Chapter 165
Chapter 165: Easy Pickings (5)
Long Live the Cheonma, Ten Thousand Demons Bow in Reverence.
A jagged mountain range of dizzying height.
A bizarre incantation echoed through Cheonmandaesan.
“O Cheonma, descend!!!”
The followers of the Cheonma Divine Cult all gazed at the highest peak and prayed for the Cheonma's descent.
“O Supreme One of the Murim! Come down to this land for your believers!!!”
This place had once been an earldom of the Garcian Kingdom.
On that land, the great evil of the Murim had begun to stir.
Ka-ka-ka-ka-rumble.
The deeper the followers' prayers grew, the greater the tremors that shook Cheonmandaesan.
Dark demonic energy rose above the mountain range and made all directions dark.
It was just like the sky of the Demon Realm.
Long Live the Cheonma, Ten Thousand Demons Bow in Reverence.
As if answering the prayers of the believers who longed for the Cheonma's descent.
Thud-. The mountain range twisted.
One of the seven highest peaks of Cheonmandaesan had begun to pulse.
“At last-.”
The tip of the peak was sharp.
Like a well-honed spearhead.
An old man who had been seated in meditation on that narrow, pointed summit rose to his feet.
“Followers of the Cheonma Divine Cult!”
The moment the old man came to his senses, he raised his energy.
Then his body floated high into the sky.
“I, Manoe, called the brain of the Cheonma Divine Cult, ask you.”
It was as if one were watching the Air Step that one had only heard of.
“Do you wish for the Cult Leader to descend?”
When Manoe asked, the tens of thousands of believers beneath Cheonmandaesan began to lower their bodies.
Soon, all of them lay prostrate and paid their reverence.
Long Live the Cheonma, Ten Thousand Demons Bow in Reverence.
Tens of thousands spoke the same words at the same time.
Yet those words began at the same moment and ended at the same instant, as if spoken by a single person.
It was so eerie it was chilling.
Ka-ka-ka-ka-rumble.
Then another peak shook.
It was the second-highest summit.
A man of huge build at its tip opened his eyes.
“I, Gwanghyeolmaje, Vice Cult Leader of the Cheonma Divine Cult, ask you.”
He spread both arms and raised his hands upward.
The air trembled, and the rocks forming the mountain range floated high into the sky.
It was a power called Telekinetic Grasp.
“Do you wish for our Supreme One, the Cult Leader, to descend?”
At his question, tens of thousands of believers once again showed their devout faith.
Long Live the Cheonma, Ten Thousand Demons Bow in Reverence.
The voices wishing for the Cheonma's descent began to dye Cheonmandaesan.
That faith and prayer awakened the power of the Cheonma Divine Cult.
“O Cheonma!!!”
Only a single peak remained on Cheonmandaesan.
The highest place on Cheonmandaesan.
The place where the Cheonma, Supreme One of the Demon Cult, dwelt.
Kudeudeuk-.
The air trembled.
Centered on Manoe, the six elders of the Cheonma Divine Cult raised their internal energy.
That heavy, dignified force created a huge vortex above Cheonmandaesan.
At its center stood Manoe, the strategist of the Demon Cult.
Macheonnoeshingong.
The Demon Cult followers' longing to awaken the Cheonma was realized through Manoe's power.
Ka-ka-rumble-!!!
Black lightning struck the highest peak of Cheonmandaesan, and at that force, the god of the Demon Cult opened his eyes.
“The master of the heavens, the Cult Leader of the Cheonma Divine Cult, has descended!!!”
Gilma noona, who was watching this scene, tilted her head.
That's the Cheonma Kim Su-ho was talking about?
The place where Cheonmandaesan had risen was originally an earldom of the Garcian Kingdom, located close to the Allied Nations.
It was close to a border region where the territories met.
That was why she had even spied on it at the risk of danger, but……
He doesn't look that strong.
Gilma noona immediately sent her consciousness out of the Vessel.
Then the scenery before her eyes changed.
“Gilma, you're back already. How was the situation over there?”
She was in the middle of the Allied Nations' Round Table meeting.
“Has the Demon King of the Heavens truly appeared?”
“What reason could there be for the strongest of that world called Murim to appear right next to the Allied Nations, of all places?”
Questions poured in.
One of the most dangerous beings on Earth, one that every single Possessor had mentioned.
That was the Cheonma.
“If we first divide them by realm-.”
Gilma noona shared information on the Murim based on what she had heard from Kim Su-ho.
Cheonma = Johwa Realm.
Vice Cult Leader = Johwa Realm.
Manoe = Between Hwa Realm and Johwa Realm.
“You can assume the rest are all martial artists similar to the Hwa Realm.”
Hearing her explanation, the Round Table calmed down.
“If the Johwa Realm commands the power of nature, isn't it talking about this?”
The First Seat of the Round Table, Verdi Reinhardt.
When she moved her hand, the air split as a whole.
It looked as if a crack had formed in the empty air.
“Telekinetic Grasp, when all is said and done, just means psychokinesis, doesn't it?”
The Second Seat of the Round Table, Kallian.
When he moved his hand, a chair scraped and moved on its own.
“Is Air Step what this refers to?”
The Third Seat of the Round Table, Grand Mage Rohwin, floated up.
It was only the 3rd Circle spell Fly.
“For that notoriety, the power seems too ambiguous.”
“It's not like he tore a descended Black Dragon apart alone like Holy Son Erik……”
“Wouldn't he have to be able to blow up the Black Mage Group's Representative dozens of times with a Sacred Spear before we'd think that guy is a bit dangerous?”
“True, to be called a dangerous figure, you'd have to be at that guy's level. I hear these days he even revives the dead.”
Having compared them with the most dangerous figure, Holy Son Erik, the Cheonma Divine Cult appeared to possess ambiguous power.
The master of the Round Table, Verdi Reinhardt, reached a conclusion.
“Taking that notoriety into account, I will place the danger level at medium. Gilma, do you have any objections?”
“No. As a member of the Round Table, I too think the same as the others.”
Gilman Noona thought similarly.
Honestly, the whole Murim business looked a bit shoddy.
Earth-style descents weren't simply superior after all.
Murim, when all was said and done, was a world where humans lived, wasn't it?
***
“A Foreign God, a monster that must never exist……”
The Saintess of Lu-Solace, Nia Solace.
She stared at Erik with an aghast face.
She looked thoroughly angry.
She had seen and felt for herself how dangerous it was when a Black Mage Possessor descended.
A being that hadn't even formed a single row descending as such a powerful monster-.
She had been swallowed by the Foreign God's body.
Right after, she had crossed into the Other Realm.
Recalling the memories until her escape from there made her skin crawl.
A monster that put me through such hardship.
And even so, she had not been able to kill the descended Foreign God.
To think it wouldn't even die.
What had been revealed upon crossing into the Other Realm was the Foreign God's body, like a vast cosmos.
The Saintess had been able to cross over to the Material Plane only after burning all of it.
But……
“Even after burning the whole body, the creature's soul did not burn. Moreover, as if a curse had been laid on it, the soul slipped away on its own by way of the Escape Monument.”
The Saintess muttered, looking at Erik as if lamenting.
A powerless Black Mage had descended as a monster with godhood, and without even dying, only his soul had remained and gone back.
Who was the culprit behind that?
“You who wield Divinity and call yourself a Holy Son!!! Were you the one who summoned such a monster?!”
The Saintess roared at Erik.
Watching the Saintess like that, Erik thought it was absurd.
“Isn't that Lu-Solace's responsibility, for neglecting Black Mages for hundreds of years?”
Erik shrugged.
To think he had summoned it was truly nothing but a nonsensical sophistry.
Then the Saintess vented her indignation again.
“I could not kill that creature, but you, Holy Son Erik, I will surely kill.”
They were words filled with firm resolve.
Erik used his [Discernment Eye] to judge the truth of the Saintess's words.
She's truly itching to kill me.
Judging by the color that distinguishes like from dislike, it was clear she even hated him.
“At a first meeting, and toward me, who wields the same Divinity, why do you hate me so much?”
Erik couldn't understand the reason at all.
Weren't they bound together as clerics who wielded similar power?
The two had never even met.
“Do you think everyone who wields Divinity is the same sort of person?”
Yet she showed such hatred.
“You're out of your mind.”
During this short conversation, the pillars of fire the Saintess had hurled numbered in the hundreds.
The floor where Erik had been was wrecked until its original form was hard to recognize.
Fwoosh-.
The Saintess's power, which burned everything, was vicious.
Erik drew back his body for a moment.
Then came the words.
“A being who wields true Divinity retreats out of fear of a mortal's strength?”
The Saintess tilted her head slightly, looking at Erik.
They were plainly provocative words and actions.
As if something like that would work on me.
Erik had lived as a modern person.
A shallow provocation like that naturally dealt no damage, let alone a scratch.
Instead of getting angry, Erik chewed over the Saintess's words.
True Divinity, huh-.
The Saintess of Lu-Solace was a being who had lived as long as his master Riferoze.
No, longer than that.
That Saintess has something even the Master doesn't know.
The world's three religions merely left each other alone without interfering.
So there might be sayings passed down separately in each religious order.
For example, doctrine saying that if a Holy Son by the name of Erik appeared, kill him without discussion.
Or it might be something about a being with real “Divinity.”
A Holy Son of Almanism who has lived longer than the Saintess might know something.
Erik kept that fact in mind.
He wanted to chew on it a little more, but……
Fwoosh-.
“Die!”
Under the Saintess's indiscriminate attacks, his strength was starting to give out.
As if the probing was over, the Saintess began to pour down fiercer and fiercer attacks.
Ka-rumble-.
An intense sun rose in the air.
Its heat was vicious.
It felt as if the sky itself were warping.
Even after using that much power, her Divine Power recovers right away.
Erik kept observing the Saintess's power.
While doing so, he asked a question.
“What do you use to recover your Divine Power?”
“It is only the favor Lu-Solace, the Sun, left behind.”
The Saintess answered Erik's question at once.
As payment for the answer, she hurled a small sun.
Fwoooong-.
The sight of the red sun approaching was somewhat threatening, but Erik had no spare attention for it.
Gray?
Because the [Discernment Eye]'s reading of the Saintess's words was strange.
Wasn't this the first time truth and falsehood had not split into black and white?
“Do you truly mean to kill me?”
“Obviously!!!”
This time it was clearly the truth.
The Discernment Eye is working properly, yet gray.
Thinking so, Erik drew out his own power too.
Because the Saintess was too ferocious to keep merely trading words.
Swish-.
Erik spread his wings to widen the distance and wrapped his whole body in holy Divine Power to strengthen his body.
After that, he surrounded himself with Holy Objects to protect himself.
“A being who strengthens his body in the Astia Religious Order's way yet handles the Holy Objects of Almanism. As I thought, you are indeed a newly arisen Divinity.”
The Saintess looked at Erik and exulted, as if to say she had been right.
“I have Lu-Solace too, you know?”
Erik smiled thinly.
Flames bloomed at his fingertips.
Fwoosh.
It was something blazing like the flames of the sun.
“You-.”
It seemed that touching the power of her own god was infuriating, as the Saintess's face crumpled badly.
The moment the Saintess was about to say something.
Erik pulled a long spear out of his Inventory.
[Sacred Spear of Lu-Solace]
It was the Holy Object of Lu-Solace that had split the Demon Realm's tower in half.
“This one is quite good, too.”
Erik smiled lightly and swung the spear horizontally.
Erik could handle the power of the Three Gods evenly.
So drawing out a Holy Object's power without throwing the spear was very easy.
Fwoooosh-.
Intense flames made a huge barrier between the Saintess and Erik.
It was like a boundary line made of the sun's power.
“Would I be harmed by my own source?”
The Saintess snorted and approached Erik.
The flames of the sun were her source and proof of the favor left by her father, who had departed the world.
The moment the Saintess touched the fire.
“Ugk-!”
The Saintess jumped in shock and stepped back.
“What is this!”
Surely, this fire was the power of the sun.
It was unmistakably the flame of Lu-Solace.
Yet the Saintess's foot had begun to burn.
“W-why……. A Holy Object of Lu-Solace, against me?”
She was plainly shaken.
Even so, her eyes grew even more venomous.
The bronze-skinned woman resembling the Latin type was the Saintess of the Sun God.
A match for that hot sun.
And for the passion of high noon.
That woman showed a thoroughly fierce face, as if she were an Amazon warrior.
I bought some time.
At that, Erik smiled and asked whether she knew an item called the Tear of Lu-Solace.
“A trace of god, by the likes of you-.”
The Saintess had no intention of answering.
But her stubborn attitude was as good as saying she knew, so Erik continued as usual.
“Thanks to the Solar Holy Kingdom losing battle after battle, I obtained many Holy Objects.”
“Why would you-?”
“Among them, I ground up the useless ones using the Possessors' power.”
The Tear of Lu-Solace was an item Erik had ground up in the Auction House's Disassembler.
In other words, he had erased a trace of the Sun God.
“The crystal hardened from the tears Lu-Solace, Father Sun God, shed and left behind……. You g-ground it up?”
The Saintess's eyes shook madly.
“It is the belonging of a god who left the world, so isn't it right that I, a god newly born into the world, dispose of it myself?”
From the Saintess's standpoint, it was an utterly vicious act.
The Three Gods had left the world.
The Holy Objects are the traces of Father, who left the world……
She had lived well over a hundred years studying the god's will through the remaining doctrine.
To the Saintess, Lu-Solace was everything.
Haaaah!!!
The Saintess let out a lion's roar.
That thundering shout shook the whole Labyrinth.
“Are you defiling my dead father!!!”
Saying he had ground up a trace of god, a Holy Object, with the Possessors' power was no different from mutilating a grave.
Erik's back then shook.
So the Saintess is a person after all.
In Erik's head, the Saintess's danger level changed.
She was a being like a slaughter machine trying to kill him, but.
This incident had exposed a clear weakness.
“You know what? I have never once held faith in anyone.”