Chapter 62

Chapter 62, The Order (7)

By the time the Flame of Human Sacrifice finished its meal, the flames looked closer to purple than blue.

I had no idea how they had gone from deep navy to purple, but they definitely seemed stronger.

I could tell because they had become this difficult to control.

“...Hmm.”

I let out a low sound as I suppressed the flames trying to escape my grasp.

The flames were attempting to move against my will.

They had probably become too powerful for me to control comfortably.

Feeding them any more fragments seemed like it would be dangerous, both for me and my companions.

I shouldn't touch any more fragments until I find a way to improve my control.

Having reached that conclusion, I looked toward Hwa-ryeon, who was still holding out well.

“Are... hah. Are you done? Phew.”

Hwa-ryeon noticed my gaze and asked while running around to avoid the followers' attacks.

Her breathing mixed into every few words, making it obvious how exhausted she was.

I nodded and told her she had done well, patting her lightly.

She immediately passed me and leaned against the wall of the lodging.

At first, I wondered why she looked that exhausted when she had far more stamina than me.

Then I looked at the place where she had been fighting.

There were well over a hundred corpses at a glance.

More followers had continued gathering while Hwa-ryeon fought, so there were actually more enemies than when the battle first started.

Even so, looking at the corpses, it seemed like she had cut down around two hundred people.

If she had done it with magic or a Mystery, that would have been one thing.

But cutting down two hundred people with nothing but a sword was by no means easy.

“Good work.”

I patted her once more, then stepped forward.

The followers looked at me with sickened expressions.

Even so, their momentum itself was stronger than before.

Their faith also seemed firmer.

Wasn't there a saying that faith grew through trials?

Watching them scream the name of their god and charge forward, I suddenly felt curious.

From the looks of things, they seemed to believe that whoever had granted them divine power was their god.

In other words, their god was Eriel.

Yet whenever I mentioned Eriel, they immediately tried to ignore it.

“Shut your mouth, wicked one!”

“Do not wag that deceitful tongue!”

They shouted things like that while charging.

Yet guilt flickered in their eyes.

That contradictory attitude made me even more curious.

For now, we're in the middle of a battle.

I'll ask them after this is over.

I finished thinking and moved.

Boiling flames rose from my hand.

The vicious fire strained against my control, trying to devour everything around it.

I adjusted only the minimum direction necessary to keep it away from my companions.

Then I released the lock inside my mind.

I poured all my strength into the flames that were trying to burst free.

And then, quite literally, the fire went berserk.

Rooooooar!

With an overwhelming explosion, the flames erupted from my hand and swallowed everything in front of me like a beast released from its leash.

It looked like a purple tsunami devouring the world.

An ocean made of fire surged forward, reducing everything it touched to ash.

The followers were no exception.

The light of divine power they raised was swallowed by the light of my flames and disappeared without resistance.

The flames struck the followers first.

Then they spread in every direction, sweeping across roughly one-third of the Inner World.

The cathedral was also inside that area.

But thanks to the control I had forced onto the flames, the cathedral remained intact even while the other buildings around it melted.

Eriel, who should still be inside, would be safe as well.

After thinking that far, I collapsed to the ground while breathing heavily.

I had poured all my strength into that one attack, and my condition was terrible.

My entire body trembled like I had a fever.

All my strength drained away as though I were suffering from severe exhaustion.

I sagged like a broken jointed doll and slowly calmed my breathing.

If I had been alone, I would have had to stay alert for any surviving followers.

But I had companions.

Arlin used mana detection to search for remaining followers.

Lee Yeonhee rushed over and poured divine power into me.

As she did, I naturally looked over her changed appearance.

A lot about her had changed.

“...Wow.”

The word escaped me on its own.

If the previous Lee Yeonhee had been half human and half angel, the current Lee Yeonhee was a complete angel.

Her atmosphere was different.

Her appearance even more so.

I stared blankly and examined her from head to toe.

The most obvious change was her wings.

Three enormous, warm-looking pairs of wings spread behind her, large enough to seem capable of embracing the entire world, just like Eriel's.

They no longer scattered particles of light like before.

But perhaps because the divine power inside them existed on a completely different level, they somehow looked even more mysterious.

And the changes weren't limited to her wings.

The divine power pouring from her body was bright enough to make me worry I might go blind if I stared for too long.

There was also a faint halo floating above her head.

It made her look as though she had truly become a complete angel.

And her face...

She looked unbelievably beautiful.

There hadn't been any obvious major change, yet for some reason, she now seemed beautiful enough to be mesmerizing.

“...”

Those were only the visible changes.

The changes in her power and abilities were even greater.

The moment one of her wings lightly brushed against me, all the exhaustion throughout my body melted away like cotton candy soaked in water.

The burning heat in my skin disappeared.

Even the dizziness caused by overusing my strength completely vanished.

Not only had every problem in my body disappeared in an instant, I was now overflowing with energy and felt ready to start moving again immediately.

And even after doing that, Lee Yeonhee showed no sign of exhaustion as she used the same divine power on Hwa-ryeon.

Without thinking, I asked.

“How many fragments did you use?”

There was no blame in my question.

I was simply curious how many fragments she had absorbed to change this much.

But Lee Yeonhee seemed to misunderstand me.

Her expression fell, and guilt appeared on her face.

She looked like a puppy with drooping ears.

It was cute, and at the same time, I felt bad and wanted to correct the misunderstanding quickly.

The contrast was surprisingly charming.

Until now, she had looked less like the Lee Yeonhee I knew and more like some mysterious and magnificent angel.

But the moment her expression changed, the entire atmosphere around her changed as well.

The sacred and mysterious feeling disappeared, and the Lee Yeonhee I knew seemed to return.

I stopped her before she could apologize.

“No, no. I was only asking because I was curious.”

“Ah... I think I used more than a hundred?”

“A hundred? I only gave you a little over ten... Ah, Arlin must have collected the fragments the followers dropped during the battle with magic and given them to you.”

No wonder there had seemed to be so few fragments left on the ground after the battle.

Arlin must have taken them midway through the fight.

“...Did I use too many?”

“No. I can't use any more fragments anyway. If I feed the flame any more, I don't think I'll be able to control it.”

“Ah...”

“So if Yeonhee is the only one who can use them anyway, it's much better for you to absorb them than let them rot like garbage.”

“...Thank you.”

After saying that, Lee Yeonhee thought for a moment.

Then she stepped in front of me and proudly spread her wings wide.

Three pairs.

Six wings in total spread out and covered the sky above us.

I looked at her with an expression that asked what she was doing.

She blushed and turned her gaze away.

“I, I can do this now too!”

With an embarrassed expression, Lee Yeonhee moved her wings.

They flapped up and down, creating a gust of wind.

Then the tips of her feet slowly lifted off the ground.

She was flying with her wings.

She only managed to rise slightly, probably because she wasn't used to it yet.

But even that was impressive enough.

I clapped.

Clap, clap, clap.

“Hah.”

Lee Yeonhee looked pleased and flapped her wings again.

That was when Arlin approached.

Her expression was slightly stiff.

Her primary role had been reconnaissance.

After the battle ended, she had been searching for any remaining enemies.

There was no way her expression becoming serious after continuing that search was a good sign.

I asked her.

“Did something happen?”

Arlin nodded and created a three-dimensional model using mana.

A perfect recreation of the surrounding area appeared before us.

She pointed at several places on the model.

“Here, here, here, and here. And here as well. There are still people remaining in these locations.”

“How many?”

“Approximately... three hundred.”

Three hundred was quite a lot.

Still, it didn't seem like enough to make Arlin's expression this serious.

I guessed there had to be something else and waited.

It didn't take long before Arlin reached the most important point.

Her finger moved toward the location of the cathedral.

“More importantly, I'm detecting one life-sign here.”

“Isn't that Eriel?”

“No. One life-sign besides her. That alone would be fine, but the problem is that this person's biological response is similar to Delta's.”

“How similar?”

“Infinitely close to one hundred percent.”

“Does that mean Delta is still alive?”

Arlin nodded.

“I find it difficult to believe as well, but yes. That's what it means.”

That meant the battle wasn't over yet.

I tightened my grip on the tension that had just begun to loosen.