Chapter 47

Chapter 47. Authority Theft

The range of the number was the vessel.

Filling it was a matter of my own discretion, he'd said.

In other words, it represented my potential and the magnitude of Authority I could currently absorb.

For example, suppose the ceiling of my talent was 100.

But if the magnitude of Authority I could actually handle right now was only 10?

Then the die result would land around 10.

That was the structure.

And that was why Heimdal had been at ease.

Why he could look down at me with that benevolent smile.

No matter what miraculous feats I'd accomplished.

No matter that I was a monster who'd rocketed to Floor 55 in record time.

I was still just a Lesser god.

Between him—a Supreme Tier deity—and me, there existed a fundamental difference in caliber.

From his perspective, my vessel was 50 at most.

He'd figured that handing over just that much would already be more than a Lesser god's body could bear.

Of course he hadn't expected much.

But.

The number that appeared was different.

[10,000]

"......"

My breath caught.

Ten thousand.

I'd never seen a figure like this before.

When I'd rolled the Pandora Cube, the number had been 1,001.

Even that had been called a miracle—a breach of the System's limits.

And now it started at ten thousand?

But the shock didn't end there.

Clatter!

The stopped die began to spin again.

Whirling frantically.

The number ballooned.

It shot past the tens of thousands and, in an instant, hit the System's display ceiling.

Click.

[99,999]

"......!"

One short of a hundred thousand.

That extreme number was etched into the air.

That was when.

Ding!

A blaring alarm struck my ears.

Red messages flooded my vision.

[Warning! System display limit exceeded.]
[No higher value exists.]
[Measurement impossible.]
[Recalibrating result.]

FLASH!

Light erupted.

The number 99,999 floating in the air warped.

As though the System itself had glitched, the pixels fractured—then reverted to the bizarre form I'd first seen.

[???]

Question marks.

Meaning there was no ceiling.

Meaning the abyss was immeasurable.

The vessel of my soul.

This off-the-charts body that housed the Absolute God, Force Majeure.

It began swallowing Heimdal's divine might whole.

"Grgh......!"

Heimdal's body lurched violently, his hand still pressed to my forehead.

A strangled groan escaped his lips.

It was being drained.

This was nothing like a master pouring a cup of water for his disciple.

A dam had burst.

The fundamental core of Heimdal's power—the root of that colossal typhoon—was cascading into me like a waterfall.

HUMMMMMM!

The golden rune etched on my right hand vibrated wildly.

The instinct of Predation.

The moment the Apostle God contract opened a legitimate channel, the monster inside me was ravenously tearing into Heimdal's power.

Ding!

[Perfectly absorbing the divine might of the Ruler of All Things, Heimdal.]
[The Apostle God contract is forged in a transcendent form.]
[Heimdal's Divinity is fully comprehended.]
[Heimdal's supreme Authority is inherited.]

Messages poured in.

And the final line.

Text that made me doubt my own eyes.

[Authority inherited: 'Creeping Chaos'!]

Creeping Chaos?

'What is this?'

A name I'd never heard before.

Typhoon and chaos.

Were the two words intimately connected?

Or did it mean that what remained at the end of an all-consuming storm was chaos itself?

There was no description.

I had no clue how to use it.

Normally, the moment you acquired an Authority, understanding came instinctively.

You could at least guess from the name what kind of function it served.

That had been the case with Hellfire, and with the Gale of Annihilation.

But this was different.

Its form, its nature, its method of activation—none of it was legible.

It was like staring into the depths of an abyss and meeting the gaze of something enormous.

There seemed to be separate conditions for using it.

It wasn't something I could wield just because I had it.

When I tried to channel mana into it, there was no response—like pushing against a door that refused to open.

A specific situation, or a specific catalyst, seemed to be required.

And yet.

They called it the 'supreme Authority.'

The foremost power among all the cards held by the one called the Ruler of All Things.

I turned the System window's final word over in my mind.

'Inheritance.'

Inheritance.

Something passed down.

Something taken over.

In other words, I had claimed it as entirely my own.

'That's strange.'

The Apostle God contract wasn't supposed to work this way.

It was closer to 'sharing.'

A superior god opened a pathway, granting the apostle access to their Authority.

Like turning a faucet and sharing the water.

But inheritance?

This wasn't a faucet. I'd ripped out the entire water source.

Not sharing. Seizure.

The golden rune dwelling in my soul—the Absolute God's instinct of Predation—had chewed up and swallowed the essence of Heimdal.

I slowly raised my head.

I looked at Heimdal.

"......"

His expression was priceless.

His composure was visibly shattered.

No—shattered was too mild. He was stupefied.

The eternally composed, eternally arrogant Supreme Tier god.

The Ruler of All Things who had gazed down on everything from his summit.

That flawless mask had been blown to pieces.

His eyes wavered, directionless.

His lips hung half-open, frozen.

The hand that had been touching my forehead spasmed faintly in the air.

Because he'd encountered a variable he never anticipated.

The core seated at the deepest reach of his soul.

He must have felt the horrifying loss of his absolute Authority being wrenched away in its entirety.

He'd expected me to scoop up a puddle's worth of water. Instead, I'd evaporated the entire ocean.

'Serves you right.'

I celebrated silently.

But outwardly, I scrubbed every trace of emotion from my face.

I put on the mask.

The face of the most devoted, most reverent apostle.

Slowly.

I bowed my head deep once more.

Bending my waist until it nearly touched the ground, I spoke in a loud, clear voice.

"I am overcome with gratitude."

A ringing voice that filled the golden temple of Floor 55.

"That you would bestow such undeserved grace upon me."

I swore my oath to Heimdal.

"O great Ruler of All Things. I, Rag, solemnly vow to give my utmost as your Apostle God."

"......"

"My lord's glory is my glory. I will devote this body to exalting my lord's name across all of Asgard!"

A flawless oath of loyalty.

A tearjerker of a pledge from any angle.

Silence hung in the air.

Heimdal was at a loss for words.

His gaze as he looked down at me was tangled with a knot of emotions.

Anger.

Bewilderment.

Disbelief.

And futility.

He must have wanted to seize me by the collar on the spot.

To roar: what the hell did you just do? Spit my Authority out this instant.

The urge to unleash his killing intent and shred me with a typhoon must have surged to the tip of his chin.

But.

He couldn't bring himself to say a word.

Why?

'Because this all happened through the Apostle God contract.'

He had made the offer first.

He had personally extended his divine might.

Hadn't he even said this to me?

—A number will appear according to your vessel.
—Whether you fill that vessel to its limit is entirely up to you.
—Don't be disappointed if the number is small.

Everything had occurred strictly under his permission.

I hadn't taken it by force.

I'd walked through the door he opened and filled my vessel to its capacity—'legally.'

And now he was going to throw a fit?

Demand I give it back because I took too much?

That would be grinding a Supreme Tier god's dignity into the dirt.

It would be admitting that his own vessel was shallower than a Lesser god's potential.

If Skadi and the rest learned of it, he'd be a laughingstock for a thousand years.

"......"

The muscles of Heimdal's jaw twitched.

He clenched his teeth.

Pride.

That damnable divine arrogance had sealed his mouth shut.

Head still bowed, I twisted my lips into a soundless grin.

'That's right. Swallow it.'

Even if it rots you from the inside, you have to swallow it.

He was the Apostle God you chose.

The vessel you permitted.

I had gained the most perfect shield, and he had taken the most lethal poison into his body.

A silence both brief and eternal.

At last, Heimdal forced the corners of his mouth upward.

"......Your vessel is far larger than I imagined."

A voice that sounded wrung dry.

Every trace of his usual hearty bravado had vanished.

"I look forward to what comes next."

A compliment.

But one so bone-dry it could have been carved from ice.

Heimdal spun on his heel.

WHOOOOSH!

Wind rose.

But it was nothing like the overwhelming typhoon of his arrival.

Stiff and hurried, as though fleeing.

He escaped Floor 55 like a man being chased.

The divine might that had hung in the air dissipated completely.

Only then did I straighten my bent knee.

I raised my head.

"Phew."

A small sigh, but a deep smile spread across my face.

***

The dimensional crevice.

The path back to the Garden of the Gods.

Heimdal's steps were leaden.

"......"

His face was terrifyingly rigid.

Something that shouldn't have been possible had occurred.

It was just an Apostle God contract.

A ritual where a superior god lent a portion of their power to an inferior one.

That was all it should have been.

No matter that it was a first in all of the Tower's history.

How could a mere Lesser god take the Authority in its entirety?

'Inheritance? Inheritance, it said?'

And 'inheritance' of all things.

Inheritance was supposed to occur only with the original owner's full and willing consent.

A law that required the clear intent to pass something on.

But the sensation just now had been different.

It had been forcible.

As though.

'......As though I'd been devoured.'

As though swallowed by a colossal maw.

The horrifying sensation of his soul's bedrock being torn away.

He couldn't bring himself to say anything in front of the boy. Not with his dignity at stake.

He'd spoken his own words; he couldn't take them back.

But this had clearly been no ordinary occurrence.

And the identity of the Authority that had been seized.

'Creeping Chaos.'

It was, without question, his supreme Authority.

But its nature was something else entirely.

A power on a wholly different trajectory from the typhoon that was the pinnacle of the Natural Lineage.

'How did he take that?'

Something inherited from the Mother of All Chaos.

That.

That Authority was.......

......An Authority that even Heimdal himself had not yet fully unleashed—one he had kept dormant, submerged in the abyss.