Ch.131131. Ben Guytenping (4)

The moment he laid eyes on the black warrior who walked out from the rift in torn space, the holy knight, an apostle of Bestia, instinctively sensed the strength of the being before him.

A warrior armed in armor of a style he had never seen before, presumably made of adamantium, wielding a great sword in his hand—a divine weapon believed to be god-given.

The black warrior wore a fluttering red wolf-skin cloak, with the head of the beast mounted atop his helmet, giving him the appearance reminiscent of barbarians living in the far north.

And the powerful presence he exuded as a fellow apostle of a god made him, at a glance, a warrior at least equal in strength to himself.

Feeling all his concentration focused on the warrior in an instant, the holy knight unhesitatingly released the “Eyes” bestowed upon him by the goddess toward the warrior—.

“———!!?”

In that moment, the holy knight experienced a powerful spiritual shock as if someone had struck his soul with a hammer, simply from directly gazing upon the black warrior’s essence.

The Eye of Truth, a divine artifact worn as a headband inside the holy knight’s helmet.

When he used this artifact—which he had deemed not worth using against dragons—to see through everything and reveal the essence and weaknesses of beings, what he saw in the warrior was…

‘How, how could something like this…!!’

It was something beyond all standards, something he couldn’t have imagined in his 40 years of life.

The black warrior’s soul was more enormous than any soul the holy knight had ever seen.

The apostles of other orders, even the one who was said to be the apostle of two of the Twelve Gods—”that man” who died a few years ago, and even the “Emperor,” the chosen apostle of the supreme god Jupiterius.

If their souls were lakes, then the soul of the black warrior before him was—an ocean.

Vast, unbelievably large and expansive, and as if its mere existence wasn’t astonishing enough, that ocean-like enormous soul was—dyed red with someone’s color.

That ocean, that soul, which smelled of metal and blood, was adorned with intricately woven blessings.

Each one of these “blessings” was so powerful that ordinary people would be unable to withstand them, their souls collapsing, turning them into monsters abandoned by the gods—abominations.

Despite having accepted countless such blessings into his soul, the great black warrior’s intellect and soul remained completely intact.

As an apostle of the goddess Bestia and a holy knight well-versed in divine power, he felt reverence for the seemingly infinite vessel that was the being before him.

And then, quite suddenly.

As the holy knight’s gaze, almost being drawn into the black warrior’s soul, encountered the essence of that soul———at that very moment, the holy knight realized he had seen something he should not have.

Existing, not existing, present but not present, undetermined, that thing, that thing, thatthingthatthingthatthingthatthingthatthingohhhhhhshouldn’thaveseenshouldn’thavenonono——

《My child! Come to your senses!》

‘——My Goddess…!!’

The holy knight, whose mind and soul had nearly been consumed by whatever he had glimpsed within the soul, finally regained his senses upon hearing the urgent voice of his goddess speaking.

Whoooosh———

And as he regained his consciousness, the holy knight found the great sword of the black warrior swinging before his eyes.

———CLANG!!!

Hurriedly, the holy knight raised the orichalcum shield equipped on his arm, allowing him to block the threatening attack while being pushed back slightly.

However, despite having precisely blocked and deflected the attack with his orichalcum shield, the holy knight winced at the stinging pain in his wrist.

He, the holy knight, felt the gap between himself and the warrior from just that single collision.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

In the exchanges that followed, even when testing each other’s strength, the result was the same.

Though neither side had landed a single effective hit, the outcome of this battle was as good as decided.

To draw a comparison: a wolf and a chihuahua, a giant and a child, an ocean and a lake.

The difference between them was so clear it could be described with such metaphors, and as time passed, this became increasingly evident on the surface as well.

Even as the holy knight emitted the golden aura unique to holy knights in abundance to counter him, the pitch-black aura surrounding the black warrior’s great sword began to absorb that radiance.

No matter what the holy knight used, the result was the same.

The brilliant halo, the holy miracle achieved through pleading with the goddess, and even the divine magic fired at perceived openings—all of them.

Everything was swallowed by the empty pitch-black darkness that seemed to absorb everything wrapped around that great sword, disappearing without a trace into the void.

‘…Kughh!’

Because of this, he let out a humiliating groan, feeling his limits for the first time in his life.

The being before him was a perfect upgrade compared to himself in every aspect.

If there had been even one area where he was stronger or equal, it might have been different, but this experience of being completely overwhelmed and gradually having his life endangered…

For the holy knight who had lived a comfortable life facing only enemies he could defeat, it was more than overwhelming—his fighting spirit and will to fight were gradually being whittled away.

Ironically, the black warrior was excited to have found an opponent worth fighting after a long time, which would make him sneer at the pampered young master’s weakness.

In any case, the battle had now completely shifted in the black warrior’s favor.

While the holy knight was desperately trying to fend off the warrior’s great sword with his shield and sword, the black warrior was leisurely savoring this battle between apostles.

So in the end, it was only a matter of how much time would pass, but ultimately, it was clear that the black warrior would be the one remaining…

But here’s the question.

Would the god watching this scene allow his carefully nurtured apostle to simply die?

《How dare, how dare you harm my child?!!!》

The holy knight’s master, the goddess Bestia, immediately began preparing to descend into her apostle’s body.

She, who was like the embodiment of warm and merciful motherly love ‘to’ her believers, was filled with rage and didn’t care about ‘trivial’ things like losses.

The black warrior had just swung his great sword and severed her apostle’s head, but if she descended during the few minutes while the soul was still bound to the body, the body would be healed immediately.

So she took out a fireball from her hearth and tried to find the passage connected to the holy knight’s soul to descend directly into him, but…

Something was strange.

Something was very strange.

Despite searching for the holy knight’s soul through her spiritual network, for some reason, she couldn’t detect the holy knight at all.

Considering the information processing ability of a god, especially a high-ranking one, the connection should have been established immediately, but the fact that it wasn’t… could be interpreted in two major ways.

One, the connection between god and believer, between god and apostle, established through blessing, had been severed for some reason.

But since such a connection couldn’t be severed in such a short time, the conclusion was…

The second reason, that the holy knight’s soul had been destroyed for some reason.

Bestia didn’t want to accept this fact, the fact that an entire apostle had simply vanished.

But that didn’t change anything.

She judged that his soul had probably been consumed by the power of that great sword that could devour souls.

And indeed, this was the correct answer.

The soul of the holy knight, Bestia’s apostle, was forcibly drawn into and absorbed by the sword swung by the black warrior.

This divine weapon, originally just a cursed sword with various curses, had been “transformed” by the mysterious chaotic power wielded by the black warrior.

As a result, it gained the ability to steal and devour the souls of those it killed, then supply that power to the black warrior, its user.

To devour and break down a soul, the very essence of existence, means that the being can be erased from the world “forever.”

Those killed by the cursed sword will never reach the realm of their serving god, and since there is no subject for magic to target, resurrection magic is completely ineffective.

Moreover, since it completely breaks down the soul into spiritual particles and converts it into energy, there’s no need to worry about the absorbed soul struggling separately—.

No, even considering just “soul destruction” alone, it is truly one of the strongest weapons in the world.

The act of directly intervening in and interfering with the soul, which is the domain of gods, is equivalent to being able to confront gods themselves.

Killing a god’s apostle with this would permanently reduce the number of apostles, thus indirectly causing extreme damage to the god, and if somehow one could stab a possessing or descending god with it, it could engrave a permanent wound on that soul, weakening their power…

With luck, one might even be able to “kill” them.

And that wasn’t all.

The soul, broken down to spiritual particles, the minimal units of energy that form the soul, is absorbed by the black warrior, the user of the sword and an apostle of vengeance, becoming his nourishment.

Some becomes experience, some permanently strengthens his physical body, and some is consumed in healing wounds if he is injured.

And the energy that remains after all this strengthens his very soul, which could be considered———part of the process of Ascension.