Chapter 1163: Fate of Demise (14)
The Frost Ring, floating at the core of the colossal ice comet, was bathed in golden light.
It was the nucleus forming Olbara’s hell, the endless source of magic used by Aronbaiger Kabahim.
A privilege granted only to the gods of the sea, drawing power not from the present, but from another timeline.
The Frost Ring, crafted from the soul of the cold comet, began to emit a golden radiance.
Kiiiiiing-!!!!
The unique ability of the Unmarked Succession Knot Domain: ‘Reconstruction’.
Lennok’s branching point, who, while wielding the same Manipulation Spellcraft, chose a different direction from Ban-gung.
Instead of reducing existence to nothingness, he creates existence from existence, seizing even the fate and causality of others at the peak of possibility by reconstructing them.
Domain Expansion: Branching Point Creation
Paaaat!!!!!
The Frost Ring, floating above Aron’s head, distorted into golden light, transforming into a kaleidoscope.
Simultaneously, the enormous ice palace, which had been rotating around Lennok and Aron, slowly began to collapse.
[What are you doing!!!!]
Aron unleashed a furious psychic roar, madly drawing upon his magic, but the sensation had changed from before.
The magic, which had flowed endlessly from a distant past he couldn’t even fathom, was cut off.
What remained were his frozen body, which had lost its human form, and the internal magic that originally resided within it.
The Forbidden Armament, made from the remains of a dead god—the Frost Ring’s power was being seized before his eyes.
[No, I will not allow it…!! This cannot be!!!!!]
Feeling an eerie dissonance surging through his entire body, Aron clutched the Frost Ring.
Following his will, the core of the frozen comet spun wildly and began to crumble.
Kwagwagwa!!!!
[That is the fruit of half a lifetime’s dedication!!! It is a power that must only be in my hands!!!]
“That’s right.”
Click!
With the sound of gears turning, Lennok and Aron’s positions swapped.
Lennok, now standing at the center of Olbara where the Frost Ring floated, raised his gaze.
“Had it not been for your Talent for Duality, there would have been no means to create that Frost Ring, nor the right to use it.”
[You!!!!]
“But that is not a power you should wield. And it was certainly not something left to be used in such a way.”
The death of the cold comet, preserved within the Mandala, was a provision left by a Transcendent.
It was proof that he had endlessly failed in his attempts to destroy everything and forge it anew.
The will of a Transcendent, who knew it was wrong but tried to leave meaning until the very end, lay there.
What was the reason Ban-gung had waited for Lennok?
What kind of meaning had he tried to leave for Lennok?
The answer was unknown. Sometimes, he didn’t even want to know.
But because memories that felt alien, emotions that weren’t his, and even this fear, ultimately had to be carried by Lennok.
Just as Lennok had been a beginning at some point, the end, too, Lennok had to determine himself at some point.
He was still here, not to accept fate, but to defy it.
“Aronbaiger Kabahim. All the effort and fruits you accumulated to obtain that thing, right here…”
Lennok said coldly, extending his hand towards the Frost Ring.
“I will take it.”
Kwaaaaang!!!
Beneath the sky of the frozen sanctuary, the golden-hued Frost Ring, drawn by Lennok’s gesture, plunged downward.
With each added incantation, it transformed into a golden kaleidoscope, moving further from Aron and closer to Lennok.
The remnant of an Outer God that Aronbaiger Kabahim had obtained using the knowledge of the Archive and his Talent for Duality.
The possibility he had reached by processing the Dead God’s Remains into a Forbidden Armament and assimilating that artifact with his own existence.
Lennok ‘reconstructed’ it entirely, transforming it into his own.
He forcibly incorporated a branching point, one Lennok had never experienced, one that wasn’t his, into the kaleidoscope.
Wooooooong!!!!
[That is-]
The golden kaleidoscope floated behind Lennok.
Facing its magnificent radiance, Aron momentarily forgot to stop Lennok, his eyes widening.
Because the moment he faced the kaleidoscope, the evidence and symbol of the new branching point created by seizing and reconstructing Aron’s Frost Ring, Aron simultaneously glimpsed its essence.
[…What am I seeing?]
Because he possessed the Talent for Duality, which saw both sides of all things, Aron’s eyes reflected both the front and back of the kaleidoscope.
At the same time, he realized that it contained concepts and principles that could never exist in reality.
A kaleidoscope’s branching point that did not exist in reality’s timeline.
It wasn’t even the coercion of drawing power from an already existing past, as the Outer Gods of demise did.
It was a possibility drawn from beyond a parallel world that did not yet exist. A miracle that painted an uncoming future, believing it would achieve the unachievable.
He wanted to deny it, but he already knew.
A Root Mindscape of a future timeline that existed there merely by his own desire and fervent wish.
That it was a hope Transcendent’s dared not dream of, and a fervent wish even the Outer Gods of the sea could not mimic—
Crunch.
[Kwaaaaaaak!!!!]
At that moment, Aron’s eyes burst and flowed out.
Aron let out a desperate scream, frozen lenses spilling from beneath his helmet.
He couldn’t endure simply looking at both the front and back of the kaleidoscope simultaneously and understanding its true value.
[N-no… there can’t be such an answer…!!!!]
He desperately tried to deny it, but he already knew.
Deep in his heart, he acknowledged that this surreal mental image was a real miracle.
Just as those who had faced the kaleidoscope before him had denied, rejected, raged, and finally stood in awe—
Realizing this, Aron tore at his eyes with a despairing expression, shrieking.
[No, no!!!! Aaaaah…!!!]
Kwaaaaang!!!
His inhuman body, molded almost into a sea god, tore through space, accelerating at tremendous speed.
Aron’s body, his eyes ruined, grotesquely swelled, resonating wildly as it merged with the frozen comet.
The entire Olbara, his frozen hell, assimilated with Aron’s body, moved and opened its maw towards Lennok—a bizarre spectacle.
Kwagwagwagwa!!!!
“Even if it’s an illusion, it won’t matter.”
In the demonic scene where the frozen world seemed to split, Lennok raised his hand.
“Because even the end of the world is but a fleeting bubble to someone.”
[Silence!!!!]
“But until then, I intend to pour everything in, so it can be filled to the brim.”
Lennok smiled, looking at Aron’s distorted face.
“Just as those who dreamed the same as me did, I don’t want to leave regrets at the end.”
Jjeojeojeojeojeok……!!!!
The kaleidoscope in Lennok’s left hand emitted intense cold and froze.
The chill imbued in the glass gauntlet glittered blindingly white with immense light, gripping space.
He combined the remnant of the cold comet and the forbidden causality assimilated with it, with the Imperial Void-Ice Coffer’s branching point.
By using the Dead God’s Remains as material, he added causality to the ice-elemental authority, and with the Unmarked Succession Knot, he grasped Aron’s origin.
Finally, he froze even that causality and fate in place.
[Fate Sealing]
The grimoire of the future he encountered in Nox Biblio.
The moment he naturally uttered those words, which he hadn’t understood himself, as the name of a spell.
Aron’s body froze in place, the comet shattered, and the sky of the ruined capital opened wide.
Jjeooooooong!!!!
The scattered remnants of the ice comet. Lennok and Aron falling amidst the tailing fragments of frost.
They crashed through the ceiling of the half-tilted royal audience chamber, hitting the carpeted floor and rolling.
Kwang!!
“Your Majesty!!”
“Are you alright…!!!”
The surviving knights rushed into the audience chamber, startled by Aron’s appearance.
“N-no…!!”
Chiiiiiik!!
Aron screamed, his entire body turning to ice and slowly melting.
His blood, nerves, and even muscles were ice, yet he was losing power, slowly dying.
But what truly plunged Aron into despair was not the fact that his body was melting.
“I can’t see!! I can’t see anything…!!!”
The Talent for Duality, which allowed him to see both sides of all things, was no longer felt within Aron.
Only a despairingly empty sense of loss remained, as if the talent itself had been sealed away and stolen.
“Your Majesty!!!”
“How could this…!!”
Seeing Aron’s desperate state, his body melting, the knights gripped their swords tightly with grim expressions.
They glared menacingly at Lennok, who stood on the dais behind the throne in the audience chamber.
“You finally laid hands on His Majesty’s sacred body and ruined the grand scheme!!”
“We won’t let you get away with this…!!”
“……”
But Lennok ignored the knights, gazing intently at Aron, who lay prostrate and screaming on the floor below.
More precisely, he was thinking about the words he had uttered himself, determining Aron’s fate in that final moment.
The third named fate was Demise.
The reason it was the fate of demise, and the demise of fate.
Fate Sealing, huh.
Had he finally understood, if only a little, the meaning of those words he had encountered but not comprehended in the dark archives?
“It’s over.”
“…Prophet.”
At the end of the collapsing, frozen palace corridor, Antares leaned weakly against the wall.
Despite holding back Commander Urwin to buy time, he merely looked a little tired, without any significant injuries.
Antares ran a hand through his disheveled hair, looking down at the fallen Aron with complex eyes.
“This is… our end, which I could not foretell.”
“Antares…!! Were you there!!”
Aron heard Antares’ voice and quickly turned his head.
Aron, reaching out with his melting hand, urgently shouted.
“Again, lend me your prophecy again. You must show me the way to the Archive!!”
“Aron. You know.”
Antares shook his head.
“That was a mistake. My overconfidence that you, who traveled the world even as a mercenary, would not make the wrong choice of using humans.”
“I have utilized the Archive’s knowledge better than anyone!!!”
Aron shouted in anger.
“I wielded the power of a god, researched a Transcendent’s provision, and found possibilities beyond the continent…!! What more could I have lacked?!!”
“Too many people died, Aron.”
Antares said softly.
“Even if I stop you now, the people you used won’t return. But still, I…”
The prophet slowly knelt, meeting Aron’s gaze, and said.
“I intend to undo the mistakes I made on the Pilgrimage Path, just as Croken did for me.”
“Antares!!!”
“Protect His Majesty!!”
At Aron’s almost eerie voice, the knights snapped to attention and moved swiftly.
They pushed off the walls and floor of the audience chamber, leaning forward with swords in hand, and slid.
Just as they split their numbers to block Lennok and simultaneously support Aron, attempting a swift retreat.
A dagger appeared from mid-air and mercilessly plunged between a helmet and armor.
Pwoooook!!
“…Huh?”
“Where are you off to in such a hurry?”
The Clown whispered into the knight’s ear, his arm around the stiffened knight’s shoulder.
“Let’s talk after you drop what you’re holding, shall we?”
Snap!!
He twisted the dagger plunged into the neck, severing both the carotid artery and the cervical vertebrae simultaneously.
“Ghk…!!”
The knight’s fighting spirit, eyes rolling back, foaming at the mouth, yet desperately trying not to let go of Aron.
The Clown clicked his tongue, about to cut off the knight’s wrist to neutralize even that resistance, when—
Thwack!!
Another knight, supporting Aron in his arms, swiftly began to flee.
As the knight carrying Aron ran out of the audience chamber, other knights charged towards The Clown.
“This way!!!”
“We must buy His Majesty time to recover!!”
“Don’t spare your lives!!”
“Hmph, well, now.”
Crunch!!
The Clown, who had plunged a dagger into the forehead of a charging knight and kicked him away, sighed.
Diving into the midst of the charging knights from all directions, The Clown drew upon his magic and twisted his body.
A spray of blood erupted around The Clown, and the heavy bodies of superhumans collapsed to the floor, their lives extinguished.
Having massacred the remaining knights in an instant, The Clown stepped over their corpses, shaking his head.
“I was feeling generous and was going to spare them, but you just can’t get it together, can you?”
“Clown. You’re late.”
Lennok, who had been watching with folded arms, glanced over.
“I was waiting. You brought the item, right?”
“What do you mean?”
The Clown opened his fist with a pleased expression.
A small glass orb, small enough to fit in one hand. Inside the snow-filled orb was the miniaturized figure of the frozen knight.
The Clown grinned, seeing it.
“The Dead God’s Remains that were in The Gate’s sanctuary. Successfully recovered.”
The series of operations discussed with The Clown right before confronting Aron. Lennok and The Clown moved separately, drawing attention, and the summoned beast deployed its Domain.
While Lennok, who had deployed his Domain, fought Aron, The Clown proceeded with the original plan to steal the Dead God’s Remains.
At the point Lennok acquired the Mandala, there should have been no issue for The Clown to intervene with the Dead God’s Remains.
He had succeeded in stealing the Dead God’s Remains just before the sanctuary collapsed at the end of the battle.
“Aronbaiger used the soul, but this will be enough for this operation.”
The Clown laughed, shaking the glass orb he held.
“Now we just need to eliminate the lingering threats and escape before the entire Royal Knights come rushing from across the capital. Perfectly clean.”
“Lingering threats, huh…”
Lennok said, turning his gaze towards Aron, who was fleeing in the distance.
Having turned Kabahim’s capital upside down like this, he certainly couldn’t leave Aron alive.
Although Lennok had seized his abilities and talent entirely, if he remained alive, he would be a potential threat in some way.
“Anyway, Antares doesn’t seem to want to. What do you say?”
The Clown said nonchalantly, spinning a dagger in one hand.
“Shall I do it?”
“…No.”
Lennok said, extending his hand.
“Even discussing such things is a waste of time.”
Piiing-!!!
Black Mana Thread pierced the corridor, cutting through the royal palace’s structures. It gripped the neck of the knight fleeing with Aron on his back and constricted.
As the knight’s body was yanked backward, he was dragged back into the audience chamber, smashing through the palace walls over a dozen times.
Kwagwagwagwang!!!!
“Cough…!”
The knight, dragged in by Lennok’s hand, choked, his face purple, convulsing weakly.
Aron, who had fallen from the knight’s back, lay slumped, struggling to hold onto his melting body.
“Y-you…”
“I don’t think there’s anything more to take from you now, but…”
Lennok said, walking down to Aron.
“There’s also no reason to let you live here.”
“…Indeed.”
Aron, looking at his body melting and mixing with blood, struggled to stand up.
He staggered to his feet, raising his half-regenerated, melting eyes to look at Lennok.
“Now I understand. You are one who seeks to create something even more absurd than the new empire I intend to build.”
“……”
“Hahaha… how preposterous. To attempt to encompass my fervent wish of seizing the world within a grander current, and take it…”
Aron closed his eyes, cold tears streaming down his face.
“I cannot acknowledge it. Nor do I wish to accept it. But… if this is heaven’s will, then there is nothing to be done.”
Because he had followed and mimicked the answers and methods of others, Aron vaguely understood what Lennok desired.
Even if Aronbaiger Kabahim was a lesser being compared to other Transcendent’s who had sought their own path,
It was precisely because of this that he could guess what kind of heart and wish Lennok’s kaleidoscope contained.
Not perfect, so he tries to look back at as much as possible.
Not complete, so he tries to encompass everything possible.
He understood the kaleidoscope, despaired, and rejected it. But precisely because of that, in the end, like a mirror, he looked back at all those moments—
“Come… this is where my heart lies. You must aim true, so as not to miss.”
Aron chuckled, his face melting.
“Go on, add the stain of a ‘regicide’ to your grand wish, which you have built up…!!”
“No. That won’t do, Your Majesty.”
Whoosh!!
An old man with a benevolent smile appeared beside Aron and placed a hand on his shoulder.
“…Lord Eldrich?”
“Your Majesty’s ending must not be decided this way.”
Beside Aron, who turned his gaze with an incredulous expression, Eldrich smiled.
“From now on, I will assist you.”
“Fifth Apostle. What are you doing?”
Lennok tilted his head.
“Are you planning to fight me again, after all this?”
“As I told you initially, I am merely doing what I must.”
Eldrich replied, naturally standing beside Aron.
“I must meet Your Majesty, inform him of what has transpired, and then complete the mission I have long left undone.”
“……”
Eldrich slowly drew his sword, carefully building his momentum as if guarding Aron.
His resolute demeanor was as if he intended to stand by Aron’s side and confront Lennok.
“Ha, hahaha. Indeed…”
Aron’s expression slowly changed as he watched.
“Perhaps, my destiny has not yet run out… Was this not my end here?”
The determination with which he had accepted death transformed into faint relief and hope.
At the same time, an unyieldingly strong will imbued Aron’s eyes.
“Lord Eldrich. Let us postpone all words between you and me for later. For now, fleeing from them is the priority.”
“……”
“If hope still remains here, I will rise again countless times—”
Pwoooook!!
At that moment, Eldrich’s sword pierced Aron’s chest diagonally and emerged from the other side.
“I’m not quite sure what you mean, Your Majesty.”
“…Huh?”
“Did I not say I would assist you in determining Your Majesty’s ending?”
Eldrich leaned towards the frozen Aron, whispering in his ear.
His face was stained with a joyful smile he could not control.
“To accept death with dignity is not an ending befitting Your Majesty.”
“Y-you wretch…”
Even as his breath failed, Aron’s face, belatedly understanding the situation, clouded with rage and despair.
Betrayed by the hope he thought he had grasped in his final moment, he lost even the dignity with which he had faced death.
With a trembling voice, consumed by the terror and fear of death, he called out the name.
“El-drich…!!”
“The Priestess desires Your Majesty’s body. She wishes to enforce the outcome, disregarding the First Apostle’s Time Seal.”
The Fifth Apostle smiled broadly, looking at Aron’s utterly ravaged face.
“Your Majesty, you must become the key to unlocking the First Apostle’s Fate Sealing.”