Chapter 10

Chapter 10.

The moment the third gate — 'Sanctuary Purification' — began.

The dark elf seed, Darakan, exulted.

"This is my chance."

A bitter smile hung on his lips.

The second gate — the aptitude evaluation.

The one he'd considered his most formidable rival, 'Rag,' had scored zero.

They'd gone on about it being black or whatever, but in the end, Administrator Gugu's verdict was 'Null.'

Meaning a complete absence of any aptitude for wielding disasters.

'Lucky bastard.'

Darakan was convinced.

Hitting the jackpot in the first trial and obtaining the Dragon of Catastrophe had been nothing but dumb luck.

And even that had been a newborn hatchling.

What could a fist-sized lizard possibly accomplish?

He, on the other hand, was different.

"Go! Sweep them all away!"

KRABOOOOM!

At Darakan's roar, a massive shadow engulfed the forest.

His familiar — the 'Abyssal Dragon.'

It wasn't fully grown yet, but the breath blasting from its house-sized frame was overwhelming.

FWOOOOSH!

Dark blue flames devoured the corrupted spirits.

The misty monsters were annihilated without even managing a scream.

"Hahaha! That's what I'm talking about!"

Darakan pumped his fist.

Overwhelming force.

This was the quality befitting a god.

A level of destruction that Rag couldn't begin to imitate.

'I'll take first place in this gate.'

Then he could overturn Rag in the overall score.

He'd ascend as the rightful master of Floor 1.

Dreaming of that sweet future, Darakan charged through the forest.

But.

"......Damn it, why are there so many?"

Less than ten minutes in, Darakan's expression crumbled.

No matter how many he cut down, there was no end.

Clear away one wave of mist and another surged forward.

Each individual spirit was weak.

A single swipe of the Abyssal Dragon's claws burst dozens of them apart.

The problem was the sheer volume.

SKREEEEE!

GRRRRR.......

Eerie wails from every direction.

Dark crimson mist obscuring his vision.

It felt like drowning in a swamp.

The more he thrashed, the deeper he sank.

"Huff, huff......"

Darakan's breath turned ragged.

Even the Abyssal Dragon showed clear signs of fatigue.

The power behind its breath had dropped noticeably.

'This is insane.'

This wasn't a trial.

It was a slaughter.

Being told to 'purify' against tens of thousands — no, potentially hundreds of thousands — of spirits.

It had been an impossible mission from the start.

"Gah! Block them! Don't let them get close!"

Darakan screamed in agitation.

Spirits were charging right up to his face.

The stench of rotting flesh stabbed at his nostrils.

Fear crept in.

'If I'm struggling this much......'

He suddenly wondered how the other seeds were faring.

He had the Abyssal Dragon — a top-tier familiar — and he was in this state.

Then what about the rest?

'They're all dead by now.'

No question about it.

Dead like dogs.

Especially that guy.

'Rag.'

The incompetent with zero disaster aptitude.

His only asset being a fist-sized baby dragon.

He was obviously being ripped apart by spirits at the forest entrance.

Probably couldn't even recover the bones.

"Serves him right."

Darakan took solace in the thought.

He was struggling because the difficulty was insane.

At least he was holding on.

Just surviving would guarantee him a top ranking.

He was still rationalizing when it happened.

FLASH!

The center of the Sanctuary.

From somewhere impossibly far away, a burst of light erupted.

"......?"

He doubted his eyes.

It looked like the sun had risen.

The sky, sickly violet just moments ago, was instantly bleached white.

And then.

KABOOOOOOOOOOM!

The thunderclap hit his eardrums a beat later.

The earth heaved.

Trees were ripped up by their roots.

Darakan threw himself flat on the ground and screamed.

"AAAARGH! What the hell?!"

Had a nuclear bomb gone off?

The shockwave swept through the entire forest.

The spirits that had been clinging so tenaciously were caught in the blast and erased without a trace.

The mist cleared.

The world fell silent.

Darakan raised his head in a daze.

The center of the Sanctuary, shrouded in dust and smoke.

A colossal mushroom cloud was rising from it.

'What...... in the world?'

Before he could even process the situation.

DING!

A system message appeared before his eyes.

[The third gate, 'Sanctuary Purification,' has concluded.]

[The Sanctuary's source of contamination has been completely eliminated.]

[All seeds, cease your actions.]

Concluded?

Already?

Darakan's jaw dropped.

The contamination source had been eliminated.

'By whom? How?'

Had the administrator intervened?

Had they called the trial off because of a difficulty miscalculation?

While he reeled in confusion, another message appeared.

[Calculating gate clearance contributions.]

[Announcing rankings.]

Rankings.

Darakan swallowed hard.

Right — if someone had solved it, there'd be rankings.

He'd taken out quite a few spirits early on with the Abyssal Dragon.

First place was well within reach.

But.

As Darakan scrolled down, his eyes tore open wide.

[1st Place: Rag (Contribution: 99.7%)]

[2nd Place: Darakan (Contribution: 0.15%)]

[3rd Place: Seria (Contribution: 0.1%)]

[......]

"......Huh?"

His breath caught in his throat.

He thought he'd misread the numbers.

99.7%?

He'd done it all by himself?

On top of that, his own contribution in second place was in the decimal range.

A figure worth less than dust.

"Wh-what is this......"

Impossible.

He refused to accept it.

Wasn't his disaster aptitude zero?

Wasn't he an empty shell with no abilities whatsoever?!

A dream.

This was definitely a nightmare.

Darakan rubbed his eyes.

He looked again. And again.

But the numbers floating in the air didn't budge.

99.7%.

SLAP!

He smacked himself hard across the cheek.

A stinging pain surged through him, but the nightmare didn't break.

"How...... is that even possible?"

That colossal mushroom cloud that had obliterated the center of the Sanctuary.

Destructive power that had reshaped the terrain itself.

A single person had caused all of that?

The one whose disaster aptitude was supposedly zero?

"That's impossible! There's no way he has that kind of power!"

Just as Darakan screamed in anguish.

FLAAAAASH!

The sky opened.

The dark clouds parted, and a pillar of holy light, blinding enough to sear the eyes, poured down.

Within that light, someone slowly ascended.

"......An angel?"

Every seed's gaze locked onto the figure in the sky.

Archangel Abriel.

The high-ranking being once called the guardian of the Sanctuary was ascending into the heavens.

Someone was cradled in her arms.

Limbs hanging limp.

A golden-haired man with his head drooped, drained of strength.

It was Rag.

"I-is he dead?"

"No way he survived that explosion."

The seeds murmured.

It certainly looked like he'd died from the explosion's aftermath.

Hope flickered in Darakan's eyes.

Yes — he should be dead.

A monster that absurd shouldn't exist in this world.

But.

[Hear me.]

The angel's voice rang across the entire Sanctuary.

In a tone of absolute solemnity that compelled reverence from all who heard it.

[This one respected my children and passed judgment upon the mad god, whom no other could withstand.]

Abriel cradled Rag's body as if handling a holy relic.

[The most merciful and the most destructive.]

She knelt in midair.

[I, Abriel, from this day forth pledge to serve you as my new god and sole master.]

"......!"

Before the shock could even register.

FWOOOOOOSH!

A blinding radiance erupted from Abriel's body.

Her form dissolved into particles of light and scattered.

Then coalesced into a single shape.

CHIME!

A clear, crystalline note.

Where the light faded, the angel was gone.

In her place.

A holy sword floated beside Rag — one with a nose guard shaped like dazzlingly white wings.

"......Good lord."

Darakan couldn't close his mouth.

As if the Dragon of Catastrophe wasn't enough.

......Even the Sanctuary's archangel had willingly become a weapon and followed Rag.

***

Administrator Gugu pressed his short wings to his forehead.

'......This is a disaster.'

His head pounded.

This hadn't been part of the plan.

No — the entire scenario had been flipped on its head.

The original design intent of the third gate had been clear.

On the surface, 'Sanctuary purification.'

But in truth, it was a 'contract killing.'

The target was Archangel Abriel.

The goal was to release the seal she'd been guarding with her life.

In other words, the liberation of the mad god Tulkachya.

'It's a waste to lose Tulkachya's authority.'

Gugu clicked his tongue.

'Rampaging Volcano.'

This power wasn't simply about spewing hot lava.

It was the power to seize and shake the veins of every volcano.

It could even forcibly subjugate lesser gods with fire and earth attributes — a ruler's authority.

No wonder the tower's gods had been salivating over it.

But there was a problem.

Tulkachya had gone mad, and the one who'd sealed him was the noble Archangel Abriel.

'No justification.'

Gods cared about appearances.

Kill a perfectly fine archangel to free a mad god?

Asgardian public opinion wouldn't tolerate it.

So they'd resorted to trickery.

They'd thrown clueless 'seeds' into the Sanctuary.

When the spirits attacked, the seeds would fight back to survive.

That would naturally pit them against Abriel.

If the seeds killed Abriel for them, the gods could slip in quietly and retrieve Tulkachya. Done.

It had been a perfect plan.

Until that lunatic, Rag, showed up.

'How the hell did he do it?'

Gugu narrowed his eyes and stared at Rag.

He was sprawled out limp, pretending to be unconscious, but his vital signs were perfectly fine.

No — he was actually stronger than before.

Joining hands with Abriel, fine.

Borrowing the power of the holy sword she'd become, fine.

Even so, 'annihilation' should have been impossible.

Gods were beings of near-immortality.

You could destroy the body, but erasing the divinity at its core was a problem of an entirely different order.

And yet Tulkachya had vanished without a trace.

As if someone had chewed him up and swallowed him.

'The higher-ups are going to be furious.'

Gugu sighed.

But what could he do?

The milk was already spilled.

He could only hope 'their' fury landed on Rag and not on him.

Above all.

DING!

The system had produced its results.

An administrator was a slave to the system.

Regardless of personal feelings or political stances, the results had to be announced fairly.

FWIIIIING!

Light flashed as the surviving seeds were summoned.

"Ugh......"

"W-we're alive."

The survivors, Darakan among them.

They were caked in dirt, crawling on the ground.

Chased by spirits to the very brink of death, they'd barely survived thanks to Rag's explosion.

Gugu forced his beak into a smile.

Beam.

A professional smile.

"Right then, everyone — great work out there! The third gate has concluded!"

CLAP, CLAP, CLAP.

He tapped his wings together for applause.

The seeds stared up at Gugu blankly.

They clearly couldn't read the room.

"As promised, the Sanctuary's contamination source has been eliminated. Although the process was...... quite dynamic."

Gugu's gaze lingered on Rag for a moment before sliding away.

"Now, I'll announce the results."

GULP.

The seeds swallowed hard.

A flicker of hope.

Surely surviving alone was worth some points?

But Gugu was merciless.

He pointed at the holographic chart floating in the air.

"The scoring criteria for this gate was 'contribution.'"

Gugu's voice rang out, dry as bone.

"First place, Rag. 300 points."

"......!"

The seeds' jaws hit the floor.

300 points.

200 had been staggering enough — now it was 300.

A figure that defied any guess at what the maximum even was.

"And......"

Gugu scanned the rest of the list.

He barely suppressed a sigh.

"Mister Darakan, 2 points."

"......Excuse me?"

"Miss Seria, 1 point."

"......"

"The rest of you, regrettably, receive zero points."

Silence.

The room went as quiet as if doused in ice water.

Darakan asked in a trembling voice.

"T-two points? I used the Abyssal Dragon to take out thousands of spirits......!"

"Yes, you did."

Gugu cut him off.

"But it contributed absolutely nothing to eliminating the contamination source. If anything, you agitated the spirits and raised the difficulty."

"B-but even so, just one point is too......!"

"It's the system's judgment. If you're dissatisfied, feel free to blow up the entire Sanctuary like Mister Rag."

"......"

Darakan shut his mouth.

There was no rebuttal.

That overwhelming explosion.

And the angel who'd become a holy sword.

The gap was already the difference between heaven and earth.

Gugu spread his wings and made his declaration.

"With this, all proceedings of the Floor 1 promotion exam have concluded."

His eyes glittered.

"The overall first place remains unchanged — Mister Rag. Congratulations. You are the new master of the Tower of God's Floor 1."

Fireworks burst overhead.

But not a single soul cheered.