Free Web NovelIt was the Lord of the Stars.
At this moment, Muen finally understood the most important part of the earlier question of how that enormous price was being paid.
So the Salvation Society had not influenced time through its own power.
Instead, by sacrificing the flesh, blood, and souls of several million people, they had obtained the Lord of the Stars’ mighty Evil God power, and only then had they successfully driven that powerful Ancient Magic capable of splitting a timeline.
Everything connected. Everything was also so perfectly logical.
The reason the Salvation Society had gone to such pains to split the timeline was to create time for itself to take control of the entire Saint Blancfazesiya.
And taking control of the entire Saint Blancfazesiya was for the sake of controlling the corpses and souls here, making them offer everything they had to the Evil God.
Finally, the Evil God Lord of the Stars, having received the sacrifice, descended with mighty power, drove the Ancient Magic, and successfully split time.
The beginning was the ending, and the ending was precisely the beginning.
This bent timeline seemed to connect completely here, forming a permanent loop like a Mobius strip.
Thus, the magic that occurred in the [future] successfully split the timeline of the [past].
And everything achieved in the [past] ultimately led to this “irreversible” [future] happening.
The Salvation Society had achieved its desired goal without paying anything at all.
The ruined royal capital.
The several million dead citizens.
The city peeled away from the world barrier.
The gradually approaching Lord of the Stars.
And... the Salvation Society’s true purpose, which even now remained hidden in fog.
“What the hell is this? Stepping on your own left foot with your right foot to fly into the sky?”
This routine of ascending in place, which completely violated common sense, could not help but give Muen new doubts. At this moment, the magnificent pillar of light gradually spread, then reached its end and dissipated into the endless wilderness.
Along the Ancient Magic of the city’s grand barrier, those mysterious symbols extended rapidly. Under the Evil God’s power, each one was plated with mysterious gold, then quickly drilled into the void and vanished.
Dong—
The Eternal Clock’s warning echoed again. The timeline once again showed a tiny tremor, and Muen saw an old man in white robes inside a secret chamber, using an Ancient Magic that had not yet been activated to pray to the Lord of the Stars, issuing a blank check that could never be cashed if he failed.
That was the true beginning of everything.
“Is... that how it is?”
Muen suddenly understood again.
Time had not connected head to tail. It still surged forward like a river.
Even this enormous Ancient Magic capable of influencing an entire city could not affect the whole river of time.
The connection between before and after was nothing more than a tiny displacement produced in the timeline just now. It was like an insignificant little whirlpool on the river of time. It merely spun in place, then dispersed again.
The Salvation Society could not shake the whole river of time. Therefore, they had not completely reversed cause and effect.
They had merely delayed the price they had to pay.
In short...
“Taking out a loan to cause trouble?”
A flash of understanding suddenly crossed Muen’s eyes. A certain thought he had never had before began, along this line of thinking brought by the Salvation Society, to gradually take root and sprout in his heart.
“It seems you’ve figured something out.”
The limping priest beside him studied Muen’s expression and smiled. “Then I suppose my long chat with you wasn’t a waste of time.”
“Someone told you to come find me?”
Muen immediately reacted. “So there really is someone behind the scenes pushing this that I don’t know about?”
“Probably. But actually, I also wanted to talk with you. After all...”
Crunch, crunch...
The sudden sound of something gnawing interrupted the priest’s words.
The two turned their heads and found that some of the living corpses around them had begun to develop gashes all over their bodies. Those gashes looked like bites torn out by wild beasts, horrifying to the extreme, yet not even a trace of blood flowed out.
Very quickly, one living corpse after another was devoured completely by those gashes.
“Wouldn’t have guessed it. A grand Evil God eats pretty cleanly. Doesn’t leave even a scrap behind.” The corner of Muen’s mouth twitched, and he smiled mockingly.
“After all, to Him, this is also a rare delicacy.”
The priest did not hesitate. He once again swung the iron shovel in his hand and chopped down a living corpse in the middle of prayer.
The living corpse’s prayer stopped, and the gnawing marks on its body stopped as well.
Muen finally understood that what the priest had been performing before was indeed a ritual to let corpses rest in peace.
Only without their heads would they not be controlled into praying at this time.
And only by not praying would these already dead pitiful people avoid being forced to offer everything they had to the Evil God.
Only...
“This is just a drop in the bucket. You can’t cut off the heads of everyone in the city.”
“I know.”
The priest continued swinging. “But this is all I can do.”
“You still think this is a sin you need to atone for?”
“This time has nothing to do with atonement. I simply want to do this. Although I know... it is meaningless.”
The priest lowered his head and looked at the corpse on the ground, twitching before finally returning to deathly silence. His expression was sorrowful.
Not because the number he could save was too small, but because he knew that even the souls he saved could not escape their fate.
Even if he could let these souls rest temporarily now, what outcome could he change?
When the Lord of the Stars fully descended, everything in this city would still become His possession.
Including these “fish that slipped through the net” and had yet to return to the Goddess.
The rituals he was painstakingly performing here again and again, in a certain sense, were nothing more than self-comfort.
“It isn’t meaningless.” ƒгeewebnovёl.com
“What?”
The priest abruptly turned his head and looked at Muen in confusion.
“I said, it isn’t meaningless.”
Muen put away his smile and said seriously, “Didn’t you say it just now? Letting me see all this is the meaning. This is very meaningful. Truly very meaningful. At the very least, I’ve already found a way to rewrite all of this.”
“Re... write?”
The priest carefully observed Muen’s azure eyes.
If anyone else had said such an absurd word at a time like this, he would definitely have tried opening that person’s forehead first to see if they were a lunatic whose mind had been polluted by the Evil God.
Because only a lunatic would say something so laughable at this moment, when everything had already settled and the entire city had sunk into despair.
But for some reason, the priest felt the other man’s words were very convincing.
“Although I don’t know why, it does seem that way.” The priest smiled instead.
“Oh, right. What were you about to say just now?” Muen asked.
“Nothing. It isn’t important.”
The priest said, “Only that I also wanted to see what was so special about you, when hope has been placed on you at a time like this... Looking at it now, you certainly won’t disappoint me.”
“Forget special. I’m just an ordinary duke’s son.” Muen spread his hands.
“Just being able to withstand pollution this severe as though nothing is happening means you can’t be called ordinary.”
The priest took out his sacred text and used Holy Light to cover himself.
During the time they had spent talking, he had already heard the wounds on his chest crying out in pain.
In a little while, they would probably start cursing.
That would not do. He was a believer who served the Goddess.
“Go do what you should do. I hope all of this truly has not yet become settled fact,” the priest said.
And I hope my sins can...
“Want to go together?”
“Hm?”
The priest raised his head in shock and looked at Muen. “Me?”
“Yes.”
Muen pointed overhead. “I’m not strong enough. I can’t get up there. Take me up.”
“There... is where your method to turn the situation around lies?”
The priest was even more shocked. He knew how dangerous that place was right now.
“No.”
“?”
“That place has nothing to do with my method. It’s just...”
Muen raised his head, ignoring the even more terrifying collisions of power and the even more terrifying pollution as he looked straight at the sky above.
“Don’t you want to take this chance to give those bastards the middle finger and say, ‘fuck you’?”
“I am a believer of the Goddess. I cannot curse.”
The priest was perfectly serious.
“However... if it is a necessary method to strike the enemy.”
The priest straightened his body. “Then I would be fucking delighted to help.”
...
...
Holy Light and Holy Light collided endlessly.
Unimaginable turbulence tore apart the sky and space. Crimson clouds linked together with constantly erupting thunder, as if the entire visible world... was about to be torn apart.
It was a terrifying sight like the end of the world.
Perhaps across the entire thousand years, humanity could only have seen descriptions that matched it in the terrifying disaster paintings left behind from that chaotic era.
Yet all of this came to an abrupt stop.
So abrupt it was as though someone had pressed a stop button.
All the strange phenomena vanished almost instantly, leaving only the deep, gradually approaching star river. It was as though this place had suddenly gone from an apocalypse about to enter destruction into a peaceful age where only happiness existed.
Even the wind was gentle.
“It has truly been a long time since I crossed hands with you like this, Senior Brother.”
Gaius emerged from the destructive torrent. With a flick of his pale sleeve, he sent the blood on his fingertips flying away. On that face, which looked a few years older than his senior brother’s, there was actually a hint of satisfaction.
“However...”
Gaius studied Hezekiah, who had also appeared before him, and asked in confusion:
“You are not using that?”
“...”
Hezekiah held his scepter, facing Gaius without ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) joy or sorrow. After a moment of silence, he said:
“There is no need.”
“Really? But like this, without the Holy City’s home-field advantage, and with the supply of Holy Light cut off here, in terms of our own strength, even if the two of us fought for three days and three nights, we still would not be able to decide the outcome.”
“...”
“I understand.”
Gaius clapped his hands and said in “sudden realization,” “In truth, Senior Brother, you understood long ago that this is meaningless. Even if you use that, aside from wasting the Church’s foundation accumulated over so many years, it would mean nothing.
“So you are merely here to act. Acting for those foolish commoners to see, telling them... that you have not abandoned them?”
“...”
Hezekiah still said nothing. He did not even show any intention of arguing. He merely watched in silence.
“Yes. You are not that kind of person.”
Yet Gaius suddenly smiled, both mocking and self-mocking.
“I understand you best, Senior Brother... You and I are the same. Both stubborn madmen. You must be very angry right now.”
“Since you know, then end all of this.”
Hezekiah finally spoke. Not the slightest anger could be seen from him. He merely said in an ordinary tone:
“Stop this farce, Gaius. It is meaningless.”
“Meaningless? No, Senior Brother. What is meaningless is your action. The [thing] you plotted, although not as ridiculous as a certain old fool’s fantasy, was still naive to the extreme.”
Gaius sneered. “By comparison, my plan is more grounded and easier to realize, is it not?”
“But you have abandoned the most fundamental thing!”
Hezekiah suddenly shouted in a deep, furious voice. “Gaius, you are human! Everything you are doing is destroying the foundation of your own existence!”
“No! The foundation of our existence is this world!”
Gaius also refuted him loudly. “So... I will protect this world. I will make the new world descend. For that... a little sacrifice is necessary!”
“This is the wrong path!”
“This is the right path!”
Gaius suddenly smiled again. “Enough. This kind of debate is meaningless, just like over a hundred years ago. Neither of us can convince the other.”
“But I can at least thoroughly crush you, just like I did over a hundred years ago.”
Hezekiah returned to indifference. In his hand, the scepter belonging to the Church’s highest authority gradually became dazzling, as though it would sweep away all darkness.
Unfortunately, the stars had descended.
Invisible, terrifying power gradually began to envelop this place, and the Church’s Holy Light dimmed because of it.
“This time is different, my dear Senior Brother.”
Gaius became relaxed. He even summoned clear water and washed the blood from his hands with considerable ceremony.
Even though that was something he could have erased completely with a single thought.
“In the past, I was always one step slower than you. In cultivation realm, in the position of Pope, even in the thing I upheld, I was one step slower than you.”
“But this time is different.”
Gaius spread his arms, letting the suddenly violent wind stir his pale robe, letting the star river hang down and draw a beautiful yet dangerous mark across the sky.
“This time, I was one step faster.”
Not far from Gaius, the Witch of Repentance came gracefully with Fubeka. Perhaps because He sensed His scion approaching, the star river in the sky suddenly shook violently. Countless stars shifted, and mysterious light scattered down.
He was excited too, craving.
“It is already over, Senior Brother. Please sit properly in the audience and be an excellent spectator.”
Gaius slowly clenched his fingers, as though to seal the coffin on all of this.
“I can understand your fury, because I am the person in this world who understands you best. But you are already too late. With just you, you cannot stop all this, and you cannot rewrite this ending, because long before now, all of this had already been...”
“Is that so? I don’t think so.”
Suddenly, a tiny, abrupt voice cut into this grand conversation between those who stood at the pinnacle of humanity.
It should have been like the whine of a mosquito in the wind, unable to stir any reaction, but Gaius still paused and lowered his head.
In the air.
A certain travel-worn yellow-haired man and a certain limping priest in tattered clothes were each straddling a bloodstained iron shovel, wobbling as they floated toward the high sky. ƒreewebɳovel.com
The shovels were flying far too slowly, so the yellow-haired man had no choice but to kick his long legs like a flailing frog to speed the iron shovel up.
Only, the posture was rather indecent, so even the yellow-haired man could not help complaining.
“Damn it. Is this really the only way to fly up here?”
“Who told you not to know even one flying spell?”
The priest rolled his eyes. He was also flailing his legs and panting as he said:
“I told you. Just resisting the Evil God’s pollution takes a great deal of my strength. Being able to send you up here at all is already me going completely beyond my limits. You should be laughing in secret, not complaining here!”
“Damn it... I wanted to make a cool entrance!”
“...”
Gaius was silent. Expressionless, he merely looked toward the Witch of Repentance.
The Witch of Repentance was equally expressionless.
“I chased him.”
As she spoke, she held up three fingers.
“Three whole times.”
