Chapter 639
Ever Kire’s body and head fell apart and dropped to the ground.
Splurt.
Right after, Simon descended from the air, his robe fluttering. He drove his greatsword into the ground and exhaled the breath he had been holding.
Then, he looked at his palm.
‘The sensation in my hand was real.’
With the Greatsword of Destruction that blocks every kind of regeneration and recovery, he had personally cut down Ever Kire.
It was over.
Simon clenched his fist, savoring the aftertaste.
“Are you all right?”
Lete approached. Simon nodded in affirmation and straightened his posture.
“What about Ever Kire?”
Lete gestured with her chin. Ever Kire’s body and head lay separated on the ground, crimson blood pooling into a puddle.
And the Saint of Harvest, who had been inside her belly, had also been hurled away by the impact of the fall and lay sprawled at a distance.
“Saint!”
“I’ll check.”
Lete knelt before her and examined her condition carefully before speaking.
“The Saint’s essence has been stolen, but she’s alive. She has only lost consciousness.”
At that moment, a glow presumed to be the Saint’s essence burst upward from Ever Kire’s corpse and soared into the sky.
Even the holy raiment she had been wearing vanished completely.
The Saint’s essence, when its host dies, wanders the continent seeking a suitable candidate. With this, Simon confirmed that Ever Kire was indeed dead, and he felt a wave of relief.
‘But there’s one thing bothering me.’
This distorted world created by Ever Kire wasn’t collapsing yet.
And the Saint of Harvest’s consciousness hadn’t returned.
[Yes. Yes.]
‘!’
Simon stiffened and gripped the greatsword tightly.
[That was an amusing diversion.]
Shhhhhh!
The blood on the ground surged like a tide and flowed back. Ever Kire’s head and body rejoined. As though time itself had reversed, she stood up and rubbed her stiff neck.
Simon’s mouth dropped.
“H-How! Regeneration should be impossible…!”
[This isn’t regeneration.]
Ever Kire smirked.
[I simply erased the fact that I was cut by the sword.]
She laughed.
As though mocking the world itself.
Splurch!
At that moment, a spear of light flew down from the heavens and pierced Ever Kire’s back. Lete was seen with a frosty expression, arm still extended from the attack.
“Enough with the nonsense…!”
[Truly.]
Lete’s eyes went wide.
The one who should have been a corpse was suddenly right in front of her, clutching her chin, a grotesque grin on her face.
[You call this nonsense?]
Lete froze in shock.
“Lete!”
BOOOOM!
Simon immediately dashed forward, swinging the Greatsword of Destruction, but Ever Kire appeared at a distance as if she had never been there.
“Damn it!”
Lete rubbed her chin harshly with her sleeve, as though something filthy had touched it. Ever Kire grinned.
[I am another god.]
She raised both arms toward the sky.
[An equal existence, created when the Great Goddess Dave tore off a piece of her own flesh.]
With an ecstatic smile, she pressed a hand against her chest.
[From the moment I was born, I knew I was not human. I wanted to return to my own world, but the goddess did not allow it. I had a mission.]
Her childhood.
Abandoned by her parents at birth, wandering the sewers, exposed to violence and abuse, cultivating narcotics as she slowly withered away.
At one time, Ever Kire resented Goddess Dave for such trials.
But now she had realized.
[It was all original sin! This world was piling its sins onto me, a god in human form! So that I could judge the world without hesitation!]
With rapture in her eyes, she dragged two fingers down her face, tearing skin and drawing blood as her nails ripped downward.
[It was all the arrangement of the Great Goddess Dave! Yes! That’s what it was! First, I shall crush you filthy necromancers who serve death, and destroy Keyzen! Next, I will absorb Efnelle, which distorts the goddess’ teachings and feeds them to blind citizens, into my doctrine and spread the new gospel! I shall purify the world and build a new paradise! What do you think, child of the goddess?]
She extended her hand toward Lete.
[It’s not too late. Open your eyes. Forget the teachings of Efnelle that blind you, and serve my revelation. Do so, and I shall raise you to the seat of a demigod… beyond.]
Sigh.
Lete exhaled deeply, then raised her middle finger.
“Eat shit.”
Ever Kire sighed regretfully.
[So, you too are tainted by the distorted teachings, unable to see the truth.]
Slowly, she stretched both arms wide.
[My sin is great.]
Her arms locked in place in the air, and soon a crimson cross manifested.
Once again, Ever Kire was bound to the cross and ascended high into the sky.
[This island of demons, I shall make it my paradise and deliver judgment.]
With those words, her body melted into the cross and vanished into the sky.
“Stay alert! We don’t know where she’ll come from!”
“Yeah.”
Simon and Lete kept their guard up, scanning the surroundings.
RUMBLEEEEE!
The ground shook violently. Rocks and debris blasted into the air.
“What now…?”
Lete spread a barrier of protection as she spoke. Simon’s face went pale as he scanned the surroundings.
“The island…!”
It was rising.
Whooooshhhhh!
Whooooshhh!
The sea churned violently. Gales blasted from all directions. With ripping sounds, the island itself began to lift.
CRASHHHHH!
Weaker strata and cliffs collapsed as the largest mass, Roke Island, soared higher and higher.
Just like Efnelle’s Heaven Island.
‘She can even do something like this?’
Simon felt his mind grow faint.
The sky darkened, surpassing gray clouds. Blinding white lightning struck down. Ever Kire was nowhere to be seen.
“…Simon.”
Lete, with trembling fingers, pointed forward.
Her face was pale with terror.
“L-Look ahead.”
“Where? There’s nothing there.”
“Not right ahead. Farther.”
Simon’s eyes widened belatedly.
It wasn’t on the island.
High above—
Beyond the endless ascent, through the rift in the gray clouds.
‘Ah.’
A figure was emerging.
A being from another dimension.
It descended, with faded golden hair hanging down and grotesquely long arms.
Simon realized who it was and looked at Lete. Lete already seemed mentally broken, no longer in a normal state.
‘That’s unmistakably…!’
It was the goddess.
Simon had seen her before, in statues and sacred relics.
There was no mistake. It was Goddess Dave.
That indescribably colossal being looked down upon the world. Simon felt holiness like the sun itself, a power unlike anything he had ever known.
‘A real god…?’
It was the very form humans had imagined and worshipped.
Her lower body dissolved into the void, unseen, while only the massive upper body loomed over the island. She had features, but her pupils were black voids, hidden beneath strands of hair.
“Lete!”
Lete collapsed as if in pain, her shoulders trembling violently.
“What’s wrong?”
“M-My whole body’s holiness…”
She gagged, clutching her throat.
“I-It’s speaking.”
“What is?”
“T-That….”
Her terrified eyes fixed on the god.
“It’s not a fake.”
When the goddess spread her arms, radiant light pierced through the dark clouds. Holiness overflowed into the world.
“I can’t attack that.”
“Get a grip, Lete!”
Simon shouted.
“You know it too, right? That’s nothing but an artificial existence Ever Kire created!”
But as if deaf to his words, she trembled in fear.
[Of course the Saint of Stars would react this way.]
Ever Kire revealed herself in the sky.
[Holiness is a power manifested from the great goddess. Any user of holiness cannot help but feel it.]
She smirked.
[The source is right before their eyes, after all.]
RUUUUMMMBLE!
The colossal hand of the goddess pushed through the gray clouds, reaching toward the island. It was a vision of pure horror.
[Come into my embrace, child of the goddess.]
Her palm spread wide, reaching to seize Lete.
Simon swung the Greatsword of Destruction, releasing a slash. While the blade of darkness collided with the palm, Simon wrapped his arm around Lete’s shoulder and leapt away.
BOOOOOM!
The palm slammed into empty ground. Even that alone collapsed distant school buildings and altered the terrain.
Simon looked down at her. She was in bad shape.
Holiness slump symptoms!’
To afflict even a Saint like Lete, that was the ultimate bane for a priest.
Simon slid across the ground and halted. Above them, buried in the black sky, the goddess’ massive body loomed among the clouds.
She was too enormous. Feer’s power alone could never cleave something that vast.
This was precisely the kind of opponent that Lete’s power of starfall was made for. But her mind was unstable, on the verge of breaking.
“Haa, haa…”
Lete bit her lip, breathing heavily.
“Lete! Fall back for now!”
“Don’t underestimate me. This much is nothing…!”
She raised her arm high, slicing a line across the heavens with her hand.
Holiness activated in the sky. Enormous stars fell one after another onto the goddess.
Even amidst the holiness slump, her willpower was extraordinary.
But then—
Shhhhhhh!
The moment the stars touched the goddess, they dissolved into particles of holiness and were absorbed into her body. Simon and Lete’s eyes widened.
[To think you would dare to strike the mother of holiness with holiness itself.]
Ever Kire’s voice echoed. Lete’s body trembled like a leaf in the wind.
[Kneel, young Saint.]
She stretched her arms wide.
[Pay homage to your god.]
Lete’s body sank, as though possessed.
At that instant—
“Lete!”
Simon shouted, gripping her face with both hands. He brought his own face close to hers.
“Look at me!”
“?!”
Lete stared, wide-eyed and red-faced, like she couldn’t believe what was happening.
“Your faith is shaken just because you saw that thing?”
“Mmffh! Urrghh!”
Flustered, her face red as a tomato, Lete shoved his arms off.
“What does a necromancer know! That’s the very source of holiness…!”
“Then what do you call this?!”
Simon raised his hand high.
‘I can do anything!’
Fwoooosh!
Holiness erupted from his hand. Lete’s eyes widened.
“You told me only one acknowledged by the goddess can wield holiness! Then how do you explain a necromancer like me using it?!”
“T-That’s…”
“Think back. What did you say the first time I used holiness?”
Her trembling lips finally opened.
“…That the goddess must have had a reason to give you holiness.”
“That’s right.”
RUMBLEEEEEEEEEE!
Lete’s eyes suddenly widened further. Behind Simon, the star she had summoned was reappearing, plummeting toward the goddess once more.
“Danger…!”
“I’ll prove to you that god is fake.”
Simon raised his greatsword and closed his eyes.
Fwoooosh!
Holiness surged out of his body.
Normally, unleashing such power would endanger the undead wrapped around him.
But instead, holiness infused Feer’s Bone Armor. The skeletal plating gleamed with a white brilliance, the cloak at his shoulders turned pure white, and even his burning eyes became radiant white flames.
“Ah!”
Lete gasped.
Once more, she was witnessing it: the existence of a divine undead.
How could the dead, embodiments of death itself, bear holiness—the energy of life?
Step!
Simon stomped down hard.
Lete had said she felt the source from that goddess. But in this moment, as he manifested holiness, Simon was certain.
That thing was fake.
He twisted his waist, extending his arm. His white cloak snapped violently in the wind.
‘Cut through space itself!’
The greatsword moved. Compared to the falling star it was like a toothpick, but the holiness within it blazed fiercely.
‘Feel the sensation of cleaving it apart!’
CRRRRASHHHHH!
The star—
—was split in two.
The massive star parted left and right, skimming past Simon and Lete, gouging deep scars into the earth before shattering apart.
Whoooooosh!
Lete could not take her eyes off Simon, his white cloak fluttering.
He had struck down the goddess’s power—with the power of the goddess herself.
“It’s not over yet.”
Simon stretched out his arm.
Far in the distance, a radiant La Escrime he had unleashed was streaking toward the goddess. She reached out her hand to catch it.
CRRRRACK!
But this time, it wasn’t absorbed.
Simon’s holy spear carved a deep scar across the back of her hand. The goddess’ agonized cry shook the heavens.
“See now? If that were truly the goddess, my power would have been stripped away.”
Resting his greatsword on his shoulder, Simon turned back with a bright smile.
“Look at me. I’m the proof that so-called goddess is a fake, Lete.”
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