At Ludger’s words, Nirva let out a laugh, as if it were absurd.
“...Khhkhh. Even in this situation, are you still sketching out possible scenarios in your head?”
From Nirva’s attitude, Ludger was certain.
Whatever his intent, Nirva had been about to choose death in his final moment.
“Considering what you’ve done, death would be far too lenient. And besides, there are things I want to hear from you.”
“Things you want to hear? You already know them, and yet you mean to mock me, puppet of Lumenis.”
At the word puppet, Ludger glared at Nirva.
“I don’t know what delusion you’re under, but I am no puppet.”
“Kkhkhk. Most puppets never realize they’re puppets themselves.”
“If you had seen my memories, you’d know where I come from.”
“Not memories—dreams. And it was precisely because I knew your origin that I doubted you all the more.”
Ludger’s eyes narrowed.
“So you couldn’t read all of my dreams.”
“Quick-witted bastard. How can you read the dream of someone who has no dreams to begin with? The information I had about you, I pieced together from fragments held by those who encountered you outside. It was nothing but a trick, pretending I’d read your dream to shake you.”
Cough.
Golden blood gushed out from Nirva’s mouth.
“For an Apostle of Dreams like me to be unable to read your dream—then it must be divine protection. And considering your origin, it’s obvious whose protection it is.”
“I thought you believed it belonged to another god.”
“If it’s that cunning Lumenis, disguising his aura as that of some other fallen god would be child’s play.”
“This is going nowhere. Why exactly do you think I’m Lumenis’s puppet?”
“Why?!”
Nirva’s eyes bulged as he shouted.
“Because you ruined everything!”
It wasn’t the whimpering of a failure, nor the excuse of one blaming others.
“When countless gods vanished, and only humans remained to serve Lumenis—do you know what treatment they received?”
Nirva chuckled darkly.
“Lumenis claimed he cherished humanity, and then he hindered their progress.”
“Hindered progress?”
“Humans are no different. You love your cute pets, so you forced them into breeding, creating cats and dogs that never grow large. Even if their lifespans shortened, even if they suffered genetic diseases, you didn’t care. Lumenis is the same. Because he cherished humans, he wanted them never to advance, to remain as they were.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
Lumenis had reigned as sole god after driving out the others for a very long time.
And yet, it wasn’t as though humanity had stagnated.
This world’s society was not that of a distant medieval past, but close to modern times.
And recently, the development of magitech—melding science and magic—had accelerated progress even further.
In fact, some fields had surpassed 21st-century Earth’s science.
In such a rapidly developing world, hindered progress?
Nirva’s words were full of contradictions.
Perhaps reading Ludger’s inner doubt, Nirva chuckled again.
Whether it was mockery of one deceiving him, or lament at being trapped despite knowing it, was unclear.
“Lumenis didn’t sever humanity’s potential at birth. He chose to chip it away gradually. But that alone wasn’t enough, so he sought various ways to obstruct the world’s progress. You humans call it a contingency plan, don’t you? One of them—you don’t even need me to say.”
“...The Theocracy of Bretus.”
“Exactly. Through obedient humans, he sought to tidy up his cage for him.”
“But it failed. In the end, the Theocracy couldn’t halt humanity’s progress.”
“Right. Wherever they tried to crush it, there were always humans who struggled free. But do you think that was all? There are endless ways to stop advancing humans. For example—war.”
War.
Ludger recalled countless wars in human history.
But one incident pricked at his memory more than any other.
The Delica Kingdom.
The kingdom where Ludger, under the alias James Moriarty, had once operated.
If he thought about what their secret Steel Choir Project had been meant for—
The idea was almost unbelievable.
“You mean to say war was deliberately instigated?”
“You of all people should know. That’s how it always is. If humanity advances too far, just nudge them a little, and they happily turn on one another, biting and clawing. Perhaps it’s even in human nature.”
Small wars, ironically, contributed to scientific progress.
But what if the war wasn’t small?
If it engulfed entire continents, vast and fierce, leaving only ruin and ash in its wake—?
And then, if the Theocracy of Bretus reached out under the guise of aid to spread its grasp—
How far back would human history regress?
...
At the staggering truth, Ludger was left momentarily speechless.
He had known this world was a cage. But it wasn’t just a cage.
This cage had been crafted so precisely that it didn’t merely hold the birds.
It cut their wings, ensuring they would never even conceive of flying away.
How many feathers and how much blood lay heaped at the bottom of the cage where those birds chirped?
Ludger could hardly imagine.
“I meant to awaken the Goddess, to change the very framework of this cage. To create a world not fixed and stagnant, but one that could advance infinitely through dreams and imagination! And you are the one who ruined it!”
“...Insane. You’re completely mad.”
“What is that reaction? Does my cause seem that laughable to you? You, Lumenis’s most faithful puppet—there’s no way you wouldn’t understand...”
Nirva muttered like that, then suddenly widened his eyes.
As if realizing something he should have known all along.
“Yes. So that’s what it was...!”
A wide smile spread across Nirva’s lips, unable to contain his amusement.
“I was gravely mistaken. You are no puppet. On the contrary—you are the inflection point!”
“Inflection point?”
“The being who will bring change to this world. But strange, isn’t it? You were meant to serve as the vessel, and yet you are performing the opposite role. What is Lumenis doing?”
Vessel.
Nirva looked at Ludger and called him a vessel.
“By rights, you should have been the one to oppress this world more than anyone else. Yet instead, you are breaking the world’s restraints.”
And Ludger understood.
Why Nirva so despised humanity, and why he was astonished at Ludger.
To Nirva, humans were not truly living beings.
Life, by nature, is born, grows, struggles, advances, and evolves endlessly.
But the humans of this world did not.
Because Lumenis, a godlike existence, suppressed them.
How could a race that did not evolve be called life?
To Nirva, humans were nothing but insects—Lumenis’s pampered pets.
And yet now—
A mutant had appeared before his eyes.
The very being who should have embodied Lumenis’s will was acting against it.
It was nothing short of a miracle.
“What made you this way?”
“...Human desire, I suppose.”
A short answer, but more than enough.
Nirva, forgetting even his defeat and wounds, burst into mad laughter.
“Khh! Khhha-ha-ha! A masterpiece! That the Theocracy of Bretus, which should worship Lumenis above all, instead harbored its own designs! Ahh, yes. This ➤ NоvеⅠight ➤ (Read more on our source) is humanity! This is desire! Truly, truly admirable! No wonder Lumenis fears it!”
Ludger von Bretus had the blood of the Holy Sovereign, and unmatched talent.
And yet he had been driven out, nearly killed, by internal strife.
That should never have been.
They should have exalted him, made him their next Holy Sovereign.
“Those who once fed from their master’s hand grew bold, grew greedy, until they committed an unforgivable act. The funniest part is—they don’t even realize how monstrous their actions were! How laughable!”
Even through his pain, Nirva chuckled, then let out a sigh.
“Now it all makes sense. Your ability, your power, your aptitude for handling divine force. And even your influence over those around you.”
Sedina Roschen, Julia Plumehart—
Even Elisa Willow in this very battle—
All of them, alongside Ludger, had been changed by him.
They had shown ‘miracles’ that should never have been possible.
“Lumenis carefully chose the most loyal to grant authority. But what he overlooked—what if those given authority acted with arrogance? Who was left to oversee them? He never considered watchers for the watchers.”
Imagine one being holding absolute power to control the world.
At first, he would use it for the common good.
But if that being twisted, acting tyrannically—
Who could stop him?
“Even if Lumenis knew, he could do nothing. He cannot freely interfere with the lower world. He could only gnaw his fingers in frustration.”
“A lord of cages who cannot touch the cage he made. A farce of comedy.”
“Because he did not make it alone. He made it with other gods, then drove them all out and claimed it for himself.”
Nirva’s voice trembled with suppressed fury.
Considering one of those expelled gods was the very Goddess now sealed, it wasn’t hard to understand.
“When the world was first made, all the gods agreed. Intelligent beings would live freely. None would interfere. That was the law of this world. A law even Lumenis cannot simply break. So he used tricks.”
“Some ‘supreme god’ he is.”
“And once before, Lumenis broke that law and paid dearly for it.”
Nirva chuckled bitterly.
Ludger’s eyes narrowed, silently asking what he meant.
“Ahh. Of course. You wouldn’t know.”
“So something did happen in the past.”
“Yes. Something did. Something very amusing. I didn’t see it directly, but as you know, my authority lets me experience events as though I had. I wonder whether to tell you or not... but since we’ve come this far, I’ll let it out.”
Nirva’s choice to reveal what only he knew wasn’t an admission of defeat.
There was an ulterior motive.
Ludger knew this, but ignoring it was impossible—he wanted to know what Nirva meant.
“For you, it’s better to know. Because that event involved Suruna.”
“Suruna...”
“The Great Demon Suruna. Or, to put it in terms you’re more familiar with now—Zero Order.”
Ludger Cherish bore the title of First Order, but he had never been Zero Order’s subordinate.
They were wary of each other, yet cooperated, a kind of business arrangement.
That was why Nirva spoke of Suruna’s past.
What he had suffered from that demon, he could not rest until he repaid—even in this way.
“You’ve been told Suruna was defeated in war with the Theocracy of Bretus.”
“That he perished in a blaze of glory, sacrificed by Saintess Arkenis.”
“That’s true. But only partly. On that day, Suruna and Arkenis did fight. But it was neither Suruna nor Arkenis who ended it.”
Then who?
Ludger’s eyes widened with suspicion.
Nirva gave a crooked smile, nodding.
“Yes. It was Lumenis—the cunning one—who interfered in that fight.”
“Lumenis interfered? For what reason?”
“I don’t know the details myself. The shockwaves were too vast, even my authority couldn’t grasp the core of it. But that overwhelming wave of power—only Lumenis could have displayed it. Whatever happened, the result was this: Suruna, said to be dead, lived. And Arkenis died.”
Lumenis intervened—yet the demon lived, and the Saintess perished.
The contradiction was staggering.
Wasn’t it supposed to be the opposite?
The Saintess had been Lumenis’s most faithful servant.
“Because Lumenis broke the law and interfered with the lower world, he no longer dares touch it carelessly. Which is why he may be more desperate than ever. And your very existence proves it.”