Chapter 806: Ascendant Dorye (1)
The seat of the colossal throne was so vast that the distance between them felt great, even when facing each other.
But the Ascendant, bound by chains of mist, was visible with startling clarity.
His skin was jet black, as if stained with ink. His black hair was motionless, as he kept his eyes closed and head bowed.
The face, illuminated by the candlelight beside the throne, held a surprisingly ascetic impression.
An infinitely serene expression, save for being enveloped and dyed black by dark mana.
Crackle!!
Pale eye-glow seeped out little by little from between his eyelids, which were closed as if in slumber.
An ominous premonition, as if he would awaken from a long sleep at any moment, open his eyes, and face Lennok.
“Your Excellency, this is—!!”
Ignoring the startled Priestess’s words, Lennok stood at the edge of the throne, observing Dorye.
The unrealistic notion of having Lennok’s Incarnate Body possess the physical form of Ascendant Dorye.
However, Lennok knew that once he had obtained the Incarnation, it was something worth attempting at least once.
Not Lennok’s own potential, but an Incarnation of a pugilist presumed to be a remnant of the Old World.
If this was a power inadvertently left behind by someone, it would undoubtedly elicit a reaction from Dorye’s physical form.
As he predicted, the Incarnate Body approached Dorye’s corpse, which was surrounded by strict and powerful seals, with surprising ease.
And it was slowly pushing up the eyelids of the Ascendant, who was clearly already dead.
“Please, just wait a moment.”
The Priestess, who had been watching the scene with her mouth agape, desperately blocked Lennok’s path and spoke.
“How can you obtain control of the vessel so easily—!!”
“To be precise, it’s not a success yet.”
Lennok answered calmly.
“We can’t precisely tell the current state of the Ascendant’s remains. We’re just in the process of assessing the possibilities.”
“…No. It’s impossible.”
The Priestess murmured, unable to conceal her agitation.
“All holy artifacts of the cult inherently and thoroughly reject any unauthorized will. No matter how much Your Excellency is connected to Him—!!”
“Indeed.”
Lennok chuckled.
“That’s exactly what I’m waiting here to confirm, isn’t it?”
The Ascendant’s body, long deceased. Mana and will-thought, held captive by all sorts of seals and extorted for a long time.
Considering the seals within Mugan, the chances of success aren’t high, and even if successful, the power would likely be far from that of a complete Ascendant.
However, if he could extract even a shred of meaning from beyond, it might resolve Lennok’s long-standing questions.
The Ascendant’s remains, undoubtedly once inhabited by the Pontiff himself.
Lennok’s Incarnation, presumed to exist based on remnants of the Old World.
That ambiguous commonality, which could never be called identical, yet could not be confidently called different.
Wasn’t that precisely similar to the relationship existing between Lennok and the Pontiff?
“Your Excellency, ultimately…”
At that moment, as the Priestess, seemingly realizing it herself, gazed at Lennok with a complicated expression.
Dorye’s physical form, steeped in profound darkness, began to slowly change its appearance right there.
Szzzzzt!!!
Skin and hair dyed jet black, as if steeped in ink.
Pale eye-glow flickered over his eyelids, and his hair began to bleach pure white.
At the same time, complex, glowing white tattoos appeared etched across various parts of his muscular body.
Along with the significant changes in appearance, the mana surging around Dorye grew even more potent.
“…”
Lennok gazed at Dorye’s changing form for a moment, then slowly began to walk toward the remains.
As he stepped past the chains draped around the throne, Dorye’s swirling mana surged towards Lennok as if it had been waiting.
Shhhk!!
As if encountering a living body after a long time, the black mana writhed over his robe, trying to penetrate it.
A terrifying, malevolent presence, rapidly invigorating his body, yet conversely, seeming to gnaw at and consume its very foundations.
Ascendant Dorye’s mana. A fragment of the Berserker that Felix couldn’t let go of.
Even after dying and being interred here, that mana still sought to move, its power undiminished.
Szzzzzzzt!!
Dorye’s physical form, its white hair billowing, scrunched its expression as if slowly trying to open its eyes.
According to that will, pale tattoos glowed and flickered incessantly across his entire body.
Lennok’s Incarnation, possessing Dorye’s body, must be reacting to the Pontiff’s power within that very body.
If this continued, would Lennok’s Incarnation obtain Dorye’s body and manifest anew in this world?
As Lennok thought so and took one more step closer, the white tattoos glowed even more violently, and then…
Drip…!
A single black droplet fell from the tip of Dorye’s finger.
Lennok, watching it, nodded.
“I see. So that’s why it took so long?”
“…Huh?”
The moment the Priestess blankly retorted, Lennok’s form leaped as if disappearing from that spot.
Immediately after, the droplet rapidly swelled in size and slammed down onto the spot where Lennok had been standing.
Boom!!
A bizarre sight: Dorye’s mana attacking Lennok without any apparent movement from Dorye himself.
But Lennok’s gaze wasn’t on Dorye; it was on the coalescing mass that was slowly taking shape.
“It’s useless.”
“…!!”
Shhhk!!
The form of a middle-aged man clad in a black monastic robe appeared.
Having formed his appearance through Dorye’s mana, he stopped beside the throne and spoke, looking at Lennok.
“If you cannot adapt to his mana, it’s impossible to lay a hand on this body.”
As he spoke, the man raised his hand and placed it on Dorye’s shoulder.
Unlike Lennok, his hand made contact with the Ascendant’s corpse without any resistance.
“Even I… needed a very long time to adapt.”
“…”
The moment she saw that, an inexplicable chill flowed from the Priestess’s spiritual body.
Even though it was the corpse of an Ascendant, long dead and decayed, it was undoubtedly a vessel the Pontiff had once used, if only for a time.
Even if it were Lennok, it must be difficult for her to tolerate an unknown spirit haphazardly touching it.
But before answering, Lennok glanced at Dorye’s body.
Dorye’s body still emitted a pale eye-glow, and its eyelids faintly twitched in place.
Confirming the clear presence of the Incarnation felt from beyond it, Lennok nodded.
“It seems there was someone among Yorta’s leadership who shared my thoughts.”
Lennok slowly drew up his mana, then sneered coldly as he asked.
“So you couldn’t withstand the repulsion from my Incarnation and were forced out?”
“…”
What did it mean that a completely different spirit had manifested outside, even though the Incarnation was within Dorye’s body?
It meant someone was already residing within Dorye’s body, actively seeking to gain control over it.
And it was obvious who this spirit, temporarily pushed out by Lennok’s Incarnation, was.
“Someone from the Court of Soul Pacification? No, wrong.”
Lennok, having asked, immediately contradicted himself.
“If you’ve been waiting for the right time within Mugan for so long, it wouldn’t be possible unless you were a higher-ranking entity.”
“Not wrong.”
The man replied, turning his gaze.
“Among the Fallen Lords, I was the only one who accepted the proposal.”
“…Lords?”
“All the leaders who presided over the Myriad Ghosts’ Night Parade ritual went mad by the end of it and are now aimlessly wandering the spirit realm.”
“…”
“The Guide’s Ring you obtained was also part of an experiment conducted in the process of rectifying the failure of the Night Parade.”
Did he already know that Lennok had acquired the Guide’s Ring, and even how he was using it?
The man who called himself a Lord said.
“A being so fallen that he cannot guide souls. That’s why I believed it impossible for the ring’s owner to come to Mugan, but things certainly don’t go as expected.”
As he spoke, the man slowly turned his gaze behind Lennok.
He gazed at the Priestess’s dimly glowing spiritual body with a complex look and murmured.
“To think that the cult’s Priestess would restart the Night Parade ritual and grant a new role to a fallen being.”
“…”
“I had heard that her divine power reached the heavens, but the fact that she personally presided over the Night Parade ritual is truly astounding.”
The man asked the Priestess.
“Was our attempt to reclaim the Ascendant’s remains… so unforgivable? Enough to abandon your tenets and assist him?”
“Reclaim, you say? Your very premise is flawed.”
The Priestess uttered a cold, resonant voice.
“Yorta was the first to abandon the promise, so how can you ask us that?”
“No, you’re wrong. From the moment the Pontiff proposed hiding Dorye in Mugan, he was deceiving us.”
The man said in an utterly frigid tone.
“He knew the Myriad Ghosts’ Night Parade would fail. He knew that if the Memorial Tower trembled after the Night Parade failed, Mugan’s sanctuary would also be consumed by Dorye’s power.”
“…”
His previously serene expression twisted hideously, as if a different person had taken its place.
“He knew that our failure would be devoured by his machinations. He knew this would happen from the very beginning!!”
Thud!!
The floor of the Great Cathedral violently shook, and the surrounding candles swayed wildly.
The impact caused some of the candles to lose their flame and die out, further dimming the light around the chairs.
A will so powerful that it could extinguish curses observed within Mugan with pure fury alone.
This man standing before Lennok must also have once been an immensely powerful being, beyond measure.
Yet even such a monster, with the passage of time, has lost his answers, fallen, and is now clinging to the corpse of a dead Ascendant.
“You knew this world was the last, didn’t you?”
Lennok quietly asked.
“You shouldn’t have been mistaken. Are you really going to say you didn’t know that opportunities to fail aren’t given multiple times?”
“…”
“Once you’ve gambled everything and failed, you’re inevitably forced to cling to someone else’s answer.”
Lennok’s gaze, from behind his Obsidian Mask, turned to Dorye’s corpse.
“Just like what you’re doing now.”
“…Say whatever you want. All preparations are already complete.”
The man said with an expressionless face.
“After the Night Parade failed, I made a deal with Vulcan, observed their project, and gleaned an answer from it.”
“…”
“I didn’t obtain what I desired, but I understood what they defined as the meaning of failure.”
Shhhhhk!!
The form of the man facing Lennok began to scatter from that spot, slowly turning into black smoke.
“If I must even use failure and ruin as means to create new meaning, then I will.”
The man’s will-thought, now black smoke, slowly seeped back into Dorye’s remains.
“If I must subsist by picking up the failures of others, then I will.”
“…”
“If enduring until the very end and witnessing the world’s conclusion is the only way…”
Just before the scattering man’s gaze was completely sucked into Dorye’s remains.
He met Lennok’s eyes and gave an eerie smile.
“Then I will.”
Swoosh!!
With an eerie presence, like a ghost whispering, the man’s form completely vanished beyond Dorye’s remains.
Immediately after, a fierce storm of mana raged around Dorye’s inert body.
KABOOM!!!
A radiation of power that wasn’t aimed at Lennok, but indiscriminately burst forth, sweeping haphazardly through the surroundings.
Pale flashes and black mana intertwined, churning within the Ascendant’s body,
And the aftermath caused the chains bound around the throne to violently thrash, mercilessly slamming down throughout the cathedral.
Rumble rumble rumble!!!
Lennok, having evaded the rippling, wave-like chains with a blink, hung from the cathedral’s inner wall and murmured.
“He intends to push out my Incarnation and fully seize the body. The recoil is much stronger than before.”
“…Your Excellency.”
“It must have been a plan in motion for a long time. He seems to have been adapting to the Ascendant’s mana for quite a while.”
Perhaps that individual’s sudden appearance before Lennok wasn’t entirely of his own will.
The moment Lennok inserted his Incarnate Body into Dorye’s physical form and attempted to take control of it.
He must have been unwillingly forced out by that recoil, revealing himself before Lennok.
It’s clear he had been residing within Dorye’s body long before Lennok, and had been repeatedly undergoing trials and errors to seize the remains.
Therefore, instead of preventing the spirit from vanishing back into the remains, Lennok observed the process.
“Even though he’s been dead for a long time, it’s the body of a Transcendent who reached Level 9. Its will-thought and mana have too strong an independence, making interference difficult.”
Lennok said this, gazing at the black mana spewing forth around the corpse.
“To intervene with Dorye’s remains, I either need to adapt to this mana for a long time, or break through it by other means.”
A Level 9 Transcendent. A challenger granted the qualifications to attempt ascension.
Monsters who, by their mere existence, had built up a stature comparable to the world itself.
They don’t disappear with the death of their physical bodies; rather, death can even serve as a catalyst for them to transform into something stronger.
In that sense, the mana and will-thought surrounding Dorye’s corpse right now were not something even Lennok could easily break through.
Even with his transcendent intuition and will, Lennok’s mana had not yet reached the level required to challenge ascension.
It wouldn’t be impossible if he pushed his Kaleidoscope’s Mind Imprint to its limits, but he couldn’t calculate if he could endure the aftermath.
But the Priestess silently gazed at Lennok.
“What’s wrong?”
“Are you… truly unaffected?”
“…”
“This is His legacy left in the mundane world. It is a vessel He once inhabited, if only for a time. I…”
The hesitant Priestess finally spoke with difficulty.
“Your Excellency, our—”
“I believe I’ve said this many times already.”
Lennok, cutting off the Priestess immediately, replied in a flat tone.
“I cannot empathize with the cult’s methods, nor do I consider them to be the right way.”
“…”
“My feelings toward the Pontiff are no different. That hasn’t changed even after mastering Incarnation Spellcraft. However…”
Lennok’s eyes, turning towards the Priestess, gleamed coldly.
“I also know that the cult’s method has succeeded once before.”
Yorta’s Myriad Ghosts’ Night Parade. Machina’s Ascension Gate.
Could it be said that the failed challenges in those two cities were superior to the cult’s method?
At the very least, the answer chosen by the Pontiff undoubtedly resulted in successful ascension and arrival in the next world.
Even if it was distorted by fanaticism towards the Outer Sea, the fact that it bore fruit once remains unchanged.
Yorta’s leadership clings to Dorye’s corpse precisely because they instinctively perceive this.
Thus, Lennok inferred that the Priestess possessed a method to resolve this situation.
“There’s a way to extract the spirit residing in Dorye’s remains, isn’t there?”
“…”
“Don’t ask me for my feelings; if there’s a method, explain it. You know we don’t have time, don’t you?”
Lennok knew why Priestess Seina Naydree was asking him for his thoughts on the situation.
It was probably because the Priestess had also vaguely realized that Lennok’s Incarnation was connected to the Pontiff.
The Incarnate Body’s causality, clearly entwined with the Pontiff, even though it wasn’t the Pontiff himself.
Therefore, before resolving the situation, the Priestess had repeatedly tried to confirm Lennok’s intentions.
If Lennok was a being who represented the Pontiff’s will or held an even greater significance, the Priestess absolutely had to hear his answer then and there.
“…Understood.”
The Priestess, who had been silent with her head bowed, replied.
“If Your Excellency’s existence is as I understand it, then this situation must also be brought to a close as we initially agreed.”
Having said that, the Priestess slowly brought her hands together and began to assume a praying posture.
At the same time, her previously dim soul emitted a clear light, gathering all her remaining power.
Whoooooosh!!!
The only ability remaining to Priestess Seina Naydree, and the qualification that made her a Priestess.
The Revelation Ability, created to directly communicate with wills beyond the Outer Sea.
The Priestess, with her hands clasped as if in prayer and her gaze lifted, turned her eyes towards Lennok.
“If the Lord’s spirit intends to seize His vessel, it will surely attempt to synchronize itself with the vessel’s memories.”
The Priestess said with conviction.
“Then, all we need to do is forcibly separate his existence from the vessel’s memories.”
“Forcibly separate?”
“Fortunately, because Your Excellency’s Incarnation and his spirit are clashing within the vessel, it seems we can accomplish this simply by observing the memories.”
“…”
The pale radiance and black mana currently bursting forth around Dorye’s body.
It must mean that these two will-thoughts are clashing in the process of coexisting within the Ascendant’s body, causing this backlash.
A process of directly filtering out that existence from the outside, while Lennok’s Incarnation clashes with the Lord’s spirit within the body.
Once Dorye’s body is obtained through this, what kind of being will Lennok’s Incarnation truly become?
As Lennok became lost in thought, the Priestess quietly whispered to him.
“Please approach the vessel directly and attempt to make direct contact with the Incarnate Body residing within it.”
FWOOSH!!
By now, pure white eye-glow flickered from her eyes, obscuring even the appearance of her pupils.
“I will use the Revelation Ability to directly peer into the memories of his life that remain in the vessel.”