novelraw Chapter 220 : Chapter 220
Chapter 220 : Chapter 220
Chapter 220: Waterspout (2)
The eye level felt unfamiliar.
If I only had my upper body, this would be the view.
"Are you alright?"
"I don't even feel it."
She was right.
For Ellen, who was born with Innate Strength, swimming with one person on her neck was nothing at all.
Even if that sea was packed with whirlpools.
"The sea?"
"I can manage it."
The dense whirlpools were strong enough, but not to a degree Ellen could not endure.
Power was relative by nature.
'So that is a Manifestation.'
In the distance, a waterspout soaring toward the sky was someone's Manifestation.
'It is vague, though.'
Which came first, the wind or the water?
It was a meaningless debate. As far as I could sense, that thing itself was an Origin. That pillar of water spiraling and surging toward the sky.
Badelots and Seria were confronting that Manifestation.
"You are not cold?"
"I can endure it. How about you, Lady Harad?"
Ellen spoke roughly.
It seemed she was imitating Balbebron.
"Then are you Sir Ellen?"
"......Do not call me that."
"Why?"
"I am not a man."
Ellen seemed reminded of Grand Heir Elaine.
Or perhaps she simply disliked being treated as a man.
"I know, where would one find a man as beautiful as you?"
"........."
Just because I was riding on her neck did not mean I was entirely safe.
Below my knees, I was submerged in the sea.
However, Harad had a body that did not feel the cold.
"Where should I go?"
"I am thinking. What should we do? What do you want to do? Other than killing the anteater."
"Why can't I do that?"
"Would it not be easier to take Seria that way?"
"I don't really care either way."
Ellen was tyrannical.
Harad was reminded of Elaine from her previous life. However, it was probably not the influence of the Dream. Both Elaine and Ellen were originally that sort of person.
They had simply been holding back until now.
"I want to do this."
"If that is what you want, I will endure it."
Then and now, Harad was the exception.
Elaine and Ellen were selfish, but if Harad wanted something, they tried to grant it. That fact was satisfying.
"You want to save the anteater?"
"No. I simply hope you will not kill him. I do not care whether he lives or dies."
Badelots did not matter either way.
"However, I want to kill that Mage."
Harad pointed at the waterspout.
That was a Manifestation. Someone's Origin. In other words, it meant a big shot. There were not many opportunities to kill a big shot from the Otherworld.
"I like that too."
"Because I want it?"
"No. You need to eat the heart, Dear."
Ellen acted like someone feeding another.
"I do not eat it, I absorb it."
"Either way. You need to eat soon, do you not?"
She was not wrong.
The last Predation had been Forbest and the Haunted House.
It was about time for withdrawal symptoms to begin.
Ellen had grasped that cycle.
The addiction was growing worse, and the Origin was demanding increasingly stronger hearts.
If there were no hearts left to eat, I would become like Kubel from my previous life. After that, I would salivate at any human scent.
'It does not seem like that will happen.'
Of course, overconfidence was forbidden.
To borrow Jis's expression, I had to reach 6th Rank before my stomach burst.
"Should we wait and just steal the heart?"
Ellen pointed at the Divine power flashing toward the waterspout.
It seemed she was interested in thievery as well.
"That would be best, but it will probably be difficult."
"Because Badelots will purify the entire Mage?"
"No. Because Badelots will lose."
Ellen tilted her head up.
Her upturned eyes looked exactly like a cat's.
"He is an Inquisitor."
"But not an Apostle."
A 5th Rank Mage was comparable to a Sword Master and to an Apostle of the Church.
That was the level required to match properly.
"Of course, even among Inquisitors, ranks are divided. Among them, some would be Apostle-level."
"What about Badelots?"
"I do not know. I have not experienced it. However, the location is not good. Here, even an Apostle would find it difficult."
Mages depended on their environment.
That was why Kubel always had tobacco with him. Harad too found it easier to manifest Magical power in places where fire existed.
This place was the sea.
The most water-abundant place of all.
This location itself was preparation for the waterspout's Mage.
"Like the Sanctuary of Fire?"
"Something like that. Though that place is more impressive."
The Sanctuary of Fire was preparation bordering on incomprehensible.
Like Embers, the king of the past must have carved something special. That was why it was a Sanctuary.
"Even if he loses, he probably will not die. He is an Inquisitor, and a Genius at that."
Priests did not die easily.
Badelots and Seria would be even more so.
"He will become fragments floating around and regenerate somewhere in the sea."
Whether that could be called a person was another matter.
In any case, Divine power possessed that kind of vagueness.
"I do not like that."
Ellen seemed unwilling for Seria to become fragments.
"Then we must help."
"Yes. I will enter the Shadow."
Ellen was about to join in.
Harad squeezed Ellen's face with his thighs. She flinched slightly.
"......Why?"
Ellen tilted her head up.
Her cheeks pressed against the thighs looked quite adorable.
"The one helping will be me, not you."
"Is that alright?"
"It is."
Because somewhere around here, a Great Devil of fire was hiding.
* * *
A Great Devil of fire.
That Dreamer had set fire to the sailboat.
That fire was not an attack.
It was to divert Badelots's attention. Also to summon the waterspout.
'The sea route is under the jurisdiction of the Deep.'
The Dreamer had called that Manager.
'They must be bitter enemies.'
The Red Tower and the Tower of the Deep did not get along well.
If fire were discovered on the sea route, the Deep would try to extinguish that fire.
Whether it was the boundary or the sea, not finding the corpse would be the same.
'And yet they called them.'
To help the asylum seekers from the suddenly appeared Inquisitor?
There was some logic to it.
However, it was suspicious. Because the situation was far too coincidental.
'I received help, and the other party happened to be a Dreamer.'
Was it a simple coincidence?
Harad shook his head.
A regressor's thought process should not be such a flower garden.
-There will be a fire you want. Take it as you please.
The Voice of the Moon echoed like a hallucination.
I did not know what kind of Dreamer it was, but the possibility of becoming a variable was sufficient.
Perhaps they were already a variable.
If so, I should prevent them from going far.
The method of catching fire was simple.
They were moths to a flame.
When they saw an even greater fire, they could not help but be drawn in.
* * *
Before nature, humans feel powerless.
It was perfectly natural.
Because Lord Laan created the world and molded the creatures called humans.
A mere component, a human, could never surpass that backdrop.
That powerlessness, Seria was acutely feeling.
Her body was swept about in winds fiercer than a typhoon. Literally so. If she loosened her strength even slightly, it seemed she would be swept away.
The sacred light overlaid on the sea surface wavered precariously. Every time a Ripple occurred, she had to create new support. If she fell into the sea by mistake, it seemed her entire body would be shredded to pieces, then ground to powder.
The fierce winds and countless Ripples enraged the sea. The sharpened sea was no different from a deadly weapon itself.
Every moment, the grains of sea flying about could not be dismissed as water droplets. They endlessly pounded the light spread like a cloak, tore at unguarded bodies, and penetrated through.
Something more fearful and massive was rampaging before Seria's eyes. A waterspout whose circumference and height she dared not distinguish forced powerlessness upon her.
Her consciousness flickered endlessly.
Her body would disappear, or her head would be pierced through and regenerate repeatedly. Worldly thoughts were erased and filled up again.
Worldly thoughts were powerlessness. And irreverence.
Because that thing was not nature. Because it was the trickery of a Demon before which one should not feel powerless.
"Demon!"
One who devoted her entire life to the annihilation of Demons cried out.
Badelots's light flashed toward the waterspout. Becoming flames, it rotated along that whirlpool and ascended. Soon it was extinguished and blazed again.
That was why Badelots was not an Apostle.
And also why this place was the sea.
That disadvantage, Badelots naturally knew.
It was familiar adversity.
Originally, from the moment of creation, humans have been plunged into adversity.
Those upon whom Laan's grace rested were no different.
Demons in hiding, when discovered, flee.
They are existences permitted to escape. Because their kin also live in hiding.
Light is not so.
Humans are exposed to the world entirely.
Therefore, a priest is an existence who cannot flee with a Demon before them. Because if they did, their neighbors would be threatened.
That is why priests wear pure white Habits.
Those who serve the light volunteer themselves as bait. To seek out hidden Demons and drive them away, telling them not to interfere with this world.
That nobility is built upon warmth and a fence for one's neighbors.
Judgment exists within that, and outside of it.
The order for Inquisitor Badelots is the reverse.
First, one must judge. The fence is something to build afterward.
Thus, there are differences in interpretation.
What was right or wrong was meaningless now.
There were no neighbors here. No friends. Ellen was far away and safe, and before their eyes was a Demon.
If one had received baptism, one must naturally judge.
"Please descend."
Badelots cried out. Seria prayed.
The light scattered in the waterspout gathered together and stood erect. Becoming a massive cross, it dwelled in each other's bodies. Those bodies were torn to shreds. The light stitched the fragments back together.
The light beginning from the seams spread throughout their entire bodies, becoming armor. Armor of pure white flame, Laan's armor. Seria sharpened her spear.
Badelots sharpened a stake. KWAANG! A stake the size of a ship was driven into the lower section of the waterspout. The light revealed that the Great Devil of the sea was there.
The stake was both an attack and a passage. The spear Seria threw penetrated the center of the stake. The light called the stake dwelled in that spear and was added. It crossed the passage called the stake and reached the Great Devil.
The light informed them that it had merely reached.
The reasons were various, but ultimately it was because their light was weak.
"Purification!"
Therefore, Badelots did not yield.
Because it was their light that was weak, not Laan.
The next divine messenger to come would use their insufficient traces as a foothold.
Wounds accumulate and accumulate to kill a Demon.
Purification was to shave away like that.
"Traces!"
Even a small wound.
The stake and spear crumbled, and within the fiercely swirling waterspout, Badelots cried out. He was swimming, tearing his own body apart.
"Demon!"
Badelots's torn hand flowed along the waterspout. His fingertip pointed at the Great Devil hiding within the waterspout.
That light, Seria threw her body without a moment's hesitation. Martyrdom was not resolve but inevitability. Therefore, it was not special but ordinary.
Laan's armor crumbled, and her body was torn to shreds. Then tranquility came. Seria instinctively knew it was not martyrdom. The light supported her body. It showed her the eye of the waterspout.
Originally, the center of a whirlpool is tranquil.
The Great Devil was there. Standing on the sea, looking up at Seria.
He was an ordinary, unremarkable old man.
"Demon!"
However, that a Great Devil lurked within, Seria knew better than anyone.
Demons were that sort of tribe.
They wore human masks to live in hiding.
"Young toy."
The Demon giggled.
As if proving he was an old man, it was a sound close to death. It was deception. Thus, Demons amused themselves by toying with people.
"Who is the Demon?"
The Demon wagged his tongue.
"It was the Flow that was trampled first."
He tried to bewitch people.
"This time too, it was you who trespassed."
URRUNG! The waterspout twisted and narrowed its width.
The center narrowed to barely contain the Great Devil alone and whirled violently.
Everything below her neck was torn away.
Seria only recognized it after seeing her own light flash and scatter.
Her vision flickered endlessly. Her head became light, then heavy. She felt fear, irreverence, and then anger. Death and regeneration repeated endlessly.
On that boundary, Seria saw Badelots's wide-eyed severed head ascending along the waterspout.
She saw him being torn apart again. She died feeling her own body repeating the same thing, and saw Badelots regenerating again as she came back to life.
That repetition occurred within the waterspout.
Each time she woke, Seria thought she had become part of the waterspout. She also felt she had become the Great Devil's toy.
If it was martyrdom, it would be martyrdom.
Because it was not special.
"Traces!"
Somewhere within the waterspout, Badelots roared.
If it was traces, they had left them.
That Great Devil wearing the guise of an old man was definitely bleeding thinly from his mouth.
That Great Devil would be purified someday.
This wicked sea route had already been reported to the Church. Before long, a new divine messenger would come.
That priest would use the small traces of Badelots and Seria as a foothold.
They would carve new traces or complete the purification.
"Ah."
That moment was now, Seria was certain.
......Because suddenly her face had grown warm.
The sea that had been only pitch-black, the waterspout, revealed its color.
Suddenly, light was pouring down from the sky.
"Ah."
It was radiance.
At least, that was how Seria felt it.
Light had descended from Laan.
The light first borrowed the form of wind.
A headwind blocked and stopped the waterspout. Though it could not calm it, the speed noticeably slowed.
Then it borrowed the form of fire.
The sound of something blazing came from above. The waterspout momentarily boiled. The head was hottest, the toes least hot.
If the beginning of the waterspout was the sea, then the radiance borrowing fire descended from the sky. Because the sun exists in the sky.
However, Seria felt this radiance was a miracle borrowing another priest.
The miracles recorded by the Church had ranks.
This light was too weak to be radiance Lord Laan had directly sent down.
As proof, the waterspout did not immediately disappear.
It was not that Lord Laan had extended His hand, but that miraculously, another priest had arrived.
"Fire!"
It seemed Badelots had also felt that grace.
"Great Devil!"
But Badelots called the master of that radiance a Great Devil.
"Sun."
Within the lowered waterspout, the Great Devil of water wearing an old man's guise muttered chillingly.
"Has the King returned?"
Saying that radiance was the King of Demons.
"Ah."
The radiance beginning from the sky, or the flames of the Demon, grew fiercer.
What was the correct answer?
What was right, and what was wrong?
"........."
Seria could not speak it aloud.
Ultimately, it was because she herself was insufficient.
"O Deep."
However, she clearly felt that it burned the Great Devil of water.
Radiance burning a Demon.
Or a Demon burning a Demon.
......Seria did not want to think further.
"O Laan........."
Perhaps she lost consciousness because of that.
Not because she reached her limit.