Chapter 273
With silver hair and golden eyes, the girl’s colors harmonized so brilliantly that it was almost dazzling. She sat with perfect composure and gently closed her eyes. From this moment on, she could not afford to lose even a single thread of focus.
This girl was the strongest Saintess in history. The holy power swirling within the body of the Eighth Elahan was no different from a storm. A force greater and purer than that of ten Cardinals combined roared into motion, dispersing the surrounding mist.
It resounded like the tolling of a massive bell. As concentric ripples spreading from a stone dropped into the center of a pond, waves of holy power spread outward several times over.
Once, twice, three times, as the mist of Nether Valley was blown away, the warped ecosystem, which was twisted through layers of distortion, was restored to normal.
Elahan was demonstrating a sacred spell at a level and scale that even a Cardinal would not dare attempt. And yet, William, standing several meters away from Elahan, pointed out its flaws bluntly.
“Your control is crude. You need to fine-tune it more carefully.”
Unlike magic, sacred spells relied far more on intuition than calculation in their structure. Perhaps because of that, aptitude and power varied greatly depending on the type of sacred spell.
If the Holy Church were not a group united solely by devotion to the goddess, it would not have been strange for factions to have split off long ago. Healing spells, support spells, purification spells, and so on.
Fortunately, the Saintesses who inherited the title of “Elahan” were capable of wielding every type of sacred spell. Even so, there were always differences, meaning that some spells they handled more adeptly than others. The moment she heard William’s advice, Elahan widened the rhythm of her breathing and sank even deeper into her subconscious.
“Hooo...”
She was entering a realm where all stray thoughts were cast aside, leaving only a single, unwavering focus. Before beginning this training, William had ordered four full days of fasting meditation. To master a countermeasure to Heaven Denial—something that lay outside the conventional system of sacred spells—ordinary levels of concentration were woefully insufficient.
Truly remarkable, William thought in awe.
Though his tone when speaking to Elahan remained stiff, he was inwardly astonished by her rate of growth. What he was passing on was the wisdom the Holy Church had built through three hundred years of research and trial and error, and Elahan had begun approaching its very essence in less than a week. Even if this was merely a simplified course meant to grasp its usage, the difficulty itself had not been lowered.
In this era, I’m the only one who can use it at all... and even I can’t employ it effectively in a battle against Heaven Denial.
William clicked his tongue unconsciously, and the reason was simple. The modified sacred spell designed to counter Heaven Denial consumed an absurd amount of Holy power.
Even William, who possessed the greatest reserves of holy power after the High Cardinal, could only sustain it for about ten seconds at best, and even that wasn’t enough to completely erode the Demon King’s Reversal. That was why only the Saintess—only the Eighth Elahan—was the true fit for this role.
“Mm!”
At that moment, the Holy power raging in all directions converged into a single point, its brilliance dimming as it took the form of a radiant sphere. There was none of the usual grandeur associated with holy power.
It was simply pure. Like crystal-clear water without a trace of impurity, a transparent, softly glowing sphere slowly rotated above Elahan’s palm. It was so clear it looked like a soap bubble, its interior fully visible.
“Yes. Well done,” William complimented.
A sphere of light so pure it bordered on the absolute. A power meant solely to nullify Heaven Denial. A law that existed in a completely different domain from sacred spells.
“That is Heaven Correction.”
A spell to return what is distorted to what is right. Unlike exolaw, Denial and Corruption—both rooted in natural order—must not be opposed with conventional sacred spells.
“If natural order is clear water, and exolaw is impurity, then sacred spells are like a sieve that scoops impurities out of the pond. But the Demon King—born as the sludge of natural order—does not wield impurity. He wields rotten water itself. A sieve can’t remove that.”
Magic, which distorted natural order by a single step, was a transformation of water into ice or steam. That alone was insufficient to purify or nullify sewage itself.
Aura Blade, which stepped beyond natural order entirely, was water that had changed in nature. It worked better against Denial, but its rank was too low, causing most of its power to disperse.
If one reached the realm of a Grandmaster, even Denial could be contested on equal footing. However, in this era, only Kasim had reached that level.
“For that reason, the Heaven Correction we developed is a filter,” William explained.
An evolved and altered form of a sacred spell that returned corrupted water to its original state. Because it deviated so greatly from conventional forms, its efficiency in terms of power consumption was drastically worse, but no further improvement was possible.
“Saintess. How long do you estimate you can maintain Heaven Correction?”
“Hmm...” Elahan closed her eyes briefly, then opened them as she answered. “If I maintain it in this state, about ten minutes. If I control the sphere at long range or increase its power density, it’ll be shorter.”
“Ten minutes... impressive.”
“Is it? In actual combat, only ten minutes feels like... I don’t know...”
William nodded in agreement, but then immediately countered, “It’s not enough to feel secure. But Saintess, remember this—there is no one besides you who can use it even for minutes at a time. The key to breaking the Evil Dragon’s Heaven Denial with Heaven Correction lies with you alone.”
“Yes. I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Continue training until the Hero returns. I believe I’ve taught you everything I can.”
After instructing Elahan to train on her own, William went to find Albion to deliver the news. To avoid any possible interference between spirit arts training and Heaven Correction, the two pairs had been training at some distance from each other.
Upon arriving at Karen’s training area, William let out a hollow laugh. “Hah...”
He couldn’t help it. He’d felt it while teaching the Saintess as well that there were people in this world born with talents that defied all common sense.
For example, someone who picked up a sword for the first time and cut through steel in a single strike. Or someone who perfectly manifested a magic circle using formulas they hadn’t even fully memorized.
Such achievements, so unreasonable they bordered on the absurd, existed, and now he was seeing that. For the second time today.
Meow.
There were cats. Cats lounging atop Karen’s body as she lay sprawled on the ground, tails buried in her hair, bodies curled into neat circles on her stomach. Not just one or two, at least ten. William, who perceived their true nature, was left speechless.
At that moment, Albion spoke without even turning around to look at him. “How is it, child of the forest?”
Her voice was far gentler than usual. Seeing William speechless, she asked again, “I’m asking what you think of the achievement my Guardian Knight has attained.”
“Excellent,” William answered honestly. “To maintain the summoning of multiple mid-tier spirits in just one week, and without even focusing every bit of her waking consciousness. She may, in fact, have greater talent as a spirit wielder than as an assassin.”
“No. The opposite,” Albion said.
“Pardon...?”
“It’s precisely because she understands night, darkness, and shadow so deeply as an assassin that she achieved this much. Had she grown up in a warm, ordinary household, she might not even have taken her first step yet.”
As if comforting that unfortunate past, Albion gently stroked Karen’s sleeping hair several times before continuing. “Her contact with high-tier spirits is proceeding smoothly as well. If she continues training for a few more weeks, she could become a Spirit Knight, something that hasn’t appeared even once in recent centuries. As expected, my eye for people was precise.”
It was then. Having just praised herself, Albion suddenly turned her head and glared toward Nether Valley, a place she had found unpleasant to even look at until now. William naturally followed her gaze.
He didn’t yet understand why, but it was exceedingly rare for a dragon to fail to conceal her emotions. And then, from the depths of Nether Valley, a single pillar of golden light surged upward like a column, scattering its radiance so brilliantly that it could be clearly seen from tens of kilometers away.
It lasted only an instant, and the pillar of light appeared and vanished within seconds. Even so, Albion and William needed no words to know who it was.
The Hero, Leon.
***
“Huff! Hah! Hrrgh!”
Leon tumbled across the ground, having lost his grip on the sword amid the crushing agony of his lungs collapsing in on themselves. The Holy Sword, never released even when his palms split and his wrist bones were nearly shattered, was now embedded deep in the ground.
Not only his body, but even his mental strength had reached its limit. Had he closed his eyes, he would have passed out on the spot. Instead, Leon forced his eyelids open until they bruised, barely maintaining consciousness.
It was just a single strike. That single swing of the sword had drained him completely.
—That’s power you shouldn’t be able to use at your level yet.
El-Cid spoke quietly. —The second stage of the Mind-Blade normally only becomes manageable after breaking through the wall of Grandmaster. You’re a special case. Partly because my instruction was exceptionally good, of course.
Even now, El-Cid didn’t miss a chance to boast. Yet Leon didn’t get annoyed. Even as his blood boiled and his lungs felt like they were burning, he smiled broadly, his face twisted with pain.
“Hah... hahaha...! I... did it...!”
A single slash. It was neither the Sun Sword nor the Grand Chariot. It was a simple diagonal cut, but it was a strike swung with an unfamiliar sensation, as though compressing the entire weight of the karma he had accumulated into a single thread.
“έκπληκτος...”
Sisyphus stared down at his own upper body, eyes wide. A faint line had been drawn from his left collarbone to his right flank.
It wasn’t a deep cut, and no blood flowed. It was a little more than a brush of force, strong enough to raise the skin. Calling it a light wound would have been generous. And yet, it had touched him.
—Hah! Looks like even he didn’t expect you to cut through permeation.
Even though Sisyphus had lost most of his former power and was bound by Tartaros and the punishment stone, this feat could not be dismissed. An orc defeating another orc wasn’t surprising, but a goblin defeating an orc was remarkable, and defeating an ogre would be the stuff of legend. A weaker being challenging an overwhelming powerhouse and surpassing that stronghold carried exactly that meaning.
As if he couldn’t believe the wound on his own body, Sisyphus brushed it several times before bursting into hearty laughter. “χαχαχαχαχαχαχα!”
There wasn’t a shred of anger in that laughter. Only joy at the stimulation he hadn’t felt in ages. Still smiling, Sisyphus hoisted the boulder he had set down earlier onto his shoulders and approached Leon.
“Ευχαριστώ.”
He patted Leon’s shoulder three or four times. Leon couldn’t even move a finger. Sisyphus then disappeared beyond the mist of Nether Valley, not outward but inward.
Watching Sisyphus march into the depths where Cerberus had told him to go, Leon found himself utterly dumbfounded.
“Wait. Wasn’t he an escapee...?”
—He might be able to escape Tartaros, but he won’t break free from the curse of the punishment stone. Coming this far was probably just a kind of amusement.
“So now that he’s done playing, he’s just going to go straight back?”
Leon’s desperate struggle had been nothing more than a bit of long-overdue entertainment to Sisyphus. That was why there had been no killing intent, no hostility, and not even the slightest malice. Had Leon refused to engage and simply waited, Sisyphus might have let him pass through out of sheer boredom.
“Well... I gained something, at least.”
It hadn’t ended as a waste of time, and that gave it meaning. Reaffirming that fact, Leon pushed himself back to his feet. Rodlin supported him as she cast recovery magic.
“Consumption of Aura and physical stamina is severe. I strongly recommend at least three hours of rest and reorganization,” she reported.
“It’s fine. There aren’t any monsters left around here anyway.”
Patting Rodlin on the head to reassure her, Leon thought of Cerberus waiting beyond the mist. It was time to keep the promise he’d made with the watchdog of the Ledger of the Dead, the divine beast who had asked him to seal the demonic realm, Nether Valley, with the Holy Sword.
“Let’s take our time. No rush.”
With steps that refused to come easily, Leon and Rodlin began walking toward their not-so-distant destination—into the Underworld, toward its entrance of the land ruled by the Grim Reaper, Pluto.
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