Chapter 494: Between Immortality and Mortality (2)

Archbishop Nidri had forced through a ritual to summon Outer Gods using the 10th Apostle Amrita as a medium.

Her purpose was to become an Apostle herself and regain the lost power of the High Priestess.

She had created an environment near the Outer Sea, within the Sea of Understanding, and completed all preparations, but the ritual failed when the Outer Gods’ attention focused on Lennok, who was prepared as a sacrifice.

From the Archbishop’s body, which had collapsed due to the backlash of the failed ritual and Apostle Zaif’s betrayal, it was not Izel herself who reopened her eyes.

The side effect of the Archbishop’s own body assimilating with Amrita, and the unbelievable truth that her favorite Apostle had seized her body in that틈. This was the truth.

Even the madness that afflicted high-ranking Apostles could briefly regain their intellect if they shed their beast-like physical body.

Amrita, with the intellect she regained during the ritual, realized that sliver of truth and acted without hesitation the moment Izel showed a weakness.

Kugugugu!!!

The human bodies, suspended as sacrifices, plummeted down as the altar collapsed.

Amrita, hanging upside down on the altar wall, quickly picked out a few of the still-breathing humans among the falling bodies.

Wood-deuk!!

A horrifying sight: she mercilessly pierced and took the hearts of still-living humans.

Even though she had been reborn from Izel’s body and had a human form, her actions were already far removed from those of a human.

“Are you going to use forbidden magic as soon as you’re reborn?”

Lennok, suspended vertically on the altar wall by magic, shook his head.

“If you act like that, your newly acquired body won’t last long before it ends up in a similar state.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

Amrita retorted.

“It’s necessary to use the spell. Eating a few humans won’t make me fall into madness, you know?”

“Then?”

“It was the High Priestess’s decision. The Apostle spell, Amrita’s Scale, was simply too useful.”

A sharp sneer spread across Amrita’s lips.

“If I were normal, I wouldn’t accept being locked in a room and forced to weave spells, and if I were completely insane, I’d be a beast who wouldn’t listen. So, what’s the answer?”

“Make her moderately insane and control her by feeding her humans?”

“Correct!”

Amrita cackled, gripping the hearts in her hands tightly.

“Well, I don’t not understand the High Priestess’s intentions. She actually treated me reasonably well even after that.”

“……”

“But whether I wanted that is another matter. In fact, the High Priestess used my power to solidify her position in the Far Eastern Branch.”

A cold resolve had settled in Amrita’s eyes as she looked down at her own body.

“I didn’t particularly want to blame anyone now, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t seize the opportunity that came. That’s all.”

“Some of the Agents already knew.”

Lennok muttered.

“That’s why they focused on stopping Zaif and dealing with the Watchers from the start.”

“Huhu, Jisen was my subordinate, you see. There’s no way he wouldn’t know what state I was in.”

“……Subordinate?”

“Ah, was that difficult to understand?”

Amrita tossed the hearts away, grinned, and spread her blood-soaked hands wide.

“10th Inquisitor of the Guido Cult, Bishop Amrita Fraubel.”

Paat-!

At the same time, a spatial rift, spreading from her fingertips, completely engulfed Amrita’s body and vanished from the spot.

Immediately after, Amrita’s low voice whispered in Lennok’s ear.

“From now on, I will resume my mission to hunt wizards.”

Kwaaaang!!!

As Lennok’s body was slammed into the altar floor, Amrita, who had teleported more than a dozen times, struck down on the same spot again.

Chwaak!!

She casually sliced off the wrist of a Correction Knight fighting nearby and gripped the blade in a reverse grip.

Amrita silenced the scream behind her with a single slash and plunged into Lennok’s chest as he lay fallen.

Kagagagak!!

She didn’t just wield the blade gracefully; the blade’s position flickered and leaped in all directions, pouring down with flashes. It was a flash attack, simultaneously piercing vital points with near-instantaneous precision.

It was a murderous sword art focused entirely on inflicting pain and killing the opponent.

Presumably, she was using her Apostle spell, Amrita’s Scale, by converting it into individual spatial interference for combat.

Essentially, it was a battle against a superhuman capable of skillfully manipulating space-type spells.

Lennok also didn’t hesitate for long.

After nullifying the impact with a broken shield, he rolled sideways and unleashed a flurry of blinks.

The wizard and the Apostle vanished from the spot, exchanging dozens of sword slashes and flames in a flash.

Dudududududu!!!!

“Kyahahahahat!!!”

Amrita’s killing intent, laughing madly as she leaped through space and rammed into Lennok.

She now wielded all sorts of weapons — an axe and a short spear snatched from other Correction Knights, and a blade held in a reverse grip — and charged.

She casually tossed the sharp blades into the air, then leaped through space, catching and swinging them, dozens of times.

Kwaaaang!!

With a single gesture, she unleashed slashes that surpassed even Commander Wizard-grade, then discarded the weapon without regret and grabbed another.

An ultra-high-speed offense and defense where even a superhuman’s enhanced senses couldn’t properly grasp distance and position.

Amrita was using her Apostle spells in a frenzy, testing which weapons and tactics would be effective against Lennok.

Kiiiiiik……!!

“This is amazing, you’re practically perfect at countering bladed weapons, for a wizard!!”

Amrita yelled, seemingly amused, as she unleashed relentless slashes.

Kagagak!!

“Blunt weapons are a blunder, close-quarters combat is wrong, whips don’t work, stakes are no good either!!”

Kwagwagwang!!

“The only things that work are the reach of a long spear and overwhelming strength!”

“Are you done boasting?”

“……!!”

Shaaaak!!

[Crimson Radiance Strike]

Lennok instantly darted between Amrita’s slashes and struck with a knotted flame at his fingertip.

A crimson-black flame bind spun between Amrita’s throat, blocking her escape, and then exploded.

Chiiiik!!!

[Scarlet Thread Massacre]

At the very moment a razor-thin red thread seemed to pierce Amrita’s chest.

[Jade Flame]

Jade-colored flames, drawn from the depths of hell, ignited along the thread, devouring and incinerating Amrita’s body.

Kuoooooh!!!

The corpse was completely charred, its face unrecognizable.

Instead of dwelling on the gruesome sight, Lennok sharply snapped his head to the side.

Chaeng!!

Immediately after, a flash of sword light scraped narrowly past his jaw and brushed his neck.

Amrita, who had vanished from the spot and reappeared dozens of meters away, laughed.

“You’re quick to notice.”

“If you intended to deceive me, you shouldn’t have left a corpse.”

Lennok said, rubbing his neck muscles that had instantly stiffened.

“Large-scale magic like that used to work well when I pretended to be hit, but it seems that’s not always the case these days?”

Amrita smirked, adjusting the blade in her reverse grip.

Her demeanor was as if she knew exactly where wizards like Lennok were most complacent and vulnerable.

She relentlessly pierced the sharp mental gaps that sometimes made even Lennok shudder.

“Understand, it’s been a long time since I’ve faced such an excellent wizard. My experience is quite rusty.”

Seogeok!!

Amrita’s arm vanished, and simultaneously, the Correction Knight standing next to her had his neck cleanly severed.

“Can you feel it? That I’m a little higher.”

Amrita unhesitatingly grabbed the corpse and drank its blood, an inexplicable joy blooming on her face.

“To be precise, I’m one step ahead. Just now, it was half a step. Now, it will be two steps.”

“……”

“I know how to deal with you. The gap will widen until you can’t catch up.”

Surprisingly, Lennok didn’t mock Amrita’s confidence.

He had recognized that Amrita’s movements had been changing in a very peculiar way during the intense exchanges, where she unleashed a flurry of spatial leaps.

‘There’s no pattern or tendency at all. A battle of wits itself is impossible.’

Even at the initial clash, he could read Amrita’s intentions and psychology, but as the battle intensified, that intuition grew increasingly blurry.

The exchange of blows couldn’t be properly grasped even with the Mystic Eye that illuminated the realm of possibility.

‘She’s thoroughly avoiding any decision that would put her at a disadvantage. No, she’s changing as if she doesn’t even need to make such decisions.’

A strange sensation, as if fighting not a living being, but a machine thoroughly trained in combat ability.

‘Rather than changing her style, this is…’

“It’s a reaction closer to a fragmentary premonition than intuition gained through calculation.”

Lennok observed Amrita with an expressionless face.

“Is that the High Priestess’s Power of Revelation?”

“Huhu…… Did you notice already?”

Amrita didn’t merely escape madness by seizing the Archbishop’s body.

The Power of Revelation, which Izel herself undoubtedly once possessed but had lost—that very ability akin to premonition—Amrita had succeeded in obtaining.

To be precise, the High Priestess’s Power of Revelation was more akin to a telepathic ability to directly hear the will and voice of the Outer Gods.

However, the spirituality maximally opened through it allowed for partial premonition even of her own impending death.

Amrita had noticed this fact immediately after her battle with Lennok and had changed her combat style to avoid battles of wits by relying on the Power of Revelation.

“The madness that afflicts Apostles is originally due to the dissonance between a body closer to the Outer Sea and a human mind.”

Amrita tapped her own temple.

“But if you receive the Outer Gods’ voice directly through the Power of Revelation, even that mind can wander above the dark sea.”

“……”

“To elevate both mind and body to a level that touches the Outer Sea, and be reborn as a new being.”

Amrita laughed.

“This is precisely the new ascension the High Priestess Nidri desired, and the sole immortality granted to mortals…!!”

The two pillars treated as the cult’s specialized forces, the Apostle and the High Priestess. The Apostle, who received the physical body of an Outer God, and the High Priestess, who heard its will, are like two sides of a coin.

Was it merely a coincidence that a being who wielded both these dualities, which were difficult to possess even one of, was born at this very moment?

“Perhaps I have awakened as the first being to exist as both High Priestess and Apostle.”

Amrita crouched low, gripping the blade in a reverse grip, and began to raise her magic power again.

With her quiet whisper, a sharp flash of light rotated like the wind.

“Today, this place, I will make it the first step in confirming that truth…!!”

Pabababat!!!

Amrita’s body began to flicker, blinking dozens of times on the spot.

A state where she couldn’t control her overflowing power, leaping through space from her position to superimpose her own existence.

Amrita’s bizarre laugh, flickering as if she would disappear from sight at any moment, closed the distance to just before Lennok’s nose before he could even blink.

Amrita’s blade already began to slice the skin inside his collarbone.

Pushing away the chilling metallic sensation with all his might, Lennok also used his remaining blink spells without reservation.

Kagagagak!!!

The two figures leaped through space more than a dozen times in a flash, clashing in all directions.

A battle between two superhumans who, though their spells, principles, and origins were different, shared the commonality of directly manipulating space.

Amidst the superposition of blinks where distinctions of distance and direction became meaningless, Lennok and Amrita’s clash burst out of the altar, extending throughout the temple.

Dududududu!!!

Through the scorched and dilapidated temple corridors, walls, ceilings, and chandeliers, they instantly burst out onto the island’s main street.

Past the bloody battle between Tritan and the twins, scattering cold and shockwaves.

They slammed down next to Lyza and Geobin, who were covered in cuts and utterly mangled.

Kwaaaang!!

“Whoa! Evan!!”

“High Priestess…?!!”

Without time to reply, Lennok grabbed Amrita by the collar as she lunged, and unleashed a burst of fire.

[Flame Construction]

[Scarlet Scales]

Kwaaaang!!

Amrita’s body vanished from the spot, kicking Lennok in the back, and the impact shattered his shield, sending Lennok’s body plummeting forward.

He tumbled through Grisha’s jungle, tore through Gapseon’s immovable barrier, and sliced through the Agents’ Miniature Universes and Domains.

Just before the shock fully spread throughout his body, he blinked once more. Amrita and Lennok’s bodies simultaneously vanished, flashing across all directions of the main street.

Kwooong!!”

“Cough…!!”

As both used spatial leaps akin to blinks, the speed at which their combat positions shifted during exchanges was absurd.

It was to the extent that one had to think two moves ahead and move at the moment of a frontal collision and explosion just to maintain the standoff.

Amrita was purely avoiding negative choices through her Power of Revelation and wielding Apostle spells instinctively to match Lennok’s combat rhythm.

However, from Lennok’s perspective, having to calculate all those battles of wits and their repercussions directly, the burden on his body was immense.

“This is preposterous, for a wizard, your combat sense is unbelievable…!!”

Kwajik!!

Amrita’s leg, extended backward and swung wide, vanished from Lennok’s sight.

In an instant, her stance changed, and her kick embedded itself directly between Lennok’s ribs.

“……!!”

The shockwave that erupted before Lennok could react sent his body flying back dozens of meters.

Kwang!!

“Ugh…!!”

Lennok let out a pained groan and sharpened his senses, but he couldn’t prevent his reactions from faltering due to the intense pain shaking his mind.

“But I’m still very different from you, aren’t I?”

Amrita cackled, watching Lennok.

It wasn’t that she hadn’t taken hits during their fierce exchange.

Amrita’s body, with torn flesh and muscles, displaced joints and bones, and burnt skin, was covered in blood and utterly mangled.

But despite that, she forcibly regenerated her body with the Apostle’s power, and used the Power of Revelation to perfectly predict the battle, dragging the fight this far.

Her instant judgment of which combat method would be most lethal against the wizard before her was astonishing.

But what made her stand out even more was the fanatical conviction itself, with which she unhesitatingly surrendered her entire body to that judgment.

She wasn’t merely a monster strong in power or high in physical might.

She was a perfect warrior who had thoroughly acquired long practical experience, combat intelligence, seasoned judgment, and techniques that transcended Hierarchy.

A monster born between coincidence and providence, having re-inherited the Inquisitor’s mission to hunt wizards.

“Seeing you conserve your blinks midway through, there must be a limit to their uses… Shall I guess how many you have left?”

Amrita asked, winking.

“You actually have fewer than five left, don’t you?”

Seeing Lennok remain silent, Amrita raised the blade held in her reverse grip.

Sereung!!

Her eyes, which gently stroked the blade, glowed darkly as if trapped in a black universe.

“Once I fully obtain the High Priestess’s body, the Power of Revelation will grow stronger. With a mind and body closest to the Outer Sea, I will shed the concept of death itself.”

“……”

“Even if time drags on, there will be nothing left that can help you anymore.”

A sharp sneer crossed Amrita’s lips.

“Because you yourselves severed all intervention in this sea.”

Had she heard everything, even Grisha’s notification to Border?

Lennok, watching Amrita babble with a slightly dazed expression, quietly sighed and stood up.

“Hmph…”

Chi-ik!!

He pulled out an ampoule from his pocket and injected it into his shoulder, and the stabbing pain in his stomach immediately subsided.

Amrita watched with a curious expression and asked,

“Do wizards even use such things?”

“There’s no one watching right now.”

Moving wildly in all directions, crashing into everything without any attempt to control his trajectory, he had somehow reached the very edge of the island, where no one dared to approach.

Not even a single person was visible in the vicinity according to Lennok’s magic detection.

At this point, he pulled out a cigarette from his pocket, lit it, and took a drag.

He inhaled deeply, and as his body felt slightly numb from the pain relief and awakening effects, he felt much more at ease.

With a much more relaxed demeanor, Lennok exhaled.

“Shall we start again?”

“Well, just a mast… hehe.”

Of course, Amrita didn’t wait for Lennok to regain his strength.

She had only been aiming for a careful and certain result from the moment she knew Lennok didn’t have many blinks left.

‘Running away would be problematic. I must, at this very spot…’

Amrita’s sharp eyes greedily scanned Lennok’s entire body.

Amrita knew well the high value of a wizard’s spirit and body, which had accumulated an unfathomably high Hierarchy.

[Forbidden Armament], which processed living humans alive and reconstructed them into artifact form.

If mediocre humans were used as material, only useless junk would be created, but Forbidden Armaments made from high-level superhumans were a completely different story.

The profane weapons obtained by using one’s own kind as material sometimes transcended the power of time and history inscribed in myth-grade artifacts.

Amrita imagined herself achieving a trinity with the Power of Revelation remaining in Izel’s body, the Apostle’s power, and the wizard Evan as her weapon.

Just that thought made her feel as if the long time she had spent immersed in madness was sweetly rewarded.

“……”

Unlike the fierce battle where she unhesitatingly tore open chunks of space, her steps were now much more cautious.

In the gap that entered her sight, holding the blade in a reverse grip, only quiet silence lingered.

Lennok and Amrita, two people, slowly moved in a semicircle across the quiet plain, measuring the distance.

In the standoff that continued, advancing and retreating, for an unknown duration.

The moment Lennok’s back touched a pristine white building wall and he paused, Amrita dashed forward like a streak of light.

Shaaaaeek!!

“I saw it…!!”

The remaining number of blinks, and Lennok’s current position in a dead-end.

After minimizing variables to the limit, all possible escape routes and combat responses Lennok could choose were input into her mind, and she moved without hesitation.

The Apostle spells accumulated in her body from human sacrifices were activated without reservation.

She transferred Amrita’s body dozens of times, extending slashes across spatial distances.

Dududududu!!!

All possible reactions and countermeasures the wizard before her could choose were vividly drawn in her mind, like photographs.

She had already perfectly perceived that moment and transcended it with the Power of Revelation, which operated outside the world’s timeline.

It was something completely different from the power of Amrita’s original Apostle spells or her combat ability as an Inquisitor.

The Power of Revelation, activated by acquiring the body of Izel Nidri, who had been a High Priestess.

“Kyahahahahat!!!!”

Even as she unilaterally poured out attacks, not a single offensive move missed.

At the end of every moment she seized and unleashed an offensive, the opponent she wanted to kill was located there.

Kagagak!!!

Even the time it took to change posture and bend her body to swing the blade was minimized with spatial leaps.

Flipping her body, widening the distance, controlling her breathing, and timing—in every such moment, she used blink to reduce wasted time to near zero.

The spatial distortion and collapse caused by the blade’s edge crumpled the wizard’s barrier like paper.

‘Once he uses all his blinks, then…!!’

The moment Lennok couldn’t endure and used blink to change position would be the turning point.

Countless sword trajectories imprinted on her retina, and beyond them, at the very moment Amrita reached out towards the overwhelming victory that seemed within grasp.

“494th offensive branching point observed. I think I’ve seen enough.”

Lennok, who had endured every sword strike that leaped through space dozens of times, muttered.

Shaaaek!!

At that moment, Amrita’s blade, which curved through space towards Lennok’s back, missed for the first time.

For a fleeting moment, Amrita’s gaze, filled with unshakable certainty, froze on Lennok.

“An immortal closest to the end of the Outer Sea… If I can kill you, could I reach them too?”

“What…!!”

“I’ve been thinking for a long time about how to kill a god.”

Beneath the blade that grazed and missed his nape, Lennok’s eyes began to stream black arcane light.

“I roughly understand what the Power of Revelation is. Now, I’ll test it directly.”