Elder Red Blood Arts Baldamir, who mastered the Blood Arts to their utmost limits, tempered his qi, and accepted all the years given to him as experience. He was undoubtedly a powerful enemy.
However, the Holy Imperial Court was an organization that had always won decisive victories against such vampires. Against vampires who never died and grew wiser with each passing year, they had enjoyed prosperity while fighting on multiple fronts against other heretics.
In a way, it was only natural. For the future belonged to the Saintess.
To be precise, it was because she utilized the future better than anyone else. But it amounts to the same thing. The Saintess is the only existence in the world who can see the future.
"If only everyone had attained martyrdom here. Order would have been established through that."
The Iron Saintess is invincible. No matter what becomes of the world, no matter how powerful the vampires. She suffers not even a speck of harm.
In other words, everything except her could be destroyed. Where the Iron Saintess shines is a desperate battlefield surrounded on all sides. Perel always returns alive drenched in blood that is not her own. Because even in the worst situations, she can at least foresee her own survival.
Therefore, the Iron Saintess only heads to such battlefields. Places where it's fine if everyone but herself dies.
"Still, how could you just ignore this side? It's too obvious. If you truly wanted to stop the slaughter, it would have been better for you to leave the Red Blood Arts alone as well?"
If that was what the target sought, they wouldn't have brought them here in the first place. The Iron Saintess's visible future is limited to herself, but that doesn't mean she couldn't make at least minimal predictions, right?
The Iron Saintess didn't care even though her true intentions were exposed.
"Do not delve into the Demon God. There is no treasure inside a tightly sealed box. Only the sin and tragedy that curiosity invites will overflow. The Demon God you have uncovered will make humanity miserable."
"Make humanity miserable? Is there anything more miserable than death?"
"Death is miserable because life is precious. However, the Demon God you have uncovered will destroy the value of life, of faith, of the soul. Like those vampires, it will break down the boundary between life and death and reduce humans to inferior beings. This is a warning, a request, and simultaneously a plea."
Perel spoke in a tone as if addressing no one in particular, but I knew it was directed at me. This was the Saintess's own way of persuasion.
Vampires, by their very existence, cast humans into the position of prey. Vampires who demand human blood are predators, and humans can be nothing more than food and livestock. Add to that they are a heaven-defying race that overcomes even death and enjoys eternal life. The Holy Imperial Court doesn't hate vampires for no reason.
The secret held by the Lightning Demon God was perhaps beyond even the Blood Arts. The secret that the Lightning Thief wanted to protect even while hiding the lightning was that dark and deep. The Holy Imperial Court, including the Iron Saintess, was wary of that.
Still, the Saintess trying to persuade me? That's new.
I appreciate the sentiment, but we stand in different places.
"Vampires are human too."
Words containing multiple meanings. Perhaps it was an obvious fact, or perhaps it was a new touching statement for Tir.
However, it reached the Saintess differently.
"...That even humans corrupting themselves is human karma. Do you affirm even that?"
It was an indirect yet clear meaning of refusal. I smiled and nodded, and Perel drooped her shoulders as if in sorrow.
At that moment, Perel moved.
No, she didn't move. But within my mind-reading, Perel had already moved. Perel had foreseen her own movement, and it was destined to arrive as an unchanging future.
The Iron Saintess charges. She thrusts out a fist that pulverizes everything. Her bare fist pierces through my chest and stops behind my back like the wind.
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-This hadn't even begun yet, but it was a promised future regardless of what I did.
To think she would foresee my death the moment I refused. That's not persuasion, that's an ultimatum!
More importantly, can I dodge this?
As I grumbled inwardly, Perel finished her precognition.
Every result is inevitably followed by a process leading to it. Baldamir's movements were also remarkable, but taken apart one by one, they were the product of a meticulous combination of technique and authority.
However, the Saintess's precognition is on a different level. She observes the result in advance and forcibly connects the process. In particular, Perel's self-precognition, having shrunk the range of precognition to an extreme, possessed a power that could be called absolute. Even the invincible ability that earned her the epithet of Iron Saintess was just one characteristic.
The blessing Perel received was the enforcement of precognition. The iron prophecy declared my end.
The cloth wrapping her fist snapped strand by strand, revealing Perel's bare fist. Precogniction is a double-edged sword. When its edge is aimed at the opponent, it is sharper than anything, but at the same time, it is a power that can even hack its wielder to pieces. She had been limiting her power until now, but dreadfully, she revealed her full strength to kill me.
The future of herself that she foresaw 'definitely' comes to pass. Because the result is promised, the observed Perel is invincible. No obstacle can interfere with her future....
Even time itself.
Perel foresaw a movement beyond limits. A speed that the beast called human could never produce, she achieves by twisting reality with the power of her self-precognition.
The process disappeared. Kicking off the ground, applying force, pushing the body forward, cutting through the wind. With all such processes omitted, only the result Perel foresaw was realized. For an instant, Perel existed everywhere she had foreseen. Dots connect, painting the path pitch-black.
An absolute power that even the Saintess must handle with care. Without any warning, only the result foreseen by the lofty heavenly god was realized. The world was revised to fulfill the precognition, and the aftermath alone stirred up storms and howling thunder. A miracle beyond the concept of speed, solely to kill me.
Tearing the world apart, Perel's fist pierced through my body....
Even so.
No matter how lofty the power. No matter how solemn and powerful the Demon God that protects them, it cannot be faster than Perel's will.
Because the Saintess too is human.
"…!"
There are various ways to deal with prophecies, but the easiest among them is to deceive the prophecy. Even if the prophecy is perfect, the person reading it cannot be perfect.
My body collapses. Cards with the 8 of Spades drawn on them fly in all directions like burst balloons. Using the power of the Golden Mirror and Elixir, I converted the clothes and clouds that touched my body into cards. What Perel thought she destroyed was my shell hastily constructed from cards.
Fortunately, what Perel can foresee is only her own future. Using all the power given to me, I pulled my body out of the trajectory Perel foresaw. Just from moving too fast, my head spins and my ears ring, but I was alive nonetheless.
Perel shouted.
"To take the Demon God into your body! You cursed taboo...!"
She figured it out immediately. I answered while desperately ignoring the tingling pain in my limbs.
"Cursed from just this? Come on. Compared to what you did, this is a drop in the bucket! Compared to your unidentified precognition, what I did is just a parlor trick!"
A powerhouse who enforces the future calling this mere parlor trick a curse. Are all the curses in the world dead?
Spade 7, Lightning Skein. This card can draw out lightning thinly and wind it like a thread. Unlike what Peru had used, this lightning thread is too weak to attack with, but... even weakness has its own uses.
I took this lightning thread into my body. The lightning thread seeped into the nerves extending throughout my body.
Before meeting the Demon God, it would have been nothing more than a crazy act of self-harm, but having met the Lightning Thief and discovered that secret, I now... can move my body with just thought.
...Saying it like this makes it sound really unimpressive.
The body already moves with thought. Even using the Demon God's power, it only slightly skips the process of thought transmitting to the body. I read it with mind-reading and still got hit and almost died. No matter how I think about it, isn't her self-precognition several times more of a cheat skill?
A hundred out of a hundred people would clearly think so, but strangely, the Saintess didn't seem to agree. Perel glared at me as if looking at a demon.
"The Demon God you use will eventually lead all humans to ruin. King of humanity, remember this. If the end of humanity approaches, you too will not be the same as before."
"I'll keep that in mind. For now, since I'm also human, let me at least protect myself first."
Perel bit her lip tightly. She bit so hard that blood could be seen lingering at the corners of her mouth. Even the invincible can harm themselves, I suppose.
In her heart, she would want to dispose of me right away, but that was no longer possible. Because darkness had set in.
Even within the cloud waterfall where visibility was already poor, a foreign darkness rolled in. Pitch blackness that made it impossible to see an inch ahead filled the vision. That was the power vampires obtained to resist the Holy Imperial Court, and the weight of suffering the Progenitor Tirkanjaka had endured.
The darkness was no different from the inside of Tir's body. In a place where no light enters, the future cannot be seen. Self-precognition would still be possible, but it would be a tedious siege. Even if she foresees where she will be, without being able to see her surroundings, it would be nothing more than floundering in water.
"Daring to run wild without knowing your place...! I'll make you regret appearing before me directly!"
I revealed too many abilities. Coming up with countermeasures isn't something only the Holy Imperial Court can do.
The darkness swirls around Perel. In the darkness where she couldn't even see her own limbs, Perel opened her mouth with a devastated expression.
"First Saintess who blessed this servant. Is this truly the limit of the time permitted to this servant..."
In the swamp-like darkness, Perel murmured. Unable to draw a future where she continued fighting, she decided to retreat according to her precognition. For me, it was a stroke of incredible fortune.
"Do you think you can escape?!"
No, Tir. Just let her go. An invincible being is offering to leave on her own. Grabbing at her ankles will only hurt your hands.
Perel, who calmly found her direction in the darkness where ordinary people would suffocate to death, issued a warning in our direction before leaving.
"Progenitor Tirkanjaka. It would be best not to trust the King of Humanity. He can be an ally to vampires... but he will never be an ally 'only' to vampires."
Tir didn't even pay attention and scoffed.
"Keep your oracle games for your own chess pieces. Do you think I'd be swayed by such things?"
"...It's an answer that would come up with just a little thought, even without precognition. But even if it's sincerely given advice, if the heart is closed, it won't be heard."
Leaving behind ominous words until the very end, Perel concealed herself in the darkness. Even in the pitch blackness where nothing could be seen, it seemed she could clearly see only the future of escaping this place. I felt reality twist, and before I knew it, Perel's thoughts had vanished. She had fled.
To be able to retreat without a single hair harmed even if appearing suddenly in the middle of enemy lines on the opposite side of the continent. While some people agonize to avoid making enemies! Then again, you need that kind of power to safely go around picking fights in all directions.
"Hmph. What a crafty bunch. They claim to read the future, but all they can do is sow discord and fabricate charges."
"They did it because it's effective. It worked this time too, didn't it? We ended up in a death match with Claudia without any particular cause."
I shrugged and looked around.
Come to think of it, the Holy Imperial Court had only recruited the Thunder Lord alone. Yet this much blood was spilled. Hundreds of Thunder Lord and Thunder Guardians who had led and operated Claudia until now had died, so even if no one else stirs things up, the chain of grudges will entangle and swell like a snowball.
Fortunately, at least now the Ten Nations had a king who received both hatred and awe in equal measure.
"...Leave."
The King of the Ten Nations issued us an order to leave.