Ch.1145First, Second, and Third

After fleeing to the heavens to escape the impending doom.

For Elpinel, who had sworn revenge, the most important task above all else was to create a tool—no, an agent—to kill Alfodhr.

She could not act directly.

Even before the concept of Heaven’s Wall came into existence, there were many restrictions and limitations on celestial beings interfering in earthly affairs.

Even Alfodhr himself could not achieve his goals in the heavens, which is why he descended to earth despite risking the destruction of his true form.

If Elpinel herself were to descend and confront Alfodhr, she would clearly be devoured before achieving her revenge. Therefore, she had no choice but to create someone who could take revenge in her place.

The problem was that creating an earthly agent capable of killing a god was extremely difficult even for Elpinel.

Moreover, the ‘agent’ would have to defeat one of the primordial gods, Alfodhr of Chaos.

Among the four primordial gods of Law, Chaos, Life, and Death, he was the oldest—a fundamental existence from the beginning of this world.

He was also the only one still alive.

Yemo of Law had entered eternal rest at the birth of this world, and Belliona had been murdered, leaving behind only a bastard child of Chaos and Death.

Gemina of Life had also faded away after leaving behind a legacy for revenge against Alfodhr.

In other words, Alfodhr was the only remaining primordial god, the highest-ranking deity among the celestial gods…

…meaning he was the most powerful god.

How could it be easy to prepare someone powerful enough to kill such a god?

Before granting power and bestowing trials and blessings, finding someone with such qualifications was a challenge in itself.

‘…I need a superman. One with the spirit to fearlessly oppose their own origin, a soul that greedily devours power and grows endlessly stronger, and a body capable of withstanding such a powerful soul.’

But such qualities were literally found once in thousands of years, if at all.

Waiting for such a being to appear naturally would take an unimaginable amount of time.

‘…If there isn’t one, I’ll have to create one.’

Therefore, Elpinel decided not to wait for such a being to be born, but to create one herself.

The remaining issue was determining the materials to create such a being.

To give birth to an extraordinary existence like a god-slaying superman, extraordinary materials were absolutely essential.

‘What should I use?’

But what materials could possibly create such a vessel? Elpinel pondered and pondered again.

As she continued her endless contemplation, a soul with sufficient potential suddenly entered her sight.

‘……’

The soul of the last emperor of Xanten, which she had held onto and never let go even while fleeing to the heavens to escape doom.

Sigmund, the demigod of war.

In other words, her father’s soul.

—-

Human ethics and morality, entrusted duties and self-sworn resolutions, lingering attachments and filial affection.

After placing all these on the scales in her heart and enduring burning conflict and agonizing deliberation, Elpinel finally accepted and acknowledged that this was the most efficient method.

Thus, Elpinel molded the vessel of a superman using Sigmund’s soul as clay, breathed life into it with the power of creation inherited from Gemina, and sent it down to earth.

That was her first agent, the original hero Sigurd.

He was the strongest demigod ever created, forged from filial impiety, sacrifice, grief, and anger.

Elpinel’s hero, born to slay Alfodhr who had descended in his true form, wielding the god-slaying sword forged by the self-sacrificing Goddess of Life.

Sigurd, born this way, grew smoothly under Elpinel’s guidance, gathered companions, built his strength, and grew into a superman capable of killing a god. After two thousand years, he confronted Alfodhr who had descended again in his true form.

However.

Was the problem the overly human-centric selection? Or was it the plan to isolate the earth after defeating Alfodhr to prevent similar incidents?

Elves and dwarves, orcs and werebeasts, dragonborn and merfolk—most non-human races betrayed them at the critical moment, and Sigurd fell without killing Alfodhr.

Even so, he managed to inflict a mortal wound on Alfodhr, driving him back to the heavens, and burned his remaining life to spread a massive barrier—later known as Heaven’s Wall—across the entire lower realm.

Half success, half failure.

As a result, all Elpinel had left were six ascended beings who shared her cause and the god-slaying sword Gram, which had proven its effectiveness by inflicting a mortal wound on Alfodhr.

Her meticulously prepared hero, Sigurd, had his soul and body destroyed, leaving only tiny fragments behind.

‘…Let’s try again.’

Clutching these tiny fragments that could barely be called a soul like precious gems, Elpinel swallowed her frustration and prepared a second plan.

She enhanced Gram’s power by adding Sigurd’s fragments, and like Gemina before her, she carved away her own divinity to forge twelve swords for the hero’s helpers.

And then, twelve hundred years later.

A being with qualities equal to Sigurd’s was finally born into the world, breaking through the abysmal odds of perhaps one in thousands of years.

Magnus Imperator.

The vessel of the superman who would later be praised as Carlos the Great.

…However, Elpinel could not simply rejoice at this.

‘Of all times to be born…the timing is all wrong.’

Though she couldn’t be certain, Alfodhr’s descent likely occurred in two-thousand-year cycles. Eight hundred years were still needed before the next descent.

While Carlos’s qualities were certainly on par with Sigurd’s, his physical body could not withstand the long eight hundred years.

Human lifespan is at most around one hundred and fifty years.

To transcend the limits of lifespan, one needed the status of a demigod, but as long as Sigurd’s Heaven’s Wall remained intact, the birth of a new demigod was impossible.

‘Then, rather…’

Therefore, instead of making Carlos Alfodhr’s adversary, Elpinel assigned him a different role and destiny.

As a human hero, he would save humanity from slavery, and use the power of the Holy Grail left on earth by the six ascended demigods to complete Heaven’s Wall.

Of course, as we know, this too failed at the very end, and Elpinel barely managed to recover Carlos’s soul and body.

Due to the incompletely strengthened Heaven’s Wall, she couldn’t recover Gram and sealed it deep in the Sky Mountains where no one could touch it until the time came.

And then, as she had done hundreds of years ago, Elpinel recycled Carlos’s soul and body to create a new vessel for god-slaying.

At the same time, she and the other six—no, five ascended beings who shared her cause contemplated the fundamental reasons why their previous two plans had failed.

“Wasn’t it Alfodhr’s interference? That Celestial Killing Star was Vanirgand’s avatar. I think we can assume it was acting on Alfodhr’s orders.”

“That makes sense…but how did he know?”

“I wouldn’t know. Still, he’s a god, isn’t he? A real god, fundamentally different from ascended beings like us.”

“Come to think of it, he said something suspicious twelve hundred years ago too. Didn’t he say we never had a future where we could win? Back then, I thought it was just a threat to show off his power…”

“Did he know in advance that the other races would betray us? No, he might have directly encouraged the betrayal…”

The ascended beings debated. Each having ascended to different gods with independent domains, they gathered in Elpinel’s realm for a lengthy discussion.

“This might not be something we can approach so simplistically, but rather might require a more fundamental approach.”

“A fundamental approach?”

“We achieved ascension and reached the heavens, gaining power and authority sufficient to be called gods. But can we truly call that ‘transcendence’?”

“…What are you trying to say? Saulite, you always talk in such vague terms.”

The goddess dressed in a gown of flower petals and feathers tilted her head slightly and asked in a languid tone.

“You’re always too direct, Imela.”

“Love is always direct. Perhaps that’s still a difficult emotion for a former saint to understand?”

“Imela, we’re in the middle of an important discussion. Please refrain from idle chat.”

The goddess in golden armor, Astraea, stopped Imela’s joke and gestured for Saulite to return to the main topic.

If they continued to bicker and chat as they used to, the discussion would clearly not end properly even after several hours.

“Ahem, then let me continue.”

Saulite, glancing briefly at Imela, cleared her throat lightly and resumed what she had intended to say.

“The essence of the power we gained through ascension is to bestow blessings and protection on those who worship us, and to prepare sanctuaries for them within ourselves. It’s a power with clear limitations, far from omnipotence or even versatility.”

“And?”

“Perhaps it’s because we were originally mere creations. Despite ascending as gods, we remain bound by numerous limitations. No matter what we do, we cannot escape the laws of mortality, and we cannot even glimpse the fate of this world—we can only calculate and predict.”

“…Are you saying Alfodhr is different?”

To the question from Ceres, the goddess wearing a black veil, Saulite nodded lightly. At least that’s what she thought.

“Maybe…or maybe not. But if we assume so, wouldn’t it help us understand why we’ve repeatedly failed?”

The future is a realm forbidden even to ‘gods.’

Even Elpinel of Heaven and Grace, whom they once worshipped as a god, could not see the future of this world.

That’s why she and the six ascended gods stole the ultimate mechanical device created by the dwarves, using it to calculate the probability of all world events to predict the future.

However, Alfodhr was a primordial deity fundamentally different from the ascended beings who were once mere earthly creations.

Though it was just a hypothesis, perhaps for him, even the future of this world might not be an unknown realm. That was Saulite’s speculation.

Nevertheless, given that he was defeated by Sigurd, it seems that even if he could know the future, he could only glimpse it rather than completely alter it.

“Are you saying our failure was a predetermined fate…?”

“…It’s not impossible.”

The pure white goddess, Elpinel, who had been listening to their discussion, nodded with a faint sigh.

“The primordial giant, Yemo, was the god who created the form of this world and all the laws that maintain it. It wouldn’t be strange if the fate of the world…the future was already determined at that point.”

Perhaps the fate of this world had been predetermined from the very moment it was created.

“The departed Gemina said that the future was unknown even to her…but Alfodhr might be different. There were differences in rank even among the primordial gods.”

And Alfodhr might have already known that fate.

It was a discussion that naturally lowered the morale of the ascended gods, almost to the point of despair.

“…Then, is there nothing we can do? If the fate of the world that he knows results in his victory, no matter what we do, everything would be in the palm of his hand.”

It meant that since the future of this world was a law predetermined from the beginning, whatever they did, fundamental interference would be impossible.

“…No, there is a way.”

However, after a deep silence, Elpinel gently shook her head, as if she had thought of a solution, denying the pessimism of the other ascended gods.

“If all the laws of this world were predetermined from the beginning and we cannot change them…then we should bring in a being from outside those laws.”

A soul that is not bound by the world’s laws set by the primordial gods during creation because it did not originally belong to this world.

Therefore, its very existence could cause turbulence in the world’s fate, potentially twisting even the future that was originally fixed.

Elpinel’s solution was to tear through the walls of dimensions and summon someone from beyond who could twist fate.

Of course, this was a feat nearly impossible even with divine power.

It would require sacrificing not only what remained of Gemina’s divinity and her own inherent divinity, but also the divinity of the other ascended gods just to attempt it.

—-

Thus, a soul from another world was brought into this one.

As a variable of fate that would create a future no one could predict.