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Meanwhile, the sacred Sword Drawing Ceremony of Bardenas Reales continued. However, as time passed, the atmosphere around Fontasierra Hill, where the ceremony was taking place, began to grow increasingly tense.

“By the way, it seems like no one is pulling the sword this time? The line of royals is already shrinking…”

“Could it be that none of the monarch’s bloodline will succeed this time?”

So far, none of the royals or nobles who stepped forward to draw the sword had succeeded, and the situation began to take a strange turn.

Soon, the turn of the royal and noble families would end, and the next in line would be the common nobles who served other monarchs as vassals. If even among them no one succeeded, then the turn would pass to common knights, renowned scholars, and wealthy citizens.

But even if a common noble succeeded, it would be hard to accept for various reasons, let alone a common knight or a wealthy commoner.

“No, perhaps it would be better if a common knight drew the sword rather than a common noble.”

Shirdas Rampal’s response to Conra’s question was unexpected. “A wealthy commoner is out of the question, of course,” Shirdas Rampal said, stroking his mustache.

It would be easier for the high and mighty to accept a common knight with no direct ties to the existing power structure than a noble bound by feudal contracts.

“From the perspective of those in higher positions, those below them are all the same. In that sense, it’s easier to accept someone with no direct relationship, both rationally and emotionally.”

Conra found Shirdas Rampal’s words to be quite reasonable. After all, as a noble with long experience in political affairs, Shirdas Rampal would know better than Conra, who had little experience with human relationships beyond his parents and siblings.

As Conra and Shirdas Rampal conversed, the Sword Drawing Ceremony had moved on to the nobles of various countries. But as Shirdas Rampal predicted, even the nobles were hesitant to step forward and draw the sword.

Whether they were territorial nobles or court nobles, they were all bound by feudal contracts and could not act freely.

They had built their lives based on their positions and status, and now, faced with the monumental task of selecting a new monarch, the situation was overwhelming for everyone.

The nobles, with their many ties and obligations, had much to lose if they were to exchange their current status for the lofty position of the Supreme King.

But with their turn already upon them, it was impossible for no one to step forward. Otherwise, the opportunity would pass to the commoners.

To the nobles, commoners were merely subjects who served them and received their protection in return—nothing more, nothing less.

So, with nervous hearts, they lined up to draw the sword. As they stood in line, small ambitions began to sprout within them.

One noble who failed to draw the sword sighed deeply, a sigh of relief as the tension left him.

Now that the fear of drawing the sword was behind him, he couldn’t help but wonder who would succeed.

He wasn’t the only one. The Sword Drawing Ceremony continued under a silent consensus of “as long as it’s not me.” But as the line of nobles grew shorter, a strange tension began to spread among them.

Now, here’s a question: The royals don’t want the nobles to rise above them. But do the nobles feel any different?

Of course not. The nobles, just like the royals, find it hard to accept knights and commoners rising above them.

“If this continues, it might really come down to the lower classes.”

“Someone, anyone, draw that sword! Before the commoners get their chance!”

As the nobles’ expressions grew stiffer, the royals’ faces relaxed. They anticipated that a commoner becoming the Supreme King would inevitably weaken the authority of the Supreme King.

If the authority of the Supreme King, who ruled over all of Hiberia, weakened, the traditional royals of each region would find it easier to maneuver.

The benefits they could gain from this were immeasurable. On the other hand, the losses from not having the Supreme King’s arbitration were also significant. The royals’ minds were already busy with calculations.

While the nobles and royals were in such a state, the knights, scholars, and wealthy commoners began to grow excited.

The commoners, who had nothing but their bodies inherited from their parents, had built up martial power, knowledge, or wealth through sheer willpower.

Their intense desire to escape their current lowly status was something the nobles, born into noble families and treated as such from birth, could hardly comprehend.

This desire for self-transformation or social advancement was something the nobles could never truly understand.

Even though they had used their martial skills, knowledge, and wealth for honorable deeds like donating to the church or helping the poor, their status as “commoners” still clung to them.

Whether they realized it or not, in a society based on status, this was an inescapable shackle. The “powerful commoners” hated this more than anything.

Laws like the prohibition of inter-class marriage and restrictions on clothing based on status only added to their sense of deprivation.

Considering that in this Bardenas Reales, the royals had the first priority in the Sword Drawing Ceremony, followed by the nobles, and only then the knights and citizens, it was hard to dismiss their feelings as mere paranoia.

“But that’s why this Sword Drawing Ceremony is so important.”

Among the citizens, a fervent hope and expectation for this ceremony began to grow. If someone from their ranks could draw the sword and ascend to the throne of the Supreme King, it would be a rare opportunity to shake off the inferiority complex that had built up over the years.

At any rate, as long as their turn came, anyone would have the chance to step forward and draw the sword in the Bardenas Reales, the Sword Drawing Ceremony.

Once the sword was drawn, their status would change from a common knight or citizen to the highest authority in Hiberia, the Duke of Asturias and the next Supreme King. Such a dramatic change in status was an attractive target for anyone with ambition.

Amidst the complex mix of emotions and desires, the nobles failed to draw the sword, and the knights and citizens began to step forward.

Perhaps because of this, no one noticed the dark clouds gathering above Fontasierra Hill.

+++++

“Hmm?”

Sophia, who was interrogating the culprit behind the possession of the Spirit of Gotland, suddenly felt something and looked up at the sky.

“What’s that…?”

Frowning, Sophia looked up and saw a black storm cloud forming over Gotland, moving southwest.

‘Strange signs.’

In an instant, her eyebrows twitched, and the next moment, something astonishing happened in the sky. As if an invisible giant had swung a sword, countless slashes scattered the dark clouds.

Sophia, who could cut through the clouds with just a frown, showed no sign of relief. The dark energy began to gather again, forming clouds once more.

“That’s not a physical cloud, is it?”

“An accurate observation. As expected of the Church’s sword.”

Sophia turned to see Birgit Anika, the Lady of Merthinger, leaning on her staff.

Her pale complexion and thin limbs made her look like she should be lying in a sickbed, but she stood straight, leaning on her staff, and looked at Sophia.

Beside her, as always, was Jorgen Erik Petterson, the local clergy, in his usual half-naked clerical attire, watching her with concern.

“Lady Merthinger, have you recovered?”

“Thanks to you removing the thing that was plaguing this land. I’ve regained enough strength to stand, though the Spirit will need to rest for a while due to the aftereffects.”

Shrugging to show her resilience, she approached Sophia and looked up at the sky.

“Do you have any idea what that energy forming the clouds is?”

“Hmm… evil energy. Where could such energy come from…?”

“It’s the energy that has seeped into the land and air. Some time ago, evil energy spread from the south across the sea and seeped into the land and air here. Since then, the rate of deformed babies and monsters among newborns, both human and animal, has increased.”

“Into the land and air? The south…? Could it be!”

Sophia’s eyes widened in shock.

“That energy spread by that thing that appeared in Agnon!”

The Great Demon that had appeared in Agnon, a city on the border between Franquia and the Empire, had spread evil energy. The dark clouds over Gotland were the same energy.

Sophia couldn’t stay calm. The explosive energy of the startled nun knight swirled around like a storm before being calmly reined in by the knight, a sight that would awe any martial artist.

But regardless of the clergy’s admiration, Sophia’s mind was elsewhere. She suddenly noticed something strange in Lady Merthinger’s words.

“But even if the evil energy spread to Gotland, it was only a part of what that thing spread. How could it have grown so much? It doesn’t add up. Wait… could it be!”

Mid-sentence, Sophia realized the answer and asked in a trembling voice, as if confirming her guess.

“Could it be that the thing used the land and air, and the lives born and raised here, to multiply!?”

Whoosh!

“Ugh!”

At that moment, Sophia’s uncontrolled energy burst forth, and the clergy, standing in front of the priestess, bore the brunt of the nun knight’s natural disaster-like aura, his face turning pale.

“Oops, my mistake.”

Realizing her mistake, Sophia quickly reined in her energy, and the clergy, catching his breath, coughed.

“Sorry. I just heard something too serious…”

“Cough, huff, hmm, it’s okay. It was a serious enough matter.”

The clergy waved off Sophia’s apology.

“The Church has misunderstood the purpose of the evil energy spread by the Great Demon.”

“That’s right. We thought it was just to increase the concentration of evil energy in the world to make it easier for the Demon Clan to act. But…”

Sophia’s Heavenly Eye and Heavenly Ear abilities expanded her perception, and her spirit entity, nearing completion, regained most of her past abilities.

Her eyes and ears caught the dark, disgusting storm clouds gathering from all over the continent, heading towards one place. The energy composing each storm cloud was unmistakable.

Every single one of them carried the same energy Sophia had felt in Agnon. Yes, the energy of the storm clouds over Gotland was almost identical.

At this moment, Sophia felt the Great Demon’s initial purpose and method of realization vividly forming in her mind. Skipping the necessary reasoning and proof, she instinctively knew this was close to the truth.

‘The leyline is a series of interactions governing the order of the land.’

The flow of the leyline refers to the flow of these interactions, including the relationships between life forms born and raised on and within the land. By mixing his existence into the leyline’s flow, the Great Demon aimed to interpret or interfere with the land’s order.

This attempt to interpret or interfere with the land’s order through the leyline’s flow had been a subject of many spell systems since ancient times.

Though it wasn’t treated as a mainstream academic field due to the issue of human strength and will being quickly diluted in the vast order of the land, it was still a somewhat common research topic in core academic circles.

‘Yes, that interpretation and interference. His goal was set from the beginning.’

First, spreading evil energy imbued with his will across the continent to mix his existence into the leyline’s flow.

‘The Omphalos is the essence of the land’s order.’

Then, using the ‘interpretation’ and ‘interference’ gained from mixing his will into the leyline’s flow to locate the terminals of the Omphalos.

‘By embedding the evil energy into the interactions of life forms, especially those with emotions and spirituality, he increased the overall power of the evil energy.’

‘Embedding’ is a form of ‘interference.’ The evil energy seeping into the land could embed itself into life forms living on and within the land. Though sentient beings have a unique defense called ‘self,’ the evil energy, blurred by seeping into the land, could lurk within spiritual entities without much resistance.

As these embedded spiritual entities lived, reproduced, and interacted within the ecosystem, the Great Demon increased the overall ‘size’ of the evil energy.

Though the evil energy, influenced by the land, would lose its original identity and purity, its ‘total quantity’ would reach an incomparable level.

‘In the process, by finding the right terminal locations and condensing the evil energy sown there, he could correspond his position in the domain to the phenomenal realm.’

Thus, he could immediately bring his true self, located deep within the domain beyond the event horizon, into the phenomenal realm.

‘So, these evil energies are both sensors and sacrifices.’

Having already dominated one domain, the Great Demon had become a being capable of exerting a gravitational pull akin to the stars in the sky. Though demons were a race whose names had been erased from the world, losing their destiny, at least for this one Great Demon, he had become destiny itself.

However, in becoming so great, the Great Demon had become a being belonging to the domain beyond, no longer part of the phenomenal realm. Though he could influence the phenomenal realm with his wondrous spellcraft and gravitational pull, his true self could no longer cross over.

For such a Great Demon to enter the phenomenal realm, a worthy sacrifice was needed. Originally, even the lives, pain, and screams of all the world’s humans wouldn’t be enough, but it seemed he had found a way around it.

‘The attributes of each land corresponding to the world, while their essence originated from himself, would be enough to create a sympathetic resonance between his celestial (domain) self and his terrestrial (phenomenal) self.’

He aimed to solve the issue of insufficient quantity with the quality of the sacrifice. Moreover, many demons had already spilled their blood, lives, and grudges on the continent’s lands, making up for the lack with the number of high-quality sacrifices.

Though it was an outrageous idea on an outrageous scale, Sophia guessed that this plan had a high chance of success.

And if the Great Demon succeeded in descending into the phenomenal realm at the location of the Omphalos terminal…

“It would be the end.”

Feeling a crisis that made her whole body tremble, Sophia’s brain cells worked even more sharply.

‘Then, where is the Great Demon trying to descend?’

Given the situation, the Great Demon’s attempt to descend was an inevitable factor to consider. The priority was to find out where he would descend.

Fortunately or unfortunately, Sophia already knew the answer. The paths of the storm clouds she sensed with her Heavenly Eye and Heavenly Ear all converged on one place.

As she realized this, a desolate voice escaped her lips.

“No, it can’t be…”

The place where the gravitational pull attracting the storm clouds was occurring was none other than the land where the royals and nobles of Hiberia were gathered—the Duchy of Asturias.

In the nun knight’s mind, the faces and voices of her two most beloved disciples flashed by.

 

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