Chapter 219: The God of Water (Part 4)
“A false god, you say…!”
Crack!
The priestess, her anger ignited by a single taunt, nearly lunged forward. But in the next moment, she managed to rein in her fury, clenching her teeth and steadying her breath. Perhaps she realized that facing both the girl and Dalen simultaneously would be a losing battle.
She slowly retreated, a question lingering in her eyes.
“How did you know I was here, Seer of the White Eyes?”
“Did you really think a false god could escape my sight?”
The white-haired girl chuckled lightly. The priestess’s face twisted in frustration, but she wasn’t about to fall for the same provocation twice.
“So, you claim to have seen it with those eyes of yours. I heard you went mad trying to glimpse an unfixed future. Yet here you are, conversing quite sanely for a supposed lunatic.”
“There aren’t as many unfixed futures as one might think. Even your master cannot defy the river of fate.”
”…”
“At least you seem to be trying… But what about you and your esteemed friends? Did you fatten your divine realm by squeezing the lifeblood out of humans?”
The air shimmered and twisted.
Stars that blanketed the night sky began to shine down, pressing upon the area surrounding the priestess. Even amidst their light conversation, the manifestations of their wills were unceasing, and for beings who had ascended to the realm of demigods, their very breath was akin to a high-level spell.
Crack! Creak…
Their verbal sparring manifested as physical distortions, the powers of two entities probing each other. Streams of water rose from the cracks in the ground, sketching intricate magical patterns in the air. The starlight bore down, solidifying and peeling away those patterns, constricting the space around the priestess.
The sea of stars that had covered half the sky and the turbulent waves in the sky above were locked in a relentless struggle, consuming each other.
Even Dalen, who had witnessed battles between transcendent beings before, found it difficult to decide when to intervene in this fight.
“It would be better if this ended quickly. No matter how much you resist, the outcome won’t change.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. We are the hidden trump card for the final hour!”
“Tsk. Even so, you’re just a discarded card to your master. Otherwise, wouldn’t you have been given the throne long ago?”
“How dare you speak such nonsense…!”
Boom!
As the girl clicked her tongue, hundreds of stars shot beams of light down from the sky, enveloping and isolating the entire area, making it impossible for even Dalen to see inside.
“Master… Is that really a human?”
”…”
At the demon’s awestruck voice, Dalen shook his head. Even if Sissela, manifested through the priestess, was a false god who hadn’t reached the pinnacle of hierarchy, she was still a demigod of the sixth rank. The fact that the frail-looking girl could so one-sidedly push back a being capable of enveloping reality with her divine realm was proof that she was beyond ordinary comprehension.
‘At this point, it’s better not to interfere at all.’
Dalen lowered his sword, watching the sphere of blazing starlight. From his experience beyond the monitor, he knew this battle would resolve itself without his intervention.
Even among fifth-rank transcendents, the gap between the top and the bottom was vast. The sixth rank, the realm of demigods, had even greater disparities, never inferior to the fifth rank.
Facing the fallen avatar of Suum, Charina had risked her life and only managed to inflict injuries. Although Dalen’s strategy was decisive, the fact that the earth dragon was overwhelmed by the enemy from the start was for the same reason.
‘It’s a shame about the experience, but… I can still collect the corpse even if I don’t kill it myself.’
Having just finished a battle with the earth dragon and undergone the blacksmith’s training beyond his mind, Dalen wasn’t in perfect condition. Considering the ongoing siege and the battles to follow, it was wise to conserve his strength when possible.
As Dalen placed his hand on his waist, a golden rift appeared in the air, spitting out a figure.
“Cough! Cough!”
”…Old man.”
In the interdimensional space created by overlapping divine realms and territories, Felber, who had retreated earlier at Dalen’s request, squeezed through the gap.
“Heh… Sorry. I couldn’t just leave you alone.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
It seemed he had placed the merchant leader and Tommy in a safe location and returned as quickly as possible. Regardless, the fact that he came back was appreciated. If it had come to a life-or-death situation, Dalen would have welcomed his help.
After steadying himself from the strain of entering the interdimensional space, Felber caught his breath and spoke.
“To think I’m seeing the Seer of the White Eyes, a figure from history books…”
“You recognized her right away.”
“She was thought to have died long ago. It wasn’t until I became the Tower Master that I learned she was still alive, though confined to the depths of the Twenty-Six Halls.”
“Rumors tend to be exaggerated, don’t they?”
The Seer of the White Eyes. In the public eye, she was a figure long dead, a relic of history. Even among the few transcendents who knew she was alive, rumors abounded that she was plagued by madness or unable to leave the Diamond Palace, regardless of the barrier’s status.
Given her renown, it wasn’t surprising that there were many rumors about her. The more famous one becomes, the more baseless stories circulate, even among transcendents.
‘They say she was there when the city was founded.’
The Seer of the White Eyes was one of the founders of the labyrinth city, Falcion. A member of the pioneering group that completed humanity’s last bastion over a thousand years before the end times.
Her renown was evident when recalling the battle against the Witch of Vines. The ancient witch, returned from death, had sought the magic circle created by one of the founders, Philoperin.
‘Time has indeed passed.’
It felt like just yesterday that they fought over the legacy left by the city’s founders. And now, he was face-to-face with one of them.
How many years had passed since he fell to this land? Amidst the whirlwind of events, he often forgot the passage of time, but moments like these reminded him of how far he’d come.
In that context, the event of one of the chief gods of the Pantheon descending through their bishop was a sign that the end times were truly entering their final phase, racing toward the conclusion.
And the consistent appearance of the Seer of the White Eyes in this event signified that humanity’s resistance against the apocalypse was finally gaining a focal point.
”…Sorry to interrupt, but is it really okay to leave that as it is?”
”…”
“I know it’s odd to say, but I feel like we’re just spectators at a fight.”
That’s not just a feeling; it’s reality. This is one of the few events in the game that offers hope for clearing it.
Even knowing the predetermined outcome, watching the battle unfold before him wasn’t easy. Dalen fiddled with the axe at his waist, gazing at the space isolated by the starlight, and replied.
“I hear singing. It seems to be ending soon.”
When had it started? The stars densely packed in the sky began to sing.
They had already encroached upon a third of the divine realm, filling the sky with tens of thousands of stars. Those stars sang a low song toward the space distorted by light.
“The Banquet Hall of Stars Singing Time”
“Star Song Pillar of Radiance”
A strange chorus that made one’s mind hazy. It wasn’t heard with the ears but resonated directly with the mind. Invisible scales, rhythms, and melodies converged, transforming into a pillar of bright light that pierced down.
The area, crackling with spatial distortion, began to return to its original state. The alien noise that warped reality vanished, revealing the two figures who had been hidden by the light.
“How dare you speak such nonsense…!”
“Was there really a reason to resist? It was bound to end this way.”
The area where the veil of light had lifted. The pillar of song had struck precisely where the priestess stood. Her eyes were wide, as if she were about to unleash a massive wave to sweep away her enemy.
The swirling, compressed torrents of water nearby were evidence that she was on the verge of making her final move.
“How dare you…!”
“Descending through a servant’s body as an avatar has its limits. Even if the power you can manifest remains unchanged, you’re inherently vulnerable to spatial distortions.”
“How dare…!”
“Unlike true evil gods, you, a fabricated deity, don’t even have a true form…”
Yet the massive waterspout, condensed to its limit, remained frozen in place.
The priestess who had conjured it all seemed trapped in a loop, like a clock winding backward, repeating her words and actions over and over.
[How dare you…!]
With each passing moment, it felt as if time was rewinding closer to the beginning, like a video clip with its end point constantly being pulled back.
Even as she witnessed this surreal scene, the girl with her arms crossed spoke softly, her voice echoing in the air.
[Who told you to pretend to be a false god?]
Crackle!
[Ga-ga-ga…!]
As the start and end points of the loop drew ever closer, the priestess’s form began to grotesquely distort.
It was as if a corrupted video file was playing, static filling the space around her.
The waves that seemed ready to crash down vanished as if they were never there, and the divine realm above her head quickly dissipated.
With all her powers erased, all that remained was the priestess’s broken body.
[Go…!]
Crackle—
There was no grand finale or explosion.
Just a brief burst of static, and then silence settled over the spot where the priestess had stood.
For something that had once shown the vast divine realm, the ending was surprisingly anticlimactic.
This wasn’t because Sissela’s power was weak, but rather because the power of the seer before them was something beyond the norm.
The white-eyed seer was one of the few at the pinnacle of the sixth rank among their allies. She could likely stand against a fully armed enemy spear or the true form of a demon lord.
If not for one glaring flaw, he might have considered building a character around her at least once.
“She’s not gone for good.”
The seer spoke, her breath slightly labored.
“The vessel that is the source of the gods is somewhere in the imperial capital, in the sanctum of the main temple.”
“But she must have taken a significant hit. The gods don’t share their power.”
“…You knew, didn’t you? Yes, she won’t be destroyed until the vessel is broken, but it’ll be hard for her to make a move for a while.”
Soon, the seer’s domain faded as well, revealing the ordinary night sky and the ravaged land.
The girl wiped the sweat from her brow and let out a deep sigh. Turning to face Dalen, she spread her arms and slowly stepped back, her voice resonating.
[Let me introduce myself again. I am the one foretold by the Well of Reversal, the anomaly that has flooded the river of fate.]
The seer lifted her head.
Her eyes, where the whites should have been, were filled with a cosmic hue, with stars shining like pupils.
[I am Aliat. The observer who hears the songs of the stars and reads the flow of the galaxy. I foresee infinite branching paths and predict the future… Ah!]
“…You can see infinite paths, but you can’t spot a rock behind you?”
[…]
Aliat, having tripped over a rock, looked dazed. Dalen offered a playful smile and extended his hand.
“Dalen. Nice to meet you.”
“Yes…”
“Let’s pretend that didn’t happen. Did you see anything just now, old man?”
“Ahem! I have no idea what’s going on. I just got here after evacuating Volkma and Tommy…”
Feigning ignorance, Felber cleared his throat. The girl glanced between the two, a frown forming on her brow.
Despite her impressive feats, easily overwhelming the main god of the pantheon upon her first appearance, Dalen had his reasons for not choosing the white-eyed seer as a character to develop.
He often chose strength-based characters, and even when developing a sorcerer, he aimed to enhance their physical abilities for the same reason.
‘Even at a demigod level, you can’t compensate for physical abilities that are below average by normal standards.’
She could foresee the future and disrupt the timelines of demigod avatars, yet she was clumsy—a paradoxical flaw in one of the strongest allies they had.