Ch.1156Stigma, Defying Heaven, Malevolent God, Awakening

“Already able to implement that ability…?”

The Domain of Predation is a wide-area cursing ability that manifests a realm containing Vanirgand’s curse, and a ritual offering that sacrifices those trapped within as tributes for consumption.

In other words, it was an ability that should be prevented from use as much as possible, since using it would only strengthen Vanirgand’s power.

Of course, this was an ability that would naturally awaken when the Heavenly Killing Star reached the realm of heroes, so even though Hersella would eventually awaken to it regardless of attempts to prevent it…

“This progression is too fast… there wasn’t even a particular catalyst for such rapid growth, was there?”

At the very least, it shouldn’t have happened at this point.

This was only the second time Hersella had come to the forefront of consciousness to engage in battle.

Even in the previous fight, she had only been able to fight on equal terms with Valenstein thanks to the blessing bestowed by the “Wolf’s Blood,” while her accumulated power itself was merely at the upper Master level.

Yet somehow she had already crossed the threshold and reached the realm of heroes.

While ‘Haschal’ had fought countless battles, Hersella hadn’t properly fought since then, making this rapid growth illogical by anyone’s standards.

“Vanirgand must be up to something. Perhaps he’s been gradually devouring some of the Karma she’s accumulated and converting it into Murder Karma…”

“Ah, I see. If that’s the case… it would be possible.”

The secret behind her rapid growth was Vanirgand’s theft of Karma.

The otherworldly soul originally had no connection to Vanirgand, but by settling in the body of the Heavenly Killing Star, they had become indirectly connected.

Originally, Durandal had been blocking this connection, but whenever Haschal drew upon the power of Murder Karma, the connection was reactivated.

Through this, Vanirgand had been continuously stealing portions of the Karma Haschal had accumulated, and in exchange, had been transferring an equal amount of Murder Karma to strengthen Hersella’s power—in other words, his own influence.

“…Is there no way to stop this from our end? If the balance of power shifts, she’ll lose half her mind again.”

“It would be difficult. If we had noticed before she crossed the threshold, perhaps, but now…”

If they had detected it earlier and taken measures, they might have been able to prevent it, but now that Hersella had crossed the threshold, they could no longer block that connection.

All they could do was helplessly watch as Vanirgand gradually expanded his influence—

“…I’ll bestow my stigmata upon her. We can’t sever the connection, but we should be able to suppress the madness it causes.”

—or perhaps not, as Astraea stepped forward and declared she would bestow her stigmata upon Hersella.

Through the connection of the stigmata, she would directly protect Hersella’s soul, shielding her from being swept up in Vanirgand’s bloodlust and madness.

Of course, this would consume a considerable amount of divine power due to Heaven’s Wall, and Haschal would need both the aptitude and qualifications for the stigmata of order and justice to take root…

“Aptitude shouldn’t be an issue. As for qualifications, it’s a bit uncertain… but should be just within the acceptable range.”

In Astraea’s judgment, Haschal already possessed the aptitude and qualities to accept her stigmata.

“What’s uncertain about it? She acts exactly like you did before your ascension.”

“I…! I was not that foul-mouthed!”

“I notice you’re not denying the behavior part. I thought as much.”

…Honestly, it was a bit borderline.

—-

Bestowing a stigmata wasn’t just about having the right qualities; it also required the right situation and conditions.

Such as visiting a temple to offer sincere prayers to a deity, or entering a sacred place where divine blessings permeate every corner.

These were the prerequisites for breaking through the constraint of Heaven’s Wall to engrave a divine mark on a human in the mortal realm.

‘She wouldn’t… pray, would she? Then I need to guide her to a sacred place… but how?’

For Astraea, who had decided to bestow her stigmata on Haschal, this was truly a troublesome condition.

Perhaps because she had crossed over from another dimension, Haschal, unlike the people of this world, lacked even a fragment of faith.

The probability of her visiting a cathedral to pray was about the same as Alfodhr suddenly dying of old age.

And guiding her to a sacred place was equally difficult, given that communication was impossible under normal circumstances.

It also seemed unlikely that this rebellious woman would agree to visit a sacred place just because she was offered the position of a saint.

Thus, Astraea could only endlessly contemplate how to bestow her stigmata upon Haschal.

But all that long deliberation proved unnecessary, as Haschal walked into such a situation of her own accord, without any guidance from Astraea.

– Ha, acting all high and mighty when you don’t even have a single saint candidate.

The battle with Archbishop Wilhelm, who interpreted the doctrine of the Church of Astraea too strictly and fanatically, sentencing even minor offenders to be burned at the stake.

“What do you think about what she just said?”

“A saint will soon appear… and from my perspective, I can’t entirely deny that child’s ‘thorough justice’ either. It too is born from the will to destroy evil.”

Astraea maintained strict neutrality in the battle itself, as she affirmed both Haschal’s justice, which sought to minimize harm to the innocent, and Wilhelm’s justice, which sought to thoroughly eradicate evil.

In truth, her neutral stance was already tantamount to siding with Haschal… but that wasn’t particularly important.

What Astraea focused on wasn’t the outcome of the battle, but the fact that the entire space around Haschal was filled with her light.

Like a sacred place.

“The opportunity has come. Now I can…”

Now she could bestow her stigmata upon Haschal.

Of course, those beams of light weren’t meant to bless Haschal but to punish her, yet such details were trivial to Astraea.

Using the judgment light pouring down like torrential rain as a conduit, Astraea projected her power onto Haschal, engraving the stigmata of the scales on Haschal’s heart.

Since a stigmata is essentially a mark that appears on the skin, saying it was on her heart was just a fancy way of saying she had tattooed Haschal’s chest.

Anyway, thus Haschal became a saint candidate of the Church of Astraea, and Astraea was able to suppress Vanirgand’s malice through the stigmata.

– Why would Astraea, who raised all her children to be lunatics, inflict such a trial on me?

Of course, being a forced appointment without consent, Haschal herself expressed extreme disgust, as if she had bitten into a worm.

“……”

“Puhahahahaha!! You’ve chosen quite the saint!”

Astraea could only remain silent at that blasphemous outburst, while Menes burst into laughter beside her, holding his stomach.

“……”

“Well, the children who serve you are particularly violent and brutal! Just like the deity they serve!”

“The insanity—no, if we’re talking about mental instability, your followers are far worse! It’s not just anyone, but even a cardinal who chose the path of heresy!”

“What…! No, bringing that up here is unfair! From the very first apostle…”

And so they engaged in a heated argument that quickly escalated.

—-

Anyway, after that, she continued to demonstrate achievements worthy of the Empire’s strongest hero and a saint of order and justice.

In Arvil, which had fallen into the hands of cultists and Ma’in, she broke the brainwashing ritual spread throughout the city and slaughtered all the cultists to realize justice.

That alone was an achievement worthy of applause, but she even vanquished the evil god they summoned in their final desperate act.

Of course, it wasn’t the evil god itself that had descended but merely one of its arms, but even that was already a mythical achievement by current era standards.

“Space-time severance… impressive. So she could apply time compression and spatial severance in such a way?”

“It seems her capabilities aren’t quite there yet, though.”

In the process, she acquired divine power equivalent to an evil god’s arm and the powerful technique of space-time severance, growing so rapidly that her offensive power became effective even against demigods.

Of course, this was the result of momentarily surpassing her limits in an extreme situation, so she still had a long way to go before she could freely wield that technique.

—-

The battle with Orhan was bizarre, perplexing, and embarrassing rather than impressive.

“Flying through the sky using Karma as propulsion…? Is that even possible?”

“…It makes more sense than flying by punching the air, I suppose.”

“That clan never seems quite human, no matter when I see them.”

The sight of people soaring through the air without being mages, without awakening to flight-type mental techniques, and without wings.

That bizarreness was enough to make even the gods, who had seen it all, rub their eyes and look again in disbelief.

The second battle that took place a few days later made them want to close their eyes entirely.

“Well, the concept itself is brilliant, but the result…”

The idea that even an invincible mental technique has limits to the energy required to sustain it, so using flame immunity protection to engage in a war of attrition inside a fire pit.

The concept itself was truly rational, but there was one critical issue she had overlooked:

While her body remained unscathed inside the fire pit thanks to the flame immunity protection, her clothing could not withstand the heat.

Orhan’s Unyielding Flesh was also a mental technique limited to the body, so he was in much the same situation.

“No… that’s a bit…”

The result was an absolute disaster.

The sight of father and daughter engaging in hand-to-hand combat completely naked was so embarrassing that even Menes couldn’t help but sigh.

—-

Many more events continued to unfold without pause, but from the ascended gods’ perspective, the three most important incidents were:

First, the battle with the third apostle, Meiharin.

“Summoning a Heavenly Demon from eight hundred years ago…? Isn’t that impossible?”

“It is impossible. That one has already been devoured by Vanirgand, not even fragments remain.”

Meiharin attempted to summon the soul of the first Heavenly Demon into a living corpse made by mixing Amin’s body with Imelia’s corpse to fight Haschal, but this was impossible from the start.

The Heavenly Demon’s soul had long been digested by Vanirgand and couldn’t be the subject of necromancy, and Amin wasn’t even a descendant of the Heavenly Demon’s bloodline.

Therefore…

“…Rotholandus? Ah, I see. Since the spell specified eight hundred years ago, he would be the only one who could be summoned.”

The spell, which was fundamentally flawed from the premise, ultimately traced back through Imelia’s bloodline instead of Amin’s, summoning the soul of her ancestor into the living corpse.

“Weren’t the souls of the Great’s Twelve Knights taken by Lord Elpinel…?”

“They were, but… that child agreed to the summoning on his own. Something about wanting to properly duel with the successor who inherited his sword…”

Of course, this would have been impossible if Rotholandus himself had strongly resisted, but far from resisting, he jumped at the opportunity and descended without hesitation.

Thus began the one-on-one duel between Durandal’s former and current owners, and through that battle, Haschal fully understood and mastered the ability of spatial severance.

If it had ended there, it would have been a perfect conclusion from the ascended gods’ perspective, but…

– Kyaaaaaaaaaah!

The problem wasn’t with ‘Haschal,’ but with the new ability that ‘Hersella’ realized while fighting Meiharin.

“…Fiendgod Embodiment? Huh, now she’s using even that?”

“Does that woman even know what kind of power that is… No, if she knew, she wouldn’t dare attempt it in the first place.”

Fiendgod Embodiment is the ultimate form of Murder Karma, expanding the connection with Vanirgand down to the cellular level to become one with his power.

In other words, it was an act of suicide, willingly embracing the power of Vanirgand that one should stay as far away from as possible if they wanted to live long.

Thanks to Haschal’s stigmata and Durandal, she was barely able to control it, but without them, she would have gone completely mad the moment she activated it.

“She’s lying down on the plate of her own accord, practically begging to be eaten.”

The fact that she was displaying it as if it were some secret technique left the gods, who were busy suppressing Vanirgand’s influence, speechless with disbelief.

—-

The second important incident occurred during the war with Alvheim, in the desperate battle against the demigod Varnir.

“Varnir…! After two thousand years, finally! Finally this moment has come…!”

“At last, we get to see that cursed tree woman burn!”

Through that fierce battle, Haschal fully awakened her divine power and used it to defeat Varnir, avenging the long-standing grudge of the ascended gods.

And she didn’t stop there—she even completely annihilated the World Tree behind him, burning it to oblivion, soul and all, with a forcibly manifested Leviathan.

As Elpinel had predicted, it was the moment that proved the completed Leviathan could burn and completely destroy even gods.

—-

The final incident was one anyone could have anticipated.

It was the bloody battle with the evil god ‘Invidius,’ who had rushed out in blind rage upon sensing the presence of the enemy who had taken his arm.

The illegitimate child that the goddess of death, Bellona, had thrown into the void immediately after giving birth.

The battle with this evil god was so intense, destructive, majestic, and terrifying that it made wars between demigods seem trivial in comparison.

“Fafnir…? Was that still operational?”

“It’s fortunate, at least. Fafnir would prioritize vanquishing that evil god over her…”

Haschal, who had been struggling, desperately fought alongside the suddenly appearing Fafnir, and after a terribly fierce battle, they defeated Invidius.

Although she herself was too exhausted to move a finger, and because of Arthur who barged in right after, she couldn’t steal the divine power despite winning.