Salesin von Bretus.
He was not made solely of what one would call himself.
In truth, even calling him “Salesin” felt questionable.
His physical vessel might indeed bear the name Salesin—but what dwelled inside it did not.
That was why Rine felt even greater revulsion toward Salesin than toward Hans, who had transformed into the cryptid of the Prosecutors’ Office.
If Hans’s cryptid form was like seeing the greatest darkness in the world—
Salesin was like looking at filth that had stagnated for ages and rotted through.
If one side was vast and immense, this one was so grotesque, so disgusting, that one didn’t even want to imagine its true shape.
A mass of twisted human desires, accumulated for over a thousand years and rotten to the core, then wrapped neatly in a white veil.
That was the Salesin von Bretus now standing before them.
“I tried to hide it as best I could, but as expected, I can’t escape the Judgement Eye’s sight. Oh well. You possess a power equal to mine, after all.”
Rine had no choice but to see it.
The faint, shimmering visions behind Salesin—distorted, tormented shades letting out soundless screams.
“How... how are you alive?” Rine asked in a trembling voice.
To her, Salesin was not alive at all.
It was as if what flowed through his body was not blood, but the madness accumulated across a millennium.
Salesin simply smiled, offering no answer.
Whatever the truth, encountering the wielder of the Judgement Eye again was more than enough for him.
Seeing the emotion flicker in Salesin’s gaze, Rine recoiled instinctively, stepping back.
Salesin had no intention of letting her slip away.
“Come here.”
His gentle voice made him look like a savior extending his hand toward a lost lamb.
But Rine shook her head and backed away.
Salesin’s smile deepened.
“Did you think that was a request?”
If he spoke the words aloud, then they had to be fulfilled.
A command? No—it was something even higher.
Salesin’s words were no boast.
The faint radiance spilling from his body stretched toward Rine like ropes, trying to bind her.
For a brief moment, Rine forgot even the will to resist.
But before the danger reached her, Ludger stepped in.
“What do you think you’re doing to my student?”
With a casual swipe of his hand, Ludger tore apart Salesin’s binding light and stood protectively before Rine.
“A ragged old man your age reaching out to a young woman—nothing could be more repulsive.”
“Ah, I forgot. You’re here too.”
He spoke as if it had genuinely slipped his mind—and in truth, it half had.
Ludger mattered, but Rine and her Judgement Eye held far more of Salesin’s interest.
“Little brother, you’re already finished. You can’t be ignorant of what my arrival means.”
“I may not know what you’re trying to say, but I know perfectly well what this situation means.”
Shadow surged over Ludger’s entire body as he lunged at Salesin.
BOOM!
Shadow and light collided with a deafening roar.
“It means you’ll die here today.”
“I tried to grant you mercy, but you insist on kicking away my final kindness.”
“Is that how you ‘granted mercy’ and reduced the other siblings to that state?”
“They understood what it meant to live as the Holy Sovereign’s bloodline.”
KRRRRRRRM!
Just their struggle alone made the air vibrate and thunder rumble.
With the Elemental Lord of Wind reverse-summoned, the sky darkened once more.
Beneath the clouds was shadow blacker than the storm, and light brighter than the sun.
“You intend to fight me to the end?”
“Why? Are you afraid?”
“Afraid? Hardly.”
Salesin shook his head lazily.
“It’s only that staining my hands with a bug’s blood is bothersome.”
Ludger grimaced briefly at the vile sentiment bleeding through Salesin’s mask-like face.
Then the light around Salesin intensified.
THOOM!
Ludger was blasted backward, forced to create distance.
Salesin swept his hand.
Light followed the motion, snapping toward Ludger’s throat like a blade.
But Salesin’s expression shifted as his eyes narrowed.
A blade had slipped close enough to pierce the space between his brows.
BOOM!
The sharp tip halted just before Salesin’s forehead.
“Faster than expected, knight.”
Salesin stared directly into Alex’s blade, not blinking.
His timing had been impeccable—but even a master knight’s aura-enhanced strike could not touch a single hair on Salesin’s head.
It was only natural.
Even the Elemental Lord’s Mach-20 wings had failed to injure him.
That dense divine power—
Not even a master’s aura could pierce it.
“Unless... you don’t pierce it.”
Alex grinned.
Salesin did not yet understand the meaning of that grin—until the next moment.
CRK-CRK-CRK—
“The divine power...?”
The thin yet overwhelmingly strong divine barrier covering Salesin’s skin—
Began to twist and distort.
Salesin realized his own divine power—normally as natural to control as his own limbs—was being overridden by another force.
“That’s an annoying ability. No... an extremely refined technique.”
He had dismissed it as a bug’s futile struggle—but this was different.
Salesin reached toward Alex.
Alex maintained a calm facade, but inwardly he cursed.
Damn it. Even my full strength can only twist his divine power enough to make the tiniest opening.
He had devoted all his focus to distorting the divine barrier, leaving him unable to react to Salesin’s counterattack.
Just as Salesin’s finger aimed for Alex’s forehead—
Countless vines erupted from the citadel and wrapped around Salesin’s arm.
Sedina’s spell.
The vines attempted to crush his arm like a giant press—but the divine power stopped them cold.
Salesin turned his gaze toward Sedina.
“What a nuisance.”
The divine power around him surged violently.
WHUM!
Alex was blasted away, and Sedina’s vines were shredded to pieces.
Salesin moved to eliminate the two exposed combatants—
When a railgun shot screamed toward him.
“Try this!”
Seridan had fired the instant an opening appeared.
Salesin flicked his fingers toward the incoming slug.
A blue line carved into the air—and bent at a right angle, shooting skyward.
“What?”
Seridan’s eyes bulged.
Strong or not—he flicked a railgun round?
Salesin sighed.
“My, my. How can all of you be this stupid?”
BOOM!
A massive blade crashed into the back of his head.
Terrina’s Gladius Arts: Giant Killer.
A strike strong enough to crack diamond with brute force—yet Salesin’s skull was untouched.
Instead, Terrina felt the recoil crawl all the way down the sword and nearly crush her grip.
Johann and Reinhardt joined her immediately in a coordinated strike.
None of them were foolish enough to believe Salesin was an ally after all this.
Their master instincts screamed that if Salesin wasn’t stopped here and now, it would be too late.
And yet, Salesin looked bored—even as two master knights unleashed their aura upon him.
“Stand down.”
The moment he uttered the words, his voice became force that swept through the area.
With a single explosive sound, Reinhardt, Johann, and Terrina were blasted away, rolling across the ground.
Just one spoken word carried physical power and hurled master knights aside.
It was not something one could endure.
“W-what... what was that?”
Johann Okeas had no idea what had hit him.
Salesin had merely spoken—and the instant he heard it, his body betrayed his will and threw itself backward.
Strength drained from his limbs, and it felt like being manipulated like a puppet.
He barely managed to regain control enough to stop himself—but not enough to avoid tumbling across the ground.
The memory of their brainwashed subordinates flashed across the minds of Johann, Reinhardt, and Terrina.
Mental interference.
All three instantly understood what Salesin had done.
“Hm?”
Salesin looked puzzled at the few who remained defiant.
“How odd. Normally, you should have lost your rationality instantly. And yet you withstood it.”
“Maybe your brainwashing isn’t so impressive after all.”
Ludger reappeared right in front of him, already poised to strike.
Before Salesin could reply, Ludger’s shadow-clad arm morphed into something demonic and smashed into him.
Expecting the divine power to break Ludger’s arm, Salesin prepared no defense.
Yet instead—he was pushed back so hard he fell off the spire.
“Oh?”
Salesin let out a surprised sound.
He had tried to block with divine power, yet for an instant he felt the space itself push him.
“Magic of the forbidden realm, is it?”
Ludger had imbued his shadow with spatial force and hurled Salesin away.
One would expect him to pursue and press the attack—but Ludger did the opposite.
He did not follow.
Whatever Salesin intended to do atop the spire, Ludger was certain he couldn’t allow it.
“You’re too transparent. Either that, or you’re that desperate.”
Just before he hit the distant ground, Salesin’s body froze in place.
He defied gravity, floating back up toward the spire.
At that moment, a massive silhouette overshadowed the sky—
A raven, wings spread wide.
Its piercing eyes glared down at Salesin.
Ludger’s summoned beast—Ater Nocturnus.
The greedy beast, swollen with mana, slashed at Salesin with razor talons.
Leaving Ater Nocturnus to occupy him, Ludger raced toward the spire’s center and pressed a hand to the ground.
He had never expected Ater Nocturnus to defeat Salesin.
But it will buy me time.
Mana flowed from Ludger’s palm into the spire.
Blue mana-lines spread like a pattern across the structure.
The center of the spire opened, revealing a device rising upward.
Sharp, pointed—like a bud of marble.
Before anyone could ask what it was, Ludger placed a disk-shaped Relic into the device.
And then—
A white beam shot up from below and obliterated the device instantly.
The device vanished without a trace.
And through the opening, hands folded behind his back, Salesin floated up, defying gravity.
“Trying to do something interesting, are you?”
He smiled knowingly, as if he already understood Ludger’s plan.
Ludger said nothing, staring only at the spot where the device had been.
Ater Nocturnus had not lasted even a single second.
Salesin had torn it apart instantly.
“What were you going to do with that Relic? Hm? Activate this little spire mechanism and pull off some sort of trick?”
“......”
Salesin mocked the now-disrupted Ludger.
Even then, Ludger remained silent, staring at the ruined opening.
“Hm. Perhaps the shock wasn’t enough? Maybe I need to shatter that disk to make you truly despair.”
At the mention of destroying the Relic, Ludger finally reacted.
His blue eyes turned red.
The air shook, and above Ludger’s head, a faint black hole began to open.
Everyone watching swallowed hard.
And then—
“Can you handle it?”
Salesin’s single, casual remark.
As if he knew something Ludger didn’t.
Ludger’s eyes reverted to their original color.
“You know what happens. If you use that power again, Lumensis will seize «N.o.v.e.l.i.g.h.t» the opportunity to interfere with the lower realm.”
“......”
It wasn’t wrong.
The moment Ludger opened the Celestial Gateway, Lumensis—who had been waiting—would unleash her full power.
The last time he used it, Lumensis had been unaware of his existence.
But afterward, she had recognized him completely—and had been waiting ever since for him to open the gateway again.
Salesin knew this. That was why he had such confidence.
Would Ludger risk it?
“Nothing says I can’t.”
Ludger’s eyes turned red again. The gate began to open.
“I knew you’d try it.”
For the first time, Salesin revealed a card he had never shown before.
A white ring appeared inside his pupils—and above his head, a white disk formed.
The disk flew toward Ludger’s forming black hole and blocked it.
The Celestial Gateway forcibly closed.
“That’s not something only you can do.”