Chapter 190: Let the Holy Sword Fly for a While
With Grausam's death, Fidel's mind was his own once more. But the memory of the stolen holy sword was now a searing brand in his mind. "The holy sword! My holy sword!" he cried, a wail of a pure and utter despair, and he collapsed to the floor in a heap of tears and regret.
Rhodes just shook his head and went to comfort the broken emperor. He still needed him to deal with the Southern Empire, after all. At the very least, he had to ensure the stability of the kingdom before he could go after the 'Light of Ersten'.
"Let the bullet fly for a little while," he thought, and looked in the direction the rift had been. The thread of light in his palm, a compass of the soul, now pointed in a single, unwavering direction. As long as this connection remains, they cannot escape. And if I were to go after them now, I would only startle them, and they would flee. Better to let them carry the cheese back to their nest.
The killing intent in Serie's eyes began to recede. She understood. Shurahat was too cunning. To chase him now would be to risk him going to ground again, and then they would be back to square one. Better to wait, to let him think he has won, and then, when he has returned to his lair, to that so-called "new Demon King"... then they would strike.
But what she didn't know was that, for him, the "new Demon King" was a secondary concern. The information he had gotten from Grausam's dying mind... that was the true prize. The remnant of a god's power. To be able to bear the power of faith, in a mortal body. It was a thing that had completely upended his own, thousand-year-old understanding of the world. He had fought a god, had paid a heavy price to sever her connection to the demons. And her very seed, the core of her authority, had withered and died, had left this world with the Goddess of Life.
In theory, there should have been no trace of her left. And yet... the strange, contradictory aura he had felt from the corrupted holy sword, the 'remnant of the first Demon King' that Grausam had spoken of, and the fact that he had been able to bear the power of faith... it all pointed to a single, terrible possibility.
In the past, there had been a very, very small fragment of the Goddess of Procreation's power, or perhaps, a fragment of his old friend Eirik's own power, that had, in some unknown way, been left behind in the ruins of the first Demon King's castle. And Shurahat had not only found it, but had created a way to use it.
And that... that was what he really wanted.
The technique that Shurahat now possessed, to use these divine fragments as a medium, to allow a mortal to bear the power of faith... it was a new path, a new way to understand the very formula of life, a path he had been searching for for a thousand years. With it, he could perhaps rewrite that formula, could finally break the limits of his own, human existence. After all, his reincarnations were taking longer and longer, and there was no guarantee that they would always be successful.
And the power of faith... it was an old and familiar friend. He had used it to fight the demons, to fight the goddess, to bring his old friend to his final peace. But he had always wielded it through his holy swords. He had never once thought of taking it into himself. Only a madman would do such a thing.
A living being, whether elf or Sky-Winged, could not contain the power of a god. To do so, you would have to be a demigod yourself. In theory, with his authority over life, he could have remade his own body to be on the level of a demigod, to be an immortal like the elves. But that was just a theory. To rewrite the formula of life, you needed the power of a god. And to wield the power of a god, you needed the strength of a demigod. It was a vicious circle, a circle he had not been able to break.
But now... Shurahat had broken it for him.
He was now eagerly anticipating what new and wonderful surprises his "old friend" had in store for him.
With the situation in the kingdom now settled—the Southern Empire, faced with the sudden appearance of the elven Saint on the battlefield, and likely the loss of their demonic patrons, had wisely chosen to retreat—they were free to go.
"Let's go," he said, the thread of his connection to the 'Light of Ersten' now a sure and steady guide. "It's time to pay our old friend a visit."
Serie just nodded. A thousand years of companionship had given her an insight into his own, complex mind. She could feel his excitement. She herself had no interest in the divine fragments. But it was not something she would allow Shurahat to possess. Without it, he was still a manageable threat, a source of a little chaos in a boring world. But with it... with the Pandora's Box of a god's own power now open... there was no telling what would happen.
And so, without a word to anyone, not even to Flamme, they left, two silent figures, following the thread of a golden light.
A few months later.
In the barren lands of the north, Rhodes and Serie hovered in the air, looking down at a monstrous castle, a new Demon King's castle. It was not a new construction, but an ancient one, its black stone walls now showing the signs of a long and storied past, a design that was strangely similar to that of the dwarves. And it was now surrounded by a shimmering, purple-black barrier, a powerful magical ward.
(End of chapter)
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