Ch.84The Great Chaos (1) *AI Illustration Included

It wasn’t a fight.

What Kore witnessed wasn’t a fight. It wasn’t even a hunt or an escape.

It was mockery.

Utis had used Adusiam’s own attacks against him until the very end. When the sonic bomb struck Adusiam’s left arm, silver metal dust burst forth like a shower of flower petals.

With each deflected sonic bomb, another limb was crushed. Utis spoke mockingly each time he destroyed a part of Adusiam’s body.

Only when all of Adusiam’s limbs had disappeared did he finally take a step.

Kore realized then that Utis hadn’t even moved from his spot while deflecting the sonic bombs. From beginning to end, Utis had been toying with Adusiam.

His voice was clear as he advanced slowly, murmuring:

“A defective product.”

A chill ran down her spine, as if ice had been inserted directly into her spinal cord. Kore had no idea what exactly was considered “defective.”

Her mind began to analyze.

Utis had expected some kind of response from Adusiam, and when that response wasn’t shown, he judged it “defective” and began to directly punish or dispose of it.

‘The desired response… Obedience? From a golem?’

Utis had rushed straight down to the depths of the Grand Temple without collecting any other artifacts. He wasn’t looking for artifacts but something else, and that something was this golem of the Archmage Adusiam?

Why would Utis believe that the Archmage’s legacy would obey him? Kore unconsciously took a step back.

The man must not discover that she had been here. It would be too dangerous to try to use Utis to strike at the Pope.

Just as Kore turned to flee—

“What are you doing there?”

Utis’s words pierced her back like a blade in the darkness.

***

I blinked several times. My eyes had been open for quite a while as I subdued Adusiam. With his limbs properly dismantled, there was no worry about a sudden ambush.

Now it was time to talk with the priest in the corridor who had been in my sight since I began fighting Adusiam.

This was no ordinary priest—my head ached whenever my eyes tried to properly recognize their form. It had been a struggle to forcibly keep my focus on Adusiam when it kept trying to shift to the other figure.

Such a highly condensed amount of information meant they must have considerable training in divine power, fighting spirit, or something similar. I wondered why they had just been watching.

“…”

The priest’s appearance seen with normal eyes rather than my information-filled vision. It was one of the priests I had seen at the Divine Order’s assembly.

“If you were watching, you could have helped.”

“…You. So you really can see me?”

“Yes. Why state the obvious?”

The moment I spoke, I had a realization.

Did they mean they shouldn’t normally be visible?

My conversation with Demos came to mind. The twelfth priest who had definitely been present. Yet Demos neither remembered nor recognized them.

A priest of Pluto? My thoughts began to grow complicated.

***

Step. Utis walked one step forward.

Kore tried to calmly assess the situation. She couldn’t outrun Utis at her speed. Even if she fled, she would soon be caught.

Getting safely out of this situation was the priority.

“Hmm.”

Utis stroked his chin.

“Come out and let’s talk. There’s nowhere to sit in the corridor.”

Utis brushed off debris from a nearby stone and sat down. He showed no hostility or formality.

Kore cautiously stepped forward. Utis clearly had the upper hand now. That was undeniable.

“When did you realize I was hiding?”

“After the assembly ended? It’s a bit ambiguous.”

A clear lie. If he hadn’t noticed her presence since the assembly, he wouldn’t have used the expression “the obvious.”

“I’m truly curious about many things. From one who serves Pluto.”

Kore suppressed her agitation. His words seemed to pierce through people. If she hadn’t met the Pope, her disturbance might have shown outwardly.

“I might not be a priest of Pluto. Even Hestia has the rank to sit at the Divine Order’s seat.”

“Oh my. Let’s be comfortable with each other. Hestia’s divine power is far from concealment, isn’t it? Even if it could conceal, it would be more like showing an illusion of a peaceful home scene, not making someone ‘invisible.’ Isn’t that right?”

The leisurely question. Kore had no choice but to nod.

“I could give a couple of other reasons. This is the deepest level of the Grand Temple’s underground, and the number of people who could navigate so skillfully through a temple they’re visiting for the first time is limited. Perhaps a priest who can resonate with the temple by worshipping its deity.”

The question ‘Then what about you?’ rose to the tip of Kore’s tongue.

“Now, I have a question.”

How does my soul appear to you?

It was an incomprehensible question. When Kore couldn’t answer, Utis tilted his head and asked again.

“Pluto is the god of death, isn’t he? Don’t you possess divine powers that can read the flow or history of souls?”

That was correct. But she couldn’t properly read this man’s soul.

‘Does he already know that I tried to examine his soul on the Pope’s orders…?’

It was truly cunning rhetoric. Thinking that her opponent was indeed like the Pope, Kore carefully chose her response.

“Why are you curious about that? Are you afraid of death?”

“Who isn’t afraid of death? But my interest in my soul is closer to curiosity than fear. I wonder where my soul came from.”

“…You wonder where it came from?”

Strange words. As if saying he shouldn’t originally exist in this world.

Past moments stormed through Kore’s mind.

The prophecy of the Archmage’s return.

Disappointment in Adusiam who did not obey him.

The revelation that his soul came from outside the world.

Utis had said “it’s difficult for someone visiting the Grand Temple for the first time to navigate so skillfully.” But how was Utis himself familiar with Pluto’s Grand Temple’s geography?

—What if this wasn’t Utis’s first visit to Pluto’s Grand Temple?

Utis’s ability field, which even she as Pluto’s priestess couldn’t determine the divine origin of, or whether it was divine power at all.

—What if that ability field was a fragment of a new divinity that hadn’t existed in this world until now?

Could it be.

Could Utis himself be…?

Before Kore could recover from the shock of her own deduction, Utis spoke.

“I’ve always wanted to meet a priest of Pluto. As the representative who attended the Divine Order assembly, you must be among the most skilled in Pluto’s order.”

It was a crossroads. Kore had no idea what to say.

After contemplating, she slowly opened her mouth.

“I can’t see it. Your soul. There’s just a blue radiance continuing without history or anything else.”

This much was true.

“Perhaps it’s because I lack clues. Won’t you tell me more about yourself? Like magic, divine powers targeting someone become more precise the more you know about the subject.”

This was a gamble.

It was true that knowing more about the target would enhance the effect, but it was unclear whether she could gauge someone like Utis who completely transcended the limits of divine power.

Kore waited for the answer with a trembling heart.

If Utis truly was “one from outside this dimension, originally meant to be served by Adusiam,” there should be an expected answer.

“Is that so? This is troubling. Hmm…”

Utis might not let her live after hearing her answer.

But the moment of death is when Pluto’s power manifests most strongly. If she used all her divine power as a priestess, she could leave a final message to others in the order.

If Utis truly was that being she thought—one too terrible to even name—then hope rested only with the Pope.

“This is really strange to say, but I haven’t done anything special. I just had some difficult experiences in an extra-dimensional adjacent area.”

“You, Utis is an alias. Tell me your real name.”

“My real name.”

Utis’s faint smile seemed to dissolve and evaporate in the air for a moment. But only briefly. His characteristic smile was back on his face.

“Right now, I am merely an enemy of the Ten Towers.”

“…You said you were an enemy of the Ten Towers.”

Kore recalled what Utis had testified before Philoxenon’s divine power.

‘I believe in what I testified.’

‘The vanished mage who destroyed the order has returned to bring catastrophe to the world.’

‘The prophecy of return is not something I heard from someone else, but something I witnessed directly.’

…This testimony at first glance made it seem like Utis considered the vanished mage an enemy. The grand strategy of pitting the Ten Towers against the vanished mage suggested the same.

But that strategy was presented to persuade them to remove Arguilion. Utis had said that if the Ten Towers and Arguilion fought each other and depleted their strength, they would have no power left to face the vanished mage.

But conversely, couldn’t a strengthened Arguilion and the Ten Towers join hands to confront the vanished mage?

If he had induced Arguilion’s expulsion to preemptively block such an unexpected variable?

“You, an enemy of the Ten Towers, are the enemy of the vanished mage…”

Utis’s eyes gleamed.

At that moment, Pluto’s temple shook. Kore, resonating with the temple, felt a phantom pain as if her body was being pierced.

“Kagh?!”

Kore hastily used her divine power to track outsiders. Familiar ability fields, priests with divine power signatures. But they weren’t alone.

Groups with ominous extra-dimensional mana were stealthily infiltrating. Undoubtedly Arguilion’s people.

But that wasn’t all. A massive fluctuation of magical power no ordinary mage could possess. A huge eruption of an ability field.

A mage of the Ten Towers had arrived.

Kore couldn’t understand the situation and looked at Utis. Had he been stalling for time while talking to her for this moment?

To prevent her from noticing the intruders in Pluto’s Grand Temple?

Utis, with his hands clasped, looked at Kore and asked:

“Is something wrong?”

Still with a smiling face.