Chapter 90
Chapter 90
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 90
Chapter Title: Trial of the Dead God (1)
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*
The fall of [Kazak Kadan]. This was the site of the final temple of Kadan, the first ancient god slain by the hand of Mumto. An ancient deity who wielded vast influence over the beastfolk tiger tribe alliance, the Shang Asit Empire, and all the nations and tribes near the western great wilderness.
Not all the gods from the Shang Asit era had perished. Fernandez pondered this as he gazed at the massive waterfall cascading in torrents.
Even during the War of the Heavens, not every god had died. As eras shifted, their names changed or the domains they oversaw evolved, but divinity was fundamentally immortal.
Yet gods could die. For in this world, true immortality did not exist.
“Benefactor, before we enter...”
“I know. I'm prepared.”
A god's death came from the total annihilation of its followers, the loss of faith, or the theft of its own divinity. Much like how the ancient heroes of the Elven Tri-Kingship had stormed the realm of the gods to seize their divinity.
-Splash.
Fernandez waded into the churning shallows beneath the waterfall. The violent currents already shook his body.
“Are you not afraid of the god's curse?”
“I've come too far to fear a god.”
Fernandez smirked at the hesitant Abel. Seeing this, Abel and Kirhas followed behind him.
*
-Roooar...
The resistance grew fiercer the closer they approached the waterfall. A jungle in the heart of the desert, a waterfall spewing water without a visible source—it was utterly unnatural.
“The waterfall itself is the trial.”
-Shhhhwoooosh!
Facing the deluge head-on, Fernandez slowly raised his arm. The greatsword slung across his back fell into his grasp.
-Will you use magic?
‘I’ll save what I can. The Bronze Throne has usage limits.’
-Slice through the waterfall with a sword?
‘King Dane did it.’
And that legacy flows through my bloodline. Power surged into Fernandez's forearm, muscles writhing like serpents.
‘I want to test it myself, too.’
-Shing.
A simple, physical trial. Only warriors capable of piercing the waterfall's pressure were granted entry.
The muted greatsword extended into the air. High guard stance. The waterfall's ripples gleamed on its impeccably polished blade. One drop, then two.
He recalled the memories. That sword cleaving giants. Its trajectory. If King Dane could do it, so could he. For he had inherited the king's legacy and shared in the stature of his soul.
-Be bold, my son.
The king's final words rang out as a voice. Not the somber tone of the Death Knight from Altbert, but the strong, resolute accent of his living days, clear and vivid.
In the moment when time seemed to halt and flow sluggishly, he felt the king's hand overlaying his own between his fingers.
-You shall not lose your way.
Now.
-Krrrrrack!!
The greatsword ground through space itself, splitting the waterfall in two.
Like a curtain parting, a path opened between the falls. A black, elongated tunnel.
-Drip.
-Drip. Drip.
Far in the distance, a pure white light flickered along the tunnel wall, advancing. The light of the hunting god, jackal-headed Kadan, permitting the pilgrim's entry.
Fernandez sheathed his aching arm behind his back, turning to Abel and Kirhas, who stared at him in a daze.
“Will you wait here?”
*
The tunnel was a long, rectangular stone corridor polished to geometric perfection. White stones embedded at every corner blinked and emitted light.
No trace of mana could be felt in the passage. Fernandez walked along, eyes tracing the murals covering the tunnel walls.
The god of the hunt, Kadan. An ancient deity from the Shang Asit Empire era. Murals lined the walls depicting a jackal-headed figure standing with a bronze spear and bow.
The flickering lights, the endless corridor, the distant waterfall's roar echoing along the path—it all created a dreamlike atmosphere.
“Strange. Kadan's domain wasn't hunting.”
“It wasn't?”
“At least, not as I remember it. In the era I knew, Kadan was more the god of discipline than the hunt.”
Fernandez tilted his head at Abel's words. Hunting and discipline? They seemed utterly distinct domains. Indeed, the murals showed no jackal god hunting beasts.
Instead, they depicted the god piercing human hearts, weighing their blood and feathers on scales. Sometimes skulls, or organs.
-Flicker.
He wasn't sure if he'd closed his eyes briefly or if the ceiling lights had blinked. For an instant, his vision darkened. The corridor's illumination dimmed slightly.
Fernandez slowly gripped his sword hilt and assumed a stance.
-Shhhhwoooosh...
The waterfall's roar echoed from afar. It disoriented his hearing, sounds wandering without direction. Now from ahead, now from behind.
Right beside him, a mural showed the jackal god thrusting a bronze spear into a skull risen from a grave, grinning.
-Your soul weighs heavier than your flesh.
“...Hm.”
Fernandez halted. Amid the waterfall's din, screams of people and the crackle of burning wood mingled.
‘Mental corruption.’
-More like hypnosis. Sound, light, repeating patterns.
‘Exquisitely crafted. The first trial?’
Fernandez eyed the jackal god mural. At some point, the god's gaze had shifted from the skull to glare at him.
He quickly checked behind. Abel and Kirhas were gone. To fool a Demonica's senses and warp space—Fernandez clicked his tongue briefly.
A curse worthy of an ancient god. He slowly drew his sword.
-Shing.
A trial was just something to overcome. Fernandez even felt a thrill. It had been ages since he'd breached a proper tomb like this.
-Walk.
Once more, a voice accompanied the sound of shattering bone. The jackal god mural thrust its spear toward the corridor's end.
With cackling laughter at his back, Fernandez drew his sword and advanced slowly down the corridor.
*
The farther he walked, the more a familiar sense of déjà vu washed over Fernandez. The murals on the walls grew increasingly complex and grotesque, forming bizarre patterns.
The jackal god no longer appeared. Instead, a single man's life story unfolded in step with his own progress.
In the murals, a boy received news of his father's death. Soon, his uncle ascended as regent, and the uncle's son tormented the boy nightly with cruelty.
On the day he came of age, the boy fled the barony. Once he held inheritance rights as an adult, his cousin would surely challenge him to a duel—for his life.
A scrawny youth dashed through the forest. Barely shaking off his pursuers.
“Cute.”
Fernandez smirked at the mural. It was alive, animated. With each of his steps, the boy aged into a young man, then middle age.
It was his own life story. Laid bare from his past existence.
-Sinner, proceed to the frame.
Whenever his pace slowed, the jackal's howl whispered in his ear. Fernandez shrugged and pressed on.
A young man dragged to a slave market. Becoming a lich's apprentice. Barely escaping and starting his career as a Wildcast.
The day he first summoned a devil. Days fleeing Inquisitors. The day he poisoned the hero tracking him. The day he severed a sage's wrist to steal an artifact.
Fernandez's shoulders grew heavy. Not illusion or guilt, but a tangible weight pressing down.
Sneaking among adventurers, assassinating them all mid-ruin delve to claim the treasures alone.
A smug middle-aged man grinning triumphantly. Devils cheering beneath his shadow.
Days founding an academy, gathering apprentices, researching magic. Subjects always corpses—or people.
The academy ablaze, the fleeing middle-aged man. The sun god pursuing with spear in hand.
‘Reliving my memories?’
Fernandez shrugged, recalling last night's dream. Now even a single step felt laborious, his body weighed down.
Hiding in a barn from pursuers, a girl offered him warmed milk. The middle-aged man wove a simple illusionary flower crown for the child. She beamed with pure delight.
“Showing me this... is cheating.”
Fernandez barely moved his jaw to speak. He paused, gazing at the woman in the mural.
Depicted younger than he remembered, but he clearly recalled her from back then.
The woman in the image pouted at him. Proceed to the frame, sinner.
‘Very well, Aria. Gladly.’
Fernandez forced his foot forward. Walking itself felt unreal now. The weight crushing his shoulders now bore down on his entire body.
The images darkened to a bloody crimson—not fresh blood, but the hue of a setting sun. That day's light. The evening the village burned.
Pursued by heroes, the village he'd hidden in shattered under their assault. Posing as a kind apothecary after settling briefly with the woman, he'd continued his magic experiments. To outsiders, he was a friendly neighbor.
Finally tailed, heroes and Inquisitors stormed in. The village burned; villagers fell to their blades.
The middle-aged man spoke to the woman, now a grown maiden. Against the burning village backdrop, the sounds and smells from that day assaulted Fernandez vividly.
“I am not the man you think I am, Aria. Will you regret it? Hiding me that day? I am the reason they killed your parents and massacred your neighbors.”
“I do regret it.”
Back then, the sunset blazed like the village bell tower. The woman wept, gazing at Feizashi. Freesia. Her breath carried the scent of those flowers—the ones he'd first woven into a crown for her girlhood head.
“If they hate you for your evil deeds... Do you regret them?”
“No. Even if reborn a thousand times, how could I dare regret?”
It would be hypocrisy. Feizashi looked down at the woman. Excuses of survival's necessities were just that—excuses. His heart, corrupted by infernal mana, craved ever stronger stimuli. Greed, thirst, longing for greater power.
A desire that would burn the world without halting. Feizashi could not lie to the woman who had briefly stayed that hunger.
The moment of repentance, regret, reflection must never come. It would be mere hypocrisy to evade his evil deeds.
Evil was poison, tainting and sickening his soul. Yet he would not stop. He had sworn on the day he turned from his barony: he would never settle for complacency.
“A lonely soul.”
The woman embraced Feizashi. She buried her face in his chest, rubbing her cheek against him as she sobbed.
“I will bear your regrets for you.”
Thus, Feizashi could only wrap his arms around her back.
-Proceed to the frame, sinner.
The jackal's laughter echoed.
Gladly. Fernandez advanced his next step with sunken eyes.