The Ancient Demon

I'd felt this sensation before.

When I absolved Priest Andrew of his sins.

Marquis Weiser's estate.

Back when I'd visited with Hudson to meet Serengeti.

After the warp failed and a dimensional rift tore open, flesh hybrids swarmed the city. Priest Andrew broke a taboo to protect the ordinary citizens.

The Prayer of Adoration could only be used when praising the Goddess.

He used it on me—on Randolph.

Afterward he lost all his holy power and aged all at once. I forgave Priest Andrew's sin.

I used an Indulgence to restore his faith.

Back then, I clearly felt the Goddess's presence—her will.

But the twin goddesses were dead.

Rhea perished with Ruin, and Fina chose death herself to save me.

Their physical forms were gone, yet their will remained.

In the end, Priest Andrew's holy power grew even stronger, and he too was saved, wasn't he?

This time was the same.

The blessings and sanctuaries used by the holy knights of the Goddess Sect posed no problem for me at all.

It felt as if I were with the Goddess herself.

Even though this body was not Randolph, but myself—Park Hyunmyung.

The Goddess's protection still remains in this world.

The will they left behind continues on.

Otherwise, the very existence of the Goddess Sect wouldn't make sense.

Still, I found it strange.

Did they even know about the Goddesses' deaths?

Of course, the Pope, who communicated directly with the Goddesses, might know.

He might simply be keeping silent to prevent chaos.

But due to the two goddesses' deaths, the Goddess Sect had clearly stagnated.

Even if the Pope stays silent, others must be feeling the questions. Children chosen by the Goddesses are no longer being born.

Saintesses, saints, or high-ranking clergy.

They no longer appeared.

I saw Cardinal Johansen pushing his son into the Empire in a similar context.

The Goddess Sect is searching for a way out······.

The Goddess Sect had recently lost a war against the Balrog Cult as well.

Though it wasn't a total war, for a Goddess Sect that had never known defeat, it must have been quite a shock.

In my view, Aron was a device to ease relations with the Empire, where opposition had reached its peak.

A kind of gift.

He himself doesn't know, but Aron was thrown into a death trap from the start.

Though the holy knights with him were strong, they were far inferior to the Death God Religion or the Palga Knights.

Aron's own level wasn't high either.

Too weak to have been sent for victory.

Cardinal Johansen's son, Aron, is bait.

From the beginning, Aron had been chosen as a show of "sincerity" from the Goddess Sect to the Empire.

Perhaps they planned to use it as leverage for negotiations if the Empire killed Aron.

With the war against the Balrog Cult ongoing, if the Empire also drew its sword, it would be dangerous.

I called it a gift, but it was no different from bait.

Bait thrown out hoping the fish would bite.

In Aron's mind, he had participated with a sense of mission to elevate the Goddess Sect's name······ but from my perspective, knowing of the two goddesses' deaths, Aron was a classic scapegoat.

Perhaps Aron had been Cardinal Johansen's sore thumb.

Just looking at his behavior, he was a vessel unsuited for the Goddess Sect.

Moreover, he lacked the dignity expected of a cardinal's son.

Aron participated to elevate the names of the Goddess Sect and Cardinal Johansen, but the Goddess Sect and Cardinal Johansen sent him hoping he would die······ How tragic.

Perhaps my prediction was wrong.

But I thought it highly likely to be correct.

If not, even with Raiga's pledge, I simply couldn't understand the Goddess Sect's official motive for sending Aron.

So I had intended to kill him.

Dying by my hand would be less unjust than dying by the Empire's.

"I absolve you of your sins, Aron."

But I changed my mind.

I decided to spare him.

If there was even a slight chance of reform, giving him another opportunity didn't seem bad.

More importantly right now—

Roughly two hundred. Not bad.

Sweeping away the enemies before me was more important.

From the eleventh floor to the fifteenth.

The trials of this tower, which proclaimed equal struggle, were a kind of filtering.

The purpose was to eliminate as many championship candidates as possible under equal conditions.

Withdrawal was already impossible.

From the moment stats were distributed, even surrender had been made impossible.

The fact that they prepared such a trap element······

Martial God Karas. Is this truly your will?

They wanted everyone to die and kill until a single strongest one was born.

Like solitude.

They were aiming for the same sacrifice as the children of that space that Sonora and Isabella had experienced.

······It seemed Martial God Karas was thinking something wrong.

He seemed somehow urgent.

I needed to go up and find out why.

Whoosh—!

In an instant, wings of black flame bloomed from my back.

Wings so vast they seemed ready to cover the ceiling.

This was the form of the Demon God.

The true form of the Heavenly Demon that the Demon God had possessed long ago, before being sealed.

At the same time—

"Ah······!"

"W-what is that······!"

Sssssss—!

A single black phantom rose behind my back.

Before that power, which bore every ill omen of the world, everyone trembled.

They could not move.

They dared not defy it.

When the Heavenly Demon returns, all demonic paths submit.

Even unbelievers are no exception.

But should there be any who refuse to submit—

Gwooooooh—!

They meet death.

"H-holy power is working!"

"Lord Aron! Your body is recovering!"

"The arms and legs that were severed······!"

Color returned to the holy knights' faces.

Until now, Aron's severed limbs had refused to reattach no matter how much holy power they poured into them.

But suddenly the holy power took hold, the limbs reattached, and regeneration began.

"It's a miracle!"

"Ahh!"

The holy knights breathed sighs of relief.

He had finally returned from the threshold of death.

But their cries never reached Aron's ears.

I absolve you of your sins, Aron.

Aron knew that everything—this entire miracle—had begun from that moment.

From the moment that man had absolved his sins.

The holy power that had stopped began to flow through his blood once more.

New flesh sprouted from his rotting body, from scabbed wounds, restoring him.

The Goddess's blessing and protection were saving him.

And that was not all.

An Indulgence······.

A true Indulgence had been applied.

Something only a tiny handful within the Goddess Sect could use.

Even those could use it only three times—and one had been issued to him.

But no matter how he looked at it, that man was no devout believer.

Calling him a priest was a stretch.

That man stands beyond even the Goddess's love.

So now he knew for certain.

Not some vague expression—he knew exactly what to call that man.

That man was one who conveyed the Goddess's will.

No—to put it more precisely.

"······That man is the Goddess's will itself."

Gwooooooh—!

A single phantom rose like a black sun and swept the ground clean.

Before it, all of them met annihilation.

"Th-that······ are you saying that form is truly the Goddess's will?"

"But the Goddess is a symbol of compassion and abundance. That is simply······"

"Destruction, ruin······ doesn't Ruin fit better?"

Of course one could object—how could someone wielding such an ominous power possibly be the Goddess's will itself?

It had nothing to do with the words compassion and abundance.

But Aron shook his head.

"Can you not see it?"

Aron's gaze turned above the man's head.

But the holy knights could only tilt their heads.

"See what, my lord?"

"We see nothing."

Aron smiled.

"Smile. The two Goddesses are smiling."

Cardinal Johansen's son, Aron.

He had become a fanatic.

Tower of the War God, fifteenth floor.

Here, an atmosphere completely different from ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠before had taken hold.

"······"

"······"

No one put ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠their heads together to strategize, nor did anyone even think of banding together.

Whom to eliminate, how to survive—

Their heads were already overloaded to the point of bursting with what they had witnessed on the fourteenth floor.

Everyone's minds endlessly replayed only that scene from the fourteenth floor.

The overwhelming martial prowess that had evaporated nearly two hundred people in an instant.

Equal struggle, they said?

Where exactly is any of this equal?

What is that man? Is he even human?

Only then did people realize the unfairness of this struggle.

It had never been fair from the start.

They had each tried to seize some advantage in their own way, only to realize it had all been pointless.

Hyun of Adrium.

He was different.

A being on a completely different trajectory from them—perhaps from everyone in this world.

There had been signs.

From the moment he mastered the Sutra of Life and Death the instant he saw the book.

Had he not seen invisible letters, learned unlearnable techniques, and earned Raiga's favor?

A genius who perceived entirely different things even when looking at the same object.

But everyone gathered here had also been hailed as geniuses.

Did that mean Hyun of Adrium was a genius among geniuses?

Monster.

He was a monster.

A calamitous beast beyond words, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠for whom even the word genius fell short.

······We cannot win.

It is a calamity because humans cannot stand against it.

That man is calamity itself.

Everyone had lost their will to fight.

The start was announced, yet no one struggled.

They simply put as much distance as possible between themselves and that man.

With a single exception.

"This lowly servant greets the Great One."

That exception was Aron, now a fanatic.

An attitude a hundred and eighty degrees different from when they had met on the eleventh floor.

He was following the calamity with a posture of utter reverence.

His limbs fully restored, and holding even clearer holy power than before.

······This is burdensome.

Aron pressed himself flat to the ground, only lifting his head slightly.

The sparkle in his eyes was deeply unsettling.

The complete reversal of attitude made me wonder if he was even the same person.

But it wasn't bad.

I was combat-disabled right now anyway.

Windows kept appearing one after another.

I sat leaning against the wall and examined them one by one.

I was still growing even here.

But it wasn't enough.

Not to reach the top of the tower.

"Kill him!"

"Don't fall back!"

Belatedly, the sounds of combat began to rise here and there.

I slowly closed my eyes.

How much time passed like that?

······.

······.