Chapter 270

“This is… what the…?”

Isabella, clutching her confused head, staggered.

Before her eyes, the doubled Ai-shan Gi-or was oozing murderous intent, glaring at her, but she couldn’t even care about that. A shock beyond comprehension was tearing through her mind.

Her power, “Black Repose,” had shown her something that even Isabella could never have imagined.

—

Black Repose was originally a power meant to incapacitate one person decisively when fighting multiple opponents. It traps the target in a memory, causing them to self-destruct, or even if they escape, it forces them to fight Isabella one-on-one in the mental realm.

And those who die in this mental realm die in reality as well.

No matter how long the battle in the mental realm lasts, almost no time passes in reality. To the enemy, it would seem as if one of their allies suddenly collapsed and died the moment Isabella activated her power.

Without this power, she wouldn’t have been able to handle enemies who could only challenge her when they gathered in numbers.

Every time she used this power, Isabella would mock her opponents as they floundered in their old memories.

It wasn’t just to satisfy her sadistic tendencies.

The memories shown by Black Repose were like thorns embedded in the heart of the target. Just by bringing up those memories and laughing at them, the opponent would lose their composure and reveal their weaknesses.

But… this time was different. Very different.

The Black Repose she cast on Ai-shan Gi-or was filled with an unfamiliarity she had never experienced before.

Her vision split in two.

Her left eye and right eye were seeing completely different scenes.

What her left eye showed was no different from usual.

The story of a mixed-blood girl born in Ai-shan Gi-or, growing up as a member of the Ka`har tribe.

A childhood filled with warmth under her mother’s care.

The scorn directed at her and her mother after her mother’s downfall.

The girl’s memories of vowing revenge and building up her Life Force after her mother’s horrific death.

It was somewhat interesting, but nothing particularly special.

However, what her right eye saw was entirely different.

No, it would be wrong to say she was seeing anything.

Because that eye saw nothing.

It was as if a thick black curtain had been drawn, leaving only darkness visible.

The only sounds were the deafening roar of hundreds of magicians casting spells simultaneously and voices chattering in an incomprehensible language.

‘What is this…?’

She couldn’t suppress her rising confusion.

The fact that her vision had split in two was incomprehensible to her.

Yes, among humans with emotional issues, there were those with split personalities.

But even in those cases, their souls were essentially one, so even if their personalities were split, the vision shown by her power would still be singular.

‘This is as if… two souls are coexisting in one body…’

The thought that briefly crossed Isabella’s mind was close to the truth, but it was still a hypothesis she couldn’t confirm.

Theoretically, it was possible.

If a dead person’s soul was intercepted before reaching the hands of the gods and forcibly placed into another person, it could create a situation where two souls reside in one body.

It was impossible for her, but someone like Feyrus might be capable of it. Manipulating souls was his specialty.

However, creating a being like this girl would be impossible even for Feyrus.

A human body wasn’t strong enough to endure the presence of two souls.

The fate of a human possessed by a spirit was singular.

Either the souls would collide and collapse together, leaving the person an idiot, or one soul would devour the other, creating a madman with a scrambled ego.

There was no way two souls could coexist so cleanly separated.

At least, not according to her knowledge. So then,

‘Could it be Elpinel’s doing…?’

Beings beyond earthly understanding, the transcendent beings called gods… perhaps they could do something like this.

Though it bothered her that the method resembled Feyrus’s power, since Feyrus didn’t serve Elpinel.

There was no one to give Isabella the answer, and the information revealed was far too insufficient to draw a conclusion.

‘…Then I’ll just have to find out for myself.’

Caution, interest, suspicion, curiosity. All these emotions intertwined and guided her.

And so, Isabella delved into the depths of Ai-shan Gi-or’s psyche, into the realm of the unconscious.

No, she tried to.

Lil҈̥͓́̿͋͛̾͜͝li҉̛̳̦̗͊̓͜s҈̧̛̤̖͚̞̜͐̌’s҈̛͇̙̘̍̀̚͢ͅ kin҈̡̪̤͎̳̃́͂̿͐̕, da҉̧̯͍́̉͝mn҉̨̛̱̱̦̊̽̅̚it҈̨̟̜̟̟̓́̌̅͝ͅ, how҉̨̞͎̳̖̟̐́̿̓̀͠ dare҉̧̲̟͖̝̖̄͋̈́̚͞ you҉̧͚̊̒͝ͅ cross҈̨͈̤̳͋̌̉́͂̕ this҈̠̟ line҉̢̛̜͎̞͒͐̽!҉̧̟͇̘̑͂̽́́͝

A thunderous roar pierced through the mind.

A howl, resembling the growl of a beast, echoed across the world.

“AAAAAH!”

Screaming in agony as if her soul was being torn apart, Isabella was instantly flung out of unconsciousness.

“Haa… haa…”

Back in the pure white mental space, Isabella panted heavily, drenched in cold sweat.

‘What… what just happened?’

Something had interfered with her power.

An existence so overwhelming that resistance wasn’t even a thought.

Though it lasted only a moment, the shock was so intense that her soul could have shattered.

The pressure was akin to… hearing the voice of her goddess, Lilith.

Just before being flung away, through her pain-blurred vision, she saw…

‘A… wolf?’

It was a being as vast as a barrier.

A colossal black-furred beast, towering enough to connect the heavens and the earth.

Blue eyes blazed with flames like the sun, and saliva dripping from its mountain-sized fangs formed rivers.

A monster that crushed mountain ranges with its paws and scattered stars with its tail.

‘That… it can’t be…!’

A name she had heard long ago flashed through her mind.

Before she became the sole priestess of Lilith, she had heard stories from other witches.

Among their scorn for other cults worshiping so-called evil deities, one name stood out.

Those who served Invidia, the god of envy, mocked a nameless, formless monster worshiped as a god.

Those who served Fafnir, the god of sloth and greed, ridiculed offerings made to a corpse that had died a millennium ago.

And then, the last one.

The cult of the evil god who governed hatred and gluttony.

Their god had vanished.

Not dead like Fafnir, but disappeared without a trace.

The witches who sneered at the two fallen cults.

Amidst the chaos filling her mind, the name of their god was the only thing she remembered clearly.

The black wolf that devours the world.

The evil god of hatred and gluttony.

**Vanargand.**

Deep within Ai-shan Gi-or’s consciousness, the vanished god was spewing pure hatred.

—

‘Vanargand? No way. Vanargand?! Why would such a being be inside a mere human’s mind…!’

A god dwelling within a person. And not just any god, but one who had disappeared without a trace.

Even for someone who had lived over a century, this was beyond imagination.

‘The beast of martial energy… was this what you meant, Feyrus?!’

The beast of martial energy. Feyrus had once called Ai-shan Gi-or Ha-shal-leur that.

Though he later started calling her a ‘variable,’ there was no doubt about it.

Isabella had thought it was a fitting name and hadn’t paid much attention.

It seemed like the perfect nickname for a woman who raged like a mad beast, cloaked in crimson martial energy.

But who could have imagined…

That deep within her mind, a god in the form of a beast truly resided…!

‘Then how did Feyrus know about this?! The existence of a god even the gods themselves had forgotten…!’

The heretic saint. The soul-reversing mage, Feyrus.

She thought she knew him well, but now she doubted if she had ever truly understood him.

However, she had no time to ponder the truth or significance of what she had seen.

One troublesome enemy had become two, and they were charging straight at her!

“I’ll tear that disgusting body into a thousand pieces and offer it to Mother!!”

Ai-shan Gi-or, cloaked in a swirling vortex of crimson martial energy, roared like a beast, gripping her blood-soaked sword.

“Isabellaaaaa!”

Ha-shal-leur, wielding the infamous sword of Elpinel, charged like one of the legendary twelve knights.

They looked almost like twins, similar yet different.

Seeing this, Isabella realized her earlier assumption was correct—her vision had split because of these two. Why they looked so alike remained a mystery.

Perhaps the overlaid soul had adapted too well to the body, transforming it.

Isabella had found her answer, but there was no time to rejoice. The answer didn’t matter anymore.

An unprecedented sense of crisis ran down her spine.