novelraw Chapter 145 : Chapter 145
Chapter 145 : Chapter 145
Chapter 145. The Moment of the Decisive Battle (4)
At the very moment when the elite forces of the Continental Alliance had just landed on the distant eastern island and were engaged in a fierce first battle with the undead army led by Nox.
The grand cathedral of the Benedict Kingdom.
Inside that deep and sacred space, only Isabel remained.
With a reverent face, she knelt before the altar, her hands clasped in earnest prayer.
Her prayer was for the safety of her comrades who had gone east, and for victory in the final battle to come.
In fact, Isabel had also wanted to go to Reubungwo with Frank.
More than anyone, she wanted to be a source of strength by his side, and she wanted to protect him from the dangers to come.
But she could not.
It was because of the prophecy that Cardinal Daniel had cautiously delivered to her just before Frank left Lumen Fortis.
‘Soon, the goddess will give a direct oracle to the Saintess. So please, for the time being, stay in the grand cathedral and await her will.’
If someone else had said it, Isabel might have ignored it.
But Cardinal Daniel was a man with one of the most prominent precognitive abilities in the cult.
She could not take his words lightly.
In the end, she swallowed her disappointment and decided to stay here.
‘How long do I have to just offer prayers here?’
At this moment when her comrades might be crossing the line between life and death, the fact that she could do nothing but wait for God's will made her anxious.
It was at that very moment.
‘This feeling?’
Without any warning, an intense golden light, so bright it was blinding, poured down from the altar and enveloped Isabel's entire body.
It was a primordial holiness itself, inexpressible in human language.
The descent of the goddess. Or the moment her will directly manifested.
Isabel instinctively lowered her body even more before the overwhelming divine power that she couldn't even breathe in.
She heard a voice that seemed to resonate not in her ears, but directly in her soul.
It was clearly a benevolent voice, but at the same time, the voice of an absolute being that could not be defied.
[My representative. The time has finally come.]
The goddess' voice was short and clear.
But the content within it was enough to shake Isabel's entire soul.
[To annihilate the primordial error, my first child Primus, the sacrifice of a new era is needed.]
Sacrifice? Isabel felt her heart sink with a sense of foreboding.
[The saintess of the next era who will succeed you. Only by offering her pure soul and life can the final seal that binds Primus be completed and he be led to eternal rest.]
“……!!”
The sacrifice of the next saintess.
The meaning of those words was clear.
To give up her life.
And a young life that had not even had a chance to bloom.
Isabel's face instantly turned pale.
She barely supported her trembling body and shouted towards the source of the light that was shining on her on the altar.
No, she screamed inwardly.
‘Th-this is really too much! How could you……!’
She staggered to her feet, but she couldn't even stand properly, whether due to the aftermath of the divine power or the shock, and collapsed to the floor.
She stared blankly into the air and muttered as if to herself.
‘So… so that's why you told me to choose the next saintess myself?’
Suddenly, another oracle the goddess had given her in the past came to mind.
The command to choose the saintess who would succeed her.
At that time, she had only thought it was a procedure for the succession of the era.
But it was not.
It was to make her choose the coming sacrificial lamb with her own hands.
‘Is it so that you alone do not feel guilt, Goddess? It is too much to drag even me into this terrible fate.’
The next saintess was Iris.
Frank's second daughter.
The child to whom she had personally bestowed the qualifications of a saintess and promised a future.
To think that she had to drive her to her death.
“Why do you demand so much from me, Goddess! Why!”
Isabel looked up at the sky and questioned it.
Hot tears flowed endlessly from her eyes.
“Wasn't it enough that you took Frank from me, and now you're trying to take his daughter, Iris, from Frank? How……. How can you be so cruel! It's really too much!”
Her wail echoed throughout the cathedral, but the golden light had already disappeared.
The goddess' voice was no longer heard.
Only her desperate cry lingered emptily.
How much time had passed?
Isabel's eyes, having stopped crying, were coldly sunken in deep sadness.
She slowly got up and left the prayer room.
And she commanded in a firm voice.
“Contact Lady Noemi immediately.”
She caught her breath for a moment.
It was so hard to say the next words.
“Tell her to take me and Iris there at once.”
With those words, Isabel collapsed again as if she were breaking down.
Her shoulders were trembling slightly.
There was nothing she could do in the face of the coming tragedy.
***
Finally, the 100th floor.
Iris, who stood at the end of the long, long dungeon conquest, caught her breath for a moment.
The desperate fight with the bizarre being in the form of a fake father had made her pour out everything she had.
But the result was her victory.
Although her whole body was a wreck, her heart was filled with a sense of accomplishment and the conviction that she had grown one step further.
Now it was time to join her father and sisters in Reubungwo.
It was the moment she was about to think of a transition magic circle to return.
Paaat!
With a sudden light, two completely unexpected people appeared before her eyes.
“Noemi? Saintess Isabel?”
Iris' eyes widened in surprise.
Because Noemi, who should be in Reubungwo, and Isabel, who should be in the grand cathedral, had suddenly appeared before her.
“Sister! There's no time to explain!”
Noemi shouted urgently and snatched Iris' wrist.
And then, before Iris could even react, she activated the transition magic once again.
‘What?!’
Her vision instantly turned white again, and the next moment, Iris realized she was standing in a completely different place.
The fishy smell of the sea and the smell of gunpowder.
And the constantly echoing roars and screams.
The night sky was dazzlingly flashing with magic flashes of all colors.
“Where am I? What on earth is going on?”
What unfolded before her eyes was a fierce battlefield.
The allied forces that had landed on the coast were engaged in a fierce battle with the enemies in the unseen darkness.
Kwagwagwang! Fwoom!
In the sky, giant spheres of light and waves of dark energy collided with each other, causing huge explosions, and the aftermath alone shook the surrounding ground.
Iris frowned without realizing it.
The roar, which echoed like the sound of cannonballs, was incessant.
Noemi, next to Iris, pointed to the sky and explained.
Her voice was clear even in the surrounding noise.
“The flashing in the sky is our defensive magic. The ones being shot from this side are attack magic.”
She pointed to the opposite side, the land shrouded in darkness.
“It must be the same on that side. Since the enemies are only composed of liches, they don't seem to want to reveal themselves and fight a full-scale war. They're just constantly firing powerful long-range magic attacks from the rear.”
Iris quickly grasped the situation on the battlefield while listening to Noemi's explanation.
“So we can't charge rashly and are just engaged in this war of attrition of magic power.”
“Yes. Especially since it's night now. Even though Dad's power has completely returned, he seems to have judged that he can't recklessly fight a full-scale war against a lich army that is hiding and attacking like that.”
Noemi added.
“So for now, we're just continuing this meaningless consumption of magic power. All night long.”
“A meaningless war of attrition.”
Iris smirked.
In fact, Noemi was a monstrous child with almost infinite magic power.
To her, firing magic all night long might really be a ‘meaningless’ consumption.
‘But what kind of opponent is it to be able to withstand such a war of attrition?’
The moment she realized that the opponent was the final enemy.
Iris looked around for a moment and then found her father.
“Where's Dad?”
Noemi pointed towards the coastal command post.
There, her father was standing with the Saintess, talking with a serious expression.
When did the Saintess who came here with her go over there?
And what were the two of them talking about with such grim faces?
‘Did something happen between them again?’
Iris looked puzzled for a moment, but now was not the time to pry into that.
She asked Noemi again.
“Where's Adel?”
“Sister Adel is over there.”
Where Noemi's finger pointed was the very front of the battlefield, the front line where the huge translucent barrier she had deployed was barely reaching.
There, Adel had her twin swords Anceps stuck deep into the ground, staring at the darkness ahead without a single movement.
As if she would rush out and cut down the enemy at any moment, a taut tension was felt from her entire body.
“Huu.”
Iris smirked at the sight.
“What is she doing? What if she gets into danger like that?”
Noemi shrugged and said.
“You know Sister Adel's personality. She's saying she'll be the first to run out and cut down whatever appears. Even though she's safe inside my barrier.”
Looking closely, next to Adel, Alvarez was also standing in the same posture with his sword in hand.
The two of them were frozen like a pair of statues, preparing for a surprise attack from the enemy that might come.
Iris let out a small sigh.
Perhaps charging headlong without looking back and forth was Adel's way.
“Huu, really. Those two are still the same.”
She shook her head and prepared to join this long and tedious all-night battle herself.
Looking at the moon and stars, it seemed that dawn was still a long way off.
***
Inside the command tent.
I was sitting opposite Isabel, whom Noemi had brought a little while ago.
Her face was very pale, and her eyes were red and swollen.
I didn't know what had happened at the grand cathedral, but I had a bad feeling that the news
she was about to deliver would not be good at all.
And my premonition was not wrong.
In a trembling voice, she told me the contents of the oracle she had received directly from the goddess.
“She said that the sacrifice of the next saintess is needed to completely annihilate Primus.”
“What did you just say?”
For a moment, I couldn't believe my ears.
The sacrifice of the next saintess?
What did that mean?
“Nonsense! The goddess couldn't have given such an oracle! Are you lying to me again?”
I asked, pressing her.
I thought that maybe she had heard an auditory hallucination due to the shocking situation on the battlefield.
But Isabel grabbed my hand with tears in her eyes.
Her hand was trembling coldly.
“Please believe me, Frank. I don't want to believe it either, but this is definitely not a lie. The goddess whispered directly to my soul. That we must offer Miss Iris' life.”
Iris.
My second daughter.
She was the next saintess who would succeed Isabel.
To sacrifice that child?
I bit my lip.
My mind seemed to go blank.
“There must be another way! Even the goddess can make mistakes!”
“That's impossible, Frank!”
Isabel said as if pleading.
“These are the words of the creator who made this world. We cannot go against her will!”
I looked up at the sky and cried out inwardly.
‘Damn goddess! What the hell is this! You dare to take my daughter? You made this world a mess because you couldn't manage one of your sons, and now you're going to stop it with my daughter's life!’
When you think about it, the beginning of all this tragedy was because of the goddess.
Didn't all this happen because she couldn't properly manage her first son, Primus!
And now she's trying to pass the responsibility on to my daughter!
My whole body trembled with anger.
It was at that very moment.
Anonymous and Aman appeared at the entrance of the command tent.
The two had gone to check the sage's hiding place a little while ago.
“What happened?”
I asked with a last hope.
“Did you find the secret plan the sage left behind?”
But the two just shook their heads silently.
They said that everything had been burned and disappeared.
I fell into deep despair, feeling my last hope disappearing.
Was there really no other way but to sacrifice Iris now?
It was at that very moment.
Aman looked at me, who had a heartbroken expression, for a moment, then cautiously opened his mouth.
“Hero (Yongsa), there might still be a way. I have a good idea.”
In an instant, all eyes in the tent turned to Aman.
At his single word, the dying embers of hope began to flare up again.
What kind of secret plan did he have left?
Please let it not be one that requires Iris' sacrifice.
I prayed earnestly.