Chapter 490: The One Beloved by the Gods (3)
In a fleeting moment, as if time had stopped.
Through the rapidly accelerating gaps in consciousness, Amrita nonchalantly, unnoticed by anyone, asked Lennok.
It was neither a command to wait nor a warning to stop.
A question that was purely an inquiry into Lennok’s will, filled with simple curiosity.
A strange tone of voice, as if she would accept and acknowledge anything Lennok did as an immediate outcome.
[But, if this isn’t the end… if there’s still work to be done…]
Amrita’s eyes, which had held a profound dizziness, slowly dimmed as if closing.
[I…]
“….”
At that moment, time, which had accelerated as if frozen, rapidly unraveled.
Others’ movements quickly began to return to normal.
Just as Lennok hesitated at that unfamiliar sensation, a telepathic message, transformed into clear language, echoed from within the writhing mass of fur.
[High Priestess Nidri…]
Amrita no longer looked at Lennok.
Someone whose voice was the same as the one who had just spoken to Lennok, yet felt like an entirely different entity.
Something had changed.
The moment he was certain of that strangeness, Lennok slightly loosened his grip on the control code.
If the words just spoken to Lennok held a meaning beyond simple persuasion or resistance, he needed to confirm it here and now.
“Amrita.”
With a voice filled with emotion, Izel slowly embraced the fur mass’s head.
“It’s been a long time. I missed you so much.”
[Time… so much time has truly passed. Is that person at peace?]
Amrita asked again.
[Has the paradise we yearned for finally arrived on earth?]
“….”
Izel didn’t answer. She merely lifted her face, stiff as porcelain, and quietly shook her head.
Amrita gazed at her face for a moment, then nodded.
[It seems there is still work left for me to do.]
“…I’m sorry.”
[I had hoped that only the High Priestess would not come this way…]
“This was the only way left for me.”
Izel smiled sadly.
“Considering the time we spent together, would you grant me this one request?”
[….]
Amrita quietly exhaled.
Only after a long while, as if emerging from deep contemplation, did she slowly nod.
[I was always scolded for not listening.]
“….”
[But since it’s the last time… I don’t want to be scolded.]
“Heh heh…”
The minds of the Apostles, driven mad by their psychosis, haven’t actually vanished.
They are merely continuously recalling and replaying their memories, following their gods who swim in the Outer Sea.
Therefore, under the environment of this altar, which had begun to be configured close to the Outer Sea, even Amrita’s maddened mind could return to its complete form.
Maximize the Apostle’s power in an environment close to the Outer Sea, and receive revelations here, using Amrita’s presence.
The one secret plan Izel Nidri, who had lost her power as a High Priestess, devised to perform a similar feat once more.
All those fruits were about to blossom together, right here and now.
[Come down…]
Amrita closed her eyes.
Izel asked.
“What?”
[They are looking here…]
“….”
[They are coming… I will be the conduit…]
Before Amrita’s words had even finished, the air near the altar instantly warped.
Whoooosh!!!
An immeasurably mighty presence filled the air around the altar.
Unseen, yet it was unmistakably there.
An overwhelming aura that seemed to fill the space and burst forth merely by gazing upon it.
Simply by projecting its will through Amrita, the space distorted, and a haze that seemed to warp timelines eroded everything around.
“Guh…!!”
Several of the Correction Knights couldn’t withstand the pressure, staggering with bloodless faces before collapsing.
Some high-ranking priests with strong spirituality fell to the ground, foaming at the mouth.
But the gazes swirling above the altar, filling everything, paid them no mind.
They merely circled overhead, without thought or direction, expanding in size, their presence ceaselessly crushing the life around them.
They gazed.
Overwhelming and unilateral gazes from beings whose true power even Lennok couldn’t fathom were now directed at this place.
Izel Nidri had succeeded in momentarily concentrating the will of some of the dooms floating in the Outer Sea here, using Amrita’s existence as a medium.
“Come…!!! Come forth…!!”
Staggering, Izel climbed to the edge of the altar and spread her arms wide.
Her stiff, pure white skin cracked, shattered, and flaked off, yet she paid it no mind.
“Behold me…!! Me, who can receive all your will and gazes…!!”
Even before the gazes of doom, Izel’s demeanor remained haughty.
Having turned countless qualified individuals into Apostles, she knew that the dooms were more interested in arrogant self-confidence than in being revered.
“Choose me!! I will receive your power and establish your will upon this land…!!”
Izel burst forth with a thunderous cry, completely disregarding her face skin cracking and splitting.
“I shall become an Apostle, manifesting here by receiving revelation!!”
To be reborn as an Apostle who receives revelation.
Only upon hearing those words could Lennok be certain that Izel had orchestrated all of this for this single moment.
The only way for her, who had lost her power as a High Priestess, to regain the ability of revelation.
It was for Izel Nidri herself to be chosen as an avatar of doom and reborn as an Apostle.
Create an environment similar to the Outer Sea in the Sea of Understanding, and gather the will of doom using Amrita’s existence as a medium.
It didn’t matter whose will among the Outer Gods observing this place was chosen.
If only a will were to manifest briefly in this body, that alone would allow Izel’s body to be fully reborn as an Apostle and completely regain the power of revelation.
If her experience of hearing revelations as a High Priestess combined with the power of an Apostle, she could once again convey the will of doom.
She didn’t even consider the possibility that they would turn away from her.
Among the dooms of the Outer Sea, there were many who held an interest in this world.
To them, Izel’s ability to summon them without the power of a High Priestess would surely feel like an extraordinary aptitude.
A being who could call them forth and gather their gazes, fully prepared to be a vessel.
It was merely a matter of creating the situation; once the stage was set, Izel was certain that there was no need to question the success or failure of the undertaking.
This was possible because she had empirically understood the existence of Outer Gods by guiding qualified individuals to become Apostles for a long time.
As if to prove Izel’s certainty, the gazes swirling above the altar began to circle around her, one by one.
Whoosh…!!
[….]
[….]
[….]
An unknown intersection of wills, whispering and murmuring as they swept past her ears.
Izel couldn’t understand what they meant, but she waited patiently.
All the other Apostles’ proxies, Correction Knights, and high-ranking priests watched the moment, unable to even breathe properly.
The Apostle Selection Ritual.
From the moment Izel herself used the High Priestess’s power to summon the will of the Outer God, the ritual itself was as good as successful.
All that remained was for them to be chosen by the will of doom as a ‘vessel’ standing in this place.
Although Izel herself, who conducted the ritual, stepped forward first, once her turn was over, it would be the proxies’ turn.
Vessels of fanaticism, who not only perfected and reached Hierarchy with their own power, but also sought to contribute to the doctrine as avatars.
Even geniuses who had dedicated their minds and bodies from each branch of the cult solely for this moment couldn’t hide their tension.
Even if they failed to achieve their goal and were consumed by psychosis like Amrita, it didn’t matter.
If they could contribute their strength to the path to paradise as the cult’s specialized force. If, at the end, they could become one with the god they served and swim eternally in the Outer Sea.
On the contrary, it was because they had longed and yearned for it day and night that they stood here with such tension and desperation.
“Please…”
Whispers quietly emerging from among the proxies.
Lennok watched the believers from right beside them, quietly shaking his head.
Because he sensed how meaningless the hopes, desires, and wishes they held were.
He faintly sensed it. He could understand.
This wasn’t some ritual designed for Izel or the proxies.
The wills raging above their heads had appeared here for reasons entirely different from what the cult desired.
Lennok had intuited this, which was why he remained, observing everything, instead of using the control code to disrupt the ritual.
Perhaps, from the very beginning, the purpose of this ritual wasn’t to select an Apostle, but rather—
Groooaaan…!!
The countless gazes wrapped around Izel began to rotate around her body, transforming into faint light and projecting something.
The gazes and wills transformed into vivid colors. Along with dyeing space itself with their consciousness, space-time warped, radiating a different light.
The laws of physics at the point where the will manifested operated differently from reality, and the very laws of light reflection and projection were completely distorted.
Some of the dooms of the Outer Sea, who had merely been sending their gazes and wills here, began to truly reveal their true forms.
The overwhelming essence of chaos, enough to make even Lennok momentarily falter at its sight.
If there were a life born from nesting all living disorder and chaos, would it look like that?
Among the believers who watched the scene unmoving, gasps of horrified admiration erupted.
“How can this be…”
“It’s the Pantheon’s spirituality…”
“The gods, the gods of the sea, have descended…”
Amrita’s massive fur mass crumpled and her skin burst open under the presence that filled the area around the altar.
[Screech…!!]
Amrita, bleeding profusely, let out a pained groan.
But Izel didn’t even glance at Amrita, instead gazing with an enchanted face at the colors of the Outer God that had appeared.
She faced the colors and light that draped over her like countless aurora curtains with an expression of ecstasy.
Fragments of will, uncontained and bursting forth from all directions, violently struck her body, but such pain was nothing compared to the exultation she felt now.
“Finally…!!”
She spread her arms and knelt.
All preparations were complete to receive the will of the gods into this body.
As Izel closed her eyes, surrendering everything to the intense flow of will passing through her, about to be reborn as an Apostle.
[…No.]
The ethereal beings, who had been silently gazing down at Izel, all turned their heads in one direction simultaneously.
[Not you.]
Not Izel, but the massive cage embedded beneath the altar.
Towards a single wizard, bound within it, staring blankly up at them.
Whoosh…
All the will surrounding Izel’s body drained away like grains of sand and vanished.
Not the altar, but a mighty torrent of will swirling around the cage where Lennok was imprisoned.
No will, no gaze, no grace was directed towards Izel Nidri, who stood behind it.
Ignoring the dazed Izel, the wills surrounding Lennok’s body began to dance against the backdrop of the vast night sky.
“….”
“Th…is…”
A chilling silence fell.
Everyone forgot to even breathe at the incomprehensible sight.
The countless torrents of power that had been pouring towards Izel just moments ago, as if a lie, now converged in a magnificent dance upon a single wizard.
The gods of the Outer Sea had chosen a heretic, not their Archbishop, nor even a member of their cult.
Pharmacist Genius Wizard 491