Chapter 96
Chapter 96: Collection (5)
In the middle of a forest polluted by the Demon Realm.
"Your Holiness, still the same as ever."
"Haha, my children have already done their best."
The Pope and Riferoze stepped forward personally to clear a path for the Imperial Army to pass through.
Power inevitably gets depleted. Both the Holy Paladins and the Holy Choir were exhausted.
"I'm called the Pope, yet I can't rest easy."
The Pope called this consideration.
However, Riferoze didn't call it that.
She saw it as a weakness.
"Didn't you raise them too weakly? To struggle with just this much......"
"If I had raised them like you, the number of Paladins wouldn't have even reached half."
"Instead, wouldn't there be about ten Eriks?"
"......"
The Pope was at a loss for words.
It was naturally true that ten believers of Erik's level would be much stronger than thousands of Paladins.
But still......
"Your teachings—or rather, I doubt ten people would even endure that violence of yours."
The Pope looked at Riferoze with a pitiful expression.
He appeared as a young man.
Judging by his appearance alone, he seemed the same age as Riferoze.
"Tsk, anyway. You're too soft-hearted, Your Holiness. That's the problem."
"Haha! Rife, aren't you the vicious one?"
"What?"
Riferoze touched the Sword of Creation.
Seeing that, the Pope naturally changed the subject.
"We'll have to push that entire forest through."
The Eastern Great Forest—homeland of the Elves and the resting place of the World Tree.
Now, consumed by the darkness of the Demon Realm, the blackened trees scattered the aura of death.
The ground beneath their feet was filled with dark and murky death aura.
"It's quite extensive."
"A path for the army."
Riferoze, pointing her sword at the massive forest, asked the Pope, "Your Holiness, why are you helping the Imperial Army?"
The Church didn't intervene in conflicts between nations.
This was an ancient principle that had been passed down.
'That stubborn fool—why on earth?'
Riferoze was puzzled by the Pope's change.
To which the Pope answered:
"To prevent the world's destruction. And because Erik is at the center of this flow."
The Pope also posed a question to Riferoze:
"Then let me ask you something. Erik—what exactly is he?"
Based on the Pope's understanding, Erik clearly wielded an unusual power.
It was unusual, but the source of that power wasn't negative.
'The power used through the body and the power when using techniques are different.'
Erik's divine power felt closer to pure energy than the power of a god.
When he summoned the great sword.
When he raised the flames of the Sun God.
'It felt like something close to the source.'
Clearly, it was divine power as pure energy—without the presence of a god.
A kind of energy mass.
Or something close to a natural phenomenon.
"What is Erik?"
The Pope gazed at Riferoze for a long time.
She, too, would find it difficult to describe what Erik was precisely.
However, Riferoze gave a simple answer:
"My disciple."
The Pope nodded contentedly at that simple answer.
"I see."
This was also a form of learning.
The Pope found great comfort in Riferoze's simplicity.
'As long as Erik wields divine power, Erik is simply Erik.'
The confusion in his heart disappeared.
The Pope moved forward with a lighter heart.
"Now let us begin the purification."
A massive sacred law was activated through the Pope's body as a medium.
It was a wide-area purification sacred law.
Kugugugyung!
Holy divinity embraced the dark earth, and the aura of death was washed away.
Riferoze waited for the Pope's power to complete.
"Haaaam"
She yawned languidly, then pointed her sword at the blackened forest.
A great sword held in one small girl's hand.
Beyond the sword's tip stretched an overwhelming expanse of forest that crossed the continent.
It was an unusual sight.
"Are you done yet?"
"You're still impatient as ever. We're ready now."
As the Pope's sacred law completed, Riferoze swung her sword horizontally.
Whoooosh!
An overwhelming wind pressure erupted from the sword swung with one hand.
And as a result:
Boom!
The massive trees that filled her vision vanished in the sword aura Riferoze unleashed.
A path cleanly carved through.
At its end, the walls of Lu-Solace came into view.
"Huh!"
Riferoze was astonished.
She was an overwhelmingly powerful fighter among the top five in the world.
For such a person to be shocked—something incredible had happened.
"Erik, you mad bastard."
"Uh......"
The Pope swallowed hard.
It wasn't power.
It was almost like a phenomenon.
"It truly feels like witnessing the power of a god."
"With one swing, the result appears as three strikes......"
Riferoze suddenly pointed her blade at the Pope.
"Your Holiness, block this."
Whoooosh!
Without hesitation, she swung her sword.
"Not this again!"
The Pope instantly set up a divine barrier and infused his body with divine power.
Shriek!
The barrier tore with one strike.
The divine power wrapping the Pope's body tore with the second strike.
The third strike met the Pope's sacred vestments.
The hem of his robe was torn.
"The holy artifact of Lord Astia......"
The robes worn by the god.
The symbol of the Pope had been severed.
[Sacred Relic – Astia's Simple Robes]
The Pope flared with extreme anger:
"How dare you! You dare! To a sacred relic. Can't you even control your strength to this degree!!!"
"Ah, no......"
Riferoze hurriedly made excuses:
"This sword....... Something's strange about it. Just swinging it makes the strike as powerful as if I had infused it with divine power."
She hadn't even applied her unique power, nor had she properly infused divine power.
"What do you mean?"
"Your Holiness, listen too."
Swish! Shriek!
Riferoze and the Pope took turns swinging the sword.
They thus quantified the changes to the [Sword of Creation]:
"It feels about 20 times stronger, and one strike counts as three strikes—a miracle."
Attack power increase: 2,000%.
One strike activates three times.
"Items of the possessed ones strengthened the sacred relic, you say......"
By the time the two finished their analysis:
The Eastern Great Forest had a highway carved through it.
It was the kind of path not only the army but even residents of the size of a territory could pass through.
***
"Master, I understand how you cleared a path so quickly."
In the center of his own divine temple, Erik faced Riferoze.
'As I thought, items can be used by everyone.'
The Sword of Creation, enhanced to '+20 Strength,' gained a 2,000% damage increase and an additional option of two extra hits per strike.
Erik was surprised that item performance worked even for the locals in this place.
'It's a completely different space, yet how did she find this?'
However, he found it even more bewildering that Riferoze had intruded into his temple.
"How were you able to enter this place......"
Erik's temple was essentially a separate dimension.
Right after entering, Erik had closed the entrance.
How could she have found such a place?
"It reeked to high heaven."
"A reek?"
Riferoze laughed richly.
"Erik, you wouldn't know, but if you go to the training grounds of the apprentice Paladins, you can smell it all the time."
A creepy smile and a murderous glint swept across the temple in the sky.
"Corpse stench. I went through such trouble grinding those things."
What followed next:
"Erik, open the path at once. I'll come up myself and speak with you."
The moment Erik saw Riferoze, he severed all the bridges leading to his temple.
His temple was essentially his body.
He could move the location of the clouds, or eliminate the bridges connected to the temple.
He could control it freely.
Yet he couldn't shake the unease.
'How can she make it all the way here?'
The power that cuts through everything.
Riferoze's unique ability was also insanely strong.
Wasn't it as if she freely used his own [Creation] skill?
'Finding the location through smell and cutting a path here......’
She was literally a monster.
Even though he had become overwhelmingly stronger, his master was still his master. The gap was clear.
As Erik stood dazed:
"Kyaaaah! Erik, absolutely not!"
Ruelle shrieked from beside him, crossing her arms.
Immediately:
"Haaaaah—!!!!"
A shout erupted.
"Men and women should not sit together after age seven!"
White hair drew afterimages as she began leaping across the clouds.
Erik panicked.
'What's with seven years old—'
Still, he maintained maximum composure and controlled the clouds.
"Master, if we include my past life, I'm over 40 years old......"
He did his best to make it difficult for the clouds to approach the temple.
"And that saying doesn't apply to full-grown adults anyway!"
Yet stopping Riferoze was impossible.
Eventually, she landed on the temple.
Boom!
A heavy tremor ran through, and the snow-white woman approached with afterimages.
In each of her hands was a massive sword.
It was the great sword she originally used and the Sword of Creation she had received from Erik.
"Erik, this works quite well."
Riferoze tossed the [Sword of Creation] to Erik with a whoosh!
Erik caught the sword.
"Are you not tempted to keep it?"
"Haha! Erik, my heart isn't twisted enough to covet another's possession. Unlike someone."
Riferoze's gaze then turned to Ruelle, who was pressed against Erik's side.
"Right, Ruelle. You scurried around and dodged, yet we meet like this."
A murderous glint made chills run down her spine.
"I told you to raise him well, yet how did you end up establishing a household here of all places?"
"Eeeek!!!"
Ruelle shrieked.
Disaster seemed certain.
At that, Erik pulled out his best move:
"Master, we have become inseparable."
"What do you mean......"
Erik stood firm:
"This is my divine temple."
"Isn't that the power of the possessed?"
"Similar, but different. It's a space of 'I' who is a god."
"You're speaking of godhood at merely that level of power?"
Her head tilted at about 45 degrees.
It was a sign of interest.
Erik quickly continued:
"I'm growing stronger gradually."
"So you're saying you two can't be separated because...?"
Erik pointed to the center of the temple.
There stood a statue of Ruelle—now much more defined than before.
Previously, it had been a vague form.
However, now the statue had a more stimulating figure, and anyone could recognize it as Ruelle's silhouette.
"You even marked your territory like this?"
It was now at a level where others could recognize her identity.
"Ruelle, how could you!"
Riferoze stared at Ruelle in shock.
"Ruelle is now a priestess of my temple."
"What do you"
"Master, if you're not planning to convert, further interference is impossible."
"Con, convert?"
Riferoze was flustered.
She tried to comprehend the meaning.
'So......’
Did that mean Ruelle converted and became Erik's believer?
It didn't make sense.
'She would bear the mark of an apostate.'
The god Astia does not permit apostasy.
Of course, Ruelle had received permission, but from Riferoze's perspective, who didn't know this, it made no sense.
"What kind of mad talk is this!"
As she said this in shock, Erik drove in a wedge:
"And besides, women who are too obsessive aren't popular."
Tap!
The sword fell from Riferoze's hands to the ground.
***
Erik walked toward the Empire.
The Pope and Julius led the Holy Paladins in front, with Erik following behind.
'I've handled most things......’
Ruelle, who clung uncomfortably close to him.
She was practically hanging from Erik's arm, wrapped in only a thin piece of clothing, her skin felt nakedly against him.
The Ruelle who had kept her distance was now closer, and it should have pleased him.
'The problem is......’
Yet he couldn't fully rejoice in this.
'It feels like the back of my head will be shot through.'
A step behind, Riferoze sent sharp looks his way.
Literally as if she would devour him.
'My master has her sights set on me.'
Erik was bewildered.
"You're growing into quite my taste."
He had heard such words many times as a child.
However, back then he hadn't cared much.
'I was barely over a meter tall back then.'
He couldn't have imagined such things were said seriously to such a small brat.
Yet it had been sincere.
Of course, Erik was someone with an open mind to some degree, so he had given it some thought.
'Ruelle and I are at least similar ages, but Master......’
A hundred years his senior?
It was truly burdensome.
If he added the time in the Labyrinth, it could easily stretch into the hundreds.
Though Riferoze was extraordinarily beautiful in appearance......
'Besides, my most frequent memory is of being beaten.'
The age and tone of voice, the years lived, and the memories of violence made it difficult to close the distance.
Yet he dared not try to separate from his master.
'She's already showing remarkable patience.'
So far, she hadn't drawn her sword even once, showing restraint.
So he came up with something of a solution:
"Master, let us go to the Elf Autonomous Region."
"Elf?"
"The place Master developed through Yuren, didn't you?"
Riferoze, who had been sending sharp looks throughout, softened slightly.
A familiar name had come up.
"The Pope said the Elves are rolling along fine on their own. Why the need to stop by?"
Erik leaned his head slightly and whispered near Riferoze's ear:
"I heard the World Tree will also relocate to my temple."
"The Elves will throw a fit—that makes no sense."
"Actually, the Elf King is under my command."
"What kind of crazy talk is that?"
It's only been five years.
Yet everything Erik said was strange.
It was the level of idle fantasies.
Riferoze fell into thought.
'The position of Saint was obtained through deception with the possessed one's power......’
The other things made no sense.
Receiving glory at a banquet with the Emperor.
Having part of the Imperial Capital recognized as her territory.
“And saying the Elf King is under him......"
The Elf King was the one who held her head high and talked back when she faced Riferoze.
Erik wouldn't have lied to her, but......
"I simply can't believe it."
As she was amazed, Ruelle cautiously spoke:
"Riferoze, we've completed education for Doo-sik as well, and we've even agreed to marry the Princess—"
"Ha! Keep your jokes to a reasonable degree! Who would that Doo-sik fellow marry!"
Riferoze declared sharply.
"And what? 'We'? Is Doo-sik our child!"
At that roar, Ruelle hid behind Erik with 'Eeeek!'
"Master, it's true."
"Did the Princess come down with madness?"
"Our friendship with her, and Doo-sik's uniqueness"
"Just what has happened to the world in five years......"
Riferoze truly believed the world was falling apart.
"We're even transplanting the World Tree, and you're worried about Doo-sik's marriage? What's the big deal?"
Erik added something to the sighing Riferoze:
"Right, I am curious about transplanting the World Tree."
Riferoze's interest naturally shifted.
Erik smiled slightly.
Having Ruelle and Riferoze get into a jealous fight would have been awkward anyway.
'I'm losing in raw power.'
If things went wrong, his master might forcibly claim him.
So Erik pulled out a plan that could become complicated but would resolve simply:
[Giant Flowerpot: 2,000,000GP]
Wasn't it just the right moment when he had accumulated GP to plant a pot?
'In times like these, you drag it into a three-way fight.'