Ch.164Black Magic War – 1

The floating sensation that had been consuming my entire body gradually subsided. My darkened vision began to brighten once more. The scattered fragments of space and time gathered together, forming a geometric shape.

Countless moments overlapped, and vast spaces merged to paint a world. And Christine stood at the very center of the moment of creation.

She blinked. Only then did she realize that her eyes were open. Reality still felt distant. Her yellow pupils dilated as they absorbed the light.

“This place…”

Reflexively, her hand moved toward her eyes. Her fingertips no longer felt the rough texture they once did. Her eyes were clean, and the bandages had vanished without a trace.

Christine, who had been on the verge of panic at the thought of losing the holy relic bestowed by God, soon recalled that this place was closer to a mental realm than the real world.

Her turbulent emotions settled calmly. If that was the case, it was actually fortunate. After all, she couldn’t dare bring God’s holy relic into her own disgustingly impure mental world.

The place where Christine had been cast seemed to be some kind of forest. Rough, straight pillars stretched upward as if pretending to be trees, and the ground was covered with what appeared to be fallen leaves.

It was merely a guess. The appearance of the pillars and debris surrounding her was far from ordinary—very far indeed.

Describing them as withered or rotted would be insufficient. Their forms seemed to overlap in places, and sometimes the back of them was faintly visible through the front.

They looked more like monsters disguised as trees than actual trees.

‘…In such a place, what am I supposed to do?’

Christine recalled the words of the woman who had warned her that she would never accomplish it. Setting aside the need to perform a miracle, what exactly was she supposed to do it for?

Just as she began to wonder what she should do, the sound of rustling leaves came from the distance, as if someone was treading on the debris covering the ground.

Reflexively, she took a fighting stance. Though it was dark all around as if it were the middle of the night, she paid little attention to that. Based on the sound, whatever it was seemed to be approaching her.

The crunching sound of dry leaves being crushed continued without interruption. Christine was certain that the creature approaching had at least eight legs.

“…!!!!!!”

When the source of the sound finally revealed itself, Christine’s face lit up with a genuine, radiant expression.

It was something that looked like it had been molded from human bodies.

At first glance, it appeared to be an insect-like monster with an enormous number of legs like a centipede, crawling along the ground with its many limbs.

But those legs supporting its body were all made of human arms.

And that wasn’t all. The torso was formed from numerous human corpses fused together, and the head was a mass of dozens of human skulls.

Judging by the elongated hole at the bottom of the head, formed by forcefully opening a mouth vertically and connecting it sideways, that seemed to be the monster’s mouth.

Seeing the familiar form of the monster, Christine couldn’t hide her emerging smile. It was the kind of smile that would make others think she had lost her mind.

The reason for Christine’s reaction was simple. This monster looked exactly like the one that had appeared in her long dream where she had encountered the true God.

And it was the monster that had allowed her to meet her God.

Although it had happened an incredibly long time ago, it still felt as vivid as yesterday. The ecstasy of having her covered eyes opened and the beauty of accepting faith were impossible to express in words.

How could she possibly forget that day? She couldn’t, and she shouldn’t.

Joy and delight swelled in a corner of her heart. If this truly mirrored her dream from the past, then what would come next would be…

“Hildegard—!”

Just as expected.

Christine smiled with pleasure at the urgent shout from behind her. Right above Christine with her ecstatic smile, a person literally ‘flew in.’

The person who crashed from the sky to the ground at tremendous speed shattered into pieces, leaving a spray of blood from the impact. The sound of flesh bursting and blood splattering echoed through the forest.

The horribly fragmented red flesh twitched and rapidly regained human form. A boy with black hair and black eyes, a familiar appearance.

He was Christine’s God.

Relieved that her God’s appearance and actions remained unchanged, Christine offered a prayer in her heart. As long as her God was here, Christine had nothing to fear.

The boy held a greatsword as long as his height in both hands, pointing it at the monster formed from human corpses.

Christine’s eyes grew misty at the reviving memory of the past. If this truly followed her past dream, it would be impossible for her God to be defeated.

The boy swung his greatsword and charged toward the centipede made of human corpses. The centipede raised nearly half its body vertically, attempting to grab the boy with its countless arms.

Neither of them dodged the other’s attack. The boy was caught by the centipede’s arms, and his swinging greatsword cut off several arms, spraying rotten blood.

Crack—the boy’s shoulder was torn off in an instant. Blood sprayed from the severed surface.

“Ah… my God… have you come to save me once again…”

Christine stood still, not moving an inch.

Normally, she would have gone berserk and torn that monstrosity to pieces the moment it touched her God, but this was different.

Saving Christine, who had lost her way and wandered blindly, was solely her God’s task. She had not the slightest desire to interfere with that great work.

As expected, the boy instantly regenerated his torn-off left arm, raised his greatsword again, and thrust it deep into the centipede’s mouth. Rotten flesh scattered over the protruding wound.

The centipede swung its human hands, crushing and tearing all the boy’s limbs, but the boy continued his attack, instantly recovering from those wounds.

It was a desperate battle where neither side bothered to defend, focusing only on destroying the other’s body. The sounds of flesh and blood tearing erupted continuously.

“Why don’t you just stay dead?”

But the boy was gaining the upper hand.

Of course he was. While the boy’s limbs returned to normal no matter how many times they were torn off or crushed, the centipede’s arms, once cut off, never returned.

The severed arms from the rotting body were piling up around them. Christine trembled as she watched the boy fight. It was a trembling born of pleasure.

“My God. Do you fight so hard for this unworthy lamb? Do you burn your noble flesh for my sake?”

Before long, the battle between the boy and the centipede was almost over. The boy was, as always, intact with all his limbs, while the centipede was struggling with its few remaining legs in a final desperate attempt.

The blade of the greatsword was covered in rotten blood and flesh, but the boy swung his arm without the slightest concern. Despite its horrific appearance, the centipede’s durability was unimpressive, as each strike of the sword cut off chunks of its body.

The dismembered corpse formed a small hill, and only when the final struggle subsided did the slashing stop. The boy sniffed his body, then frowned and roughly wiped the rotten blood on his face with his clothes.

It was such an adorable sight. Christine barely restrained her desire to approach him, bow her head, and submit herself to him.

Apparently not intending to leave the corpse as it was, the boy tore a scroll from his pocket and set fire to the centipede’s remains. Then he slung the greatsword over his shoulder and turned around.

When Christine’s eyes met those black pupils, she nearly collapsed to the ground as her strength left her, but she forcibly kept herself upright.

The boy strode toward her. She closed her eyes. According to her dream, her God would approach and ask in a gentle voice if she was alright—

“Saint Hildegard. What exactly are you doing in a place like this?”

Ask in a gentle voice if she was alright…

“And you didn’t use your holy power either. I trust you no longer feel reluctant to attack these creatures with your holy power. I’ve told you repeatedly that you need to change your mindset about this.”

He should have asked.

Christine stared blankly at her God who was speaking to her respectfully. Wasn’t this the dream world that Christine had experienced in the past?

Then why was her God speaking to her respectfully? Why was he showing her deference?

It should be Christine who kneels, bows her head, kisses his feet, and praises him—not the other way around. Why had their roles been reversed?

“…”

“Saint?”

Christine, startled by the hand reaching toward her, tried to step back but suddenly noticed that her body felt extremely light overall.

Christine had always carried two lumps of fat on her chest that were much larger than most people’s heads.

Because of that, her center of gravity had always been concentrated in her chest and hips, but now it was different. Her body was not only well-balanced overall but also much lighter than usual.

Unconsciously, she looked down at where her chest should be. There were two lumps of fat attached there that were ridiculously small compared to Christine’s.

Of course, even these weren’t objectively small by any means, but the comparison to Christine’s led to this conclusion.

“…What is this.”

She was dumbfounded. Come to think of it, something like threads had been catching on her heels all this time. She tilted her head slightly to the side.

She saw brown hair so long it dragged on the ground.

“Saint? Are you alright? Are you hurt somewhere?”

Christine knew one woman with this appearance.

Christina Hildegard.

The woman who had claimed to be Christine’s ancestor.