Chapter 1165: Fate of Demise (16)
Guido Cult’s main headquarters. The Pantheon, deep within the Valley of Lamentation.
The pale marble cavity, enough to make one’s eyes ache, violently writhed.
Thump!!
A vast ritual magic circle, stained with blood, was carved into the center of the sprawling cavity.
At the center of the magic circle, an Apostle, bound hand and foot, let out grotesque groans.
[Aaaaaaaaaah]
[Kikikikikiki]
[Eeeeeeeeee]
Between the Apostle’s shaggy hair, dozens of skinny limbs sprouted and squirmed.
Each time its body, grotesquely distorted like a centipede, moved, the magic circle warped and lost its form.
With each distortion, priests kneeling in prayer around the circle died one by one.
Pshhh!!
“…Ah.”
Priests died without a single scream, still maintaining their praying posture, spurting blood from their five orifices.
The 11th Priestess, Ureka Naydree, watched this scene from outside the magic circle with an unconcerned expression.
“How irritating. Still haven’t come to your senses?”
She sat cross-legged on an opulent chair, wearing a holy robe so white it made one’s eyes ache, holding a staff.
But the most striking thing about her was the azure holy robe tightly wrapped around one arm.
Each time a faint lightning glow, not her own, pulsed from within the holy robe, the faces of the Templar Knights guarding her hardened.
It was proof of the wound Ureka had sustained from ‘someone’ at the same time as recovering the remains of the 6th Apostle, Anatame.
They knew how many cult priests had died from that lightning until now.
Yet, Ureka’s expression remained unchanged, even bearing the lightning that ravaged her arm.
“They said he was one of the most lethal Apostles in history, so I had high hopes, but he’s nothing more than a mindless insect.”
Ureka, sitting cross-legged on the opulent chair, frowned, irritably tapping her staff, which lay horizontally across her lap.
“You’ve killed this many priests; you should have the sense to wake up. How long do you intend to waste my time?”
“The 9th Apostle is an Incarnation Body that devoured more humans than any other Apostle in history.”
The Cardinal standing behind Ureka spoke quietly.
“Among them, he most blindly sought cannibalism and forbidden arts, so it’s not surprising that his madness has spread to his soul.”
“Hey, who doesn’t know that? That’s precisely why I’m trying to recycle that disgusting human centipede.”
Ureka sharply turned her head, sending a chilling gaze.
“But not in that state. At the very least, you should know who your feeder is.”
“…”
Ureka stepped forward, holding her staff, and closed her eyes, gathering her mental power.
“I’ll try one last time. If you don’t listen by then – ah.”
Ureka’s gaze snapped up, and she gave a ghastly grin.
“He’s returned.”
“…Returned, you say?”
Ignoring the Cardinal’s question, Ureka tossed her staff and immediately turned to leave.
Ureka left the ritual chamber without hesitation, leaving behind a flustered priest who caught her staff and a bewildered Cardinal.
A grand path cut through the heart of the main headquarters. A vast street lined with majestic white temples and columns.
From a spatial rift in the colossal altar at its end, someone was descending, supported by priests.
“Get out of the way. Everyone, down!”
At Ureka’s sharp voice, the startled priests hastened their descent from the altar.
Dozens of priests supported and treated the elderly man in a fedora.
Hiss…!!
His entire body was charred black, his skin burned and crushed, emitting noxious smoke…
The smell of burning flesh and muscle wafted down to the altar, making the Priestess’s face naturally wrinkle.
It was a severe injury; his sword and hand had melted and fused together, refusing to separate.
This was the Cult’s highest-ranking Incarnation Body, the 5th Apostle Eldrich.
The cost of directly taking the Forbidden Armament ‘Sorrow’’s bombardment just before escaping the royal capital had reached a level even an Apostle could not ignore.
Eldrich sat leaning against the altar, unable to utter a word, barely bowing his head in exhaustion.
The expressions of the priests chanting prayer spells and sacred laws towards the 5th Apostle were stiff.
“Cellular tissues are necrotizing. Healing and regeneration spells aren’t working at all.”
“He’s only enduring with the Apostle’s tough body. At this rate, he won’t be able to move for a while.”
“It’s the trace of the Forbidden Armament ‘Sorrow’ lost in Torquepaz. Could it be…”
But Ureka ignored Eldrich and pointed to the corpse he was carrying on his back.
“Put that down where I can see it clearly.”
“…”
The priests supporting the 5th Apostle detached the corpse and laid it at Ureka’s feet.
A gruesome sight: a body that had melted and then frozen again, a hideously distorted face reflecting pain and betrayal.
Ureka, looking down at the corpse of Aronbaiger Kabahim, the monarch of Kabahim, extended her hand.
“Here.”
Clack!
The priest holding the staff politely placed it in her hand.
Ureka snatched the long staff as if ripping it, then irritably gestured, chanting a spell.
“Pseudo-Oracle Deployment. Preservation Imbuement. Soul Particle Convergence. Spiritual Presence Extraction.”
After reciting several incomprehensible incantations, she brought the staff down onto Aronbaiger’s head.
“Reveal it.”
Crunch!!
A peculiar tearing sound, like ice shattering, not bone or muscle.
The tip of the staff pierced Aron’s glabella, directly penetrating his head.
Bodily fluids oozed from Aron’s head, spreading across the floor to form a complex magic circle.
Woo-woo-woo, crack, crack!!
With strange resonance and sparks, Aron’s body slowly floated above the magic circle.
Holding Aron’s melting head, impaled by the staff, she fearlessly thrust her uninjured hand inside.
Tearrrrgh…!!!
Cold, sticky fluids streamed down her arm.
“Hey.”
But Ureka’s face, staring down at Aron’s corpse, was chillingly distorted.
“Are you playing games with me right now?”
“…Pardon?”
“There’s nothing. Nothing inside.”
Ureka retorted coldly to the Cardinal’s question, abruptly turning around.
She glared at the 5th Apostle, who lay collapsed at the base of the altar with a distorted expression, and shouted.
“What exactly did you do in Kabahim’s royal capital, Eldrich!!!!”
As she irritably swung her staff, a pale light exploded forth.
The arm of a pure white giant, which appeared above Ureka’s head, roughly slammed down onto the 5th Apostle’s body.
KABOOM!!!
“Aaagh!!”
“Urgh…!!”
The priests treating the 5th Apostle were crushed by the spell, their bodies mangled.
But the 5th Apostle’s body, unscathed by the Priestess’s ‘punishment’, merely tumbled across the temple floor.
Amidst the dying groans of the priests, Ureka, glaring at the unconscious 5th Apostle, said with bloodshot eyes.
“Aronbaiger Kabahim’s Talent for Duality is broken. At this rate, he can’t be used as a ‘key’. The plan has failed.”
“But this person is undoubtedly the monarch of Kabahim himself…”
“Cardinal. Don’t nitpick unnecessarily. Who doesn’t know Aronbaiger’s face?”
She flipped Aron’s eyelids, revealing unfocused eyes.
She dug her fingers between the eyelids, tugging as if to gouge out his eyes.
Looking at Aron’s eyes, from which crystalline fluid was oozing, Ureka spoke.
“These aren’t dual pupils. This infidel completely lost his Talent for Duality before he died.”
Ureka irritably cut herself off and averted her gaze.
“Someone interfered with this man’s talent, corrupting its origin. Did he end up like this in the process?”
“…”
“How absurd. That an ability user capable of destroying an 8-level superhuman’s talent and hierarchy happened to be in the royal capital.”
Without any explanation from the 5th Apostle, she grasped the situation simply by briefly examining Aron’s corpse.
At the same time, she realized that the original plan to unseal the First Apostle’s Time Seal had gone awry.
Veins bulged on Ureka’s hand that held the staff.
“Thanks to this, the plan will have to take a long detour. How dare you…”
“Priestess Naydree…”
“Find out who fought Aronbaiger last in Kabahim.”
Ureka abruptly turned, passing the priests, and spoke in a chilling voice.
“I need to remember that person’s name until I repay the humiliation the Cult suffered today.”
“…”
“The matter of the key will be decided later. Until then, keep that in the Soul Reliquary.”
Although Aron’s Talent for Duality was broken, his physical body was not entirely useless.
An 8-level physical ability user who was once a monarch of a nation. Even if the purpose was different, there would surely be a useful application for it.
“Should the 5th Apostle be escorted and treated as he is?”
“…Ah, yes.”
Ureka paused, looking at the unconscious 5th Apostle, and sneered.
“Even if he’s only just awakened, he’s much weaker than what was recorded. Still can’t even touch the 7th Apostle’s toes.”
“…”
“But if he holds the karma of having killed his own master, it’s not impossible for him to regain his power from his prime.”
Ureka nodded, saying that.
“Treat him and move him to the Soul Reliquary. I’ll personally check on his condition later.”
“…You mean.”
“If he killed his former master with his own hands, it would make a better picture for him to take possession of the corpse himself.”
Ureka gave a ghastly smile, looking at the hesitant priest.
“The fifth is the number of man. I wonder what kind of Apostle will be born if king and subject become one?”
“…”
The Soul Reliquary was one of the most alien and unique sanctuaries among all facilities in the Pantheon.
It was a secret located at the very bottom of the depravity and taboo committed by the Cult in offering humans.
Few ordinary priests, let alone Cardinals or High Priests, were permitted entry to the Reliquary.
Leading the silent priests, she traversed the Pantheon.
Ignoring the devotees who recognized the Priestess and respectfully bowed, Ureka asked.
“When is the First Apostle’s return date?”
“…It hasn’t been even half a month since that esteemed individual journeyed to the Central Front.”
One of the high-ranking priests spoke cautiously.
“Since they usually fulfill external schedules for several months, it will probably take some time…”
“Hmph, always absent when most needed…”
Ureka muttered, irritably biting her nails.
With bloodshot eyes, she gazed at the tens of thousands of devotees praying throughout the Pantheon.
“The Consecration Ritual is approaching. This level of faith isn’t enough. We need a more decisive catalyst.”
“…”
“There must be a secret arrangement or hidden knowledge left by the former Priestess that I don’t know. That person would surely know…”
“If it’s Cult records accessible under the Cardinal’s authority, even without the First Apostle…”
“No. There’s definitely a secret only the Second Apostle knows. The 10th Apostle’s case was like that too.”
Ureka replied, striding briskly.
“I heard that the former 10th Apostle, Amrita Fraubel, had a very powerful curse on her corpse, making the recovery of her Apostle spellcraft take an extremely long time. Don’t you think this incident has a similar direction?”
“That…”
“Ah, never mind. You don’t have to answer.”
Ureka gave a chilling smile, looking at the hesitant priests.
“It’s my fault for expecting a plausible answer from you. How can one have a normal conversation with mere creatures?”
“…Our sincerest apologies.”
“Enough. Bring all the documents regarding what happened in the Far Eastern Branch to my office.”
Ureka’s eyes flashed intensely as she walked away without hesitation.
“Isel Naydree, was it? It seems an investigation into the failure of that old woman, who tried to exchange her body with an Apostle, is necessary.”
Over an endlessly sprawling plain, a colossal darkness glided.
A majestic black coffin, woven from darkness, floated forward.
A vast wilderness, devoid of any human trace, stretching across the outskirts of the Central Front.
Once part of the continent’s greatest granaries, it had now devolved into a demonic realm, the ruined courtyard of a fallen Ascendant.
Jinwa’s Paradise Lost.
Grooooooar!!!!
The sight of an orchard stretching to the horizon.
Trees dyed purple, and paper-like fruits hanging from them.
Each time the colossal Spell-Word Stones, dozens of meters tall, rooted around the orchard vibrated, unknown voices echoed from all directions.
[DEL IC IOUS]
[UN DER STAND]
[WANT TO EAT MORE]
[WANT TO KNOW MORE]
Woo-woo-woo-woo-wooo-!!!
As the Spell-Word Stones resonated, the vast orchard shook, revealing tree roots buried in purple earth.
The only thing embedded at the ends of the roots, serving as nourishment, was not the orchard’s soil, but the corpses of dead humans.
Corpses, their last breath taken with faces full of ecstasy, became the orchard’s nourishment, blooming fruits of knowledge.
[KN OW KN OW KN OW KN OW KN OW KN OW KN OW -]
[TO GET HER TO GET HER TO GET HER TO GET HER TO GET HER]
[WAIT ING WAIT ING WAIT ING]
The Spell-Word Stones resonate. The orchard trembles.
The Spell-Word Stones resonate. The orchard collapses.
The Spell-Word Stones resonate. The orchard opens.
Grotesquely distorted, alien structures, incomprehensible in their scale, surged from all directions, spreading to the horizon.
An unearthly size that far surpassed human units and measurements, a heretical sanctuary prepared solely for worship.
She was ‘contained’ within it.
[I REC OG NIZE]
KWOOOOOM!!!!!
She conveyed her will by writhing her body.
[THAT YOUR LOWLY FATE REACHED ME, IF ONLY FOR A VERY BRIEF MOMENT]
“…”
[I WILL COMMEND YOU FOR MAKING A CHOICE THAT WAS, IF ONLY SLIGHTLY, CLOSER TO THE ANSWER AMONG THE INSECTS]
Myeong could not perceive the form she was taking.
His senses had already expanded and shattered uncontrollably, no longer functioning within the human realm.
He only knew that the thing swaying before him was colossal, vague, majestic, and hideous.
Drinking in the memories of endless deaths until the very end, he sank so deep that nothing of himself remained.
Forgetting even the boundary between reality and death, he fell endlessly, becoming eternal.
Regardless of how this battle ended.
Surely, this would be the last.
But even knowing that, Myeong had no regrets.
He had been waiting for this moment to come, for a long time.
Because he believed that only such an ending suited him.
Even knowing he would fail, knowing he would never reach it, it was fortunate he could finally stop here.
It was fortunate he could meet ‘him’ before finishing the Gabihaeng.
Ultimately, Myeong would never know if this world had a ‘next’.
But now, even if it did, it would be okay.
His unfulfilled desires, the secrets he couldn’t explain, even the destination of the Gabihaeng.
Someday, ‘he’ would find and reach them himself.
He had confirmed it, admired it, envied it, and found peace in it countless times.
Thanks to that, he could leave meaning even in this moment, moving towards the end.
The journey to find the answer was not in vain.
CRUMBLEEEEEEEE!!!!!
From beyond the distant consciousness, transcending time and distance, the gazes of two Transcendents simultaneously met.
No words were spoken.
The majestic wave of darkness staining the horizon and the sanctuary of Paradise Lost surging from the opposite side clashed.
The world tilted and twisted in all directions, and the planet’s atmosphere warped, scattering its light beyond the Outer Sea.
An endless night had descended upon the world.