novelraw Chapter 285
Chapter 285
Chapter 285
To the god who had his form exploited by humans while sleeping,
His one and only believer poured out proof of unstinting devotion.
The god who received his believer's life reclaimed his old vessel in return for the offering.
Though the vessel was damaged and incomplete,
His believer had been sacrificed,
And all around, ignorant lives were scattered, screaming something noisily.
It was a moment more than suitable for the god's wrath to descend.
Pale flames struck the empty snow field like a pack of predators.
The birch trees and the humans standing among them were all engulfed in flames, screaming in terror and fear."What, what is this, what!"
"Save me, it burns, it burns!"
"Everyone get a grip!"
The weapons that had fallen to the ground froze. Bodies that had been curling up from the extremities due to the terrible cold froze solid.
Some fled, some held their ground, but their end was equal.
The hot blood racing through their veins turned lukewarm, and their heartbeats slowed. Their frost-covered brains and eyes that seemed ready to burst rolled frantically.
A voice was heard.
From the flames that engulfed them, every single snowflake crystal on this earth was whispering.
[My believer.]
[Only your sole god shall bear the price,]
[In the end, this body shall repay,]
[This body shall take your place.]
The screams and shouts from frozen vocal cords gurgled and stopped all at once.
They had not died or collapsed.
The flames rather subsided, and they stood perfectly fine on their two feet.
But that didn't mean they were fine inside as well.
Like sculptures carefully carved by an artist with wicked taste, everyone was twisted, bent, and distorted, frozen in place.
Living taxidermy. Frozen statues.
In this moment of silence, the sound of footsteps could be heard passing among the bizarrely frozen humans.
The footsteps stopped in front of the excavated god's hiding place and grave.
Inside the miserably broken coffin was a body drained of life.
The red hair was tangled and disheveled, and the clothes were dirty with blood and soil in places.
But it was the same appearance that hadn't grown in thousands of years.
And the person embracing him.
The person who, knowing it was already useless, pressed down on the gaping throat wound while unable to stop the blood flowing out, not knowing what to do but just holding him.
The large red eyes beneath the pulled-back hood were locked in shock.
"Ah, ah."
A human who couldn't speak properly and only intermittently spat out scraping sounds from within.
Between his trembling fingers, the believer's blood gushed and poured.
[Human.]
The red eyes looked up.
A white man was looking down at him.
On his chest, hideously gouged flesh hung raggedly.
Yet the white man asked without concern.
[Did my believer die in the end?]
"......"
Seeing the silence continue, he was certainly dead.
He had poured out enough magical power to make him go berserk instantly, so it would be more surprising if he hadn't died.
But what was important now wasn't the believer's survival.
It was the existence of that thing holding the believer.
In all the timelines he had experienced so far, it had been hostile to his believer,
The waste of an alien race that had been in conflict with his believer until 10,000 years ago.
Why was that thing here?
The white man gauged the influence that thing might have on his believer and himself, but it was still an unknown quantity.
But it was already done. A story already in progress.
The white man spoke to him.
[You shall stay with my believer. My believer is not far from life. You shall do what my believer tried to do. He kept you by his side for this purpose.]
"Me..."
[If you are afraid, leave him and go. Return to where you were for your peace and rest.]
"......"
[If you do not go now, there will be no second chance.]
The white man crouched down, rested his chin on his hand, and smiled.
[This great body is very angry, you see.]
* * *
The first to observe the gray fire were the mages at the Mage Tower.
They could clearly see an unprecedented flame illuminating the dark sky from the direction of the birch forest owned by the Mage Tower.
Those who had not learned of gods knew nothing about what that fire meant,
And therefore could seek momentary peace relying on ignorance.
But that too was brief.
The windows made ominous sounds in the fierce north wind. The metal window frames holding the glass creaked and emitted strained noise.
"The weather doesn't look good today."
"What about the damaged records archive?"
"We should at least block the wind from coming in..."
The mages approached the windows to close the inner shutters, worried about the bad weather.
Beyond the rattling windows, everything was completely hazy and invisible.
A mage who was inwardly thinking that such a sight was really something you might see once in ten years suddenly stopped his gaze somewhere.
White frost was seeping through the gaps of the tightly closed window.
How cold must it be outside for frost to spread indoors like this?
One mage touched the frost slightly out of curiosity.
But that was the source of trouble.
When he felt a slightly cold sensation at his fingertips,
"Wh-why is this happening? Why is this happening?!"
The white frost devoured the man's entire arm as if multiplying.
The mage tried to shake off the frost by swinging his arm,
But feeling extreme pain in his arm that had become heavy as if ice had formed, he fell into confusion and began wildly swinging his arm.
"What? Why are you suddenly acting like that?"
"My arm, my arm! My arm!"
"Arm? Why is that- Aaaaah!"
The sound of another mage's nasal bone breaking as he was hit by the solidly hardened arm and fell.
The mage who had fainted and fallen while bleeding from his nose, and the mage still terrified and rampaging like a mad chicken.
And with other mages around trying to calm him down, the corridor became chaos.
The mage whose shoulder and part of his upper body had been devoured by ice tore at his robe with one hand and wailed.
-Crack!
"Cold, it's cold, but hot, it's hot!"
"Calm down! Everyone stand back, I'll try to knock him out somehow-"
"Hot! It's burning, I feel like I'm melting! I'm melting, melting!"
He who shouted this was actually sweating profusely all over his body.
Before others could even finish chanting spells to stop his actions,
He looked around frantically and then recklessly threw himself at the window.
With the sound of glass shattering into pieces, his body tumbled outside.
A faint "aaaaah" sound was heard from beyond the snowstorm. At the same time, a blizzard poured violently into the room.
The mages could say nothing about the absurd and bizarre suicide that had just occurred before their eyes.
Why had someone who had been perfectly fine just moments before suddenly changed like that?
But that was no longer a problem.
When the cold of the north wind and snowflakes flowing in through the broken window stuck to the faces, backs of hands, legs, and clothes of nearby mages,
Dozens of screams dyed with extreme terror began to be heard from the Mage Tower.
It wasn't just the Mage Tower.
A blizzard of unprecedented scale struck Asgard's royal capital.
This too sudden disaster struck equally whether civilian or soldier, commoner or noble.
If hit by snow and frost, ice would stick all over the body, driving them mad until they died,
And even if they fled indoors, the cold that seemed to extinguish fires invaded, making it impossible to live.
Neither magic that preserved warmth nor fur that wrapped the entire body was of any use.
There was no time to prepare any countermeasures or preparations.
This storm was truly a natural disaster.
A catastrophe that humans could only helplessly perish before.
The storm that came as if to eliminate all humans existing in Asgard, with no one knowing where it started or why it occurred.
The King was greatly angry and lamented.
He lamented that Asgard's national fortune had run out, and was angry that he had been humiliated by a mere foreigner trying to prevent this destruction, yet even that was useless.
Was this how it would end?
Without even grasping the chance to inherit ancient Acheron's glory, would the powerful foundation built by the previous king crumble completely in this generation?
But just then,
Someone came to the royal castle where even the gatekeepers had gone mad and fled.
He who came through the snowstorm was dressed as the escort knight who had accompanied the guest from Aquilonia,
But now that he had removed his deeply pulled hood, he was not an ordinary escort knight.
Platinum hair fluttered gently as if touched by a gentle breeze.
He came carrying in his arms a person stained with blood and dirtied with soil,
Having pushed through the blizzard that no one else could cross.
Gladheim's hall,
The place that all who set foot in the royal castle passed through once, where the King and courtiers in the castle personally walked.
King Oderus of Asgard, with wide eyes, approached and shouted.
"You bastard, a mere escort of an Aquilonian foreigner, coming here on your own feet!"
"I regret that this has become an unofficial meeting."
The stiff and monotonous tone contained minimal courtesy.
Perhaps because he inherited Aquilonian royal blood, it was strangely familiar,
Yet the strange red eyes seemed like something he had seen somewhere before.
King Oderus looked at him dressed as an 'escort knight,' then recalled the recently acquired Aquilonian royal portrait and muttered.
"Not an escort... When did this start?"
"That doesn't seem to be what's important now. Isn't finding the cause of this blizzard a more urgent matter?"
"The 'solution' sent from Aquilonia was precisely that 'problem,' so there's nothing to solve. When the Mage Tower mages return, they'll solve this problem. How exactly will Aquilonia compensate for Asgard's damages!"
The King shouted angrily.
But the 'escort knight' answered without even an eyelid trembling before him.
"If you're waiting for the Mage Tower mages, I'd like to tell you to give up. They have all met different fates."
"What?"
"They touched what shouldn't be touched, and this blizzard is the result. The mages merely paid the price for their foolish actions."
King Oderus's expression became increasingly grim.
The sight of him gradually reddening with anger and veins bulging on his forehead was proof that he absolutely couldn't believe the 'escort knight's' words.
The King suppressed his surging emotions and asked,
"So Aquilonia has no relation to this? There are no witnesses or evidence here. How can I believe those words?"
"That would be so. Even if you wanted to search the Mage Tower, this blizzard must stop first for knights and soldiers to move. Then how about this?"
The red eyes swept across the King's face.
There was no mockery or curiosity in them.
A dryness that seemed ready to wither at any moment. Disillusionment. Slight contempt.
And deep shock and pain. But why?
Aquilonia's 3rd Prince, who held the solver sent from his own country like a precious treasure that couldn't be given to anyone, continued.
"I'll make it so you can search the Mage Tower by tomorrow. If there's even one bit of Aquilonia's responsibility in this matter, then I'll remain in Asgard."