#91 Variable (1)
The inner walls were cleanly finished in marble, with delicate patterns carved into them.
There were mysterious ornaments placed here and there, along with stone monuments engraved with prayers.
The place Heinrich had reached by following the path of light seemed to be where some solemn ritual was performed.
And at its center.
It was there.
‘So that’s it···.’
Despite its neat and refined appearance, a longsword had been thrust carelessly into the dirt floor.
The goal that had brought him here—the ‘Holy Sword.’
Heinrich casually looked around, inspecting the interior.
Just as he had expected, the entire space was tightly surrounded by several layers of holy barriers.
Every one of them had been prepared by the church to seal away whatever lay within and to prepare for any possible incident.
‘It must be because of that.’
Heinrich’s gaze turned toward the center once more.
More precisely··· toward the fist-sized lump of darkness gathered around the floor where the Holy Sword was embedded.
At a glance, it looked like the sword’s shadow, but it occasionally writhed, flaunting its presence.
“Is that the Abyss···?”
The previous Immortal Kings had inflicted more than mere material and human losses through their wars.
Even as they covered the continent in death, they had simultaneously worked to tear down the wall separating it from the Abyss, and those attempts placed an enormous burden on the world.
Enough to leave minor scratches on the wall dividing the surface from the Abyss.
And the deepest scar left behind by that influence was the thing before Heinrich···.
A hole created by the Second Immortal King using his own body as a medium.
‘I heard the other scars naturally healed over time.’
But perhaps because of its origin, this Abyss alone had not shrunk any further than its current state, no matter how much time passed.
Even so, was it really all right to pull out the Holy Sword? Then again, was that not precisely why this place and the Grand Temple existed?
Three hundred years ago might have been a different matter, but an Abyss of that size could be adequately managed by the Grand Temple.
Heinrich walked carefully toward the center where the Holy Sword was embedded, preparing for the final process.
The final gateway to becoming the Holy Sword’s master.
Strictly speaking, this was the true final trial.
‘Those who had reached this point before ultimately failed to gain its recognition.’
Even those who had overcome the grueling trials and reached the Holy Sword had eventually fallen to their knees at this stage.
‘Shall I get right to it?’
Of course, Heinrich was undaunted.
He slowly extended his right hand and firmly gripped the hilt of the sword embedded in the floor.
Sizzle—
—Though he could not feel even the slightest trace of heat, his palm began to burn with a vicious sound.
The acrid smell of burning flesh spread through the area.
The sensation was more than mere searing pain.
It was an unimaginable agony, as though the nerves and all the internal organs in a deeper place··· were being wrung out.
‘It’s stuck pretty tight. It won’t come out easily.’
But without changing his expression, Heinrich only tightened his grip on the hilt.
Crackle—!
When he refused to let go of the sword to the very end,
sparks flew from the Holy Sword, and an immense energy flowed into him.
‘This is···.’
The force that violently burrowed into Heinrich’s body like an electric shock ran wild beyond his control, and in its aftermath, his powerful body began to collapse from within.
The pain doubled, and his vast holy power was of no help whatsoever in this situation.
‘Is this also part of proving my qualifications? ···I need to hurry.’
The pain did not matter, but he needed to finish as quickly as possible before he was completely exhausted.
“Hup—!”
Sizzle—!
He used his left hand as well, gripping the hilt with both hands and squeezing every ounce of strength from his entire body to pull it upward.
Groooan—
—The muscles throughout his body bulged, and the sound of friction rang out from the floor.
Just as the sword began to move little by little···
An enormous amount of mind-numbing information slammed directly into his head from the Holy Sword.
He paused, frowning as he examined the information.
‘Battle records?’
From methods of wielding weapons to techniques for manipulating energy and ways to fight unusual monsters,
the experiences of battles fought by the Holy Sword’s previous users poured forth like a waterfall.
‘···It’s somewhat similar to when I absorbed fragments of the Immortal Kings.’
The difference was that back then, negative emotions had surged backward and tried to tear him apart with murderous intent, whereas this time, there was no intention of attacking his mind.
Of course, if he tried to endure this forcibly for too long, there was still the danger of his mind collapsing.
The fact that everything was being forcibly injected into his head remained the same.
‘It isn’t just simple information. The user’s emotions from that time are flowing in as well···. This is practically a mental attack, isn’t it? The two who came here before probably both failed at this point.’
Simple pain could be overcome with a steadfast will, but there was a limit to simply enduring this sort of mental contamination.
Especially when he could not even overcome it with holy power.
Creak!
Crackle—!
But such things were of little concern to Heinrich.
Horrible pain continued to surge through his hands.
Unfamiliar knowledge ran rampant through his mind.
And blood flowed from various parts of his body, ruined by the Holy Sword’s energy as it burrowed into him.
Yet he was able to filter out all excessive stimuli with 「Mind Hub」, and merely smiled as though it were nothing.
“Hey, partner. It’s about time you stopped being so stubborn and came out nicely. I’ve got a lot to do from here on.”
The moment he spoke in an amused voice while watching the sword slowly rise,
the blade of the Holy Sword conveniently emerged completely from the swaying black Abyss.
Whoosh—!
Perhaps because it was freedom after three hundred years,
the elegant silver blade repeatedly emitted radiant light, proudly displaying its majesty.
At the same time···
《The entity has achieved the conditions and gained enlightenment. The skills 「Holy Warrior Combat Arts」 and 「Comprehensive Weapon Arts」 have combined and evolved into the special skill 「Rogia Holy Combat Method」.》
The battle records being forcibly injected into his mind merged together, becoming a complete system.
‘Oh? This is incredible.’
Named after the affectionate nickname the First User had given the Holy Sword, the technique had been passed down through the generations, refined and supplemented until it developed into an entire combat system.
Naturally, since every master of the Holy Sword throughout history had been a genius who represented their respective era, its level was far from ordinary.
While Heinrich, having drawn the Holy Sword, was momentarily distracted by it,
Glorp~!
the fist-sized Abyss on the floor began to writhe ominously.
***
A secret location hidden in the southern wastelands of the Aion Continent.
A ritual was being conducted in a massive underground stone chamber with a sinister atmosphere.
Rumble—!
The magic circle at the center let out a thunderous roar as it absorbed the surrounding energy.
Blood, corpses, living sacrifices, and bizarre ritual implements crumbled one by one and were sucked into it.
“Kihi··· Kekakakat—! Now, now it’s almost over! My long wait is finally—!”
An old man cackled madly as he watched the darkness writhing at the bottom of the magic circle, while a large figure in a hooded robe watched him from a distance.
As soon as the ritual began here, the spells they had prepared throughout the continent began activating all at once.
A tremendous change capable of overturning the balance of power in this world was taking place.
***
The mountains in western Aion, between the Kingdoms of Talia and Resk.
[What is your name?]
Hans spoke to the man prostrated before him in a rarely gentle tone.
For some reason, however, the other man only trembled even more.
Hans had merely tried to be kind to someone who would soon become his subordinate and work alongside him, so he could not help but feel wronged.
“I··· I-I’m Victor N-Nolan, sir···. Y-Yes···.”
When he gazed intently at him with 「Eye of the Abyss」, the pitiful dark mage who had been researching magic alone in a remote mountain valley was forced to open his mouth and barely managed to answer.
[Good, Victor. I am—‘Hannibal Strauss.’ You understand the general situation well enough without me having to explain, don’t you?]
“···Y-Yes···. Of course. If you spare my life, I’ll do as you command.”
The dark mage Victor bowed his head with a dying expression.
His life had suddenly been seized by the terrifying being before him, so in a way, his reaction was only natural.
The compulsion of 「Eye of the Abyss」, which bound beings of a lower rank than a demon.
Of course, its effect was not absolute on humans with established selves, unlike monsters that moved purely on instinct.
‘When it comes to that sort of thing, Heinz II’s subjugation through 「Refined Blood Crystal」 is the most reliable.’
But even an incomplete binding could not be taken lightly when the caster was an Immortal King. The compulsion created by the difference in their ranks was far too great.
Besides, once the leash had been placed around their necks, they could no longer flee.
No matter where they were on the continent, they would soon receive another visit from Hans the Immortal King.
[You’re quick to understand. You seem quite useful after all··· Hm?]
Hans was slowly looking around the dark mage’s secret laboratory as he continued speaking when he suddenly stopped.
Just now, he had felt an extraordinarily异质ous energy.
“······?”
At the sudden silence, Victor’s anxiety intensified, but he had already been pushed beyond Hans’s priorities.
[···What is this?]
Hans quietly turned his gaze to one side.
A fairly large sacrificial ritual had been conducted some distance away.
‘They’re conducting a sacrificial ritual this openly? What fearless fools···. Shall I take a look?’
Something more troublesome than his current recruitment effort had occurred.
He ordered the dark mage Victor to pack his things and prepare to move, then immediately teleported to the place where he had sensed the anomaly.
‘This is the western edge of the Kingdom of Resk? ···I see.’
The place where Hans, enveloped in darkness, reappeared in an instant was the sky above a fairly large village.
A village that was silent for its size.
As though it had already been offered wholesale as a sacrifice, there was barely any sign of life within it.
Only the belated uproar of those who had luckily made it outside the village echoed hollowly through the air.
‘Shall I hear directly from the culprits what they were thinking when they did this?’
Hans rose straight into the high sky.
His robe fluttered in the surging wind, and his eyes were once again stained with darkness.
Then, through 「Eye of the Abyss」 as it looked down over the earth···
‘Found them.’
He sensed a suspicious group hurriedly fleeing the village.
And in the very next moment, darkness rose around them as they ran without looking back, covering the area on all sides in an instant.
[Stop.]
“Eek···!”
“W-What···?”
Hans, who spread fear throughout the surroundings simply by appearing, calmly examined the figures frozen stiff before him.
The dark mage caught among them and the faint demonic energy emanating from their bodies.
There was no room for excuses.
[There is something I would like to ask you. I would appreciate it if you could spare me a little of your time.]
Naturally, they had no right to refuse.
The conversation that followed within a barrier no one could enter or leave proceeded rather peacefully.
Hans merely patted each of them once on the head while they sat quietly.
‘They really don’t know a thing.’
Even when he had first forced them to speak through 「Eye of the Abyss」, he had received no satisfactory answers. And even after forcibly rummaging through their minds, he had found no particularly meaningful results.
The dark mage among them was merely a fledgling who had followed his master’s wishes, while the others were nothing more than low-ranking pawns acting on orders from above.
‘Everything had already been prepared. They merely flipped the switch, completed the job, and were caught by me while fleeing before their trail could be discovered.’
The fact that an activation like this had been possible meant that a considerable force had spent a long time preparing it.
Fortunately, by searching their minds, Hans was able to discover who was behind the incident.
‘The Oath of Defying Heaven··· Those guys again? They seemed to have been quiet for a while.’
Then again, if they were on the level of the ones he had encountered before, this was entirely possible.
He did not know why they had suddenly caused something like this.
But he could find that out from this point onward.
‘The traces are still there. Where is all this life force headed?’
Hans flew through the sky, following the flow.
And at its destination, he discovered something both familiar and unfamiliar.
‘Is that a scar of the Abyss?’
He had just confirmed the Abyss through Heinrich, who had entered the Holy Sword’s trial.
Unlike the Abyss in the Pikaol Grand Temple, however, the scar before Hans was merely the remnant of a wound that had already healed.
It was difficult to see unless one paid special attention, and since it posed no particular problem in itself, he had never bothered with it until now···
But the flow of life force that began at the village was unmistakably headed here.
‘Shall I take a closer look?’
Hans immediately mobilized all his capabilities to meticulously analyze the remaining traces and retrace their flow.
Once he began to act in earnest,
thanks to skills such as 「Eye of the Abyss」, 「Evil Wisdom」, and 「Forbidden Knowledge」, as well as the Immortal King’s knowledge, he quickly arrived at a conclusion.
He turned his head south.
There lay the starting point and center of the ritual conducted here.
‘The sacrificial sites weren’t limited to one or two. It happened simultaneously in multiple places. Besides, this is only part of the ritual. What they ultimately want is···.’
At that moment,
Hans’s hyper-activated senses detected an immense flow of energy from the south.
[···They’ve opened the Abyss.]
It was a tremendous variable capable of affecting the entire continent.