Ch.197Reverse-Flowing Hourglass (5)

Haltos gritted his teeth. To think he would join hands with his enemy to fight against the magician he once respected most.

But this was the only way. Haltos took comfort in knowing that this fight would ultimately “liberate” the Commander.

‘Yes. With the blessing of the outer dimension, I can save the Commander from the oppression of that wicked priest of the old god.’

If that happened, they could serve the cause together.

Ortes had no interest in Haltos’s inner thoughts. His only concern was somehow stopping the Pope’s madness.

His eyes, already pushed beyond physical limits, analyzed the Commander’s movements. Invisibility or teleportation were meaningless. Unless the Pope himself directly intervened with his authority, the Commander could not escape Ortes’s gaze.

“Right!”

Ortes shouted as he parried the Commander’s scythe with his high-frequency blade and stabbed him in the abdomen. At the same moment, the Commander’s form vanished. Haltos reflexively scattered outer-dimensional currents. The Commander, who appeared on Haltos’s right, couldn’t avoid the outer-dimensional magic in time.

Ortes moved again. He wove together outer-dimensional magic and reversal formulas. As the reversal meant to counter the outer-dimensional erosion collapsed, the outer-dimensional magic invaded the holy relic worn by the Commander.

‘So this is the enemy’s ability!’

Haltos was astonished anew. Ortes was grasping all of the Commander’s movements and staying one step ahead. The unpredictable attacks using holy relics were instantly dismantled, broken apart like simple repetitive tasks.

The Commander’s attacks gradually dulled. It was because the outer-dimensional blessing and the holy relic were burning each other up in resistance. Accordingly, flashes of clarity appeared in the Commander’s eyes.

It was clearly a sign that the Commander’s soul, torn apart by that evil old priest, was returning. Haltos shouted:

“Commander! Open your eyes! You are now controlled by the enemy of the world! Break free from evil’s control!”

Ortes clicked his tongue. The Pope was the one suddenly acting crazy, but in truth, Arguirion was the one more suited to the position of villain plotting the world’s destruction.

‘As if that would bring him to his senses.’

The Commander that Haltos wanted—one “loyal to the cause”—might open his eyes. But Ortes didn’t think that would truly be the original Commander. Just as the current Commander was the Pope’s puppet, a Commander corrupted by the outer dimension would merely be the Demon King’s puppet.

However, what Ortes hadn’t anticipated was the result he himself had created. Normally, holy power and outer-dimensional magic should annihilate each other, continuing their mutual destruction until only one remains. But Ortes had forcibly woven them together through formula overwriting.

As a result, the two formulas competing to control the Commander’s body fell into a state of confusion. The outer dimension tried to control the holy power, and the holy power tried to control the magic, reducing their influence on the Commander himself caught in between.

The Commander broke a very long silence.

“Haltos…? Why are you…?”

A voice tinged with confusion, but familiar to Haltos. Haltos shouted vigorously:

“Commander, are you awake! I’ll soon free you from the old priest’s oppression! Quickly, join our cause!”

The Commander’s expression twisted strangely. It was an expression that seemed like contempt, or perhaps concern.

“You… You’ve become corrupted.”

“Not corrupted. I’ve awakened to the truth.”

“Ah. It wasn’t just my soul that was stolen—you too!”

Haltos was stunned by the Commander’s reaction. What was he saying? The outer-dimensional corruption within the Commander should have already shown him the truth. Why?

‘What exactly is happening here?’

Ortes was confused. Something was happening, in a direction neither Haltos nor probably the Pope had anticipated.

***

The Pope confronted Karisia. He knew that name as knowledge.

But until now, Karisia had been closer to an object than a person to the Pope. An object, a creation of the Ten Towers.

By combining the Thousand-Mile Eye and prophecy—sacred tools bestowed by Phoibos to Hyakin—with his own time-manipulating authority, the Pope could peer into the past through specific individuals.

That was how his one-on-one interview with Demos, meant to observe the false god’s process of mythification and path to ascension, had been conducted.

The Pope had read Demos’s memories of his actions in Algoth City. It was reference material for reconfiguring the connection to the Ten Towers’ ascension realm. He reinforced his plans by observing the false god’s connection points and operating principles.

But there existed a being more abhorrent than the false god. The true nature of the one who instilled intense fear in Demos, the “boss” whom Ortes served.

The Pope could also see the shock and terror Demos felt when he witnessed Karisia, along with Demos’s subsequent reasoning. Demos had judged that Ortes had recruited Karisia as a weapon against the Ten Towers.

The Pope agreed with that assessment. The most disgusting contaminant with which the Demon King had defiled the world was the Ten Towers, and Karisia was the embodiment of that malicious tool from her very existence.

Surely Ortes, who must be of the same nature as himself, could not regard that thing as anything other than a tool.

He should not.

Yet Ortes was clearly trying to prevent the world’s purification for Karisia’s sake. The Pope could understand Karisia fighting to protect Ortes, but Ortes fighting for Karisia?

It was a realm completely incomprehensible to the Pope.

With magical bombardment over a vast area blocking the Pope’s approach, he stopped at a certain distance and voiced his question:

“How can you do this?”

At the beginning of this conversation, Karisia recalled her encounter with the White Light. The White Light had degraded Karisia’s existence by refusing to engage in dialogue. The Pope was the opposite. The fact that he was attempting conversation, contrary to his previous words, meant that he was treating Karisia as an equal entity, even if unconsciously.

‘He doesn’t seem the type to easily go back on his word, so he must be quite confused.’

It was quite satisfying to see emotional confusion bloom on that face which had smiled at Ortes. This was a good opportunity to recover magical power. Karisia accepted the conversation while gathering her formulas.

“How what? What are you talking about?”

Karisia spoke with her honest feelings. She abandoned the respectful speech she had learned from Ortes and maintained until now.

Respectful speech had been appropriate for the White Light, if only to mock her in return. But for this madman who had suddenly backstabbed them, neither ridicule nor satire seemed effective, and there was no reason to maintain even a semblance of courtesy.

“Shouldn’t you also hate Ortes? As a product of the Ten Towers, you must reject the incarnation of holiness.”

“Really? Me, hate Ortes?”

Karisia smiled naturally. It was the fierce smile she had shown to the White Light.

“What I hate is this world.”

It was an expression that would have horrified Ortes, who would have said “her Baekmumyeong personality is showing.” Karisia reflected on her past.

The Eleusis phenomenon, which connected reality and virtual worlds, suggested another possibility: that something virtual could be refined to the extreme and made real.

The White Light decided to use this.

Simulations of virtual worlds using the Ten Towers. By creating countless virtual realms with different environments, she attempted to birth a “perfect body” through infinite iterations.

The “protagonist” of each virtual realm was created using the White Light’s own genetic material, as they would ultimately become the White Light’s body.

At the end of the simulation, she would imbue her spirit into the final product, finally achieving the ultimate magic.

Even for the White Light, this plan was bound to fail repeatedly. There were countless variables to test. But the White Light’s obsession was immense, approaching infinity, and the Ten Towers’ magic was inexhaustible despite endless iterations.

The White Light endlessly repeated the creation and deletion of virtual realms. She would delete everything except the final result, the protagonist, from each world.

Even selected data would be discarded if better data was produced in another world. The goal of perfection was so distant that the number of discarded worlds and data was astronomical beyond measure.

In one such deleted world, the “protagonist” was tested for survival from the moment of birth. This was a setting designed to awaken magical abilities through extreme situations. The mother suffered in various ways, and the fetus tried to save her with its exceptional magical potential.

But what the fetus couldn’t withstand was the mother’s self-denial. Believing that her pain would continue eternally if the fetus saved her, the mother tried to kill it.

So the fetus gave up on survival. The White Light dispassionately deleted the fetus killed by its mother, along with that world.

It was a child who died without ever being named.

And all the virtual deaths and tragedies converged. The purest hatred from discarded worlds gathered and solidified into something that could never be erased.

The White Light considered this a bug. Unable to delete it from the virtual world, she “expelled” the bug into reality.

This was the first case of realization. Instead of immediate disposal, it was transported to a secret laboratory at the border of the outer dimension to be used as a sample for research and analysis.

And the bug opened its eyes.

Carrying as much hatred as the deaths experienced in the discarded worlds. Bearing the anger of fake worlds destroyed by the real one.