Chapter 139
Chapter 139
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 139
Chapter Title: The Weeping Fallen
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‘He’s gotten even faster than before.’
Had he grown in the meantime?
Come to think of it, during their entire journey to the holy land, whenever challengers came at them, he would either use Hundred Cuts Blossom or rely on divine spells.
As if he wasn’t quite used to them yet.
‘Was he just starting to learn them when he used them on me?’
The deployment of the spells and the expansion of their domains had grown astonishingly.
But the most impressive part was the speed.
Divine spells weren’t something you could learn easily just because their power was lower.
In fact, they were harder than martial techniques.
The divine spells Serena knew weren’t originally this powerful.
Nor could they be deployed without any conditions.
Divine spells required a price.
It was common knowledge that you needed a holy relic infused with divinity or a sacred tool.
But Kallias didn’t have that.
He didn’t either.
‘Is it because of Dragon Qi? Or because he possesses fairy power?’
Serena couldn’t know.
She only had a premonition that Kallias’s divine spells, which were steadily growing, would soon hold even greater power.
“Master.”
Kallias walked through the darkness without hesitation.
But Serena had to ask.
She had no choice but to ask.
The path they were taking was the first floor.
They were supposed to go up to the second floor, but Kallias was heading down.
Down endless stairs, again and again.
“Speak.”
“Weren’t we supposed to go up?”
Kallias stopped in his tracks.
Serena, who had been following down the stairs, stopped as well.
“The holy land’s tower, Agatodo, exists for the growth of pilgrims. You could say that much without issue. Floors one through ten are a form of training to amplify your senses through restrictions on vision and hearing.”
His footsteps resumed down the stairs, and Kallias’s calm, firm voice echoed through the underground.
“Once you break past the lord of the tenth floor, from the eleventh onward, everything related to qi is forbidden. It’s training to cultivate the body.”
The thirtieth floor was for qi and body.
The fortieth for the mind, the fiftieth for mind-body harmony.
And the sixtieth existed for transcendence.
You could consider up to the sixty-sixth as the deepening process of transcendence.
It was a place where smooth training was possible.
That was why it was called the holy land, and why pilgrims emptied their pockets to climb it.
He knew it in such detail, so why was he descending instead of ascending?
Serena was puzzled.
‘How does he know it all so precisely? And this underground passage...’
How did he know about that too?
The more she learned, the more curious this man became.
“But why...”
“Why not go up?”
“Yes.”
“No money.”
“......Pardon?”
* * *
“This is the holy land...”
A blond youth wielding a spear, his blue eyes—Luteon’s—taking in the Sahara holy land.
The red desert.
The blazing sunlight.
And there, standing tall, a black spire.
A tower that seemed on the verge of collapse yet refused to fall.
Agatodo.
The symbol of the Dragon Demon Great War.
Humanity’s great achievement.
“Hey, Luteon.”
A voice broke Luteon’s reverie as he felt deep emotion.
“Yes, Your Imperial Highness.”
“Is this right?”
The imperial princess and the grand duchess.
They followed behind Luteon.
The grand duchess seemed merely intrigued, while the imperial princess scowled in annoyance.
“What do you mean?”
“Killing isn’t allowed in the holy land anyway, so is chasing him all the way here even worth it?”
They had chased Kallias.
But they had crossed the border and reached the holy land, where killing was forbidden.
It was a long-standing tradition.
For the empire’s princess to break it would be unacceptable, tantamount to insulting the sages who had forged the peace.
Moreover, if killing occurred, the layer lords of Agatodo would swarm in, making it something that absolutely must not happen.
“Killing is forbidden, but other things are fine.”
Killing was prohibited in the holy land.
But quietly abducting someone wouldn’t be much of an issue.
Sparring matches happened frequently in Sahara’s holy land anyway.
Besides.
“I came here of my own will. Your Imperial Highness insisted on following, so what is this about asking me now?”
“......”
To be honest, the imperial princess didn’t like Luteon. He was just unlikeable, somehow.
If she had known from the start that he possessed a flight artifact, she wouldn’t have let him slip away so pathetically.
‘He’s making excuses like he didn’t know.’
He probably did know.
He had orchestrated that duel alone because he wanted to win it solo.
What a shady guy—she kept picking pointless fights with Luteon.
No one would sincerely deal with Luteon, the traitor defector, except perhaps the saintess.
‘Insolent bastard.’
How many could hold their head so high and speak that way to the empire’s imperial princess?
He wasn’t even the Empire’s Spear.
The imperial princess clicked her tongue.
“We can’t come all this way without even catching a glimpse of that guy’s face.”
“Exactly. I want to see him again too. I never imagined the bird in the night sky was him. I want to fly through the skies with him someday...”
Silencing the grand duchess, the imperial princess chased after Luteon, who ignored them and pressed on.
“Any pilgrims enter here?”
“Dozens come every day. No way to know.”
“With a woman.”
“Then I remember. They went in a few hours ago and haven’t come out, so they’ve probably cleared about the third floor.”
Third floor.
Luteon and the princesses headed straight for the tower. Since he had gone up, they naturally thought they should climb and catch up.
It was pride too.
“Shall we go in?”
“Yes. No reason I can’t go if he did.”
Creak.
Luteon’s steps toward the tower halted in the thick darkness.
[Welcoming the challenger.]
The tower’s voice began to speak.
[The trial begins.]
As the puppets moved.
Luteon’s spear spat fire.
Kwaaaang!!
Leaving the puppets he’d swept away in one blow, he ascended straight to the second floor.
‘I’ll definitely climb faster than him.’
Only then could he sleep soundly.
* * *
“Hmm.”
At the tower’s summit.
A woman who had been sitting in meditation, sensing all things in the world, opened her eyes.
“First time seeing a guy like that.”
Many climbed the tower.
That was what Agatodo was for, after all.
Climb and surpass your limits.
So once you reached the top.
It was natural to descend again.
Even the sun in the sky becomes the moon in time.
Reach the peak, then go down again.
But not to the ground.
That was the fate of those who climbed the tower.
“I never expected some greenhorn who hasn’t even climbed the tower to head underground.”
A place even transcendents struggled to endure.
Where not a speck of light reached, called hell.
Yet someone who hadn’t even reached the tower’s lower floors was descending there.
Was this the will of the gods?
Or the will of the tower?
“Weeping Fallen, who laments in sorrow. It’s been a while since I shook off boredom.”
With subtle doubt.
The woman at the summit.
One of the saints of the Valterus Church.
Orville closed her eyes again.
* * *
The damp, dark underground stairs.
Kallias was still speaking with Serena.
“No money.”
“......Pardon?”
Challenging floors didn’t cost money. But if you lost to a layer lord, you lost a great deal.
‘It’s a system to maintain the tower.’
Even the tower’s administrators needed funds.
Managing and maintaining the floors required astronomical sums.
So they squeezed challengers.
And Kallias had no money.
Or rather, no sacred stones.
Of course, selling just a few of his possessions would fetch plenty of sacred stones, but he didn’t want to.
They all had uses, so he couldn’t dispose of them carelessly.
Excluding the artifacts he was using, most of what he had wouldn’t fetch much even if sold.
The empire knight’s spear or the dukedom’s mace.
Monster hides, horns, and such.
Most were worth only a pittance.
‘Excluding those...’
[Vivi’s Bracelet], [Cloak of Reversal], [Humasis’s Saddle], [Leteti’s Ring], [Broken Sword of the Forgotten God], [Lord’s Banner], [Chalice of the Defeated God], [Dragon Bone], and so on.
‘Goblin gold coins too.’
But he couldn’t sell these.
[Vivi’s Bracelet] was a gift from Cedric, and it had many uses, so it’d be a shame.
Same for [Cloak of Reversal].
[Humasis’s Saddle] and [Leteti’s Ring] too.
‘[Broken Sword of the Forgotten God] as well, and [Lord’s Banner] can still be used a couple more times.’
He had a feeling he shouldn’t sell the [Chalice of the Defeated God], whatever it was.
Same for [Dragon Bone].
When his [Constitution] Fusion Bone fully absorbed dragon power.
He figured he could absorb the dragon power dormant in the [Dragon Bone], so he couldn’t sell it.
Besides, it wasn’t some mixed breed like Vivi—it was a real dragon’s bone.
Now impossible to obtain, naturally he couldn’t sell it.
“Of course, that’s just the surface reason.”
It was a secondary excuse.
Kallias halted.
“Serena.”
“Yes.”
“You go up.”
“Pardon? Why all of a sudden...”
“You should go up now. Climbing Agatodo is for pilgrims.”
The wooden puppets grew more threatening the higher you went, but they didn’t wield weapons.
You might get battered a bit, but the risk of death was low in Agatodo.
Of course, that was only when heading up.
“You could die down here.”
But the tower’s underground was different.
If the surface was normal and hard mode.
The underground was [Hell] difficulty.
You didn’t just risk death if you slipped up.
One mistake meant death.
Agatodo, with its total of sixty-six floors, had secret floors no one knew of.
Sixty-six above ground. Six below.
Six hundred sixty-six.
666 meant the Fallen.
Yes.
At the end of this underground lay the least of the 666 Fallen.
One who had fallen yet not fully fallen.
The weakest of the 666 Fallen.
Yet the strongest Fallen.
[Weeping Fallen] Titeo.
He was the Fallen who mourned death.
“So from here, I go alone.”
Kallias’s firm declaration.
Serena couldn’t easily turn her steps.
“But...”
She hesitated.
He looked so precarious descending. Though he steeled his resolve, a flicker of hesitation passed through his eyes.
For some reason, she wanted to follow.
He seemed so uneasy.
But.
“It’s too early for you.”
Serena had no words against Kallias’s resolute statement.
“......”
“The deeper you go down, the more your head will ache. The headaches will worsen, you won’t distinguish friend from foe. Then you’ll lose yourself and wander lost.”
The deeper into the underground, the more mental attacks were layered.
Unlike him, Serena lacked mental resistance artifacts, making it impossible for her.
“Understood. Please stay safe.”
Watching Serena ascend once more, Kallias descended the stairs.
Many thoughts flashed through his mind.
He realized anew.
And regretted anew.
But regret soon hardened into resolve.
Splash.
His foot touched the waterlogged floor.
The endless-seeming stairs were gone.
Before him loomed a massive door. Engravings depicted dragons, demons, and humans between them.
Placing his hand on the door, which hinted at its thousand-year age.
Rumble.
Ruuuuumble.
Just a light touch, and the massive door opened as if awaiting him.
Flash.
Kallias was pulled inside in an instant, and intense light filled his eyes.
Rubbing his stinging gaze, he opened them again.
He felt the world had changed.
“This is... Ugh!”
Someone grabbed him by the collar.
Lifted him roughly, and bellowed.
“Hey! Titeo! You idiot! Snap out of it!! Snap out of it!”
Slap!
The sharp slap to his cheek brought Kallias to his senses.
With the knight’s desperate shout.
Kwaaaang!!
Multiple explosions rang out simultaneously, dirt piles scattering everywhere.
‘A battlefield.’
Where he stood was a battlefield.
Of dragons, demons, and humans.
Right in the heart of the Dragon Demon Great War.
He was a mere knight with a sword.
He had become Titeo.
Titeo before the weeping.