Chapter 92
Chapter 92
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 92
Chapter Title: God of the Hunt
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The statue of the Jackal God stood at the end of the altar. Fernandez advanced slowly, one step at a time. In the center of the altar hung a rusted, weathered bronze scale.
The altar encircling the scale was inscribed with ancient hieroglyphs from the Shang Asit Empire.
[Weigh the sins of your evil.]
It was a simple sentence, devoid of any metaphors or embellishments. As Fernandez paused at the edge of the altar, the face of the Jackal God stirred.
-Scrraaape.
Pale dust drifted around the statue. The Jackal God's eyes looked down at Fernandez. Though it was merely a fragment of a dead god, stripped of most of its powers and reduced to a sticky curse,
its divine presence was undeniable. Fernandez gasped under the crushing weight bearing down on him as he gazed up at the altar.
-You have endured the weight of your malice. Though your soul is heavier than your flesh.
The Jackal God's cracked laughter shook the corridor. Yet Fernandez stared fixedly at the scale, unflinching.
-Kuuuung.
On one end of the scale appeared a heart pulsing slowly. The blackened, aged heart writhed with sluggish beats.
-What will you place against the weight of your karma.
The Jackal God's eyes twisted in mockery. Fernandez glared at the god with eyes crusted in dried blood. Soon, his hands slowly formed seals.
-Kwachik, kwachik.
Magic coiled along his fingers. Rough mana flowed through the circuits of the bronze throne. A black halo ignited behind Fernandez's head.
"Regret."
It was a simple illusion spell. The kind that conjured a phantom flower over an empty hand. At his current state, even weaving such minor magic consumed the bronze throne's remaining reserves.
But it didn't matter. If there was a chance. If he could seize another chance. If he was finally granted the opportunity to do better, more perfectly. Then it didn't matter.
Even if he lost all his magic, even if he lost the flesh of a Religiosa Demonica.
It would merely be a return to that first morning in this world, awakening in the forest. Back when he had possessed nothing to begin with.
If he could return to before he lost what was precious, he could forsake everything he had. Even his soul. Anything at all.
"I will place regret upon it."
-I shall judge the weight of your malice. Mortal.
-Kiiiiiik.
The freesia conjured by Fernandez's magic fell onto the opposite side of the scale. Opposite the heart. Compared to the heavy, pulsing black heart, that single flower looked far too frail and light.
-Kiiik...
The scale swayed. And then, soon enough,
the chains of the scale leveled out horizontally.
The Jackal God's tearing laughter shook the corridor. Fernandez felt the oppressive pressure that had pinned him down gradually fade.
His knees slowly straightened. His bent back, his shattered ankle—they all began to mend. Even the molars that had been ground to splinters.
-Repentant one, your life itself is your mold. Advance forth.
With the Jackal God's laughter, the scale crumbled away.
-Kugugugung!!
The altar before his eyes split in two, revealing a path leading underground. Fernandez stared at the subterranean passage in stunned bewilderment.
A corridor lavishly adorned with bronze and steel stretched before him.
-Hwaruruk!
Small flames ignited along the floor of the path. As the fire illuminated the corridor, the metal decorations lining it gleamed in unison.
It was a familiar ornamentation.
"Beitasser...!"
Beitasser's cross-sword filled the corridor. Fernandez walked along the passage in a daze. Behind him echoed the tearing laughter.
-Seeker. Bear your mold and advance, achieve your ideal.
At the end of the cross-sword pattern, the Shang Asit hieroglyphs shimmered.
[Pray. Yearn.]
[Any words. Any wishes.]
[To any god. To anyone.]
The passage was short. A massive bronze relief depicting the Jackal-headed God of the Hunt striking down a ghost's skull covered the entire door.
The flickering flames made the relief seem alive, moving. Blue sparks glinted from the carved ghost's eyes. Upon closer inspection, they were embedded gems.
Fernandez read aloud the inscription slanted across the spear held by the Jackal God.
"Then, you shall obtain."
-Thud.
-Kiiiiik...
The door slowly pushed upward.
*
A vast dome lined with carvings of gods and demons, ghosts and hell, and the heavens arched overhead, covering Fernandez. Light streamed in from somewhere, bathing the enormous hall in brilliant radiance.
At the center of the hall stood a shriveled mummy with a cross-sword impaled in its chest. If Fernandez's eyes weren't deceiving him, the skull visible beneath the golden mask was undoubtedly not human.
It was an elongated beast-like cranium. Beneath the mask peeked dried skin tissue and fur. And within its gaping maw, rows of sharp teeth.
The mummy of a giant bearing a jackal's skull knelt there, heart pierced. Fernandez stood before it.
-Beitasser's holy relic...
'Why didn't I see this in my past life?'
-It might be something we never knew about. Probably used as a sacrifice to summon the War God's four champions.
'Well, summoning entities of that caliber into the material world would require this level of potency.'
It was undoubtedly a spirit summoning powerful enough to call forth demigods. Fernandez gazed quietly at the silver sword etched with complex diagrams.
-Look around.
He heard Feizashi's voice. Statues carved into the vast domed ceiling looked down upon him. They depicted tales from the Heavenly War era.
The war of hell and the Holy Pantheon, elves and dwarves, and dragons. Scenes from the mythic great war that reshaped the continent.
'In the ancient Holy Pantheon, Cardan was called the God of Discipline.'
-Handling the scales of sin makes that likely true.
'And the remains of that god lie in Beitasser's sanctuary...'
Information swirled rapidly in Fernandez's mind. Beitasser was a venerable minister of the Holy Pantheon who had been active even during the Heavenly War. A god included not only in the ancient Holy Pantheon but even in the primordial creation pantheon.
The temple of such a god held the corpse of the God of Discipline? Fernandez scanned the statues in the hall, then spotted the stele directly above Cardan's remains.
The massive stele bore inscriptions in Shang Asit hieroglyphs. Though partially destroyed, enough characters remained to discern their form.
[...until the sun hid behind shadows... and plains burned into deserts...]
[Until its final breath, seeking to reclaim stolen divinity,]
[Correcting the scales of sin,]
[...it beseeched.]
[Divested of divinity,]
[Until life's end, it vowed to hunt.]
[Demons, heretics, and wizards.]
A torrent of information churned in Fernandez's mind. From the Heavenly War onward, the dawn of human civilization. And even the birth of Mumto.
The first god to lose its divinity at Mumto's hands: Cardan, the God of Discipline. If a god stripped of divinity did not die, what thoughts might consume a mere mortal fallen to that state?
According to the legends Fernandez knew, Cardan was the God of the Hunt. Yet the murals lining the corridor to Cardan's sanctuary showed no scenes of hunting beasts.
Only the Jackal God pursuing ghosts and humans. Then why was he called the God of the Hunt? How had such a legend endured?
Fernandez swallowed and quietly approached Cardan's mummy.
"The first Inquisitor. Cardan, hunter of heretics."
Judgment of sins, and the duty of heretic hunts. This ruin was the world's first Inquisition. Only then did Fernandez realize why Beitasser's holy relic was embedded at the center of this sanctuary.
This place was a secret stronghold where the remnants of the Shang Asit Empire—reduced to wasteland in an instant by Mumto—had sworn eternally to battle heretics.
Entering through the hidden entrance, the entire gateway tested sinners by weighing them on the scales, functioning as the Inquisition itself.
Fernandez slowly placed his hand on Beitasser's key-sword. The cold hilt's texture flowed along his fingertips.
-Hwaruruk.
The stigmata embedded in his chest and back began to throb. The blood of the Religiosa Demonica pulsed through his veins. The factors bestowed by Beitasser resonated with the sword and raged wildly.
-Kugugung...
The entire sanctuary trembled. Gripping the immense divinity surging through his hand, Fernandez slowly drew the blade.
The silver-white longsword slid free. And soon, Cardan's remains began crumbling into dust.
-Clang.
As the corpse collapsed, Cardan's golden mask—its lower jaw shattered—rolled across the floor. Fernandez carefully picked up the mask.
A small, faint, yet distinctly present spirituality writhed within the mask. It was not Beitasser's.
"It lives..."
*
Kirhas and Abel were thrown into chaos. The corridor murals had twisted wildly on their own, and in that instant when the lights seemed to flicker, Fernandez vanished!
"Wha-wha-what...?"
Kirhas stared blankly at the spot where Fernandez had stood.
"Wa-was there a trap in the corridor?!"
"Wait a moment."
-Kwaaang!
Abel kicked the spot where Fernandez had been without warning. The powerful strike even gave the illusion that the corridor shook. So rattled was she that Abel hadn't controlled her strength.
Yet the corridor showed no change whatsoever.
"Hmm..."
Abel rubbed her leg briefly, frowning, then shook her head.
"It's just a stone wall. No traps or anything..."
"Then how could Silver Mane just vanish from a plain stone wall...? Is this magic or something?"
"Doubt it. I didn't sense any mana."
They stared blankly toward the end of the corridor. To disappear so suddenly, like evaporating into thin air? Kirhas scanned the floor with a dazed expression.
Normally, the blue path extending toward Fernandez now glowed across the entire corridor. She couldn't even get her bearings on what this meant.
"I don't see anything. Abel."
"Let's keep going."
Frowning, Abel took the lead. With no branches or traps in the corridor, all they could do was press straight ahead.