#96 The Abyss Opens (3)
When Heinrich, having stored the Holy Sword within his stigma, opened the stone door of the sealed ground and stepped out, he found himself in the place where he had first entered the trial.
Though he had passed through so many trials, what had separated them had been no more than a single door. ‘I knew it from the moment the Holy Sword constructed a virtual world for the trial, but still. It really is amazing.’ He looked down at the stigma on his palm and smiled in satisfaction. ‘With this much, I don’t think I’d lose even if I clashed head-on with a Paladin.’ On top of that, “Blessing: Holy Sword” was a skill that grew stronger the more he trained it, just like his other abilities.
In other words, the power he had gained right now was not everything.
“You’re finally out.”
But there was a group waiting to greet Heinrich as he opened the stone door and stepped outside.
“Well done, Sir Heinrich.”
“Ah, Cardinal Donovan!”
They were elites, including the cardinal in charge of the Ficaol Great Temple. ‘How did they know I was coming out… No, that was a stupid thought.’ They had not come to greet him.
To begin with, an Archlich had emerged from the hole of the Abyss in the heart of the Great Temple. There was no way the Order would fail to notice. ‘Of course they’d prepare. And since the spatial isolation from the Holy Sword’s trial happened to disappear, they must have been able to detect it even more clearly.’ Because of that, they had rushed over in preparation for any possible incident, but before they could enter, the dark magic inside had vanished, so they had been waiting out front for the time being.
After all, they might have interfered with Heinrich, who was undergoing the trial inside.
“Hohoho, I had my suspicions, but as expected… Sir, you succeeded in becoming the master of the Holy Sword!”
Cardinal Donovan looked at Heinrich’s palm with surprise, yet a bright smile spread across his face.
The reactions of the other priests behind him were much the same.
“To think he really succeeded.”
“I had heard the rumors. They said he was the paladin who drove off the Immortal King by plunging a sword into his heart…”
“For the master of the Holy Sword to appear again at a time like this! This must surely be the will of the Lord God!”
Everyone reacted fervently to the Holy Sword’s appearance after three hundred years.
Now that the Immortal King had returned and even the Abyss had opened, the reappearance of the Holy Sword, the symbol of the Hero, held great meaning.
“This too must be fate. Now then, Sir Heinrich. Did anything unusual happen inside?”
Cardinal Donovan, who had been quietly nodding, asked Heinrich while glancing toward the door he had come out of.
“Ah, after I pulled out the Holy Sword, the Abyss showed abnormal symptoms. Afterward, one Archlich did emerge from there…”
“An Archlich?”
“It couldn’t do anything under the power of the divine barrier, so I was able to deal with it. As it happened, it was carrying its origin, so I was able to eliminate it cleanly on the spot.”
“I see, so that was it… Still, I’m glad there were no major problems.”
Letting out a light sigh, he looked at the priests gathered behind him and jerked his chin toward the stone door.
At that, high-ranking priests and paladins began filing into the stone chamber where the Holy Sword had been sealed in perfect order.
When Heinrich looked at them with a puzzled expression, the cardinal continued with a bitter smile.
“Come to think of it, you wouldn’t know about the commotion outside, Sir. You must have been quite startled when the Abyss suddenly reacted.”
“Ah, yes… That’s right.”
In truth, Heinrich knew better than anyone what had happened outside, but he only nodded with an ambiguous expression.
With a grave face, the cardinal explained the situation to him.
The reason such a thing had occurred in the Abyss.
About the second Abyss that had opened on the continent, and about their response plans from here on.
“Now that the Holy Sword is gone as well, that hole of the Abyss will have to be managed even more thoroughly. We’ll install additional barriers, and I’m thinking of stationing some personnel there in case of emergencies.”
The barrier currently in place was by no means insufficient, but since an Archlich had actually come out, they needed to pay closer attention.
“We were already short on hands as it was. Hohohot! This is truly shitty… Ahem, quite the troublesome situation.”
Though the cardinal seemed to have let his true feelings slip without realizing it, he cleared his throat as though nothing had happened and headed outside with Heinrich.
“Those people will wrap things up here, so let us return now. You too will have much to do from now on, Sir.”
Considering the current situation, there was no time to act leisurely.
After taking a brief rest, Heinrich immediately moved to the gate room to return to the Roselia Great Temple.
Wooooong—
The gate slowly began to activate.
Heinrich turned to Cardinal Donovan, who had come to see him off, with a troubled expression.
“You must be busy with all manner of affairs. You needn’t have come personally like this.”
Wasn’t this already an extremely busy time?
Having someone of a cardinal’s rank come personally to see him off was, if anything, unbearably burdensome.
“Hoho, now that you have become the master of the Holy Sword, you are no longer just an ordinary paladin, Sir. This much is nothing. More importantly… I also have something to say to you one last time.”
Indeed, Heinrich’s standing would now be on an entirely different level from before.
To be called the master of the Holy Sword meant that he was the blade of the Lord God representing this era.
“Something to say to me one last time…?”
At those words, the cardinal approached him with a serious expression and brought his mouth close to Heinrich’s ear.
At that cautious attitude, Heinrich listened to him earnestly, but…
“What I told you last time. You haven’t forgotten, have you?”
“…Pardon?”
“I mean the Saintess. Hm? Do I need to explain again?”
“…No, I remember. Please don’t worry.”
“Mm-hmm, excellent! Then go on!”
“……”
To the doting Cardinal Donovan, whether Heinrich was the master of the Holy Sword or not, that and this were separate matters.
***
“Welcome back, Sir Heinrich. I knew you would succeed!”
After returning to the Roselia Great Temple, Heinrich immediately found himself facing the Saintess, who greeted him with a gentle smile.
After exchanging warm greetings, they moved on to lighter topics.
“Come to think of it, was Cardinal Donovan in good health?”
“…Yes. I heard he was quite advanced in age, but he was tremendously robust.”
Heinrich answered with a somewhat awkward expression as he recalled the man’s bulging muscles despite his old age.
“Hehe… I was worried because he has been so busy since going to the Ficaol Great Temple, but it seems he’s still exercising diligently. When he was here, he cherished me a great deal.”
A brief moment of small talk followed.
But given the circumstances, the light atmosphere did not last very long.
“You look very tired, Saintess. I suppose you have a great deal of work.”
“Haa— Since this incident is so large in scale, it hasn’t been easy.”
With a dark expression, the Saintess let out a deep sigh.
The greatest problem was that a second Abyss had opened, but even before that, the sacrificial rituals conducted across the entire continent were no small matter either.
“Dozens of sacrificial rituals were activated simultaneously all over the continent. From small slash-and-burn villages to small cities on the frontier.”
It was terrorism that targeted places without thorough magical defenses and with lax public order.
And they had been hidden so thoroughly that before they were activated, no one had even known such things existed. ‘Hearing it like this makes them seem impressive all over again.’ Slash-and-burn villages were one thing, but to target even small cities with populations easily exceeding a thousand, no matter how remote they were, was impossible with ordinary preparation.
“The extent of the damage is still under investigation, but… from what we’ve grasped so far, it’s tens of thousands. We can’t even estimate how much further that number will grow.”
Because of that unprecedented massacre on a massive scale, every nation on the continent was in a state of emergency.
Of course, most of those targeted had been commoners living in places with poor public order, so the damage itself was not something the upper classes considered a major issue. ‘But because the scale is so great, even those in leadership positions have no choice but to feel alarmed.’ Who could guarantee that a threatening force capable of doing something on this level would absolutely never target them?
“…In truth, the truly great problem is the reappearance of the Immortal King Hans and the fact that the second Abyss has opened.”
Information from those dispatched to the south was being relayed to the Great Temple almost in real time, and they were still continuing their investigation of the site even now.
“What emerged from this Abyss is ‘madness.’ However, this time, we believe the situation is different from the Immortal King of a thousand years ago.”
Unlike the “Immortal King’s Heart,” which had fully descended upon the surface, the madness that appeared this time had been drawn out in an incomplete state.
Because of that, it failed to maintain its form and scattered across the entire continent…
“That is absolutely not a good sign. In a way, we should consider it even more troublesome than the Immortal King.”
No great abnormalities had been discovered for the time being, but there was no way something drawn out of the Abyss would have a positive effect on the continent.
As time passed, problems would gradually begin to reveal themselves.
On top of that, because of the madness that had covered the world, tracking the demonic (魔) had become far more difficult than before, so from the Order’s standpoint, this was bad news in many ways.
“And above all, the Immortal King who caused all of this…”
The Immortal King riding a Bone Dragon had shown himself once more before the members of the Order.
He had deliberately waited without leaving the scene, mocked the Order’s party, and then leisurely departed.
Leaving behind only one blast of the Bone Dragon’s Death Breath.
“…Fortunately, the damage was not that great. Those present there were not easy opponents either. It would have been dangerous if follow-up attacks had continued, but…”
The Immortal King had simply left just like that.
“To put it another way, it shows just how lightly he regards us. He is enjoying this as though granting us mercy, telling us to resist as much as we can.”
With an expression so rigid it was hard to recall her usual gentle impression, the Saintess ground her teeth as she muttered.
“Saintess…”
“Haa— I got a little worked up. Still, this is good news. It is proof that this generation’s Immortal King is that arrogant.”
It was an opening through which they could aim at the Immortal King, who had thus far displayed extraordinary conduct.
Even when he had the chance to end things decisively, he prioritized his own amusement, looked down on his opponents, and gave them opportunities.
It was the typical mindset of the strong.
And it was a weakness that had led countless strong beings to their deaths.
“We will aim for that carelessness. For the sake of the continent, a moment’s humiliation is nothing. In the end, the final victor will be us.”
Seeing the Saintess steel her resolve with a serious expression, Heinrich, moved by her, eagerly agreed.
“I will help as well, Saintess. With the aid of the Holy Sword, this time we will surely be able to put an end to him.”
“I believe in you, Sir Heinrich! You are the very adversary of the Immortal King Hans, chosen by the Lord God!”
Motivation surged, and conviction filled him.
Heinrich met the Saintess’s eyes and slowly nodded. ‘…But she still calls him Hans. He has the cool name Hannibal Strauss, too. I’ll have to emphasize it more next time.’ While inwardly thinking about something else.
***
A stone chamber buried deep underground.
“Mmm…?”
In the air that had remained stagnant for long ages, a second change occurred after the last one.
A pair of crimson eyes slowly began to glow in the darkness.
“…What is this…?”
However, because of some extremely alien “something,” it had merely awakened from sleep without realizing it, and its voice was still steeped in slumber.
Though the place was completely sealed, leaving no room for outside air to seep in, something ominous that ignored such physical limitations had stimulated that being.
‘…Ah, right.’
And once it had awakened, it felt once more the abnormality it had sensed last time.
It seemed something had happened to the clan.
‘I should get up.’
Both the unidentified situation that seemed to be unfolding in real time and whatever had happened to the clan were no ordinary matters.
They were serious enough that it had to hurry out and confirm them personally.
And so that being put strength into its body to kick off from where it lay and rise.
“Seriously…”
No, it had only thought that. The thought did not lead to action.
Its body squirmed repeatedly as though trying to get up.
But…
“…I have to, uwaaahm—.”
At the yawn that slipped out without its realizing, its body sagged again.
Of course, it was not to the point of falling asleep again.
The energy stimulating its surroundings was far too bothersome for that.
Even at this very moment, the body that had fallen into hibernation was slowly activating.
It was still too much to move right away, but…
Perhaps that time would not take very long.
Thus, the Sacred Blood of Brokoslak—
Awakened from its long sleep.