Fruit of Myth (2)
“Mmm. I thought something like this might happen, so I tried to sweep them all up at once and annihilate them in one fell swoop…”
The head of the Pantheon’s Twelve-Member Council, the chairman, roughly stroked his mustache and let out a deep sigh.
Having survived this long and experienced every hardship imaginable, he knew well that when humans were driven into a corner, they stopped caring about what came before or after.
That was why he had deliberately taken his time and prepared thoroughly, so he could finish the matter without giving them the slightest opening…
“Chairman! The remnants of the evil god have begun expanding again!”
“The evacuation of the nearby citizens still isn’t complete. At this rate…”
“Ahh, who in the world unleashed such a terrible calamity!”
Even he had never imagined a situation like this.
To think they had summoned the shadow of a god from another world here to Earth.
How could anyone have anticipated that such a miracle was possible?
‘Whew, but there’s no time to just stand here worrying.’
Now, with everyone thrown into confusion by the sudden turn of events.
In the current situation, where even a single hand was precious, he, one of the Pantheon’s greatest priests, could not simply remain in the rear giving orders.
A chill divine power flowed from the chairman’s body as his eyes narrowed.
Saaaa—
The authority of a god that froze all things in the world and brought everything to a halt.
Compared to when it was used in the other world, its power had been reduced to less than half, but due to the nature of divine power, which stood above other forms of energy, even that much was by no means a force to be ignored.
Wriggle, wriggle—
But even that power was far from enough to suppress the shadow of that evil god.
The amorphous mass thrashed violently, resisting the divine power that constricted it.
Already grown to the size of a modest hill, the tentacles extending from around it swept in every direction, devouring everything they touched.
“Khmm.”
“Ugh, what in the world is this!”
It was the same even though not only the chairman, but the other members of the steering council and renowned priests from each order had joined forces.
The most they could do was suppress the momentum of the calamity’s rapid expansion and hold it back for a moment.
‘…The compatibility is terrible.’
It was not that the divine authority the priests had borrowed, or their own abilities, were lacking.
It was simply that, unlike them, who had to forcibly draw the power of gods existing beyond dimensions all the way to Earth in order to manifest it,
the shadow of that evil god contained divine majesty in and of itself.
‘This must be what they call a difference in rank. It’s ignoring most of the coercive force we’ve gathered together on our side. Thanks to so many of us combining our strength, we’re somehow maintaining it, but…’
Even that was no more than a temporary measure as long as it failed to reach the incomplete divinity that being possessed.
For now, their limit was to reduce the sacrifices as much as possible and hold out until support arrived.
‘Even if that support comes, destroying that thing will be difficult. Still, for now, there’s no other way. As long as we buy time, we should be able to put our heads together and find some way to send that thing back.’
It was only natural for the chairman to think so.
However, in the sudden situation, as he naturally calculated only their usual forces, there was one thing he had overlooked.
“Huh! Th-that’s…?”
“From the sky…!”
The fact that there was one more being present here who exceeded his common sense.
Flash—!
For an instant.
A fierce gale and a dazzling flash erupted at the same time.
Along with a sharp edge keen enough to make their bodies tingle.
Most people instinctively closed their eyes and looked away, but those who kept their gaze fixed to the end thanks to abundant real combat experience were able to clearly witness the change that occurred in that instant.
———!
A single enormous sword of light that fell from the sky
pierced the dark violet form writhing on the ground in one stroke and scattered it apart.
“……!”
The chairman’s eyes flew wide as he watched the collision of the two divine powers that occurred in that moment.
And he was not the only one to react so violently.
“Impossible… What did I just see?”
“It’s equal? No matter how imperfectly it was summoned, it’s still the shadow of a god in name and truth, isn’t it?”
Leaving their astonishment behind, the platinum radiance and dark violet smoke tore at each other and clashed fiercely again and again.
A tentacle the size of a house that stretched out from within the smoke was cut away by a sword strike like a flash of light, and immediately afterward, the mist that spewed forth swallowed the one hostile to it and the surrounding earth.
Kwa-gwa-gwa-gwang—!
Such exchanges occurred dozens of times in a single second.
It was a transcendent battle that made one doubt whether it was truly taking place in the mortal world.
Only thanks to the divine formation the priests had spread out did the aftermath not spread too far; if not for that, the surroundings would already have been more than devastated.
‘Ah!’
The chairman, who had been staring at it blankly for a moment, suddenly came to his senses.
No matter how he looked at it, was this not the very moment of opportunity they had longed for so desperately?
He could not simply let it pass by while standing there as a spectator.
“Everyone, pull yourselves together!”
He steadied the priests, who had finally managed to catch their breath, and reorganized their formation once more.
Even as he did so, he could not help but glance toward the battlefield of myth with eyes filled with admiration.
It was only natural.
He was not the only one present who felt such awe.
***
Heinrich’s time accelerated to its limit.
Amid everything around him becoming infinitely slow,
he cut down with the holy sword a tentacle that shot toward him at tremendous speed, as if it cared nothing for the flow of time.
———!
The angel’s heart, beating ceaselessly in his chest, continued to supply strength throughout his entire body.
As someone with his own energy-generating organ, his circumstances were different from other priests, who had to receive divine power from gods in other dimensions in order to exercise authority.
Faster, more efficiently, more powerfully.
Endlessly multiplying slashes of light occupied every direction and sliced apart the mist that was constantly watching for a chance to strike him.
It was, in the truest sense, a dazzling display of overwhelming majesty.
However, his actual feelings were not very good.
‘There’s no end to this.’
How many times had he swung his sword since that first strike, when he fell from the sky and pierced the shadow of the evil god?
In order to end it as quickly as possible, he had poured out attacks with all his strength from the very beginning, but it seemed hoping to finish off the shadow of a god with that single blow had been greedy.
At best, he could take comfort in the fact that he had blown away a considerable portion of the smoke that had swollen to its fullest.
However, this mist was merely the manifestation of a phenomenon.
To finish it off for certain, he had to deal with its core…
For some reason, even though he had heightened his senses to the utmost and was unleashing wide-area attacks, grinding away the smoke wholesale, there was no meaningful progress.
———!
Then, before he knew when they had approached, several strands of energy clung to his body like spiderwebs.
Immediately afterward, they multiplied in the blink of an eye and wrapped around him in skeins.
There was no way to resist an approach that deceived not only his transcendent senses, but even the causality and laws of the world.
[“Wahaha! You foolish bastard! To think you would dare resist the authority of a god with the body of a mortal! I’ll make you a servant of the great Lord Luceni!”]
Unlike his side, the other side did not seem to have its vision obstructed by the mist, as Joker’s laughter echoed from somewhere.
Both the first strike and the linked attacks that followed had targeted him, but judging by how lively his voice still sounded, they had apparently had little effect.
‘…The authority of a god. I see. No wonder my attacks didn’t seem to be landing properly. Was it all because of this?’
Heinrich’s eyes sank coldly.
He could roughly guess what sort of power it was.
After all, from the moment this energy touched him, his mind had been twisting noisily.
‘The power to alter perception… Lies and deception, perhaps? Truly an authority befitting an evil god.’
With this, he must have twisted the surrounding laws and diverted Heinrich’s attacks.
Since Heinrich, who possessed the seed of divinity, was not so low in rank either, it probably could not nullify them completely, but even that much opened up countless possibilities.
Had it not succeeded in reaching him like this even now?
‘And the conclusion he reached after wielding such an incredible power is to capture and brainwash me. He has a poorer imagination than I expected.’
Well, it was probably more an issue of ability than imagination.
Heinrich, who had been about to immediately draw up his strength and break the restraint, flinched.
Then, after pondering something for a moment, he soon gave up resisting and completely relaxed his body.
‘Maybe this…’
Within that “shadow of a god,” not even a trace of the will of the divine being called Luceni actually resided.
The one handling this authority was entirely Joker, who had summoned it.
But there was no way a human who had not even sprouted the seed of divinity could fully wield the power of a god.
[“It seems you’ve finally given up. A wise decision. If it’s someone of your caliber, even the god will cherish you specially. Now, convert into Lord Luceni’s embrace…”]
His babbling rang in Heinrich’s ears, but Heinrich did not answer.
There was no need to.
‘If I set my mind to it, I could hold out as long as I wanted. But then I’d only waste time for nothing, and gain nothing from it.’
If this continued, it would inevitably turn into a war of attrition.
The fact that he would ultimately win would not change, but if that happened, the foundation that had summoned the shadow of that evil god to Earth would be completely exhausted.
Regrettably so.
‘I can’t allow that. It’s power great enough to summon the shadow of an outer god to Earth. This is an opportunity to swallow whole what Beoncheonhoe has painstakingly prepared for over twenty years, so why would I give it up?’
To do that, he first needed to make his opponent lower his guard.
Heinrich did not reject the power that touched his perception.
Even as his “Great Mind” was shaken by the authority of a god and his cognition distorted, he focused on only one thing.
‘It’s fine. As long as I control it well so this doesn’t flow backward…’
After all, he was only a single terminal.
As long as it did not flow back to the main body beyond the individual entity that was himself—the one that oversaw everything—
“Wahaha! It’s done! To think it really succeeded! Now you are the sword of the Luceni Order…”
—something like distorted perception did not matter at all.
Amid a subtle sense of foreignness, Heinrich opened the eyes he had closed and slowly looked around.
The world twisted by Luceni’s authority, which could only be perceived while one’s perception was distorted, entered his eyes.
‘As expected. No wonder there was no progress.’
It was a separate space that shared neither laws nor causality with the outside world.
The sword marks scattered throughout it had clearly been made by him.
However, seeing the space that was still repairing its wounds and expanding in real time, he could not even guess how much longer it would have taken if he had continued fighting.
‘Found it.’
And there,
it was.
A fist-sized sphere giving off a faint light, embedded in the chest of Jason—Joker—as he approached with a triumphant expression.
Heinrich, who had been staring at it quietly, met his gaze and smiled back.
“…So that was it?”
“Hm?”
“It looks nice.”
“…What?”
At those words, Joker, who had been approaching, stopped in his tracks.
Soon, as if sensing something strange, his face stiffened, and he immediately drew up his energy to do something—but.
Puk!
There was no way such a thing would be possible now.
Now that the distance had narrowed this much, it was already far, far too late.
“Kuh-hack! H-how…? I definitely confirmed that the authority had taken effect properly…!”
“Who knows?”
Heinrich looked coldly at Joker, whose chest had been pierced by his hand, then slowly clenched his fist.
A bizarre heat was felt in his grip.
A crystal of power, which he could not even begin to guess how it had been made, was slowly pulled out with his hand.
“N-no… That’s…!”
Joker collapsed to the floor and desperately poured divine power into the hole in his chest, but his condition did not improve in the slightest.
No, that was not all.
As time passed, his body began to wither, starting from its extremities, turning to ash and scattering.
“G-give it back! Kuh-hack! Hurry and give that ‘Fruit of Myth’ back to me…!”
The result of freely wielding the power of a god with a body that lacked the qualifications.
Heinrich watched him for a moment as not only his body but even his soul withered away, then turned his gaze to the crystal in his hand.
That was something neither he nor even Hans, the Immortal King, could do anything about.
As he’d said, perhaps it would be different if he returned this to him, but Heinrich had not the slightest intention of doing so.
‘Why would I give something this precious to anyone?’
Had he called it the Fruit of Myth?
Whatever its name was, now that it had once fallen into his hands, it was his.
Especially when he was already beginning to feel the sting of all the losses he’d suffered throughout the battle so far…
Crack—
Had God been angered by his selfishness?
Suddenly, cracks began to spread across the sphere in Heinrich’s grasp.
“Huh? What is this?”
He hadn’t even properly figured out what this Fruit of Myth was yet!
He hurriedly looked back to where Joker had been, but all that lay scattered there now were a priest’s robes and a few other bits of junk.
‘No, wait. Don’t tell me it’s because the one who served as the medium disappeared?’
The moment that thought flashed through his mind.
Before he could do anything, the situation took a sudden turn.
Crash—!
With the sound of something shattering, the “Fruit of Myth” broke into countless pieces.
And a blinding light burst out in every direction.
***
The outskirts of the Pantheon.
“Gasp! Look over there!”
One of the priests, who had been desperately forming a defensive line to stop the writhing black-purple mist from expanding, shouted loudly.
But no one turned to look at him.
Because, with a change so vivid, everyone was already staring at the place where the anomaly was taking place.
———!
A glimmer of dawn leaked out little by little through the writhing smoke.
In the blink of an eye, it swelled and spread like a spiderweb.
Flaaash—!
At last, it burst forth from within, scattering the smoke that had confined it into fragments.
It was such an empty conclusion that it made a mockery of the resolve of those who had gathered merely to buy time, unable to find any way to deal with it.
“Uh, this is…?”
“Wait, is that…?”
At its center stood he.
Amid the shimmering, dispersing clusters of light.
A man standing alone and proud, his eyes gently closed, his head lifted toward the sky.
An indescribably heavy air lingered around him, exuding a strange pressure upon all who looked on.
“Heinrich Saint Landguard…”
The chairman of the Pantheon, who had been leading the priests, muttered without realizing it.
A silver-haired angel standing beneath glittering motes of light and pouring sunlight.
His figure was, quite literally, no different from a messenger of God found only in stories.
And if that being was the savior who had driven away a calamity single-handedly…
At that moment, the angel’s closed eyes opened.
And golden eyes like the sun illuminated those who gazed upon him.
***
Heinrich blankly looked around.
When he came to his senses, he found that the people gathered all around were staring at him with eyes full of reverence.
“…”
But right now, he had no attention to spare for anything else.
Because the scene he had witnessed in that brief instant when time had stopped, right after the Fruit of Myth shattered and light burst forth, still remained in his mind.
《The dimensional inflection point has exceeded a certain level. Connecting to the Akasha System.》
Along with that single line of message, he had seen it.
The future of this Earth.