The place he reached using the Authority “Beltesia’s Divine Space” was far more expansive than he had expected.
Even after passing through the fairy-tale, picture-like scenery where he had once met Rifyue and walking for quite some time, the space continued on.
It was a place without even a handful of light, to the point that he could barely see the ground right in front of his feet.
Even so, it was not an abyss; it was truly, purely dark.
“And here I thought I’d long passed the stage of relying only on sight…”
Even with his eyes closed, his expanded senses should have allowed him to see his surroundings clearly, yet strangely, none of that worked here.
And yet, rather than feeling uneasy, he felt only a comfort akin to coming home.
“Airaitz. Can you stay here for a bit? I’ll take a look around and be back.”
He tried to set down Airaitz, who was practically clinging to his back, but she showed no intention of letting go.
Perhaps realizing his intent, she clung to him even tighter.
“…Fine. Do as you like.”
How much farther had he walked like that?
Suddenly, a massive structure appeared before his eyes.
At first, he thought it was a fortress wall.
Because of the all-encompassing darkness, he could not guess its shape or size.
But as he walked along while touching it, he came to understand.
This was not a fortress wall, but merely a pillar.
It was nothing more than one pillar of a structure so enormous he could not even imagine its full scale.
He briskly moved on and found a path he assumed to be the entrance, then headed that way.
The reason it had been difficult to find the entrance was that a single stair was more than twice Hio’s height, but as it turned out, there was a separate set of stairs beside it that was of an appropriate size.
Had most of the old gods been giants?
He climbed stairs for quite a while, and only when he began to feel Airaitz stirring little by little on his back was he finally able to enter the building.
No, he could only assume that he had entered.
It seemed like a temple, but it was dark, and the pillars and stairs were so overwhelmingly huge that he could not tell whether the ceiling was open or closed.
Step—
Only the sound of Hio’s footsteps walking over smooth stone could be heard.
He had entered what he believed to be the entrance of the building he assumed was a temple, and he walked along what he guessed was the central path.
Though there was nothing he could know for certain, his heart remained utterly calm.
How long had he walked?
Once again, those enormous stairs appeared before Hio.
He tried walking along the side of the stairs, but this time there were no stairs sized for Hio.
There were only the huge stairs that looked as though they were meant exclusively for giants.
“Ugh…”
With no other choice, he climbed the stairs, each one more than twice his height, with Airaitz on his back.
He could not secure his vision, so he had no idea how many there were, but fortunately, there were not many stairs.
And what he saw when he reached the top was—
“…This is.”
A throne.
A massive chair of a height and size that seemed fit for a giant to sit upon.
And at both ends of that chair, sacred flames burned faintly.
Before climbing the stairs, he definitely had not seen them, but once he climbed up, they began to appear.
“I suppose I have to go.”
In this dark and utterly silent divine space, it was the only place where a faint light burned.
How could he not go?
He launched himself upward as though climbing a fortress wall and ascended onto the chair.
Stepping onto an armrest that was like a stone mountain, he climbed again onto the backrest, and from either side, he could feel the flames more clearly.
Seen from below, they had looked small, but up close, they too were enormous.
It was as though he alone had suddenly become smaller.
“Mm…”
He carefully approached the flame while examining his surroundings.
There was no heat or warmth to be felt; what was faint was only divinity.
A weak white light of divinity burning in flame.
It was intuition and instinct.
The reason he suddenly thrust his hand into that flame.
Because the thought that he had to do so surged within him, he acted without much hesitation.
And then.
「You seek the memories of “Beltesia’s Divine Space.”」
All at once, his vision grew bright.
Dazzling light poured in, and when he instinctively closed his eyes for a moment and opened them again, he was no longer in the dark and silent space, but inside a bright and enormous temple.
The temple was taller and larger than Hio had imagined, and the old gods walking within it were also more massive and imposing than he had thought. Their numbers were so great that it was almost reminiscent of human society.
If there was a difference, it was the serenity on everyone’s faces.
As the space’s memories passed through the temple and headed farther away, that phenomenon became even clearer.
He saw Rifyue enjoying her leisure alone within a space of childish drawings.
He also saw the figure of a beautiful goddess looking down upon the earth and spreading love.
A god soaking in a gently flowing stream, savoring its coolness.
A giant laughing heartily while blocking a waterfall with his massive body.
Though each of them had distinct individuality, what fundamentally permeated them was serenity.
The memory that had circled the space once returned to the temple.
Past the stairs at the entrance, past the central holy path, and finally to the throne at the very center.
The master of the throne met the eyes of Hio, who was peering through the memory.
Mystical five-colored eyes.
Two immensely enormous eyes stared straight at Hio, who existed in the distant future.
It was not an illusion.
Across thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of years, the master of the throne was looking at Hio.
His heavy mouth slowly opened.
The heavens moved with him.
【Light the extinguished star once more.】
With that distant reverberation as the last thing he heard.
“…Hah!”
Reality returned once more.
The quiet Beltesia’s Divine Space, its flames extinguished.
Even the flames of the throne, which had been burning faintly, had gone out before he knew it, leaving the space sunk in complete darkness.
But he knew clearly what he had to do.
Because Hio had a milestone created by all the gods together.
「You have encountered the Master of Heaven (天上), “Beltesia.”」
「Your qualification has been confirmed.」
「You may use all your Divinity Points to light Beltesia’s Divine Space.」
「Will you light it?」
A system message asked whether he would light it.
Surely that did not simply mean producing light.
It was clear that a deeper meaning lay hidden within.
“…Of course I will.”
Even so, having come this far, how could he back down now?
「Lighting Beltesia’s Divine Space.」
「All Divinity Points in your possession will be used.」
「Divinity Points — “412,904 Pt” consumed.」
The extinguished flames of the throne bloomed once more.
Starting with that, flames of divinity began to bloom one by one along the temple walls, beneath the lofty ceiling, and under the pillars.
Divinity spread.
The darkness receded, and the temple, now brightly lit, was exactly the same as it had been in the memory.
The only thing that had changed was the still silence.
Because there was only Hio, it was a desolate space.
「Light once again shines upon Beltesia’s extinguished star.」
「All transcendent beings will recognize this.」
「The power of Beltesia’s star returns.」
As expected.
Messages of no ordinary significance rose one after another.
「While within Beltesia’s Divine Space, you may receive various beneficial effects.」
「In proportion to the time spent here, the stats “Strength,” “Stamina,” “Agility,” and “Magic Power” will permanently increase.」
「In proportion to the time spent here, the stats “Spiritual Power” and “Divine Power” will permanently increase.」
「In proportion to the time spent here, the rank of your soul will rise.」
「Your soul feels an extreme sense of stability.」
「The recovery speed of divinity increases.」
「You have become the master of the forgotten throne.」
「You inherit Beltesia’s will.」
「The cost of consuming Divinity Points decreases.」
「From now on, transcendent beings who obtain divine status will not be able to defy you within Beltesia’s Divine Space.」
Beltesia’s Divine Space was now brightly lit.
When he closed his eyes atop the throne of the giant temple located within it, he could feel it.
The divinity wrapping around his body, and the divinity spreading far and wide.
This space itself had been meticulously designed so that it could be activated with only a small amount of divinity.
It was Beltesia’s Authority.
He could feel his soul steadily settling into calm.
That sense of stability that any transcendent being who had obtained divine status could not help but feel.
Perhaps thanks to that—
“…Hio?”
Though Hio had not called her, he heard a voice call him first.
When he turned his head, he saw a crimson light, eyes rounded as if in surprise.
“Airaitz.”
The second god had finally regained consciousness.
* * *
Beltesia’s Divine Space was, in and of itself, both an Authority and a space that explained the immense power of a god.
The longer one stayed, the more one’s physical strength increased, and even the rank of one’s soul and the strength of one’s energy rose.
It was a structure in which ancient gods could not help but grow stronger the older they became.
Of course, even for such gods, there must have been a beginning.
Since an end existed, a beginning must have existed as well.
And even they, at the beginning, must have been clumsy.
Just as Hio was now.
“Mm… What should I do?”
Hio sat at the tea table inside the drawing where he had once sat across from Rifyue.
And right beside him, pressed close, sat Airaitz.
“About what?”
“What else? You.”
“Hehehe.”
What should he do with her?
Hio at least had the reliable organization known as the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult, and in Verden, he had appointed Irina as his apostle and planted seeds of his own in some fashion. But Airaitz had no such foundation at all.
Despite the fact that she was, ostensibly, a god who had obtained divine status.
“No, in the first place… how did you obtain divine status?”
In truth, this was the most puzzling part.
If divine status was something one could obtain just because one wanted it, why would Kreutzwald have gone through all that trouble?
“Well, you see…”
Airaitz’s answer to that question was somewhat unexpected.
Before Hio entered the end of the world, there had been a clue he had found regarding the divine magic of love.
She said that, starting from that and following the trail, she had been able to reach the sacred domain of the old god Venus.
As if they had known things would turn out this way, as if arrangements had been laid in advance, everything had fallen perfectly into place. And when she actually found the final, seventh record, even Airaitz’s own name had been written there.
“Maybe those old gods or whatever knew everything about what would happen to us?”
At Airaitz’s words, Hio shook his head slightly.
“I don’t think so.”
They probably had not foreseen it with certainty.
It might have merely been one of countless branches, or perhaps something they believed had the highest probability among all possibilities, but it was clear they could not have been certain.
Because Rifyue had said as much.
No matter how ancient a god might be, even one that had existed since antiquity, they did not know everything.
Therefore, what Airaitz had discovered was also nothing more than one arrangement among countless others.
There were surely countless arrangements still left in the world that Hio and Airaitz had yet to find.
“Still, there’s no doubt this turned out quite well.”
Hio was no longer the only one who had obtained divine status.
There were few situations better than this.
So from now on, they had to make plans thoroughly.
From now on, they had to look ahead to the future themselves and make arrangements.
“Airaitz.”
“Yeah?”
“You and I should start making plans now.”
“I love you.”
For Kreutzwald, who would be waiting for his chance at the end of the world.
“We’ll end the Master of the Abyss with our own hands.”
A plan to personally bring an end to the master of the deep, deep abyss.
And for that, the first thing they had to find out was how to walk into the abyss of their own accord.