Free Web NovelA dark, vast space.
Only the small candles lit on every side illuminated that darkness.
When he first set foot in that space.
The first thing he felt was an unpleasant rotten stench.
A dense aura of death that seemed to seep in through his skin even if he covered his nose.
And it was not difficult to identify the source of that aura.
Crackle.......
An altar standing in the middle of the dark space.
A shape resembling a human lay on top of it.
That shape had suffered wounds so horrific it was difficult to look at with the naked eye.
And it was rotting atop the altar.
“How does it appear to you?”
And.
The woman who had guided Shin Youngjun into that space.
Lee Haein clasped her hands together and spoke.
“What do you mean, how does it appear?”
At her question.
Shin Youngjun frowned and said,
“......A human corpse that died a long time ago and is rotting away.”
“......!”
He focused mana into his eyes and looked at it in greater detail.
The corpse seemed to have been decaying for quite some time already.
Gas swelling from within had made parts of it protrude grotesquely, and it was discolored.
“Is that so? To Your Holiness, it appears that way.......”
“......?”
Then.
After hearing that description, Lee Haein spoke with an intrigued look in her eyes.
“To me, it appears as a kindly old man quietly asleep.”
“What?”
Hearing that, Shin Youngjun could not help feeling puzzled.
On one side of that rotting face, a little of the beauty it must have had in life still showed through.
But it looked far from the face of an elderly old man.
“A rotting corpse.”
While Shin Youngjun was feeling doubtful.
Lee Haein spoke with an astonished expression.
“So that is the form of god Your Holiness imagines.”
“......?”
Hearing those words, Shin Youngjun frowned and thought.
Because, naturally.
The part she found astonishing.
“His Eminence the Cardinal said it looked like a vicious giant resembling the King of Hell.”
Was not the fact that what he saw and what she saw were different.
“Sir David described a dry-bodied middle-aged man with a beard, and Sir Jang Woohyuk said it was a man wearing golden robes that shone with light.”
What those words meant was simple.
'That being.'
Depending on the one observing it.
Changed its appearance.
“There was one common point.”
And.
Among those countless different appearances, there was only one overlapping part.
“The form of god each person imagines...... is projected onto that being.”
With those words, she looked toward the altar in the distance.
In her eyes, there was unmistakably.
The form of an old man sleeping with a benevolent smile.
“In the past, my profession was priest.”
With those words.
Lee Haein stepped forward and entered that dark space.
Splash.......
When her foot landed inside the space.
The sound of liquid rippling echoed softly.
“It was not a bad profession. I could heal wounds through absurd methods, and I could punish beings that possessed wicked power.”
That rotting corpse.
Blood flowing down from that corpse had risen to ankle height.
And filled that dark space.
“But...... while surviving with that power, there was always something I found strange.”
Seeing that sight, Shin Youngjun likewise.
Stepped inside after her.
“Divine power...... handling the sacred power of a god. That was the profession called priest. My profession.”
“.......”
“Then.”
Splash, went the sound.
As that blood touched Shin Youngjun’s foot.
“What exactly is the being that could be called ‘god’...... the being granting this sacred power to me?”
Rustle.......
Something dug into his body.
“It was a time when many people suffered and collapsed. Many of them experienced death of the mind before death of the body.”
It was different from the simple sensation of his feet getting wet.
An unidentified energy seeped into his body.
Only after feeling that energy could Shin Youngjun realize.
'This isn’t blood.'
To begin with.
Blood was meant to supply oxygen and energy to the body.
“There was no way those who died mentally could protect their bodies amid ruin. Many people...... had to vanish far too emptily.”
For that being rotting over there.
Such cumbersome functions were unnecessary.
“That was why I had no choice but to think even more deeply about that question.”
“.......”
“If I could only find the answer to that question, I might be able to give at least a little hope to the minds of those who were dying....... With that thought, I kept worrying and reflecting.”
This was merely.
Something gathered in one place and given a physical form.
And as a result of being reflected through Shin Youngjun’s vision, it had merely transformed into the shape of blood.......
'Divine power.'
To him.
It was an energy that could only feel familiar.
“At the end of that thought, I was able to obtain an answer of my own.”
A corpse spilling divine power.
“Based on that answer, I spread faith to people. I incited and shouted to those collapsing that hope existed.”
“.......”
“But...... I myself had no certainty whether the answer I had obtained was truly the answer, or whether it was merely my own guess. I could only...... pray that the guess was true, hide my anxious thoughts, and act confidently in front of others.”
What the true identity of that corpse was.
Was far too clear.
“Only.”
And.
The moment that thought surfaced in his mind.
“Until I discovered this place.”
The blood filling the space.
The divine power resonated with him and surged.
Paaaaaaak!!!
The memories contained in that energy.
Began unfolding before his eyes.
***
The scenery changed in an instant.
And a strange sight that did not exist in his memories spread before his eyes.
On the surface, there was only one enormous continent.
And a single vast ocean surrounded that overwhelmingly large continent.
On the enormous continent, plants dozens of meters long, ferns, and tree moss were growing.
And beneath the shadows they created, an immense amount of life force was surging.
Amphibians whose names he did not know swam through shallow waters, and gigantic dragonflies flew through the sky.
Somewhere on a distant grassland, enormous dinosaurs moved their feet, and the ground shook with every step.
A strange sight he was seeing for the first time.
However.
Shin Youngjun was not particularly flustered even by that scenery.
Because, naturally.
'It’s the same as with Morzan.'
He.
Had already experienced this several times before.
But.......
Not everything was the same as back then.
Bzzzt.......
A world filled with such life force.
There was a being leisurely looking around that world.
Probably...... the owner of this memory.
However.
Unlike when he had glimpsed Morzan’s memories in the past.
Bzzzt.......
For some reason, the form of the one who must be the owner of this memory.
Was hidden behind gray noise and could not be seen properly.
And that was not all.
He had not noticed at first, but.
Bzzzzzzzt.......
This scenery filled with life force.
Only part of that scenery was visible.
Most of it could not be seen properly because of that noise. fгeewebnovёl.com
'......?'
At that fact.
Shin Youngjun felt a slight doubt.
But he had no time to dig deeply into that suspicion.
The owner of the memory continued moving from place to place, looking over this world.
Unlike with Morzan.
Because of that noise, it was difficult to tell exactly what they were doing.
Or what thoughts they held.
Even so, there was something he could recognize.......
A gaze that seemed to look down upon the world.
And within the fragmentary scenes, the sight of the world being cultivated by those hands.
And.
'Love.'
Something even that noise could not fully conceal.
The emotion held by the owner of this memory.
Only that.
There had been something Shin Youngjun had wondered about for a while.
The many other races he had encountered in this world.
A question he had come to hold after learning their pasts.
The worlds of those other races had met ruin for various reasons.
Even so, in most cases, the ones who survived and wandered [Otherworld].
Were people who had been able to continue their lives by crossing into other worlds.
Because of beings with transcendent power who had been their leaders and creators.
Yes.
In the worlds of every other race he had met, there had clearly been beings who could be called gods.
If that was the case.
'Where is Earth’s god?'
Regarding that question.
He had long been unable to obtain a clear answer.
If there was anything he had learned at all.
It was something he had realized in the past, when he met Morzan.
By reading its memories.
'Morzan was devoured by something.'
And.
Through that fact, there was one thing he instinctively came to understand.
Just like Morzan.......
Crack.
This land where he lived.
Earth’s master, too.
Craaaack.......
By something that had invaded this world.......
Crack!!!
Had been devoured.
And vanished.
Kwaaaaaaang!!!
-......!
The barrier that separated the world from the outside was violently destroyed.
And from beyond it.
Something enormous flew in.
***
The world’s barrier shattered.
And something flew in from beyond it.
Shin Youngjun stared at that something with wide eyes.
A being he had seen directly before, but had been unable to look at directly and therefore could not see with his own eyes.
But now.
He wondered whether he might be able to see it, and perhaps understand even a little of it.
Bzzzt.......
'Of all times......!'
Unfortunately.
The form of that being, too.
Like the owner of this energy and those landscapes.
Was hidden by grotesque noise.
-......!
And.
That enormous invader.
And the owner of the memory began fighting.
Kwaaaaaaang.......
A battle fierce enough to collapse heaven and earth....... ƒгeeweɓn૦vel.com
No, a battle where they were literally collapsing.
A battle between beings who held the fate of the world in their hands unfolded.
If there was one slightly unusual thing.
It was that, unlike in Morzan’s case.
The outcome was not decided easily.
Kuuung.......
The battle continued for a long time.
Morzan too had resisted the invader for a long time.
But this battle was not merely long in duration.
It went on for so long that it had to be called “ages.”
So long that converting it into a human perspective felt foolish.
'Judging by the way the surrounding environment is changing...... at least ten thousand years.'
Perhaps for nearly two hundred thousand years.
A war between invader and master unfolded.
And.
There was something about that sight that could only feel strange.
Morzan, too, had been a being containing mighty power.
Yet it had not endured against that invader for so long.
The monster had ignored even Morzan’s infinite mana and charged in.
And in the end, it had chewed up Morzan’s body.
And as for the reason the owner of this memory could fight that being for so long.......
He was able to notice it quickly.
Bzzzt.......
The monster that had invaded.
Its form was hidden by noise and could not be seen.
Even so, through the size of that noise, he could estimate its scale.
And that was.
'......Small?'
No.
It was still an enormous presence, one he felt embarrassed to describe as small.
But.
Compared to the past, when it had been so vast his brain could not contain even a portion of it.......
It had an absurdly small size.
'Is it...... a different being?'
He could not know why there was a difference in its size.
However.
That being and the owner of this memory were fighting on fairly equal terms.
And that.
Was not only a good thing.
Kwagwagwagwang.......
The components of the atmosphere changed from the continuous explosions.
Parts of the still-forming, incomplete world collapsed here and there, and things that should not yet have leaked out squeezed forth.
The temperature of the world grew incomparably hotter than in the past.
The liquids on the surface evaporated in that heat, and the vast ocean began turning into dry land.
The barrier that had blocked sunlight was destroyed.
The land became polluted, and rain of death fell from the sky.
By the time roughly twenty thousand years had passed.
Most of the life on the surface had already been wiped out by the aftermath of that battle.
Even after that, the battle continued.
And at last.
Kwagwagwagwagwang.......
Even the single enormous continent that had existed on the surface.
Could not withstand the aftermath of that battle, and split apart into several pieces.
