The Weight of Existence (4)
Cain turned at the exit of the Hall of Evil.
"This is it. Follow this path and you'll see the church. Giyorugi is there."
Shirone's party peered past the door.
Outside the hall lay a beautiful forest, and above the trees a bell-towered spire rose into view.
Cain continued, "I made Melkidu's system, but the true owners of this place are over there—the Church of Satan."
Nade asked, "What are you going to do?"
After all, he was the first murderer; if they left things as they were, his back would itch.
"Don't worry. I'm evil, yes, but like I said—I'm more a scholar of evil than its practitioner."
Cain took a step back. "I'll be watching. The final clash of good and evil my mother and I set in motion. If evil wins, I won't have to hide in places like this anymore."
"And if good wins?"
Cain paused at Iruki's question.
"Well…"
Then he said, "Is there even such a thing as victory for 'good'?"
With that cryptic remark, Cain vanished down the corridor. Shirone looked to his friends.
"It's finally here. From now on it's not Melkidu's system. This is a real fight."
Iruki, Nade, and Eden hardened their gazes.
"Let's go."
From a distance the Satan Church monastery looked like any other.
But as they drew near, every ornament, statue, and mural carved into the walls turned out to be perverse.
"Vile," someone muttered.
They passed a fountain.
'Usually kids pee in those,' Shirone thought.
The Church of Satan's decoration depicted a crouching, pregnant woman clutching her belly and screaming.
"Ugh!"
A spray of blood burst forth.
Nade, about to recoil, flinched and then set his face into a cold expression.
The blood that drenched the air smelled awful, but no one stepped back.
"Giyorugi."
The head of the Church of Satan and his lieutenants opened the doors and approached.
'Giyorugi, Gultan, Marit, Yuprafus.'
Next to four demons specialized in the Grand Anti‑Yahweh Rite stood the person Shirone had been searching for.
"Seina."
Her eyes—already soaked by the Church's indoctrination—glowed a bloodlike red. Giyorugi spoke, "You finally arrived. How does it feel to tour the holy site of evil? Quite a pleasant place, isn't it?"
"Return Seina. That's all I want. There's no point in fighting now."
Giyorugi knew the end was near as well.
"You've come close. Seems your time in Melkidu wasn't wasted. But you're wrong."
He opened the Devil's Bible. "Aska Covenant, Chapter 7, Verse 2—Turn your face to the heights and crawl to the depths. Lewdness is found there."
Giyorugi's shadow split in two and unfurled into a gigantic hand.
'An ability that counters light?'
As Shirone steadied himself with Hand of God, Marit—the Satan Church's minister—stepped forward.
"Emblem (Idol of Malyu)."
A shape built from concentrated human magic coalesced into something obscene to behold.
Eden frowned. 'I don't know what it is, but I hate it.'
Now that he understood the birth of good and evil, the sexual overtones at least made perverse sense.
'If Lilith's crossing of the forbidden line were given form, it might look like that.'
Shirone, however, focused on the Emblem itself. 'The Emblem gathers the devotees' Malyu. Then it attacks using Yuprafus's power.'
He recalled the Emblem's spear tearing through Hand of God and lodging in his side.
'A weapon that's like Yahweh's natural predator.'
It wasn't demonic in origin so much as the condensed emotions of humans who denied Yahweh.
"Mika."
_Yes.
Because Melkidu's core was anchored in reality, Mika connected.
'How many Church of Satan devotees are there?'
- Currently, the number of Church of Satan devotees worldwide is 1,273,018,388.
The spear that once struck Shirone carried roughly the force of thirty million devotees.
'This time we won't be able to hold out.'
Even if they survived, Yahweh's sphere would be shredded.
- Due to the influence of Emotion Sickness, the number of Church of Satan devotees shot up into the billions. Recent special waves have, however, slowed that growth.
It was a wave of emotion.
Yuprafus, an elder of the Church, proclaimed, "Yahweh, admit your defeat. You could not stop Emotion Sickness or the change in the Laws. Can't you see that what rules the world is not good and sorrow but evil and indifference?"
Iruki shot back, "You still can't beat indifference. If you keep going like this everything will end." Gultan grinned.
"It doesn't matter. If it ends, we'll vanish together. If someone stops us, fine—either way, the ones left regretting it will be you, not us."
Members of the catacombs sneered, but only Giyorugi looked uncomfortable.
He said, "Yahweh."
You who abandoned me.
"This is the last chance given to you."
At his words, as if on cue, Seina stepped forward and stood directly before Shirone.
"This woman has received Satan's baptism. She is closer to us now than to any human."
Eden shouted, "Stop! You brainwashed her!"
"We're no better," someone countered.
"What?"
Giyorugi held his silence a moment. "If you want to save Seina, try. But you will die by the Malyu spear."
Nade shot back, "Hmph. Do you think we'll just leave her be?"
"We'll see. One thing's certain: time is running out. If you lose here—"
Giyorugi opened the Devil's Bible again. "There is no Ultima."
At that, Seina lunged. Shirone's group scattered to either side.
"Damn it!"
Humanity's end: one hour remained.
The last of the ancestral dream.
Yorahan's mind dwelt in Drimo, but her body still wandered the mortal world.
How long had it been?
"Sanchi! Sanchi!"
Their travels had circled the world countless times until they reached a remote mountain village in the East.
"Kyaaa! I will have my vengeance! You weighty things! How dare you kill me? How dare you!"
The 17‑year‑old's face was twisted; veins stood out on her cheeks.
"Sanchi! Please come to your senses!" her mother wailed, while an old village woman shook a rice chest like a madwoman.
"O spirit of the land! Help this child! Free her from the wicked demon!"
"Guhhh!"
Sanchi writhed, a split smile tearing at her mouth as a hoarse laugh escaped.
"Kukuku. Kukukuku!"
Fear filled the old woman's eyes.
"Gyaaaah!"
As if seeing a vision, she fell backward and, eyes unfocused, whispered, "You are… such an evil spirit…"
"Do something!"
Sanchi's mother cried desperately, but the villagers standing in the yard did nothing.
"If even the village's strongest shaman is like that, how are we to catch a spirit?"
"Oh—then our daughter—"
"Excuse me."
When everyone turned, a stranger in unfamiliar armor stood there.
"Eeeek! A goblin! A goblin!"
"The air here is heavy with evil. If I'm not a bother, may I take a look?"
The voice was clearly male but somehow androgynous; it gave off no sense of malice.
"Please help us!"
Everyone was terrified, but the mother, about to lose her daughter, clutched at any hope.
"Our daughter is possessed! Please…!"
Clank, clank. Heavy footsteps. Armand entered the shabby house.
"Kiii! What are you now?"
He had exorcised countless evils across the land, but this was a new kind.
'Evil evolves, too. The fight never ends.'
Armand said, "Depart from that child. Your place is where the river of fire flows and the sulfurous sky glows."
"Khehehe! What nonsense! You bastards buried me alive—who are you to tell me that?"
'A vengeance spirit.'
So consumed by bitter memory it had become a demon straddling the boundary between reality and the otherworld.
"I understand your feelings, but that was long ago. Those who harmed you are already bones."
"How would you know my pain? My rage, my hatred…!" Armand pressed his hand to Sanchi's chest.
'Small‑World Invocation.'
"Aaaah!"
People shrieked at the horrible cry, but Sanchi soon fell into sleep.
"Aaah! Our daughter!"
As Sanchi's mother crawled to her, Armand said, "It isn't over yet."
Muttering that, Armand faced the vengeance spirit that was bound to him.
In the dark, deep space of the heart.
"Kihihihi! Now that I look, you're dead too. Can you be possessed like me?"
The vengeance spirit took the form of a rotting body with dozens of tentacles in place of limbs—probably the fear and flailing at the time of burial made manifest.
"Fine by me. The living always try to drive us off. This body is mine now."
As it lashed the dark with its tentacles and reached Armand, one of its beady eyes widened.
"What…?"
A woman sharpening a blade stood across from a tangle of monsters.
"Have you come?"
Even the grotesque vengeance spirit trembled at the sight.
"What are you?"
"Let go of your attachments and cross the river of fire. Lethe's forgetfulness will give you rest."
"Let go of attachments?"
The vengeance spirit's face twisted. "Who are you to tell me that?"
The moment it thrust a tentacle at Armand, an enormous wave of emotion surged.
"Ugh!"
"Forgive them."
I will forgive you, too.
Within that heart‑space, Armand calmly accepted the vengeance spirit's desire and obsession.
It was a filthy, repulsive process, but—
'Isn't that right, Yorahan?'
She could smile.
When the Small‑World Invocation loosened, her consciousness slipped from the dark space back to reality.
"It's done. The girl is safe." As the armored knight rose and turned to leave, the villagers flattened themselves to the ground.
"O heavenly one! Protect our village!"
'Heavenly one.'
Through gaps in his armor, Armand spread the tentacles that had been the vengeance spirit's body.
"Eek!"
The villagers stumbled back in alarm as he walked calmly along the opened path.
"I am but a lost dead."
Hundreds more years passed.
"Hah! Hah!" On a barren plain without a single blade of grass, Armand could no longer walk and sank to one knee.
'This is the limit.'
She had cultivated her power by swallowing sorrow, but now she could no longer endure alone.
"I… will become a sword."
She resolved to become an object.
"Whoever wields the magic sword will gain the world. Good men, wicked men, and spirits alike may wield me."
Please—
"…I hope it's someone good." That lonely prayer rode the wind and would one day lead her to Shirone.
'You did well, my dear. Now I think I can… let you go.'
Partings with loved ones are always sorrowful.
When her Vajra Armor dissolved, a magic sword struck deep into the stone floor of the wasteland.
The corpse that had knelt crumbled into dust and blew away on the wind.
'Goodbye.'
Yorahan.