Chapter 195: Reversing Hourglass (3)
Orthes could easily interpret the phenomenon from just now.
Reproducing a past event in the present.
The problem was that realizing the principle didn't mean he could succeed in deciphering it. Even if the Pope didn't even need to attack anymore and just repeated recreating past attacks, he could still block Orthes' advance.
'Did I make the wrong decision?'
Instead of stopping the Pope from manipulating The Ten Magical Commandments, maybe he should have taken down the Commander together with Halto. But Orthes considered the possibilities.
'The problem is that the Pope's Holy Decree manipulates time.'
Fighting the Commander is more likely to win than directly confronting the Pope. This was certain. But the Pope had sent the Commander to Orthes without hesitation.
A choice he would never have made if the Commander's death would lead to the failure of the plan. However, the Pope acknowledged that the Commander was the key to the plan.
'Even if she dies, I should assume that he has the ability to return to the time before her death.'
Therefore, Orthes directly attacked the Pope. The attempt was somewhat successful in preventing the Pope from manipulating The Ten Magical Commandments.
However, now that the Pope had entered battle mode, approach itself had become impossible.
Even if he tried to examine it with his 'eyes', the Pope's Holy Decree was not hanging over the 'present'. A form of reviving a Holy Decree that worked in the past. Orthes could not figure out what kind of power it was that made it work in that way.
The Pope slowly began to approach The Ten Magical Commandments. It was while Orthes was analyzing the trajectory of the scythe's slash and assembling a path to block the Pope with minimal physical damage.
Light.
First there was a flash, and the sound followed.
A deafening noise that tore through the stopped time.
If the Pope had created a wall with the scythe's trajectory, there was an extensive bombardment that would have swept away all of that wall.
At that moment, the torrent of light scattered in a circle. The shape was like a swiftly flowing river meeting a rock. The magic power that scattered in all directions proved that the Pope had hastily frozen the space.
Now is the time. Orthes' intuition whispered.
Now that the 'reproduction' of the past was crushed by the Photonic Cannon, and the stop using the scepter was also consumed to block the torrent of light.
Orthes' high-frequency blade was activated. Like when fighting against White Light, the blade of the black sword becomes even sharper.
The scepter aims at Orthes. Orthes smiled.
He witnessed the formula of freezing and overwrote it.
It was not the freezing that blocked his path. The freezing that stopped the waves of light coming to destroy the Pope.
He shatters the transparent barrier of space.
The surging light from the Pope's left engulfed him. From his outstretched left hand to his right hand holding the scepter towards Orthes. The Pope's entire body was buried in the torrent of destruction.
"Ha."
A cold sneer flowed from beyond the fading light. Orthes felt an unbearable chill even though he was sure it was a familiar voice.
Dalkadang. Carisia threw away the gauntlet she was wearing on her right hand. The gauntlet, which would have been black, was burning white with overwhelming heat and light. The shocked Orthes shouted.
"Carisia, your arm!"
"It's okay. I used Photonization to minimize the damage. But I won't be able to use that again because I overloaded it too much."
It was a gauntlet that served Carisia's magic assistance in various fields. A multipurpose device such as magic power distribution and concentration, and the formation of a buffer zone when using Atomic Fist.
Even if the weapon was lost, there would be no dramatic change in Carisia's combat power. The gauntlet on her left arm still remained. However, the fact that she had to invest additional computing power in magic power distribution would gradually lead to an imbalance of power as the fight dragged on.
If the Pope perished with this one blow, there would be no problem.
Orthes knew of the Pope's survival. It was not the result of analysis with his 'eyes'.
The stopped time did not flow again, and the Commander attacking Halto did not stop.
The Pope appeared in the air.
"I was surpri…sed."
For the first time, the smile disappeared from his face. What appeared instead was doubt.
"Brother. Weren’t you using that?”
"If they pay me well, I have to be loyal, right?"
Orthes winked at Carisia. It meant that he would buy time with words, so prepare a surprise attack with the maximum destructive power without blowing up the weapon with a mindless bombardment like before.
"How can you do that?"
"How so. They give me money, a house, and meals, what more do I want?"
There was a moment of silence. The Pope opened his mouth with difficulty.
“That is not a person.”
"Pardon?"
“I, brother, we will be able to know. That is not an ordinary person, nor an ordinary person of this age who was inevitably contaminated by the Mage King, but a false creation made from the beginning to imitate the Mage King."
Orthes realized why the Pope didn't even try to take hostages. To him, Carisia was something that he absolutely had to destroy someday, not an object of human sympathy or communication.
The Pope, who thought of himself and Orthes as 'the same' Demi-gods, would have judged that Orthes also shared the same unpleasantness in the existential unit of Carisia.
"Why can you cherish that?"
"Why do you consider that a person?"
"Why do you─"
Blue eyes stared at the Pope. No emotion could be found in Orthes' strange light in his eyes. It was an inorganic gaze that made the word coldness pale in comparison.
"Are you curious."
The Pope nodded with all his sincerity. Orthes also answered honestly.
"I'm curious too."
"?"
It was a moment when the Pope was embarrassed. In an instant, halos of light ripened around the entire Pope. Each and every one of them contained a fatal explosion of starlight.
It was an explosion that flowed like the Milky Way. Even in that, the Pope was intact.
"He stopped the time of his body…?"
Orthes repeated, dumbfounded. Resurrection followed by invincibility? What the hell is a guy armed only with such ridiculous abilities coming out of?
How can he maintain his self-awareness when the time of his body is stopped?
"It is a Holy Incantation that cannot be used easily."
The Pope ended the answer with that short word. He holds the re-formed scepter in both hands. Orthes now realized that the sizes of the two scepters were different. Perhaps the embodiment of the hour and minute hands.
Carisia clicked her tongue. She didn't know the theory, but she could tell instinctively.
The ultimate light that White Light refined and extracted by refining the solar eclipse. If it were Infinite Starlight, even the Pope's immortality could be broken.
She had succeeded in recognizing and entering this stopped time. It was entirely thanks to witnessing White Light's magic in advance. By witnessing the realm of White Light, who was the closest being to the Mage King under the sky, Carisia also began to see something like a vague starting point towards ascension inside her.
The transmission to the ascension area that she had witnessed countless times while supervising the Artificial Commandments, or the soil made up of the wisdom of the Mythical Era that could be sensed while connected to the The Ten Magical Commandments White Light, even if the output was suppressed as much as possible.
A seed called the battle with White Light contained in that soil. The seed sprouted in the extreme situation of time oppression by the Holy Decree.
However, that's all. It was still a long way off to hold in her hands the magic that had reached the realm of ascension that White Light could use.
No matter how much of the Pope it was, it would be impossible to interfere with The Ten Magical Commandments while the time of his body was stopped, that is, in a state of rejecting all interactions. The moment he comes to manipulate The Ten Magical Commandments, he must release the invincible time stop.
Therefore, the only way Carisia could choose was to block the Pope's approach itself with an area-of-effect attack.
The Pope guessed the method as well. He had experienced that huge torrent of light with his body just now, so he could not help but think of battlefield control through an area-of-effect attack.
Silence continued in the confrontation. Only the cacophony of destruction created by Halto and the Commander's struggle blows in.
"Carisia."
"Yes?"
“I’m going to kill the Commander and come back. Please stop the Pope.”
Orthes, who had finished all the calculations, opened his mouth. There were ripple-like ripples on the surrounding face of his blue eyes again, but he didn't care.
Orthes recalled the temple where he met the ancient priest of Phoibos¹. The temple had three elements prepared.
A pure white altar signifying the heavens where the gods descended, a relic manifesting the existence of the gods, and a priest connecting the gods and people.
The Pope's plan was visible.
The pantheon created through the Commander was an existence corresponding to heaven. The priest was, of course, the Pope himself. The problem was the relic.
Orthes could easily know that the Pope was another being who collected the Reliquaries that the ancient priest of Estia had warned about. The only groups that were obsessed with collecting Reliquaries in this world were the Divine Cult, Blasphemia, and Hydra Corporation.
Niobe, an insider of Blasphemia, did not say a single word about the relics containing the souls of ancient priests. Naturally, the remaining candidate was the Divine Cult.
The Pope was trying to make something by collecting numerous Reliquaries. Orthes once again recalled what Kaicle had said about the progress of the Artificial Commandments.
‘If about 10 Reliquaries like the Phoibos' Crystal are supplied, it can reach just before completion at once ². ’
Of the Reliquaries in which the ancient priest resided, that is, the Reliquaries of the Twelve Olympians, Hydra Corporation owned three.
There were nine remaining Reliquaries. He didn't know how many of them were in the Divine Cult and how many were in Blasphemia, but it was meaningless now.
Because the Commander was under the Pope's control. The Pope could fully obtain up to nine Reliquaries, and could complete a certain Reliquary equivalent to the Artificial Commandments.
Combined with the abuse of his eyes that had exceeded its limits like in the time of White Light, and the obsession that the Pope was still repeating, Orthes could read the identity of that Reliquary.
It was a body to bring down and bind the god.
The starting point was a very simple logic. The heaven that the ascended would reach.
If you can go up, you can come down too.
The Mage King proves that.