The Eclipsed Order

Chapter 97: Chapter 97: Beyond the Transcendent

"By the way, have you ever seen a god before?" I asked.

Draven’s expression changed slightly, as though the question had brought an old memory to the surface.

"A god? Well... I have seen a goddess once."

"You have?"

"Back then, thousands of years ago, there was a great calamity. A goddess descended and brought an end to it. I only saw her from a distance, so I can’t remember her face clearly anymore. Honestly, I doubt I could recognize her even if she stood in front of me now."

He paused for a moment.

"But one thing was unmistakable. She was powerful."

"So you’ve actually seen a goddess..."

I couldn’t help but find that fascinating.

Gods and goddesses had always been nothing more than concepts to me. Even after coming to this world, I had never actually encountered one.

Draven suddenly grinned.

"Why don’t you try fighting one, Master?"

"What?"

"You can absorb the power of other beings, can’t you? Just find a troublesome god, kill him, and absorb his power."

He smiled wickedly.

"What could possibly go wrong?"

"What could possibly go wrong?!"

I stared at him.

"Don’t say it so casually. In my world, gods aren’t beings you simply challenge whenever you feel like it."

"What’s the problem? You don’t have to kill a good god. Just kill an evil one."

Draven laughed.

"Are there even evil gods?"

"There are."

His answer came without hesitation.

"At least, that’s what I’ve heard from my ancestors."

His expression became somewhat more serious.

"According to the records passed down through my lineage, there were gods who possessed ambitions far beyond what should be expected of divine beings. Some became obsessed with increasing their own power and began hunting powerful creatures simply to absorb their strength."

"Even other powerful beings?"

"Yes."

Draven nodded.

"There were dragons among their victims as well. I wasn’t born during that era, so I never witnessed it myself, but the memories and stories passed down by the older generations speak of dragons being hunted for precisely that reason."

He looked toward the distant mountains.

"A dragon of my level possesses an enormous amount of power. If a god were to kill and absorb the power of several dragons, that god’s strength would increase considerably. If they continued doing it for long enough..."

"They could become even stronger than the other gods."

"Exactly."

Draven’s expression hardened.

"Eventually, the other gods intervened. They considered that god too dangerous to leave unchecked, so they joined forces and fought against him."

"That’s the first time I’ve heard anything like this."

I couldn’t help but sigh.

"So this really is a completely different world."

I had already accepted the existence of magic, demons, dragons, and countless other supernatural beings.

But gods actually existing—and some of them being willing to hunt powerful creatures simply to increase their own strength—was another matter entirely.

Draven glanced at me.

"That’s why you need to become stronger, Master."

I turned toward him.

"I’m sure your Eclipse has no obvious limit, but if you were to fight a genuine god with your current strength, I can’t guarantee that you’d win."

My expression became serious.

He wasn’t joking this time.

"If your power continues to develop, however, and you eventually surpass the level you’re currently at, then you won’t have to worry about something like that."

He paused.

"Besides..."

A familiar mischievous smile appeared on his face.

"Since you can absorb the power of your enemies, why not visit the Demon Realm and hunt the seventy-two noble demons?"

I stared at him.

"You’re much more evil than I thought."

"Why worry about it?"

Draven laughed.

"If you kill the Seven Princes of Hell and absorb their power, perhaps you’ll become a god."

"The Seven Princes of Hell?"

I narrowed my eyes.

"Do you mean the Seven Deadly Sins?"

"Yes. That’s what they’re commonly called."

Draven leaned back as he continued.

"According to what I’ve heard, each of those beings possesses an extraordinary amount of power. They are also capable of granting blessings to people who carry particularly dark desires or painful pasts."

"Blessings?"

"Something like that."

Draven scratched his chin.

"They grant power to those people, allowing them to grow stronger through their negative emotions and experiences. Once those people have accumulated enough power, the Seven Princes can eventually take that strength back for themselves."

"So they’re essentially cultivating their own power through other people."

"That’s the idea."

I fell silent.

I hadn’t expected that.

The more I listened to Draven, the more complicated this world’s history seemed to become. Gods, dragons, demons, ancient calamities... There were clearly countless things that had happened long before modern civilizations even existed.

"You really do know a lot about this world."

Draven immediately looked offended.

"I’m telling you, that’s not even everything I know."

He placed a hand against his chest with exaggerated pride.

"I’ve lived for a very long time. Don’t underestimate me just because I don’t look like an old man sitting in a library all day."

"And my memory isn’t that dull, either."

"I know."

I smiled.

Still, there was something I couldn’t stop thinking about.

And now, apparently, even the possibility that my Eclipse could allow me to reach that same realm.

I lowered my gaze toward my own hand.

So I’m actually getting close to the level of a god...

I had never intended to become one.

At least, not yet.

But now that I knew such beings truly existed, one question had begun to bother me more than anything else.

Just how did I obtain this power in the first place?

The Eclipse had appeared in me after reincarnation.

I had never received an explanation for it.

And the more powerful it became, the more I started to suspect that there was something much deeper behind it than I had originally imagined.

"By the way, why don’t you ask Cedric?" Draven suddenly said. "He used to be a Holy Knight, didn’t he?"

"Oh."

Now that he mentioned it, I turned my attention toward Cedric.

He had been listening quietly the entire time, as usual, but his expression changed slightly when I brought him into the conversation.

"What about you, Cedric? Do you know which god granted you your power back then?"

Cedric remained silent for a moment before slowly shaking his head.

"No. I never knew which god it was."

His voice was calm, but there was a faint trace of bitterness beneath it.

"When I was a Holy Knight, I was simply grateful for the power I had been given. I believed that it was a blessing meant to help me fight against evil and protect those who could not protect themselves."

He lowered his gaze slightly.

"But that belief eventually led me to the wrong path."

I didn’t interrupt him.

Cedric continued after a brief pause.

"I was ordered to eliminate those who were considered enemies of the faith. At first, I followed those orders without question. I believed they were necessary, and I believed that I was serving justice."

His expression became colder.

"But eventually, I discovered that some of the people we were ordered to kill had done nothing wrong. They were simply inconvenient to those above us."

"So you rebelled," I said.

"Yes."

Cedric nodded.

"I refused to continue obeying them. That was when I was branded a traitor."

His hand tightened slightly.

"I fought back, but I was eventually killed. After that, I became what you see now—the Undead King."

I remained silent for a moment.

So that was how it happened.

A holy knight who received divine power, only to become an undead king after turning against the very people he once served.

It was almost ironic.

"For now, I don’t believe in any gods," Cedric continued. "Perhaps there are benevolent gods somewhere, but I have never seen one personally. The only thing I know is that the power I received was not enough to prevent the people I trusted from betraying me."

He then looked directly at me.

"For me, Master Ares is the only god I will serve for the rest of my life."

"W-Well..."

I laughed awkwardly.

"Thanks for that. Though I’d rather you not call me a god just yet."

"By the way, what about you two?"

I looked at Draven and Cedric.

"If we’re talking about the hierarchy, where would the two of you fall?"

Draven glanced at me before answering.

"Me? I’m a Supreme Transcendent."

"Supreme Transcendent?"

"Yes. Though I wasn’t one when we first met."

He scratched his cheek as if trying to explain something that even he found difficult to put into words.

"I was already a Transcendent before I met you, you helped me evovle. And after you gave me Eclipse, I gained another power, and somehow that caused my existence to evolve further."

"So Eclipse is the reason you reached the Supreme Transcendent level?"

"More or less. I don’t really understand how your power works either, but I can tell that it didn’t simply make me stronger. It pushed me beyond the limit I had already reached."

"I see..."

I looked at Cedric.

"And what about you?"

"Cedric is a little easier to explain," Draven said.

Cedric quietly looked toward us.

"He was already a Superior Level before becoming the Undead King. After his transformation, he reached the level of a Half-Transcendent. Then you gave him Eclipse, and he crossed that boundary completely."

"So he’s a Transcendent now."

"Yes."

Draven nodded.

"But there’s another reason his strength is unusual."

"What is it?"

"He possesses both holy and dark power."

I looked at Cedric.

"Both of them?"

"Yes, Master."

Draven continued.

"And they’re not ordinary versions of those powers either. Normally, having two opposing forces like that would already be difficult enough, but his control over both is unusually high."

He paused before adding,

"Even compared to mine."

I blinked.

"Wait. You have more than ten elemental powers, don’t you?"

"More than ten."

"And you’re saying Cedric’s two powers are still superior?"

Draven sighed.

"Unfortunately, yes."

I couldn’t help smiling.

"Whoa. You admitted it yourself."

"There’s no reason for me to lie about it."

Draven gave Cedric a sideways glance.

"His holy and dark powers are simply on a different level. I may have more elements, but having more doesn’t automatically make each one superior."

Cedric looked slightly embarrassed.

"You don’t have to put it that way."

"I’m only telling him the truth."

I looked at the two of them again.

"Still, I didn’t expect both of you to be this powerful."

Draven immediately laughed.

"Coming from you, that’s a strange thing to say."

"What?"

"You’re the one who gave us those powers in the first place."

"That’s true, I suppose."

I scratched my cheek.

I still didn’t completely understand what Eclipse was doing to the people I gave it to. At first, I thought I was simply giving them additional power, but apparently it could push their very existence into an entirely different realm.

That was becoming more interesting than I expected.

"Well, either way, congratulations."

I looked at both of them.

"You’ve both reached another level because of Eclipse, so I suppose I should be happy about it."

Draven smiled.

"Thank you, Master."

Cedric gave a small nod.

"Thank you."

"There’s no need to thank me."

I waved my hand.

"We’ll think about what comes next when we get there."

I paused for a moment before grinning.

"Although, if we keep getting stronger like this, we might eventually be strong enough to conquer the Demon Realm."

Draven’s eyes immediately lit up.

"Now that’s something I’d like to see."

"I’m looking forward to it as well, Master," Cedric said.

I laughed.

"Alright, alright. Then let’s conquer it together."

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