A blinding light burst from Heinrich’s back.
Paaat!
—A beautiful cluster of light, slowly taking the shape of a pair of wings, like a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis.
At last, the completed wings fluttered lightly amid a rippling radiance.
In response, the energy filling the surroundings was sucked in all at once, and the concentration of divine power dwelling within his body began to surge sharply once more.
‘This is…’
Heinrich’s eyes naturally widened slightly.
But this was no time to be distracted by anything else.
He could take his time examining the additional functions later.
For now…
He gripped the sword hilt in both hands even more tightly.
Wooooong—
—And poured dense divine power along the brilliantly shining blade of the holy sword.
Like a toxin, it burrowed relentlessly into the target’s body, destroying every resisting force in succession.
“Cough…!”
Considering the usually warm and gentle nature of divine power, it was an almost violently extreme phenomenon.
However, the energy that responded to its user’s will acted as though it had never once been docile, reacting sensitively against the conflicting divinity within the target and savagely tearing into it.
To begin with, wars breaking out over differences in faith were common enough, so there was nothing particularly strange about it.
And the victor of this war had already been decided.
“Heh… This is absurd.”
With the blade lodged in his chest, the leader of the Buncheon Society let out a hollow laugh as blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.
Unlike the pure white blood flowing from his wings, the blood flowing from his body was still red.
“Just when did you prepare this? I never imagined I’d end up like this.”
Had he given up now?
The expression that had been twisted with rage just moments ago sank into indifference.
His eyes, suddenly devoid of emotion as though he had attained enlightenment, stared straight at Heinrich.
‘What trick is he trying to pull now?’
Heinrich did not answer the question.
He simply twisted the hilt of the sword in his hands hard and poured in divine power even more fiercely.
Through the tip of the sword, he could feel the opponent’s life force rapidly being shaved away and hitting rock bottom.
‘Still, it’s better to make sure.’
Immediately after, attacks from the other avatars and sacred spells from the Main God Church erupted one after another.
“Kahahah! Looks like one wing isn’t quite enough, huh? Since you’re giving them away, hand over the other one too, friend!”
“Mm, my stomach feels a bit unsettled. Still, not bad at all.”
Harley, with white blood and a few feathers stuck around his mouth, and Heinz II, who appeared like a ghost, rushed in swiftly.
Amid the sacred light flying in from all directions, a long-range sniper shot fired by Harris from far away joined the barrage.
The attacks poured down fiercely, as though they were determined to end it for certain this time.
Within the surging tide that swept over the entire area.
“…It can’t be helped.”
A small voice flowed from the leader of the Buncheon Society, quiet enough that only Heinrich, who was right next to him, could hear it.
“……!”
And no sooner had those words ended—
Kiiiiing—
—All those attacks.
No, the entire space in the area.
Came to a halt as though time itself had stopped.
‘Time stop?’
Lumps of energy embroidered the air like a painting, while the avatars and crowds froze in place with their fierce momentum intact.
As if a single dynamic instant had been captured perfectly in a photograph, within that preserved time, not only breaths but even each and every particle of energy was fixed in place.
‘No, that’s not it. This is…’
Heinrich was momentarily flustered by the majestic scene that seemed as though time had been forcibly stopped, but thanks to his thoughts beginning to accelerate rapidly, he was soon able to grasp the situation.
That was right. This was not a miracle that had stopped the time of the world itself.
[Impressive. To think you would follow me this far.]
It was merely lingering for a moment within an instant stretched endlessly long by infinitely accelerating one’s thoughts.
Of course, maintaining such a perfectly still state was not something possible simply because one’s mental strength was powerful.
[Hmm, is it because of the divine power connected to this sword? Even so, this is the first time something like this has happened… Well, this much should be fine.]
There were other avatars here as well, but the only one who could properly perceive this instant was Heinrich.
Just as the leader of the Buncheon Society had said, perhaps it was because he had stabbed the holy sword into the man’s body and made direct contact.
[This is quite a loss. How long has it been since I failed before I could even do anything like this?]
With their eyes fixed directly on each other, the other party’s will was transmitted to him.
Fortunately, it seemed he could not move in this state either, as the holy sword still remained lodged in his chest.
The life force Heinrich sensed through it was still at rock bottom as well.
[No matter how much I was restricted and couldn’t use my full power, with the situation having come this far, I can’t refuse to acknowledge it. It seems this world was a dud after all.]
Did he want to make excuses for his defeat?
Heinrich wanted to rebuke the man, who was rambling on one-sidedly like he was grumbling, but perhaps because he was still unused to this state, his own will did not seem to be conveyed.
[…Time’s up, is it? Then let’s end it here.]
It seemed the man had not been wasting time for nothing.
Immediately after that final will was transmitted, an anomaly finally occurred in the stopped world.
‘This is…?’
A single change took place within time, where everything else had stopped.
Its subject was the leader of the Buncheon Society, whose entire body had been reduced to a wreck with the holy sword embedded in his chest.
Sssss—
—The life force felt from the tip of the sword slowly began to fill up again, and the wounds all over his body closed and disappeared without a trace.
Moving as though being rewound, he freed himself from the holy sword that had pierced through his body, and before long, a perfectly intact pair of wings was properly attached to his back.
‘He can interfere with time…? Wasn’t his unique skill simply spatial manipulation?’
A Roll Back that reversed time.
However, Heinrich quickly noticed that the reversal was not complete.
‘It seems he can’t touch the wing Harley tore off or the blood Heinz took. Does it mean he can’t affect body parts that have already left his control?’
If so, that was fortunate.
In any case, it was true that the absolute quantity of his power had been reduced when he lost his wings.
Considering that the energy contained within them was no ordinary amount either, the losses he had suffered could not be small.
[I will remember this, champion of Auterica. Next time, I won’t be taken down so easily.]
At that moment, the final message was transmitted from the leader of the Buncheon Society, who had finally returned to the same state he had been in when he first came to the holy land.
Since he had already moved backward as though being rewound, he was far outside Heinrich’s field of vision, but unable to turn his head, Heinrich could only guess at his situation through his presence.
‘…This is frustrating.’
And after the leader of the Buncheon Society’s presence completely vanished.
When Heinrich was finally able to move his body again, the man was nowhere to be found in the holy land.
All that remained was the wing Harley had not finished eating, and the small amount of blood Heinz had kept.
“The heretic has vanished! Everyone, stay on guard—”
“Third and fourth formations, activate the detection barriers! The rest, assume defensive positions—!”
Leaving behind the members of the Church, who were guarding their surroundings after the target had suddenly disappeared, Heinrich turned his head to one side.
Yes, he was certainly not here.
Not here.
***
The surrounding scenery flashed by dizzily as the time of his body rewound.
The leader of the Buncheon Society entrusted himself to the flow and quietly closed his eyes.
‘I didn’t want to use the power of time unless absolutely necessary.’
It was a power he still had to use with caution even now that he had risen to the rank of demigod, since he had yet to fully recover from the severe overload he suffered long ago after using it beyond his limits.
Because of that, its effect was even weaker than in the past, while the burden had instead increased…
‘It can’t be helped.’
But this time, there had been no other way.
If he had died there even once for no reason, not only would his divinity have suffered enormous damage, but he would also have incurred further losses due to failing to fulfill his contract with the divine status of the Abyss.
‘This is troublesome. I wonder if it’s really worth continuing to invest in this world.’
He had spoken to the champion of the Main God as though telling him they would see each other again, but no matter how he looked at it, wasting more time here was inefficient.
There was the fact that he had clashed with them before properly adapting to the environment of the dimension and had gotten off on the wrong foot, and at this point, it might be better to simply break the contract, give up on this dimension, and move on to another place.
Unilaterally backing out of the contract would require him to pay a corresponding price, but considering the various difficulties present in this world, such as the existence of a prophet, it was worth serious consideration.
‘I don’t want to give up if possible… For now, I’ll watch the situation a little longer and decide.’
Whatever the process, if he ultimately succeeded, he could endure a certain degree of loss.
Just as he made up his mind and was pondering what would come next—
The reversal finally ended.
The leader of the Buncheon Society realized that he had arrived at the place where he had first descended to the surface.
And as he slowly opened his eyes—
[Keukeuk.
—To think I would see you here again. How delightful.]
Immediately afterward.
His eyes met head-on with a skeleton in whose sockets a pair of ghost fires blazed.
Along with an eerie voice that he had heard so often it now felt almost familiar.
“…Ha, goddamn it…”
Just as a vulgar curse escaped him without his realizing it—
Puuuk—!
A cold hand burrowed into his body, weakened from the backlash of time control, and seized his heart.
His limbs were already bound by pitch-black thorns and chains that had sprouted from every direction, so he could not even twitch, let alone react in any meaningful way.
‘Don’t tell me he predicted even this?’
All sorts of thoughts surged up in an instant, throwing his mind into confusion.
But that was not what mattered right now.
While his resistance had been greatly weakened, the power of death that had pierced into his heart spread throughout his body in an instant.
As the power of his polar opposite was driven directly into him, the divinity he had accumulated began to be contaminated little by little.
‘This is dangerous.’
An urgent alarm rang out in his head.
The situation was different from before.
At this rate, it would not end with merely losing a portion of his divinity.
If this continued, even the foundation he had built up for his divine authority might be warped…
‘I don’t even have time to observe the situation.’
In the end, what he had to do to minimize the damage was already decided.
For now, even if he had to accept the loss, he had no choice but to give up what had to be given and withdraw.
“…I’m breaking the contract.”
Frowning at the hand squeezing his heart as though it would burst, he spat out the words through clenched teeth.
Immediately afterward—
Kwoooooo—
—A massive flash of light erupted once more from the mountain range in the northeastern region, where the commotion had been at its peak.
***
After the storm had passed.
[Keuheu.
—What a violent bastard. In any case, this is…]
Hans released his magical power and blew away the dust scattered around him.
Then, as he restored his body, which had been damaged by the enormous explosion, he looked down at the pitch-black current clutched in his hand and tilted his head.
He was certain he had been holding the man’s heart, yet what he now had in his hand was something ominously writhing and resisting.
Something that, for some reason, felt incredibly familiar.
‘Is there… nothing left besides this? How thorough.’
In truth, his encounter with the leader of the Buncheon Society this time had been purely coincidental.
After switching places with Heinrich and the other avatars in order to recover, he had come to investigate the Abyssal Rift where the leader of the Buncheon Society had first appeared. Who could have known that the man would suddenly pop out right in front of him?
‘I wanted to find out how he crossed over before the traces left in the rift disappeared completely.’
Of course, he had been a little surprised when the man who had vanished from the holy land suddenly appeared, but he was not so foolish as to miss an opportunity that had rolled right to him.
Though he had been rather taken aback by the man’s unhesitating self-destruction that followed.
‘Somehow, Hans ended up landing the last hit.’
He watched Heinrich handle the situation at the holy land for a moment, then turned his attention back to the current in his hand.
In truth, it had been struggling all along to cross over into the rift, and he had been forcibly holding it back, so it was becoming difficult to ignore any longer.
Even he, the Immortal King, felt that if he let his guard down even slightly, it might slip away at any moment.
‘As expected, this is…’
At that point, he naturally understood what it was.
‘Is it connected to the god imprisoned in the Abyss?’
He sensed it instinctively.
This and the foundation of Hans, the “Heart of Immortality,” shared the same origin.
It had likely been handed over to the leader of the Buncheon Society for some reason.
Moreover, the man’s energy was strangely mixed into it to a considerable degree, making it seem that Hans had also seized part of that power along with his self-destruction.
With this amount… would it not have dealt a considerable blow to the divinity he had accumulated?
‘Well now, this feels like receiving an unexpected gift.’
As expected, good fortune came to those who lived virtuously.
He had been prepared to go unpaid for this job, but to think they would even take care of him like this!
‘Then right away…’
He did not know what might happen if he kept holding onto such a dangerous object, so it would be best not to waste any more time and deal with it quickly.
He instinctively knew the method.
Hans slipped his hand through the gaps in his robe, which had been riddled with holes by the explosion, and placed it into the dependent subspace at his heart.
After all, his own heart and this thing shared the same origin…
Thump.
—The heart that had been quiet all this time beat violently.
At the same time, the current resisted fiercely as though it had a will of its own, but the energy of the Abyss that had already tangled together could no longer be separated.
All that remained was a battle for dominance.
And that competition ended far more simply than expected.
After all, no matter how solid that energy was, it was not something that could be compared to a pure condensation of death.
[Keukeuk, the Abyss is boiling over.]
He could not yet clearly feel the change, but there was something he sensed intuitively.
Through this incident, the gap between him and the leader of the Buncheon Society had likely closed by another step.
‘No, since he must have gone down instead, would that make it two steps?’
And immediately afterward—
『Divine Fragment of the XXed XXX (20,900,000)』
A change occurred once again in one item in the Karma Shop.