The Saint's Remains

Armin was startled by the power that burst all the way to the surface.

“Wha… What…!?”

Soldiers who had been patrolling nearby began swarming in.

“This is bad…!”

Armin immediately shattered his orb.

* * *

Marco felt the same wave.

The silver soldiers pushing into the passage had all been cleared.

Now they just needed to reunite with Pernok…

“Marco! We need to get out of here!”

“The orb broke!”

“Armin sent the signal!”

If Pernok had settled things, the signal should have come from him.

But with such a massive collision occurring, the signal had come from Armin instead.

It meant the collisions kept growing larger.

It meant the situation there was flowing in a bad direction.

‘If something go wrong with both Boss and Per?’

While Marco fidgeted anxiously, the children shouted urgently.

“Marco!”

“This isn’t the time to be stubborn!”

Orders were absolute obedience.

Marco, who recalled Pernok’s words, turned his back.

“Damn it!”

They escaped the sanctuary, leaving the collapsing debris behind.

* * *

Every second mattered.

Hurry, before the Grand Temple arrives!

The orb had shattered, but there was no leisure to notice it.

The moment the silver had been reduced to mere scraps by Pernok’s indiscriminate barrage—

Spiritual Law – Divine Punishment.

Pernok brought down pure white lightning on the staggering Silver priest.

Then a rectangular wooden box intervened.

Rumble, kaboom!

What emerged after instantly burning through the wood was pure white bone.

The bone extending from elbow to fingertips was so clean without a single blemish that it seemed beautiful, like a sculpture.

Divine Punishment couldn’t pierce the bone that looked as if it would easily break.

Rather, spiritual power seeped into the bone, and Pernok’s memories shook.

* * *

[Master!]

The Saint’s last remaining disciple, Laplace, cried out in grief.

The Saint wore a faint smile while stroking his disciple’s cheek.

[I’m sorry. I wanted to protect you all…]

After the long war ended, only Laplace had survived.

[Don’t say such things! Please rise quickly and look after your disciples and the pitiful once more!]

[I no longer have the strength for that.]

[Master!]

[There’s no need to grieve. Despair didn’t die either. Even absolute beings die eventually. For me, that time simply came a bit early.]

The Saint grasped his severed arm and breathed the last remaining Radiance into it.

Pure white brilliance flowed through the white arm bone stripped of flesh.

[Take this and head toward the lands not yet saved. My final earnestness will restore peace to those places.]

Then the disciple grasped the Radiance and cried out desperately.

[This disciple will surely revive you, Master! Even if it means joining hands with Origin!]

* * *

“Move!”

A sharp cry awakened Pernok’s mind.

But in battles between Magi, momentary carelessness leads to fatal wounds.

In that moment when he’d briefly fallen into the memories, the Silver priest had thrown thin silver like a dagger.

The dagger grazed Pernok’s left shoulder, and the moment his flesh tried to be dyed silver—

Scrape!

Pernok carved out the flesh and cauterized that spot with fire. Then he crashed to the ground and glared forward.

The Silver priest was fitting and matching the pure white arm bone with a bright expression.

“That’s…”

“You goddamn bastard! Are you finally mocking the dead!”

As if mocking Klein’s fury-filled cry, the Silver priest covered the arm bone with silver.

Pure white brilliance mixing with silver.

It was unmistakably the remains the Saint had left on this land last.

‘Why?’

Even Pernok’s thoughts stopped for a moment at the unexpected encounter.

‘How is that thing…?’

The Silver priest, who finally had both arms, extended the Saint’s remains forward like his own arms.

“Though I couldn’t hold Origin within me, the Saint guides me to Radiance!”

What burst from his arm was the Saint’s Radiance.

Radiance was the light of purification.

It revived what belonged to allies and surely annihilated what belonged to enemies.

Both Divine Punishment and magic would all be erased before that light.

“Duck!”

Suddenly the ground collapsed, and Pernok was sucked downward.

“Hahahaha!”

Joyful laughter burst from above ground.

* * *

“Are you conscious?”

Pernok reflexively raised his body.

Between walls where water dripped, Klein was gathering darkness.

“Don’t worry. You only slept for thirty seconds.”

Klein made a membrane with darkness and hid this place’s presence.

Then he stared at Pernok and asked.

“I have so many things to ask. The same for you, right?”

Origin heals the owner’s body countless times as long as mental strength supports it.

Pernok answered while looking down at the darkness clinging to his flesh and regenerating it.

“I came seeking Lyle’s successor.”

“Ah, I heard about that from the old man.”

Klein, who pressed his temple with his index finger as if troubled about where to start, snapped his fingers.

“We both have no time for long talk, so how about memory sharing?”

This was Lord of Despair’s method that Pernok had used when receiving souls’ memories in the Netherworld.

The opponent’s decades of years pass in just a moment for him.

“You know about that?”

“Oh, seems you know it too. Then that’s good. Let’s share each other’s memories. Before that madman finds this place.”

The darkness divided into two orbs.

Klein reached for one and breathed his memories into it.

Pernok also placed his memories after half-living in the mortal realm into his.

The moment both swallowed the orbs, unfamiliar visions flashed before Pernok’s eyes.

* * *

Klein had been a war refugee.

Wandering the streets with nowhere to go, he’d met Lyle’s successor.

Klein, who would have been satisfied with anything if he could just eat, became the old man’s successor with light feelings.

“Origin?”

Power transmitted through generations.

The master laid out that history bare and told Klein.

“This is power that changes despair into hope.”

The age of despair.

The last Origin successor who had survived there.

Lyle had joined forces with the Saint’s disciple in Admeis to try reviving their masters.

But neither could find methods to summon souls, and they failed.

Eventually, Lyle tried to finish his will by leaving Origin to future generations, and Laplace ended this long journey by purifying the lands and enshrining the Saint’s remains in a tomb to honor him.

“Even the bodies of those who possessed Origin eventually rot and crumble. All we could do was erect monuments here. But the Saint’s remains are preserved here. Respecting Laplace’s will, who was with Origin until the final moment, we’ve guarded this tomb in honor of that harmony.”

The master died ten years later, and Klein inherited that will.

One day while guarding the tomb and ruling Origin—

The Holy Kingdom’s Pope appeared.

“There’s Radiance here!”

Records left by Laplace’s descendants had been stored in the Holy Kingdom’s Genesis library.

The Pope had long believed that myth-like legend while searching for Radiance, and he finally swept through this peaceful resting place.

Klein fought desperately, but the Pope stole the Saint’s arm bone.

To retrieve it, Klein, who had looked even into Origin’s abyss, attacked the Grand Temple.

He delivered a fatal blow to the Pope, got injured himself, and even achieved the feat of cutting off the Silver priest’s arm.

He fled to a new refuge. But they appeared again.

They brought forward children who possessed Origin like himself.

“Origin and Radiance! These powers that vanished from the world are the only method to surpass the High Priest!”

The Pope’s Magus Arts was replication.

With power that manifested characteristics identical to others, he’d created Klein’s Origin that had burrowed into his heart.

Then he compared it with the remnants of Origin that Klein had left behind and mixed various nature-type magics.

Darkness split and derived into numerous Origins.

All were copy products, ephemeral power that would vanish.

Though the incomplete Origins would devour the children, the Silver priest didn’t care.

“If there’s Origin, even corpses can move! That’s right! We’ll make an army! Great soldiers of the Holy Kingdom who will brighten the dawn!”

Klein couldn’t just watch the children.

Especially Marco, who held darkness like himself and seemed likely to vanish, looked similar to himself from those days of wandering the streets, so eventually…

“Won’t you run away with me?”

…he’d declared war on Dawn Temple.

* * *

Pernok returned from the memories.

‘He rescued Marco and the children, stabilized their Origins, then searched for refuges, but ultimately failed.’

Klein at that time couldn’t heal the wounds he’d received from the Pope.

In that state, he’d had to take in the children and face even the Silver priest.

‘He threw away the Saint’s remains and his own body to save the children.’

In exchange, Klein had become research material for Origin here, with his flesh torn by the Silver priest.

‘Though his body became exhausted, his mental strength was firm, so the weakened Origin can revive if he leaves here.’

Pernok looked at Klein, who was slowly opening his eyes.

“What, you were a prince. But why you know about Origin wasn’t in the memories.”

“I inherited the will of Lord of Despair, Lyle’s master. I found this ring through good fortune.”

“Ah! The Scale Tribe’s sacred site! Come to think of it, the Silver priest went to the Scale Tribe’s sacred site. He boasted to me that he’d found the sea’s Origin. He said he’d planted one serpent, but it was a failure, so he left it there to ripen Origins or something.”

Klein chuckled while shaking his head.

“Really, how tenacious. That bastard’s obsession, and these things called Origin and Radiance too.”

“Do you dislike Origin?”

“No, thanks to this, I lived well eating warm meals. Why would I hate power that’s become part of me?”

“But didn’t you suffer torture?”

“Listen, Your Highness. I’m someone who’s gotten used to pain. A priest? If I’d be broken by such guys, I wouldn’t have accepted this power in the first place!”

When Klein proudly shouted while pounding his chest, Pernok smiled.

‘Lord of Despair, here was a successor who embraced your Origin brightly.’

How delighted would Lord of Despair be if he saw this?

“Marco and the children are with me.”

“I felt it too. The darkness is rising to the surface.”

“You should escape together too.”

“If you saw my memories, you know well what I want to do now.”

Pernok shook his head.

“I’ll retrieve the Saint’s remains.”

“Why, when you know it’s impossible?”

The Grand Temple’s intense mana could be felt even here.

“The current High Priest is a monster. From what I can tell, the other high priests have also gathered at the Grand Temple, so they’ll storm here soon. Then the Silver priest will die and the Saint’s remains will be taken. Probably, the Holy Kingdom will use the Radiance for research.”

Pernok affirmed with silence.

“Isn’t two better than one? I saw earlier that you were smashing the silver. If we just resolve the Radiance, you can kill the priest, right?”

“But…”

“I’ll somehow suppress the Radiance. You kill the priest, take the remains, and escape from here.”

“…If the High Priest appears in the meantime, not only will the remains be taken, but you’ll die too.”

“Even in the worst case, there’s one method. It’s the best judgment to survive even if the High Priest comes.”

When Pernok stared at him, Klein grinned awkwardly.

“I’ll tell you when the worst hits.”

“You don’t need to feel burdened by this matter.”

“I’ve never once felt burdened by this situation. I just—”

Klein spoke with a relieved expression.

“I simply want to repay the grace I received. Besides, this darkness Origin belonged to an absolute being, right? If we withdraw here, we’ll smear Lord of Despair’s name.”

Klein gathered the darkness draped here and winked one eye.

“Let’s go beat that trash worse than beasts to death.”

His appearance as he rose firmly showed not a trace of wavering.

The veil lifted, and the surface filled with Radiance appeared.

“Only use Origin up to levels that won’t collapse your body.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

Then the two, who had refined their spiritual power and Origin, surged to the surface.