Ch.1126Life All-In

======[ Desert Underground ]======

– Whaaaaaaash!

A brilliant white light illuminated the underground cavern.

“What trickery is this…!”

The moment Haschal was enveloped by the pure white holy light emanating from Heirek, Arthur, sensing danger, immediately charged forward to stop it.

However—

“You know nothing.”

In his haste, he moved too rashly, and his movements were blatantly full of openings.

– Kwagwagwang…!

As Arthur’s feet touched the ground after charging like a fired arrow, the earth exploded and a massive hand emerged, grabbing him and surging upward.

“This…!”

The arm of a stone giant, glowing with holy light. Arthur, now like a doll in a child’s hand, let out a groan mixed with bewilderment.

His tightly gripped armor began to crumble under the pressure, with black smoke and sparks violently erupting through the gaps in the giant hand.

“Kuk…!”

Just as Arthur gritted his teeth, about to shatter the arm with lightning—

“Too late.”

The stone arm swung first, hurling his body into the opposite rock wall like a fired shell.

– Kwaaaang!

The rock wall exploded with a thunderous boom. The entire cavern shook as if hit by an earthquake, and shattered fragments sprayed like a fountain.

Heirek’s fierce attack didn’t end there.

As the old man pointed his staff at the wall and muttered a few words, the half-collapsed wall writhed like a tentacle swamp, firmly binding Arthur’s entire body.

– Kudududuk…!

A restraining suit of rock wall—like black iron, no, even stronger with the divine power of a demigod infused into it.

Simultaneously, the stone arm disintegrated into multiple pieces and showered toward the Death Knight pinned to the wall like a sideways meteor shower.

“Heirek—!”

With a thunderous roar, lightning bolts tore through the entire wall and surged upward. The lightning bolts swirled like raging dragons amid the rumbling.

The stone meteors pierced by lightning exploded into fragments, scattering a rain of debris, and the Death Knight, freed from his restraints, dashed through the rain across the air.

– Kwarrrrrung!

A blade descended like lightning in a downpour. The rising rock wall crumbled as it received the sword strike, and through the scattered fragments, the hostile gazes of the two superhumans crossed.

“Heirek…!”

“Hmm, not using honorifics anymore? Well, I suppose that suits you better.”

“If you insist on being an obstacle, then Zarem too is our enemy. Why should I show any respect!”

“You weren’t particularly respectful to begin with.”

Rocks and lightning intertwined in a fierce clash.

The blessings of life and death collided and canceled each other out, adding new traces of calamity upon the remnants of disaster that had already covered the desert.

‘Damn it, a worn-out relic like him…!’

Arthur was furious.

The remnants of death mixed with divinity and securing a vessel for it. He had missed an opportunity that could have advanced their plans by several stages.

The vessel for death, a powerful but incomplete goddess, had disappeared with the light.

Through the ability of spatial transfer, something impossible with the miracles or powers of the Church of Gemina that Arthur knew.

Unlike before, having witnessed the scene firsthand, Arthur immediately understood what kind of trick Heirek had pulled.

‘The Martyr’s Immolation? What kind of insane act…!’

The Martyr’s Immolation.

A miracle created by those who served Gemina, the earth mother goddess of life, and a forbidden technique designated as taboo after the goddess herself sent a revelation forbidding such acts.

The power contained in this technique was the realization of wishes through self-sacrifice.

Burning the caster’s life itself—in other words, their remaining lifespan—as an offering to achieve what would otherwise be impossible.

In a way, it was a power that could truly be called a “miracle,” but…

“You used that alchemy? You’re properly insane, Heirek!”

If the Martyr’s Immolation had truly been such a perfect and ideal technique, it wouldn’t have been designated as forbidden alchemy in the first place.

Arthur too would have immediately thought of this miracle upon reuniting with Heirek.

But because this miracle had a truly fatal flaw, the Martyr’s Immolation was quickly abandoned and forgotten as soon as it was designated as forbidden alchemy.

No, rather than a flaw, it should be called a structural defect or limitation.

“How many years did you burn just for two spatial transfers? A thousand? Two thousand? No, it couldn’t be just that much!”

A lifespan consumption so great that it was impossible to cast with a human body.

Whether it was the price for trying to reach a true miracle with a human body, the Martyr’s Immolation boasted a terribly inefficient cost.

Sometimes requiring an entire human lifetime as an offering just to summon a gentle breeze.

If even a small breeze required such a price, how massive would the cost be for a high-level miracle like long-distance spatial transfer?

Even in the old days of Xanten, a human lifespan was only about a hundred years at most.

Therefore, for ordinary priests, the Martyr’s Immolation was nothing more than a suicidal, defective miracle that consumed their entire lifespan without any effect.

Even Heirek, who had received part of Gemina’s divinity as the strongest battle priest of the Life Church, had sacrificed most of his remaining lifespan after just two uses.

So it was only natural that Arthur had failed to anticipate this, and that he mocked Heirek as insane after witnessing it.

“I told you. This old man has already lived long enough.”

Of course, from Heirek’s perspective, it didn’t matter.

According to Elpinel’s message to him, the current era was already plummeting toward its end like a bridge that had lost its pillars.

The primordial chaos. The return of the god of slaughter, once called Baltyr, was now only a couple of steps away.

Even if Heirek himself had a thousand, two thousand… even ten thousand years of life left, it would all be meaningless once that being descended.

The god of slaughter descended upon the earth would, as it did four thousand years ago, lead its army across the land and devour countless lives.

The nightmare march that even the people of Xanten, warriors, priests, and even demigods could not withstand and fell before.

Although Heirek had miraculously survived back then, there was no guarantee that such luck would follow him again.

In fact, Heirek himself didn’t consider it luck at all.

His homeland, Zarem, had fallen because it couldn’t stop that nightmare army, and the only survivor was Heirek himself, who had endured until the end.

– Bal…tyr…!

The Holy King of Zarem, who had lost everything he was meant to protect and remained alone, swore amid the ruins of the collapsed Great Temple.

His accumulated power, the bestowed divinity, even his long lifespan as a demigod. He would offer everything left to him as a sacrifice for revenge.

Even after four thousand long years, Heirek still remembered that vow as clearly as if it were yesterday.

‘…Elpinel said this would be the last chance.’

The princess of Xanten, the saint of Gemina who succeeded her and ascended to godhood, Elpinel also still remembered that vow.

—-

Four thousand years since the descent of ‘Baltyr’.

During that long time, Elpinel had attempted to destroy Baltyr three times, and all those attempts had yielded only mediocre results and ended in failure.

The first attempt, the Twilight Plan, failed because the plan itself was too late and they didn’t know Baltyr’s true identity.

At least they had completed the Twilight Rune, which they preserved for four thousand years and could now use again today.

The second attempt, the ‘Hero Plan’ from two thousand years ago, failed miserably at the very moment it was about to succeed.

The betrayal of some non-human races, led by Varnir, the Great Guardian of Alvheim. That day, the ‘Hero’ met his death, and six demigods chose ascension and fled to the heavens.

And the third attempt, eight hundred years ago.

The Heaven’s Wall Plan, which aimed to revitalize humanity based on the recovered holy sword and twelve oath swords, and completely separate the heavens and the underworld.

If successful, it could have blocked Baltyr’s—Alfodhr’s—descent itself and starved that vicious god… but this too failed.

The “hound” sent by Alfodhr stopped Carlos the Great and his twelve knights, and the barrier that was supposed to perfectly isolate the underworld was fixed in an incomplete state.

Three plans, three attempts, three failures.

The divinity of Gemina and herself that Elpinel had used as the foundation for her plans gradually began to show its bottom, and now it was truly facing depletion.

If the fourth plan also ended in failure, there would be no next time.

Not just Elpinel, but any god who knew Alfodhr’s true nature and had cooperated with her already knew this.

That this was truly the last chance, the final gamble.

For that very reason, Heirek could burn most of his remaining lifespan without a trace of attachment or hesitation, as if he had been waiting for this.

What he had just saved was not some young demigod he had never met, but the bullet of revenge and the last hope he had yearned for over four thousand years.