“Khh, aaaaah!”
The shout echoed. Fittingly for her shrill voice, the girl was not very tall. Although there were unmistakable signs of femininity in her chest and body, apart from that, both her attire and behavior remained closer to that of a girl.
What the girl swung while shouting was something that did not match her bodily curves or small stature. A hideously shaped handle with an equally grotesque axe blade attached to it — a two-handed axe once used by Ereta.
Swinging that two-handed axe produced a sonic boom that carried power beyond what her small frame should have been able to produce. The ancient deity’s irrational strength was unleashed, causing the monster rushing toward the girl to shatter chaotically.
Kwajijijik, chjeong!
Not only shattered but also slammed into the ground. The axe embedded in the ground was not easily pulled out.
“Ugh, shit!”
While struggling with the stuck axe, other monsters attacked the girl. Monsters covered in bones all over their bodies, wearing armor like knights, swinging sharp bone fragments.
These monsters were not even followers of a deity; they were creatures created by a formless entity consuming various nutrients.
The bone fragment of the monster was blocked by the arm the girl raised after letting go of the axe.
With a sound as if hitting solid scales, Angie’s skin tore open and blood flowed out.
“Guh, aaaah!”
Ppueok!
A front kick. A simple kick without any finesse. But its effect was undeniable. The monster, whose chest was completely pierced, fell without even letting out a scream.
“Hey, crazy woman! Are you okay?!”
As the monsters retreated, Angie gritted her teeth and shouted. Her forearm hurt as if it would die, and she was bleeding, but with her enhanced health, it wasn’t a wound Angie couldn’t endure.
On the other hand, how about Ereta?
Blood flowed from her torn abdomen, and blood trickling down from a grazed forehead obscured her vision. Her muscles ached from fatigue, and Ereta’s face was pale.
Ereta used to be a priest who could survive even with a pierced head, but now she was just human—a frail human who would die if her stomach was pierced wrong.
“I’m fine.”
Ereta fully realized this fact. Physically, too, she had reached her limits.
She couldn’t wield a weapon ceaselessly like Aslan, nor could she withstand all attacks with her body like Angie.
Even the power of her weapon didn’t meet expectations due to her reduced strength. Her skills needed reevaluation.
But not right now.
There was no time for it right now.
Even if there had been time, would it have been possible?
Could one really abandon a lifetime’s worth of habits?
Ereta didn’t know and merely groaned while clutching her wounds, being protected by a shorter girl.
If anything, it was disappointing and frustrating, but Angie was undoubtedly stronger than Ereta.
“Well, just hang on a little longer! I’ll do something, so just hold on!”
Chjeong!
Angie swung her fist while swallowing a raspy breath, and the monster struck by the punch collapsed with its head crushed. Angie fought valiantly amidst the chaos.
She swung her fists, kicked legs, and rammed heads. Blood streamed down her face from a torn forehead, turning her face red, but the girl paid no attention and kept moving.
Her skin was tough, and her bones sturdy. Enhanced health had elevated her body beyond human limits.
Of course, that alone wasn’t enough to establish combat effectiveness. The girl felt a sense of responsibility.
Not as a rider of the ancient deity, but as a comrade of Aslan.
Also, the responsibility that arose because she now possessed a physique far superior to most humans.
She had been a pauper, but Belus Alphen was never a bad city.
Rather, one might say it harbored a kind of elitist ideology leaning towards the good side.
The nobles of the city tended not to neglect their duties, and the impoverished girl grew up watching them.
Those who possess strength naturally bear responsibilities, which cannot be abandoned.
The girl moved solely based on that thought. To ensure that Ereta, whose flesh was softer and more fragile than hers, didn’t die, she actively became a meat shield.
With a “peng!” sound, a monster’s body exploded. The immense force behind the powerful swing of her fist was great, but the openings left behind were equally large. Tentacles targeted those gaps.
Chjeok!
Angie blocked such tentacle attacks by raising her arms. She stacked her arms behind each other and blocked with her elbows. But the attacks of the formless entity weren’t weak enough to be blocked so easily.
Yujik!
Angie’s face contorted, tears welling up in her eyes, but the girl endured. As tears ran down her cheeks, the hatchet thrown by Ereta pushed the tentacles away.
An endless fight. A battle where victory couldn’t be guaranteed. Angie had no strategy to turn the current situation around, and Ereta lacked the power to resolve it. They simply held on stubbornly, waiting for Aslan to settle things.
Just as Angie, holding her broken elbow, stepped back while gasping for breath amid writhing tentacles and countless monsters, an unexpected change occurred.
—Kuuuung
A booming sound beneath their feet shook the ground. It wasn’t a strong vibration, but the source of the tremor was obvious. Expecting the changes that would follow the vibration, Angie looked at the monsters.
The monsters twitched their bodies. The veins endlessly pulsating from their feet connected to the ground subsided, and they twisted their bodies in pain.
It wasn’t just the monsters. The mechanisms spewing tentacles and magic also began to droop lifelessly. The simultaneous changes clearly pointed to death.
At the center of it all, the pillar stood out as the most significant change.
The pillar was collapsing from within. Like lighting a fire inside dry straw, it was crumbling helplessly.
Watching the crumbling pillar, Angie slightly opened her mouth, and Ereta sighed deeply while pressing her hand firmly against her abdominal wound, feeling as though her internal organs might spill out.
This change was clear.
Something must have been accomplished in the basement where Aslan descended.
Both felt relieved yet amazed.
“We did it.”
“Hah, damn… I thought I was gonna die.”
Wiping the blood streaming down her face, Angie supported Ereta.
*
In terms of power, few spells surpass a fireball.
Even if there are, they aren’t often more efficient compared to casting a fireball.
That’s why in game communities, people discuss whether spells are more efficient than fireballs, making fireballs a standard for powerful spells and a sort of benchmark.
Such a fireball was detonated directly inside the heart.
The result was certain.
However, before seeing that certain result, Aslan had to feel something else intruding.
Just before the explosion, in an extremely short period of time, perhaps not even a moment,
the flesh of the heart squeezed Aslan’s arm, and instead of just clinging to it, it actually penetrated it.
The instant the flesh penetrated her arm, Aslan sensed the consciousness of the formless entity flowing in.
It was dangerous. Extremely so.
Though information heard from priests isn’t necessarily accurate, this was the ‘audience’ of the formless entity.
Aslan recalled Priest Niell’s words in the slowed-down world.
“The audience is described as excessively vague and destructive. A human’s mind and body can’t withstand it. Occasionally, those who endure it or discern its true nature become priests,” he said.
Becoming a priest.
This was a phenomenon Aslan didn’t desire and a situation to avoid.
Even if she didn’t become a priest, she would become the formless entity itself. Aslan remembered that she had to resist while rejecting priesthood.
But how?
By the time Aslan thought of the method, the situation had already changed drastically.
Aslan felt the foreign sensation of flesh penetrating her arm, accompanied by a mental intrusion.
Her consciousness blurred. Her vision grew hazy.
The mana tattoo on her arm inside the heart glowed, and the inscribed tattoo responded to her last mental command, generating a fireball.
Yet separately from that, Aslan’s consciousness was being devoured by the formless entity.
A destructive, unendurable audience for a human soul.
Aslan truly understood those words.
Amidst her swirling vision, Aslan saw countless illusions. In the memories—though they might be called illusions—she barely clung to her self-awareness.
To put it simply, it was mental anguish.
Countless memories flashed by. Time that a single human’s lifespan and spirit couldn’t endure passed in a flash.
Right arm burning, flames gestated inside the heart. Distorted heat waves wrapped around the arm.
It exploded. Even in that brief moment, the fireball steadily detonated, burning the arm.
Despite the dulled senses from overuse of equalization, Aslan groaned continuously under the searing pain in her accelerated cognition.
Thinking that detonating it directly on the surface would be meaningless led her to this action, but the process exceeded her expectations.
The countless memories of the formless entity infiltrated her mind, and as her arm burned, Aslan’s consciousness gradually sharpened.
The pain awakened Aslan’s spirit. The turned-around eyes returned. The pain gradually subsided. Amid the physical and mental agony, Aslan struggled and barely regained her senses.
What Aslan saw upon regaining consciousness was entirely unexpected.
Aslan saw a city.
It wasn’t Geladridion.
No matter which Belus from Geladridion was brought, it couldn’t possibly be this city.
Tall skyscrapers and buildings encircling those skyscrapers.
White and crimson lights leaking from those buildings.
Power lines stretching across the city like spider webs and streetlights emitting light.
Aslan found this city very familiar.
Though she couldn’t exactly call it a known city, it was quite familiar.
It was a city on Earth.
Though she couldn’t pinpoint the exact region, that much was certain.
“Why is this… now?”
Looking like some Western city, as Aslan drifted between shock, confusion, and foreboding, the memory changed.
The changed memory now showed different landscapes. The scenery changed every two seconds or so.
A futuristic space city viewed from above.
A world tree close to fantasy.
A religious city formed around a massive mountain.
Some depiction of hell with strong Buddhist influences.
A near-future city, etc.
Countless landscapes flashed by, leaving Aslan perplexed.
Neither the intent behind showing these nor the meaning of what they were could be guessed.
In the midst of confusion, the projected landscape changed again. The hazy illusion cleared. What appeared last was a place Aslan knew.
Geladridion.
The land where an evil deity lurked, where Aslan had lived for 12 years.
Centered around the frozen, pale old empire’s land, a vast expanse split into upper and lower parts.
The moment Aslan recognized Geladridion, the illusion ended.
Because the flesh that had penetrated Aslan’s arm burned away in the erupting flames.
Accelerated cognitive abilities returned, and along with a deafening explosion, excruciating pain in the arm came.
Kwaahaaaaang!
The roar and heat. Along with the scorching heat of the exploding fireball, Aslan rolled on the ground. The right arm engraved with the mana tattoo was torn apart by the explosion.
Now that the mana tattoo on the right arm was gone, stored spells couldn’t be used, but it didn’t matter.
Aslan always kept at least one scroll of equalization prepared for situations like this.
But Aslan didn’t use equalization. She just stared ahead while gripping her burnt shoulder.
There was the heart that had shown her inexplicable memories.
The heart of a priest of the formless entity.
From the burning heart, a foul smell rose, and despite the rising nausea, Aslan couldn’t look away.
The pillar directly above the heart crumbled, and the basement shook with the sound of its collapse.
Even as the surroundings violently shook, Aslan’s gaze remained fixed on the heart she had just destroyed.
“What was that… just now?”
The dead priest couldn’t answer. Aslan panted, unable to obtain an answer.
