Absolute Beings

Everything was vanishing.

As if it had never existed from the beginning.

Those touched by the light Pernok emitted were erased without leaving traces.

How could that be described?

Even mobilizing all words Chris knew, there was no way to express this sight.

Crackle…

Chris squeezed out remaining mana and attempted final resistance.

He tried to control light spreading in all directions in his own way by unfolding Thought Conversion and Distortion simultaneously.

But Distortion was swallowed by light the moment it touched.

Thought Conversion was pressed down without even penetrating spiritual power and vanished.

Simple difference in power.

Power far superior to mana seemed to tear and shatter in dense concentration.

It was an overwhelming sight Chris faced for the first time since becoming a duke.

“…”

Chris unknowingly ended up kneeling.

The result of resisting while vomiting final mana was mercilessly shattered.

Not even the capacity to flee remained, and light rose to right before him.

The magnificent sight where everything became futile grazed past Chris’s long needle.

The long needle vanished without a trace and soon the light that flowed in touched fingertips, erasing his body without even leaving residue.

And the light that seeped in shook Chris’s soul.

“Spare me, Chris!”

“I, I didn’t kill!”

“What are you? You’ll enter the 13 Lords?”

“Oh, congratulations! Did you enter under Duke Mardo’s tutelage!?”

His entire life until now passed by like a revolving lantern.

Days when he was happy, sad, difficult, unable to contain anger bloomed then burst like bubbles.

At the end of the drawn curtain, one sense of discomfort settled.

The monster who’d swept battlefields together when Chris was first selected as a knight.

It was the Hegemon Emperor, Arad.

“Chris, you will become a great person who leaves a name in history in the distant future. You are the crystallization of talent born receiving all the world’s blessings. But I know your truth thicker than that.”

Arad lived in a different world from others.

Though he seemed lax, when he personally stepped forward, results even Chris didn’t expect would often occur.

“Your soul is truly clear, shining, and great.”

Soul… come to think of it, Arad had often kept Chris nearby and frequently mentioned the word soul. Each time, Arad’s eyes had rippled amber.

“In my view, you will truly become the strongest Magus, but regrettably won’t be chosen by the era. Souls are originally supposed to be born with great achievements, yet your achievement hasn’t broken the egg yet, so unless you resolve this, you absolutely cannot rise upward.”

Arad at that time was seeing through Chris with luminous eyes and grinning.

“Pledge loyalty to me. If you promise to follow me together with your soul, you will have great achievements even in death. Nothing in this world will be able to kill you!”

Chris was feeling thirst.

He’d wanted to become stronger, but when he kept hesitating as if blocked by a wall, Arad’s touch was regarded like a gift from God.

Strange heat was felt from the clasped hand as if filling what was lacking in innate talent.

That power used to turn Altier’s direction toward Pernok.

The transcendent power positioned in the middle, neither mana nor spiritual power, was imitated while thinking of Arad at this time.

“I’m extremely pleased to be with your soul.”

Because the most shocking appearance in Chris’s life was that era.

“Half-living one, Chris.”

Half-living one… those words still remained in mystery. But it was certain that memory after clasping hands had briefly vanished.

Briefly, his eyes had gone dark, it was cold, someone’s laughter, a procession…

At the end of strange memories passing by in an instant, Chris who’d opened his eyes again obtained this power.

Special eyes that saw through all the world’s flow.

“Chris!”

At an urgent voice suddenly striking down like lightning, Chris came to his senses.

Mardo was blocking light before him.

He’d overlaid black armor onto Chris.

“Live.”

After flowing one word, Mardo was swallowed by light.

But the armor didn’t vanish.

Until all mana contained within was consumed, it wouldn’t be released.

He’d overheated mana absorbed from Trident Force and Pernok and used it as is for explosive acceleration.

The final Godless Tune activated trying to escape spiritual power’s explosion range faster than the speed light poured.

But the moment merely a handful of spiritual power touched fingertips and toes, Chris’s both arms and legs vanished without a trace.

Godless Tune also lost power and Chris, now only a body, rolled and fell off a cliff.

Within the edge of consciousness growing distant, he saw the world being covered pure white.

That was the mortal world’s ‘end’ emitted from Pernok’s fingertips.

“Wh, what is this!”

The Floating Castle’s research director screamed.

It had been a battlefield finishing overwhelmingly.

But suddenly, pure white light eroded the world.

Though merely light powder touched, the Floating Castle’s side began vanishing.

“A, at this rate we’ll crash!”

Though researchers panicked trying to handle the castle’s functions, with one axis gone it was hard for the Floating Castle to maintain direction.

The research director turned pale white and shouted.

“We land!”

“But on the ground are enemy forces…”

“Damn it! We’re all about to die right now! Whether enemy or ally, everyone’s swept by that unimaginable thing!”

As the research director said, ground circumstances were more serious than the Floating Castle.

Everything touched by light was being extinguished.

Without distinguishing Rakis and Holy Kingdom, even Magus were erased to dust.

At best, Holy Kingdom’s priests joined together and merely resisted faint light.

Even that looked like it would helplessly vanish when dense light approached.

“Pour all mana used maintaining floating function into defense! We need to curl up like a turtle! If we can’t even block with Lionic, we all die!”

“Yes!”

The Floating Castle landed at the furthest point possible from light.

Operating the Lionic core to maximum, they erected magical barriers and resisted faint light.

And they saw.

The sight of the border with no single magical barrier being instantly extinguished.

“Good lord…”

If the world was collapsing, wouldn’t it refer to this sight right now?

The Floating Castle’s people merely blankly watched light waves growing uncontrollably.

Arisha trembled.

Because that was a sight worth calling God’s second coming.

Mercifulness that swallowed without even letting screams out regardless of enemy or ally.

Mardo who’d extinguished unable to even resist.

Chris rolling around with limbs erased.

Even the Floating Castle that had floated in empty air crashed.

Overwhelming power that erased Rakis’s border to make it a wasteland.

That was rather worth praising as authority.

“Ahh…!”

In a world where everything vanished, Arisha brought both hands together and knelt.

As if praying to God erasing the world with one fingertip, she bowed her head and worshipped.

As if directly facing God she’d dreamed of since young, Arisha was hoping for salvation from him among vanishing lives.

“O God!”

As if possessed, she imprinted the transcendent being’s appearance in both eyes.

For Pernok, it felt like his body was floating.

The feeling his soul didn’t mix with body but divided at the boundary.

Similar to when he’d first descended to the lower realm and seized a half-living one’s body.

A form where spiritual power surpassing synchronization rate poured infinitely trying to collapse the body and liberate the soul.

‘Why?’

Certainly, he’d only extracted spiritual power to kill Chris.

For Pernok it had been merely a handful of power.

Though stimulated to the body’s limits, if he recovered immediately after activating, he could minimize burden.

But right now spiritual power far from being recovered was devouring not only enemies but even allies.

It seemed like watching Divine Punishment or etherealization.

Spiritual power emitted on large scale in the lower realm, unlike Netherworld, drew clear forms and was trying to ‘evolve’ into something new escaping the possessor’s ‘will’.

Synchronization rate – ?

Pernok examined souls surging countless on the battlefield.

A situation where the Floating Castle was being gnawed, even Holy Kingdom’s priests were trying to extinguish, and Rakis’s border had already become wasteland.

On the ground, hundreds of thousands of souls were surging.

They clung to spiritual power emitted and tried to have unique individuality like vengeful spirits.

That was the problem.

Hundreds of thousands of souls.

Among them even Rakis’s Magus were mixed.

Vast high-purity spiritual powers clung to spiritual power Pernok had shot and were ‘proliferating’ as they pleased.

That was already the world’s ‘poison’ difficult to call Pernok’s spiritual power.

Left as is, it would swallow the entire world and bring about life’s end.

But to recover again, time was insufficient to purify those poisons.

While purifying, it might swallow even the Holy Kingdom and rather bulk up.

There was only one method.

Making the spiritual power inside Chimayos’s heart remaining in Altier and the spiritual power now being unfolded clash with each other to offset.

[How dare.]

Pernok reached out his hand to traitors defying his will.

And he took out the heart that had shattered and been imprisoned in Altier, lifted it high in the sky and simultaneously struck down Divine Punishment.

Chimayos’s heart.

Proliferating spiritual power.

Pernok’s spiritual power.

Three types of power with same grain but different casters clashed.

KABOOOM!

It seemed the sky collapsed, earth crumbled and the world vanished.

The evil dragon’s heart that had gathered hundreds of years of spiritual power had fairly fierce resistance, but within a few seconds was eroded by Pernok’s spiritual power and burst.

That moment, mighty spiritual power that had been making Pernok into etherealization was released.

“Kheurk.”

The moment Pernok who’d returned to his true form landed on the ground, he staggered.

While vomiting fishy-rising blood, he looked around.

From Rakis’s forces to solid castles reaching the border, all vanished without leaving forms.

As if castles hadn’t existed here from the beginning, vast terrain was smoothly shaved away.

The Floating Castle had one axis extinguished, and the Holy Kingdom had not great damage thanks to priests erecting barriers.

It was Pernok’s complete victory.

However, among survivors looking at him, familiar signs showed.

Fear. Dread. Awe.

Exactly the same as gazes Netherworld’s absolute beings had sent countless times.

“…”

Pernok examined his body with the battlefield where silence pervaded behind.

Though he’d worried whether the body might shatter to overflowing spiritual power, it was needless concern.

His body was immaculate.

More than ever, it was emitting radiance left by spiritual power.

But his head was dizzy.

Backlash from forcibly colliding spiritual power stimulated his soul and tried to add past nightmare-like memories contained within to his body.

“You cannot become king.”

Though he wanted to forget yet couldn’t forget, that which he’d briefly buried flickered before his eyes.

“Because you are one nation’s peerless.”

When a voice filled only with frustration was heard, Pernok’s eyelids were about to slowly close.

When his staggering body lost strength and was about to topple forward, something soft blocked.

“What was that?”

It was Arisha.

She was embracing Pernok with a beautiful smile.

Without even feeling the warm warmth in her bosom, Pernok barely muttered in consciousness growing numb.

“Not much… victory…”

“Is that so? To you it was trivial power. It’s hard to believe you hid such a thing until now.”

“Only now possible…”

Pernok’s eyelids grew heavy.

“…Organize the battlefield… Strike Rakis’s capital…”

“Yes, understood. So for now rest briefly.”

In consciousness growing hazy, a sweet voice flowed in.

“My god.”

Pernok closed his eyes.

Synchronization rate – 85… 86…

The body that had absorbed vast spiritual power began entering new evolution.