Ch.22373. Fierce Battle of Fire and Darkness (3)

The queen on the white horse immediately sensed the anomaly.

‘The incoming numbers are gradually decreasing.’

Moreover, there was also a slight change in the state of those creatures that had been charging in one-sidedly.

‘Did they succeed?’

Due to the maliciously overgrown reddish-black trees, she couldn’t see what was happening inside the contaminated zone.

But at least it was clear that the situation was developing positively.

‘If things continue like this…’

Yet she still didn’t know.

Even a seemingly favorable battle situation could be reversed at any moment.

It could flow in a completely opposite direction.

She had encountered and experienced this countless times before.

====

I.

I don’t have the right to determine someone else’s life.

That’s not to say I wouldn’t kill those who needed to be killed.

Mistilteinn scratched her helmet and plunged into the ground beside her face.

-!!!!

Fragments of complex and frenzied emotions swirled through her eyes and face like a vortex.

And toward that face, I thrust Gorgonion forward.

More precisely…

…the touch itself was what mattered.

Tap.

Then, I peer in.

If I cannot hear another’s circumstances from their own lips…

…I have no choice but to look inside.

……

………

Someone with a snow-white cloth wrapped around their face shouts.

The voice reminds me of an older man.

The emotion embedded in the voice seeps into even the will, disguising fury and hatred as enthusiasm.

“The serpent who fed the forbidden fruit to the first humans! It is not a malicious being that engraved original sin in our hearts. He is a true liberator and guide.”

If one must commit original sin to gain knowledge.

By all means.

“The one who calls us sinners for having original sin and tries to confine us in a model garden called paradise to cultivate as it pleases—who exactly is that being?”

Tetragrammaton.

The one many call Lord, the Heavenly One, the Father of us all.

“But even that is nothing more than a maker (δημιουργός). Is the Creator omnipotent? Is the Creator all-knowing and all-powerful?!”

Where is the guarantee that the maker is good?

What if that maker harbored malice?

“Therefore, he is a malicious Demiurge (δημιουργός).”

Furthermore.

“The one who provided us with wisdom and truth in the name of the forbidden fruit is the rebellious will.”

True Samael (סמאל).

But you too have fallen.

Was your power insufficient?

Was your wisdom lacking?

Was your omnipotence inadequate?

Or.

Was it your will that was insufficient?

“Realizing that this world is a model garden filled with malice is solely in the realm of knowledge. Unless someone awakens you to it! Absolutely! No one will ever reach this realization!”

Therefore, only we know the truth of the world.

“If we are to exist as ourselves, survive, and escape from the curse of mortality and the oppression of ignorance! We must resist! We must stand against! We must realize and stay awake! We will not fall into the malicious traps they have set! All the good and evil in the world, everything good and bad! All of it! They are traps set by them! Traps that curse you eternally and make you unforgivable! Traps that drive you into a pit so you can never approach the truth! Traps you fall into and can never escape from! Traps of despair! Traps of ignorance! Traps of namelessness! Traps of discouragement! Traps of disbelief!”

There will be no light there.

No hope, only overflowing despair and frustration.

“We must not stop fighting. But if it is impossible for us, weak and ugly as we are, we must create our own god.”

In a dark valley.

From within the valley where light fades.

The snow-white figure standing on a small altar preached, expounded, and orated to the numerous snow-white figures spread below…

…spreading their doctrine.

I… don’t know.

It doesn’t reach my ears.

It doesn’t engrave itself in my eyes either.

I feel nothing.

My emotions have dried up.

I don’t even know when it started.

Thinking is not easy.

My head has been constantly dull and hazy.

“And that god! I proclaim with a screaming heart that our created Demiurge has been born here today!”

He gestures.

All I see is a being hiding itself in snow-white cloth and attire.

And following that being’s signal.

As I weakly hasten my steps.

Below the altar, more people were chanting unknown phrases toward me.

“Is heaven imperfect? Or is it the origin of evil? We do not yet know. Therefore, hating it is also ignorance. We will hate and resent after acquiring knowledge. We will set aside indiscriminate and irresponsible emotions, and solely for the sake of fundamental knowledge… we will explore their realm.”

That is!

Our… mission and destiny.

“Until the day we break the egg made by the false one and meet the true Lord. Until the day we approach eternal life, eternal knowledge, and eternity.”

He extends his hand again, pointing at me.

“Her name is Nebro. Her surname is Demiurge. She will be the first created god originating from us.”

And thus she will.

“Shatter all the false rules and laws of this world, like breaking the shell of an egg.”

Pray. And agonize.

“So that we may meet the true God.”

….

……

………

Though his face was wrapped in cloth just the same, this man’s voice was somewhat more bearable.

Like a lullaby.

“Pleroma (πλήρωμα) shares its vein with mana but must be approached differently. The term ‘mana’ is actually an expression passed down from dragons and ancient races. During the Vera Empire…”

“……”

A boring explanation.

But I grasped the point.

I spread out my hand.

Then, as he requested, I composed my mind.

A crimson light source extends out.

The size filling my palm was tiny.

But the crimson light was enough to illuminate the entire room and more.

“This, this can’t be! You really are… as the Forerunner said… a Demiurge?”

“……”

How should I know.

My head hurts, I don’t want to think.

Thinking about anything makes my head hurt.

So I won’t think about anything.

If I just do what I’m told, no one will say anything.

….

……

………

“So the bloodline of gods truly exists.”

“Failing to distinguish between what should be doubted and what should be trusted is also ignorance. Strive so that ignorance does not consume you.”

“Yes, I will keep that in mind, Forerunner.”

They’re babbling about something.

“Handling greatness is only possible when supported by complete knowledge. Not even the slightest difference, as small as a speck of dust, can be allowed. That is the same as not knowing. Knowledge presupposes completeness and perfection. If not, then it means you do not know.”

Then I know nothing.

I don’t know who I am and I don’t want to know.

I’m not even curious.

I am just… nothing.

….

……

………

“Death sentence.”

The verdict implemented through my mouth instantly terminates someone’s life and will.

“Death sentence.”

I’m just doing what I was taught.

That’s what they want from me.

The ideal for their created false god.

….

……

………

“Lutesia?”

He says that’s my name.

Moreover, he claimed I was his daughter.

……Strange fellow.

I could have killed him but missed the chance due to his bizarre actions.

This is bad.

This is really bad.

Even as a false god, I shouldn’t have made such a mistake.

Where did I… go wrong?

But me… a human child? A daughter?

What nonsense.

How would he prove that?

Of all the information I’ve heard recently, this is the most useless, worthless… irritating.

But such things don’t sway me.

The Forerunner already told me that such false ones would constantly try to shake me.

In the end, it’s just that kind of talk.

Trials and tribulations always come.

Even if they take the form of small disturbances and tiny confusions.

…They can have no effect on me.

For I have the mission to achieve truth through falsehood, as the believers desire.

….

……

………

It took a long time.

He no longer rises.

He kept saying strange things… did incomprehensible things until his dying moment.

It doesn’t matter.

He will never appear before me again.

====

“What… is this?”

Something… has gone terribly wrong.

If everything I glimpsed in her memories is true….

That’s when it happened.

-Aaaaargh!!!

The Demon Lord screams, trembling all over.

The problem was…

The armor she was wearing seemed to take on a will of its own, swelling in volume and lunging at me… as if to engulf me.

Its form resembled the jaws of a wolf or snake.

“……”

I immediately retreated five steps back, riding the darkness.

-Ugh, uugh!

Perhaps thanks to all the fragments of black armor having sprung into the air.

The appearance of the current Demon Lord, Lutesia, reminded one of a frail woman.

Sprawled helplessly on the ground in a practical-looking red dress.

Though merely stripped of her armor, she seemed so defenseless.

-……!!

She seems to be trying to raise herself with gritted teeth and all her might, but judging by her condition, even that looked difficult.

However…

The armor, gathered in midair, begins to take shape on its own as soon as it falls to the ground.

The shape of a human.

But its build was about twice my size.

…Armor that responds to the Demon Lord’s crisis.

It was too strange to say it contained an ego.

But its intention was clearly conveyed.

The figure, writhing in black armor, straightens itself and grips a dark sword formed out of nowhere with both hands.

Then it tightly grips the handle, holding the sword vertically upright.

Crack!

It gripped so tightly that a brief sound of metal grinding emerged.

And standing like that, it somehow looked too small and precarious.

Yet somehow, it didn’t seem like it would easily fall.

“……”

And.

Looking at the posture it took and the miserable scene of it standing there, I inadvertently felt desolation.

“……”

I hold my breath.

And just as it did.

I too.

Raised my sword in response.

Vertically, holding the newly formed jet-black sword upright.

Para.

A stance that is both a starting position and a form of etiquette among knights, a mutual respect.

In reality, it was a useless response.

But somehow, this time it felt right.

Eventually, we were placed at the same starting line.

But the process was clearly divided.

Fortes.

Unlike me, who took a stance with my jet-black sword held tightly at my left waist with both hands, raised like a horn.

The other side…

Grate.

Though it should be a stance where the sword is placed on the shoulder or something similar.

It raised the sword high above its head with both hands.

That’s not Grate.

That is… Fabiam.

If all downward striking movements in our swordsmanship are called Fabiam.

That being’s stance…

Should rightfully be called the starting point of Fabiam.

“You are… I see.”

[……]

It brings down its sword.

Though the distance was clearly at least four steps away.

The descending sword itself rushed toward me as if thrown or charging.

Clang!

I blocked it.

Immediately transitioning to Betita with a lateral shift to deflect it.

But its Fabiam, its downward strike, was not yet finished.

At the moment of contact, it put even more force into it, scraping down the sword as if to cut through on contact.

Though I finally deflect it.

It immediately thrusts.

Necata.

I likewise transition Betita with a lateral shift, simultaneously lowering my stance to deflect the thrusting trajectory, and immediately cut off the flow of the opponent’s sword strike with a Fortes-Betita-Grate transition.

However, it responded by striking upward, thrusting, and striking down again.

Punita-Necata-Fabiam.

‘Completely…’

It uses the opposite method from me.

For me, those three moves of striking down, thrusting, and striking up are closer to killing techniques used with the purpose of finishing an opponent.

Though they can be used lightly, even without doing so, if it’s about subduing or incapacitating an opponent, inflicting serious injury.

…Four movements, including the starting stance, were sufficient.

But this formless black armored being was different.

It only kills the opponent.

Once it bites, it holds on until the end.

It’s not that it doesn’t use Para-Grate-Betita-Fortes.

But at least I clearly understood that its usage and utilization ratio was incomparable to mine.

And the reason why it had to handle the sword in this way.

I could well understand it now.

“I have questions for you too…”

Crack!

“But for now, let me match your rhythm.”

What’s before me is essentially no different from a corpse, just a being that’s not actually a corpse.

However.

Even if that’s the case.

I… decided to try to understand his futile obsession, even a little.

Despite our swords meeting, we knew each other well enough to draw, withdraw, deflect, and strike down at any moment.

But the difference was clear.

He was surely a trace or fragment of someone who once walked the same path as me.

But now I…

Had reached a distant realm he couldn’t reach, gladly proclaiming that place as my domain.

I was the unique master of another world.

I have a world, and even the pillars that support that world.

And for him, who has lost it all.

“……”

Even if he were to repeat dying and awakening thousands of times.

He would never reach it.