Chapter 45

Chapter 45. Awakening (2)

"A—men."

The Grand Canyon.

A place now known as the Church.

Jesus recited a prayer in a reverent pose, gazing at the cross.

Even the living monotheistic god Jesus sometimes had moments where he wanted to lean on someone.

Zhing——.

He prayed and deliberated.

And all the while, he further strengthened his Authority.

Jesus's Authority — which suppressed Gates, healed disabilities and injuries, and bolstered the vitality of the living.

He intended to add a few functions to the Authority that sheltered the great America.

"I, Jesus Christ, decree."

If there were those upon this land who worshipped evil.

He would brand their foreheads with the mark of heaven so that all the world could recognize them.

"I, Jesus Christ, decree."

If the knights of the Holy War — the Hunters — who lived upon American soil harbored the power of 'the Fall.'

He would strip them of their power.

He would cast them into hell to suffer for eternity.

"Shin Si-woo, what exactly did you show me?"

The world Jesus had known had changed completely from before.

Each country's people staying within their own borders, building up Hunter-power, raiding Gates, obtaining Mysteries and purifying the land — that had been the world Jesus had known.

But now, beings called demon worshippers had been exposed in this world.

Even an F-rank Hunter, upon Falling, would be forced to manifest power in reality…

And even that had been only a tiny precursor.

'The Dark God's vessel, the Black Gate, and—'

Matters concerning other nations.

The 'my-nation-first' doctrine born of the Gate crisis.

Put into words, it might sound cold-hearted, but America genuinely had no margin to spare.

Even with Jesus present.

'Canada.'

The Necromancer's catastrophe that had begun in Canada.

It started with a land of undead that appeared out of nowhere.

Suddenly, the dead rose and the ground was defiled.

Yet no Gate had formed.

They had corroded Canada, expanding their territory of darkness — and then, one day, they reached a critical threshold.

And then…

'The Gate overlaid itself directly onto reality.'

A portion of Canada had transformed into the [Necropolis].

The land of the dead. The sanctuary of undead.

A breeding of death where the dead dragged the living away, and a terrible world where the living would suffer for eons.

Jesus had erased all of it.

In the aftermath, he'd restored the ruined territory and mended the frayed minds of the citizens.

'Now it's New York.'

Had it been before meeting Shin Si-woo, Jesus might not have clearly identified the cause of these phenomena.

A Gate-less Bizarre was, in fact, a precursor to a Black Gate.

Even without him, someone might have discovered it after observing for several years, but…

'Half of humanity would have been gone.'

Jesus was certain.

If enough time had passed for this to be statistically confirmed and proven, Earth would have already been past the point of no return.

In that context, Jesus turned his attention to the anomaly occurring in 'New York.'

"To think a foothold for demon worshippers has formed in America…"

But he couldn't act recklessly.

Pitiful lambs who, through no will of their own, had come to harbor [evil] because of others.

Beings that even Jesus had not yet defined how to deal with.

Jesus's lips parted.

"I, Jesus Christ…"

He would shelter them.

The words would not leave his mouth.

Because he doubted whether sheltering them was the right thing.

"……"

Jesus fell silent.

Atop his black pupils, a golden cross rose.

His eyes began to chase the future, the past — or perhaps traces of another world.

Awakening and the Fall.

Gates and reality.

Something contaminating the Earth.

He was a god.

And yet, he was momentarily at a loss for words.

'Humanity…'

It was only an instant, yet felt like eternity — in that moment, Jesus deliberated endlessly.

He had continuously maintained the 'Transcended state' — the distant sense of time that Shin Si-woo felt when he took up the sword.

And still he could not reach a conclusion.

'…Where must we head?'

His greatest concern was about Awakening itself.

* * *

What is the world?

An arrogant yet grandiose question.

One anyone could answer easily, yet one where giving a truly proper answer was difficult.

But every one of my swords could give a clear answer to this question.

Without a shred of hesitation.

"The world is none other than Our banquet hall—."

Iris had swallowed the world whole.

"A life where everything must be forsaken for the sake of blind salvation."

Yuria had cast aside herself and saved the world.

"A journey of discarding the trivial and pressing toward the sword's end."

For Reinhardt, the world had been a journey for the sake of cultivation.

As such, the worlds my swords defined were somewhat simple and self-serving.

Yet because the swords had seen their convictions through, those definitions had become truth.

'I still don't know.'

Embarrassing as it was, I — Shin Si-woo, the master of such Transcendent beings — still could not give a clear answer about this world.

⦗A world ruled by iron and the hammer.⦘

Even though Muratan, held in my hand, was defining the world this vividly.

CLAAANG———!!!

I brought the blade down like a hammer, striking the enormous tree before me.

With the hammer's movement, the world responded, and the space called [the Void] began to warp grotesquely.

A tree too vast for human eyes to contain.

But thanks to becoming one with a Transcendent sword, I could clearly perceive the remnants of the World Tree.

[The Corrupted World Tree's ■■.]

The fate of the World Tree, witnessed countless times in the endlessly repeating world of [Raise a Sword].

A symbol of great nature — corrupted, degraded, defiled.

The mother of terrible monsters that brought indiscriminate death.

And…

'A man-made disaster.'

A corrupted World Tree was a calamity artificially caused by people.

The World Tree was nature itself.

That was why it had always been arrogant, aloof, and had rejected all humans under the guise of protecting nature, deeming itself transient.

Such a being could never corrupt itself.

Someone had defiled and tainted it into corruption.

CLAAANG————!!!

With each swing of the sword, the unfathomably vast tree shook without pause.

From within, things that had once been human bodies began to fly out one by one.

This was by no means swordsmanship.

No techniques or skills existed in Muratan's sword.

'Obsession.'

A desire to filter out impurities and attain purer iron.

Proof to the world that Muratan himself was the smith who held the sword.

And Muratan was a being already proven by his very existence.

Kururureung——.

With a thunderous noise, the black tree's outer bark began to crumble.

The traces of what had once been human — corresponding to the bark — all scattered, and the World Tree's inner flesh was exposed.

Inner flesh turned dark-crimson from corruption.

Red lines and blue lines running ceaselessly through the interior, supplying something to the World Tree.

And their true nature far exceeded my expectations.

'They converge into one?'

I discovered that every blue line — carrying the force of life — originated from a single man.

The man who had been muttering to himself from the very beginning and still was.

He looked like a very old man, and yet his outward appearance seemed vaguely familiar.

"…If rescue… has come… from outside…"

He was still muttering alone.

Separated from the World Tree.

Cradling the countless blue veins connected to his body.

I listened closely.

"…A massive… rectangular… struc… ture…"

Slowly, but clearly.

He was reciting what he wished to convey.

"…Please… find it…"

Find a massive structure and save the people inside.

But here was the thing.

Aside from me and this man, there was nothing here but the dead.

Just as I tilted my head in puzzlement.

Muratan spoke.

⦗Ohh—! A contractor of the Dark God who has swallowed a full 170,000 lives.⦘

He was saying that 170,000 people were alive inside that man's body.

⦗A truly bizarre human.⦘

And that wasn't even the end of it.

There was more.

* * *

CLAAANG———!!!

CLAAANG———!!!

CLAAANG———!!!

Dismantling the World Tree had taken '3 seconds.'

Splitting the Transcendent perception over and over — dozens of hammer-strikes.

Pulverizing the tree itself would have taken 1 second — just one or two blows — but the work of filtering out the people attached to the tree had demanded far more effort.

If those were truly dead citizens, the least I could do was recover the bodies.

'It's not a real World Tree.'

After separating every last former-human from the massive trunk, what remained was a single sapling, shriveled pitch-black.

[Fragment of the Corrupted World Tree.]

A mere fragment.

Slightly taller than me — that was all.

Every human form separated from the World Tree was, save for a single man, the body of the dead.

Already deceased, in other words.

But…

⦗So what will you do now, Sword Master?⦘

At Muratan's question, I looked at the man before me.

Jeolla-do publicity officer Jeolla-Man.

His name was Kim Jun — the only person who had been reporting this Bizarre phenomenon to the outside.

His form was hard to recognize, but his muttering had let me identify him.

He was still muttering to himself with unfocused pupils.

"S-still… survivors…"

That was what made me waver.

'What on earth happened here?'

This was an anomaly that couldn't be explained by a single corrupted World Tree alone.

His skin, darkening by the minute, was clear proof that he was a 'contractor of the Dark God.'

Yes — a contractor.

A being on an entirely different level from the rabble who merely worshipped.

'A transaction conducted between equals.'

Acquiring the qualifications to form a contract meant the demon had treated him as roughly equal.

Then why?

⦗They are intermingled.⦘

The answer came from Muratan.

I too possessed a craftsman's discernment while in this Transcended state, yet I simply could not adapt to handling this kind of 'sight.'

Muratan's eyes allowed one to perceive the world in layers, probing extraordinarily deep.

Dazzlingly vivid yet deep and dark.

A field of vision where all of that coexisted was difficult to fathom even with a Transcended body.

⦗This Earth's peculiar power and the mark of a Dark-God contract are intertwined.⦘

Demon worshippers worshipped the Dark God and offered something up.

An Awakened becoming a demon worshipper was also accomplished through 'offerings.'

But a [contractor] — even a non-Awakened could become one.

'There were cases where a king of a nation offered his own citizens as the price of a contract.'

In [Raise a Sword], there had even been a king with meager military power who had offered his subjects as the price of contract to obtain tremendous might.

Which meant the Kim Jun before me had also struck some kind of deal, using the 170,000 citizens inside his body as the price.

⦗You always demanded decisiveness of me, and now you're the one overthinking, Sword Master.⦘

Another second had passed — that made it to here.

Muratan's manifestation time was [5/100] — 5 seconds.

By the book, the proper course would be to deal with the Dark God's contractor called 'Kim Jun.'

But the weight of 170,000 remained with me.

I could do it.

"Separation."

Words I would never have asked of my swords.

I spoke them within my world.

Only now did the weight of that word truly press down on me.

⦗Kahaha! Sword Master — the time has passed.⦘

And Muratan, for the remaining time, did nothing at all — simply watched me.

Had he used his power, separating the [mark of the contract] from the man called Kim Jun could have been done in under a second.

Yet he had merely watched.

'Probably…'

It was by no means an attempt to spite me.

The world of [Raise a Sword] had been a barren environment where one could not survive without being decisive.

Failing that, my swords had died.

Back then, the swords had not yet Transcended.

"O sword, it was merely that my power fell short."

The swords knew that well.

But…

I possessed 'Transcended' swords.

I didn't need to make heartbreaking choices born of insufficient power, the way they once had.

And Muratan was a sword who refused to listen to a damned word — even now enduring the [Sword Master's Dominion] to forcibly defy my commands — a lunatic through and through.

"I have a way."

But there was no way he truly didn't understand my will.

His dream — his world — had been made possible by none other than me.

Within my distant perception, Muratan began to fade.

In the fleeting instant approaching the 5-second mark.

Kuguguung—————.

Muratan's fighting spirit struck the earth.

Chik—.

The black sapling was crushed in an instant, vanishing without a trace.

Only then could I properly look at the man before me.

"Survi… vors… please…"

Kim Jun, seen through my own pure eyes — untainted by anything.

His faint voice was plaintive, and what it held was a heartfelt plea.

Please, save us.

'So being a contractor doesn't automatically make you evil.'

Those who revered evil always exceeded our expectations.

Contracting children with the Dark God and using them as proxies, or forcing the creation of demon worshippers by holding families' lives hostage.

'It's the same even now.'

I was certain.

Because in that instant of Transcendence, I had seen a faint ember in Kim Jun's heart.

That ember was terribly faint, yet even so, it was unyieldingly firm.

And so I stepped toward him.

⦗Sword Master, we shall watch your choice from here.⦘

The sword whispered.

I nodded calmly.

I had a way to resolve this.

[Life-and-Death Demon]

A demon born from the power of Guaranteed Life and Guaranteed Kill.

And the Baby Sword, whose traits could cleave time and space.

'If I combine these two…'

I could extract the survivors dwelling inside his body.