Ch.81To the Great Temple (2)

Demos ventured to a remote location outside the city and opened a golden door through Prodito’s symbol. As Ortes crossed through the rippling golden curtain into another space, his vision was filled with darkness.

‘No. It’s not darkness, is it?’

It was a black rock. Massive enough to fill his entire field of vision.

Unlike the rough surface of basalt, this was different. If he had to describe it, it was like a lusterless obsidian. Yet it was much darker than obsidian’s color.

Ortes recalled his memories from Earth. Vantablack, was it? That supposedly darkest material in the world—the photos of it had given off this same impression.

The enormous mass of rock made of darkness felt surreal, like a drop of ink fallen into reality.

‘Like Uluru in Australia? As if that entire rock had been soaked in Vantablack paint, that’s what this feels like.’

“Is Pluto’s Great Temple located on this black stone?”

“You can see it…!?”

Demos flinched as he spoke. Ortes didn’t understand the reaction at first, but before he could think rationally, his trained subconscious responded reflexively.

“The eyes of the flesh don’t see everything. Having been chosen by the relic of the Far-Seer, wouldn’t that power be with me?”

“I see. Truly remarkable. To me, this place appears merely as a kind of crater. I can only see an abyss untouched by light…”

Ortes looked at the black rock again. The rock, so massive it felt unreal, appeared as sturdy as a fortress.

“The black stone itself that you see is the Great Temple. They say it was slowly carved inside that stone. The temple extending underground is even more massive than what appears on the surface.”

Ortes gently opened his eyes. He wanted to analyze the structure of Pluto’s temple in advance. A diligent embezzler always scouts the assets to be pilfered beforehand.

However, the information flooding through his barely-opened eyes was far from such practical knowledge.

The ancient seal bestowed by the Demon King struck Ortes’s mind with a violent amount of information.

Ancient magic surrounding the entire massive rock. Chains of magic circles formed by hundreds, thousands of overlapping spells. The extraordinary magical formulas integrated into the magic shone with incomprehensibility—each stroke something that ordinary magicians would have to dedicate their lives to barely understand.

The chains formed by connecting magic to magic were themselves another magic circle. The diverse spells inscribed functioned as components of one massive formula.

That final magic isolated Pluto’s Great Temple from reality.

It stripped away the temple’s form and concealed its substance. The temple’s form and substance were separated into different dimensional planes.

Ortes closed his eyes. The information that had been striking his brain with searing intensity was finally blocked.

Habitually massaging his temples, Ortes reviewed the information he had just witnessed.

‘What kind of insane magic is this?’

Dividing the components of existence into form and substance to seal them.

‘In gaming terms, is it like an invisible wall and a bugged texture…?’

An invisible wall that exists but cannot be seen can be touched or destroyed. Conversely, an object that can be seen but exists only as a texture without detailed data cannot be interacted with.

A temple without form cannot be perceived, and a temple without substance cannot be touched. It was magic beyond strange—it was bizarre.

‘Can the Divine Name Order really break through this insane level of sealing?’

From what Ortes could tell, the magical capacity of the Mage Tower wouldn’t even come close to breaking the Demon King’s seal. Perhaps one of the Ten Towers might at least understand the structure of the seal.

“O gods, sing of wrath—μῆνιν ἄειδε θεούς!”

In a moment of breathtaking silence, a strange voice was heard from afar. Slowly, the sound drew closer.

It was a kind of song. Probably a sacred hymn that continued like a round, starting with the Order of Aigio.

With each verse of the song, divine power condensed more strongly. As the brilliantly shining divine power illuminated the abyss, the form that had disappeared beyond reality slowly began to appear.

When Ortes opened his eyes again to assess the situation, he saw a different sight. Divine power was being emitted from Pluto’s temple beyond the Demon King’s seal, responding to the round song.

‘Good heavens.’

The Divine Name Order wasn’t dismantling the seal through magical principles or complex counter-magic. Like prophecy that differs from divination magic, divine work doesn’t require logic.

All that was needed was enough output to penetrate the Demon King’s seal.

The divine powers from inside and outside stretched toward each other. The radiances met across a dimensional wall. A sound like something cracking—kazik—was heard.

A crack formed in empty space. A fissure extending from the night sky to the ground. Divine radiance flowed from inside the crack.

“—Thus they held the funeral.”

As the final verse of the hymn echoed, the crack in reality finally collapsed. Where there had been only a massive pit moments before, a gigantic rock mass as dark as the abyss now stood.

An auspicious aura swirled around the black rock. It was the enormous amount of divine power that remained after breaking the Demon King’s seal.

The priests of the Divine Name Order rushed toward that light as their guide.

Time to recover the relics was short.

***

I exercised a moderate level of kindness. I guided Demos and the priests of Enyalios to the place where their relics were enshrined.

“How is this possible…”

I heard one of the priests muttering something. I answered with a friendly smile.

“It’s only natural since I can see and feel it. I’ve paid my dues for Demos inviting me, so now I’ll go about my business.”

“…Be careful. As I’ve already mentioned, there’s not much time left until Blasphemia arrives. If you’re thinking of safety, you should get out within an hour.”

After nodding appropriately, I started running without hesitation.

From the moment I left the priests behind, my eyes remained half-open. It served as an alarm to detect approaching priests, as getting caught swiping other relics would be truly awkward to explain.

‘Even though they’re not fully open, the range of perception gradually increases, so I need to close my eyes periodically….’

It’s not a difficult task. How hard is it to close one’s eyes once?

To reset the expanded range of perception, I need to keep my eyes squinted as usual—that is, with the eye’s capabilities maximally suppressed—for a few seconds.

A meaningless drawback unless an enemy happens to be lurking outside my eye’s perception range and attacks from behind during those few seconds.

This isn’t some den of evil filled with magicians intent on killing me. The people in the temple are all priests desperate just to find their own relics.

‘According to Demos, they agreed to collect all relics first regardless of ownership and distribute them later, but human hearts don’t work so neatly, it seems.’

I can sense priests moving busily several floors above. Their desperate struggle to find their order’s relics. Bursts of divine power. They must be trying to track relics through sacred paths.

I was looking for relics belonging to orders not part of the Divine Name Order. In other words, artifacts from minor orders not among the twelve great gods.

While the Divine Name Order was searching for their gods’ relics, I would claim the relics of countless nameless orders.

Since there’s a physical limit to what I can carry, I should select only the best among the nameless orders’ relics.

***

In the underground level of Pluto’s temple, silver sparks flashed in the darkness.

It seemed to be recreating the world’s fracture caused by the Divine Name Order’s chorus earlier, but on a much smaller scale.

Unlike the order’s chorus that created a fracture large enough to cover the entire field of vision, the current fracture was barely large enough to fill a single stone chamber.

The difference wasn’t just in scale. The color of the power distorting the world was also different. Not brilliant gold, but cool silver.

Sparks continued to fly from the fracture—the world wall’s restorative action trying to close the crack. Then, a hand suddenly protruded from the fracture and grasped the empty air.

Crack!

With brute force, it tore the fracture wider. A silver figure walked through the destroyed world wall.

It looked like a golem made of brass instruments. Except it was silver.

Spiral instruments like tubas or horns formed its limbs, and its skeleton was filled with what looked like organ pipes. With each step, the smooth interlocking of valves and buttons moved with a kind of formal beauty.

If its limbs were instruments, its head was that of a unicorn. A horse-like face with a long protruding horn.

The silver figure sent signals according to the orders left by its former master. One to the servants who served the master like itself, another to the master’s disciples.

The place sealed by the master is under attack.

Respond to the summons immediately and eliminate the enemies.

The familiar power of old enemies. The power of gods that should have disappeared from the world.

As it spread mana to gauge the enemies’ strength, it flinched. An unfamiliar divinity was detected.

An alien divinity unknown even to it, which had devoured countless order priests while accompanying its master.

The unknown is always the most dangerous variable.

It was a threat that needed to be identified and eliminated as quickly as possible.