Chapter 196: Reversing Hourglass (4)
Orthes felt fear at the Pope's idea.
The Mage King who descended in the Mythical Era was clearly a divinity.
At the same time, the power of the Mage King who came down to this world was much weaker than the True Form that existed beyond the realm of ascension. The historical records of the Mage King creating magic power and magic, and thus 'growing', prove this.
In order to cross the dimensional wall and descend into this world, there are inevitably restrictions on ability.
That was why the gods of the Divine Cult did not directly descend to solve everything, but only gave a very small part of their power to the priests, or formed Demi-gods or Avatars to interfere.
The Pope focused on this point. When a god descends inside the world, he cannot come with his full power and form.
Reliquaries are tools to borrow some of the god's power. It can function as shackles to restrict some of the god's existence.
The god that the Commander was trying to bring down was the Primordial God, the archetype of the divinity he possessed. An existence that manipulates the providence of time and space.
There are no more altars of the Primordial God left in this world. Therefore, he gave the meaning of the pantheon to the Commander and bound it with the Pope's Holy Decree. Assuming the existence of the Primordial God among the various gods.
The Commander-Altar also served as an anchor to fix the Pope so that he could act in this world. Under the world order that rejects divinity other than the Mage King, the Pope's movements were restricted, but conversely, in the Pantheon full of Divine Power, his power finally spread its wings and soared.
The Demi-god, the Pope himself, who has fully awakened the blood of the Primordial God in the realm of the altar, acts as a priest. As a natural consequence, the deity that the Pope reveres as a priest becomes the Primordial God.
The three elements of the temple, the altar, the priest, and the Reliquary. By implying the Primordial God in two of them, the remaining one is also naturally connected to the Primordial God.
But the problem was time. The plan to transform the vacant Reliquary through subtle implications and signs to draw out the power of the god and bind it required a very long time.
Even if he accelerated time using his own Holy Decree, even if he used all of the Demi-god's near-eternal lifespan, it would still not be enough time to guarantee the completion of the Reliquary.
God was such a huge existence.
But The Ten Magical Commandments was added here. Ascension, the greatest artifact in history with a window to divinity already formed.
The power of The Ten Magical Commandments is connected to magic of each attribute. If the nature of the power is reversed and changed to allow access to the realm of the Primordial God.
Finally, the power of the Primordial God of time comes under the Pope's control.
As a pure 'force' without freedom or will.
This was probably why the Divine Cult considered the Pope's plan heretical. Because it was an act of degrading a god, who should be worshiped, into a tool.
But what Orthes feared was not the Pope's plan itself.
It was the future that the Pope wanted to achieve with that plan.
There was no future in his plan.
The result that only Hyacinth, who was the Pope's close aide, would have shared. Orthes recalled the prophecy¹ that Hyacinth had demanded from him at their first meeting. Tell him what the greatest calamity that would befall this world was.
It seemed that the Pope had used Hyacinth as his answer sheet of wrong answers.
He observes the future through prophecy, and if his plan fails, he makes a different choice.
In the process of observing the future, Hyacinth would have observed the number of cases where the world and the universe would be destroyed because he could not control the power of the Primordial God, or where all the time in the world would be twisted and destroyed.
Having gone through those wrong answers, the Pope and Hyacinth would have arrived at the correct answer.
The Pope's real plan, which only Kore had vaguely guessed.
The wish that the Pope will achieve with the power of the God of Time.
He wanted to turn the future into the past.
The 2074 years of the Mage Era, in which the Mage King rewrote history.
He reverses all of that and turns it into nothing. He reverses the past that has flowed. He erases the events that have occurred. He erases the story of people.
He turns the Mage Era into nothing, and further turns back time to the point where even the fact that the Mage King came does not exist.
Like time on Earth, time in this world was also linear. It's like an hourglass. The flow of sand falling from top to bottom is constant.
The Pope wanted to turn that hourglass itself upside down. The sand of time converges back to the starting point. In this way, history is restarted. A correct history not contaminated by the Mage King's magic.
The Pope truly believed that.
The Pope's plan to deny the time that this world has experienced, and the records of everyone who has lived in it. Orthes felt fear.
But at the same time, a thought came to mind.
Perhaps.
Perhaps, by agreeing to the Pope's plan, he could reverse even the fact that Orthes himself came to this world.
If all events disappear, the fact that he came to this world will also be erased. The plan he had thought of while looking at the bubbles of erasure was finally realized.
He can go home.
For that one thing, Orthes, who had rummaged through the extra-dimensional contaminated area, felt the temptation to give up everything and lend a hand to the Pope. The only way to be compensated for all those years of falling into a goddamn magic power class society and running away for survival amidst incomprehensible enemies.
But what is on the opposite side of this choice?
If the Pope's plan is realized, the Pope himself would ultimately disappear. For the Pope, who wanted to erase the time itself of the world contaminated by magic, he himself was an existence that should disappear.
Carisia, who was like the crystallization of the pollutant called magic, was an object that had to be annihilated unconditionally.
On one side of the scale is return, and on the other side is Carisia.
The boss's confidant chose.
***
Halto saw the rushing scythe.
It was too close. That scythe had a strange power that cut off even the regeneration caused by the blessing of the extra-dimension. New limbs cannot grow from where the arm was cut off, and the torn organs cannot stick together.
Therefore, Halto responded by destroying the points that had been attacked so far himself. If the wounds on the organs did not stop, he would cut them out and regenerate new organs, and cut the cut surface of the arm once more to restore it to a regenerable state.
But now, the place where the scythe was aimed was not a place where he could withstand being attacked one more time.
The neck. If his neck is cut off, how can he control the body below his head? It might be possible if he uses magic to mess up the wounded place again.
But it would be faster for the Commander to rummage through the crippled limbs than for Halto to chant a spell.
Halto sensed the finale. Not a life-or-death struggle with the enemy, but a final moment being hit by the Commander being controlled by others.
How ironic is this. It was when Halto was about to take his last breath.
Kang-!
With a clear sound, the trajectory of the scythe was deflected. A blue light that filled him with anger and disgust just by looking at it. The strangely faint impression of narrow eyes, this time, were wide open.
"What are you doing. Not fighting?"
"What about the Pope?"
"I found someone to take over my shift."
Halto witnessed the torrential rain of light pouring down to destroy the world in the distance. Again, a familiar anger rises. The magic that he encountered in his faint memory. That was White Light's bastard.
A joint struggle with two enemies. What the hell am I doing right now?
Regardless of whether Halto was experiencing confusion between his self-identity and professional ethics, Orthes urged Halto.
"Does that. Get hurt?"
"That's not 'that'. That is the Commander of Blasphemia, a group of those with will."
"Yes. So. Does she get hurt?"
Halto shook his head. He was the strongest mage among those belonging to Argyrion. It was one of the reasons he was recommended as the leader of Argyrion.
The other reason, of course, was his ability to deal with the 'enemy'. In fact, the contribution of this part was greater.
Strong magical power and the ability to cope with anomalies accumulated while dealing with the enemy. Halto, who possessed both the essence and the masterstroke, was not skilled enough to be helplessly attacked by the Commander.
Rather, if it had been the original Commander, there was a high probability that she would have been disarmed by Halto long ago. With an opponent who can freely use the torrent of the extra-dimension and has virtually unlimited regeneration ability.
But this time, the Commander's immortality was even stronger. No matter what kind of wound she suffers, time returns to before she was attacked. The only strategy Halto could think of was to 'bless' the entire artifact with the magic power of the extra-dimension.
But even the blessing was only chased away by the reversing time.
Orthes calculated the probability of winning. If he overwrites the time reversal formula with his eyes, he can stop the Commander with Halto's extra-dimensional encroachment.
However, in that case, there was a high possibility that he would have to face Halto and the Commander after stopping the Pope's plan.
He made up his mind.
If he can't stop the Pope right now, the world will disappear. Halto and the Commander? Aren't those the ones who couldn't stop Carisia and himself even when they were together in Blasphemia?
Orthes trusted Carisia.
"I'll break the reversal formula. I'll leave the encroachment to you."