As I said before, there were many reasons to suspect Kreutzwald.
His poor explanation of the truth and the flimsy grounds for his actions.
And that voice, which so closely resembled the Abyss.
What I am about to speak of now was one of them as well.
One of the many reasons I could not help but suspect Kreutzwald.
It concerned the vanished history.
The records of the war from a thousand years ago, which could not be found anywhere in the world.
Even in the imperial palace library, where records from far earlier than a thousand years ago still existed in plain sight, the war against the Aberrations was not recorded.
No, to be precise, it had been recorded—but the records had been damaged.
I had once asked Kreutzwald about it.
Why had the records of the war against the Aberrations from a thousand years ago disappeared?
At that time, Kreutzwald had answered thus.
That, too, was the price of black magic.
He said the history of the war had vanished as the price paid for black magic.
Back then, all I could do was nod.
Even knowing how absurd those words were, I had no choice but to do so.
Because there was nothing I could accomplish by raising further doubts there.
Because before overwhelming power, I could only hold my breath and endure.
The records of the war had not vanished for something like the price of black magic.
They had been torn out. Torn and damaged by someone.
Only the most important pages, with pinpoint precision.
A history book whose pages had been torn so meticulously that, unless one looked closely, the traces were barely visible.
So even as I nodded, I was certain inside.
The war against the Aberrations had been erased by Kreutzwald himself.
All the records, and the truth as well.
He had personally stepped forward and torn history apart with his own hands.
Why on earth?
For what reason?
What was he trying to hide?
That was not the only question I had failed to solve.
At the time, I had let it pass without much thought, but now there was one more thing I simply could not understand.
Before I had yet come to the end of the world, when I was still on the continent.
At that time, when I had met the goddess Ripue in the sanctuary of Hiberunia and spoken with her.
The words the goddess had left behind before falling asleep.
—Will you end up joining the Deathsworn? Or will you form a new Deathsworn yourself?
At the time, I had only vaguely guessed what those words meant.
—I am curious to see how your story ends… but I am so very tired.
Because there had been many other things to think about and worry over besides that.
—Child. Do not forget.
At the goddess’s last words, spoken languidly.
—You are my hope.
Because my heavy heart had grown even more unbearably heavy.
When some time had passed and I had calmed down a little, I had vaguely speculated that perhaps Kreutzwald was a member of the Deathsworn.
Because I had believed without a doubt that it was Kreutzwald who had saved Hio and Daphne in the labyrinth, and I had thought he was fighting against the Abyss.
But now I knew.
He had not been one of the Deathsworn.
He could never be someone who resolved to die for something and gave his all.
He had lost his homeland and lost his kingdom.
He had lost his family and lost his life.
In the end, he had lost his heart, and even his humanity had been stolen away as the price of black magic, leaving him to become the master of the Abyss.
As if even that were not enough, he was swept up in the false desire to become a god, to revive his family as a god and bring stability to the world.
“My disciple, Pavlenko. It seems you do not know this well, but gods are, by nature, cruel beings. A human heart does not exist in them.”
Wrong.
Ripue was one who understood the heart.
She was a god who knew responsibility and weight.
She was a warm existence to whom one could bare the knots in one’s heart.
She was the goddess of hope, who could not hide her sorrow even as she handed hope over.
“And the gods of the past were incomplete. They lost to the Abyss and could not read the future… Behold. Did they not even fail to grasp a massive variable such as myself and vanish among themselves?”
Wrong again.
The goddess had known Kreutzwald.
She had known that he had taken possession of the emptied Abyss.
And thus, she had told Hio that he was not one of the Deathsworn.
“But what of me? I have become the master of the Abyss, which they could do nothing about, and at the same time I will obtain divinity. I shall become the most perfect god, unprecedented and never to be repeated.”
And so he was pitiful.
「Hidden Trait: No Violence! (Endurance: 998 / 1000)」
That smile he forced onto his face, twisting it grotesquely.
The fate in which he went on living without even knowing his humanity had been stolen.
That attitude of his, convinced that he knew everything.
「Hidden Trait: No Violence! (Endurance: 999 / 1000)」
And that certainty, believing that everything would soon go according to his will.
“Poor Kreutzwald.”
Everything about him was pitiful.
「Congratulations! You have achieved the goal of the hidden trait ‘No Violence!’」
「Please choose one of the skills you possess.」
* * *
After reaching the 6th Circle, the number of spells Hio learned from Kreutzwald was three in total.
The very first one he learned was a black magic spell called “Dark Dome.”
Black magic did not necessarily require the payment of a price. This was a spell that could use the purest dark mana—the dark mana that could be extracted from souls—as its medium.
Black magic that required a price belonged to the “sacrifice” branch among the two schools of black magic, while the Dark Dome Hio learned belonged to the “darkness” branch and could be seen as an entirely different kind… but I will omit any overly detailed explanation.
In any case, black magic of the darkness branch, which handled pure dark mana, was a method Hio had become fairly familiar with when learning Kreutzwald-style necromancy.
Of course, here at the end of the world, there was no way to replenish souls, so he had substituted it with the power of the Abyss, and this became the strongest among Hio’s attack spells.
The original Dark Dome was a spell that turned an area into a domain of darkness and used the power of pure dark mana to break down the minds and bodies of enemies within it.
But the Dark Dome that had been substituted and modified with the Abyss instead of dark mana was different.
It became a domain of pure destruction.
Once a cast Dark Dome lifted, the area was left so devastated that nothing remained.
That was how destructive the spell was.
He had never used it as a skill, but since its destructive power was so great, its effect was certain to be tremendous as well.
So if Dark Dome evolved through the power of the hidden trait into a skill, it would surely become an incredible destruction skill.
The second spell he learned was a gravity spell called “Gravity.”
It was a wide-area support spell that increased the gravity of a designated location severalfold and controlled movement.
It was a spell far superior to “Entangle,” which made grass or trees grow to bind the body, but to be honest, it was not particularly useful.
The same was true when facing Aberrations.
The fact that it could control one direction was an advantage, but due to the nature of Hio’s combat style, he fought while constantly changing positions, and in such situations, there was neither need nor reason to keep using Gravity, which consumed a great deal of mental strength and mana.
To be honest, he suspected Kreutzwald had simply thrown him some decent-looking spell without much thought.
What mattered to him was Hio gaining enlightenment and expanding the rank and vessel of his soul, not learning an excellent 6th Circle spell.
So even if it evolved into a skill, it was a spell he could not quite picture how it would evolve.
Well, since most things could be substituted with the domain of void, he did not feel any particular need to evolve it.
And the last spell he learned was Teleport.
This was the spell Hio had specifically pointed out and asked Kreutzwald to teach him, and it was also what made him certain that Kreutzwald did not know his true ability.
The hidden trait that evolved magic into powerful skills through endurance.
If Kreutzwald had known of that, Teleport was a spell he would never have taught him.
It was a spell he had learned under the pretext that there would be many occasions to use it once he escaped the end of the world and went out onto the continent.
A long-distance spatial movement spell that moved one to a designated location.
It required one to know the coordinates of the destination, and although it was relatively simple, it had many drawbacks, such as the need to draw an auxiliary magic circle and the considerable time it took to connect the passage.
But did he not know one method that could cover all those drawbacks?
「You have selected the skill—‘Teleport.’」
「Analyzing the effect of the skill linked to the trait—‘Teleport.’」
The power Kreutzwald had dismissed.
The combined work of the gods, which had allowed him to stand against Kreutzwald, whom he should not even have been able to oppose in the first place.
The System.
「Analysis complete.」
「The hidden trait reward—‘Patience Is Bitter, but Its Fruit Is Sweet!’—will be applied to the skill ‘Teleport.’」
However, this sixth evolution of a hidden trait was a little different.
「This skill has no room for evolution.」
「Breaking through the limits of the skill.」
「Grade—‘Transcendence’ has been unlocked.」
A message he had never seen before, and a word he had never seen before.
A new grade beyond the highest tier: Transcendence.
It was a concept that had not existed even in the game, but in a way, it was only natural.
Needing to know the coordinates on the other side, needing to prepare an auxiliary magic circle, the casting time being fairly long, and so on.
As a spell, Teleport had quite a few drawbacks, but the moment it was used as a skill, did those drawbacks not immediately disappear?
So even if he chose it through the hidden trait, it was a skill with no room left to evolve.
「The grade of the skill—‘Teleport’—has been raised to ‘Transcendence.’」
「The skill name of the skill—‘Teleport’—has been changed to the skill—‘Dimensional Shift (次元轉移).’」
A sensation he had not felt during previous evolutions.
A feeling as though something within him, neither soul nor body, had broken through its shell and opened wide.
“…So you still had one last trick left.”
Perhaps Kreutzwald also sensed that something was extraordinary, for an Abyss darker than the Abyss itself—
That monster which he firmly believed to be his own will—rushed toward Hio.
「Transcendent Skill—‘Dimensional Shift (次元轉移)’ is activating.」
But the broken nature of skills was that they could activate even faster than that.
「Please designate the destination.」
First, it was certain he had to move to the Verden Continent.
Then where, among its many places, should he move?
At first, he had thought of going near Vitalianus.
Because wherever Vitalianus was would surely always be the most dangerous and fiercest battlefield.
But the reason he changed his mind was none other than because it was Vitalianus.
His side would be the most dangerous place, but at the same time, it would also be the safest.
‘Verden Continent.’
Since he could not know the situation on the continent, this time he decided to entrust it to the System’s judgment.
He decided to actively make use of this great System said to have been created by the gods joining forces.
‘The most important and the most dangerous place.’
It might be somewhat forced, and depending on how it was understood, the ambiguous phrase could be interpreted in many ways.
「Designation complete.」
「‘Continent of Verden’—‘Kingdom of Hiberunia’—‘City of Eldrida’」
But the System completed the designation immediately, without the slightest delay.
And then, soon after.
Wooooong—
Space split open.
The layers of space piled atop one another split apart with a rattling sound, and what was revealed was a vast wall of dimensions.
The wall of the world, shimmering as it was wrapped in all manner of colors.
The boundary between sky and earth blurred, and the dimensional wall rose so high that its end could not be seen.
Wooooong—
It split.
Kreutzwald’s twisted face.
His dense darkness.
Even Hio’s smiling expression as he faced him.
As though time itself had stopped, everything came to a halt.
「‘Dimensional Shift (次元轉移)’ is beginning.」
In that fleeting instant.
In that exceedingly brief moment when space opened, a rift in the dimensions split apart, and everything stopped moving.
“…!”
The one whose eyes widened in shock was not Kreutzwald, but Hio.
The smile Hio had been wearing as he grinned, thinking he had landed a blow on Kreutzwald, hardened.
The reason his startled eyes began to tremble faintly.
Unlike Kreutzwald’s gaze, which was fixed on Hio, Hio’s gaze was aimed past Kreutzwald, a little farther behind him.
It must have been because the Abyss had been brightly illuminated by the light of the activated skill, “Dimensional Shift.”
It must have been because beings even Hio had not sensed had been hiding not too far away, holding their breath.
Because the face of the one standing at the very front of them was terribly familiar.
Though the face was a little older than in his memories, there was no mistaking it.
A group of people dressed in all manner of attire.
And among them, the person who stood at the very front and met Hio’s eyes was—
‘That is…’
The greatest mage of his age, who had fought against the Aberrations a thousand years ago.
Abelard Pavlenko.
And the group with him.
A band of the resolute, who risked their lives in pursuit of their will.
Against Kreutzwald.
Against the Abyss, the true heroes who had fought for more than a thousand years.
‘The Deathsworn.’
「Targets: ‘Hio Pavlenko,’ ‘Kreutzwald Aten’」
「‘Dimensional Shift (次元轉移)’ has been completed.」
The Deathsworn still remained in the Abyss.