Ch.296Storm (4)

# Imagery, Ideal, Origin.

Each of the three unique mechanisms had different qualities embedded in their names.

First, Imagery. For warriors who don’t use much magical power, their unique mechanism reflects the form they consider strongest.

It creates the ultimate environment and conditions for their martial arts to reach perfection, and even directly manipulates that ultimate form.

Imagery allows an individual’s will to overturn the world. It’s the most typical mechanism, but one that varies greatly depending on personal capability.

Then what about Ideal?

Ideal is the unique mechanism of those who use magic. It manifests the ultimate form of the world as envisioned by an individual.

Rather than changing the world indirectly, it directly influences reality. The Death of a Star was a prime example.

When Lucilla revealed her ideal of destroying the world with the intense flames of nuclear fire, people feared her and called her the Annihilator. To fantasy humans who knew nothing of nuclear power, such an ideal and its implementation was shocking beyond measure.

Finally, there was Origin.

Users of Origin typically had contractors, and after Llewellyn drifted into this world, the three clans were apparently included as well.

Origin traces the roots of power and reproduces it. Among the three, it has the least connection to the “individual.”

Yet its power was beyond dismissible levels.

If it borrowed the power of a transcendent being or an equivalent existence, it couldn’t be otherwise.

That’s why Llewellyn bet on this possibility.

He believed that if the three Heads used their unique mechanisms simultaneously, they could completely bind a transcendent being’s avatar.

Llewellyn’s prediction seemed correct.

The appearance of the three Heads changed.

“…Origin Manifestation.”

The necromancer didn’t particularly like his Origin. If anything, he seemed rather displeased by it.

But he was practical by nature, someone who would do what needed to be done without complaint.

So he suppressed his displeasure, removed his hood, and transformed.

His body melted away as if dissolving.

In its place appeared a massive dragon. For Llewellyn, who had recently lost the mourner Ulrich to a dragon, it was an intimidating sight that made him flinch.

A form that intimidated even though he knew it was an ally. Though smaller than the avatar that had just revealed itself, the avatar’s size was so unrealistic that this form felt more tangible.

A massive body the size of the Pantheon temple.

It appeared covered in bones, with flesh and scales forming over them.

The scales were pure white. Pristine, clear scales that gave the impression of light cascading from above.

Beneath them formed powerful muscles befitting the massive body, an overwhelming presence, and vitality that surged through it after absorbing the death energy that had filled the surroundings.

Llewellyn, as a god who performed miracles, quickly understood what this Origin was.

Death and life filling its body, recreating the most righteous form it once took, supplemented by the necromancy and magic now available.

The dragon that appeared was both the Prophet and not the Prophet.

It represented the Prophet’s will and power, but even if its form were destroyed, the Prophet would not die.

It was truly a revenant controlled by the Prophet.

An Origin that commanded an infinitely resurrecting dragon. Powerful on its own, but that wasn’t all.

The second to transform was the Court Count. Like his clan member Lorian, his Origin took the form of covering his body, an Origin that required cooperation with others rather than being used alone.

Llewellyn had known that the clan’s unique mechanism could only be used on one target at a time, but apparently this didn’t apply to the Court Count.

“Origin Manifestation.”

He showed no emotion in using his Origin. His body, along with his drawn sword, melted into blood and surged forward.

The blood covered the dragon. It enveloped the exposed white scales, clothing the body in armor made of blood.

The extended sword transformed into a massive blood construct, and the blood covering where the tail should be formed into gauntlets that gripped the sword.

A dragon of blood and bone. That alone would have seemed sufficient, but one more remained.

“Origin Manifestation!”

The Empress shouted with evident joy. Removing her veil to reveal a beautiful yet ominous face, her eyes, constantly shifting with strange colors, emitted light.

Among the three Heads, the Empress was the least human-like.

She had completely surrendered herself to pleasure. Not physical pleasure, but mental pleasure.

That’s why she followed Llewellyn. She was loyal to him because he created all sorts of interesting situations.

This time was no different. Who would have thought there would be a situation where all three Heads would use Origin Manifestation simultaneously?

That’s why she happily embraced the situation.

Llewellyn had a vague understanding of the Shapeshifter clan’s Origin, having heard explanations several times.

It was easy to predict.

The Shapeshifter clan’s Origin draws out the fundamental power of their transformation form.

It’s a transformation that exceeds limits. One could say it takes all possible advantages they could claim.

But the Empress didn’t have what could be called a transformation. Even in her basic form, she could push countless transformations to their limits.

So her Origin was unfamiliar even to Llewellyn.

Her entire body changed. Though her outward appearance seemed unchanged, Llewellyn’s sharp senses and divinity told him she was transforming rapidly and intensely.

She was a complex being, chimeric by birth. A woman who contained all kinds of life within herself.

Her Origin was fundamentally very different from ordinary Shapeshifters.

Llewellyn watched the Empress exhale a long, sweet breath.

She had somehow climbed atop the dragon’s head, wearing a hazy smile.

Looking ecstatic as if drugged, with an overwhelming pressure flowing through her entire body.

Her Origin was compression.

Compressing the advantages of all living beings and projecting them onto a human-shaped body.

The clothes on her body fluttered just from the compressed power she contained.

Power capable of destroying a mountain range was budding within her body.

GROOOOOOOOOOAR!

The dragon roared, its blood armor surged, and the Empress standing atop it burst into maniacal laughter.

A sight that would make anyone think they were villains. Yet Llewellyn couldn’t imagine more reliable allies.

“I’m counting on you.”

There was no response to his quiet words, but that wasn’t a problem. Their role from the beginning was to restrain the transcendent being.

The dragon flapped its wings, its massive body rising as overwhelming magical energy filled the surrounding space.

The blood armor moved independently, pointing the sword with its tail, while the Empress, taking position atop the dragon, grinned as she glared at the soaring transcendent being.

Those three would more than hold their ground. Llewellyn drove his heel deep into the ground and launched himself with an explosive leap.

Overturned earth and rising dirt mounds. As Llewellyn left the battlefield at tremendous speed, the three Heads each viewed the transcendent being before them with different perspectives.

When Llewellyn first told them the truth, two of the three, excluding the Empress, didn’t believe him.

That Father had turned his back on this world, chosen the Great Ascension, and was devoured.

That the one who bestowed power on the Mourners, those mysterious beings, was a transcendent being who had salvaged Father’s remains.

That Father wouldn’t have left so easily, wouldn’t have foolishly chosen a path where everyone died and disappeared.

They truly believed that.

The Prophet believed it out of respect for someone he admired, the Court Count out of reverence akin to romantic love.

But the truth was evident just by looking at that massive form.

The Steward, Father, the former king of the three clans, had chosen death himself and was now being desecrated even in death.

And there was nothing they could do about it. The power difference was too vast.

The transcendent being that had devoured the Steward was that powerful.

The result of focusing solely on physical transformation, with minimal divinity and overwhelming transcendence, stood before their eyes.

The form that didn’t collapse despite the overwhelming weight and mass acting on its entire body proved it.

The fact that it wasn’t twisting principles with divinity showed just how powerful it was.

It was enduring through sheer brute force. Truly astonishing, but…

“Isn’t this better than fighting a transcendent being directly?” the Empress said.

And she was right.

Not the overwhelming status of a transcendent being, but a creature, an avatar, created from that status.

That was something they could fight. Something they could potentially defeat.

The three Heads, who had been rotting away for a long time hoping for “Father’s” return, had finally found him.

Moreover, they had gained an opportunity for revenge.

The reunion wasn’t in the most welcome form, but still.

“Glory to the new king,” the Court Count said, completely letting go of his lingering attachment.

*

While two monsters battled with thunderous noise in the east,

Llewellyn, his body soaring high, spread his divinity to scan the surroundings.

In the north, the Sword Star Society and the Sword Star were struggling to hold the line.

In the west, Valterok, the Black Knights, and the Blazing Duke were successfully blocking the magical boundary.

That left the south.

The south was also fine. There were some monsters rising from the southern sea, but Arba and her subordinates, along with the mercenaries, could handle them adequately.

There were no problems in any direction. The defense of the Pantheon was complete.

At this point, it might have been better to join the three Heads and quickly deal with the transcendent being’s avatar.

Yet for some reason, Llewellyn couldn’t shake the unease lurking in his mind.

Everything was going well, and yet he felt something was wrong.

A feeling that there was something he hadn’t noticed yet.

Llewellyn’s soaring body gradually descended. He spread his divinity to chaotic levels, scanning the surroundings, thinking he might have missed something.

That’s why he noticed the anomaly before anyone else.

Something faintly registering in his senses. A sensation that could be described as noise.

But the moment he detected it, it pierced a corner of Llewellyn’s nerves with sharpness that made him stop.

The moment Llewellyn felt it, the Dream God fixed to the back of his waist opened its eyes wide.

“Llewellyn! Dodge!”

His head turned reflexively at the shout. What he saw was:

Sunlight shimmering in semi-transparent form beyond the split sky.

A massive hand crafting and grasping light through that gap.

Something forging clouds into lightning.

Wind gathered into a distorted form poised like claws.

These and countless, innumerable other forms.

Transcendent beings who had devoured gods during the Great Ascension and now wielded their divine authorities.

“They’re the Greater Ranks!”

The moment the Dream God shouted, Llewellyn raised his sword before him.

The people of the Pantheon suddenly saw light flickering in the sky above.

A dim light forged from lightning, sunlight, wind, and all the malice of the world.