Aslan
Aslan
All the Ancient Gods were dead.
That was the unshakable premise. Every one of them had been crushed, devoured, torn apart—utterly defeated.
Aslan, who knew each of those deaths in full, combed through his memories and analyzed the phenomenon as the Ancient God manifested before him.
The conclusion his analysis yielded was straightforward. He recalled why he had been forced to endure this illusion in the first place and was certain.
"Divinity, then."
According to the lore, the named banshee, Daughter of Sorrow, had been a close aide and priestess who served the God of Sorrow and Death.
She was not alone in that. Every banshee had been a priestess of the God of Sorrow and Death.
Unlike the meaning 'priest' held in present-day Geladrion, these had been untainted humans who served a god—true clergy.
And if she held the highest rank of Daughter of Sorrow, then even as a monster she would have borne divinity within her.
That divinity had collided with Aslan's technique—one whose very name was still unknown to him—and had detonated.
The blast swallowed Aslan and Angie, and afterward they had arrived in a space beyond knowing.
From the process and the result, Aslan could sense someone's intent. The composition felt too deliberate to be a natural reaction.
The light that had burst forth and the visions that seemed to pluck memories from Aslan's mind and display them—from those two clues, he pieced it together.
The divinity had never truly detonated. It had simply swallowed him and Angie.
To meet them—Aslan and Angie, the last remnant of the Ancient God, two beings who might change the world.
Reading that conjecture in his expression, the widow nodded. Her face, still streaked with blackened tear tracks, was somber, and a flicker of relief crossed it.
With that relieved expression, the Ancient God offered her greeting.
"It is a pleasure to meet you, Lee Hyun-woo. I am the master of the place you call hell, the underworld, the realm of the dead—the lord of the eternal rest that all things must rightfully hold..."
The woman bent at the waist, her words laced with grave courtesy.
"I am the God of Sorrow and Death."
Just as he had expected.
Her features were familiar enough that he had already dismissed any other possibility, and now she gave him a somber smile.
"To be precise, it would be more accurate to say that I am the final arrangement she left behind."
That, too, was as he had expected.
To Aslan's knowledge, every Ancient God had died, and those who might be called chief among them had been murdered by the present gods with no chance to resist.
Yet uncertainties remained.
For instance, how she could communicate her will through mere divinity—or how she knew his true name.
And the arrangement.
The present situation was something Aslan found profoundly incomprehensible.
Had this been an event in the game, he would not have been taken aback. But in the game, there had been no such event—no quest, not even an encounter.
The God of Sorrow and Death, wearing the form of a widow, regarded Aslan's puzzlement with gentle eyes.
"You wonder how I prepared something like this, do you not?"
"...Yes."
She had hit the mark exactly. Aslan nodded, offering no resistance.
"To my knowledge, you were all murdered by the gods with no chance to do anything, no opening to prepare or to fight back. Even the God of War and Knowledge raised his hand against them—and even he was defeated."
"You know your history well."
It was a miserable defeat. Her calm voice carried a heavy gloom, though that seemed to be her natural disposition.
"Then how are you here? How could you have found the time to arrange anything...?"
"I did not."
"Then how?"
"Would it explain things if I told you I did it before they appeared?"
Before they appeared?
Aslan frowned at her words.
They surely referred to the gods, which meant she was saying they had known in advance that the gods would appear.
"What you are thinking is correct. We knew the gods were coming."
The melancholy woman smiled, a lonely expression on her face, a few steps away.
"That is how we were able to leave arrangements behind. Judging by your questions, you have not yet seen the rest. The first one must have been the God of Fire and Smithing, was it not?"
Aslan, who had been nothing but baffled until now, sharply raised his guard at those words.
"How do you know that...?"
The first one the God of Sorrow and Death had spoken of—that was the fragment of an Ancient God he was meant to find and acquire first, according to the quest's order.
The main quest that he would undertake later was, after all, to seek out the places where the Ancient Gods had died and absorb their power.
This was not something a god who had died millennia ago could have deduced.
Aslan remained wary, but the woman spoke with a relaxed expression.
"Because someone told us. The fate you would walk, Lee Hyun-woo."
Aslan could not answer. It was not that he believed in the word fate, but judging by the story she had laid out, the fate mentioned was the main quest.
The God of Sorrow and Death continued, even as Aslan, stunned, could offer little reaction.
"We read that fate. We knew of our defeat, and we made our arrangements. As long as we did not stray from the thread of that fate, we poured the entirety of our strength into preparing for the time after we were slain."
Aslan felt a strange discomfort at her words.
Ordinarily, when you learned of the future, when you glimpsed fate, what you prepared was a stratagem for victory.
Not surrender, and not the aftermath of surrender.
"Why such... resignation? You cannot have known for certain. You might have won...."
The God of Sorrow and Death cut him off, shaking her head. Her black hair fluttered, and Aslan closed his mouth.
"You truly know nothing. It sends a chill down my spine, realizing how long that being has been preparing."
"...What do you mean?"
The woman approached Aslan, who still hadn't grasped the situation. Under normal circumstances, Angie would have been on guard, but she stood rigidly frozen.
"I have stilled that child. If the one hearing this story were not you, that being would surely grow angry."
"That being? What in the world are you talking about?"
She did not answer his question. Instead, she reached out and laid a hand upon his chest.
"I cannot explain directly. Only... that being has existed since time immemorial—since before we shaped the world."
It was a story Aslan had never once encountered in the game.
"Perhaps it has existed even before that. Perhaps since before the creation of the universe."
"...Who is it?"
"I cannot tell you. I suspect you would receive no answer even if you sought out another. The gods, the Ancient Gods—all of them shunned and feared that being."
If I were to speak its name aloud, if I were to tell you directly, it would surely notice.
She added this as she shook her head. The hand resting above Aslan's heart trembled faintly.
"Lee Hyun-woo, that being prepared this world for you. This entire world, Geladrion, is a vast snare meant to swallow you. That being—that dreadful existence—set the trap, and to this day has never once revealed itself to you."
A being feared even by the Ancient Gods who had molded Geladrion and created the world, and by the transcendent entities who had torn those very Ancient Gods apart.
A being that had never once shown itself to Aslan.
For an instant, a certain entity flickered through Aslan's mind, but the goddess shook her head.
"It is not her. There is only one thing I can tell you."
The goddess, who had leaned against Aslan with her hand over his heart, drew back. A faint, briny scent clung to the air around her.
"If the board shatters, that being will certainly take some sort of action. That is why now is an opportunity—while it cannot watch. Beware the being whose symbol is a creature that does not exist in this world."
Aslan furrowed his brow at her incomprehensible words, and she let out a long sigh—huu—and drove the edge of her hand into her own chest.
The sound of living flesh parting rang out, a dry crack, and the divinity in the shape of a woman drew out her own heart.
Pulled from her body, the heart still clung to blood vessels, pulsing a deep blue.
"I will give you this."
The heart was extended toward him. Aslan looked from the heart to the woman, and she smiled, a smile that was clear and bright.
With that clear smile, she drew closer. Faced with the bizarre sight of an Ancient God approaching him with her own heart in hand, Aslan had no idea how to react and moved to step back—when a heavy weight settled into his hand.
"...Huh?"
A sword lay in his grip.
A longsword of pure, jewel-like white, bearing a Sword God within it.
From the Sword God to the guard and the hilt, all the way to the pommel, the entire blade blazed an unblemished white.
Aslan stared at the whiteness flowing along the sword and felt a profound familiarity.
It was the same power he had used when he had cut down the resurrecting Ereta, and when he had struck the Daughter of Sorrow.
That technique whose name he did not know.
Now that technique blazed in the form of a sword.
While his attention was seized by the blade, the Ancient God stepped in and laid her hands over his, guiding the sword he held and pointing it at her heart. The blue heart, drawn outside her body, throbbed and accepted the blade's edge.
The edge sliced into the heart. Yet not a single drop of blood welled from it. Blood flowed only from the corner of the goddess's mouth.
"But though we were defeated, we did not give up. If there is one thing that being did not foresee..."
...it is that the board has already shattered. The woman spoke the words as she received the blade deep into her heart.
"Lee Hyun-woo, the sword in your hand is that key."
Through the hilt Aslan held, the divinity of the Ancient God was being absorbed.
"That sword's name is Purity."
Each time it devoured divinity, the pure white sword blazed whiter and brighter. The blazing light rippled through the surroundings, shattering the illusion.
"It is the hope we prepared."
And then a corner of his vision warped, and a message appeared.
[!!P̷̨urity!!'s Ef̷fe©t?]
[Can sever the connection between god and priest.]
[Will not be extinguished as long as the user has Fighting Spirit.]
[H̷eart of̷ Sor̷row - C̷an sever d̷ivinity and s̷pirit bodies.]
[G̷rows str̷onger the̷ more it res̷onates with the divinity of t̷he Ancient Gods.]
Unlike the casual speech of the system messages he had seen until now, this message used formal, respectful language, and it was a message he had seen before.
The distorted errors of that message slowly shed their scales and emerged.
[Effect of Purity]
[Can sever the connection between god and priest.]
[Will not be extinguished as long as the user has Fighting Spirit.]
[Heart of Sorrow - Can sever divinity and spirit bodies.]
[Grows stronger the more it resonates with the divinity of the Ancient Gods.]
Something that had absolutely never existed in the game.
Only then did Aslan understand what the Ancient God had arranged. He stepped back and looked at the blazing sword of divinity—Purity.
The Ancient God, her heart now removed, murmured softly.
"That being will not be able to endure even the briefest disappearance of you. It is probably coming to find you right now."
Within the disintegrating illusion, Aslan held the sword and looked at the woman.
She smiled, clear and bright.
"Fortune be with you, Lee Hyun-woo."
And the space was dyed black.
*
After the space itself—and even his own form—had been dyed black, Aslan opened his eyes in a familiar place.
It was where the banshee and the priests had fought: the deepest part of the Sanctuary of Sorrow.
As soon as his eyes opened, he scanned his surroundings.
"Ugh, guh... my eyes hurt...."
Angie was a short distance away, rubbing her eyes. Ereta, who had likely shielded her eyes before the light burst, was blinking them open with a frown.
Everything else was unchanged. Nothing differed from the moment before the light had erupted.
Except for one thing.
Step, step, step.
The sound of countless presences approaching.
The corpses were rising.
The priest of the Poison-spitting Dragon, who until moments ago had been dead, was staring at Aslan with eyes that shone black.
The corpse spoke.
"Found you."