Ch.219219. Revealing Oneself

“Huh?”

In a corner of the Greyfond Cemetery.

A woman was crouched and trembling, avoiding tentacles springing out from all directions.

She hadn’t come here to visit any acquaintance buried in a separate grave.

She had come to forgive the boy by praying for the soul of the begging ghost who had once tormented her.

But the lightness she felt through forgiveness was quickly forgotten in the face of the sudden calamity.

Just like outside the city walls and at the debate hall, downtown Greyfond had fallen into chaos as Romuleus’s tentacles poured out.

The woman hiding in the relatively unpopulated graveyard could be considered safer than others.

Splash!

Right in front of her, the damp soil erupted like a fountain. A massive tentacle rose up, pushing aside gravestones and shattering buried coffins.

“Kyaaaah!”

The woman shed tears but was so startled that her legs cramped, leaving her unable to move.

“No! No!”

The eyeball attached to the tentacle rotated and spotted the woman. Just as it began to writhe and strike down at her like prey it had found…

The woman’s body slowly began to float upward.

As if someone was holding her from behind, she dangled in midair, allowing her to escape the tentacle’s attack.

“Huh? Oh! Ohh?!”

The incomprehensible situation continued to unfold. Just as she wondered what on earth was happening…

[Thank you, big sister.]

A small boy’s voice lingered in her ear. She couldn’t see his appearance or feel his touch.

But the woman seemed to know who the boy was.

“A-are you that ghost from before?”

The boy who had died lonely in an alley, unable to endure hunger and cold.

A child with a story who, even after becoming a ghost, had clung to people begging for money.

The voice that had just saved her belonged to the ghost boy who had once followed her around relentlessly.

[Thank you so much for leaving bread at my gravestone. I’m sorry for bothering you. I wasn’t in my right mind back then.]

“Ah.”

The Spiritmaster Deus Verdi had certainly said it. The boy had simply become an evil spirit after suffering from hunger and cold.

That he wasn’t a bad child at heart.

After hearing that story, the woman had come to place bread on the boy’s gravestone as Deus had advised.

The woman, saved by the help of the begging boy, was set down on the street as the child whispered again.

[Be careful, big sister. I’m going to help other people.]

Though invisible, the woman answered toward the empty air.

“A-are you leaving?”

[Yes, so be careful.]

With those words, the chill that had arrived suddenly disappeared. The chaos around her, which had sounded like mumbling, now pierced her ears clearly again.

The woman realized the boy had departed.

“Ah.”

Realizing that her forgiveness, decided through the Spiritmaster, had meaning, the woman began evacuating with the others.

[Go that way.]

Though invisible to the woman…

Countless souls were now flying toward one place in the Norsweden sky.

And guiding these souls was a woman with a black veil covering her face.

[Over there. He’s at that debate hall.]

The Dark Spiritmaster was in the process of guiding souls awakened by Deus’s call to him.

[Go, receive strength from him. And save the people.]

Like fish swimming with the current of a river, souls filling the sky were heading toward where her fingertip pointed.

[Heheheheh!]

[I can see the Spiritmaster again!]

[I can help him! I can repay his kindness!]

[My daughter must still be living in Greyfond.]

[What year is it now? I wonder how big my grandson has grown.]

From souls who died just a few years ago…

[Why should we follow the call of a Black Mage?]

[Then just stay asleep! I’ve awakened to protect my homeland!]

[Aren’t these disgusting tentacles remnants of Black Magic?]

Occasionally, knights and figures from history who seemed hundreds of years old could be seen…

[Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo!]

[We cannot surrender this land to the gods!]

[This is our land! The land our ancestors refused to surrender to the gods!]

Even ancient natives who refused to allow gods into their land were rising and heading toward Deus.

[Just how much has he grown?]

Watching these souls, the Dark Spiritmaster felt both emptiness and pride simultaneously.

Without the Lemegeton now.

This spectacle was created entirely by Deus Verdi’s own abilities.

He was different from any necromancer she knew.

Even Heralazad, who nearly brought the Griffin Kingdom to ruin 200 years ago…

Even the Dark Spiritmaster, who handled necromancy counted among the best on the continent…

Could not create such a spectacle.

Though they were both necromancers.

That man walked a different path.

[Perhaps that’s why I keep following him.]

She felt she wanted to watch him until the end.

* * *

“People used to call me the worst, the most terrible Black Mage.”

Outside the debate hall.

Looking up at the ghosts floating in the sky, Luaness uttered meaningful words.

The continent’s worst necromancer.

She truly had been such a being, killing countless people, manipulating their souls, and using them to kill others.

“Deus Verdi.”

His name, uttered with pressure, felt heavier than expected.

Luaness had to acknowledge it.

“A great necromancer indeed.”

He had opened a new horizon in necromancy.

Unlike ordinary necromancers who captured evil spirits, tortured them into service, and transformed the mana they contained into magic…

He treated souls as souls.

Not as tools, but as humans.

Some say his expression is infinitely cruel.

The truth that death is the end, and the afterlife is solely peace, is truly empty. In a way, it could perversely contaminate the reason for living by crossing the boundary of death.

But conversely.

That man moved and comforted those who simply closed their eyes, rested, and ended.

More cruel than anyone, yet more respectful of them than anyone.

He couldn’t help but be an absurd man.

“Professor…”

Aria, also looking up at the sky, clenched both fists.

Having just exited the debate hall, she turned to go back the way she came, seemingly having made some decision.

“Hey, what are you doing?”

Findenai quickly grabbed her shoulder.

“Are you going to fight that thing? You said that bastard is rampaging because of that destiny thing you have.”

“…”

Always seeming uninterested in her surroundings and focused only on her own life…

Yet in situations like this, Findenai always struck at the core.

It could be called a beast-like sense of smell, or perhaps an innate talent for insight.

“That’s right. That god is probably doing this to make me take up the sword again.”

Mul, who had come to Aria and kept demanding she return as a hero.

Even this current situation could be seen as groundwork to increase Aria’s guilt and return her to her destiny as a hero who saves the kingdom from crisis.

“But… is running away from here really the right thing to do?”

Findenai couldn’t answer that question. If she knew that, she’d be a god herself.

But she watched Aria’s eyes with her arms crossed.

What she could do wasn’t to derive answers through thinking like Deus Verdi.

Like a beast.

Like a wolf.

She drew answers through instinct.

“Let’s go.”

And her instinct was shouting that going back was the right thing to do.

“Hey, you watch the kid. I’ll protect her.”

Wearing the Blood Claw, she could at least strike with her fists. It was a shame she didn’t have her axe, but it couldn’t be helped.

Just as Findenai was thinking about her combat power and preparing to charge in…

“I refuse.”

Luaness coldly rejected the request.

“I’m sorry, but the task I accepted was to protect Aria Rius. You’re just tagging along.”

“Didn’t know I was being protected by someone like you.”

Shrugging her shoulders, Findenai stood her ground and fired back.

The atmosphere was becoming so tense that it wouldn’t have been strange if they started fighting each other instead of Romuleus’s tentacles.

But it was Owen who stepped forward here.

“I-I can escape on my own! The Spiritmaster’s souls are helping me too!”

The boy was right.

The ghosts who had made contact with the Spiritmaster at the debate hall were using the mana contained within them to rescue people.

Living magic.

This was one of Deus Verdi’s greatest strengths and a skill no one else could easily replicate.

The souls weren’t fighting the tentacles but were snatching citizens and helping them flee to safety.

Deus knew that fighting would be meaningless anyway.

Thanks to Owen interrupting the flow between the two, Aria took the opportunity to answer firmly.

“Then both of you follow me. This is my responsibility anyway.”

“Ha, how bold!”

“Yes, that was your promise with Deus.”

Aria ran toward the debate hall. Findenai kept up with her near-maximum speed using her war shoes, while Luaness followed behind, floating in the air while emitting white smoke from her body.

‘I heard she was a necromancer.’

Findenai had no idea how Luaness was using magic, but…

That wasn’t important right now, so she set it aside for the moment.

“So what are you going to do?”

When Findenai asked Aria who was running ahead, the girl answered with determination.

“Professor said it, didn’t he? That the key to breaking the shackles of destiny lies with me.”

“Ah, he did.”

That was definitely what he had said just before they left the debate hall.

“I think I know what it is.”

“Hmm?”

“The Professor has already given me something.”

Deus had already handed her the power and method to break the suddenly appearing destiny.

Thinking this, just as Aria was about to head toward Mul…

Kwaaaaaaaaah!

With a thunderous roar that shook heaven and earth, a monster that had swallowed half of the massive debate hall rose from the ground.

Its black body had no other features except an enormous, hideous mouth that could only be described as vast.

The tentacles sprouting from its entire body writhed in a way that was unpleasant to behold.

Due to its appearance, the building that was originally an execution ground began to collapse, and a cloud of dust enveloped Greyfond.

Upon this land…

The fallen god finally revealed itself.