Chapter 23
The sharpness engraved into his soul through countless cycles awakened Aquila’s mind.
‘This flow of Mana…?’
Like candle flames that had been swaying steadily suddenly showing a different movement, the air surrounding them quivered ever so slightly.
This vibration was a flow that could never occur naturally, so Aquila diverted the gaze he had been about to direct at the bishop and scanned the surroundings.
“Do you have any idea what position I hold within the Grand Temple of Portplum! Step aside at once!”
“And do you think anyone would say, ‘Yes, of course,’ and politely move just because you said that?”
Cahena shrugged as she tossed out a line that sounded like something straight out of a third-rate villain.
She lifted her head briefly, but it did not seem as though she had noticed anything significant.
Even if Vice-Captain Cahena was approaching the intermediate level of a Sword Expert, she was still a swordswoman who used Aura, not a mage.
Mana was one of the fundamental elements that composed the world, circulating through the air.
Aura could, strictly speaking, be considered a form of Mana, but its nature was entirely different from the Mana used by mages.
Only after honing themselves and reaching a certain level could swordsmen imbue their weapons with power or give that power a tangible form, and that manifestation of force was what was generally called Aura.
Magic controlled power that extended outward, whereas Aura refined power that had seeped inward.
That was precisely why magic swordsmen were so exceedingly rare across the vast Delvion continent.
The methods by which magic and Aura manifested were completely opposite.
The faint flow of Mana now present was not even connected to a Mana formula, making it difficult for others to notice.
However, even Aquila, who had once risen to the rank of an Archmage and engraved into his soul eyes capable of piercing Mana formulas, could not be deceived by it.
Aquila’s black eyes traced the origin of the swirling flow.
And so he discovered that the source was not Martio, nor any other hidden figure, but below them.
It was beginning from the Guild of Darkness member lying face-down on the floor with his wrist severed.
“…Ah! I see now! You deliberately laid hands on a sacred relic of the Sun God in order to gather the priests in one place!”
Even as Aquila focused on the flow of Mana, words continued to spill from the bishop.
Martio had been flying into a rage for some time, spouting nonsense, but it seemed that one of his own ramblings had struck him as plausible, and he had accepted it as fact.
Overcome by his emotions, the bishop waved the sword clenched tightly in both hands.
“You gathered the priests in one place?”
“Hmph! Do not feign ignorance! We were in a meeting discussing what to do with the spring water that wells up from the sacred relic, and the curses tied to the other relics in the basement…”
Martio continued explaining all on his own, then abruptly startled and cut himself off.
“To think you would try to trick me into revealing the temple’s internal secrets with such crafty questions!”
“You were the one babbling on your own…”
“Enough! That sort of thing will not work on me! To dare infiltrate this place while the priests were absent?!”
Martio’s face, which had turned deathly pale at the sight of the severed wrist, now flushed as though it might burst with rage.
Even so, he could not bring himself to approach any closer, all because of Cahena’s presence.
Even to Martio’s eyes, her skill was formidable, and the Reschenhardt private forces were rumored to possess tremendous martial prowess.
Shen and Cahena, who had been watching Martio rage from a distance, exchanged glances.
As if on cue, both wore expressions of utter disbelief, and Cahena shook her head first.
“Do you think being a priest requires that much imagination, Shen?”
“Keep those thoughts to yourself instead of saying them out loud. He will latch onto them.”
“You wretches!”
Aquila cast them a brief sideways glance.
With no desire to intervene, he once again looked down at the Guild of Darkness member.
The man was writhing as if in defiance, but pressed beneath Cahena’s foot, he seemed unable to do anything.
“Aquila Reschenhardt…”
As Aquila approached, the man once again spoke Aquila’s name, as if out of habit.
Because his sleeve covered the stump of his wrist, the pure white robe that marked him as a priest of the Sun God was now thoroughly soaked in blood.
Judging by how tightly it was bound, he had apparently managed to stop the bleeding, at least temporarily.
Despite the savage killing intent still burning within him, the man’s face was extremely pale.
He must have lost a great deal of blood.
Even so, the man’s gray eyes gleamed fiercely, as though they might pierce straight through Aquila.
“Why do you want to kill me so badly?”
There was no need to keep his curiosity to himself, so Aquila asked quietly.
“You ask me why I want to kill you?”
The man let out a dry, humorless laugh.
Then, in the next moment, his eyes sharpened, and with his uninjured left hand, he slammed the floor.
“That is because it is only natural!”
“What?”
“We cannot allow a trivial created being like you to shatter a predetermined fate. Absolutely not!”
The man continued to pound the floor like a madman.
Unable to move his body properly, it seemed to be an outburst of fury he could not contain.
As a result, blood that had seemed to stop began once more to seep through his robe in spreading stains.
“Why can you not understand that death is the only path left for you!”
He looked as though he had lost his mind from bleeding too much, or perhaps as though he had simply gone insane.
“You lunatic! To spew such nonsense at the Young Master!”
From the moment Aquila had questioned the man, Shen had ignored Martio entirely and focused on this side, shouting in fury.
The attendant was enraged once more by the fact that his master had been insulted.
But Aquila did not change his expression. He merely swept his fallen red hair back and asked,
“There is something I would like to ask about Belmaburn, which you mentioned inside.”
“You truly must not be spared. You must not. You have to die!”
“Counting not only this temple but other places as well, how many children have you sent to Belmaburn?”
“Fate is sacred. Following it is the only thing permitted to created beings. Yes, that is right. That is the blessing bestowed upon us…”
Despite Aquila’s continued questions, the man did not answer.
Instead, he abruptly stopped his self-harming behavior and began muttering incomprehensible words.
He looked as though he had lost his mind from blood loss.
“You listened in on that like a filthy rat…!”
The response to Aquila’s question came from the bishop.
Without even sparing Martio a glance, Aquila felt a sense of déjà vu.
‘That expression is one only fanatics make.’
Those who worshiped corrupted gods through blind and extreme devotion.
From appearances alone, it was impossible to immediately distinguish a fanatic.
It was like the breath of a god, something one became addicted to without realizing it.
Moreover, among them were those who behaved just like ordinary humans.
They were usually docile, but the moment they heard certain objects or keywords related to their god, or recalled their mission, they would turn violent.
Just like Ark Batchel, who only realized at the very end that he had been infected by a corrupted god.
As far as Aquila knew, fanatics did not begin to reveal themselves openly until later than this.
But had the influence of the corrupted god already begun to spread at this point?
‘…The reward for piercing a corrupted god. That required equipping a spear.’
A passive skill obtained as a reward only at the very end.
The skill, Fanatic Detection, allowed the user to identify living beings touched by divine influence while holding a spear.
But that had been left behind in the twenty-ninth cycle just before this one.
The spear that pierced the corrupted god had pierced Aquila’s chest, and the cycle had ended the moment he realized that Ark Batchel was a fanatic of a corrupted god.
The instant Aquila recalled that moment, a deep fatigue washed over him.
“…This fellow is troublesome! He is going to die anyway if we leave him like this. Should I not just cut him down now?”
Even as Cahena pressed down on his back with greater force, the man struggled violently, scraping and pounding the floor in an attempt to escape.
That sort of movement posed no real threat to her.
But if she applied any more force, his bones would surely be crushed entirely.
Since Aquila had said to leave him alive, she was holding back, but it was closer to struggling with how to control her strength without killing him.
“You must not be spared. Kill him. Kill him, kill him, kill him…”
The man was no longer shouting at Aquila specifically, but merely repeating the words as if out of obligation.
Yet the killing intent within them did not fade. Each repetition only made it stronger.
WOOOOONG!
From that moment on, the surrounding Mana began to tremble again.
The air churned as though boiling, surging all at once and being drawn toward the man.
“…Magic?”
As the previously calm dawn air suddenly went wild, even Cahena seemed to notice something was wrong.
The Mana gathering around the man was hot, swelling rapidly like dough trapped in a furnace.
A familiar flow of Mana.
Without needing to unravel the tangled threads of countless memories, Aquila immediately recognized the magic formula.
It was one he had seen at least once every time he encountered the Guild of Darkness, not just in the previous cycle.
“Self-destruction magic…”
It was a spell he could never forget, having died to it before.
“Such pointless nonsense!”
Cahena, not missing Aquila’s muttered words, instantly drew her sword.
She did not have eyes that could see Mana, but she could tell that ominous, dark energy was rapidly gathering around the man.
So without hesitation, she drove her blade straight into his heart.
CRUNCH!
A mage typically stored Mana within the heart.
Thus, one of the simplest ways to nullify a spell being cast was to pierce the mage’s heart.
Break the vessel, and the Mana would disperse.
The man, his heart pierced in an instant, collapsed limply without even letting out a scream.
“Whew. That should—”
Cahena twisted her blade as she pulled it free, believing the disturbance had been quelled.
But even after stabbing the Guild of Darkness member’s heart, the Mana that had already begun to gather did not stop.
“Killing him will not help. It is Black Magic!”
The self-destruction magic used by the Guild of Darkness took the body itself as its medium.
Because the body had already been offered as payment, destroying the Mana vessel did nothing to halt the spell.
For the Guild of Darkness, perfect success was the qualification for membership, and failure meant death.
Thus, when an assignment could not be completed until the very end, their final resort was to draw everything around them into a self-destruction.
Unless the body was completely annihilated, there was no way to stop the explosion.
Moreover, the range of the blast was quite wide. If it detonated here, the entire corridor they were in would be swallowed.
In that case, they would need to get far away, or move the man—
At that moment, Aquila abruptly lifted his head and opened his skill window.
【Grace That Waters the Fractured Earth
Temporarily amplifies Mana and allows the condensed Mana to be fired forward.
??? (Unavailable due to insufficient user stats.)
― Limited to this cycle. Disappears upon death.】
A random skill obtained from the Right Hand of the Halo.
Could he use this to send it flying far away?
Of course, he did not yet know exactly what kind of skill it was, but he would find out if he tried now.
That was how he had survived through all these cycles.
So without further hesitation, Aquila extended both arms toward the corpse of the man, whose Mana was seething as though it might explode at any moment.
WOOOOONG!
Once again, the surrounding Mana surged, but this time the vibration was distinctly different.
“Young Master, what on earth are you—!”
Shen cried out in shock as he saw slender strands of light intertwine and gather at Aquila’s fingertips.
They soon became waves, swirling around his hands.
Taking in a breath, Aquila snapped his eyes open.
“Get back, Cahena!”
Since this was the first time he had ever used the skill, Aquila shouted the warning.
And that judgment proved correct.
What had been a simple ripple transformed into a wave that could sweep everything away as it shot toward the man.
KWAaaaANG!
A tremendous roar shook the Grand Temple of Portplum.