Ch.194The Hourglass That Flows Backward (2)

“What kind of crazy talk is that?”

Haltos asked incredulously, keeping his eyes on Ortes while focusing his magical detection on the Pope.

“Even in a frozen state, your instincts as an Eroder must have remained active. That Pope fellow is unexpected even to me—”

Ortes couldn’t finish his sentence. A fierce attack came from behind him. The Commander’s great scythe swept through the spot where Ortes had been just moments before.

It was entirely thanks to his “Eyes” that he could detect the invisibility. Ortes’s eyes collected information indiscriminately within his sphere of influence, separate from his physical vision.

Responding nimbly to the ambush from behind, Ortes could sense the Commander retreating into invisibility once more. He raised his high-frequency blade, aiming it at the Pope.

“You desire Argyrion’s victory, while I desire Hydra Company’s victory. But neither of us wants the Pope to win, do we?”

“Wasn’t the Commander’s corruption a result of your interference?”

“Does that thing look like it’s on my side right now?”

Haltos released extra-dimensional magical energy, letting it flow like water. A faint splashing sound could be heard. The Commander was constantly looking for openings in Ortes’s defense.

The Commander’s control belonged to the Pope, not Ortes. That much could be inferred from their conversation. Ortes and the Pope were once allies, but no longer.

“The enemy has met with treachery. A fitting conclusion.”

“Are you going to abandon your cause right here?”

“…No, I won’t.”

Haltos crafted another trident from extra-dimensional magic. As someone who despised the enemy more than anyone else in this world, he could guess the battle scenario Ortes had envisioned.

“I’ll handle the Commander.”

As Haltos said this, he simultaneously hurled the trident in his right hand toward the Pope. The spear, wrapped in extra-dimensional magic, flew like a wave, drawing magical energy in its wake. The leading edge of a sentient tsunami.

The Pope raised his scepter to block the attack. Each water droplet froze in mid-air, creating a surreal, painting-like scene.

Ortes appeared, cutting through the suspended spray, the trident Haltos had thrown now gripped in his left hand.

The barrier of frozen time shattered. The suspended tsunami crashed down all at once. The Pope withdrew his hand from the Ten Commandments and planted his scepter.

“Why make such a futile choice, brother?”

Ortes observed Haltos. The attack on the Pope had been launched simultaneously with his declaration to “handle the Commander.” An efficient deception. Ortes had responded to Haltos’s intention by concealing himself beneath the wave of extra-dimensional magic and charging forward.

After the surprise attack on the Pope, Haltos was now locked in an intense battle with the Commander. Both wielded formless weapons, launching sweeping attacks that aimed for each other’s blind spots.

“I must ask you. Hydra Company’s victory isn’t just Hydra’s victory. It’s a victory for the entire alliance. Did you suddenly want to win alone?”

“I don’t desire victory. I simply want the right era.”

Clang!

A blade flew toward the Pope but stopped in mid-air. The Pope had frozen the atmosphere.

Ortes analyzed the Pope’s time-stopping ability. The first type was this freezing applied to inanimate objects. In words, it was time-freezing.

The space-time solidified by divine power couldn’t be broken by any direct attack, but Ortes had a simple solution.

Spell overwriting. Rather than targeting the frozen object itself, he interfered with the holy power causing the freezing. Even without eyes like Ortes’s that could observe divine power, it seemed this type of freezing could be broken if one could momentarily match the Pope’s mana output.

The problem was the second type of freezing—the paralysis that had settled over this entire space.

This was conceptual freezing. Not holy power but holy spirit. Time erosion. This enforced itself as a law of the world.

Beings who couldn’t reach the rank of the law deployed by the Pope couldn’t resist the freezing. Conversely, those who weren’t frozen could freely interfere with frozen beings.

Those who weren’t frozen embodied a higher providence than those who were. It was like how higher dimensions could observe and interfere with lower dimensions, but lower dimensions couldn’t affect higher ones.

This was also why the Pope didn’t aim his scepter directly at Ortes.

The Pope could instinctively recognize the divine power in Ortes’s eyes. Though even the Pope didn’t know exactly what kind of divinity it was, its rank was clearly on the same level as his own primordial divinity.

Attempting time erosion would be meaningless. Therefore, the Pope restricted Ortes’s movements by freezing parts of the space around him.

Ortes used the extra-dimensional waves to contaminate the holy power creating the freezing. The extra-dimensional magic seeped into each particle of air. The Pope realized that the resources consumed by freezing were gradually increasing.

A method to wear down long-term capacity. The Pope realized that Ortes was truly accustomed to “fighting.” There was a reason Demos had praised him.

He lightly tapped his scepter. The end of the scepter bent, and a dark blade that seemed capable of dyeing even dawn black emerged.

It took the form of a great scythe.

Ortes laughed hollowly at the information reflected in his eyes. The Adamantine (ἀδάμας) Scythe. A legendary weapon said to have been used by one of the primordial gods in ancient myth to stab his own father.

It was recreated through holy spirit.

“Isn’t that unfair? I’m just a mass-produced item!”

“Hmm, if you join hands with me, I could give you several.”

A gentle response. Usually, Ortes was the expert at confounding opponents, but not this time. Bewildered, he naturally blurted out:

“Are you serious?”

“Indeed. I don’t wish to fight my brother.”

“You keep saying ‘brother, brother,’ but as I’ve repeatedly told you, my family, including my parents, doesn’t exist in this world.”

“Ah. Neither does mine.”

This is maddening. Ortes let out a hollow laugh. The Pope didn’t laugh. He continued in a serious tone:

“Don’t you find it strange how often you’re misunderstood? And haven’t you noticed how strangely faint others’ memories of you are?”

“…What?”

“Brother, you and I are not welcome in this world. After the Demon King defiled our world with his providence, beings with divine power became rejected. He made the unconscious of all things consider us ‘beings that violate providence.'”

The Pope explained calmly. The Demon King had inscribed a new law making the world itself reject possessors of divine power. Like square-shaped snow falling. Treated as phenomena that should never exist in nature.

Something fearful and abhorrent. The enemy of the world.

“Originally, magical power didn’t exist in this world. Only after the Demon King corrupted the essence of mana itself—the totality or primitive form of abilities—could the concept of magic be derived from mana. Magic is, in itself, a contaminant like radiation.”

So that’s what it meant that “the entire world is contaminated.” Ortes found a clue to the Pope’s enigmatic behavior. Whatever the Pope made of Ortes’s hesitation, his smile deepened.

“It seems you’ve lived a life similar to mine, brother.”

“…Then you can’t manipulate magic?”

“Hmm? What do you mean?”

The Pope asked with genuine confusion.

“Divine power is an authority that exists above all abilities. Even the Demon King has his own divinity, so there’s no reason why divine power and magic should be mutually exclusive.”

Ah, damn it. What am I, really?

Ortes’s mind became complicated. If there was no reason for divine power and magic to be mutually exclusive, why couldn’t he interfere with magic at all?

A sigh escaped him. This wasn’t the time to worry about his identity anyway. Ortes tightened his grip on his high-frequency blade.

Hostility manifested in action rather than words. The Pope, too, stopped trying to persuade with words.

He swung his scythe with a speed that belied his leisurely tone. The scythe, tearing through the space between spaces, emerged from within Ortes’s skin, attempting to sever his heart.

—!

But it didn’t succeed. The attempt to directly pierce through Ortes’s body failed as the spatial rift brilliantly collapsed.

“Indeed, it seems I cannot interfere with the interior of a being with equal rank using such methods. I’ll have to pierce from the outside.”

What just happened? Ortes was dumbfounded.

Such an impossible attack is feasible?

It was an attack that would kill anyone who wasn’t an Eroder like Haltos, capable of regenerating even if their internal organs were pulverized, or someone who had replaced their body with machinery and could simply swap out parts.

The Pope swung his scythe wildly. Though he was dozens of steps away from Ortes, the blade freely traversed space, unhindered by distance.

Ortes sensed something strange. The attacks were inefficiently large. The trajectory of the slashes seemed to extend from the ground to the sky. The target didn’t appear to be him either. The movements seemed designed to block the Pope’s own front. The few attacks directed at Ortes could be easily defended against.

‘Even if direct internal attacks are impossible, wouldn’t it be far more efficient to spatial-shift as close as possible to vital points?’

Just as Ortes set aside his doubts and rushed toward the Pope, everything reflected in his “Eyes” turned red. He immediately activated his magic engraving drive. A gust of wind pushed Ortes’s body backward.

At that very moment, the previous slashes began to replay. One black line appeared, then another, until the entire space was covered in black.

The mutilated air screamed. The countless black lines became a black wall, then began to return to lines again.

Beyond the scattered black lines, the Pope’s smile was visible.

***

Twitch.

The tip of the black gauntlet, the index finger, trembled slightly.