Chapter 286
The shadow writhed as if it were a single living creature. A pulsation, subtly imbued with madness, continued intermittently.
The fear of being devoured from their toes up by it consumed the Pope and the Tower Master.
Their mouths, which had mocked without knowing their place, became quiet.
“Another God.”
The Chaos Evil God, still detached in appearance, slowly rose from the Divine Throne.
Its blood-red eyes faced forward, yet seemed to reflect nothing.
For a moment, he stood motionless like a statue.
“Oh, Darkness, born of light…?”
“Oh, Exile of the Regressed World…?”
The two humans called out to him, each with their own appellation.
But he, whose thoughts had been deeply drawn into a murky, dark abyss, did not respond.
“Another God…”
The repeated murmuring.
His voice and gaze blurred as if enchanted by a dream.
Only then did a very old sense of incongruity resolve itself.
Was it before he regressed?
When Aillet Rodelain first manifested the aura of Divine Descent, he had felt that it was somehow different from ‘Strict Order and Goodness’.
However, to suspect a saint imbued with divine authority of heresy was too blasphemous, so he had immediately dismissed the doubt.
He shouldn’t have casually overlooked that feeling.
He was foolish.
In the end, he too was trapped within the framework of monotheism. That’s why, even after directly entering the Gate of the Pantheon, he failed to recognize the foreignness of the divinity.
Even after completely abandoning God, was his consciousness still dominated by God?
His own situation was laughable. Yet, not a hint of a sneer escaped his lips.
“It’s another God.”
The third time he repeated it.
The shock was inevitable.
Because it was a condition that shook the very foundation of all his plans.
This felt exactly like suffering an utterly unforeseen betrayal.
…
He took a step.
The two legs of the supreme evil passed by the tense Pope and Tower Master.
“Oh, Darkness, why are you…?”
“Is something wrong…?”
Just before he exited the Grand Chapel, he bestowed a single word upon the two humans still begging for a response.
“…I have something to think about.”
The chapel door closed behind him.
The black statues lining the straight corridor prostrated themselves from left and right. Receiving the demons’ reverence, the handsome man continued to walk.
He arrived at a deep part of the Pontifical Palace’s rear garden, where neither demons nor humans were present.
The altar, carved from rock with a water vein, was silent save for the sound of water.
A space originally used for priests’ contemplation. Standing there alone, Reed raised his head towards the wide-open sky.
…
In the night of disaster he had summoned, stars ceaselessly poured down.
As if waiting for the day that wouldn’t come, he remained motionless in that posture for a very long time.
His appearance was even reverent, like a high priest performing a ritual.
How much time had passed?
“God.”
Emotions that seemed to boil intensely seeped into his voice.
“Ha.”
The answer he gained after long contemplation, like an ascetic’s struggle, was a futile sigh.
He wore a cold smile on his lips. It was impossible to tell if it was a scoff at the world or at himself.
“It’s already too late.”✠Numerous churches across the Serentra Continent have fallen.
The area of blackened land, centered around the church territories encroached upon by demonic energy and Deadly Blooms, expanded.
It was clearly Demonization at a glance.
Abyssinis continued to expand her colonies by sending her kin to churches in various regions.
The dispatches were carried out by Abyssinis’s authority, the principle being the same as spatially teleporting demons to the coordinates of the target church.
The first dispatch impressively sent over 6,000 bishop-level demons into the human world all at once.
Asserting her prestige as a Demon King through a mass offensive was now sufficient.
Key strongholds had been secured, so now was the time to focus on gradually expanding territory.
The remaining 60,000 priest-level demons were either additionally deployed to the expanded demonic colonies or commanded to conquer the most strategic locations according to Har-Magedon’s ‘rules’.
Sometimes the conquest targets were small churches adjacent to already occupied large churches, and at other times, they were churches in remote, isolated frontiers, no better than abandoned houses.
It was a strategy that only those who could see the overall grand scheme and understood the rules could find meaningful.
From the perspective of the humans suffering, it was merely random, and this situation intensified human fear.
Still, the chaos in the human world was not yet widespread.
According to observations so far, corrupted churches expand the Demon Realm’s territory over time.
And they corrupt humans who enter that territory, stealing their souls and making them servants of the demonic race.
But that was all; they could not directly harm humans outside the territory. Furthermore, their expansion speed was rather slow.
It was a situation where one could sufficiently avoid danger as long as they weren’t inside a church at the time of its occupation.
Residents near churches abandoned their homes and fled.
Some went to distant outskirts, others fled to villages where churches had not been occupied.
And there, they eagerly awaited the state to launch a subjugation campaign and resolve the situation.
Gaiyak Village.
Located at the foot of Mount Eltio, one of the remote mountainous areas of the Elfenheim Holy Theocracy, this was one of the few ‘safe villages’.
Including Devon Village on the mountainside, all surrounding villages in the four cardinal directions had experienced the corruption of their churches.
Amidst this, Gaiyak Village alone had escaped the disaster, and they still believed it to be perfectly safe without a doubt.
This was because, uncommonly for the Elfenheim Holy Theocracy, there was no church here at all.
Of course, there had been a church until a few years ago.
That is, until a mentally unstable elderly couple set fire to the church, claiming God had taken their real daughter.
In retrospect, it might have been God’s providence, foreseeing today’s disaster.
Especially so, given that the elderly couple’s daughter was Muriel Philise, revered as the Saintess today.
‘Hmph! As expected, refugees are flocking to our safe village!’
Jekko Grion of Gaiyak Village was delighted.
It wasn’t merely out of pride as the village chief of a ‘Sanctuary’ village.
The money the refugees gave him, pleading to be taken in, was quite considerable.
Anyway, if they just waited, the Pontifical Palace would automatically send a subjugation force to resolve the situation.
So, until then, he just needed to accept people as if he were doing them a favor and make a tidy sum.
Of course, the labor and costs involved in care were borne by the entire village.
Isn’t that what’s good about a community? Everyone helps each other.
‘If possible, I wish the Pontifical Palace would send the subjugation force a bit slower…’
A base desire to profit from others’ misfortunes. It returned as an unbearable karma not long after.
Drrrrd.
Suddenly, the ground vibrated, and Deadly Blooms began to sprout.
“Hick! Wha-what is it?”
“Wh-why is our village…!”
“Aaaaah!”
The disaster, which they thought only affected others, struck Gaiyak Village head-on.
It wasn’t even just swallowing up a church like in other villages.
Gaiyak Village, without a church. The entire village was Demonized at once.
It happened in an instant, as if being swept away by a sudden tide in a tidal flat.
Since they were accommodating refugees from neighboring villages, the damage was immense.
Only those who managed to escape to the outskirts of the village barely saved their lives.
The survivors had to watch firsthand as the village, perfectly fine until moments ago, transformed into a land of death, overrun by Deadly Blooms and undead.
“It’s a village without a church, so why…?”
“Weren’t we supposed to be safe here…?”
Thanks to this, everyone learned.
That no place on the Serentra Continent was safe from the disaster of Har-Magedon.
The Ragneif Magic Republic was similarly caught off guard by this phenomenon.
Gehennid, the capital of the Republic, where the Jet-black Magic Tower is located.
This was a city of mages, rumored to be teeming with atheists who did not believe in God.
“Other countries are in chaos with demons appearing in churches, I hear.”
“Oh dear, oh dear.”
“We’re lucky we don’t have churches… Ah, no?!”
No sooner had a mage spoken than cracks appeared here and there in the ground of Gehennid, and gigantic black crosses rose as if erupting.
Subsequently, the earth was torn open, coffins burst out, and from within them, vampires emerged, pushing open the coffin lids.
A sinister smile, revealing fangs, spread across the demons’ faces.
“This land is ownerless. We shall claim this entire land.”
This wasn’t happening only in the capital, Gehennid.
The Ragneif Magic Republic, which had severed diplomatic ties with the Elfenheim Holy Theocracy a long time ago, had almost no churches.
How ironic, considering they even called divine power awakeners “white mages” and deliberately ignored it.
Because of this, the entire territory of the Ragneif Magic Republic was Demonized.
Areas where high-ranking demons emerged transformed into extinction zones like Gaiyak Village, while in regions where low-ranking demons roamed, survivors had to spend bloodcurdling time playing a deadly game of hide-and-seek.
Compared to the two preceding nations, the Winchester Kingdom was in a better situation. This was thanks to their capable Aura Master commander.
Romina Lekandro, the Kingdom’s Sword, immediately dispatched troops to suppress the disasters occurring in churches across the kingdom.
And she herself participated in the operation to retake Saint Hestina Church, located on the outskirts of the royal capital Wilhellon.
Thus, subjugation battles proceeded simultaneously throughout the kingdom.
The targets of subjugation were generally S-rank level bosses, so the kingdom’s forces were fully capable of handling them.
The demonic bishops who had occupied the churches fell one by one.
However, the problem wasn’t the battles.
“Wha-what? Why isn’t the Demonization stopping?!”
“But the boss is dead…”
“L-look over there! The boss is reviving!”
“Hiiiick!”
Helbreon, the bronze-skinned fallen angel who had just been fatally struck by Romina Lekandro’s blow.
He was pulling out the stake embedded in his wing and rising.
It was a grotesque and unnatural movement, like a marionette with severed strings rising on its own.
Helbreon spread his three pairs of wings wide and spoke.
<Foolish unbelievers, you shall never conquer the Holy Ground.>
The kingdom’s army had no choice but to retreat in the face of endless attrition.
Their fatal mistake was clear.
That no one knew the ‘rules’ of Har-Magedon.