Chapter 78

Chapter 78.

The battlefield where Han Seol-ah had raised her Mana while Lee A-un and Yeriche maintained their formation in order to hold back the two Scathachs.

However, that firm battle line collapsed in vain within a single instant.

CRACK! CRAAAACK!

Along with a rupturing sound like space being forcibly torn apart, a bizarre noise that seemed to scrape directly against the brain burst out.

【 —O O O O O H— 】

“Aaaagh!”

“Gaaagh!”

Everyone struck directly by the noise dropped their weapons at once, clutched their ears, and rolled across the ground.

An enormous transparent whale, with thousands of crackling red warning labels shining on it, tore through the space where the core had been and burst out.

CRUNCH! CRACKLE!

Countless tentacles were attached to the whale’s entire body.

Two of those transparent tentacles stretched out and crushed the two Bosses as though sweeping away annoying specks of dust.

Scathach could not even scream before he turned into light and vanished.

Even the endless wave that was supposed to keep surging in was meaningless before it.

Several tentacles stretched all the way beyond the horizon, overturning the earth as they slaughtered the Monsters.

Not only the Resonar-class Demonic Beasts that had once driven them to the brink of death, but even Bosses of a higher grade burst apart with a single light wriggle of those tentacles.

【 —O O O O O H— 】

CRRRRUNCH! CRAAAAACK!

A chilling rupturing sound, as though the very root of something was splitting apart, and the whale’s unprecedented shriek.

Before an instinctive terror that human reason could not possibly withstand, Hunters of S-rank and above collapsed.

“Ugh, cough!”

Yeriche clutched both ears and vomited blood-mixed filth, while Han Seol-ah also sank to the ground with bloodshot eyes, unable even to control her trembling body.

This entire scene, transformed into a hellscape…

Only Lee A-un was looking at it straight on.

‘Just what is happening?’

The moment that terrible roar tore apart everyone’s reason, strangely enough, only Lee A-un’s mind became clear, as if cold water had been poured over him.

And as if he had drunk an Elixir, he felt his tattered body become wrapped in a refreshing sensation and heal in an instant.

At the same time, the enormous Outer God’s cry was converted, within Lee A-un’s mind alone, into gentle and clear language.

[Child.]

‘…Child? What is this supposed to mean?’

His confused thoughts refused to organize themselves.

SLITHER—

A single transparent tentacle approached with a careful touch and wrapped around Lee A-un’s entire body.

‘Uh, ugh…!’

When the tentacle he had thought would attack him instead coiled around him gently and firmly, as though protecting him, Lee A-un was engulfed in bewilderment.

[Release him!]

SWISH!

Ratty, who had belatedly come to his senses, did not miss that fleeting opening and swung his sword.

Dense Dark Mana condensed around Ratty’s blade, drawing a threatening trajectory.

However—

CLANG!

The absolute difference in grade did not allow even the slightest damage.

Rather, the moment it touched the surface of the tentacle, the ominous Dark Mana surrounding the sword scattered vainly.

[Keuk!]

At the same time, the rebounding force struck Ratty directly.

Unable to withstand the recoil, more than half of Ratty’s bones crumbled apart, and he was brutally slammed into the ground.

‘Instructor!’

[Come with me.]

‘Ghhk!’

It was a fierce resonance, as if someone had gripped his brain with one hand and directly driven a voice into it.

Was it because the tentacle connected to the main body was wrapped around him?

He could not understand what language that thunderously echoing cry belonged to, but the emotion alone was synchronizing with him.

Pure joy at finally finding the lost child.

CRACKLE—! FLASH!

And even a deep irritation and displeasure toward the Tower’s System, which was trying to restrain it.

Lee A-un, who had been losing himself in the Outer God’s thoughts as they flooded in like his own emotions, snapped back to his senses at the alien sensation that made every hair on his body stand on end.

‘No. Let me go!’

However, his shout scattered helplessly before it could leave his mouth.

No voice came out.

No, his entire body had gone rigid and would not move, as if he had been struck by a paralyzing needle.

The Outer God’s tentacle slowly began pulling Lee A-un in.

It moved very carefully and slowly, like someone afraid of breaking a piece of porcelain.

Just as Lee A-un was about to be dragged helplessly into the air—

“Haaaaah!”

BOOOOM!

Yeriche, who had overcome the pressure and charged in, threw a punch while emitting sacred radiance from her entire body.

But the tentacle took no damage at all.

“Ghk…!”

Rather, as the price for attempting the attack, the rebounding physical force and Divine Power brutally crushed Yeriche’s entire body from within.

Along with the horrifying sound of bones breaking, Yeriche sprayed blood like a fountain, twitched as though convulsing, and collapsed to the ground.

She was in such a terrible condition that it was impossible to tell whether she was alive or dead. 

‘Saintess!’

“Absolute Zero—”

Then—

While kneeling on one knee and bleeding from the corner of her mouth, Han Seol-ah still somehow completed her casting and raised her staff toward the tentacle.

“White Terminus!”

FLASH!

It was an extreme frost laser that had even frozen Resonar.

The strongest strike Han Seol-ah could unleash at this moment!

However, that strongest strike, the moment it touched the tentacle, was crushed beneath the absolute difference in grade and scattered helplessly like a heat haze on a summer day.

“Aaaagh!”

Han Seol-ah collapsed while clutching her heart.

Having fainted from the terrible pain of Mana Rampage, Han Seol-ah fell to the ground and vomited a dark red clot of blood.

She looked so precarious that her breathing seemed as though it would stop at any moment if left unattended.

‘No…!’

Thick tears of blood flowed from Lee A-un’s bloodshot eyes, unable to move his body or scream.

The instant his feet rose helplessly into the air—

Tch. The tentacle wrapped around Lee A-un flinched and stopped at an alien energy.

WHOOSH!

From the dimensional gap the whale had torn through, a figure cloaked head to toe in golden radiance leaped out.

‘Brother?!’

However, the Apostle’s face was a strange one that even Lee A-un had never once seen before.

The Apostle’s eyes swept in turn over Han Seol-ah and Yeriche, whose lives hung in the balance, and Lee A-un, who was suspended in midair.

The Apostle’s face, which usually seemed expressionless and emotionless, was now wavering with a terribly cold and icy killing intent.

Leaping forward in an instant as if stepping through empty air, the Apostle raised the sword he gripped tightly in both hands.

From up close, it looked less like a sword and more like a mass of light formed by gathering brilliantly shining starlight and hardening it into the shape of a blade.

‘That is…’

It was such a beautiful sword that it made him forget even the urgency of the situation and stare in a daze.

HMMMMMM—!

The air trembled and rang.

WHOOOOOSH!

A wind that blew from somewhere surged toward the sword in the Apostle’s hand like a storm.

Then the blade abruptly lengthened to more than twice its size.

A grand golden light filled it…

And soon, it became a sea of stars.

‘Wow…’

A wondrous blade, as if the deep night sky, the universe, and a cluster of stars had been cut out whole and forged into a sword…

When the Apostle brought the sword down with a shout—

KWAAAAAA—!!

A fierce flash of light stretched out as if cutting through the wall of a dimension.

The Outer God’s tentacle, which neither physical force nor magic had worked against, was sliced cleanly apart the moment it touched the galaxy-colored trajectory.

【 —G U O O O O O O ! ! !— 】

The enormous Outer God, which had seemed absolutely impossible to injure, let out a death cry filled with pain for the first time.

THUD!

“Keuk!”

When the tentacle that had been pulling him disappeared, Lee A-un fell to the ground. Forgetting even the pain, he hurriedly looked over the Apostle.

That tentacle had easily withstood Yeriche strengthened by Divine Power, and even Han Seol-ah’s Grand Magic, then wounded both of them in return.

If even Brother collapsed like that…!

“Fuuu.”

Fortunately, the Apostle seemed unharmed.

He merely took a long breath as though exhausted.

“A-Apostle! Brother!”

“Lie down.”

[How dare you…!]

“Be careful!”

RUMBLE—!

As if the sky itself were collapsing, a savage mass of tentacles poured down all at once.

It was a charge condensed from the Outer God’s sticky hatred and malice toward the insignificant creatures who had dared injure it.

More than ten of those ferocious tentacles, each of which had torn Scathach apart by itself, were striking down like lightning.

‘He might have dodged one somehow, but that is…!’

Even so, if it was Brother, he would not retreat in order to protect everyone.

Just as Lee A-un swallowed despair with a deathly pale face—

Swoosh.

Instead of the hand holding his weapon, the Apostle gently extended his empty left hand forward.

Compared to the bundle of tentacles explosively falling with enough force to crush even a great mountain, the Apostle’s slow movement was unrealistically quiet and smooth.

However, strangely enough…

Before the Outer God’s killing intent that seemed about to destroy the world at any moment, the despair pressing down on Lee A-un melted away like snow with a single graceful gesture from the Apostle.

KWAAAAAA—!

At last, just as the rushing tentacles were about to touch the Apostle’s hand—

The Apostle’s fingertips cut through the air and calmly began drawing one large circle.

It was a strange trajectory that guided the torrent according to the principles of nature instead of forcibly resisting it, like a tiny pebble gently parting the flow of a violently pouring waterfall.

SLIIIIDE—

Amazingly, the tentacles that had been rushing in at a terrifying speed as though they would tear the Apostle apart at any moment could not escape the path of that golden circle, drawn so slowly, and were being sucked into it like a whirlpool.

It was an unreal sight, as though mindless violence had lost its way and wandered before an absolute principle polished with care over a long period of time.

The slow-moving fingertips completed a perfect circle…

And the moment the Apostle lightly turned his palm over—

The time that had seemed to stop exploded back into motion.

KWAAAAAA—!

The destructive force that should have swallowed the Apostle’s body twisted off its course and scattered in every direction.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOOOM!!

The tentacles whose trajectories had been diverted slammed into the ground, sinking the earth around the fortress dozens of meters deep.

“Whew.”

Dust rose behind the Apostle’s back as he caught his breath.

‘What… is this?’

One slow, gentle gesture of a human hand.

Yet the result created by that seemingly ordinary trajectory was anything but light.

Faced with that terrible absurdity, Lee A-un could only stare with his mouth hanging open.

The Apostle lightly dusted off his hands, steadied his breathing, and aimed his sword at the whale as if wary of it.

At that moment—

CRACKLE! CRACKLE!

Golden sparks began bursting noisily from the whale’s entire body.

When the curtain hiding the Outer God so its true body would not be revealed was torn away, part of it was exposed along the path Star Severance had swept through.

It had the form of an alien mass of flesh, shapeless darkness writhing grotesquely as if alive and breathing.

【 —Grrk, grr— 】

The whale, panting as if catching its breath or suffering in pain, began melting into the air and disappearing.

However, the Apostle had no time to leisurely watch the whale vanish.

That was because Yeriche and Han Seol-ah, caught at the edge of his vision, looked so惨 that their breathing seemed about to stop at any moment.

His usual cold composure nowhere to be seen, the Apostle hurriedly moved and dragged the two collapsed women together into one place.

Then he took out the Highest-grade Potions from his bag and splashed them over both of them.

But the two did not move even a little.

There was none of the unique glow of Highest-grade Potions, nor the pleasant smoke that rose when flesh recovered.

They simply lay limp on the ground with ash-gray faces.

Lee A-un had seen such a case before.

…When a Potion had been poured over a corpse.

“Brother…”

Seeing the two of them gone cold and stiff, Lee A-un, shocked, shed tears and called out pitifully.

“It is all right.”

The Apostle’s tightly closed lips opened.

His face had sunk coldly, but his voice carried a firm certainty that this was not yet the end.

The Apostle pulled something out from his chest.

It was a laptop.

***

It had been right before the defense began that I used the Possession Ticket on Cheol-su.

After the possession ended, the incident called the Unlimited Wave had stabbed me in the back two hours later, so I had not been able to immediately confirm the results of this Possession Ticket.

I opened Nopi and accessed the Corridor of Constellations.

In the blink of an eye as I closed and opened my eyes, I felt my consciousness shift to the Corridor of Constellations.

[Welcome to the “Corridor of Constellations,” Savior.]

‘…It connects properly.’

[Corridor of Constellations] (15/99)

I immediately checked the number of Jobs unlocked in the corridor.

The number of unlocked Jobs, which had previously been eight, had increased to fifteen.

[Synchronization Ability - Saint/Fallen Angel (EX) confirmed.]

[A talent corresponding to the “pinnacle” of Branch 10 - Divinity/Fall!]

[From now on, all Jobs in “Branch 10” can be used through “Skill: Synchronization (EX).”]

It had properly been judged as EX-rank.

‘This worked out well.’

One of the new powers Kim Cheol-su had gained.

The power of “Inversion” bestowed by Firmament was a powerful force worthy of being classified as EX-rank.

‘I did not try to corrupt him for nothing.’

My original plan had been to discard his B-rank divinity and evolve him into EX-rank fallen divinity.

However, many things changed midway when the Earth’s divinity, the “Host of the Nameless,” descended.

In a good direction.

The Host had shaved away its own power and bestowed a generous blessing upon Kim Cheol-su…!

A blessing so powerful that even Lost Honor judged it to be EX-rank!

[Saint/Demon]

[Achievement Reached: EX-rank]

[Possessed an EX-rank High Priest-type Hunter.] (Achieved)

[Possessed an EX-rank Blessed Priest-type Hunter.] (Achieved)

(…)

[Possessed an EX-rank Fallen Priest-type Hunter.] (Achieved)

Thanks to that, I had gained the benefit of mastering all of Branch 10 at EX-rank like this.

Anyway.

The situation was urgent.

I touched “Saint.”

[Saint: Synchronize?]

Of course, yes.

The moment I exited the Corridor of Constellations and opened my eyes…

Instead of Frost Type Mana, EX-rank Divine Power filled my entire body without a gap.

But I had no time to marvel at it.

Saving the two people in front of me came first.

I raised the overflowing Divine Power and cast the holy spell most suitable for this situation.

The “Pinnacle of Light - Saint,” unlocked by mastering the three Jobs of light.

An ultimate skill.

“Kyrie Eleison.”

Aaaah—!

Divine Power surged fiercely toward the sky in the shape of a cross.

A grand and sacred song that shook the soul, reminiscent of a choir of angels, filled the battlefield.

The Divine Power that reached the sky drew a hemisphere, and the inside began filling completely with the warm light of salvation.

Aaaah—!

Brilliant clusters of light poured down and miraculously wrapped around the wounded.

That abundant Divine Power faithfully seeped not only into Han Seol-ah and Yeriche, whose bodies had been growing cold, but also into Lee A-un, who was sitting blankly, and even deep into my own body, which had been damaged to the limit.

‘Hoo.’

What I used to block the transparent whale’s tentacles was something like Tai Chi from martial arts novels.

It was not exactly the same, but it was a defensive technique I created after trying to imitate the martial art in my head as closely as possible.

The principle of smoothly redirecting great force with very little strength.

Only after injecting Internal Energy into that Tai Chi to the extreme did I manage to redirect the Outer God’s attack.

Of course, the price was not small.

In the process, I had suffered Internal Injuries so severe that I thought I might really die.

I felt as though I would cough up blood and faint at any moment, but after barely enduring it, I activated this ultimate skill.

Warm Divine Power seeped in, appropriately piecing together my shattered internal organs.

The terrible pain that had been strangling my breath disappeared like melting snow, and finally an open breath filled my lungs.

Then Han Seol-ah and Yeriche also coughed violently, cough, cough, as though their blocked airways had opened, and they gasped roughly for breath.

At the same time, with a hiss, the effects of the Potions, which had not reacted because the bodies had been dead, belatedly began doing their part by healing their wounds.

‘We have crossed the crisis.’

A move I had saved for a critical moment.

My “healer class change.”

Because none of the Jobs in Branch 10 focused on offense, it was difficult to choose it readily in the outside world, but inside the Tower, I had more than enough offensive power.

My lacking offense would be covered with Internal Energy.

Support would be handled by Branch 10.

It was a perfect balance of offense and defense.

However—

‘…I did not account for a variable like the transparent whale.’

I had prepared countermeasures in case the Defense Team collapsed, but to be honest, I had not seen through an absurd situation like the descent of an Outer God.

‘If I had predicted this would happen, I would basically be a god. Seriously.’

Other than that…

Things had flowed according to my expectations.

Anyway, as long as the result was good, that was enough.

Now, the only thing left was…

Cheol-su.

The key was whether the bastard who jumped inside had properly ruined the 94th Floor’s damn “scapegoat gimmick.”

RUMBLE—!

At that moment, the entire 94th Floor of the Tower began to shake violently, as if a massive earthquake had struck.

BEEEEEP!

At the same time, along with the System’s mechanical sound tearing at my eardrums—

[System Logic Conflict Occurred.]

[A contradiction in the 94th Floor’s clear conditions has been detected.]

The golden message I had seen during the Resonar Subjugation Battle appeared before my eyes.

‘It worked.’

The strategy I had designed.

This was proof that it had worked properly.

‘…It took effect!’

CREEEAK—!

Like a clock whose mainspring had snapped, the world stopped.