Chapter 188 - Damn Reincarnation

The Cathedral

Falling shards of glass struck the floor and shattered. Eugene stood motionless in the midst of the clamor. Fragments piled onto his head and shoulders and bounced off, the noise loud enough to deafen him.

Yet he heard nothing. Even thousands upon tens of thousands of these paltry shards could neither pierce his skin nor draw blood, but he ached as though a sharp knife were tearing him to pieces.

That was how it felt. Eugene stared at Anise’s chalice in his left hand. The images still lingered in his mind: girls standing there, bleeding. An expressionless Anise, a weeping Kristina, and all the countless girls between them.

He had not seen those girls’ expressions. Nausea rose within him. The smell of blood, which he should not have been able to smell, still clung to his nose.

"... Lord Eugene?"

Rensol and several other clergy approached him hesitantly. They could hardly comprehend what had happened. The destruction of the pillars of light that had been the cathedral’s pride for centuries was bewildering enough. Finding Eugene Lionheart at the center of it made even less sense.

From the sight before them... it looked as though Eugene had destroyed the pillars himself.

But why? What possible reason could he have? That was what the clergy who knew nothing about Eugene thought. Rensol, who knew he was the Hero, found it even harder to believe he could have done such a thing.

"Are you... all right? P-please come this way first. More of the walls might collapse. It’s too dangerous there..."

A voice babbling something.

Instead, he heard his own heart pounding so fast it felt ready to burst. He clenched his empty right hand hard enough to crush his own bones. His breathing raced with the pounding. Gasping, Eugene raised his head.

He saw the sanctuary’s altar. Glass raining down from above had covered it and the surrounding floor in broken shards.

As he stepped toward it, glass crumbled beneath his feet. Rensol and the other clergy grew even more alarmed when Eugene began approaching the altar. They could not fathom his intentions, but they could sense the air he exuded.

"Lord Eugene. What on earth are you trying to do?"

Rensol approached him with a rigid expression, only to freeze after a few steps. Nor was Rensol alone. Every member of the clergy who had tried to stop Eugene halted as though frozen solid, unable to move.

["Lord Eugene..."]

Mer spoke from inside his cloak. He had no room to answer. Eugene roughly reined in his overflowing killing intent and kicked the altar.

BANG!

The altar did not topple or fly away. The instant his foot struck it, it scattered into dust. Having cleared it away, he lifted the saint’s jawbone from the recess in the floor where it had been enshrined.

"L-Lord Eugene..."

Rensol stammered his name.

That was the jawbone of a saint from four hundred years ago. Alongside Saint Theodore’s skull, it was one of the two most precious first-class holy relics enshrined in Prechia Cathedral.

"P-please put it down. I don’t know why you’re doing this, Lord Eugene, but that is not something you may handle carelessly..."

Eugene did not listen. He tossed the jawbone into Anise’s chalice and turned away. The clergy could not follow him out of the sanctuary.

["... Lord Eugene. Are you all right? You really are all right, aren’t you?"]

"I’m fine."

He answered as he left the sanctuary.

It was a lie. By his own reckoning, Eugene was not particularly fine. It was not all that rare for his emotions to boil this fiercely.

When he had seen the death knight made from Hamel’s corpse in the desert tomb. When Barang had attacked Siknard and the elves in the Great Forest. When Eward had taken sacrifices for the ritual at Black Lion Castle and Eugene had confronted the remnant of a Demon King.

But the emotions that had boiled up then were plain and unmistakable. Anger. Hatred. Emotions like those. Now, however, he did not know. It was just as intense, but he was not yet sure whether this was anger or hatred.

'No.'

In truth.

'I know.'

Eugene knew what he was feeling and what he was thinking. He simply did not want to acknowledge it. Biting down hard on his lip, he reached into his cloak to take out Akasha.

Mer caught his hand. She poked her head out of the cloak and looked up at him anxiously. Her green eyes, so much like Senya’s, trembled with unease.

Eugene had not known what expression he wore. Now he did. The face reflected in Mer’s eyes looked unfamiliar.

"I’m fine."

He told her that once again. Even knowing he was not fine, there was nothing else he could say. Mer understood how he felt, too. She knew she must not hold him back or try to calm him now—and that she had no right to do so.

So she released his hand without a word. Under Mer’s worried gaze, Eugene raised Akasha.

This saint’s jawbone was four hundred years old.

Anise had been born three hundred years ago. Eugene could not fully understand that hundred-year gap. He did not want to understand it. But in the end, it was all the same. Even if he did not want to, he had to. If he did not want to acknowledge it, he had to learn enough that he could no longer deny it.

His pounding heart still thundered in his ears. Swallowing his ragged breath, he cast Akasha’s Word magic.

BZZT.

Something flowed into his mind. A holy relic from centuries ago. What was connected to it was projected into Eugene’s mind.

The image was not clear. Because it was too old—or because it was too badly damaged? He did not know which, but the vision was riddled with crackling static.

An abominable bond.

Girls with their feet immersed in flowing blood. Anise, Kristina, and the many other girls. Anise was not the one at the head of the line.

Before Anise, there had been a bleeding girl—no, girls. They had no faces. Of all those girls, only Anise and Kristina had clearly visible faces. The other girls’ faces...

Were absent. It was not that he could not see them clearly. They literally had no faces. Nor were they obscured by something like a hazy mist. No eyes, no nose, no mouth. Nothing. The sight of blank-faced girls standing in a line, bleeding, was grotesque and chilling.

His gaze fell on one of the girls standing before Anise. Like the others, she had no face, but eyes, nose, and mouth were not all she lacked.

She had no jaw. Her face was therefore cut in half. Breathing became painful. Eugene knew that this girl was the saint from four hundred years ago. Then who were the girls beside her? The boys standing between Anise and Kristina? He had known who they were for some time already. As with his emotions, he had simply not wanted to accept it.

More.

Clutching his own throat, Eugene walked forward. The chalice and jawbone were swallowed by light together.

There must be more to show me. I’m fine. There’s no problem. I’m ready to see. Eugene murmured those words, and the expressionless Anise closed her eyes.

One by one.

They collapsed and disappeared. All the “saints” standing there crumbled like sandcastles, mixing into the blood they had shed and becoming part of its flow. That crimson current became a swirling spiral at the center of Eugene’s vision.

BZZT.

Static distorted the image. The eerily red spiral became a still surface of water. A softly glowing, beautiful... spring.

CRUNCH.

The sound came from beneath Eugene’s feet. The floor could not withstand his forceful steps and crumbled, leaving footprints behind. Struggling to contain his mounting emotions, Eugene considered the situation—no, what he needed to know.

The Spring of Light.

He did not know exactly where it was. Since it was not publicly known, it must be somewhere secluded even within Trechia. The projected image... it had not been inside a building. A dark night sky. Weathered pillars... It looked like a temple so old it might as well be a ruin. Where was it? There was no place like that in the cathedral.

Kristina.

Kristina was there now. Eugene kept walking. He did not know what that spring was. Nor did he know what ritual was taking place there. Kristina had said she needed that ritual, and if she herself wanted it, Eugene had wanted to respect her choice, however suspicious the rite might be.

Look, Hamel.

At this abominable bond.

Anise, in the form of a girl, raising a blood-drenched hand.

Kristina, also in the form of a girl, had been crying beside her. Her behavior had been strange ever since they met in Euresia. Respect, was it? Eugene stroked his stiff cheek.

'Since when have I been so considerate of other people?'

The moment that thought crossed his mind, Eugene stopped hesitating.

BANG!

The ground beneath his feet shattered and caved in.

Eugene turned his back to the purple night sky above the overly bright city. Wind summoned by his will supported his body. Once he had risen high enough to take in the enormous Trechia Cathedral at a glance, he raised Akasha.

The dragon heart radiated light. With his eyes wide, Eugene examined the countless spells within the cathedral. Most concerned the building’s upkeep and appearance. He was not using Akasha to look at that rubbish. One by one, he stripped those spells from his view. Mer was assisting him, but the sheer volume of magical information entering his vision made his head throb.

Better that his head hurt for that reason. Far from muddling his thoughts, the pounding headache sharpened them. Deep, deeper. As he gritted his teeth and forced himself to concentrate, his eyes slowly grew bloodshot.

His reddening eyes pierced deep beneath the cathedral. Found it. Eugene’s lips twisted. He remembered what Mer had prattled on about on their first day in Yuras.

He did not know whether it was used for debauchery, but there really was a warp gate hidden from the public deep beneath the cathedral. He had even found the way underground. There was no need to remain up here any longer.

Eugene descended at once and headed for the underground door connected to the clock tower.

"Lord Eugene!"

A voice blocked his way. It was Rensol, standing with several other clergy across the clock tower’s entrance.

"P-please return to your room. What on earth are you doing? Why... why the holy relic...?"

"Move."

His own voice sounded unfamiliar. Eugene kept striding forward without stopping.

"Were you the one who destroyed the pillars of light, too? Why? P-please explain."

Words did not seem likely to make them move. Eugene immediately summoned wind. He had no intention of hurting Rensol, who was merely standing in his way. He would simply push Rensol aside so there would be no more nuisance. Explain? How was he supposed to explain these emotions, or the things projected into his mind?

Eugene was the one who wanted an explanation in the first place. So he kept his mouth shut and lashed out with the wind.

WHOOSH!

Alarmed, Rensol and the clergy summoned light. A barrier of divine power blocked the way. That brilliant light. The mere sight of it seemed to bring back the smell of blood he had sensed earlier.

BOOM!

The wind flung the clergy aside. Instead of dispersing, it gathered together and smashed the clock tower’s door as well. With the way open, Eugene’s feet left the ground.

He leaped straight into the clock tower in a single bound. Then he found the underground door he had already located and lashed out with the wind.

BANG!

Every sacred statue lining the walls shattered. The secret underground door required an elaborate series of operations to open. Eugene had no desire to bother with any of that, so he simply destroyed it.

He descended the stairs leading deep underground and reached the basement housing the warp gate. Its magical light was out. The gate was not connected.

A warp gate always needed a mage in attendance to regulate its connection. But no one was here except Eugene.

It was obvious enough to require no thought. After Cardinal Rogeris left with the inquisitors, they had closed the warp gate entirely.

"... Ha."

Letting out a dry laugh, Eugene approached the warp gate. Reading his intentions, Mer recoiled in alarm, slipped out of his cloak, and grabbed his shoulder.

"That’s reckless and dangerous!"

"Let go, Mer."

"L-Lord Eugene, please calm down. Warp gates are spatial magic of the highest order! Creating a gate alone requires the Sixth Circle, and even maintaining the connection requires a Fifth Circle mage to remain in constant attendance."

"Do you think I don’t know that?"

"Of course you know! That’s why I’m stopping you! The fact that you’re trying this despite knowing means you aren’t in your right mind!"

Mer was right. Warp gates linking distant locations were spatial magic of the highest order. Eugene’s level as a mage was the Fifth Circle. With Akasha and Mer’s assistance, he could use spells up to the Seventh Circle, but forcing open a warp gate linking faraway coordinates carried great risks.

Each connected gate had its own distinctive wave pattern. The gates opened by bringing those waves into resonance, which also maintained the connection. Naturally, only the mages managing a warp gate knew the formula that generated its waves. Without knowing either the Spring of Light’s spatial coordinates or the wave pattern needed for resonance, opening the gate was impossible.

"If you use me as a computational device, along with Akasha, you might be able to force the waves to match. But you know a connection made that way would inevitably be unstable, don’t you? Spatial magic—especially magic like Warp that takes you long distances—carries enormous risks if it fails. If the connection goes wrong..."

"I won’t fail."

"... What?"

"I just need to establish a connection, even an unstable one. After that, I can adjust the waves directly while I’m in transit. So they never slip out of alignment. So the connection holds, no matter what."

"Th-that’s even more absurd. You’re going to adjust the waves in real time and fit them together without even knowing the exit coordinates...! Even I can’t do calculations like that. That isn’t in the realm of calculation!"

"Don’t worry. I’m not planning to make you do it."

Eugene removed Mer’s hand from his shoulder. Then he pressed down on her head, pushing her back inside his cloak.

"Eek!"

"Stay quietly inside. Don’t come out."

He fastened the cloak tightly so that it could not even open a crack.

He moved Akasha to point at the warp gate.

The Sixth Circle. It had been difficult to understand when he first held Akasha, but his mastery of magic had grown through the civil conflict at Black Lion Castle and his continued training beneath the main family’s lake. Perhaps that was why he could read the formula itself immediately.

Mana drawn forth through the White Flame Formula flowed into the warp gate. The space between the facing pillars distorted and shone in a sudden flare. Space was ready to open, but it did not resonate with the waves of the connecting gate.

If he could merely read the formula, there would be nothing more to try. But Akasha did not simply read formulas; it allowed him to understand magic. His eyes throbbed. His lips moved as he added rapid incantations.

Mer did not want to help. But she could not truly do nothing. Sighing heavily inside the cloak, she synchronized with Eugene’s consciousness.

And realized just how outrageous a thing he was attempting.

Having understood the warp gate through Akasha, he was even using Word magic’s search spell to trace its connection to the gate on the other side. From the faint traces of the other side left in the closed warp gate, he was reverse-engineering the magic itself and predicting the distant spatial coordinates. For each of the countless coordinates he derived, he injected mana into the warp gate to generate a momentary wave, repeating the process to test the wave pattern against every coordinate.

Madness. This was brute-force labor wearing the guise of magic. It was not a task for a single mage. Even an archmage could not repeatedly connect a warp gate while carrying out this many calculations in parallel. How could it possibly be done? Anyone attempting this would have exhausted their mana long ago.

But Eugene could do it. Akasha compressed the mana used for the magic. Mer shared the burden of calculating coordinates. He added the Ring Flame Formula to recover mana and prevent waste. His senses, honed to their utmost limit, detected changes in the waves. It did not matter if the match lasted only an instant. If there was even a moment of alignment, he would not miss it.

When bloody tears from his wide-open eyes gathered at the tip of his chin, he thrust Akasha forward. Ripples rose in the distorted space. Eugene stopped recovering mana and poured it in instead. The ripples grew larger and larger. Mana driven along the connected path hammered at the closed gate.

WHOOSH!

The distorted space filled with light. The warp gate had connected. Inside the cloak, Mer collapsed in utter exhaustion. Right now, she felt she could happily accept even the temporary suspension of her functions that she had hated so much.

'... No.'

Mer shook her head.

Eugene walked slowly toward the warp gate. This gate led to the Spring of Light. He did not want to imagine what he would see there. He would see it soon enough anyway.

Closing his aching eyes, Eugene passed through the warp gate.

* * *

The Spring of Light.

This was a sanctuary that had existed since ages past, a place where God’s grace dwelled. Of all the countless clergy in Yuras, only a select few whose faith had been proven knew of its existence.

Even among them, only the handful serving as commanders could see the Spring of Light directly. Yet the holy knights and inquisitors deployed for this mission felt tremendous honor and emotion simply knowing they were protecting the spring and the candidate for sainthood here.

It was not an arduous assignment. A temple deep in the mountains, protected by various miracles and spells that concealed it from sight. Neither wild animals nor anyone else could enter, even by chance. They had maintained their watch for days against any unforeseen possibility, but in the two days since the ritual began, not even a rabbit—let alone a person—had approached the temple.

Still, they did not relax their vigilance. It was unthinkable for holy knights and inquisitors summoned to this sacred sacrament to grow lax simply because their duty was easy. Had they been flexible enough for that, they would never have been called to this ritual.

The Blood Cross Knights, known as the Shield of Light.

Maleficarum, the bureau of inquisition known as the Hammer of Light.

The holy knights and inquisitors selected from those organizations sensed it simultaneously. The warp gate that should have been closed had opened. Someone had passed through it and arrived near the temple. They had considered that such a thing might happen, and now that it had, what they needed to do was simple.

["... Your Eminence."]

["I know."]

The call reached his mind without being spoken aloud.

Sergio answered without a trace of a smile. He did not rise from his knees. At present, he could not act in person.

Nor was Sergio alone. Two others knelt beside him in prayer: Giovanni, one of the Blood Cross Knights’ captains, and the inquisitor Atarax. Normally, Sergio officiated at this ritual alone, but this one was special. Those two, whose divine power was strong even among the holy knights and inquisitors assembled here, were assisting him.

["... It appears Lord Eugene has opened the warp gate."]

["Should we take him captive?"]

Atarax asked while studying Sergio’s expression.

["Courteously."]

Sergio did not reveal the emotions surging within him.

["If possible, have him return of his own accord. If that proves impossible... there is no other choice, is there? You know well how important this ritual is... Even if Lord Eugene is displeased for the moment, we must send him back."]

["Yes."]

["I will relay your orders."]

How had he come here? The warp gate had certainly been closed. Sergio had heard that Eugene Lionheart had an exceptional aptitude for magic, but surely even an archmage could not connect a warp gate at will?

["... Remarkable."]

Calming his emotions, he murmured with an impassive face. Impossible. Unbelievable. Remarkable. Yet it was merely the work of a human. It could not compare with a miracle wrought by God.

Sergio clasped his hands in prayer once more and looked ahead.

Soft light lay pooled there.

Water welling up from deep underground shone even in the darkness. It held a faint warmth and had no particular scent. This was not merely water that glowed. Its divine power was far more concentrated than that of holy water personally blessed by a high-ranking cleric.

In the middle of that spring, Kristina lay immersed in light, dressed in clothing as white as a burial shroud.

Blood flowed from the countless wounds cut into her body. Her blood mingled with the spring water, but the spring did not turn red.

Watching her, Sergio slowly rose. He took up a dagger submerged in the spring and approached Kristina. Pure water filled with divine power. No matter how often he cut, the grace dissolved in its light healed the wounds.

This sight itself was a miracle. Reciting a prayer, Sergio looked down at Kristina’s closed eyes.

"Candidate for sainthood."

He called to her aloud, but Kristina did not answer. She was not asleep. Her consciousness was awake, but her body would not move as she willed. With her eyes closed, she could see nothing. Some sensations were faint, while others were dozens of times more acute than usual.

"You must endure."

During the previous rituals, Kristina had sat in this spring and cut her own body with a knife over the course of several days. Again and again, until the ritual ended, she reopened the wounds healed by the light and made them bleed. Her senses, dozens of times more sensitive than usual, conveyed such pain that madness or death would have been preferable. Yet the spring never allowed the ascetic’s mind to break. Instead, with every new wound, it made her consciousness more brightly awake.

In this ritual, Kristina had cut herself only on the first day. From the second day onward, Sergio had carved the stigmata into her body in her stead.

She did not grow accustomed to it. The pain was worse than before. She did not know where he would cut next. She must not fear it. The light was warm and comforting. She repeated those thoughts and recited a prayer in her heart.

'... Omniscient and omnipotent God of Light, I beseech you, look upon my soul. Illuminate my soul with your light and cleanse my blood. Burn away my anguish with light, and engrave that light upon me.'

The blade touched her skin. From that instant, she felt its chilling sharpness, but Kristina did not tremble.

'Let your sheep forget pain and despair, and watch over them. Grant them rest through light. Let them be reborn through light. Wherever I dwell and walk, bestow your light. Your apostle shall be a lamp and a sacred flame to illuminate the darkness; make this body your firewood and light the world in splendor.'

The blade dug into her skin. Pain that seemed ready to shatter her mind began to spread. Yet Kristina’s closed eyes did not tremble. She did not even groan.

'... O Light that illuminates the darkness of the world, have mercy. Hear this prayer. Radiant and holy Light, flame that first illuminated the world, dwell within me, your servant.'

Behind her closed eyes, she could see nothing.

There was only utter darkness.