Ch.192The Pope’s Gambit (3)

Some divine power I had never known before resonated with my “Eye,” reactivating its function. This was the most rational hypothesis to explain the current situation.

The problem was determining “which” divine power it was. As the Director of Divine Investigation, I had examined all the various sacred artifacts collected by the board of directors at least once.

From the Twelve Great Gods to the now-forgotten minor deities—I had reviewed the memories of all sacred artifacts, but I had never detected divine power like what I just experienced.

“…One thing is certain: the first movement was indeed spatial teleportation. Though I don’t know which god’s sacred artifact was used.”

“Is it different from Prodito’s sacred path?”

“Yes. While Prodito’s sacred path works by manifesting the deity’s power as a traveler’s guardian to form a travel route connecting two points, the movement just now seemed to handle space itself more primitively—”

Ah.

Damn it. Now I get it.

I gritted my teeth. I interpreted the information reflected in my eyes. The Commander of Blasphemia. Beyond the information about the Commander’s history, I reconfirmed the power controlling that body.

Divine power binding the Commander’s body like strings controlling a puppet. The moment I tried to identify the source of this divine power, pain overwhelmed me. If I hadn’t been sufficiently trained through my battles against the White Light, I might have looked away.

It was history—ancient history. So ancient that it seemed pointless to keep looking. Time was too short to decipher the name completely, but its extreme age itself was a clue to its identity.

I could easily guess the origin of the divine power permeating the Commander’s body.

“Primordial God…”

The Twelve Great Gods who govern each phenomenon in this world, like the sky, sea, earth, and underworld.

And even older than those gods, the providence before phenomena. The primordial deity symbolizing the flow of time and the emergence of space. The Primordial God¹.

The sacred path of the Primordial God, only mentioned in academic papers or ancient creation myths, was manifesting through the Commander’s body. I muttered the title of the only ally in the Ten Commandments Front that I didn’t properly know.

“The Pope…”

“The Pope?”

“Process of elimination. When I examined the subject with my observational method, I found that the divine power dwelling in that body originates from the Primordial God. Who else in the Ten Commandments Front could use the Primordial God’s sacred path?”

I stroked my chin. Perhaps sensing some anxiety in my posture, Charisia spoke up.

“Are you worried about what the Pope might do?”

“Yes. I’ve met the other members of the Divine Faith Order at least once, but I’ve never even seen the Pope. I can’t begin to guess what actions he might take.”

The Pope was our ally, yet I had never actually met him.

“Then it’s simple,” she said.

She extended her index finger toward the Green Eye.

“Let’s secure the Ten Commandments before the Pope does anything. Our allies are buying us time, so we just need to push through the front line, right?”

A brute-force solution typical of Charisia. But in this situation, it was truly brilliant.

***

During the time when the battle between the White Light and Hydra Company had not yet reached its conclusion. When the fighting on the Ten Commandments Front was beginning to intensify in earnest.

Kore urgently summoned the Pope.

“This is a trap!”

“What is, my dear?”

The Pope responded with an inscrutable smile. Kore answered, panting with fear.

“Everything! All of it!”

When Arguirion first revealed himself and launched an assault on the Green Eye Front. They swept through the Magic Tower Alliance, mentioning “an agreement with Hydra Company.”

Kore had heard the screams of those who died then. She had long suspected Ortes of being the Dark Wizard’s underling.

Temporarily blinded by Demos’s persuasion and the grand banner of the Ten Commandments Revolution, her fear of Ortes had been merely covered, not erased.

The Divine Lady spilled out to the Pope the voices of the dead she had heard. Arguirion, those terrible beings, were not from another dimension but existed in this world, and were in league with Hydra Company.

The Pope’s smile never faltered. He answered gently.

“But remember, Arguirion serves the Dark Wizard. They can act as despicably as they wish. How can you be certain they aren’t using divisive tactics against the Hydra Company alliance?”

He added a rational analysis: if Ortes himself were truly the Dark Wizard’s underling, there would be no reason for him to share the prophecy that the Dark Wizard would return in three years.

“Three years! That timeframe itself is the problem. If the deadline he mentioned was a lie, if the summoning ritual for the vanished magician that Arguirion is preparing happens today! The world will end!”

“Kore.”

The Pope’s voice remained unhurried. Kore felt a different kind of fear from his serenity, distinct from what she felt toward Ortes.

“In truth, whether he serves the Dark Wizard, or whether Hydra Company has allied with Arguirion, none of it matters.”

“What?”

Kore asked blankly. The Pope answered slowly, in a voice that seemed to constrict those who heard it.

“No, I suppose it does matter. If Ortes is the Dark Wizard’s underling and today is the day of his return, shouldn’t we execute our plan even more quickly?”

Kore realized that the Pope did not refer to the Dark Wizard as “the vanished magician.” Not using the name directly was typically out of fear.

But the Pope showed no fear of the vanished magician. What she sensed from him was a hint of anticipation.

“You… what exactly are you…?”

“Blasphemia Vigo contains the divine artifacts of the Great Gods. All nine divine artifacts will be gathered, except for the three that have escaped our hands.”

He hadn’t given up.

The Pope hadn’t abandoned his insane plan. Kore felt like screaming, but she couldn’t.

She had to stop the Pope’s madness.

“Stop this immediately! If you withdraw troops from the Ten Commandments Front to infiltrate Blasphemia, the front will collapse!”

“How strange, Kore. Didn’t you just say we should cease cooperation with Hydra Company?”

“People will die! Most of our order members will die because of your irresponsible decision! We should at least prepare an orderly retreat. If your people withdraw without notifying the fronts where Demos’s moderates or the Divine Lady’s faction are deployed!”

Haha.

Hahahahahahaha.

In the dark shadows of Pluto’s Great Temple, only the Pope’s laughter was clear.

“No need to worry, Kore. There’s no reason to withdraw people from the front.”

“What?”

“We already have our agents inside Blasphemia. None of them would have noticed, of course.”

The Pope’s smile deepened. With that smiling face, he bid farewell to Kore.

“I’ll tell you in advance, since we won’t see each other again. Have a good afternoon, a good evening, and a good night.”

Kore drew upon the power of Pluto’s Great Temple. She couldn’t let the Pope leave the temple.

The internal structure of the Great Temple began to twist like a maze. Going forward led backward, turning left led downward—a strange entanglement.

But it was meaningless.

Joachim stood before the Pope as his guide. Fully utilizing his power of foresight, he navigated Pluto’s maze effortlessly.

Kore realized she needed to at least alert the other order members about the Pope’s rash action. It was the moment she was about to cry out a dying plea to stop the Pope.

“The Pope must be stopped!”

It was Kore’s voice. But Kore hadn’t spoken yet. She looked around. Like a kaleidoscope, some kind of image was spreading throughout Pluto’s stone chamber.

Every aspect of that image was Kore herself. The manifestation of actions Kore might choose in the future.

Just as Kore had attempted to trap the Pope in Pluto’s maze, the Pope had trapped Kore in a maze of time.

***

There is a vast difference in difficulty between observing magicians’ battles while hiding one’s presence and maintaining concealment while crossing the middle of a magicians’ battlefield.

Magicians in combat stance activate their sixth sense for detecting magical power to the highest degree. They can see and feel even the flow of air within a certain area to ensure their survival.

Even for Charisia, it would be too difficult to approach the Ten Commandments undetected in a battlefield where such magical detection abilities overlap.

But for Ortes, it was very easy. Magical detection? For Ortes, who had no magical power at all, being subjected to magical detection spells would only yield results worse than those for inanimate objects.

“…However, because I have no magical power, I cannot connect to the Ten Commandments.”

Thus, Ortes’s plan was this: When approaching the Ten Commandments, he would reveal himself, drawing everyone’s attention.

Meanwhile, Charisia would use light body transformation to reach and connect to the Ten Commandments, ending this chaos.

Using light body transformation requires enormous magical power, and the resulting fluctuation of magical energy inevitably attracts attention. A strategy using Ortes as bait to ensure Charisia’s safe approach.

Charisia spent a few seconds weighing the possibilities. Was there a faster, more certain way to approach the Ten Commandments?

There wasn’t. She nodded and began preparing to draw upon her magical power.

***

Haltos felt something was off. Extradimensional energy and magical power surged against each other as if devouring one another, and in the gap between them, the radiance of divine power burned both sides, causing indiscriminate destruction.

In the midst of this chaos, a presence that should certainly appear was nowhere to be seen.

‘Where? Where are you?’

The adversary has no face—a widely spread maxim among the Arguirion. Invisible, he was hiding somewhere on this battlefield.

A chilling intuition ran down Haltos’s spine. While everyone was caught up in the fighting, someone could claim the Ten Commandments alone and become the sole victor.

The moment he completed his reasoning, a strange flow of magical power was felt near the Ten Commandments. A deformed technique created by forcibly combining the magic of both Arguirion and the Ten Towers. Not properly constructed as proper magic, it caused a massive explosion, wiping out the surroundings.

At the center of that flow was Ortes. Right before the Ten Commandments.

As everyone else rushed toward Ortes, Haltos felt a familiar suspicion. Would the adversary reveal himself so carelessly?

Where was the other adversary?

Beyond the wave of attack spells directed at Ortes, one heterogeneous magical power could be sensed. Haltos immediately rushed toward where that magical power was felt.

Nastion responded. The shadow cast beneath Charisia’s feet extended its grasp to catch her. Charisia’s response was simple: increase the amount of magical power invested in her light body transformation.

Her body glowed white. The shadow melted away in the incandescent light. Haltos’s speed was not enough to intercept Charisia.

Bombardments continued in an attempt to stop Charisia through attacks. Charisia countered all of them with just fast and powerful physical charges, crushing them. The edge of Charisia’s gauntlet touched the Ten Commandments.

At that very moment.

Time stopped.