"I simply wanted all of them to achieve their own desires. And that 'all' includes you."
The 'all' I spoke of includes you. The Saintess of Light who watched over this place from that distant realm, guiding people with light.
"Knowing what lies above, knowing the evil of those two, and knowing your own strength, you came down and acted directly. You killed Kuram and the Poison Scorpion, and alerted me to the danger of what lies above. This was your judgment, and you obtained it by clashing head-on. It's a perfect result."
Kuram and the Poison Scorpion had sinned in the past, and would likely sin in the future. So Ruel killed them.
The knowledge up there is dangerous. Ruel made that known and stood in my way.
As a result, Kuram and the Poison Scorpion were judged, and unless she permits it, no one will be able to go up.
Ruel achieved everything she wanted.
"Order is fulfilled by judging sinners who violate it. I don't particularly want to judge them on behalf of order. Someone who desires order, like you, should do it yourself. Because that is your desire."
That is a result achieved through strength.
Forcing others with power. The order Ruel speaks of can only be that. Ruel realized the destination of my logic.
"King of Humans. Did you want me to commit a sin?"
"You're right, but don't misunderstand. I don't want only you to do so. To me, you are just another human."
I want everyone to achieve their own desires. Not the responsibility imposed by order, nor desires twisted by suppression until their original wishes are forgotten. I want them to live for honest and pure desires.
Acting like a machine simply because you received an order.
Wielding power without any doubt or agony, leaning on faith.
Granting all sorts of justification merely to hate or despise someone.
Rather than using order simply as a tool to shift responsibility, it's better to act honestly and barbarically.
"My goal has always been the same. Everyone achieving their own desires. Not blindly believing in order, nor confusing given duties with desires, but for pure, own desires."
Everyone acts according to their desires. What if they clash? If to achieve someone's desire, another's must be broken?
It can't be helped.
We just have to fight.
Like how the mage and the paladin stood against me, and like how Ruel came, killed Kuram and the Poison Scorpion, and restrained me.
"After everyone contends with their desires like that, the final surviving victor becomes order! Order is also barbarism. It's only different in scale and power, no different from barbarism!"
Order is not noble. Order is also something to be fought against. It's just too big and powerful.
It must always be challenged. Order must also prove its worth. So that if it's useless, it can be thrown out immediately.
Having heard all my words, Ruel smiled a cloudy smile mixed with pity.
"You do not distinguish between humans and sin. You even deny the attempt to distinguish them?"
Huh? Of course.
What creature likes shackles binding them?
"Hate the sin, but not the sinner. It's a saying to treat sin and human as separate entities. But the King of Humans does not distinguish humans from sin. You treat the judgment carried out by order as the same barbarism as the sins committed by humans."
Right. It's the same. There are only two reasons humans cannot defy order. Either they understand its necessity, or they simply lack the power to overcome order.
It's the same even if you substitute 'order' with 'another human'. We are no different from the very distant past when we followed tribal chiefs.
"As long as you believe so, we still cannot separate sin from humans. The separation of concepts will not occur... Hmm. It was a future I knew, but arriving at it like this is a bit bitter."
The separation of concepts.
Using the King of Beasts, a conceptual entity, to create a being that materializes that very concept.
As expected, the goal of Seonghwangcheong is...
"So that is why two Kings of Humans are needed."
Ruel smiled quietly.
At the top of the Tree of Sin sleeps the King of Humans. Not alive, but not dead either.
Nebida tried to save 'Sister', and the Saintess watched Nebida. Thus, there became two Kings of Humans.
The powerful King of Beasts who embraced the world during the era of barbarism before Year One.
And the King of Beasts who lost its meaning and weakened after civilization emerged.
There cannot be more than one King of Beasts.
Dogs and wolves may share the same roots, but they are different species. They are a new species born from taming the most loyal and human-loving individuals among the pack-living wolves, building bonds over a long time, and imprinting them. Therefore, dogs and wolves could exist with separate Kings.
However, beasts are also conceptual entities.
By clearly distinguishing humans before and after Year One, building civilization, accumulating knowledge, and cultivating power.
Humans finally changed.
To the point where 'Sister' alone could no longer represent humanity.
"You are our success, King of Humans. The new king who finally appeared after humanity underwent a long evolution and maturation. The proof that present humanity is different from the barbarians before Year One."
Ruel, who had been staring at me with sparkling eyes, tilted her head for a moment.
"Even so, you are still barbaric. Even though humanity reached civilization and was reborn as a completely different being from barbarians, you couldn't abandon your barbarism. The arrangement made by the First Saintess cannot promise an unchanging tomorrow. Unless you take one more step forward."
"So you're going to make a King of Sin with the remaining King of Humans?"
Ruel answered plainly.
"The opposite. The one we are trying to create is the side that remains after extracting sin."
The side that remains.
Not the King of Sin, but a pure and good King of Humans remaining after sin is extracted....
A Divine King who receives the power and support of the Saintess, and leads all humans to virtue? Good grief. It's called a Divine King, but it's just a human version of the King of Dogs, isn't it?
"Thinking of playing with others. Did you get my consent?"
"I express my deepest apologies."
"That's reckless. That too must be your barbarism. But is it really okay? The human version of the King of Wolves, the King of Sin, will destroy the world, you know?"
Then Ruel asked back as if puzzled.
"Did Shea say that?"
"Yes. That the King of Sin will appear and destroy this world. That the future you want to avoid is that. Didn't she explain it like that?"
The King of Sin is the wolf-version King of Humans. Me, or 'Sister'. My power is insignificant, so there's a high probability it's Sister.
I don't know if Sister would actually try to kill all humans, or if she has the power to destroy this world alone. But Shea's memories were definitely real. She might not have shown everything, but everything she showed was the truth.
"Shea didn't tell you everything either. But isn't it fine? The King of Sin exists, and if we defeat that being, peace will come. Believing that is much more hopeful, isn't it?"
Ruel retorted cheerfully. Her following words were pessimistic and desperate, mismatching her expression.
"Rather than saying humans carried out a racial suicide and destroyed themselves, that is!"
And I read the thought Ruel had come up with.
***
This world is endlessly fragile and precarious. What I realized as soon as I became a Saintess was that the end is very easy to bring about, and a Saintess can simply reach it.
Ruel, who had been intelligent from the start, understood that fact much faster than any other Saintess. Ruel reread the books left by the 'Prophet'.
Flip. As the page turned, the moment the letters trapped in the paper were illuminated, the world stopped.
The thin paper stiffens. The flowing light slowly illuminates the letters. A single paragraph of the world cut out with scissors, Ruel sank into thought alone amidst the stopped time.
The Earth Mother Goddess's Great Matriarch judges the Overlord and his army at the Bottomless Pit. And then, to prevent war, she wanders the world and kills evil lords. However, she is killed by an assassin, and thus ten indelible Bottomless Pits are created on the continent.
The grace of the Earth Mother Goddess does not visit the Bottomless Pits. The flowing streams of water fall into the holes and reach deep underground. Bugs and fungi vanish into the empty air where they cannot even tread, and a radius of several hundred kilometers becomes desolate.
Even one would be bad enough, but the continent was too fragile to withstand ten Bottomless Pits. Ten vanishing points where earth energy and water veins disappeared. The deeply driven stakes took away all the vitality of this continent like a magic circle.
With the death of the Great Matriarch, the forgiveness of the Earth Mother Goddess could no longer be sought. The deity's believers were killed by the enraged people, and their corpses and knowledge were all thrown into the Bottomless Pits.
Now, even a way to reach the bottom of the Bottomless Pit to find the Great Matriarch's relics has disappeared. Humanity will barely survive on the parched earth, having lost both civilization and knowledge.
"A single Demon God. Furthermore, she was armed with good intentions. Yet the end comes. How fascinating."
The Earth Mother Goddess isn't particularly dangerous. All Demon Gods are like that.
For instance, if the Progenitor of Vampires advanced to the end and awakened as a Pure Demon God. If they gained the power to bestow the power of immortality upon all humans.
Birth is not blessed. Growing into an adult in a short time of less than 20 years, they demand the already cramped land. The population increases, and resources decrease. The dense crowd clashes more. Still, they don't die. Humans merely feel irritated when things don't go their way.
At some point, humans no longer rejoice at children. They do not love children. Because raising them with effort and labor only creates a competitor coveting what is theirs.
Thus, children disappear. Even newborns are found and killed before they can attain immortality. Like a hamster eating its young born in a cramped cage, they even swallow other people's children. And so the world becomes peaceful.
No life is born, and no one meets a natural death. The world gradually dies in boredom like that.
In a world where the crying of children has vanished, the Progenitor who failed to find love feels regret at some point. But the world has already hardened. The gentle she could not go against the demands of her people. Humanity fades away like twilight, holding only a slight lingering regret in its embrace.
"What matters is, what you can do."
-Contemplation ended.
Flip. The turned page softly settles. Enjoying contemplation in stopped time was something only Ruel could do. Already smart and full of curiosity, she often used foresight to polish herself.
Having finished reading a page and even her contemplation, Ruel was about to turn the page again.
"How is it, Ruel? Have you finished your thoughts?"
The Saintess of the Sky, Meiel, was beside her.
Flustered by the sudden appearance, Ruel soon realized. It wasn't that Meiel moved in the stopped time, but that she had foreseen Meiel being here. The future she sees becomes reality.
As Meiel saw the future of 'herself reflected in Ruel's eyes', Ruel came to see her. Whether it is Meiel's physical body or just an illusion formed by gathered light is unknown. It's probably the latter, but that would change depending on what kind of future Meiel sees.
The power to force a desired future. The most heterogeneous among the Saintesses, a wonder that even Ruel, who stops time, could not dare fathom.
What kind of being was the First Saintess who foresaw and blessed that? In the first place, how did she bestow the power to foresee stopped time upon Ruel? She only felt awe.
"Yes. I understand."
Welcoming Meiel, Ruel closed the book and answered.
"That welcoming a today like yesterday is a blessing in itself. And that such a noble and desperate asceticism can only be done by us."
A single Demon God can destroy the world. Even if wrapped in good intentions, it shakes the world and overturns the humans within it.
The world survives in a miraculous coincidence. And within the order created by Seonghwangcheong. To bring an unchanging tomorrow to this world, that miracle must be continuously foreseen.
At wise Ruel's answer, Meiel smiled broadly as if delighted, and said.
"Ruel. The Demon God Tower you met claims to pursue the exploration of Demon Gods on the outside, but actually harbors other intentions. The Red Tower Master Hwaran is trying to create a World Law. A rule woven with Demon Gods."
"Demon God Tower? I haven't heard of it yet."
"Ah. You haven't met them yet. I'm sorry, another story you don't know."
Far from not having met them, she hadn't even climbed the Dragon Gate yet. The plan to rise to the Floating Castle has not yet been realized.
But it seemed that was what reflected in Meiel's eyes. Because it happened often, Ruel listened calmly with patience.
"Most things you'll learn by going up to the Floating Castle and experiencing them. What Ruel needs to know is the World Law. A rule made of Demon Gods. That's what you must be careful of. They will never achieve it, but... if they get their hands on 'Pride' and 'Jizan', they will gain the power to destroy the world."
I know what Pride and Jizan are. It can be inferred from the word Demon God Tower as well.
There is one unfamiliar word. World Law. But it wasn't hard to understand.
"World Law. Like the Celestial God System created by weaving five Demon Gods, it must be a method to project the power of Demon Gods onto the world."
Because the rule woven by the Demon Gods was already being managed by the Saintess.
The number of Demon Gods who swore to protect the world instead of destroying it, including Lightning who joined most recently, is five. It's no match for a newly formed Demon God Tower. Of course, since one Demon God is enough to destroy the world, they must be wary, but...
"The Demon Gods they might be able to find are three. But if you just persuade the Blue Tower Master, it will decrease to one. Ah, the Blue Tower Master refers to the 14th Tower Master, Alisha Cius!"
Meiel's explanation was still unkind, with the past and future mixed together. But it didn't matter.
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Because Ruel was bound to act according to her words.