Ritual (2)
Ritual (2)
I wasn't the only one who felt it.
The priests and acolytes who were about to leave also turned around in surprise.
The shaking grew more violent by the moment.
It felt as though the entire building—not just the altar—was shaking.
Everyone was bewildered by the sudden tremors, unsure what to do.
"Shouldn't we get out?"
I didn't know what was happening, but we couldn't stay inside a building while the ground was shaking like this.
But the young priest didn't answer my question.
His eyes were wide as he stared intently at the altar, as if trying to see through it.
"Why... why is the divine blessing descending now?"
Incomprehensible words spilled from his mouth.
At that moment, mana began pouring out of the altar.
The altar glowed once more.
Mana surged from the altar, overflowing in every direction.
It was as if the mana that had been sucked into the altar was now spewing back out.
But the mana flowing out was of a completely different nature.
It was deeply ominous.
The mana spread rapidly, wrapping around my body and dispersing throughout the entire hall.
Fortunately, nothing happened when the mana washed over me.
It felt a little unpleasant, but it was only mutated mana.
But just because I was fine didn't mean there was no problem.
"Urgh!"
The moment the other priests and acolytes came into contact with the mana, they screamed.
"Ah, my body...!"
"My stomach hurts!"
"It's hot... no, cold!"
The priests who collapsed after touching the mana were all suffering in different ways.
Some broke out in spots, one priestess clutched her stomach in agony, and another priest burned with a raging fever.
The priests and acolytes writhing on the floor looked as if they had all been struck by completely different diseases at the exact same time.
The young priest beside me, however, seemed relatively fine.
Although the mana was overflowing, it couldn't get close to him.
That seemed to be thanks to his ability to control mana.
But even he looked extremely strained.
He had just finished controlling that massive amount of mana moments ago, so there was no way he wasn't exhausted.
Drenched in cold sweat, the young priest stammered.
"The... the blessing has turned into a curse. We... we must stop it immediately."
His words still didn't make complete sense, but I understood that we needed to stop it.
"I cannot stop it alone. You must help me, Knight."
He was right. The mana wasn't just filling the hall. It was leaking outside, and screams could already be heard from beyond the building.
More and more mana was pouring out.
The Knight Commander was waiting outside, but there was no time to call him.
Just in case, I slipped the sword back into my pocket, but nothing changed.
I drew the Knight's Sword and asked the priest,
"How can I help you?"
"Follow me."
Perhaps because the mana was growing denser, the priest looked even more strained. Sweating profusely, he walked toward the back of the altar.
I followed him, scanning our surroundings: the mana filling the hall once again, and the priests and acolytes writhing and screaming beneath it.
It was a sight I had never imagined witnessing in the capital's temple.
The priest went behind the altar and placed his hand on the floor.
To my eyes, it looked no different from any other part of the floor. But as he placed his hand down and muttered something, lines began tracing themselves across the ground.
A square outline appeared on the floor.
It looked just like a door blocking a secret entrance.
Clunk.
When he lifted his hand, the section of floor outlined by the lines popped upward.
It was indeed a secret door.
Whether it was an artifact or an ability, there was a secret passage leading underground behind the altar.
The passage consisted of a narrow staircase barely wide enough for one person to pass through.
The young priest didn't head down the stairs. Instead, he pulled a book from his robes and threw it down the stairwell.
'Wait, isn't that a holy scripture?'
I stared in surprise, but he was too busy peering into the darkness below to notice me.
Whoosh!
The moment he threw the scripture, a burst of flames erupted from below the stairs.
"As I thought, they've been activated..."
He clicked his tongue as he watched the scripture burn.
"I wanted to guide you down myself, but in this state, I would only be a hindrance."
Perhaps because he looked so apologetic as he dripped with cold sweat, I didn't feel like he was just dumping his chores on me.
Even as he sweated, he continued speaking.
"As you can see, defensive traps designed to ward off intruders are installed below. They are meant to activate in an emergency, and it seems they have all awakened now."
It seemed he'd thrown the scripture just to check whether the traps were active.
He was a much tougher clergyman than I expected. Religious figures from my past life would never have dreamed of using a holy scripture like that just for a quick test.
The priest nodded as he looked at my armor and the Knight's Sword.
"I am glad you are a highly skilled knight, Knight."
It seemed he was quite pleased with the skills I'd displayed during the Knight Tournament.
He continued.
"If you break through the traps and reach the very bottom, you will find another altar in the basement. Please destroy the sword resting on that altar. Once you do, this chaos should subside."
In the end, it meant this whole mess had been caused by a sword—an artifact.
What on earth was this artifact that it could cause such a disaster? And how did this priest know so much about it?
My questions were piling up, but regardless, it seemed I had to follow the priest's instructions to put an end to this situation.
By the way, that sword... it couldn't be the sword I was thinking of, right?
Finding it difficult to remain standing, he collapsed to the floor and barely managed to squeeze out his next words.
"I will explain everything once you return. It is too dangerous to leave it like this. Please, help us for now."
I had already planned on helping, even if he hadn't asked.
Now that a way down to the basement had presented itself, there was no way I would just walk away.
Although the traps guarding against intruders didn't look easy to deal with, I couldn't pass up an opportunity like this.
Besides, just as the priest had said, the current situation looked perilous.
The tremors continued, and the mana kept spreading.
I had no idea what would happen if this mana leaked out of the temple and blanketed the entire capital. In any case, nothing good could come of it.
"Understood. Just in case, please contact the Knight Commander waiting outside."
"Yes!"
The young priest nodded at my words, but seeing him sprawled out like that, it was hard to expect much from him.
Forget sending a message; it looked like he would struggle just to hold on here.
Judging by his condition, he wouldn't have been able to follow me even if there had been no defense traps.
I took a deep breath and headed down the stairs.
Perhaps unable to hold out any longer, the priest's figure, peering down from above, vanished.
Since there was no one watching, I pulled the dagger out of my breast pocket.
[Oh, it's the Muscle Knight's sword.]
The Ego Dagger immediately recognized the Knight's Sword in my other hand.
[You pulled it out to verify the Knight's Sword. There is no mistake. It is indeed the sword used by that knight whose head was filled to the brim with muscles.]
Perhaps because it finally had a chance to speak, the Ego Dagger chattered away enthusiastically.
Unfortunately for it, this was all old news to me.
And I hadn't pulled it out to verify the Knight's Sword, either.
I gripped the Ego Dagger in a reverse grip, glanced at the burning scripture, and swung my arm.
Swish!
The dagger shot forward.
The Ego Dagger embedded itself in the ceiling directly above the burning scripture.
Whoosh!
A burst of flames flared up from the ceiling where the dagger was embedded, then instantly vanished.
I summoned the Ego Dagger back.
The dagger that had been stuck in the ceiling materialized in my hand again.
The dagger in my hand remained silent. It seemed to have pouted once more.
I lost interest in the dagger, walked beneath the spot where it had struck, and examined the soot-stained ceiling.
"I wonder if this is also a type of artifact..."
It was indeed an anti-intruder device. It was the same kind of object I'd seen in the dungeons of the Seal Grounds: a type of trap that automatically activated by absorbing mana.
Since it dated back to the Old Empire, it was technically an artifact.
"Did they rip it out of some dungeon?"
It was fascinating to see something I'd normally only encounter in a dungeon here of all places, but for now, I decided to keep moving.
The stairs continued winding deeper underground.
It was almost mind-boggling that they had dug so deep right next to the royal palace.
The defensive traps were surprisingly easy to destroy.
They were traps that used mana, so I could detect them easily with my highly mana-sensitive eyes.
After confirming there were no other special mechanisms, I began descending rapidly.
After destroying more than ten devices and descending over five hundred steps, the altar the priest had mentioned finally came into view.
The area housing the altar was a small underground plaza.
Unlike the grand, ornate hall above, the jagged, broken bedrock here was completely exposed.
It looked like an abandoned underground mine.
The altar stood right in the center of the plaza.
A sword was embedded upside down in the modest-sized altar.
It was exactly as I had suspected.
The sword thrust into the altar closely resembled the Divine Sword resting in my pocket.
That sword was also a sibling blade to the 'Divine Sword of Pisen'.
Rumble.
The ground shook so violently that an ordinary person would have struggled even to stand upright.
Now that I was down here, I could see exactly why the ground was shaking and what was causing it.
It was because of the sword plunged into the altar.
Mana erupted from the sword. It was the very same mana that had been spreading through the hall upstairs.
The mana spewing from the blade was being sucked into what looked like a magic circle drawn on the ceiling.
That magic circle-like pattern was likely connected to the altar on the surface.
The shaking of the earth originated from that magic circle, while the mana flowed directly from the sword.
When you got down to it, everything had started with the sword.
As I wondered how things had ended up this way, a voice echoed in my head once again.
[It is running wild. It seems the sword went out of control while they were trying to do something with it.]
The pouting Ego Dagger had finally opened its mouth after taking in the situation.
"Out of control?"
[Looking at the setup, it seems they have been using underhanded methods to siphon off the artifact's power all this time.]
Recalling the magic circle-like pattern on the ceiling and how they had been gathering mana at the altar, I found the Ego Dagger's theory highly plausible.
[It looks like they ran into trouble while trying to extract its power through shortcuts. Even if it doesn't possess an Ego, ancient artifacts are bound to develop something akin to self-awareness over time. If you exploit them through such shortcuts, there is a high probability the artifact will run wild.]
An old object developing a spirit... Is it something like totemism?
[The creator of this facility must have taken measures to prevent its self-awareness from awakening, but such measures can never be perfect. They might have overused it, or perhaps it received some kind of external shock.]
Surely it wasn't because of me, right?
I recalled how the ground had started shaking the very instant the Mana Thread was connected.
There was no way the mere connection of a single Mana Thread could have awakened the sword...
Feeling a cold sweat break out on the back of my neck, I walked toward the altar.
I still didn't know why this altar had been built or why the sword was kept here, but I knew exactly what I had to do now.
I looked back and forth between the Ego Dagger and the Knight's Sword before slipping the dagger back into my pocket.
Then I gripped the Knight's Sword with both hands.
I couldn't face a blade erupting with such terrifying mana using just any ordinary weapon.
The Knight's Sword was renowned as a national treasure. It should be more than capable of shattering a sword like that.
Of course, it wasn't because I was afraid of damaging my own sword if I used it.
I stepped onto the altar and swung the sword with all my might.
Boom!
Along with a deafening crash, a blinding light filled the underground plaza.