The Foreigner on the Periphery

"You can't cross it! Obviously! Not a single priest who sent their soul here has ever crossed that line! That barrier only lets Talents pass through. It was designed that way from the start!"

Ha Eun-seong realized the man's spiritual wave was laced with deep reverence. Translated into spoken language, his tone had shifted to one of absolute respect.

Alext repeated his question.

"How did you cross it? What... what exactly are you?"

That question echoed deeply within Ha Eun-seong.

'Yeah... what exactly am I?'

Doubts spiraled one after another, and words he had brushed off earlier floated to the surface of his consciousness. Alext had definitely said it.

"Didn't you say that absorbing too much Divine Blood would cause a person's mind to collapse?"

Ha Eun-seong had seen someone like that before.

He had lost his reason after absorbing two million Talents. Consumed by a single desire, he became incapable of any other thought and let his Divine Power run wild.

Ha Eun-seong asked.

"How many Talents can a single soul handle?"

It was answering a question with a question, but Alext replied obediently.

"The Prophet in the scriptures declared he had no limits, but unlike him, we have ours. They say those who absorbed too much out of ignorance all went completely mad. Only after much trial and error did we find an appropriate level. In the order's experience, the limit is generally considered to be around one hundred thousand Talents."

Ha Eun-seong was left speechless once again.

'This is strange.'

'Too strange.'

The former leader of the order, who possessed the most experience in this field, had guaranteed it: the limit was one hundred thousand Talents.

But Ha Eun-seong had once absorbed one million Talents. And—though he hesitated to declare it so confidently—he hadn't gone crazy. Minjun had been surprised by that fact too, but he had given up on figuring out why simply because Ha Eun-seong was such an inherently bizarre soul.

'Everyone else couldn't handle it, so why am I the only one...'

"No, I'm not alone. There's someone else."

Ha Eun-seong knew one other person who had maintained cold reason even after absorbing more Talents than him.

"Yeah, the agent was like that too."

Even after absorbing millions of Talents, Minjun's personality had changed a little, but he definitely couldn't be considered crazy.

Why was there such a similarity between the two of them?

His thoughts kept flowing. Ha Eun-seong's uniqueness didn't stop there.

With complicated feelings, he reached out and felt the area where the line lay. Once again, his hand passed right through without any resistance.

"Just as I thought, I can pierce through it."

It was true. Ha Eun-seong could phase through any barrier. When he first realized this ability, he suspected it might be because of the strange Sword stuck in his neck.

But now he knew. The way he had died was incredibly similar to the Baptism the priests of Elahu-Praga received. No, it was practically identical. Yet, those priests didn't have an ability like his.

Ha Eun-seong was the special one.

"Why do I have this kind of power?"

This power only manifested when his body and soul were separated. To put it bluntly, it felt as though his physical body were just a restraint hindering his soul.

An ability that shattered all boundaries.

A power that crossed lines and destroyed the very concept of a fence.

"Could the agent possibly have this ability too?"

He had never seen Minjun's soul leave his body, so it was impossible to verify.

Ha Eun-seong looked back at the line drawn in front of Alext. He had plenty of experience passing through various barriers by now. Every time, without exception, he had felt a sense of resistance. A clear sensation of pushing through a solid wall.

"There was absolutely none of that just now."

A moment ago, Ha Eun-seong hadn't even realized he had breached the barrier.

The reverberation and vibration that occurred the moment he pierced it were so incredibly minute and brief that he simply hadn't felt them. The barrier's particles had lost their equilibrium and then recovered astonishingly fast. He had never experienced such a high-dimensional defense mechanism.

"Who exactly created this barrier?"

"It was created by the primordial race slumbering inside."

It wasn't the answer Ha Eun-seong had expected.

"...Not those aliens from the Committee's Ancient Race or whatever they're called?"

"That is what the scriptures say. The word of God cannot be wrong, can it?"

Even if it was written through the Prophet's mouth, the words of the one who represented God were practically the words of God himself.

God would never lie. The scriptures were the words of absolute truth.

"But."

Ha Eun-seong spotted a contradiction.

"You said the Ancient Race pierced holes in the necks of the people—no, the gods—slumbering inside."

Alext immediately recited a verse from the scriptures.

"Knowing that the primordial race was bound in an unbreakable, blissful dream, the cunning beasts bit into the napes of their necks. The flesh of their most defenseless and vulnerable spot was torn, and blood flowed down; it is the source of all possibilities, a power that permits no limits."

"Ah, I get it. I know that's what the scriptures say, but doesn't it seem a bit strange? If the primordial race really made this barrier, how did the Committee break through it to pierce their necks? And how did they not wake up while that was happening?"

The clergy were not fools either. They had already established assumptions to resolve this contradiction as accepted theory. Since the scriptures couldn't be wrong, they had to come up with a suitable explanation.

"Among Endelion's Magic Tools, there are those capable of piercing a hole in a barrier and flawlessly restoring it afterward."

Ha Eun-seong still couldn't understand.

Why would they need to restore a barrier they had already broken down?

If the Committee had come all the way here in the past to cut into their necks, why were they only lingering downstream today instead of returning upstream?

His doubts naturally culminated in a single question.

Had they really pierced this barrier before? In truth, wasn't the area they could tamper with restricted entirely to the distant lower reaches, both then and now?

At this chain of raised suspicions, Alext blatantly showed his displeasure, completely forgetting that he was standing before a divine beast.

"Stop. God would never lie, would he? There isn't a single wrong letter in the scriptures!"

Ha Eun-seong's reaction to those words was unexpected.

"I... I think I need to take a look further up."

"What? What did you say?"

"I've been hearing a strange voice for a while now. Someone keeps talking to me. It was so fragmented and crushed that it was hard to notice, but now I can hear it. It feels like they desperately want to tell me something."

"Wait. Stop! You have to stick close to me to return to where you came from!"

Ha Eun-seong focused his mind.

The voices he heard now were similar to the spiritual wave of the soul fragments that had rained down on the Cathedral of Resurrection. It was just that these were much smaller, finer, and more fragmented. If the pieces of Asiph-1 he had seen at the cathedral were the size of boulders or pebbles, were these like sand? Dust? Perhaps they were calling out to him while shattered into even finer pieces than that.

Just as one couldn't understand the language of microbes, Ha Eun-seong found it difficult to grasp their detailed meaning. A significant portion of the voices even overlapped, making clear distinction difficult. They felt like a single entity, yet simultaneously many.

But there was one thing he knew intuitively. He spoke with resolve.

"They know me. Right now, they're calling out to me."

*

Right as the deputy pope's ritual began on the spire.

Minjun stayed inside the cathedral, holding back from showing himself to the crowd. A god shouldn't become a familiar presence, someone they could seek an audience with at any time. He judged that a sense of distance—one that invoked fear and awe—was necessary.

Dell also remained by his side. They needed time to talk alone again. Now was the perfect opportunity.

"..."

Silence hung between them. Minjun gave her a look, silently telling her to go ahead and speak. Even that indifferent, exhausted gaze was identical to the ex-husband she had known. Her Endelion memory confirmed it.

Yet, the reason she had been able to love Minjun was nowhere to be seen.

That radiant light that shattered racial boundaries.

That mysterious element which had coaxed her into crossing her limits, beyond Endelion's inherent hatred for humans.

Dell gathered her courage and spoke.

"Keep your promise."

Just then, the roar of the cheering crowd outside echoed like thunder. Dell guessed that the Grand Patriarch had revealed himself to them. She had provided a new body so that Asiph-1 could proclaim his resurrection.

"Asiph-1 has fully regained his abilities. There's no need to feed or stab him anymore, is there?"

The returned leader manipulated the minds of powerful Supernatural Ability Users with just a single word.

Truly, it was a power worthy of the Committee branding him the worst criminal in the universe.

Furthermore, Asif-666's crime in the past had been the creation of such a being.

"I played a part in that resurrection too."

The returned Asiph-1 had called her 'mother'. He concluded that Minjun and Dell shared joint ownership. At first glance, it sounded like a joke, but Dell interpreted that sentence in a much colder, more realistic way.

Minjun and Dell were accomplices who had resurrected the universe's worst criminal.

"The Committee and I have already crossed a river of no return."

Had Minjun taken even this into account when he demanded the Homunculus as a tribute from her?

Regardless, Dell had attached a condition when she provided that body.

Minjun replied. His tone was somewhat exhausted.

"All of this is to protect my compatriots, my people."

"I know."

"And Dell, you must have precious people in your homeland too. I understand the desire not to lose your own kind. Just the thought of losing them all permanently must feel agonizing, like your flesh is being carved away. I can 'empathize' with those feelings."

With a face whose expression was hard to read, the member of the primordial race spoke like a declaration.

"As I already said, those who deserve punishment will be punished. But I promise that the process won't lead to the extinction of Endelion. And the evil custom of sacrificing the bodies of the youth to swap vessels will be forbidden. On top of that, as a bonus you didn't even ask for... Dell, you will attain the form of happiness you desire."

This promise was effectively a kind of insurance for Dell.

Surprisingly, as an atheist, she found herself leaning toward a logic very close to what religious figures preached about why one should believe in God.

In short, it went like this: even if God didn't exist, simply believing in him caused no harm. But what if God did exist? Because she believed, she would attain salvation. Weighing the pros and cons of the probabilities, believing in God was naturally the more profitable choice.

Dell's dilemma was similar. Did Minjun really have godlike power capable of bringing the Committee to its knees? Would Asiph-1, who had already been defeated once, succeed this time?

There was no proof, but for some reason, she had a hunch he would.

'Maybe I'm actually hoping for it.'

A deeply entrenched dilemma. Dell wished for Minjun's victory, but she didn't want the extinction of her kind. Therefore, this promise was insurance for the day Minjun commenced his punishment.

Even if he had changed a lot from the past, there was no way Minjun would break his promise to her. There was no way he would lie.

Dell didn't believe in God, but she believed in Minjun.

"Waaaaaah!"

Another tremendous roar of cheers rang out from outside. The leader must have stabbed the deputy's neck. The uproar was so massive that the ground practically shook.

But that was only for a moment.

"Hmm?"

The conversation between the two was cut short. At the same time, the cheers outside abruptly ceased.

Asiph-1's mental wave dug into Minjun's mind.

"I apologize. You said you wouldn't step forward today... but I think you're going to have to come out."

Minjun felt puzzled as he suddenly spoke to him, even though the throne restoration ceremony hadn't finished yet.

But he soon understood the reason. His expression changed in a flash.

"They're here."

"What?"

In an instant, Minjun folded space and leaped through it.

The next moment, he and Dell were standing at the top of the cathedral's spire. On the balcony, the leader could be seen holding a knife, while the deputy lay collapsed with blood flowing from his neck. The frenzy among the crowd gathered below had vanished like a lie. Every single one of them was staring at another part of the sky, completely unaware that their god had even appeared. Their faces were painted with shock for an entirely different reason than before.

The member of the primordial race also turned his head, his face sharp. Dell's gaze landed on the exact same spot. She froze.

"Already?!"

In the smog-filled sky, a dance of stars that had disappeared long ago unfolded. Lumps of light that burned the air formed constellations, thickly blanketing every direction. It looked like the Milky Way spread across the atmosphere.

Flashes blazing with bizarre colors. Dell knew exactly what those light sources meant. She had been enveloped in that very same light when she crossed over to this place.

"Dimensional Jump Magic!"

However, the number of spells manifesting was too massive to count.

Dell realized the meaning behind that phenomenon.

The Committee's combat Battleship fleet was leaping to this location. It was a scale incomparable to anything they had seen before.

It was the start of a full-scale war.

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