Chapter 1458: Hall of Ascension (4)
The form of a bleeding moon floated in the satellite city’s underground.
After finding Heaven’s Gate, the group split up to investigate the surroundings.
“The power has been out for decades. We should assume that none of the facilities are working properly.”
“Van, look at this. There are reports left from the projects conducted here during the satellite city’s construction.”
Mila walked over from a table on one side of the hangar, carrying an armful of documents.
“There’s a date on it. It looks like experiments were conducted here for quite a long time even after the urban expansion development plan failed.”
“Manipulating the climate and stripping away the atmosphere… It seems the city government failed in its attempt to make this city a place unaffected by magnetic storms,” Felix muttered as he looked over the contents of the report.
“There’s some evidence of exposure to cosmic radiation from when they tried to create an artificial vacuum above the satellite city.”
“In the process of manipulating the city’s climate, was the environment here physically exposed to the Outer Sea…?”
The magnetic storms that periodically swept through Vulcan were the decisive reason why aircraft couldn’t travel to and from this city.
Considering the problem was only solved after Lennok developed the anti-gravity engine, one could imagine how much of a headache it must have been for the past city government.
“It’s certain now that Heaven’s Gate opened as the satellite city entered the range of the total solar eclipse. Sakia wasn’t lying. The problem is, of course—”
Lennok stood before Heaven’s Gate, which floated in the center of the hangar, and raised his gaze.
“That this gate isn’t some ordinary relic of the Old World, but the egg left behind by a dead Outer God itself.”
“……”
Guooooooh…!!
The massive form of a moon, continuously bleeding as it crumbled in real time.
It was an ominous sight, cracking slightly and trembling as if something inside was trying to break the shell and awaken.
Just looking at it brought an overwhelming sense of dread, a feeling that one should flee far away immediately.
“Let me try to make sense of this situation with my inadequate brain.”
Dylan, who had been staring up at the moon with a sour expression, spoke up.
“So, to sum it up in one sentence… the moon in this world isn’t an ordinary satellite, but the corpse of a dead Outer God.”
“With a high probability.”
“But Heaven’s Gate isn’t the real moon. So why would using it make us enter the body of a dead Outer God?”
“Because Heaven’s Gate is akin to the ‘shadow’ of the moon, formed through the total solar eclipse.”
Lennok said this as he looked up at the sky, blocked by the hangar ceiling.
He could now somewhat guess the true nature of Heaven’s Gate, which Sakia had not explained, and the cause of the phenomenon.
“The shadow of the moon, which doesn’t normally exist but can only be observed when a total solar eclipse occurs… It’s close to the other side of the hidden moon.”
“That’s…”
“The gate appearing underground is for the same reason. Since the gate’s essence is the moon’s shadow, it can only be observed within a space where a shadow already exists.”
“You mean it’s a phenomenon that can only be observed under the influence of a total solar eclipse, in a space where shadows already exist…”
Felix muttered.
“And if it’s a space vast enough for a structure of this size to exist, there were only a few candidates from the start.”
“No way… I’ve never seen an Outer God in my entire life.”
“You’re saying the moon I’ve seen in the night sky my whole life is actually the corpse of the apocalypse…?”
Finding it hard to accept, Mila and Soo-ryun looked up at Heaven’s Gate with pale faces.
Many knew about Outer Gods due to the Guido Cult’s existence, but very few had ever witnessed or encountered one directly.
A normal human would go mad just by sensing its aura, and the apocalypse from the Outer Sea rarely revealed itself to humans.
Even the high-ranking priests of the cult only received and served their power; many who weren’t at the Apostle level had never laid eyes on an Outer God.
Though the explanation was shocking in many ways, the mercenaries soon regained their composure.
“If Heaven’s Gate is a concept that has existed since the Old World, the moon’s true form must have been a truly transcendent Outer God.”
“The scale of this story is so large that it doesn’t even feel real. In the first place, who killed that thing?”
Dylan asked while picking at his ear.
“The fact that its corpse is floating in the night sky means it died somewhere near this world, right? Did it commit suicide or something?”
“Who knows…”
Lennok, who had been silent, said with his arms crossed.
“Perhaps that thing itself is proof that a deicide was once successful in the Old World.”
“……”
“W-with my spellcraft, I-I think I can interfere… W-what… what should I do…?”
During a moment of sudden silence, the Corpse Ghost Spell Master raised his hand, glancing at Lennok.
“Th-that thing is judged to be cl-close to a corpse, so it might be possible to open it…”
“Spell Master. I don’t know what you’re talking about. According to Van’s explanation, that thing is akin to a residual image left by an Outer God’s corpse.”
Felix glanced over with a hardened expression.
“Even if it’s a mere shadow, it’s still a remnant left by an Outer God. Are you saying you can interfere with your spellcraft?”
“My sp-spellcraft is a little unusual… so I can handle it re-regardless of the target’s rank.”
The Corpse Ghost Spell Master said with a hint of pride.
“As l-long as it’s a corpse that meets the c-conditions… I’m saying that the spellcraft c-can be applied… Ahem…”
“……”
The Corpse Ghost Spell Master seemed oblivious, lost in his own boasting, but Lennok didn’t miss Felix and Dylan exchanging sharp glances.
The two experienced mercenaries vaguely sensed how abnormal it was for even a high-ranking Spell Master of the Order Alliance to be able to include the corpse of a dead Outer God as a target for his spellcraft.
By now, the others must have also noticed that, contrary to his dazed appearance, the Corpse Ghost Spell Master was no ordinary spellcaster.
“We need to finish this before the eclipse ends, so we’ll have to use every available means necessary,” Lennok said.
“We will use the Singularity Reactor we brought to activate Heaven’s Gate. Let’s prepare immediately.”
Clank!! Vrooooom!!!!
They cleared the debris of scattered containers and placed the Singularity Reactor beneath Heaven’s Gate.
The moment they picked out intact electrical cables abandoned around the hangar and connected them to the Singularity Reactor and Heaven’s Gate.
The black hole engine began to spin violently, supplying power to Heaven’s Gate at an incredible speed….
Kuuuuooooooh!!!!!!
A powerful tremor shook the entire vast underground hangar, making it feel as if it would collapse.
Simultaneously, the cracked, bleeding moon split wide open, revealing its broken interior.
“Felix.”
“I’m ready!!”
Felix, who had pulled out the tree stems that covered the satellite city’s underground, hoisted one onto his shoulder and plunged it into the cracked moon.
The moment the fragment of the World Tree, which Sakia had prepared in advance, was connected to Heaven’s Gate, the form of the broken moon transformed.
Before Lennok’s eyes, the shattered moon expanded into a pale, circular ring and began to rotate slowly.
Crack, craaack-
Inside the massive ring made of moon fragments, a new landscape revealed itself as if a dimension was tearing apart.
It was shrouded in a hazy light and not clearly visible, but he could tell that the scenery beyond the ring was different from here.
They had activated Heaven’s Gate with the power of the Singularity Reactor and fixed the coordinates to the Hall of Ascension using the World Tree fragment as a catalyst.
“S-spellcraft deployment…”
The Corpse Ghost Spell Master whispered, stretching out both hands and hesitantly drawing up his mana.
“Corpse Processing… Talent Mutation… Corpse Ghost Blooming…”
Kuuuuoooooh!!!
A gloomy, ash-colored mana spread from the tips of the Spell Master’s pale hands and connected with Heaven’s Gate.
Simultaneously, the unstable, trembling form of Heaven’s Gate firmly locked into place and stopped moving.
Treating the existence of Heaven’s Gate as a dead body. By making it a target of the Corpse Ghost Spellcraft, he controlled its output and stabilized it.
Just as the other mercenaries stared with hardened expressions at the Spell Master who could stabilize even a relic of the Old World with just a few words of incantation,
The light of the dimensional rift shimmering beyond the gate suddenly flooded out explosively, engulfing and swallowing the entire surroundings.
Lennok’s vision turned completely white, and the entire spacetime stretched out around him distorted as if it were being turned inside out.
Fwoooooooosh!!!!!
How much time had passed?
It was a dazing sensation, as if drifting through an infinite void, having lost all sense of direction and gravity.
A long wait with no end in sight. Or a brief instant, almost a fleeting moment.
Circulating and intersecting within a moment close to an eon, and an eon equivalent to a moment.
Realizing this, Lennok opened his eyes.
“……”
The first thing he felt was an indescribably profound silence.
A vast corridor so quiet he wondered if he had gone deaf.
Ornate chandeliers and antique lighting stimulated his eyes. He saw plush carpets and tapestries covering the floor.
Everywhere he looked, all sorts of metaphysical yet classical paintings and works of art were displayed in an orderly fashion.
Before long, Lennok realized where he was.
“…A museum?”
The Hall of Ascension, reached by opening Heaven’s Gate with the World Tree fragment as a key.
Its appearance was closer to a luxurious museum than a mythical temple or a great sanctuary.
It was a scene that felt extremely modern, completely different from the image he had vaguely held of the hall.
Faced with the unexpected scenery, Lennok instinctively drew upon his mana and scanned his surroundings.
There was no sign of the other companions who had entered Heaven’s Gate with him.
Had everyone been scattered throughout this vast museum upon entering the Hall of Ascension?
Or were they too facing a completely different space or scenery than Lennok?
“……”
At first glance, the scenery felt so alien that he wondered if it was a consciousness space or an illusion.
But Lennok’s senses told him that this space was another reality existing in a different dimension.
Perhaps the space that unfolded beyond was so strange because they had passed through the corpse of a dead Outer God as a passage.
It would be difficult to make a proper judgment without exploring the area himself.
Having made his decision, Lennok slowly began to walk deeper into the museum.
Whirrr-
He took an escalator connecting the floors and went upstairs.
As he passed through an antique revolving door and crossed a corridor, the lights turned on automatically.
A hollow feeling, as if Lennok was left all alone in the corridors of this gigantic, endless museum.
Where in these corridors could the memories that stored the births and deaths of all past Ascendants exist?
He couldn’t find any clues even after carefully observing the tapestries, paintings, and art pieces hanging all around.
The clue was found in an unexpected place.
“That place is…”
The sight of a massive cinema occupying one entire wall of the vast museum.
When he opened the door and went inside, he saw an empty seating area in front of a dark screen.
A space that felt completely devoid of human presence, as if no one had set foot in it for a long time.
Could a place like this hold any meaning? Had Lennok come to the wrong destination in the first place?
If Sakia had truly intended to enter the Hall of Ascension, she should have shown herself by now at the very least.
Lost in thought, Lennok casually looked around the inside of the cinema and turned his body when he spotted something unusual.
An old projector located at the very back of the cinema, and next to it, several film reels inserted in a bookshelf.
As he got closer, he saw something written on the films in an old-fashioned script.
Some films were illegible, but among them were films with writing in a language Lennok knew.
The title written on the film was—
[Crimson (秘色): The Beginning of an Everlasting Contract]
“…This is.”
A strange name structured like the title and subtitle of a movie.
Ironically, Lennok knew who that name referred to.
Ascendant Crimson. The one who had cooperated in Anathema’s exile, a Transcendent who had even visited the Ninth Tribulation of Kundara.
What could it mean that the name of one of the most secretive of the existing Ascendants was written on this film?
As if possessed, Lennok pulled out the film from between the bookshelves and headed toward the old projector at the back of the cinema.
The moment he inserted the film and pressed the power button, the projector whirred to life, and an image began to play on the screen.
Chrrrrrrk…!!
As Lennok watched the scene and sat down in a nearby seat, someone’s memory unfolded before his eyes.
==
Rustle, rustle. Rustle, rustle.
The sound of paper brushing against itself as it falls through the air.
An immeasurably long stretch of papyrus comes and goes before his eyes.
He catches the endlessly falling papyrus, takes a pen, and continues to sign.
In a distant past he cannot remember, he was a being who gave witness to the contracts and promises of others.
He signed as a witness to contracts that existed across countless timelines, making pledges and remembering.
He left his name on every contract that existed in the world, connecting himself as proof.
The moment he realized it, his body had become bound by all the contracts he had signed.
Even after his body rotted and returned to dust, even after it was shattered, only the contracts remained.
The remaining promises newly constructed and sustained his flesh.
And so, he became an Ascendant.
==
Chzzzzzt….
The film ended, and the screen went dark with a faint noise.
But Lennok remained in his seat, his expression cold and frozen as he stared at the screen.
The moment he saw the video played through the film, Lennok too had understood its meaning at once.
These were records closer to the core of ascension than any memory Lennok had ever encountered.
“…So it was here.”
Binding, connecting, and reconstructing oneself through infinite contracts.
The memory of the day Crimson first rose to Level 9 and was reborn as an Ascendant.
It was endlessly vague and ambiguous, but Lennok instinctively understood its meaning the moment he saw it.
It was likely because Lennok, too, was now looking towards the same place as those great Ascendants, however faintly.
Heaven’s Gate had not brought Lennok to the wrong place from the start.
The films in the cinema were the very memories that contained the births and deaths of all past Ascendants.
A moment of great enlightenment and awakening, incomparable to anything before, was right here.
Realizing this, Lennok shot up and carefully examined the films on the shelf next to the projector.
Various names he didn’t know, and simple summaries written like subtitles.
Each one was a name both breathtakingly important and familiar.
[Heavenly Sight (天見): The Lantern That Illuminates All Things]
[World-Soul (界魄): The Blooming of a Cursed Fate]
[Mungnyeon (默蓮): Chaos Bloomed in Silence]
…
There was a mix of Ascendants whose epithets Lennok had heard of, and names he was seeing for the first time.
All of them were the names of the great Seekers who had reached Level 9 in this third world.
They must be the proof that remembered and recorded the moment they were completed and born as Ascendants.
But Lennok passed by the films with recognizable names, searching for something else.
This cinema was a sanctuary that remembered the births and deaths of Ascendants.
If so, then there must also be films that remembered not the beginning of an Ascendant, but the ‘end’.
He had vaguely thought about it ever since he heard about the Hall of Ascension from Sakia.
Perhaps the most valuable memory in this space was not the beginning of ascension, but one that included the end—
Thud!!
Lennok’s gaze, which had been rapidly scanning the films, came to a sudden halt on one.
A memory containing the end of a certain Ascendant, whose epithet he was hearing for the first time.
[Yega (藝加): Unfulfilled Wish and Demise]
=The latter half of the Unification War. The decisive battle in the Sea of Understanding region.
The Sea of Understanding region. The end of the Unification War that took place on the Eastern Continent.
The memory of when one of the Ascendants who had resisted the Empire met their death there.
However, what caught Lennok’s eye was the final explanation written almost as an afterthought at the very end of the film’s description.
=Annihilated after a battle with the Ascendant Ban-gung.
“……”
The memory of the head of the Black Edict clan that Myeong had shown Lennok in Paradise Lost.
He had heard there that Ban-gung had killed two of the Eastern Continent’s Ascendants.
The end of an Ascendant. And a memory of a time when his past self had personally taken a hand in it.
There was no reason to hesitate.
Lennok replaced the film in the projector, sat down in a seat, and quietly watched the screen as it began to play.