The Formless One
The Formless One
When Aslan called out, the man who lifted his head was Kornil Ashuld. A face Aslan knew well.
Partly because he always turned up wherever the Kallus Empire was involved, and partly because Aslan had run into him countless times in the game.
But the main reason was that Aslan had personally put an end to his ambitions.
Two emperors assassinated. Kornil had already taken a severe blow during the first regicide, and when Ileina—a girl nursing a deep grudge against the War God—rose to the throne, he was purged completely.
Even in the game, he reappeared afterward in a miserable, fallen state. So his current condition wasn't hard to understand.
The problem was that his game appearance took place after crossing to the Southern Continent—not in Kardi, here in the North.
A strange encounter, its point of divergence unknown. Aslan frowned. Kornil Ashuld saw that frown and his eyes flared wide.
"Aslan...!"
He spat the name thick with rage and contempt. Aslan watched the ruined noble shout a name that wasn't quite his and rested his longsword over his shoulder.
The weapon he'd taken from a believer had lost its Heart Piercing. Now only bare, gray-white steel remained.
"How far do I have to fall before you're satisfied? What did I ever do wrong!"
Kornil Ashuld screamed, his body convulsing with fury. Each spasm rattled the chains wrapped around him.
A restraint collar clamped around his throat suppressed his mana. He posed no threat whatsoever.
Aslan absorbed the sight and pieced the situation together.
Kornil Ashuld had lost everything—power, position—when Ileina ascended. He'd fled. Likely meant to reach the Southern Continent, but the journey hadn't gone smoothly.
Somehow, the priests of Cosmic Inevitability had caught him. A former servant of the War God made an obvious target.
"You look like hell. Should've taken my offer back then."
"Shut up... shut up! You—this is because of you—!"
"I gave you a chance. Showed you how to spend that wasted life of yours on something worthwhile. You're the one who refused."
"That insane rambling was a 'way'? What was I supposed to gain from that!"
Kornil's voice cracked with bitterness. The once-noble mage, his beard grown dark and matted from neglect, glared with burning eyes.
Aslan watched him and recalled the proposal he'd made the first time they met, six years into his life in Geladrion.
Abandon the War God and join him. He'd promised power, glory—everything Kornil wanted. The temptation of becoming someone all people looked up to, the greatest mage of the age.
Kornil's reaction back then had been different. He'd refused, furious.
Aslan's eyes narrowed with something like pity.
"A lot. Peace. People's respect. Your humanity. Power that's entirely your own—not some handout from a pack of jumped-up bastards calling themselves gods."
"You've lost your mind. Peace? Respect? Humanity? What use are those pathetic things? They're nothing but weakness—crushed to dust the moment the great ones close their fist!"
"I happen to think that makes them worth protecting. But clearly we disagree."
Aslan exhaled a soft sigh and stepped into the warehouse. As his tall frame filled the doorway, the two figures standing behind him came into view—a woman and a girl.
"I never expected you to understand. The only reason I didn't kill you back then—or at the palace—was because you're a baseline human and I didn't consider you a threat. So stay put and keep quiet."
"You... you son of a bitch—!"
Kornil's profanity was startlingly crude for a former noble. Aslan ignored it. His gaze shifted to the priest.
The priest whose neck Aslan had split open was still pressing a hand to the wound, glancing between Kornil and Aslan as he tried to assess the situation. He spoke.
"If he's your objective, take him and—"
"No. I'm not here for him."
The priest had guessed this was personal—a grudge against Kornil Ashuld. Aslan shook his head flatly.
"You think I'd track down a place like this just to kill him? I came for you."
Aslan's index finger pointed at the priest. Kornil's eyes flew wide and he thrashed against his chains.
The thrashing did nothing but make the links clink.
Powerless, Kornil shrieked at Aslan in fury. Aslan ignored the bitterness laced through every word.
The priest watched sidelong, his expression unreadable. Then he lowered the hand that had been covering his nape.
Where the steel had torn him open, new flesh had already grown. Scales were forming over it.
The priest asked again.
"For me? What exactly do you want from me?"
Kardi was a city open to priests and believers of every stripe.
Here, priests walked openly. As long as they didn't cause trouble, no one bothered them.
Anywhere else, the priest might have understood Aslan's intent immediately. But this was Kardi.
Does he actually know?
He wondered if Aslan knew about his mission. Yet Aslan's face showed no sign of it.
That was nothing new. Aslan rarely showed anything.
The priest stared at him, thinking. Aslan said nothing.
Strike first? A surprise attack?
No—it wouldn't work. Aslan looked relaxed with his blade on his shoulder, but his stance was already wide, weight balanced, ready to move.
Then run...
The priest's eyes cut toward the doorway—where the last descendant of the Ancient God stood with arms crossed, blocking the exit.
They've cut off my retreat.
The situation was bad. There was a tunnel beneath this safehouse leading outside Kardi, but reaching it wouldn't be easy. He'd be caught long before he made it.
No way out. The priest's face tightened. He lowered his eyes and spoke.
"Fine. What do you want?"
His only hope was Aslan's mercy.
If Aslan had meant to kill him, he would have done it already. Give him what he wanted, and Aslan might not kill him at all.
Of course, things rarely went that smoothly. Aslan tapped his shoulder with the flat of his longsword, the blade knocking softly against his leather armor.
The silence stretched. Aslan offered no words. The priest couldn't read his intent. He frowned, studying Aslan's face.
Their eyes met and tangled. Then something broke the line of sight—a head poking out from behind Aslan. The woman whose silhouette the priest had glimpsed when Aslan entered.
She pushed back her hood, revealing snow-white hair and glittering pink eyes.
"Oh my."
The priest knew her.
Her identity was unmistakable. The name slipped out before he could stop it.
"Ereta...?"
"Thought I recognized that face. Hello, Niel."
Her smile was bright. The feeling behind it wasn't.
The priest caught it and clicked his tongue. For whatever reason, the Fire-weaving Spider had lost most of its divinity, and Ereta had ceased to be a priestess. He'd assumed she'd been killed after that. Apparently not.
Faced with the former Saintess of Slaughter alive and well, the priest took a subtle step back. Ereta slipped past Aslan and into the warehouse.
The man called Niel—decayed flesh, scales covering his face, hand moving to the flail at his belt—looked between Aslan and Ereta, struggling to process the situation.
"What do you know about the Formless One?"
Aslan's question cut through the strained silence. The priest swallowed.
"...That's all you want to ask?"
Aslan didn't answer. He simply lowered his blade from his shoulder and gripped it tight.
A single motion—but a heavy threat. Ereta matched it. She seized the two weapons at her waist, axe and mace spinning in lazy circles in her hands.
What would happen if he didn't talk was already clear. Priest Niel had survived a long time. The survival instinct that had kept him alive all those years told him, very clearly, that fighting now meant dying.
Niel had no choice but to speak.
"I—I don't know much. I only heard fragments of what the Three Evils—no, the Two-Headed Evil—said. What I heard was... the Formless One is a massive planet. Made of flesh and bone and viscera... a living planet."
A living planet. Aslan didn't press for an explanation, plausible or not.
Plenty of the evil gods were already bizarre or flat-out impossible.
"What's a planet?"
"Shh."
Angie didn't know the word. Ereta hushed her, and Angie pouted but fell silent. Aslan motioned for the priest to continue.
"Go on."
"Uh, right... Ah, yes. The—the thing has no priests at all, they said. It's never really taken root in Geladrion. Almost unknown in the world... The Two-Headed Evil itself didn't know much about it, according to what I heard."
That made sense. If it had hardly ever manifested in Geladrion, there would be little known about it.
"So you know nothing either?"
But "nothing" wasn't enough. Aslan shifted his grip on the longsword, both hands adjusting slightly. The priest swallowed hard.
"N-no! There's one more thing! The Two-Headed Evil shared a piece of information exclusively with priests who proved themselves. I—I was told about it too!"
Aslan raised an eyebrow and glanced at Ereta. The look asked a question: was Niel really a priest with enough merit to be told something like that?
Ereta caught his eye, smiled faintly—pleased by the glance—and nodded. Aslan turned back to Niel, who was visibly sweating with tension.
"Talk."
"First, guarantee my safety. Then I'll—"
Aslan moved before the sentence ended. A light step forward, knee pushing against the priest's knee to twist his balance.
The priest spat poison on reflex, but off-balance, the spray was easy to dodge.
Aslan twisted his body aside. The instant he evaded, he swung the longsword with the torque of that rotation, the blade held close to his shoulder. A devastating counterstrike along an efficient arc that split the priest's arm and drove straight into his chest.
Ssssshhhk.
"Ghhk..."
The venom sprayed across the warehouse wall, sizzling as it ate into the surface. The priest's breath came in ragged gasps. The single precise cut had cleaved open his chest and crushed his venom gland.
Aslan looked down at him with cold eyes.
"Priest of the Poison-spitting Dragon. Naturally, I assumed you'd spit poison. If you want to live, talk. I won't warn you again."
He twisted the blade still buried in the priest's chest, angling the point close to the heart. As steel carved through living flesh, Niel broke into a cold sweat, poison dribbling from his mouth.
"The Formless One... consumes the soul and flesh. Those whose soul and flesh are taken become its believers and are transformed. The process... is the same as ordinary priest-conversion. It happens through dreams."
Aslan made a low "hmm" sound, frowning. He kept the longsword buried and twisted it slightly as he thought.
Priests were sometimes created when a believer accumulated enough merit. But usually, it came through selection.
A god descended into someone's dream and demanded their service. If the person accepted, they shed their humanity and became a priest.
So the same method, then.
Aslan asked, "Then those aren't priests? They're just believers?"
"Different. The Two-Headed Evil said the Formless One's audience is... abominably vague and destructive. A human soul and body can't endure it. Only the rare ones who survive it—or see through its nature—become priests."
Interesting. Aslan had never heard of such a god, nor seen one.
His suspicions about the Formless One's true nature deepened. He twisted the blade harder, breaking through ribs.
"One more question. What are its priests like?"
"What do you mean? What..."
"Physical abilities. Appearance. Behavior. Divine power. Anything."
When Niel hesitated, Aslan drove the blade deeper to force an answer. The wound in his chest, already trying to close, tore open wider. The priest screamed.
Panting, he finally rasped through the pain, tears thick in his voice.
"Its priests... are great pillars of flesh and bone. They—they devour all life around them to mass-produce believers. They act as relay towers for its divinity..."
"...Are these pillars strong?"
"N-no. The Two-Headed Evil said a priest or two could handle one easily..."
Aslan heard enough. He pulled the longsword from the priest's body and kicked Niel to the floor.
Niel rolled across the ground, each hack of his cough spreading blood and venom.
"So that's how it is."
Aslan muttered the words grimly. His mind replayed the battle just before they'd located this warehouse.
The Formless Ones had attacked priests and believers first. Before the assault, the urgent shouts of believers. The strikes he'd seen targeting believers throughout the Kardi extermination effort.
None of it had seemed driven by vengeance or hatred.
Now he understood the Formless One's priest, and the answer fell into place.
Simple.
The Formless One wanted to expand its influence in Geladrion.
For that, it needed Kardi—populous, resource-rich Kardi.
But simply dropping a priest into the city wouldn't work. Kardi was crawling with rival priests and believers. The conditions for creating a priest were difficult, and once created, they were vulnerable. So the Formless One sought to eliminate the most threatening priests and believers first.
That was why the Formless Ones were appearing in Kardi. The whole chain of events, explained.
The question of why now still lingered. But Aslan was certain.
Certain enough to turn his gaze toward Angie.
Angie wasn't looking inside the warehouse. She was watching the alley beyond.
And as if to prove Aslan's certainty, a wave of footsteps rose in unison.
Heavy ones, light ones—an entire spectrum of footfalls.
"Aslan, people are coming this way... huh?"
The approaching footsteps changed. Something hard scraping against stone. Something like a water-filled sack bursting across the ground. A chorus of strange sounds, and then the mass of presences arrived.
Aslan realized what was happening and clicked his tongue.
The Formless Ones were attacking.
BOOM!
"Heh... heheh... They're here. Finally here..."
Niel's low laughter was bitter, mocking. Aslan ignored him and glared toward the Formless Ones who had smashed through the warehouse wall.
"There are quite a lot. I'm getting a slightly dangerous feeling from this."
Even Ereta let out a soft laugh, a trace of cold sweat on her brow. Forty, maybe fifty Formless Ones were pouring through the shattered wall.
They filled one side of the warehouse and stopped. The oppressive pressure was immediate and dense.
Aslan looked at the creatures—human once, now a gallery of horrors—and swept his gaze around.
First, to Niel.
Niel was a priest. Proper procedure was to kill him, not spare him. And now that all useful information had been extracted, he had no further value.
Next, to Kornil Ashuld.
The main quest revolving around Kornil Ashuld had already expired. At most, a sub-quest or two remained, and since Aslan already knew the rewards, there was no real need to bother.
Aslan exhaled a considering hum. He sheathed his longsword and drew a dagger instead.
He didn't need to kill all of these things personally.
Extermination was scheduled within two weeks—but that didn't mean he had to start now.
Traps. Pitting enemies against each other. Sabotage. Using the environment as a weapon. Aslan had fought using every tool at his disposal.
No reason to change that now.
As far as he was concerned, the extermination could start once one side—the priests or the Formless Ones—had already thinned the other out.
"Angie. Ereta."
"Yeah!"
"Just tell me."
Angie hefted her six-foot staff with bold confidence. Ereta kept her two weapons spinning in lazy circles. Aslan gave them both a quick glance.
"We're running."
"Sounds good."
"...Huh? Wait—what—"
Before Angie could finish, a thunderclap erupted from the dagger in Aslan's hand.
Thunder Call.
CRACK-A-BOOM!
The dagger, now hazy with power, shot from his grip.
It struck the foremost Formless One dead-on and blasted the creature backward, its body tumbling roughly through the crowd.
The fallen creature tangled with countless others as they sprawled and rolled across the floor, and a path opened. The monsters that had once been human stumbled as they tried to regain their footing in every corner of the alley.
"You said your name was Niel, wasn't it?"
Aslan saw the gap and flicked a glance toward the priest.
"I hate your kind. I don't care whether you kill each other here or not. I'll circle back and kill whichever one's still alive. So do as you like."
Cold words. The moment he finished speaking, Aslan broke into a run. Angie and Ereta followed right behind.
The Formless Ones made no move to stop them. They only stared at the priest.
As Aslan had guessed, their priority was the priest.
The priest stared blankly at Aslan's receding figure. Kornil Ashuld, still bound in chains, watched that retreating back and screamed.
"Aslaaaaaaan!"
The scream became, abruptly, a shriek.