Chapter 289: Decisive Battle (5)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 289: Decisive Battle (5)
An altar filled with the scent of holy oil.
“……”
Yoo Se-in, praying with clasped hands, opened her eyes halfway.
“It seems to have begun, Saintess,” said the Pope, who stood by her side to assist her. Given the gravity of the times, no other believers were permitted near the altar where the Saintess prayed.
“Yes.”
Yoo Se-in gave a quiet nod. The complex turmoil in her heart was laid bare on her face.
“The true battle begins now.”
The Pope let out a long sigh. His expression was just as rigid as hers.
“…It may be good fortune for this worldline, but it could prove a tragedy for the human Kang Geomma. If he is not careful, his humanity might be wiped away entirely.”
Hearing those words, Yoo Se-in stared silently at the altar. Sunlight filtering through the stained glass dyed her pure white robes and silver hair in a vibrant kaleidoscope of colors.
“Hmm.”
The Pope quietly stepped up beside her. Then, like the Saintess, he knelt on both knees, closed his eyes, and offered a prayer.
Yoo Se-in looked briefly bewildered at the sight. According to the doctrine of the Outer God Church, the Pope was forbidden from offering personal, fervent prayers. In other words, the Pope was directly breaking doctrine himself.
This was based on the somewhat absurd logic that if the Pope—the individual closest to the Outer God—offered a prayer, the God would show favoritism exclusively to him. It was a far-fetched premise, yet plausible in a world where the existence of gods was undeniable.
“This is not a prayer to the Outer God,” said the Pope, his eyes still closed.
“You do realize that praying for Geomma is no different from praying to the Outer God, right...?”
“Haha, I may look like this, but I have partaken in communion for fifty years. Though my insight may fall short of yours, Saintess, I possess enough religious knowledge to discern at least that much.”
“…Then who are you praying to in a situation like this?”
“It is a secret.”
The Pope merely let the corners of his lips curl into a grin.
“Divulging a prayer to others dilutes its efficacy, after all.”
* * *
The wind changed. It wasn't a matter of it reversing direction or anything of that nature. Its weight, scent, and levels of nitrogen and oxygen were distinctly altered. Overall, the atmospheric pressure grew heavy.
Breathing felt suffocating, as if diving down to the ocean floor. Pressure pressed in from all sides, heavy against their entire bodies. Had the people present been ordinary mortals, they would have swooned on the spot.
“……!”
The heroes in the middle of a desperate struggle, along with the demons, noticed the anomaly. Both sides simultaneously ceased their grappling and turned their heads in the same direction. At the focal point of their gazes, the Heavenly Sword Kang Geomma and 2nd Corps Commander Kuarne stood facing each other.
Strictly speaking, one might question if "facing each other" was the right expression. Kang Geomma was gazing up at the sky. Kuarne was staring intently at him without end. It was a serene, pastoral scene—entirely unfitting for a battlefield.
That look... was sorrowful and yearning, hard to believe it belonged to a leader of the Demon King's Army. It was a gaze so profoundly nostalgic, like someone reuniting with their first love.
At this, not only the heroes but even the demon army felt spine-chilling goosebumps wash over them. For Kuarne to wear such a perverse expression meant something extraordinary was about to transpire. And collective premonitions of doom rarely proved wrong.
“Ah, ah... Finally...”
Kuarne let out a sobbing sigh. Tears brimmed in his clear eyes.
“…I have waited for this day since the Age of Myth.”
Tears streamed down past his trembling lips, pooling at his chin before falling in heavy droplets.
“O Defier of Heaven.”
Kuarne bowed his head and raised both arms high in veneration, as if he had worn those pure white vestments specifically for this moment. His demeanor was that of a complete fanatic.
“……”
Kang Geomma appeared no different from usual. A sharp-featured boy with black eyes and black hair. Yet those who knew him were overcome by an inexplicable chill.
“Y-You...”
The Sword Emperor's reaction was particularly severe. He had seen Kang Geomma—and the entity beyond him—before.
‘The entity that vanquished 5th Corps Commander Agor on Avalon Island.’
A profound existence beyond comprehension, impossible even to fully perceive. A transcendent being akin to a god—no, perhaps even beyond that.
‘It's different from back then.’
Previously, "that entity" took up the dominant share within the host known as Kang Geomma. Strictly speaking, it wouldn't be wrong to say that entity had slaughtered Agor, rather than Kang Geomma.
The Sword Emperor looked at Kang Geomma again with trembling eyes. There were virtually no outward changes. Space wasn't warping around him like before, nor was the outline of his body shimmering like a haze.
Right now, his core identity was solely Kang Geomma. That was precisely why he trembled all the more.
‘It's definite.’
A human who reached the absolute pinnacle of the sword had hatched from his shell. Shedding his mimicry, he had evolved higher... and higher still.
Though the thunderous storm had ceased, it felt as though lightning had struck directly into his mind. At the same time, he felt as if he had gained a monumental enlightenment.
In that moment, the Sword Emperor realized how narrow and petty the world he knew truly was.
This world, which he had thought to be everything, was perhaps nothing more than a single stalk among countless roots.
Even this war was as insignificant as the rustling of dust particles from a cosmic perspective.
And a cosmic being from that beyond...
A being from outside the world had descended upon the human realm.
“Still, you haven't fully returned yet... seeing as your humanity still lingers.”
Kuarne muttered to himself, his brow furrowing slightly. Then he smoothed his expression.
“Allow me, your most fervent admirer, to assist you with that.”
Clap!
When he clapped his hands, an opaque veil expanded into the shape of a massive dodecahedron. It was a barrier designed to block any outside interference.
Since the interior of the barrier was reserved exclusively for Kang Geomma, Kuarne, and Leon, everyone else was blown far back by the sheer gust of pressure.
“Dammit!”
The Seven Stars desperately tried to break through, but failed. Every swing of their blades bounced off. Conventional armaments could not pierce this barrier. With things turned on their head, it was confusing to tell who was trapped and who was locked out, even though they were on the outside.
The Seven Stars and other heroes swallowed hard where they stood. Forced by circumstance into being mere onlookers to the fight to the death between the Heavenly Sword and the 2nd Corps Commander.
That was when Kuarne moved. He kicked off the ground. The force alone made it seem as though the very earth caved in.
The instant he leaped into the air, twenty-four pairs of wings unfurled from Kuarne's back. They were not the customary ivory, but a dingy, dirt-brown color as if caked in grime.
“O Defier of Heaven! I shall aid your complete awakening—your abandonment of humanity!”
He fluttered his wings lightly. A flap as delicate as a butterfly's generated a gale in an instant. It was a bleak wind capable of crushing bones at the slightest graze.
[Aerokinesis]
A spell that manipulates the atmosphere according to the caster's will. The essence of this magic goes beyond launching gusts of wind. By applying chemical variations to the atmospheric components—nitrogen, oxygen, argon, carbon dioxide—it instantly suffocates the opponent.
He did not stop there.
[Europa]
Kuarne spread his arms wide, then pulled them together as if gathering the atmosphere into a sphere before his chest. The air compressed down to the size of a bullet, condensing at the vertex of a short-range pulse he formed.
“The narrower the bore, the greater the destructive power.”
He wove a tempest around the compressed air bullet. It swirled around the projectile like subatomic particles orbiting a nucleus.
He fired it.
───────────!
The air bullet surging toward a single point produced no explosive boom. What echoed in the onlookers' ears was silence. Kuarne's atmospheric manipulation warped even sound waves.
Kang Geomma raised Murasame. The tip of his blade merely pointed at the incoming air bullet. He made no other movement. As things stood, he would be obliterated without a trace by the ricocheting air projectile wrapped in swirling gales.
Kang Geomma twitched. Not his sword-hand, but his lips.
“ ”
A single word. The moment that brief incantation fell, cracks fractured across the air bullet. One, two, ten... a hundred, a thousand, a hundred million, a trillion, a quadrillion. The hairline cracks multiplied exponentially. In a span where a single blink felt like an hour, the process unfolded in an instant.
□□□□□□□□□
The air bullet shattered into fragments smaller than particles. Kang Geomma's single word had brought about the outcome of 'Severance.'
“Hahaha!”
Amidst the stunned silence at this miraculous spectacle, only Kuarne laughed aloud in delight.
“Even in an incomplete state of awakening, you possess such power?!”
Even while speaking, he fired air bullets in continuous succession. Enveloped in venomous gales, the air projectiles detonated indiscriminately between friend and foe. Pus burst across bare skin, and a thick mist of blood settled over the battlefield.
Step.
Kang Geomma took a step forward. His stride was impossibly light for someone approaching an enemy. Simultaneously, Kuarne moved again.
Kuarne raised his index finger to point at the sky. A hole the color of petroleum burst open where the sun was, and the sky curled inward, sucked into that single point.
[Black Hole]
The size of a volleyball. Yet, it was more than enough to reduce the entire area to ash.
“Aaaaaagh! Lord Kuaaarne!”
As if testifying to its power, several demons and heroes were swept up into a waterspout of force, swallowed whole as if shoved into the black hole's gaping maw.
Kang Geomma's feet floated a hand's breadth off the ground. He uttered the exact same word once more.
“ ”
Thereafter, the black hole met the same death as the air bullet. Pulverized down to particle units, it scattered into dark specks of dust.
Giggling maniacally, Kuarne continued to summon black holes endlessly. Their sizes varied, but every single one boasted terrifying lethality.
“Hold the line—!”
The heroes organized themselves into tight formations, struggling desperately to endure. By contrast, the demons lacked such order.
“Kiyaaaaaah!”
Entangled in chaos, they were dragged into the black holes, screaming horribly as they died miserable deaths. Twisted spines with exposed entrails rattled down like scattered debris.
Ironically, that chain of death was severed by Kang Geomma's brief words. His lips parted faster than the black holes could form.
The heroes floated into the air and settled back down repeatedly. They looked back and forth between the sky and Kang Geomma. They simply did not know how to react to this awe-inspiring sight.
Admiration? Surprise? Shock? Terror? They couldn't tell. All they could do was stand slack-jawed, watching like spellbound fools.
“Khehehehe, does even this fail to grant you a moment's amusement?”
Kuarne covered his eyes and erupted into insane laughter. The demons were momentarily cowed into silence.
They had joined forces with the 2nd Corps Commander because their goals aligned. Yet here he was, creating black holes that swallowed his own kin, cackling like a lunatic afterward. Seeing this, the majority of the demons regained their composure, utterly disgusted by Kuarne's atrocities.
“Stop this!”
The one who shouted was the Vampire Chieftain. He held a solid standing among the demons and possessed strength to match.
“We united because our goals to conquer the human realm aligned! What is the meaning of this? Is this war nothing more than entertainment for you alone?!”
Kuarne glanced sideways at him.
Just when the mood is reaching its climax... There's always one nuisance getting in the way.
“Answer me! Why do you kill your own kind so nonchalantly?!”
He didn't bother replying. Even as the Chieftain demanded answers, Kuarne turned away without giving him so much as a glance. Treating him like less than a bug. The Vampire Chieftain's pale face flushed as red as an apple.
Regardless, Kuarne looked forward again with a smile. With every uttered word, Kang Geomma's expression drained away bit by bit—a shedding of his humanity.
“Ah...”
Looking into those inorganic, lifeless eyes flushed his body with heat. A scalding pleasure surged from deep within. His groin swelled high.
‘I will see his true hidden side.’
He had endured those agonizing, tedious ages for this alone. And finally, he had reached the destination.
‘I cannot stop here.’
Until I witness his beginning and his end, even death will not be granted permission.
‘The role of that observer belongs to me alone.’
Obsession turned into tenacity, tenacity into conviction, guiding his hands, feet, and wings.
Kuarne hurriedly turned around, his eyes trembling with madness. Leon had managed to complete his recovery through sheer grit.
“It seems you are ready, dear nephew.”
Leon glared at him chillingly, then finally gave a small nod. Kuarne grinned.
Preparations were complete. The spilled blood and sacrifices seemed to be sufficient enough.
“Let us summon 'them.'”
Kuarne amped up his magical power output. Though one might wonder if there was any limit left to break beyond this, he had accumulated power over eons.
‘Solely for this day.’
Kuarne unleashed the rest of his wings. Thirty-six pairs of wings anchored his body in midair.
In that state, he assumed a lotus position and closed his eyes. His hands moved slowly, forming a hand seal.
The edge of his left hand pressed against his lower abdomen with the palm facing the sky, while his right hand rested on his knee, pointing toward the earth.
[Throughout Heaven and Earth]
Remaining in that stance, he chanted the incantation, pouring his entire mental strength into it. He declared the spell that would breach the boundaries of dimensions and carve open a passage.
[I Alone Am Exalted]
The sky split neatly down the middle and burst wide open. A pitch-black sea. Those staring up at the sky in bewilderment guessed at what lay beyond, guided by the densely packed specks of light.
Outer space.
In the next instant, the stars embroidering the cosmos rained down like hail. The stars focused their landing point on a single spot.
A Nephalem and Hero. Furthermore, a vessel capable of containing more than anything else—the Holy Grail. Leon von Reinhardt.
Whether demon or god, these entities indiscriminately invaded his flesh. A ravenous momentum that made the pull of a black hole look laughable. If greed could be given form, this would be it.
A shadow blanketed the entire sky. Silence settled over heaven and earth.
The immortals had arrived in the mortal world. In the form humans called possession.