Master of Baal of the Four Calamities
There was no way I had seen wrong.
The woman walking directly behind the Eight Houses Knights.
It was unmistakably… Isabella.
It felt like only yesterday that she had vanished alongside Isabella von Dercian, who had come seeking her from the Dercian family — her very origin. Hudson had told me as much, clear as day.
Hadn't Isabella gone back to where she belonged?
I had thought so too. I had assumed she returned to the Dercian family to reclaim her rightful place. So why was Isabella marching with the Eight Houses Knights now?
…Her place to return to was never the Eight Houses Knights.
A memory I had set aside. Hadn't she been trying to restore her standing within the Dercian family? That was why I never searched for her. Why I never even wondered what became of her afterward.
And yet… this encounter, here and now, was a development I had never once anticipated.
The crest of the Eight Houses. An apprentice knight.
Isabella, moreover, appeared to be an apprentice among the Eight Houses Knights. She wore the same armor embroidered with the character for eight on the shoulder, but unlike the regular knights, her chest bore no eight-pointed star. A few others in the rear ranks were the same — all of them apprentices, it seemed. Looking closer, even the eight-pointed stars on the regular knights showed slight variations, which was curious in itself.
The Empire's symbol is a golden five-pointed star. So why do the Eight Houses Knights use an eight-pointed one?
The question struck me unbidden. The strongest knight order in the Empire. The Emperor's innermost circle — shouldn't they naturally bear the symbol of the Arhon Empire?
In Pangenia, the five-pointed star was the sacred emblem of the stars. The six-pointed star was a glory bestowed upon great heroes, including the Six of the Old Empire. But an eight-pointed star? Come to think of it, I had never once seen any lore connected to the eight-pointed star in Pangenia. Perhaps it was a feature unique to the Eight Houses Knights alone.
"…"
In that instant, my eyes met Isabella's.
Inevitable, really. Yet the expression and gaze she turned on me did not change in the slightest.
Could she truly not recognize me as I was now?
Impossible.
I shook my head inwardly. There was simply no way she wouldn't know me. She could not fail to recognize the form of the Dreadful Omen. Even if I had transformed into some other shape, she would have known. She had served at my side longer than anyone.
She's simply pretending not to know.
The complete absence of change in her face was because this was the heart of the Empire. If Raiga, commander of the Eight Houses Knights — or the Golden Mask — learned that she and I knew each other, the consequences would be fatal at once. So she was desperately feigning ignorance, looking away.
"Interesting."
That was when it happened. Raiga faced me and spoke, his voice faintly stirred with excitement.
At the same time—
"…!"
"…!"
A strange light kindled in the eyes of every last member of the Eight Houses Knights. No — not only them. The eleven executives of the Death God Religion, Golden Mask included, were staring at me with equal astonishment.
Was it because I was the true master who had summoned that Baal?
"The Commander… is interested…!"
…Wait. Was it not because of Baal?
The man standing nearest to Raiga trembled, murmuring in small awe. He stared at me as if a nonbeliever had just witnessed a holy miracle of the gods — as if he could not bring himself to believe it.
Raiga paid him no mind. After studying me once more, he stroked his chin and spoke.
"Even with the vessel by which I perceive all things, I cannot grasp you properly. You cannot be discerned. You are making yourself impossible to discern…"
It was more than mere interest. He had immediately seen through the Observation Block I carried. No — beyond understanding the Phase of the Radiant Pureblood ring that made Observation Block possible, he was approaching something more fundamental.
Me. The nature of Randolph himself.
"Is that truly your real form?"
…As expected. Raiga had at once put the question of my essence into words.
I was currently wearing the Archetypal Armor. Using its shape-shifting property, I had fashioned a golden goat mask, and by transforming into the Dreadful Omen I was projecting an even greater sense of pressure. Even the executives of the Death God Religion had found nothing odd about it — yet Raiga, meeting me for the first time, had pierced straight through.
I shrugged.
"Does that matter?"
I could not have cared less. In this place, few things were worth less than a "true face." The halls were crowded with people who hid their faces and concealed their identities. The Death God Religion alone was proof enough — men who never showed their faces, forever behind masks and hoods. They themselves were already a long way from any "true form."
"Ha! Fair enough."
Grasping my meaning, Raiga gave a deep nod. It truly was pointless. But that, it seemed, was not the only thing that had caught his interest.
Thud.
Raiga stepped closer and slowly drew his sword.
Shuaaaaa!
Golden light coiled around the blade.
Sword Gang.
There was no mistaking it. That golden aura was not Sword Qi — it was unmistakably Sword Gang. The supreme force that could only be raised upon reaching Sword Mastery Lv. 30!
Aside from myself, this was the first other Sword Gang user I had ever seen.
"…!!!"
Several of the Death God Religion's executives glared at Raiga with open hostility, but I, standing directly before him, did not so much as flinch. Watching me, Raiga's eyes lit up.
"What truly matters is that I smell the same scent on you that I do on myself. The scent of a powerhouse that cannot be grasped, that cannot be observed — and yet cannot be hidden."
…The strong recognize the strong. Same principle. In other words, a monster like Raiga held me in high enough regard to call me a powerhouse.
But he would not have drawn Sword Gang for a meaning so simple. The true intent behind that action and those words—
Ssssss.
Quietly. Not as flamboyant as Raiga's, but a calm, blue, refined Sword Gang wrapped itself around my body.
"Just as I thought…!"
For a moment Raiga smiled faintly, as if he had expected exactly this. He had recognized at once that he and I were both Sword Gang users.
But he hadn't been certain.
He had waited for me to prove it by wielding Sword Gang myself. Evidence that he still could not fully pierce the Observation Block and my Hidden Traits.
What Raiga said next, however, vaulted far beyond anyone's expectations.
"Twelfth Guardian. So you are the real Baal."
"…!!!"
"………!!!"
The Four Calamities.
In the distant past, when the surface world still existed, four beasts of ruin had driven the world toward annihilation. Colossal monsters that made the world tremble with overwhelming size and might. Their forms were still passed down in legends across the continent.
But was that the truth? Had humanity truly sealed the Four Calamities?
The four strongest houses of the Old Empire waged war using the Four Calamities. Palga, Dercian, Arhon, and Rahon.
The names of the present day had all been inherited from the Old Empire. In any case, they had believed with absolute certainty that they could control the Four Calamities. The result was self-destruction. The empire collapsed, and the world fell into the hands of Ruin — all because they had abused the power of the Four Calamities without even realizing it was part of Ruin's design.
Then who sealed the remaining Calamities?
There were plenty of stories — that the Six had sealed them, that some other immortal or celestial being had done it.
The Four Calamities sealed themselves.
Raiga knew the truth. As one who gathered the fragments of Ruin, he had come closer to it than anyone. As he said, the Four Calamities had not been sealed by anyone. No being capable of sealing such monsters could exist. They had simply sealed themselves and vanished from the world as if evaporating. When the goddess Rhea sacrificed herself to halt Ruin, they had merely withdrawn into deep, dark caves to await the day Ruin would awaken once more.
That the Four Calamities are appearing one by one means Ruin itself is about to emerge.
The appearance of the Four Calamities was intimately tied to the advent of Ruin. The first to appear had been Baal. The emergence of that beast at the Mountain of the Cultivator had set every city into an uproar. Raiga had been tracking other fragments of Ruin at the time and could not move. But he had found it strange, that much was true.
Baal, sunk into the Abyss?
It was absurd. That a monster like Baal would become "one who is the Abyss itself." Of course it was.
How can a master of the Abyss sink into the Abyss?
A ruler of the Abyss. For Baal, one of the Abyss's masters, to sink into the Abyss was nonsense — except in one case.
…The shell is thrashing about, trying to reclaim its power. Because it was resurrected without its strength.
If only the "shell" had been resurrected, it was possible. Baal's essence — the vessel that held its true power — had clearly not risen with it.
The authority to push anything to its absolute extreme.
The shell surely could not contain that power, which even the gods had once looked up to in awe. Appearing in the world as only half of itself, its hunger for power was only natural.
Then where had the remaining half — that authority — been placed?
…The Twelfth Guardian.
He had heard the rumors. But he had taken no interest. A Guardian, after all — the same as those old monsters of the Death God Religion. The Eight Houses Knights and the Death God Religion were oil and water. A combination that never mixed and never could. Raiga had never liked those old fiends being in the imperial palace to begin with. That a Twelfth Guardian who had never existed before had suddenly appeared was a matter of little concern to him.
And yet.
I thought he was just another half-measure.
The one standing before him now was different — vastly different. The same Observation Block phenomenon as the other Guardians. Fine. That much he could understand. It was a trait Guardians typically possessed.
The problem was his own sense.
I feel nothing.
It was maddeningly interesting. The moment they faced each other, gooseflesh had risen on his skin. That a powerhouse of his own caliber could feel nothing from a being!
Observation Block merely prevented the reading of detailed numerical values. It could not control what people commonly called the naked eye, feeling, or intuition. And Raiga possessed an absolute sense that let him know a thing simply by looking at it. If even he could feel nothing, then…
It is not Observation Block alone. This is someone who even dismantles my intuition.
This was not a mere ability. It had to be regarded as a phenomenon.
That one was born from the start as something utterly ambiguous — something unknowable.
He simply was that kind of being. Judging and recognizing a creature born that way was impossible from the outset. That he could not be known, could not be felt, was only natural. And so even that form was likely not his essential appearance.
Which was why he had asked. Is that your true form?
— Does that matter?
The Twelfth Guardian, the Golden Goat, had brushed the question aside lightly. As if that were not what mattered.
What could matter more than this?
Essence itself is not important.
…Yes. The creature's essence was not what mattered. What mattered far more was the existence itself. That a being who, by his mere presence, struck the scales of Raiga's judgment now stood in the heart of the Empire.
This situation. This phenomenon.
Hard to believe — but I have no choice but to believe it.
At first he had been half-skeptical. The shell of Baal, summoned into the heart of the Empire. The one who summoned and commanded that shell.
The aura of Gang, refined through the absolute extreme of sword technique — a force only I can wield.
If someone could use even that with ease…
Was it not fair to say he possessed the authority?
No.
Raiga shook his head and smiled with complete sincerity.
…It would not be wrong to call him Baal itself.
That Golden Goat — it would not be wrong at all to regard him as Baal of the Four Calamities itself!