In the Name of the Saint (2)

The Gate of Heaven.

That which is said to be summonable when a Saint offers her holy power.

Until now, there are no records of the Gate of Heaven ever appearing.

Therefore, it’s unknown what role this gate plays.

The only thing known is a legend-like story that when the Gate of Heaven appears, all evil disappears.

“What… what is this thing?”

Damian showed a rare look of confusion.

Perhaps for the first time since he revealed himself until now.

Even for Damian, who had lived for such a long time, this was the first time seeing it.

He didn’t even know there was such a thing as the Gate of Heaven, so seeing it like this was also a first.

It was the same for Bigrind.

She only knew about it to the extent that such a thing exists, that it’s the final, truly last move a Saint can make—

Thinking that everyone would die anyway if things continued like this, she wanted to at least prevent that, and if successful, maybe even Damian could be—with such expectations she had tried it, and it succeeded.

In the meantime, the Gate of Heaven that had appeared in the sky slowly descended and finally stood on the ground.

The stone doors positioned between the stone pillars on both sides slowly opened with a heavy grrrng sound.

As the doors opened, the scene inside the gate was not visible.

The golden radiance bursting forth was so dazzlingly brilliant that it seemed it would blind one’s eyes, making it impossible to look inside.

Looking at this sight, Bigrind smiled a pale smile.

Now truly not even a speck of holy power remained.

Her lower abdomen felt terribly empty with a sense of loss, and she had no strength left to perform even ordinary healing, let alone incantations.

Bigrind, who had lost all her strength to the point where it was difficult to even hold herself up, barely supported her body as she looked at the Gate of Heaven.

The massive gate that felt sacred just by looking at it.

That gate stood firmly on the ground and was slowly opening.

And the golden radiance bursting forth from that gate pushed away and burned away all of Damian’s domain.

The brilliance emanating from inside the gate bestowed healing grace on the fallen Celestine Church followers,

and all their large and small wounds were healed, and vitality began to return to them once again.

—Except for Bigrind.

And one more, the demon who was not Bigrind, the summoner, in this place—

“Ugh, kuh… kueoek…?!”

Damian covered his eyes and staggered back several steps.

As soon as that light touched him, smoke rose from his body and overwhelming pain pressed down on him.

He had desired pain,

and wanted death at the end of it.

However, when that death actually approached before his eyes, Damian was instinctively backing away hesitantly.

“This… this…”

Damian’s body kept staggering, unable to stand properly.

Every time the radiance touched his body, which could be called the crystallization of sorcery power, yellowish smoke rose profusely.

And at that moment, the radiance subsided.

In the space that had been dominated by the golden radiance, when that radiance disappeared, what settled was silence.

In that silence, Damian tried to escape, seizing the opportunity.

The expression of Damian, which had always been gloomy but carried the composure of a ruler within, had long since lost its composure.

Whatever that thing was, it surely wouldn’t bring any good effects for him as a demon, so now that the radiance had disappeared, he was hurriedly trying to escape.

Tick, tick, tick, tick…

It was then.

The sound of a spring winding up could be heard from inside the gate, and it gradually grew louder and faster.

The ticking spring sound now became so fast that the sounds overlapped, and Damian stopped abruptly at that sound.

A sudden change came over him.

The tens of millions of lives he had been carrying were clearly, albeit slowly, diminishing.

Dong— Dong— Dong— Dong—

The spring sound eventually became bell tolls.

Bell tolls as if ringing out from a massive cathedral.

With those bell tolls, Damian’s face was tinged with deep confusion.

Lives were disappearing.

More precisely, lives were being sucked towards that gate.

The tens of millions of lives he possessed.

Those lives were being rapidly sucked away, disappearing into that gate.

“Saint, wh-what have you done…!”

Damian glared at Bigrind.

Bigrind, who was too exhausted to offer any resistance, managed a pained smile on her completely pale face.

“What—have I done? I’m merely granting your wish…!”

Bigrind’s eyes could see it.

The lives Damian had been holding onto—surely what must be those countless souls—were being sucked into the Gate of Heaven. Like wildflowers being sucked into a storm, those lives were being sucked away so ephemerally.

“My, my lives…! Stop, stop it right now—stop, Saint…!”

“Why… are you like this? Didn’t you… say you wanted to die? If you stay… like this, soon, soon you will die.”

It was difficult for Bigrind to even speak.

Meanwhile, Damian’s lives were being sucked away at a terrifying speed.

‘This, this can’t be…!’

The death he had longed for so much approached before him.

The Gate of Heaven was exponentially sucking away Damian’s lives, and if all his lives were sucked away like this, Damian would finally be able to achieve his wish.

But in such a situation, Damian shouted loudly.

“Stop, stop it right now—! Right now!”

“How ridiculous… You wanted to die so badly. Now that you’re about to die, are you afraid…?”

Damian didn’t answer those words.

He only urgently moved towards the Saint.

If it was the Saint who summoned that gate, if he took the Saint’s life, that gate would surely disappear too.

Faced with death right before his eyes, Damian was feeling fear.

He was feeling an intense fear of death.

“If I kill you, that thing will disappear too…! I’ll kill you, Saint…!”

However, Damian could no longer move.

A strand of dark red demonic energy that flew in from a distance was binding his feet—

“Did you think I’d leave you alone…! You damned bastard…!”

Lying face down on the ground, Yona gritted her teeth.

She had ended up including Scarlet in the range while trying to protect Alec, but anyway, Yona had used all her strength to create a barrier with demonic energy without time to think. Thanks to that, they had barely saved their lives from Damian’s breath that swept the ground, but that was all.

When Yona, who had momentarily lost consciousness from the pain that felt like her whole body was burning, opened her eyes again, it was right when Damian was screaming.

It was her first time seeing the Gate of Heaven too, but she could roughly understand the situation from Damian’s shouting.

She also guessed the reason why Damian was approaching Bigrind.

So she gathered her strength and clung to Damian’s feet.

“You, you half-wit Saint bitch…!”

“Just die quietly, you blood-sucker…!”

Yona managed to stand up while trembling violently.

Her face, pale and ashen, was a mess, and her sickly pallor that looked like she might collapse at any moment clearly showed that she was not in a normal state either.

“You kept asking to be killed…! Then shouldn’t you just stay still…!”

Damian didn’t hide his murderous intent towards Yona.

Yona’s demonic energy that had entangled his feet as he was heading towards Bigrind.

Towards Yona, who was emitting that, Damian raised one hand to create a sorcery bullet.

“Saint, your insolence ends here—!”

As Damian gestured, the sorcery bullet gathered in his hand flew towards Yona.

And when Yona, who was too exhausted to even create a barrier to block it, tightly closed her eyes—

A shadow blocked her front.

Bang!

A huge silver tower shield that blocked the sorcery bullet.

The knight firmly gripping that tower shield which, though crumpled and torn here and there, had admirably fulfilled its purpose of blocking the sorcery bullet.

However, due to the impact of blocking that sorcery bullet, that knight tumbled backwards.

“Ugh, uuugh…!”

Letting out a long groan, the knight barely got up.

The helmet that had flown off somewhere.

The armor full of scratches.

The head visible above the armor, ridiculously small compared to that armor.

Yona glanced back at Scarlet, who had blocked the sorcery bullet while her red hair fluttered.

“…Don’t, don’t misunderstand…! I’m just… just trying to repay my debt…!”

And Scarlet, who faced Yona like that, said while quickly turning her head away.

For a moment, she had almost been touched.

But she just had to say it like that.

“Alec is… uuuung?!”

Just as Yona, who had thought of Alec, was about to turn around to look for him.

Someone picked up Yona, who had been lying face down on the ground.

“Yona, are you alright?”

“Ah, um… You… look fine.”

Yona quickly turned her head away after seeing Alec’s tightly packed muscles visible through his half-burned shirt.

Seeing that not only Alec but also Scarlet was fine, it seems Yona’s efforts in putting all her strength into creating the barrier had paid off.

“Kueoeoeoek…!! You, you lowly creatures—————!!!”

Yona’s thoughts were shattered by Damian’s scream.

Even at that moment, the Gate of Heaven was steadfastly standing and sucking away Damian’s life, and because of that, Damian was going mad.

It had been tens of millions of lives!

His people, and the life he had sucked up whole to the point where that fertile land had turned into a great desert,

now being sucked away at a terrifying speed by that unknown thing, to the point where he truly felt a crisis!

Those lives were depleted to the point of hitting bottom.

And death approached that close to Damian.

“There’s no choice—! You lot, I’ll kill you all————!!!”

Damian began to transform into the black beast form again.

With cracking and crunching sounds, Damian transformed into that black beast again, spread his wings with a flapping sound and flew up into the sky—

Once again his chest swelled up greatly.

And at that moment—

The shadow of a black snake fell on the ground.

Berbaria, who had been defeated by the black giant and returned to Yona to recover his strength with her demonic energy.

Berbaria opened his huge maw wide and pounced on Damian, swallowing him.

Lives being sucked away by the Gate of Heaven.

The body being viciously bitten by Berbaria.

“You worthless thing—!!! Stop it right now! It hurts, it huuurts——!! Stop, stooop——!!”

Berbaria didn’t answer.

He only viciously bit into Damian, who he had caught in his maw.

Damian’s blood flowed profusely between Berbaria’s jaws.

“You bastaaaaard!”

Sorcery bloomed from both of Damian’s hands.

And those hands were chewed up by Berbaria’s teeth.

Each time the hands regenerated, Berbaria’s teeth chewed them up again, blood splattered, they regenerated again, and were chewed up again.

Deep red blood.

Ironically, that was proving that Damian too was human.

Damian’s screams towards Berbaria were useless.

Even when dark red sorcery flowers bloomed, even when they clawed at Berbaria, Berbaria, backed by Yona’s support, was solely focused on chewing up Damian.

Life being sucked into the Gate of Heaven,

and life being chipped away each time he was chewed and swallowed by Berbaria.

Death that had been so far, far away,

now approached right beside Damian.

With a face full of blood and scars, Damian wailed.

If it had been his usual self, he wouldn’t have allowed even this situation.

But the lives being sucked away as they were by that Gate of Heaven, and the recoil of those lives being sucked away was constantly shocking him, and the more the recoil continued, the more intense the shock became.

Damian, unaccustomed to pain, had no way to come to his senses under the pain overwhelming his entire body.

“I, I don’t want to die————!!! I don’t want to die, I say! Stop it! Please, please! Stop it——!! Sa-Saint of the demon realm! I, I swear allegiance…! Kuaaaaaaa————!!!”

The oath of submission finally burst out.

Berbaria’s gaze briefly turned towards Yona.

There was no need to forcibly make him submit.

For the absorption of power, it didn’t matter if they just killed him.

It would only be difficult for both sides if they fought, so she had only recommended submission.

Moreover, he had made her suffer like this and even put Bigrind in such a dying state, so she had no intention of forgiving him.

So, Yona, still cradled in Alec’s arms, quietly shook her head.

More than submission or whatever, he had taken countless lives including those who had been his own people,

and moreover, after doing such terrible things.

There wasn’t even the slightest reason to let him live—

“Sp-spare me, spare me————!!! I’ll be loyal, I’ll be loyal———!!! Kuaaaaaaaaaa————!!!”

For a long time afterwards, Damian’s screams echoed.

And along with it, the sounds of bones breaking and flesh tearing also echoed for a long time.