Chapter 944: Trampling Heaven (4)
The memories of the second world, now reaching its conclusion and vanishing.
The moment an Ascendant succeeded in ascension. The methodology of the predecessor who dreamed in a different direction than other challengers.
The Level 9 necromancer, Naoise Penn, collided the two continents, pushing the power of necromantic spellcraft to its limit.
Using this, he succeeded in necromantically summoning a part of the third world into reality.
The miracle of Trampling Heaven, artificially enhancing its power by imbuing his necromancy into the earth’s crust.
Perhaps not all of that process was fully under control, but this moment, thus created, belonged solely to the Ascendant himself.
Arranging and guiding countless miracles and disasters, bringing them together at a single time to create a single instant.
Summoning a part of the third world, which did not yet exist, into the present reality, pulling it down, and in that distorted desire, the fleeting moment when a wish is fulfilled.
Kuoooooh…!!
A pillar of black-green light connecting heaven and earth.
At its center, the heart of the colossal Dark Shadow Temple, floating as if buoyant.
Within the memory of ascension where time had stopped, the Pontiff and the Director faced each other.
“…”
“…”
Though they clearly recognized each other’s presence, words did not come easily.
As if both were replaying the memory of the moment they had actually faced each other, long ago, in this very place.
At the heart of the second world, having once overcome doom and destruction, wandering and agonizing through the third, and finally, now.
The three people, who were past, present, and future, were able to meet.
It was a coincidence because the timing of the meeting was not fixed. It was an inevitability because it was something they had to face someday.
Though born of opposing origins, their respective domains overlapped without deviation, in that fleeting moment.
If so, was Lennok here because this moment was fate?
“Welcome, my mirror…”
In the breathtaking silence, it was the Pontiff who spoke first.
A total solar eclipse unfolding in the sky.
A fleeting moment of lunar eclipse, where world and human equalized in stature, obscuring each other.
He slowly walked past the lich, Naoise Penn, who stood with arms outstretched, yearning for that moment.
“This is the first time since Travesh’s Sealing of Human Principles, isn’t it…?”
“…”
“After the second ending, it is a forbidden taboo for us two to stand on the same timeline any longer.”
“…”
“Nevertheless, the skill to twist causality and create contradiction like this is truly astonishing. This authority, in all three worlds, only you have acquired.”
Leaving the silent Director, the Pontiff seemed to smile gently.
“The targeting and reversal of causality, permitted because one has reached the Post-Heaven state… Indeed, you are a far superior respondent compared to my former self…”
“We talked about it once before.”
At that moment, the silent Director spoke for the first time.
“Because the beginnings were different and the ends diverged, no moment can be compared. It is merely a meaningless question from the point where our answers could no longer be distinguished.”
Even looking at the Pontiff walking past his side, he neither averted his gaze nor raised his voice.
Even in this chaos where time had stopped, his will surely reached its desired destination.
The Director’s gaze, lifted through the noise, seemed to coldly penetrate the Pontiff’s face.
“You still try to find meaning in useless standards.”
It was a rare moment when the normally impassive Director intentionally showed emotion.
But Lennok, hearing the Director’s reply, felt a strong sense of uncanny resemblance, as if looking into a mirror.
The Magic Gunner of the Old World was, in a sense, the one standing in the middle of the three.
He was the second who followed the first, and an inevitability awaiting the coming fate.
Thus, he was the Pontiff’s mirror, and at the same time, possessed similarities to Lennok.
That’s why, among the three, only the Director could directly create this place.
“Hahahaha… Even if it’s meaningless, how could I stop…?”
But the Pontiff, upon hearing the Director’s words, instead burst into delighted laughter.
“Even while transcending the world and moving towards the next, facing this moment that I dared not imagine… how could I cease to understand each other?”
“…”
“Now, reasons or justifications are no longer mine; only idle expectations lie before us.”
The Pontiff stopped directly in front of the Director and turned his gaze.
“You, too, understand me to that extent, which is why you believed I would answer this call, isn’t that right…?”
Beyond the world’s end, everything exists by chance and gains meaning by chance.
The Pontiff, whose existence is rooted in that miracle, does not cling to concepts like reasons or justifications.
Anathema’s death. The sanctuary declared by the priestess. The stage for this moment was set through the miracles brought about by the Pontiff’s haphazard arrangements.
But accepting the Director’s proposal and descending to this place was solely the Pontiff’s own will.
The Pontiff was asking back if the Director had known this from the beginning and called him here.
“Our meeting will always hold meaning, and this moment alone is a longed-for miracle… but for that very reason, it cannot last long.”
Beyond the veil of his gaze, the Pontiff seemed to look at the Director.
“You know this, don’t you…?”
“…”
The origins of the Pontiff and the Director were fundamentally antithetical.
Therefore, while acknowledging and accepting each other’s existence, they had never forced their time to overlap.
When the Director first broke this and sought out the Pontiff, the Pontiff acknowledged the precursor with Anathema’s death and accepted the invitation.
However, this meeting itself was a result existing through a cause that could not originally exist in this world.
Even borrowing the concepts of the cult’s sanctuary and the palace of memories, it could not be maintained for long.
That’s why the Pontiff deliberately delayed the meeting, had a dialogue with Lennok first, and now was reiterating this to the Director.
Did the Director understand the Pontiff’s words that there wasn’t much time?
“I intend to make things certain before the Eclipse of Similitude approaches.”
The Director, who had been listening silently, spoke.
His gaze, looking back at the sky with arms crossed, seemed to sharpen for a moment.
“If we don’t fix the time when the concept of Heaven’s Nadir reverses, the timeline will become tangled. So, I ask.”
“Speak.”
The Director turned his gaze through the noise.
The Pontiff received his gaze, which was so calm it bordered on emotionless.
The two Transcendent beings, not accepted as existences of this world, exchanged gazes, unable to read each other’s intentions.
After observing the Pontiff for a long time, the Director asked in an utterly dispassionate voice.
“Compression Ritual. How much is left?”
“There is nothing left.”
“…”
“Long ago, it passed the event horizon, merely tracing backward towards the result.”
The Pontiff slowly tilted his head, observing his expression.
“I thought you would have known already, but this is unexpected… In a way, it’s similar to how you govern origins…”
The Director did not answer.
As if his silence itself was the answer.
The Pontiff, too, smiled a pure white smile, as if he understood.
“Ah, is that so… You already…”
“…”
“Truly magnificent. Even walking different paths, how can it be so similar? How can it be so alike…?”
The Pontiff, turning with his hands behind his back, shook his head weakly.
“Indeed, we are not fundamentally the same. Just as the concept distinguishing us can no longer be called an origin…”
“I must be different from you, who still desires salvation.”
Beyond the noise, the Director seemed to close his eyes.
“I have no regrets. There was value and meaning beyond being born and disappearing, and there are memories. As long as I remember, it will never vanish.”
“Is that so…”
The Pontiff smiled.
His calm demeanor, which had been serene throughout, twisted into a bitter expression for a moment.
“I can no longer remember such things…”
“…”
Perhaps the Director himself hadn’t expected to hear the Pontiff’s innermost thoughts directly.
For a brief moment, his seemingly impassive presence seemed to loosen slightly.
“That’s all I have to convey.”
The Director murmured.
“The rest, we’ll simply align as we see fit.”
“I understand… The moment we were meant to meet was never truly now, after all…”
The Pontiff, having answered thus, turned his gaze towards Lennok.
“If it weren’t for the third, I, too, would not have come to greet you…”
“…”
“So, listen… my fate.”
The Pontiff asked.
“What is the ending of this world that you desire…?”
After passing the first and second, a fleeting moment of the world arriving at the third.
But a fourth miracle does not exist.
The world, complete after three transformations, perishes, and all that remains is the advent of the Outer Sea’s end.
Three is the number representing perfection.
Beyond that is an opportunity not permitted, and an uncompleted world simply vanishes.
Knowing that countless worlds had met similar ends.
“…”
Unraveling every secret of the world, facing the demise of countless failures.
What thoughts had Lennok harbored, tasting the tears and blood shed in between?
The struggles and curses of Transcendent beings who realized there was no next for this world.
What was he about to say, before the respondents who sought answers even beyond the world?
Having imagined this moment countless times, words still would not come easily.
Because he knew.
That they too had once walked every path Lennok had agonized and suffered through.
And that the creation and destruction, good deeds and evil acts, sacrifice and lamentation they experienced were unbearably intense and painful.
That’s why the Pontiff was broken, the Director was twisted, and Lennok was still searching.
For a “next” that didn’t exist in this world with a predetermined ending.
For the only method that could be the answer to all torment and suffering.
“I…”
He opened his mouth with difficulty, but words did not follow easily.
Even at this moment, Lennok was still thinking, agonizing, and hesitating.
Perhaps, it would be better to ask them directly, right here.
The meaning of the Director’s words about the concept of Heaven’s Nadir reversing.
The Eclipse of Similitude. The lingering attachment to salvation. The purpose of God-slaying. The third ending.
Perhaps spilling those words, now having a real meaning and swirling in his mind, would bring peace.
It was painful to suffer from incomprehensible words, and difficult to unravel the world’s secrets.
But-
“Am I… your fate?”
After a long deliberation, what flowed from Lennok’s lips was a pure rhetorical question.
“Am I your end?”
Lennok’s expressionless eyes turned toward the two Transcendent beings standing far away.
“Am I the one to bring about the end for you two?”
“…”
In the quiet silence, Lennok answered himself.
“Probably not. Even if I were, I wouldn’t have thought so.”
“…”
“Because in the end, you were not bound by origin. Instead of being constrained by your essence, you must have tried to master it.”
Lennok smiled.
“At least, I certainly would have.”
Just as the Pontiff resides within chance and tries to control it.
Just as the Director transcended inevitability and tried to adjust it.
Lennok, too, was called fate but had no intention of being bound by it.
Perhaps, at the very beginning when everything started, they all had predetermined roles.
But despite standing in the same place, now everyone held different answers and faced the ending.
And that was ultimately possible because Lennok was Lennok himself.
“I could listen to both your answers here and take one side.”
Lennok walked past the Pontiff and the Director, going ahead of them, then turned back.
The Transcendent beings of chance and inevitability, looking down at him from the two ends of Trampling Heaven.
“But… no matter how many answers I see and ponder…”
Lennok looked up at them and smiled brightly.
“I can’t shake the thought that even that is within the ending I desire.”
“…”
“…”
“Whether the end of this world truly exists only beyond that dark sea, or if we must rely on the mercy and death of the Outer Gods floating on that sea.”
He lifted his gaze, looking at the Outer God’s eyes glittering in the sky far away.
A grotesque sight where tens of thousands of eyes were densely packed within the colossal pupil again.
A gaze of apocalypse, as if human eyes were embedded in a bubble about to burst, too fleeting to be called life.
It must have been the Outer God’s appearance existing only in the memories of the Director and the Pontiff, yet somehow, those eyes seemed to keenly observe Lennok.
But despite the chilling sensation running down his spine, Lennok’s heart was exceptionally calm.
“That answer is still within me. Even the possibilities and branching points you once wished for, they must have been here before.”
“…”
The Kaleidoscope of possibilities within Lennok.
The reason why only the branching point of holding hands with the Outer Sea was empty.
The reason why the Director’s possibilities, unlike the Pontiff’s, left no trace in the Kaleidoscope.
Knowing this, Lennok could remain unwavering.
He could believe that the answer he first chose was correct.
“I’ve thought about it since I heard the answer from Jindun.”
Lennok smiled.
“If a fourth doesn’t exist in this world…”
The beginning was by chance, but the end was not by chance.
Inevitability did not exist in this relationship, but catastrophe was inevitable.
Then, for Lennok’s answer to transcend the world, he would have to overcome fate.
He recognized it from the answer with Jindun, resolved it while watching the demise of Heavenly Sight, and now, at this very moment, he was certain.
“That I must become that fourth.”