Chapter 166
"I thought you would simply want to die, but it seems that isn't exactly the case."
[You are right. I want to die.]
However.
[I refuse to die by the power of a god.]
"What is the reason?"
[Because it is repulsive.]
Repulsive? As she questioned this, the undying Fallen rather twitched his eyebrows.
[Do you not know? Well, I suppose you might not.]
"About what?"
[Have you ever thought about who created us, those you call demons, or the Fallen?]
"That would obviously be themselves."
Does one seek the reason for their fall in another?
As she answered, finding it absurd, he shook his head as if he expected it.
"Are you saying I am wrong?"
[There are those like that. But some are not. Have you ever thought about why the terms demon and Fallen came to be? The two are the same, yet different.]
Demons and the Fallen.
The world calls them as one, yet refers to them separately.
The Saint had never bothered to think deeply about the reason.
"……."
[I was also like you.]
At the sigh-laden lament spat out by the undying Fallen, the Saint unknowingly recalled the question about the world she had always harbored.
What does one become upon transcending humanity?
Where do the Sages, who still exist on the continent, ultimately go?
Those thoughts ravaged her mind.
But the Saint did not let go of the strength in the hand gripping her spear.
"Do you intend to mock me with nonsense?"
The Saint was slightly shaken.
She didn't know if this was a Fallen's enchantment or what, but she must not be swayed.
[It is merely a question to a young junior.]
And.
The undying Fallen completely regenerated his entire body.
Restoring even his blackened flesh and torn clothes to their original state.
[It is merely advice from a senior who walked ahead, wishing to resolve your doubts.]
"Nonsense!"
Boom-!
The Saint's single spear thrust.
Her strike, reinforcing the spearhead, tore through the Fallen's newly restored clothes and pierced his shoulder.
Along with his bursting shoulder, the Fallen's blackened flesh transformed into multiple tentacles.
The tentacles soon morphed into the shapes of various monsters and charged to tear the Saint apart.
Crack! Boom! Thud-!
Boomboomboomboomboom-!
The Saint's holy spear, repeatedly thrusting at ultra-high speed, radiated light.
[I was also a Sage. But how did I end up like this?]
"Shut up!"
Amidst the Saint's shout commanding him to shut up.
The Fallen's solemn voice echoed gently.
[I faced the god I serve.]
Flinch.
Her steps wavered.
The Fallen did not miss that opening.
Crunch!
"Keuk!"
One of the Fallen's tentacles, which had turned into a monster's fangs, bit the Saint's ankle.
The wound was minor.
However, it was enough of a wound to turn the tide of the battle.
[When I faced the god, I wanted to become his servant.]
Thwack! Slash! Splatter!
Between the severed tentacles, shattering armor, and scattering fresh blood.
The Fallen's sorrowful voice pierced through.
[What do you think the god said to me? To me, who had spent my entire life looking only at him and walking the path of asceticism!!]
The corners of the Saint's eyes trembled.
It wasn't just because of the pain of bleeding.
Because the Fallen's voice was not simply to bewitch her.
Because he was shedding tears.
Because his voice contained sincerity.
[The god looked at me and called me a failure.]
The tears of the Fallen, who had come to a halt, had unknowingly turned into tears of blood.
To him, who had yearned his entire life and bowed before the god he wished to reach.
The god simply cast him away with a detached voice, an unpleased tone as if stating that a pebble by the road was indeed just a pebble.
[Saying I was not even worth making into a weapon, the god cast me away.]
I fell.
Becoming neither one thing nor another, I fell endlessly, and ultimately, became this.
[I became an existence that could neither die nor live as I pleased. I am not a demon. I am the Fallen. An existence abandoned by god, yet simultaneously craving god's love and hating him.]
The world calls them the Fallen.
[Those who spent their entire lives becoming people for god, becoming god's hands and feet, and ultimately wishing to become his weapon, yet failed to do so.]
Where could those cast away by god go?
An ambiguous existence, neither human nor god.
Those who are neither here nor there stood on the ground, unable to die or live, harboring love and hate for god.
"……."
[Do you think your god would be different?]
Ailee fell silent.
She, too, likely knew the answer well.
[Most of the Order is focused on creating a weapon worthy of god. But will god be satisfied with that?]
The Fallen sneered.
Why does god obsess over weapons?
Why does god grant divine power to those who believe in him and make them strong?
Why does he personally cast away those he has taken in, call them evil, and make them stand on the ground?
'God...'
Why does he exist?
Many questions overturn her mind.
Her unraveling faith makes her lose her target and causes the tip of her spear to waver.
Craaash!
Beaten by the tentacles, the Saint was sent flying and crashed into a pile of rocks.
[Hoh.]
A situation where the victor was clear to anyone.
But the undying Fallen tilted his head as if intrigued.
[Even in that situation, you focused on reinforcing only your head and internal organs to minimize damage? You were born with talent, at least.]
Holy Spear Raphael.
The innate ability of Reinforcement dwelling within it was truly remarkable.
The more it focused on one thing, the greater its power became.
If the target of reinforcement was set large, the effect would weaken, but if aimed at a small target, the power multiplied according to the area.
[Then how about this.]
Whirl.
A whip was created in the Fallen's hand.
Unlike the tentacles he had roughly pulled out to fight with, it was a somewhat heterogeneous whip.
[I pay my respects to your skill. You couldn't kill me... but you are enough to make me hold this weapon I had no wish to grasp.]
Rumbleeee-
Soon, a tranquil energy spread widely from the Fallen.
Merely by holding the whip in his hand, the area vibrated, and all the sand and dust settled.
Whoooosh-!
"……!!"
A fierce energy surged.
At that sight, not only the Saint of the Spear stuck in the rock pile, but even the Saint of the Shield felt their blood run cold.
A fierce energy they had never experienced before.
The Fallen, holding the energy that erupted like an active volcano in one hand, swung his arm down.
[Sky Rending.]
Whoosh-!
Slaaaaash-!
A single lash of the whip.
An attack of merely swinging a simple whip.
However, the result it brought about was devastatingly gruesome.
"Uwaaak! Fuck!!"
The clouds in the sky split apart as if torn, and several stone pillars of Oblpiks were half-destroyed as if ripped. From where the Fallen stood to where the Saint was.
Everything from the sky to the ground was torn away as if a huge groove had been carved out.
Junis, who had nearly died rolling around simply because she was nearby, recoiled in disgust at the Fallen's true power.
She never expected it to be to this extent.
'Is this what a true Fallen is?'
Unbelievable.
If it was really at this level, it wasn't the time to worry about that bitch.
Even if that bastard jumped out of his grave.
Even if he brought the fairy's body!
'We can't win.'
Let alone winning, it was uncertain if they could even survive.
They underestimated it too much.
If the Fallen were truly such existences.
"There's no way we can win..."
Those called Sages all stood at the pinnacle of the continent in terms of talent alone.
Those who strived and strived to reach the pinnacle of the heavens and faced god.
Yet, those who were not chosen by god, cast away, and fell.
If they were truly called the Fallen, there was no way the current generation could deal with them.
"We should run away even now..."
The Saint wasn't the problem.
The dangerous one was the Fallen.
It wasn't the time to think about Saint-like problems like the continent or god.
Right now, it was her own life.
She could only think of that.
A natural instinct of a living creature witnessing an insurmountable powerful enemy.
The reflexive instinct to fear was flight.
Because that was a natural principle.
But that was merely Junis's wish.
Halt.
The Saint's feet, about to run away, stopped.
Then, her twisted lips, pulling up, spat out a curse.
"Fucking Trait."
But the Trait blocked it.
An enemy threatening humanity.
The duty of a Saint who witnessed it bound her feet. The Saint, dripping cold sweat, eventually shed tears.
And taking out a circular shield from the air, she laughed like a madwoman.
"I'm going crazy. Keukeuk. Ah, fuck."
Her legs trembled.
But the Trait inherent in her kept telling her to fulfill the Saint's duty.
Her damned personality made her spit out curses even now and forced her to fulfill the duty of the shield.
"Shitty trait. Shitty duty. Shitty sense of obligation. It's all dog shit, fuck."
But even so, she laughed.
Even in a shitty situation, she spat out laughter like a crazy person.
Because Junis was that kind of existence.
Because this body was originally like that!
"Get up, you spear bitch!"
Drip!
The bloodied Saint Ailee soon bolted up from the dirt pile.
"…Reinforcement."
The wrist holding the spear was twisted.
It was the aftermath of blocking the Fallen's whip for even a moment. The Saint took out a vial of holy water from the air, gulped it down, and snapped her twisted wrist.
Crack!
The blood gradually stopped, and the condition of her wrist improved. Her breathing settled.
However, unlike before, her momentum was noticeably dampened.
"Junis. How far can you go."
"Until your mother's dying breath."
"Crazy bitch."
"You just realized?"
Snickering, Junis then held up one finger.
"One time."
"Why don't you just die."
"I'll die at least a second later than you. You bitch. If you don't want to die, stab well."
Thump.
Junis pulled up her divine power.
Vitality surged into her dry skin.
Muscles attached, and life temporarily blossomed. Her presence grew rapidly.
But this was only temporary.
Blinding divine power scattered from the Saint's shield.
"Reinforcement."
Soon, crimson divine power enveloped Junis's shield.
"Here I go, shiiiiit-!"
Junis charged.
The more she charged, the larger blue petals bloomed from the circular shield.
At the same time, the Fallen's whip was swung once more.
[Sky Rending.]
Slaaaaash-!
As if it had become the sky itself, a massive pressure engulfed Junis.
Yet, the shield stood firm.
Because the shield was such a thing.
The courage to stand at the forefront where one can never flee, nor should flee, before any pressure and fear.
The very shape of courage.
That was exactly the shield!
"I am the shield, you bastaaaaard!"
Craaaash-!!
Screeeech-!
The shield, reinforced by the Saint's power, deflected the whip.
Simultaneously, the ground split, and dark blood spurted from Junis's mouth.
"Ah, fuck..."
Junis, vomiting blood, looked with sickly, chicken-like eyes at the Saint who instantly pushed ahead.
Bitch.
Cursing so, Junis collapsed, and before her, Ailee's spear radiated a massive light.
"Seven Stars - Extinction."
The Saint's spear, flashing as if going extinct, pierced the Fallen once more.
The remaining arm transformed into multiple tentacles once again.
Papapapat.
However, the power dwelling in the giant spear annihilated the tentacles without a trace.
Drop.
Booooooom-!
Ailee's holy spear.
Seven Stars - Extinction.
The sight of the light flickering as if extinguishing was merely an optical illusion.
A continuous thrusting of the spear thrust at a count too high to even count.
The annihilation appeared as extinction due to that bizarre technical phenomenon.
Yet, its power was beyond imagination. The ultimate thrust.
Hundreds of thousands of thrusts contained within a single thrust pierced through everything.
Creak, creeeak.
"Kuha..."
The Saint stood frozen in the posture of thrusting her spear, exhaling violently.
And before her was the undying Fallen, whose upper body had entirely exploded.
"I applied, holy water, to the, spearhead. Huff, huuuuu..."
The Fallen's regeneration, which should have originally occurred, was slow.
Thud.
The slumped Saint drove her spear into the ground and barely stood up again.
Even though she wanted to slump down and lie down, she couldn't.
Because she was a Saint.
Because the duty bound to that viciously made her fulfill her obligation.
"Did... he die."
Cough. Junis's voice, as she lay vomiting blood, reached Ailee's ears.
But she couldn't readily answer.
The Fallen's regeneration had slowed.
But it had only slowed.
It did not stop.
'If only it had been Spear Holy Water.'
Just in case, entrusting the Spear Holy Water to Vain, the 12th spear who would assist the Princess and Prince, had become a disaster.
A state so exhausted that she couldn't even move a fingertip.
Junis, as mentioned earlier, was on the verge of death after just one hit, and she had poured out all her heart and soul.
But despite that, the Fallen was not dying and was achieving regeneration.
Even with his upper half completely blown away, the tentacles were writhing, struggling to connect with each other.
Her own helplessness, watching that and being unable to do anything, welled up.
[It is a... repulsive power.]
A chill crept up her spine.
As she flinched and turned her head, the bastard's head had already regenerated and was rolling on the floor.
[God was always like that. God inflicts trials upon his believers like tempering a weapon.]
The more one overcame it, the greater the trial he would inflict.
As if wishing for his weapon to become stronger.
[Could there be a more disgusting bastard than this? Do you truly believe that thing deserves to be called a god?]
Slither.
From the head, a neck emerged. Then shoulders appeared, and arms and the upper body formed.
Tentacles sprouted from it, connecting to the lower body, and slowly joined together like a braided whip.
[If you overcome a crisis, another danger comes. If you overcome that? Yet another danger comes. Those who cry out to god call it a trial, deify it, and even seek it out themselves. Truly, it was a foolish act.]
Doing so might eventually make one a weapon that satisfies god.
But even if one becomes that, if another weapon appears, it is a fate of being discarded.
[Do you know why those who fell like me waged war on the continent?]
The undying Fallen, who had approached closely at some point, had bitter eyes.
[It was to redeem the foolish ones deceived by god.]
His single word.
The truths he whispered shook the Saint's pupils and made her fingertips tremble.
[Will you ultimately become god's spear? Even if it is a fate of being discarded someday?]
Ailee could not answer.
"I..."
A trembling voice.
The moment her voice was about to gently echo through the valley.
"I don't know why a guy who wants to die has such a long tongue."
Swipe.
The Fallen's neck turned.
At the end of his gaze.
A man stood there.
[...Can you kill me?]
To the Fallen's question asked as if he had been waiting, the man answered as if it were obvious.
"No."
Stab.
The man, who had plunged his sword into the Fallen's chest at some point, fluttered his black hair.
"How do you kill a guy who's already dead."
But instead.
"I can devour him."
[With this insignificant sword?]
The sword embedded in the undying Fallen's heart.
It was neither the 'Iron Monarch' nor another Phantom Sword, but a sword with a scabbard.
It was the Devouring Sword - Roas.
"Devour it. This place is my."
Plant.
The planted [Monarch's Banner]
"Sanctuary."
Soon, the world was covered in ash gray.