Chapter 791: Memory

And so, Mirinae and the beastkin also joined the formation.

However, although those beastkin had also grown stronger after consuming [Potions of Stat Increase], they were already heavily injured.

It would be difficult for them to display enough power to suppress Avaritia as they had before.

......And.

As I watched that sight, I thought about the words Mirinae had left behind.

‘She knows that world?’

What Mirinae had spoken of was not Avaritia’s golden light.

Mirinae had never seen Avaritia’s homeland, from which those gray angels had descended.

What she had been talking about was...... what was above our heads right now.

The red wasteland that had appeared as a bridgehead connecting our world to another.

‘The Demon Realm.’

Mirinae knew the Demon Realm.

She had seen that red wasteland before.

Even Mirinae did not seem certain yet, and had left after saying only that much.

But now...... my instincts.

No.

‘I have to find out.‘

My perception, having reached the rank of a demigod.

My foresight was screaming sharply at me.

‘I have to learn about the Demon Realm......!’

And.

While I was thinking that.

=I cannot understand.=

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!

The raging energy.

Avaritia, who stood behind it, spoke.

=Why do you reject the Alliance. Why do you resist to this extent.=

FWAAAAAAAAAAASH!!!

Every time he swung his hand, the light of the Legion split apart.

Even the Legion, moving like a single living creature through the power of the formation, could only be helplessly shattered against a true divinity.

=You are one who seeks to live. One who has realized the necessity of standing together. Then you are the same as us. And yet...... why.=

BOOM!

=Why do you refuse to stand together and invite your own destruction.=

The Legion’s formation was still being maintained through Lieutenant General Kim Hyeon-seok’s desperate efforts.

But its light was clearly fading more and more.

So much so that the original plan of buying time while trusting that the light would grow stronger over time had long since become meaningless.

Just as that bastard said...... fighting him might truly be no different from inviting destruction upon ourselves.

But.

“Aren’t you misunderstanding something?”

At his words.

I shook my head and spoke.

“I never rejected your invitation.”

That was right.

I still had not completely rejected his proposal.

I had never even said that I would refuse.

It was simply.

“If you’re hiding something...... then I don’t think I can stand together with those who deceive me. That’s all.”

=.......=

“I can understand your position to some extent. An infinitely weak world. You even offered exceptional terms in exchange for protecting a world like that, so I can see how being asked to explain every detail might be bothersome. But.......”

With the light behind me.

With the light of the Legion at my back, I spoke.

“How about now.”

=.......=

“Our light is not greatly inferior to what you emit either. Now we should be capable of making a deal as equals. So...... tell me what you’re hiding. If you do, I too would be willing to join that Alliance.”

The fact that he had deceived me once was irritating.

But it was not enough to make us mortal enemies.

If he was willing to have a proper conversation even now, I was fully prepared to respond.

=.......=

However.

=Impossible!=

KAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANG!!!

When the giant shouted.

Our light cracked apart.

=Arrogance!!=

When he swung his spear.

The laws within the golden domain were overturned, distorting space.

=Delusion!!!=

And that distorted space.

The space contained within that golden light.......

CRACK.

Pierced through our light.

That distorted space rode upon the golden spear and took position above the heads of the Legion members.

And then.

FWAAAAAAAAASH.......

It began sucking in everything from there.

‘Insane......!’

I knew what that was.

A black sphere that sucked in everything around it.

It was still small, but given even a little time, it was a hole of calamity capable of destroying this very planet.

SPOT!

I hurriedly looked toward it and reached out my hand.

Just before that black hole could swallow everything, I grasped it with both hands.

It was a hole far away.

There was no way I could reach it merely by extending my hands from where I was.......

But at least in my sight, that black hole clearly appeared to have been caught within my hands.

And.

[The rank of a demigod distorts the laws of the world!]

That was enough.

CRACKLE.......

When I opened my hands.

The black thing that had been there had crumbled away, leaving behind only dark gray ash.

No matter how powerful an existence had been born from physical laws, all I had to do was distort those laws...... and turn it into a fragile existence that shattered within my hands.

But.

SCRATCH.......

As a result.

A sharp wound, as though clawed open, had appeared across my hand.

The body Luca had completed through metamorphosis, together with the hide of a powerful monster that had been transplanted into me.

Even so...... twisting a physical law of that magnitude required a price.

=Equal? What an arrogant delusion.=

As I frowned while looking at the wound.

Avaritia mocked me and spoke.

=You have only just reached the very edge of transcendence, and yet you believed yourself equal to me? Did you mistake being able to see that domain for having already reached it? Because you placed those insects behind you...... did you think they would become your strength!=

He shouted as though enraged.

=Arrogance!!!=

RUMMMMMMMMMBLE!!!

=I am gold, and my path is the path of glory!=

His golden light grew stronger.

=No light can shine as brilliantly as this!=

The enormous light reached all the way to the end of the heavens, a place even our light had failed to reach.

=No name can be as glorious as this!=

That was right.

That was why it was gold.

The most beautiful light.

The most glorious light.

RUMMMMMMMMMBLE.......

The light that had ascended into the heavens.

That golden light began taking yet another form, just like Avaritia and his spear.

What appeared behind Avaritia was...... how should I put it.

‘The sun......?’

A radiant golden sun.

The largest celestial body in the universe took its place behind the giant.

=It is not too late, if you beg forgiveness even now.=

No, that was not the sun we knew.

Its light was merely so intense that it could not even be viewed properly without going blind, causing one to mistake it for the sun.

That was...... the symbol of a great existence.

=Kneel, and ask for the glory of standing together.=

Angels bore it above their heads.

Gods carried it upon their backs.

When a great existence wrote down its mythology.

=That is the only path by which you may survive.=

It appeared to adorn that greatness.

It was a divine halo.

‘That appearance.’

With the yellow clouds in the sky as his crown.

Bearing a radiant solar halo upon his back.

A giant of radiance wielding a golden spear.

‘That is Avaritia.’

His true body, which must exist somewhere in the world beyond.

It surely possessed that exact form.

“......That was a long way of saying you won’t tell me!”

But.

That was still nothing more than a form created by gathering together the energy he emitted.

His true body had not descended into this place.

No matter how intense the light he emitted might be, it was surely no more than an extremely small fraction of the light his original body could produce.

Then there had to be some opening through which we could resist.

And, just as I thought.

Thump.......

The moment he shouted.

Beyond that enormous roar, I heard a very faint sound.

Thump, thump.

“......!”

That was right.

At this moment.

His body did not belong to him.

Thump, thump, thump.

=......How dare you.=

The enraged giant of radiance.

But that appearance was not important.

What mattered was...... inside that giant of radiance.

The figure of a man standing far away.

The body he had stolen.

And in the center of that body.

‘......That light!’

A light that was very familiar to me.

“......Prince!”

A gray-white light dwelled there.

***

The dish I had made, the Potion of Stat Increase.

That dish had been copied through [Five Loaves and Two Fish] and sent to every awakened.

And unlike in the past.

The term awakened no longer referred only to humans.

Other races, even monsters, could become awakened if they wished to stand together.

And also.......

‘Even zombies.’

Even that insect.

If it wished to stand together.

Then it would be included among them.

“Prince!”

The dish I had made.

That light had surely reached that bastard as well.

That was why.

CRACK......!

The bastard whose stats had grown stronger than before.

From his body, faintly though it was, the same light as ours was being emitted.

‘He was still in there......!’

When Avaritia’s light had reached even me.

The Prince had transmitted that light to me through the sound of his heartbeat, and thanks to that, I had been able to detect the incongruity in that bastard’s conversation.

What had puzzled me.

Was the fact that even afterward, the Prince had still remained.

I quickly guessed the reason.

‘A body with enough rank to withstand Avaritia.’

But.

The Prince had never originally been such a powerful zombie.

Rather, if one were to ask which zombie was the strongest, that Chancellor would have been far more suitable.

And yet, for some reason, Avaritia had chosen the Prince’s body.

Even if he intended to evolve it by consuming other zombies anyway, it still would have been better to choose the strongest body from the beginning.

Why?

Because he simply liked the Prince’s body?

‘No, there’s no way.’

After that bastard descended into this world.

The greatest danger he had faced must have been the period before he had evolved that body sufficiently.

If an existence such as Belsnickel within my shadow, or Cheonho of Cheonsan Martial Hall, had happened to become active at that time, then Avaritia, still lacking a sufficient body, would have died helplessly.

Even though his immensely powerful true body remained in his homeland, he would have faced annihilation here.

Despite taking such a risk, he deliberately chose a weaker body?

‘There’s no way he would do something like that......!’

It was simply.

Because at that point in time, the Prince’s body had been the closest to possessing the necessary rank.

He had done it because choosing that body had been the safest option.

There was only one reason why the body of the Prince, who had not been especially powerful as a zombie, had met those requirements.

‘The System!’

The rank of that body.

Had been elevated by us...... by the System.

‘Avaritia needs the body of an awakened!’

There may have been zombies stronger than the Prince as zombies.

But there had been no body superior to the Prince as an awakened.

And, at that very moment.

SHAAAAA.......

Another landscape began appearing before my eyes.

A city that had not yet been destroyed.

In the middle of that city, the Prince’s body was devouring other zombies with cracking sounds.

‘The past.’

My vision, having reached the rank of a demigod.

Was showing me the past of this land.

And if that truly was the appearance of this land’s past.......

‘That’s strange.’

According to Avaritia.

The body sufficient to contain the rank of a transcendent had already been completed not long after he met me.

If that was so, then there had been no need to induce further evolution by continuing to devour other zombies.

‘There was a reason he had to do it.’

That was right.......

‘So that the body could possess sufficient rank even without the power of an awakened.......’

Had we arrived a little later, that body might eventually have evolved even further and become a vessel sufficient to contain Avaritia even without the System’s power.

‘The Chancellor was not wrong!’

Our advance at this particular time had followed the Chancellor’s prediction that the evolution would not yet be complete.

His prediction had not been wrong.

Avaritia had failed to refine a sufficient body without the power of the System.

No matter how powerful that golden light was, it had been impossible for him to strengthen the vessel that would become his body in that manner.

And if that was the case.

‘If the Prince dies or falls asleep...... the System will no longer recognize that body as an awakened.’

I knew because I had experienced it several times myself.

This System.

When it gave, it acted as though it would give everything it had, but the moment it decided someone was no longer an ally, it cut them off without the slightest mercy.

‘That was why even Avaritia could not eliminate the Prince.’

The moment he eliminated the Prince, that body would become absurdly weaker.

And the instant its rank became insufficient, even Avaritia would no longer be able to exert such transcendent power.

And as a result.

CRACKLE-CRACKLE-CRACKLE......!

The Prince who remained within.

The light originating from the soul of that awakened pierced through Avaritia’s golden light and approached us.

=How dare you!=

Avaritia raged and tried to seize that light.

The enormous giant moved toward that faint light.

But.

“......Sorry!”

At that moment.

CRRRRZZZZT!!!

=You......!=

“That light.”

The one who had been floating in the sky, observing the battlefield.

I launched my body forward myself.

And cut through the golden light.

SLASH-!

“Belongs to us.”

The giant’s hand, which had tried to seize that light, was cut off so easily it seemed almost empty.

And.......

Tap.

The light the Prince had fired.

His will touched my body.

-Kaang, kang.......

What it contained was.......

‘A memory?’

Not the Prince’s.

It was the memory of ‘someone.’