Chapter 208
I had felt it vaguely.
That something was going wrong.
‘That's right.’
I was just making a game.
A game where someone would be moved, someone would feel heartache, and focus and immerse themselves.
But they were not like that.
They were more serious than me, as if trying to create another world.
But I was only bewildered. I did not doubt.
Until that incident happened.
“Author. Isn't this saintess's personality too strong? Well, you could call it individuality, but it's too hardcore. Even if our game is rated 15+, isn't this too much? Don't we need to fix this?”
When 70% of the game was completed.
The person who gave me feedback on the character died in an accident.
One person, two people. Like that, people died for various reasons.
Others didn't know.
But I couldn't help but know.
They had something in common, and that was they were the ones who had interfered with me in various ways.
I was afraid.
But I didn't tell anyone.
It was like a revelation from God.
Because it felt like God was helping me to unfold my will as much as I wanted.
I was afraid, but I didn't stop.
I spurred the story progression even more.
And finally, when even she died.
I realized.
That eventually, I too would die.
Swish.
As soon as I opened my eyes, I frowned involuntarily at the sharp voice that reached my ears.
[What filthy, half-chewed willpower.]
My sluggish thinking, like life functions stagnant from the cold, began to analyze my surroundings.
The hallucination of her with the torn mouth was no longer beside me.
Instead, a familiar man was standing there.
The one reproaching me in front of me was the original owner of this body, the scoundrel I thought was dead.
‘Is it Sasahjakbi?’
I couldn't know for sure whether it was the influence of Sasahjakbi, which had activated every time I was in a life-threatening crisis, the harmony of the sanctuary made of sorrow, or both.
However, Callius had appeared before my eyes.
And I could tell he was helping me.
[Seeing you flounder in the sanctuary you created yourself, you must be quite pathetic.]
Hearing words of criticism from the face I had called my own for a while felt quite unpleasant.
Had the guys around me been listening to harsh words from a guy with a face like this all this time?
I wanted to praise them for how they endured it.
“Shut up.”
[Trash. Enduring what you cannot endure is patience. If you are borrowing my body, you must endure even more.]
Borrowing.
Meaning I had to return it someday.
I nodded.
Because this body wasn't mine.
I didn't want it either.
But just as I was about to say it was mine now.
Callius curled the corners of his mouth as if mocking me.
[If you discard the small, you gain the small. Discard the great and gain greatly.]
Discard the great and gain greatly.
I couldn't grasp the true meaning of those words.
Whether it meant himself, or something greater.
“……Are you okay?”
[You overstep your bounds.]
“Is that so.”
Kwaaaak.
The bastard grabbed my collar.
Callius was smiling, but it also seemed like he was crying.
[Do what you can do.]
Watching the guy disappear with a swish.
I gripped my sword.
“Damn bastard.”
I don't even know what I'm talking about.
Am I talking about the current situation?
Or this world?
But what I had to do was the same.
“Piece of trash sword.”
The speech habit of the guy I had tried not to imitate had already rubbed off on me.
Even as I clicked my tongue, the corners of my mouth rose.
I struck down with the sword raised above my head, with enough force to break it.
Crunch-!
Kieeeeeeeee-!
The damn ghostly wail strikes my eardrums.
My body is pushed back by the wild storm exploding from within the broken sword.
At the same time, the mental image collapses.
Torn, broken, and crushed.
And then.
Crash-!
The sanctuary crumbling into pieces.
Standing alone in the shattered castle of pure white winter, among all the frozen things.
I raised the corners of my mouth looking at the largest one.
“Discard the great and gain greatly, huh……”
Looking at the frozen dragon right before my eyes.
I partially agreed with his words.
Lumpaad's holy armor.
And the holy dragon.
With just these two, it would be more than enough to fill the broken sorrow.
Erviwe.
The fire dragon froze to death, curled up tightly. Seeing it dead as if holding something precious, it looked like it had met the son who died in the Sanctuary of Sorrow.
Of course, that wasn't my concern.
More than the dragon, my interest was first on that.
“Holy armor…… Normally, I wouldn't have cared.”
Normally, since I had formed bad ties with Lumpaad, I would have just taken it and given it to Cedric.
With the gauntlets and greaves he possessed, he could unite the first holy relics, merge the fragmented god into one, and gain great power.
Becoming the master of the holy armor was no different from becoming the master of Lumpaad.
Even though Lumpaad's royal castle was completely frozen, the troops here weren't all of Lumpaad.
Lumpaad was still useful.
If I became the king of Lumpaad, I would surely be able to help Carpe.
However.
“There's no need to go that far.”
I took out the holy armor from the frozen dragon.
The body that had worn the holy armor had long been broken anyway, as it transformed back to its original form.
“Seeing that it used the holy armor, it seems God allowed it…… It didn't corrupt easily. Was it just a whim?”
Or did they like it?
It's a rare occurrence, so it could be.
Gods are incomprehensible beings.
But it doesn't matter.
“Even if I wore it, I wouldn't be able to draw out the power of the holy armor.”
Because it belongs to another god.
Just as a sword cannot use a spear.
Just as a spear cannot use a shield.
Because it cannot draw out its true power.
Clank. Clank.
I tried drawing out the silver divine power, but I couldn't draw out the power of the holy armor.
Up to this point, it went as I thought.
But Callius spoke.
Endure. Discard the great.
And.
“Do what you can do.”
Put differently.
“Do what only you can do.”
It means something like that.
And the power I had been thinking about all along.
Divine power and demonic power.
A power born from the combination of divine power, demonic power, and dragon power.
Remnant. What kind of power is this.
A power I had never designed, never even conceived. A power that only I can manifest in this world.
It is a power mixed together while repelling each other.
But if I use this well, wouldn't I be able to use the power of other divine weapons?
“What only I can do.”
Could that perhaps.
Be referring to this?
I agonized over it. And I executed it.
Swish. The gray energy rose.
The Remnant rose.
It seeped into the holy armor.
The pure white holy armor was dyed gray.
Seeing the armor dyed in my color as if it had been waiting, I was seized with ecstasy. The world greatly shook, as if my answer was the correct one.
Rumble-!
“It seems to be the correct answer.”
Then, Crrrack-! The sky opened.
Like an eye looking down at me.
I felt a strange pressure, as if the eyelids of a god had opened and was looking down at me.
Heaven and earth trembled as if I had done something I shouldn't have.
【I will reclaim it.】
“……!!”
Pure white light shines down.
It was as if divine power was pouring down like a waterfall. At the same time, the white energy remaining in the holy armor I was wearing began to leak out along with the light.
Suffocating pressure.
As the waterfall of light eventually faded, Callius panted for breath.
Was the god angry?
Or did they let out an exclamation?
I don't know. I don't want to know.
I'm not curious. But simply.
I just feel it.
“Now…… I think I understand a little. Why I am here.”
Fizz.
I don't know what God's intention is.
But I now know my path a little.
Thump. The sky closed again.
A strange sense of loss blooms.
I felt it instinctively.
I lost the power that had guided and protected me all this time.
But today. I truly transcended.
Like a bird breaking out of its shell.
I broke out of the world.
“A sheath……”
If you hold a sword, a sword sheath. If you hold a spear, a spear sheath.
A sheath that embraces everything.
I'm probably going down a completely different path than the one they desired.
But precisely because of that.
This is the best choice for me.
It was then.
Swaaaash.
Various lights descended from all over the world.
East, West, South, North.
No, regardless of that, waterfalls of divine power like the one just now poured out from the other side of the world.
As many as the number of gods existing in this world, variously shining pillars of light are driven into the world.
I felt it instinctively.
I felt it even without looking at the status window I could no longer see.
“The difficulty has gone up too much.”
Those lights are the light of oracles.
All the gods' oracles poured out simultaneously were to kill me.
My intuition told me.
* * *
Thump.
The flag symbolizing the Empire.
The golden throne engraved with the emblem of the Holy Spear and God's whispers.
The Emperor of the Empire sitting on it.
Mordred of Glory Laktus.
Emperor Mordred shouted.
“An oracle has descended.”
Thump.
At every word he said, the knights stamped their spears on the floor.
“We shall bring down Carpe, who holds the gray apostate, and purify the impurity.”
Clack. Clack. Clack.
Outside the throne room. Hundreds of elites lined up in unison beat their spears on the floor.
At the Emperor's command,
No. As if responding to the command of Laktus.
The Emperor, watching the sight, turned his head and glared at one place.
Where his gaze headed was Carpe.
The place where the spear suffered humiliation, and where the apostate stands.
“Everything is according to the Spear's will.”
It was natural for the spearhead to head there.
The gods want Carpe's destruction and the annihilation of the apostasy born from Carpe.
If the gods want it.
The Empire merely fulfills it.
“According to God's will.”
* * *
Taptaptap.
Bang!
Esther, who had flung the door wide open, shouted at Joonis, who was drinking tea.
“What was that oracle just now?”
“How should I know. That gray guy, it's him, right? What's with the sudden oracle, and what did he do this time that the gods are telling us to kill him?”
There is a gray apostate holding a sword and armor.
The one who broke the taboo is a warped impurity, so cut off the bud and purify the impurity.
The meaning of the oracle's content was something they couldn't not know.
The gray apostate holding a sword and armor.
They didn't know what the armor and the apostasy meant, but with just the word 'gray', they couldn't help but think of Callius.
Because, for some reason, his figure had briefly appeared in the gods' voices.
“I don't know that either. But.”
He was alive.
Dyeing the holy armor in his color and standing in the pure white snowfield, his figure was even too sacred.
“I guess he's alive. Seeing that he's hated by the gods. I told you he's a weird guy.”
They were relieved that he was alive.
And they had to prepare.
“Carpe is going to be in danger.”
At the very least, the light did not fall on Carpe.
In a situation where all the gods had risen, there were also gods who chose silence or observation.
The God of Shields chose silence,
and the God of Swords seemed to have chosen observation first, perhaps because he was his believer. But even if the two decided not to intervene, it didn't change much.
The justification of an oracle.
The countries of the continent, established by the power of the gods, had all received the oracle.
In the end, Carpe and he.
Hadn't they become the target of the world?
“I came here thinking it was safe, but I guess I came looking for a place to die. Shit.”
* * *
Flinch.
The pitch-black castle.
The woman with pale skin sitting there opened her eyes.
Her hair was long, wavy, and black as if dyed in darkness.
“The detestable gods have risen all at once.”
Beneath her feet.
Countless corrupted beings rose.
“Find the gray apostate. Faster than the slaves of the gods. We must find him.”
He is exactly.
The hope of corruption.