Ch.82Prologue to Chaos (1)

‘Outis.’

When Kore, the priestess of Pluton, recalled looking into his soul, she remembered how her entire field of vision had been filled with blue light. It was so bright she thought she might go blind.

Though people speak of “reading the color of souls,” the sacred art Kore used wasn’t limited to merely seeing the color of a soul.

She could discern what evil deeds one had committed, or what good they had done. She could judge the path of one’s entire life.

To use an analogy, the soul seen through her sacred art resembled a tapestry with embroidery. Some patterns shone like gold, while others appeared stained with dark, murky colors.

But Outis’s soul had no such aspects. No, she couldn’t even see it properly.

A piercing blue radiance. It was impossible to recognize what life journey that soul had traversed. It was bizarre.

As a priestess of the Pluton Order, Kore’s divine power was at its peak in both scale and mastery. With sufficient preparation, she could even see through the souls of demigods said to have walked the world in ancient times.

Until now, there had been only one person whose soul color Kore couldn’t properly see, besides Outis.

The Pope.

The immense veil of divine power surrounding the Pope distorted her sacred art. Like looking through a warped kaleidoscope, it was impossible to properly discern its form.

Once, the Pope had lifted the veil himself and shown his soul, but Kore didn’t believe the colors she saw then.

She was convinced that someone with the Pope’s level of divine power could selectively show only the parts of his soul he wanted others to see.

‘Is this Outis person similar to the Pope?’

Someone with divine power so strong it distorted the image in her sacred art. Yet the distortion was completely different from what she experienced when trying to see the Pope’s soul.

Pondering Outis’s true intentions, Kore decided to use this Great Temple exploration as a touchstone to gauge his inner self.

As before, Demos of the Enyalios Order was assigned to guide Outis to the Great Temple.

‘If I hide in advance among the assault team led by Priest Demos… No, he seemed to notice me.’

Though not certain, during their previous meeting, Outis had acted as if he detected her presence. It wasn’t impossible, since Hyakin, also a priest of Phoibos like Outis, could perceive Kore’s presence through his power of foresight.

‘Even High Priest Hyakin needed to activate his sacred art to see me. Outis didn’t seem to use divine power during the meeting. Was it the power of Phoibos’s sacred artifact he supposedly possesses? Or had he activated his sacred art from the moment he attended the Divine Alliance meeting…?’

Setting aside her plan to hide among the Enyalios believers and monitor Outis from the beginning, Kore decided to track him inside the Great Temple.

As Pluton’s priestess, Kore possessed a sacred art that could detect people within Pluton’s temple. She could certainly distinguish whether someone was a Pluton believer or not by sensing the ability field around each individual.

‘If I could resonate with the Great Temple’s emblem, I could increase my accuracy…’

In ancient times when the order flourished, temples had core sacred artifacts similar to the magic cores of magic towers. These artifacts, usually made in the form of the deity’s symbol, were called emblems.

The emblem served like a crown. When worn by its rightful successor, it bestowed appropriate powers.

If Kore could resonate with the Great Temple’s emblem, she could activate the defensive sacred arts inscribed throughout the temple with a mere gesture.

The sacred art for detecting outsiders would manifest with a different level of power. Not only could she detect the presence of outsiders, but she could also clearly identify each item located in the temple. Like knowing that Glaukikos’s sacred artifact was in that room, and Elimon’s in another.

However, the Great Temple’s emblem was said to have been destroyed by the Mage King. Even if she tried to find its remains, they would be sealed outside reality along with the Great Temple.

Kore organized her thoughts flowing from the memories of her predecessors. The approaching future was more important than memories of bygone eras.

If there was an unfamiliar presence among the ability fields detected by her sacred art, that would be Outis.

She would follow his blind spots and observe what he would do.

‘Initially, Enyalios’s group and Outis will be in similar positions.’

Demos would probably ask Outis to find Enyalios’s sacred artifacts. No matter how excellent his prophetic abilities, they must have limitations.

If Outis was concealing another purpose he needed to fulfill within the Great Temple, he would be reluctant to comply with Demos’s request. Even a prophet wouldn’t offer prophecies for free.

But if he readily agreed to Demos’s request, there was a high possibility that he had no other purpose beyond what he claimed: “to fight against the Ten Towers and prepare for the coming Mage King.”

If Outis truly was someone who cared for the divine orders, someone trustworthy…

‘He might become a counterbalance to the Pope.’

***

Kore felt an emotion she couldn’t quite describe.

She herself didn’t know what to call this feeling. Her inner self was filled with calm resignation and worry due to the memories of her predecessors accumulated over long years.

In truth, the emotion Kore was feeling now was irritation.

More vulgarly, “being pissed off” might be closer to reality.

She hadn’t witnessed Outis secretly betraying the Divine Alliance. More precisely, she couldn’t.

Simply put.

Outis was too fast.

Kore ran desperately toward Outis. She ran even more frantically when she sensed him quickly distancing himself from the Enyalios priests.

But there was something strange about the movements of Demos and the other priests.

If Outis had refused Demos’s request and gone his own way, they would have either scattered to find their order’s sacred artifacts or, giving up, proceeded with their original plan to search each visible room and collect all sacred artifacts regardless of their affiliated order.

Yet they remained steadily in one room?

It happened to be on the route toward Outis. It wouldn’t take much time to check briefly.

‘…?’

Surprisingly, the room where Demos was located was filled with Enyalios’s sacred artifacts. Demos’s subordinate priests were systematically categorizing the artifacts and preparing them for transport outside.

‘Did they find them immediately upon entering the Great Temple?’

How accurate must a prophecy be to achieve that?

Kore suppressed her curiosity and tried to resume tracking Outis. But she couldn’t sense his ability field.

‘Huh?’

Feeling this couldn’t be right, she expanded her range. While other branches of the Divine Alliance were slowly exploring the ground floor…

Outis was advancing alone deep underground.

Kore gritted her teeth and started running.

But she couldn’t catch up to Outis. His path wasn’t a straight line. She could sense him entering and exiting rooms occasionally.

To know what he did inside those rooms, she needed to look inside at least once.

The truly strange thing began then.

All the rooms Outis visited contained sacred artifacts. However, there was no visible empty space that would normally appear if he had taken artifacts from the rooms.

Of course, this was because Outis had selectively taken only small, condensed artifacts with high performance relative to their size. Kore, who needed to catch up with Outis, didn’t have time to examine the rooms carefully and thus failed to perceive this properly.

As she opened door after door and was greeted by ancient sacred artifacts still intact, a thought began to form in her mind.

‘Right now…’

Is he playing with me, knowing I’m tracking him?

Surely not.

Kore tried to suppress her rising irritation and think rationally. Outis was searching for something, and since nothing else had value to him, he repeatedly left without touching anything.

Depending on the nature of what Outis was seeking, he might become an enemy of the Divine Alliance.

The Pope’s choice was not the best, but neither was it the worst. A lesser evil, so to speak. If Outis posed a greater threat to the order’s identity than the Pope, Kore had a duty to report this.

She searched for Outis’s whereabouts again.

He had stopped moving.

But something was moving toward Outis. She analyzed the waves of the ability field. They weren’t priests who wielded divine power.

They were closer to mages.

Apart from questioning how mages had infiltrated the Great Temple that had just been unsealed, she wondered why they were heading toward Outis.

Kore ran. Toward the place where Outis had stopped.

***

‘I have a bad feeling about this.’

The recognition range of these eyes extends beyond the normal field of vision.

Information from all 360 degrees enters directly into my brain. Even the scenery behind me, which shouldn’t be visible to my retinas, is vivid.

If I wait a little longer in this state, my eyes begin to access broader, more comprehensive information.

Someone’s life journey. The origin of the stone slab I’m standing on. The distribution ratio of divine power lingering in the air.

And one strange magical structure that didn’t exist until just now.

‘No. Is this really magic power?’

It feels closer to mana than magic power. Unrefined, strange, mutant extra-dimensional mana.

‘It’s approaching.’

I activated my high-frequency blade.