At Ludger’s words, Grander fell silent.
His plea for her to live had been nothing but desperation—yet precisely because of that, it shook her heart to its core.
Especially when she saw that foolish disciple’s face, the one who wiped her tears while being unable to wipe away the sorrow that dwelled within his own eyes.
She could not bring herself to speak the words that she wanted to leave.
“To trample upon your mother’s dream so recklessly... you must truly be the most unfilial child in the world.”
“Yes. I do not mind being an unfilial son, if only you can live.”
“To live... and do what, exactly? I have neither a purpose nor a dream left in life.”
“You probably do not have one now. And if someone were suddenly told to find what they once lacked, they would be at a loss, of course. Still...”
Ludger lifted his head and looked up at the night sky.
Countless stars were scattered across the heavens, forming the Milky Way as they flowed along their celestial paths.
This cage was suffocating, yet beyond it was such a beautiful sight that he could not help but look up at it often.
“The world is vast. There are things that exist beyond this place. So I assure you—if you escape this cage and reach a wider garden, or perhaps an even greater plain beyond that...”
Someday, when you cross the distant sea of stars—
If you can reach its end—
Yes.
Then surely—
“Mother, you will be able to find a new reason to live. I promise you.”
Grander’s eyes widened, then she smiled gently at him.
“Your words are always as eloquent as ever.”
Though her tone was critical, Grander’s voice had softened noticeably.
“I am tired. I should close my eyes for a bit.”
“Yes, rest well, Mother.”
Outwardly, Grander seemed fine, but her soul had taken considerable damage from the divine Stake.
Her spirit had not completely disintegrated, so it would recover over time—but for now, her soul remained unstable, and rest was essential.
“It feels like... I might dream again after a long time.”
“Have a good dream. When you wake, everything will be over.”
“Yes...”
Grander murmured softly in reply and closed her eyes.
Soon, steady breathing filled the air, accompanied by faint sounds of exhalation.
“Ater Nocturnus.”
Ludger called forth his familiar.
Ater Nocturnus, sensing what Ludger desired, gently enveloped Grander’s body and lifted her in its arms.
The familiar turned its gaze toward its master, asking silently—
Could he truly fight properly without it?
Ludger gave a small laugh at his usually greedy familiar’s concern.
“Do not worry.”
Because today—
He fully intended to do this properly.
“Hahaha! Splendid!”
The silence that had dominated the crater was shattered by the laughter of Cardinal Patricio Romelo.
Having reached the outer rim of the crater, he looked down at Ludger with a face overflowing with exhilaration.
“To destroy the divine Stake all on your own—so this is what it means to bear His blood, is it?”
“Cardinal Patricio Romelo.”
“My, it has been a long time. You were so young back then, and now you have grown so much I hardly recognized you.”
As if he had been waiting for this moment, Patricio spoke with smug familiarity. Ludger swept his gaze around at the surrounding troops before asking calmly:
“So this entire setup was bait to lure me here?”
“Of course. But I never imagined you would come in person. Alone, no less. I at least expected you to have prepared some subordinates—otherwise, gathering all these people seems rather wasted, does it not?”
Patricio had orchestrated everything.
Even Grander was merely a means to an end—a piece of bait to accomplish his goal.
There was only one thing he truly sought.
Ludger Cherish.
No—Heathcliff von Bretus, another of the Holy Sovereign’s bloodline.
The mocking smile that had lingered on Patricio’s face faded.
“You should not exist.”
“......”
“You were never meant to exist. A bastard child born by mistake—that is what you are.”
Patricio shook his head.
“No. It would have been better if you were merely a bastard. But you are not just that. You are an artificial Grail—nothing more than a vessel created to contain God.”
That was why he had tried to kill Ludger.
He had conspired with others to poison him from infancy. When that failed, he tried other methods of assassination.
But Ludger had survived through all of it—as though protected by some divine providence.
In the end, they took him to a secluded place where no one could reach, dropping him into an old well.
Who could have known?
That a pureblood vampire, who had secretly entered the Theocracy of Bretus, would discover the child there and take him away.
After that, they continued to send pursuit squads, but every attempt ended in failure.
“Even afterward, I waited for another chance to erase you—but unfortunately, internal turmoil broke out in the Holy Nation, and I had no choice but to halt my plans.”
Yet he had never abandoned them.
After Bretus reopened to the world, they executed the plan they had long prepared—to erase Ludger once and for all.
“You must not exist, Heathcliff.”
“I must not exist, you say.”
Even at those words, Ludger felt no particular pain.
He was only mildly surprised that the Cardinal himself had been the one to seek his death.
After all, Ludger had never once considered the Holy Sovereign or the others as family.
“So I would prefer that you die. For the sake of those who came all this way just to see this farce through.”
Ludger could not suppress a short laugh at Patricio’s words.
What an absurd thing to say.
Was it not the Cardinal himself who had concealed the truth and summoned them all here on his own whim?
Even now, one only had to glance at the expressions around them to see it.
The others were dumbfounded, unable to understand why Ludger had suddenly appeared.
Yet, having come this far, they all understood what must be done.
Instinctively, they all felt it.
Ludger was their enemy—and if they did not kill him now, they themselves would be destroyed.
“I will ask you one thing.”
“Hmm? Something you wish to know?”
“I am aware that the former Holy Sovereign is dead, and a new one has ascended the throne. Who is it?”
That much was no secret, so Patricio answered lightly, as if it were nothing.
“Salesin von Bretus. The eldest son of the late Holy Sovereign.”
“Salesin. I see. Then he is my eldest brother, I suppose.”
“Have your curiosities been satisfied now?”
“Yes. Though there is one small correction I should make to what you said.”
Irritated by Ludger’s calm tone—as if he still wished to play with words ⊛ Nоvеlιght ⊛ (Read the full story) even in this situation—Patricio furrowed his brow.
“What are you talking about all of a sudden?”
“You think you set this trap to kill me, but it is the opposite.”
Ludger’s eyes turned crimson.
“Today, the ones who will die here... are you.”
Though his voice was composed, Ludger had been seething with anger for some time.
They had used his teacher as bait, attempted to annihilate her soul with the divine Stake—all of it—
Everything that had kept his cold reason intact until now had been ignited into a blazing inferno.
“You may look forward to it. I always keep my word.”
“What is this? Are you trying to bluff even now? In front of all these troops? Or do you perhaps have some hidden ally? Did Priestess Remria perhaps say she would help you?”
The only possible ally Patricio could imagine for Ludger was Remria.
A puppet fashioned from a fragment of the Saintess’s power.
And yet that puppet had risen to a high position within the Church, constantly obstructing his every plan.
Patricio despised the so-called priestesses.
Even more so the fact that Ludger—an enemy of the Church—could not be openly denounced or defied because he bore the blood of the Holy Sovereign.
That is all because of that false Saintess.
A counterfeit Saintess fabricated to preserve the Church’s prestige.
Originally, failed creations from the Saintess cultivation program were to be disposed of, but that insolent woman had taken them in, calling them her “sisters,” and thus this entire disaster had begun.
‘But this too will soon be over. Once I remove that bothersome tool, I shall appeal to His Majesty Salesin to purge the others one by one as well.’
All for the sake of the Theocracy of Bretus.
To build a paradise for humankind alone.
“Now then, everyone—prepare yourselves.”
At Patricio’s command, the Holy Knights stepped forward first.
Each one cloaked themselves in divine power, invoking blessings and chanting sacred prayers.
Holy light flared to life in every direction—
but the radiance that should have been benevolent was instead brimming with murderous intent.
Ludger remained motionless as he watched.
He did not chant a spell, did not take evasive steps, did not even prepare for battle.
He simply spoke, quietly.
“First Seal Release.”
Above Ludger’s head, a pitch-black void opened.
The sight sent a chill through everyone present.
A black hole suddenly appearing above one’s head—it was a vision almost impossible to believe even as they saw it.
And from within that void, something indescribable began to pour forth—an unfamiliar, oppressive energy.
Even Patricio felt goosebumps crawling across his skin at its presence.
“Second Seal Release.”
Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.
At that moment, Ludger’s second seal was undone.
The black hole above him widened, and a halo formed around its rim.
The energy emanating from within grew stronger—
and beyond that, countless presences could be felt stirring inside.
The crowd’s fear reached its peak.
Sensing danger, Patricio shouted,
“Attack!”
The priests abandoned their usual composure, their voices cracking as they cast their sacred spells.
Beams of divine light burst forth toward Ludger—
attacks powerful enough not only to annihilate evil, but to melt and kill any living being through sheer force and heat.
The others followed suit.
Hunters fired their weapons; mages unleashed spells.
The two color-ranked magicians joined in, one hurling flames, the other lightning.
Just before the combined onslaught reached the center of the crater where Ludger stood,
his final words resounded far and wide, echoing across the entire area.
“Third Seal Release. <Heaven Gate Open>.”
Open the Heaven’s Door.
Above Ludger’s head—
The black hole, which had been barely two meters across, expanded in an instant.
Its size grew until it covered not only Ludger but the entire crater.
A massive, black void nearly a hundred meters in diameter.
If the faint energy they had felt before had been a mere needle prick leaking through,
now it was as though an enormous celestial gate had been thrown wide open, exposing what lay beyond.
—Thou art now become omnipotent.
Voices spoke in unison from within the void—voices of gods.
And then—
Every attack fired at Ludger was swallowed whole by the darkness.
Beams of holy light, lightning, and flame—all were consumed by the abyss above him.
It looked like a 6th-circle dark-attribute grand magic spell unleashed upon the world.
But <Dreamless Soul’s Eclipse>, a true 6th-circle spell, was still a construct born of mana.
What they were witnessing now—was not magic.
Nor was it divine sorcery.
Nor even the strange power said to belong to non-human races.
From within the void came a sound.
Crack. Crackle. Crack.
It sounded like joints twisting—or teeth grinding something apart.
That eerie, bone-deep noise made everyone’s skin crawl.
Would it feel like this to face a natural predator alone in the wild?
No one fainted outright, but all of them—every priest, knight, and mage—forgot their earlier confidence and froze in place.
Something.
Something existed inside that black hole.
Srrrk—
Through the hundred-meter void, something began to slither out.
Tentacles—dozens, hundreds—resembling those of an enormous cephalopod.
They wriggled out as though ready to cascade like a waterfall from the abyss,
an overwhelming and grotesque sight.
Whatever it was trying to emerge, even that colossal hole seemed far too small to contain it.
And upon closer look, those tentacles were not ordinary flesh.
They were ropes woven from human bone, flesh, muscle, and organs—
intricately braided, pulsing with a dreadful vitality.
Thousands of such appendages squirmed out from the void,
and merely looking at them made one’s optic nerves feel as if they were burning.
Even without knowing what it was, everyone instinctively understood—
if that thing were to come fully through, it would be the end of everything.
“Stop.”
The moment Ludger spoke, the tentacles froze as if time itself halted.
“This time, I am not borrowing your power.”
At his words, the tentacles quivered, questioning his intent.
Wasn’t their strength the most optimal weapon in this situation?
“No. This time, I will borrow something else. Ending it too easily would not be any fun.”
The tentacles shivered in displeasure but did not defy his command.
Like time running backward, they were sucked back into the black void.
As everyone around breathed sighs of relief, only one person failed to do so.
Patricio’s lips trembled.
“A god? You... you just manipulated the power of a god?”
“Yes,” Ludger replied simply.
“Impossible! You—have you filled that vessel with a heretical god?!”
“A heretical god? You mean those ancient deities your Church labeled as heresy and erased from existence?”
“To contain such heresy! You fiend! I knew you were dangerous, but it seems it is far too late now!”
Ludger cast him a deep, mocking smile.
“What is so funny?” Patricio demanded.
“Is it not amusing? You speak as if I have surrendered everything to that god.”
“Then are you saying that is not the case?”
“Of course not.”
At that instant, from the center of the void above Ludger’s head, a massive surge of energy flared.
Just as they wondered what new horror would emerge, a thunderous crack resounded—
and a bolt of lightning struck down, spiraling into Ludger’s right hand.
Blinding light flashed.
And in his grasp—
was a hammer, crackling with lightning.