.
Ziiing!
Ziiiiing!
One by one, humans began emerging through warps below. It seemed Union had intended this from the very beginning. Isera had believed the man's thirst for vengeance against the sinners was genuine — but had it all been a performance of pure desperation?
Union closed his eyes for a moment. It had been a very long time since he had felt rage of this magnitude. But more than the rage itself, the knowledge that he had been deceived by Union made him angrier still.
Even after being reborn, nothing has changed.
Just as his sister Basara had said. He still lacked the eye to see. He had thought himself grown — but this was no different from the past.
But it's fine.
Unlike before, he had time to correct his mistakes. And if the opponent was Union, it was almost laughable.
Did he have some artifact that seals warps across a wide area?
Unexpected, yes. But no matter what bizarre equipment or tools he pulled out, the result would be the same. As long as it was Union — and not some unforeseen third powerhouse — it made no difference.
"…Fine. You want to die that badly? I'll kill you."
Isera slowly opened his eyes.
Union had a fair measure of confidence.
These demons are as weak as they'll ever be. I have a chance.
He was certain of it — he had seen it up close. The demons had been weakened far beyond the sealing of his own power. They could barely even fly, as if still unaccustomed to prolonged aerial travel.
Isera has nearly exhausted his mana as well.
Moreover, Isera had burned almost all his mana using Mass Teleport. There was no way that vast reservoir had fully recovered already. And this was Earth — another world, not Pangenia. Mana recovery would naturally be far slower. At best, he would have regained about thirty percent.
And Union was not alone.
"Follow the Guardian of the Black Egg!"
"The Guardian protects us!"
For reasons he didn't fully understand, those countless "sinners" were calling the Orthodox the Guardian of the Black Egg and following it. Their condition was decent enough, too.
A number of 3-star Transcendents. Manageable.
They would be more than sufficient for mopping up the remaining demons. The demons outnumbered them vastly, yes — but they were as weakened as they could be. Add the countless demon-slaying tools he had bestowed, and this fight was one he absolutely could not lose.
Isera. Find his weakness, and he's nothing special.
In fact, among all the lords of the Demon Realm, Isera was the least remarkable. Any other lord would have withdrawn long ago — but because it was Isera, the fight was all the more winnable. He lacked the monstrous martial might of his sister Basara, and he possessed no special authority either. His only advantage was that his weakness was difficult to find.
Which meant: find the weakness, and he became endlessly easy to deal with.
The Seeker Set. It has a hidden option that reveals the weaknesses of enemies with demonic attributes.
And Union was a master at finding an opponent's weak points. Customize the countermeasures to the target, and that was that. Activating the Seeker Set's hidden option would let him pierce through the weakness of any being with demonic properties. His level had dropped and he had grown weaker, true — but Union was confident he could still display the bearing of a 3-star Transcendent or higher. He hadn't been stripped of the ability to use the items in his inventory, after all.
On top of that — Sacred Disposition, Candle of Purification, and Grace of Water will completely seal off Isera's skills.
Every one of them was the perfect counter to the skills Isera used. From the very beginning, Union had pretended to submit while continuously analyzing him. Now that analysis would bear fruit.
I can see it.
Union smiled. Just as expected. In the next moment, Isera's true weakness began to take shape before his eyes.