Chapter 252
What exactly did the gods see, and what did they realize?
Could I, a mere human, discern it with my own eyes and mind?
A sense of tension surged from deep within me. I swallowed it with a dry gulp, then took the remaining five steps to stand directly before the well.
“Don’t go too close, it’s dangerous.”
Reed was as unhurried as someone waiting for an answer to a riddle.
I peered into the well. The black water, seemingly reflecting no light, did not show my reflection.
It looked as if it led to the abyss, or perhaps to the night sky. It felt less like a well and more like a hole.
Especially the slowly circling, counter-clockwise ripples somehow reminded me of a Gate…
“…!”
Suddenly, a lightning-bolt realization pierced my mind.
Gate.
Yes, a Gate.
I understood the structural design of this place, the ‘Chaos Altar’.
A dungeon within a dungeon.
That is.
‘A Double Dungeon!’
A chuckle echoed in my ears.
“You figured it out?”
Of course.
Not only the dungeon’s structure, but also Reed’s objective.
That well is a ‘Gate’ leading to another dungeon. And the name of that dungeon is probably…
‘Cradle of Chaos.’
A place where a sea of black vortexes surged.
It was where the 100th iteration Tesillid Argent had thrown himself, as if in a human sacrifice.
Originally, the 100th iteration Reed’s ultimate goal was to cause a Dungeon Burst in the Cradle of Chaos to destroy the world.
But the current Reed had created a Double Dungeon structure, arranging for two bursts. The reason for lengthening the intermediate process was obvious.
Because each time a Dungeon Burst occurred, the power of the dungeon’s owner was amplified.
Reed clearly intended to definitively sweep away the human world with the amplified power of the Chaos Evil God.
My blood ran cold throughout my body at his plan, which had been thoroughly revised beyond the original.
“Ha.”
“As expected, you’re smart.”
“You’ve gone this far…”
“Oh, I thought you’d be happy.”
“Are you crazy?”
“Then am I sane?”
“…”
“This is a sure way to stop my regression.”
I fell silent, looking at his blind, vacant eyes filled with quiet madness.
The blind man before me had also become deaf. There was no point in talking.
Just then, Reed raised his head as if sensing something.
“I’ve completed my objective, so I should return. Carpheios seems to be coming this way soon.”
Crack!
Suddenly, Reed pulled out his demonic sword and destroyed a section of the stairs. As the well-covered exterior shattered, the inner core, where a subspace swirled, was exposed.
It was identical to the crack I had seen while walking here.
“It’s a crack that, if you step in wrongly, leads you to the border region between the Demon Realm and a garbage dump. But…”
Reed’s gaze flickered downwards. I instinctively knew he was looking at my right hand.
“You received Inferinos’s brand, so that will act as a medium. You’ll be taken to the Final Judgment Site, so it’s fine.”
This was something I had already heard explained by Marquis Levant on the way here.
The crescent moon etched into my right palm was not merely a symbol of a contract.
As he said, it also functioned as a medium that helped in traversing space.
“It was nice to meet you, Aillet Rodelain.”
“…”
“You’re becoming less talkative. Are you not even going to say goodbye?”
I still didn’t know.
What expression, what voice, what words I should offer you.
He subtly curved the corners of his lips.
“It’s alright. We’ll meet again soon.”
Was that just a wish, or a confession of a scheme?
Then Reed extended a hand towards me. Instead of pushing my back, his hand reached towards my head.
I had almost forgotten, the dark purple Deadly Bloom was still parasitic on my body.
Demonic energy flowing from Reed scorched the roots and tips of the Deadly Bloom’s stems. Finally, his fingertips plucked the dark purple Deadly Bloom.
“Give this to me.”
“…”
I slowly walked towards the crack.
Before taking the last step, I was finally able to leave even a small farewell.
“Goodbye.”
I didn’t wait for an answer.
My vision distorted chaotically. My body was sucked back into the dark underground judgment site.✠“…Yes, goodbye.”
The belated farewell did not reach her. Reed gazed at the spot where she had stood moments before.
Was it because she was dressed in clothes he wouldn’t usually wear? The lingering image of her in his mind was unusually strong.
His calm gaze slowly dropped downwards.
He looked down at the single cut flower held in his left hand, and his mind did something his head didn’t command.
Memories from a long time ago rewound and unfolded.
Even after living a tedious thousand years, he still had memories that hadn’t worn away.
For example, memories from before the regression.
The pink-haired girl with pigtails who said she would go to Count Rodrigo Orsu with a dark purple Deadly Bloom attached to her.
At that time, at ten years old, he was unusually angry and chastised her sacrifice with trivial words. -You’re not a Saintess, nor are you some special being. There’s no reason for you to sacrifice yourself for complete strangers. He didn’t even know she was the Saintess the Order Religion was searching for.
How embarrassed he had been after the truth was revealed. Truly a fresh memory.
He suddenly looked at his opposite hand. The demonic sword he used to create the subspace crack was still held in his right hand, not yet unsummoned.
Come to think of it, she was also connected to the memory of him obtaining this.
At that time, he was barely twenty. A pitifully weak insect.
Just as he faced the danger of death after being toyed with for hours by a mere demonic sword’s host, she miraculously appeared and saved him.
‘Though it’s regrettable I couldn’t just die then.’
The resentment for having been saved was faint and fleeting.
In any case, even if he had died before the point of regression, the world would turn back time by a day and nullify it.
Aillet too must have known about the existence of that deceptive ‘Daily Loop.’
No, was it even possible for him to hate and resent Aillet Rodelain in the first place?
Left helplessly struggling alone on a hill of corpses where everyone had died, he was still a human with an attachment to life.
What she saved was not Reed, who chanted death in his mind, but Tesillid Argent, who longed for salvation.
In other words, at that time, she accurately gave him what he wanted.
How could he forget that upright back that stood in the way of absolute death rushing towards him?
Even if he felt a cliché emotion back then, wasn’t it irresistible?
Moreover, after saving him so unilaterally, she completely vanished from the point of regression onwards.
Deficiency and loss bring about desperation.
The emotion that would originally have passed and been forgotten in merely one season, like a winter cold, became a fever, a consumption, clinging to him for a lifetime.
His lifetime, a thousand years.
It was truly a magnificent design.
Hadn’t she been thrust before him as his sole salvation and hope?
Hadn’t she made it so he couldn’t forget?
Hadn’t she made it so he had no choice but to cling?
Whether it was obsession, or love.
Hadn’t she made it so he had no choice but to do it?
Even if this was the trap of despair designed by ‘Strict Order and Goodness’, he willingly wanted to step into that despair…
‘You’re the one who made me want you by my side.’
Around that time, the red orb embedded in the hilt of the demonic sword trembled.
It was a sight he had seen once before. Was it when he first held the Holy-Demonic Sword?
Come to think of it, Aillet had given him the Holy-Demonic Sword as if it were natural.
Even knowing he would fall like this, she trusted his kindness back then and handed over the Holy-Demonic Sword. -If you become like Sir Illeon, please take good care of it.
-That won’t happen, so don’t worry.
-You trust me?
-Yes.
-I suppose I must repay your trust. Whoosh!
He swept his right arm diagonally downwards as if shaking off the demonic sword. The sword, which made a sharp tearing sound in the air, vanished as if vaporizing.
As if she were in front of him, Reed asked.
“Do you still trust me, Aillet Rodelain?”
The handsome man, who had more people yet to kill than he had already killed, curled his lips into a cold smile.
The sculpted bridge of his nose touched the Deadly Bloom’s pistil. The scent of the flower, named after death, was sweet.
Regrettably, the time for savoring was short.
“…”
He merely rolled his eyes, which had been cast down, to the right. The space shimmered, and an unwelcome face appeared.
“My Chaos Evil God, were you here?”
“…”
A demon with golden hair that became redder towards the tips. It was the Demon King Carpheios, the master of Sanaarak.
He made Reed dredge up old resentments.
The terrible and horrifying memories etched even before the regression began were all Carpheios’s doing.
Among them was his first experience of murder. -Hoho. Haven’t you become quite the excellent butcher, silver livestock? So much so that even when his words and actions were semi-forcibly controlled by the rules of the Seven Cardinal Virtues and Seven Deadly Sins, Carpheios still managed to draw a few curses from his lips.
This resentment was like an imprint. When he faced the Demon King’s face, hatred and contempt subtly raised their heads.
Reed found these fragments of emotion, outside his control, unwelcome.
Because it made him feel as if he had returned to his worm-like past.
The funny thing was that the demons themselves, ever since he became a Chaos Evil God, seemed unable to recognize his face, or perhaps they simply didn’t recognize him.
“Hmph!”
Then Carpheios, who had raised his head, suddenly stopped breathing. It was because he belatedly discovered the single flower held in Reed’s left hand.
The dark purple Deadly Bloom with its stem neatly severed. Carpheios’s pet plant had died overnight.
“Why! Why the dark purple Deadly Bloom…!”
It was not in Carpheios’s nature to remain still after losing an object of obsession and desire.
Immediately, a whirlwind raged around him, flipping his golden hair upwards.
As he revealed his true nature as a Demon King, his whites turned red, and the veins around his eyes bulged and writhed.
Grrrruuuumble, the earth trembled, and the walls of the Holy Mausoleum shook with fear.
The Demon King looked as if he would explode his power and shatter the world at any moment.
However.
“…Did you pluck it, my Chaos Evil God…?”
The entity before him was the foundation of the demon race.
Subservience and reverence for the Chaos Evil God, etched almost as an imprint into his soul, quickly calmed Carpheios.
Reed swallowed his sneer and spoke coldly.
“I plucked it because I liked it.”
“Ah… Is that so… If you liked it, then of course you should pluck it. I’m glad it pleased the Chaos Evil God…”
“Indeed.”
“By the way, what did you do with the flowerpot…?”
Privilege for the Possessor