Blood splattered, and the back of the throne split diagonally.
The blood belonged to Diena.
Her neck was intact—only one of her shoulders had been cut, bleeding from a gash.
Suruna, who had swung the sword, looked displeased.
“I aimed to behead you.”
For a split second, a strange ripple burst out from Diena and reached Suruna, interfering with his mind.
She hadn’t stopped his strike, but she had diverted its path.
An unbelievable feat. The power Diena had just used was unmistakably Authority.
But how could an Authority interfere with another Apostle’s?
“Even if it’s a borrowed Authority, it should be impossible for it to affect mine. Just what have you been doing all these years?”
“Is that really what you’re curious about in the middle of a fight?”
“I can afford to be. You and Pademan are the only ones left now.”
Suruna was right.
The guards Diena had prepared couldn’t stop Owens.
They might have bought some time, but Helia had burned more than half of them to ashes with the dragon’s breath, and the tide had turned completely.
Only Commander Pademan of the Holy Knights still held his ground.
He was proving that he hadn’t become commander for nothing.
His short, rock-solid body was a weapon in itself, and every strike he delivered—amplified by divine power—was a deadly blow.
But his opponent was a greater monster.
At first, it seemed an even match. But once Phantos began to hunt in earnest, the tide shifted.
Slash!
At first, it was just a shallow wound.
Phantos’s claws tore through his armor, leaving traces across his skin.
Just scratches. With divine power, they could heal quickly, nothing worth worrying about.
Yet Pademan felt something strange.
Something was off.
He shook off the unease and continued to fight, not realizing he was sinking deeper into a mire.
His armor was shredded.
His wounds grew so deep that flesh and bone hung in tatters.
And when Phantos finally tore off one of his arms—
Pademan realized it.
He had been toyed with all along.
The torn arm regenerated instantly through divine power, but his pride could not.
“Kh...!”
Grinding his teeth, Pademan charged at Phantos again.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Each clash sent the air exploding outward with thunderous roars that shattered the eardrums.
Pademan fought with everything he had, lungs burning, heart pounding at its limit.
But even amid that chaos, Phantos remained calm.
Unscathed. Unrushed.
Every fist filled with divine power was somehow deflected—bent off course by the strange energy surrounding Phantos’s body.
Not a single proper hit landed.
While every strike Phantos threw was lethal.
It wasn’t a fair fight.
Like a solid rock eroded from the outside by waves of sand and wind, the Holy Knight Commander reached his limit. One knee hit the floor.
He had thought he’d been pushing himself to the brink countless times before—spilling blood, tearing muscle, grinding bone.
Even after becoming commander, he had never slacked off. His rank was proof of that.
And yet—
“What the hell is this monster?”
He didn’t want to admit it.
But he had to.
His faith-armored spirit broke, his trained body crumbled.
Both mind and flesh exhausted, what came to Pademan was bewilderment.
Could such a monster truly exist in this world?
And that such a monster had joined hands with the bastard child trying to overthrow the Holy Nation?
What crushed him most was realizing that the beastkin he had always scorned as savage animals now looked at him as the beast.
‘Ah. So that’s it.’
Only after the fight’s outcome was decided did Pademan understand—it hadn’t been a battle.
It was a hunt.
He was the prey.
The hunter was the beastkin before him.
A human, hunted by the very race he had called beasts—what did that make him but less than a beast?
If it had been some cowardly trick, he might have cursed or raged. But Phantos had crushed him head-on.
The result was so absolute that even his pride could not deny it.
“Haa... haa... I...”
Crack!
Before he could finish his words, Pademan’s head exploded.
Phantos casually brushed his clean, bloodless knuckles and lost all interest in the headless corpse.
“Well, at least he was a decent meal.”
Now, only Diena remained.
As she reached to raise her scales, a slicing sound rang out—her scales were cut clean in half.
“I told ⊛ Nоvеlιght ⊛ (Read the full story) you. That doesn’t work anymore.”
“Annoying...”
“The throne’s the same way.”
Clatter—!
Golden chains emerged from behind the throne but were sliced apart like noodles in an instant.
At the same time, black chains flew from all directions, wrapping around Diena and the throne, binding her tight.
It was Helia’s illusion.
Just as Diena bit her lip to counterattack, blue mana-forged spears flew in, piercing through her body.
Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!
“Kh...!”
Diena groaned as the pain tore through her flesh.
“Stop whining. I avoided the vital spots.”
With Ludger joining the assault, Diena was left completely helpless.
Who could have imagined the inner fortress would be breached so easily?
“...Even if you capture me, it’s useless. No matter who you are, you can’t break through the path to the inner sanctum.”
“We know.”
At Suruna’s reply, Diena frowned.
“You know—and you still spared me? What, planning to torture me for fun before I die?”
“Hardly. You people enjoyed doing that under the excuse of purging heretics, but we’re far more civilized.”
That wasn’t why they kept her alive.
“You... you knew about my Authority.”
“So what? The Great Demon Suruna’s Authority has been known in our Holy Nation for ages. After all, your demonic power is merely to ‘learn,’ isn’t it?”
Diena mocked him.
Unlike other Apostles, the Great Demon Suruna’s Authority was not transcendent.
Everything he had shown so far was simply the product of learning—acquired knowledge.
“Yes. Even this swordsmanship I use... is something I learned. Unfair, isn’t it? Others can create solid illusions, lull enemies into dreams, control minds... and I get this.”
Though born with immense potential, Suruna was different from the others.
To do anything, he first had to learn.
To wield a sword, he had to study swordsmanship.
To cast magic, he had to learn magic.
And not instantly—he needed countless trials and failures.
“Still, I’m grateful for it.”
There was a time he had cursed it, wondering how such a thing could even be called an Authority.
But now he saw it differently.
“Humans are limited by lifespan. No matter how much they try to learn, they die before reaching the end. But I’m not like that.”
Suruna had no lifespan.
Not immortal—but ageless.
Therefore, for him, learning had no end.
If there was no end to learning, then he could grasp everything.
There was nothing Suruna could not learn.
“That’s why it’s possible. I learned the power of your scales.”
Learning is enlightenment.
And enlightenment is adaptation.
The power of the relic Diena had wielded—the scales—had worked on Suruna only a few times in the beginning.
Afterward, once he learned and adapted to that power, it no longer affected him.
He might have been weak at first, but he was a being with the potential to become infinitely strong.
That was the Great Demon, Suruna.
Even in the distant past, he had been a threat—but now, after countless ages, he was recognized as the Church’s greatest enemy.
“So what? Planning to learn the sacred laws from me now?”
“I’d refuse even if you offered them for free. I’ve no desire to learn something so filthy.”
“Then why did you keep me alive? Let me tell you in advance—I’ll never open the path into the inner sanctum.”
“I don’t expect you to. Besides, you don’t even know how to get inside, do you?”
“......”
Diena closed her mouth, struck by his words.
“If you did, you wouldn’t be waiting here in the inner fortress. You’d be hiding inside that ‘inner sanctum.’ I’m not so foolish as to ask someone who doesn’t know. I kept you alive for another reason. Your very existence is suspicious.”
Suspicious?
Diena’s eyes twitched.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Diena von Bretus—you’ve shown me an unusual amount of hostility.”
“So what? Is it strange that someone from the Holy Nation hates a demon? That’s natural.”
“The hatred you show isn’t just that. More than anything, the way you spoke—it was as if you’d seen firsthand what happened that day to Saintess Arkenis.”
“Don’t be ridiculous...”
“And that moment when you used your power against me—it wasn’t some transferred Authority. It was the original mind-control Authority itself. You, not Holy Sovereign Salesin, used that power? Doesn’t that strike you as odd?”
“...You must not know that the bloodline of the Holy Sovereigns has always been capable of using such powers.”
“Oh, I know. If you were granted strength by a former Sovereign, that’s possible.”
But even so, something didn’t add up.
“What I can’t understand is that the current Sovereign, Salesin, let you keep that Authority. The others had their reason wiped out, didn’t they? One was even turned into a living bomb.”
“I bowed my head and decided to follow my elder brother’s will.”
Suruna smiled, amused.
“Ah, so that’s how you survived? Do you really think Salesin von Bretus is the type to spare a submissive little sister? I don’t see it that way.”
If anything, the one who bowed her head immediately would be the most dangerous to keep around—cunning enough to recognize power and kneel to it. Such a person was far too troublesome to have close.
“Yet you used the power of Authority. And you spoke as if you personally witnessed the Church’s past events, showing an unusual hostility toward me...”
Suruna’s eyes gleamed sharply.
“You—you’re not Diena von Bretus.”
“......”
Diena said nothing, and beside him, Helia frowned in confusion.
“What do you mean, she’s not Diena von Bretus? Then who exactly did we capture?”
“She’s Diena von Bretus.”
“...Are you joking?”
“I’m not. The body is Diena von Bretus’s. The memories are hers too. But... something else is mixed in.”
“Something else...?”
Everyone turned their eyes to Diena.
Was what Suruna said true?
Normally, she would have scoffed at such absurd speculation—but Diena remained silent, as if the words had hit their mark.
“...No way.”
“I told you—she’s more suspicious than she looks. Let’s see if I’m right. She can use Authority, she carries memories of the past... You’re a fragment of someone who’s been carried through time, aren’t you? A piece of someone from a very distant past. Your memory’s incomplete—that’s why.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Diena snapped back immediately.
After all, it was only Suruna’s conjecture. He had no proof.
“Right. With no proof, what I said is just baseless speculation. But what if there’s someone who can confirm it?”
“...What?”
“What are you waiting for? You’ve come this far—it’s your turn to show yourself.”
“Do not command me, filthy demon.”
The voice that answered, filled with hatred toward Suruna, belonged to Setadel as she appeared.
Diena’s eyes widened in shock.
“You...!”
“Oh, such a strong reaction. Glad to see you’re happy to meet an old acquaintance.”
A smile curved at Suruna’s eyes.
“Recognizing Setadel at a glance—now that shouldn’t be possible. No one in the Holy Nation should remember his face.”
“......”
Diena realized her mistake, but it was too late.
Setadel stared straight at her.
“To be precise, at what’s hiding inside her.”
“You’re right,” Setadel said. “The body belongs to the daughter of the previous Holy Sovereign—but there’s something else mixed within.”
“...Is that even possible?”
Hans couldn’t hold back his question.
Talk of souls and possession was far beyond his understanding.
“In the distant past, the Holy Theocracy of Bretus also practiced soul rites—Je-ryeong. They communicated with spirits, and some could even command them.”
It was the origin of what modern mages now called [Necromancy].
“I was one of those spirit priests. In the past, I served as the closest attendant to Saintess Arkenis.”
Setadel, the spirit priest.
He was a man from the very era when Saintess Arkenis had lived.
On the day the Saintess died—
he was the only one who survived.
“So it was you who opened the gates of the inner fortress!”
Diena suddenly understood why the gates had fallen so quickly.
Setadel had held access rights to the inner sanctum since ancient times—it was effortless for him to open them.
“You, who once served the Saintess—why would you betray your own homeland?!”
“Betray my homeland? Don’t make me laugh. I have never changed. I have only ever served the Saintess.”
Setadel’s gaze pierced through Diena’s eyes—no, through to the specter hiding within.
“The ones who betrayed her... were you.”