A pair of enormous wings sprouted from his shoulder blades.
“Dimensional transfer of targets ‘Hio Pavlenko’ and ‘Kreutzwald Aten’ has been completed.”
Perhaps it was the lingering effect of the transcendent skill, “Dimensional Transfer”; even after the transfer ended, they remained and moved as though they were Hio’s true body.
Black wings, flapping on their own despite his lack of intent.
Each wing alone was several meters long.
He had gained such an ability from nothing more than the residual effect of a skill, but Hio had no time to be surprised.
Because he had fallen, for a moment, into an even more serious misconception.
‘……Did it fail?’
That the skill’s activation had failed.
Or that, trusting the system, setting the destination vaguely had caused some kind of error.
That was what he mistook it for.
And no wonder, for what he felt in every direction was the abyss.
Even though he was flapping his wings high up in the sky, all he could see was darkness.
The air was filled with the aura of the abyss, as though he had not yet escaped the end of the world.
- Kueeeek!
He could even sense presences similar to the grotesques.
But that was not it.
It was nothing more than a momentary misconception.
The abyssal aura spread around him was clearly thinner than that at the end of the world.
And what he had thought were grotesques were weak things, not even on the level of Gegek, the very first grotesque he had encountered.
Countless signs of life were distinctly felt beneath his feet.
The divinity of Rifue could be sensed far in the distance.
Dimensional Transfer had succeeded, and he had arrived safely at the capital of Hiberunia.
It was only that the capital of Hiberunia—no, everything beyond it as well—was engulfed in war along with the aura of the abyss.
- Don’t fall back! Hold them off!
- Aaaaaagh!
Shouts and screams, raised in desperation.
The sounds of weapons stabbing flesh, tearing it apart, bursting it open.
For some reason, the abyss was only now surging toward them.
The surging aura of death, and the overflowing souls of the dead.
With the five senses that had expanded upon his enlightenment, ten thousand emotions mingled together and came to him at once.
Even a rough grasp of the situation told him it was the worst possible.
The royal castle and the temple, the heart of Hiberunia, were shaking violently as though they might collapse at any moment.
The knights and soldiers standing before them were screaming as they held back the grotesques swarming in, but it did not look as though they could endure for long.
Why the system had brought Hio here.
Why this place was the most important and the most dangerous, and why it had designated the location immediately, without even a moment’s delay.
He could understand it now.
The situation was already perilous, but if the abyss swallowed that place as well, there would be no need to see what came after.
For that reason, if he followed his heart, he wanted to help them immediately, but he could not.
He must not move recklessly.
“So this is the continent.”
Because Hio was not the only one who had crossed over through Dimensional Transfer.
“The continent.”
Was it because Kreutzwald and Hio had been close to each other just before Dimensional Transfer was cast that they had moved together?
Was it originally possible to set the number of people to be moved separately?
Should he have given an order that only he was to move?
He could not know the details right now.
“How amusing. How very amusing.”
The important fact was that a dreadful calamity had come along with him.
It meant that the master who ruled the abyss had descended directly upon the continent.
But there was not no way.
It would not be easy, but there was a way to try somehow.
“My disciple, I shall give you one final chance.”
Kreutzwald righted his twisted face and returned once more to the benevolent face of a teacher.
Standing upright in midair, hands clasped behind his back, he lightly crooked a finger in that state.
And at the same time.
- I told you not to fall ba……
- Give your lives to protect the temp……huh?
- Guh, aaaaaah……?
- ……Lady Rifue…… What is this……
The noise rising from the ground greatly diminished.
In its place spread the sounds of bewilderment from the human side.
Questions, vigilance, curiosity, fear uttered in the face of an incomprehensible situation.
Relief, and a small measure of hope.
- Th-the monsters stopped!
Every grotesque that had been moving violently stopped at once.
Whether stabbed by human blades or cut by spears.
As though none of it mattered, every grotesque’s movements abruptly ceased.
Savoring that reaction, Kreutzwald said,
“As you can see, I can control everything related to the abyss.”
Kreutzwald had stopped the battlefield in an instant.
When he crooked the fingers of his other hand, even the abyss that had surged right up to the human lines froze in midair and ceased moving.
He had halted both the grotesques and the abyss at the same time.
With nothing more than two flicks of his fingers.
“It means that the calamity that has come upon the continent can be stopped with a single point of my finger.”
Still with his hands clasped behind his back, he bent at the waist and looked below.
As though a creator were looking down upon lowly things.
“Do you not see those poor souls? It means they will no longer have to die, nor suffer.”
“……If I just hand over my body?”
“Precisely.”
“……Say that after taking off that disgusting mask pretending to be human.”
Though he spoke that way, he could not stop his fingertips from trembling.
Perhaps it was because those who had been dying before his eyes,
those who had been endlessly spitting out screams and despair,
had been saved from the death that had been right before them.
Perhaps it was because he had witnessed, with his own eyes, this immense calamity being stopped so easily.
“You are wavering.”
The smile on Kreutzwald’s lips grew even more benevolent.
“I promise you. The continent shall be at peace forever. It will know neither war, nor pain, nor despair. Everyone will live happy lives and meet happy ends.”
He straightened from where he had bent and looked at Hio with pitch-black eyes.
Deep, dense black pupils that resembled the abyss.
“It is possible once I obtain divinity. The abyss will remain the abyss forever, and light will shine brightly as light forever.”
As if to prove those words, the abyss that had stopped began to withdraw.
The collapsed gates were still spewing out the aura of the abyss, but it was clearly being controlled.
According to Kreutzwald’s command, in accordance with the solemn order given by the master of the abyss, it moved in orderly fashion.
It gathered behind Kreutzwald and formed ranks.
“Of course, you too shall leave your name forever as a hero. Humans will praise and revere you no less than they do me, and you will be respected for long ages.”
All the abyss that had descended upon the ground retreated behind Kreutzwald and covered the sky.
As though they were the sky itself.
As though they had become beings looking down upon the continent, they blanketed the heavens and took their place, pressing upon Hio.
Every grotesque on the ground also moved into formation.
The new forms of grotesques pouring out of the gates, as well as the grotesques that had been fighting humans, all withdrew and stopped beneath Kreutzwald’s feet.
There, without uttering a single sound, they waited only for the command their master would give.
“What say you?”
In that state, he extended a wrinkled hand.
“All of this can be realized if only you alone sacrifice yourself.”
It could be resolved easily if he simply took that hand.
The hand held out so warmly seemed to be saying so.
“With your one life, tens, hundreds of thousands—no, even billions of lives in other dimensions—can be saved.”
He looked once at that hand.
Once at the abyss covering the sky.
And once at the grotesques lined up below.
Finally, after looking once at the humans on the opposite side, his gaze turned back to Kreutzwald.
An abyss solely for Kreutzwald.
Grotesques waiting only for his command.
Everything revolved around him and moved according to his will.
If such a Kreutzwald, a man who had lost the heart of a human, were to obtain divinity, could he truly act for humans?
Would he truly restore his stolen homeland and kingdom, and the family he had said was more precious than his own life?
……He did not know.
Perhaps he might truly do as he said, and the continent might be saved.
“Pavlenko, this is your final chance. The final chance to save the world.”
The hand extended one last time.
Kreutzwald’s tightening pressure.
The countless presences he felt from the ground.
Everyone’s emotions, their gazes.
It felt as though they were asking him.
Do you know the answer to this question?
What choice will you make?
And to that, instead of answering, Hio—
“Skill—‘Thunder Emperor (雷帝)’ is activating.”
Filled both eyes with lightning.
He unfurled, through his entire body, dazzling lightning that stood against the darkness.
“I see.”
Kreutzwald withdrew his hand and twisted the corners of his mouth upward.
“So the world will perish in the end because of you alone.”
The mask shattered.
The face that had been acting the part of a benevolent teacher cracked, collapsed, and twisted.
The corners of his mouth curved upward in a grin until they began to cover almost half his face.
“How lamentable.”
The abyss stirred.
The abyss fell as though the sky itself were collapsing, and the atmosphere trembled in response.
- Kraaaaaaah!
The grotesques lined up on the ground also let out savage screams and began to twist their bodies.
Their eyes fixed only on Hio standing in the sky, their bodies contorted with a chilling crack-crack to face him.
The grotesques began to mutate as the abyss was injected into them.
The sky moved, and the earth roared.
All directions were the abyss.
All of it was surging in for the sole purpose of killing Hio alone.
“Authority—‘???’ is growing.”
Surrounded by it all, Hio looked exceedingly precarious.
* * *
Against Kreutzwald, he could not use techniques that utilized the abyss.
Not only “Reverse Contact,” but even mixing the abyss into his magic had to be avoided carelessly.
If he made a mistake, the initiative over his magic could be taken away because of it.
Yet facing him with pure magic alone was impossible as well.
As a mage, his opponent was a monster who had surpassed Hio’s level long ago.
If it were a duel between low-circle mages, perhaps, but the higher the circle reached, the more impossible it became for a mage of a lower level to defeat one of a higher level.
Then the only method left was skills.
The power of skills, which brought almost no mental burden, could be released easily and quickly, and could even be controlled intentionally.
“Skill—‘Blue Flame’ is activating.”
He summoned a sea of blue fire.
Kuuung—
The dark abyssal sky collided with the dazzling blue flames.
Space shook, and the aftermath spread greatly all the way to the ground.
With Blue Flame, he held back the collapsing abyss.
Blue Flame, imbued with the intent of endurance, stood evenly even against the abyss personally controlled by Kreutzwald and maintained the battle line.
Of course, this was only one of countless headaches resolved; the real problem was the magic Kreutzwald was casting.
Mana swirled around Kreutzwald.
In less than a few seconds, every kind of black magic and offensive magic would pour down on Hio, so he had to leave his position immediately.
But in that brief instant, what Hio chose was not evasion, but attack.
No, an attack for the sake of evasion.
“Skill—‘Dark Dome’ is activating.”
Enormous black hands abruptly appeared on either side of Kreutzwald and clasped around him without a gap.
Among the magic Hio could cast, the sixth-circle spell with the greatest destructive power: Dark Dome.
Its transformation into a skill.
The enormous black hands themselves embodied the domain of Dark Dome, but unfortunately, the thing that had seized Kreutzwald did not endure even a single second before shattering to pieces.
He had expected as much.
He had used the advantage of an immediately activating skill to buy that brief span of less than one second.
It was to cloud Kreutzwald’s eyes and senses for that tiny instant, small enough to call a mere flash.
“Skill—‘Blink’ is activating.”
Kwaaaaaaang—!
A tremendous explosion occurred in the space where Hio had been until just before.
Space melted down.
As if that were not enough, hundreds of black hands seized the air.
If he had not used Dark Dome to obscure Kreutzwald’s senses for an instant and used Blink as a skill, he would have taken that insane attack head-on.
Because the moment Kreutzwald detected Blink, he would have turned toward Hio’s path of movement.
- Kraaaaaaah!
On the ground, thousands of grotesques that had finished mutating bared their teeth and unfurled bat-like wings at the same time.
No matter how much weaker they were than the grotesques at the end of the world, if all of them flew up at once, it was only natural that his space and actions would be restricted.
So he raised his staff and aimed it at the ground.
“Skill—‘Gravity’ is activating.”
A vast darkness formed from the tip of his staff.
Darkness expanded rapidly.
It was a single universe that overwhelmed everything below.
The skill “Gravity” became a universe and seized the space above the heads of the thousands of grotesques that had flown upward.
And then.
Kwaaaaang—!
A magnificent sight unfolded as every grotesque that had surged upward at once was simultaneously driven back into the ground.
A roar and vibration followed from it.
But Kreutzwald was not one to simply watch.
When Kreutzwald lightly swung his staff once, the universe crushing the grotesques shattered immediately.
Jjaaaeng—
The universe, Gravity, broke into pieces and scattered.
Needless to say, it was something he had expected.
What he needed was, as always, a brief instant of time.
Time to gather the power of lightning to its limit.
“Skill—‘Thunder Emperor (雷帝)’ is activating.”
For an instant, the entire world was covered in lightning.
Brilliant white radiance struck down across a vast area at the same time.
Kwaaaaaang—!
A massive pillar of lightning connecting heaven and earth.
The power of Thunder Emperor unleashed to the extreme.
It was divine punishment.
It was like the power of an enraged god.
Kwaaang—!
After two or three smaller bolts struck down, the scene revealed was utterly惨惨.
It was terrifying beyond measure.
And yet some grotesques still remained.
More than half the grotesques had been annihilated by that single blow, but the surviving ones still vented their rage at Hio.
They spewed out tremendous killing intent and prepared to fly up once more.
He could not allow that.
With Kreutzwald before him, how could he spare the attention for mere grotesques?
“Skill—‘Death’s Sarcophagus’ is activating.”
So he summoned Death’s Sarcophagus.
He called forth the most reliable ones who would protect Hio.
Two hundred and fifty-five enormous sarcophagi appeared, surrounding Hio.
Kuung—
When their doors opened, a thick fog spread.
The dense stench of death.
Flashing red eyes.
Every door of every sarcophagus that had been created opened, and an immense presence spread far and wide.
Souls that had each once commanded kingdoms, that had made their names known across the continent.
They appeared upon this land once more, holding burning black swords or bearing lightning already dead.
Two hundred and fifty-five undead emerged along with deep death.
And at their very vanguard, one knight took shape along with dense death.
“Theordo.”
The Death Knight and the Undying Legion began to fall toward the surging grotesques.