Chapter 179 : Chapter 179
Chapter 179
‘Star Maiden!’
But if she’s the second, does that mean there’s already a first?
- Lilac refuses Cosmos' proposal! She desires only one thing. To be by your side without any hindrance or obstacle!
‘Aah!’
- Cosmos is pleased! The Stellar Force that encompasses the universe descends upon you and Lilac!
- Stellar Force transcends! Due to the Prayer of Love, you and Lilac have transcended the limits of humanity, and the level cap for Stellar Force has been raised to 20!
- You are now able to use the ‘Constellation Descent’ skill, which allows you to act as an agent of Cosmos' power by shrouding your entire body in Stellar Force!
I closed my eyes and felt the ecstatic sense of fulfillment, then opened them. Lilac had changed. Her brown hair and purple eyes had turned completely white.
“Lilac, you….”
“Master’s….”
We both stopped mid-sentence. From the looks of it, my hair and eyes must have turned white as well. Just like the Star Child.
***
“Ah.”
Nerjin opened his eyes.
‘This place is.’
He slowly got up and looked around. A familiar place. Familiar shapes.
‘The secret laboratory of the Wisdrammus family.’
A place filled with his master's mementos, which he could visit thanks to the scroll President Martin had found for him. It was also the place where the materials for him to move on to the next stage were prepared.
“…Is this a dream.”
The study of 'what happens when a person dies' is an unresolved problem that has remained as homework among alchemists for a long time.
“I must be dead.”
He had thrown his body to protect the Star Child. Kragach's claw had only slightly dug into his stomach, but his chest and abdomen had vanished.
“…I can only be sorry.”
He hadn't been able to properly ask for the Star Child's forgiveness.
He had told President Martin that he would be with him until the end, but not long after, he had ended up in this state.
‘Still….’
At least, he was happy that he could have a sincere conversation with the Star Child in his final moments. He had forgiven him….
Nerjin plopped down on the floor.
The ceiling of the laboratory was the vast universe. He closed his eyes against this backdrop.
He felt unburdened. If this was the end of his life, perhaps he had lived well enough.
“I will close my eyes in peace, Lord Cosmos. I will go to apologize to the members of the Peacemaker who gave their lives for me….”
“You’re dead already?”
Nerjin's two eyes widened as if they would tear.
The shadow cast over his face. The voice that rang in his ears.
He shot up and looked at the owner of the shadow.
“Ah, aah, aaaaaah!”
“Nerjin.”
The old man with a short white beard somehow resembled Nerjin. The shape of his head. The fact that he wore glasses.
…No. It wasn't that the old man resembled Nerjin. It was that Nerjin had tried to resemble that old man.
“Master…!”
The head of the Wisdrammus family.
The father and master who had taken the little boy Nerjin, who was a beggar on the street, adopted him as his son, and taught him the knowledge, love, and wisdom of alchemy.
Nerjin, like a child, pushed himself up from the floor and rushed into his arms. And then, he began to cry his eyes out.
“Ooh, Master! Master! Aaaah!”
“Yes, was your rather long journey a happy one?”
“Master! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I was wrong! This unworthy disciple! It was all my fault!”
“Tsk, tsk…, you're still a child.”
The master silently stroked the head of his disciple, who had grown old like him.
“Nerjin.”
“Yes, Master!”
“What did you do so wrong?”
At the master's short question, Nerjin's heart opened, and he confessed everything.
That he had survived the Emperor and the Pope by denying all knowledge and blaspheming his master as he had said.
That the members of the Peacemaker and the Star Child's sister had been sacrificed during the escape.
That he had only watched as the empire fell.
That his passion and enthusiasm had cooled, and he had built a family and ignored the mission given to him for a long time.
“Everything is… my sin…!”
“…But for all that, you seemed unburdened.”
As if not intending to blame him, the master continued to stroke Nerjin, who was still confessing with his face buried in his chest.
“It wasn't all bad things, was it?”
“…No.”
He confessed the love he had gained in his new family.
That he had raised his granddaughter, Bianca, with the love and wisdom he had learned from his master, that he had met an outstanding hero named Martin, and that he had received forgiveness from the Star Child.
“You did well.”
“Yes. So I….”
“But Nerjin. They still need you.”
“But I, I'm dead.”
That's why I met you, isn't it, Nerjin said.
The master smiled bitterly.
“Did the research I left behind help advance alchemy?”
“Of course. But… I just couldn't understand the essence of celestial alchemy.”
“I suppose so. It can't be helped. It's knowledge I barely obtained in my later years. It's a state I reached 40 years after I began to be called the greatest alchemist.”
The master quietly looked down at his disciple.
“Parting is approaching.”
“What?!”
The moment Nerjin raised his head in surprise, his master's body faded into starlight and disappeared.
Nerjin's body, which had been leaning on his master, fell to the floor with a thud.
He flailed his arms, searching for his master, but his body was nowhere to be seen. No… that's a misstatement.
“Nerjin. I reached that state with human strength. You, too, have a talent no less than mine, so you will surely reach it, but there is no time. You will need it right now.”
“Master?! Master! Where are you?!”
The master's body hadn't disappeared, but had turned into starlight and embroidered the night sky above.
To watch over his disciple's destiny, whenever, wherever he was.
“Get up. Nerjin. Hurry.”
The moment Nerjin staggered to his feet, the night sky shimmered and the scenery began to change.
The flow of the celestial bodies that make up the universe rotates. And the picture it draws was of Martin, Lilac, Gilbert, and the Star Child, doing their best to save Nerjin.
That wasn't all.
The Demon Lord Kragach was turning Imperium Land into a sea of fire. Anette and the Platinum Knights were fighting hard, and the army was fighting against the monsters of hell, but they couldn't save all the civilians.
And Joverka. Elisha's arm was because of that bastard….
“We alchemists are not people who blindly believe in gods, but I was special, and I came to prove the existence of that distant universe and God through alchemy. Since I came to have an audience with God through human effort, Lord Cosmos, who found that achievement praiseworthy, has transferred the benefits of that achievement to you, my disciple.”
“Y-Yes?”
“Now, look!”
Soon, the starlight of the universe shot towards Nerjin.
“Heok!”
All sorts of knowledge raged inside the head of Nerjin, who stood amidst the cluster of stars.
The creation of the universe and the movements of the stars. The vast, amazing, and awe-inspiring phenomena of the celestial bodies.
“Our reunion is not the end, but a new beginning.”
The master's voice and the infinite celestial knowledge.
“Strive even harder until the day we meet again, Nerjin. And do not forget. Just as numerous sacrifices form your heart, your life must also form the hearts of others.”
Awakened Nerjin.
“Now, go!”
With the master's shout, Nerjin's eyes flew open.
***
“Heok!”
“Sir Nerjin! Are you okay?!”
“M-Miss Lilac. Yes, I'm fine, but….”
Nerjin shot up from his spot.
He looked down and saw a hole in his clothes, but his abdomen and chest had regenerated perfectly as if nothing had happened.
He looked around. President Martin, the Star Child, and Sir Gilbert were rescuing Elisha and cornering Joverka.
“Joverka—!”
“You of all people, I will definitely!”
“I won’t let you get away with this!”
All three of them were extremely furious. And Nerjin's anger… was no different from theirs.
But let's think about it. The Star Child, Martin, Gilbert. With those three as opponents, no matter how powerful Joverka was, there was nothing he could do with just an avatar body that hadn't fully descended.
On the other hand, Kragach. His body was on the verge of breaking through the gate and coming up.
‘Master!’
Nerjin took out a blank card from his bosom. A card with no magic enchanted on it.
‘Give me strength!’
Mana and Stellar Force swirled around the card, and a picture slowly began to be drawn.
Was it red like fire? Blue like water? No. It was black. But it was a night sky, studded with pure white jewels.
The universe. The state that Nerjin's master had first reached, and that Nerjin had subsequently achieved. Celestial alchemy.
‘Your legacy! Allow me to recreate it in this place!’
The mana that filled Nerjin's entire body was imbued into the card.
The Stellar Force that Cosmos had permitted, and that the Star Child, Martin, Gilbert, and Lilac had concentrated, was also imbued into the card.
A card completed by gathering a vast amount of energy in one place. Nerjin threw that card towards Kragach.
[Hmm?]
Kragach had turned his head at a somewhat unpleasant feeling.
But what was flying towards him was just a small piece of paper that emitted a white light.
[What a cute thing to….]
Kragach's eyes widened. The knowledge concentrated in that small card flowed into him.
The moment of creation.
The movement of the universe.
The flow of the celestial bodies.
The brain of Kragach, the only dragonkin said to be closest to a god, froze as if it had hardened. Knowledge befitting a god had flowed into his mind, but he could not know it. He could not understand it. As if, it was not permitted.
[What…?]
In the meantime, the card that had arrived in front of Kragach soon ‘flashed!’ with light and exploded.
If his master's had erupted with red flames and bloomed like a red rose, Nerjin's was white, like a pure white rose in full bloom.
‘Big Bang!’
Kragach's entire body was engulfed in an explosion of Stellar Force. A white storm that would blind any onlooker.
“…?!”
Anette, who had been about to charge with the treasured sword of Defardly, slammed on the brakes and began to flee in the opposite direction. That was the extent of its destructive power.
[…?!]
Kragach struggled, unable to even scream properly.
He swung his arms and flapped his wings, trying to escape, but he was eventually pushed down by the force. Back to hell.
[I-Impossible! Where, where did this suddenly come from! Joverka, you foolish bastard! N-No! I invested so much in this! It’s a lie! To end so, so futilely…!]
Soon, he slid down into the gate leading to hell. Without a scream or a final cry. Kragach's body plummeted into the pit of hell.
And even then, the Big Bang did not end, but spread wide in all directions, burning away the army of hell that had advanced onto the continent. The holy power of the stars incinerates the wicked things of the underworld that dared to covet the surface.
It was truly wondrous. And beautiful. A miracle.
[Haha, this is crazy.]
Joverka, who was watching the scene, clicked his tongue.
[So why did you try to fully descend from the start? You fat lizard bastard. You couldn't even get out because you were stuck in the gate. Are you an idiot? You should have at least descended as an avatar like me and eaten the humans. Then it wouldn't have ended so futilely….]
“So, is that all you have to say?”
At the Star Child's words, Joverka sighed deeply. A single shotgun, two dual pistols, and one sword were aimed at his neck.
[Please make it painless.]
Bullets were fired relentlessly, and the sword butchered his body.
[Heehee! Heeheehee! Heeheeheeheehee!]
The bastard died right after Gilbert's sword had been swung 58 times.
[But, w-w-what should we do? That girl, that girl!]
Joverka, sprawled on the floor, pointed at Elisha, who was being treated by Nerjin and Lilac in the distance.
[I'll be back, but her arm will never come baaaack, you knooow?]
With those words, Joverka turned into black ash and vanished. His body disappeared, and his soul returned to hell.
We won.
But.
“…”
“…”
“Ugh, keuuuu…! My arm, it hurts so much…!”
No one. Could be happy.
“Elisha!”
Gilbert was the first to run over. The Star Child and I followed. Elisha, who was in pain, her entire body… was being consumed by Maki. To the point where black spots were appearing all over her skin.
“Martin! Gilbert! Don't just stand there! We have to purify the Maki! Concentrate your Stellar Force!”
The Star Child emitted Stellar Force. I, and Gilbert too, followed suit and exerted our Stellar Force.
The Maki that was consuming Elisha's entire body was instantly erased, emitting black smoke. Even if it was the power of a Demon Lord, the Stellar Force of the three of us was strong enough to overcome it.
But….
“S-Star Child.”
Gilbert looked at the Star Child with trembling eyes.
“Why, why isn't the wound healing?”
Elisha's wounds weren't healing. Not the wounds all over her body, not her insides which were muddled with Maki, not her shattered and ruined left arm.
The Star Child's hand, which had been steadily emitting Stellar Force, lowered. Then he just looked down at Elisha. At her, groaning in pain.
The intention was clear. Giving up. Gilbert shouted at the Star Child.
“Star Child! Please!”
Gilbert, who was about to say that, paused. The Star Child's expression… was contorted with frustration.
“The mark of a Demon Lord has been branded…! A curse of pain that will never be erased!”