Where Ebner's gaze fell, the Glorious One, Boris Vasika—who had been cursed into a goat by the "Malicious Transfiguration" spell—quickly began to expand after overcoming his initial discomfort. In moments, his body swelled to the size of a mountain, bursting through the cavern's roof, and raised his hoof to stomp down on Ebner and the doll possessed by the Spirit Angel, Tolzna.
For an angel, once they displayed their complete mythical form, their outward shape no longer restricted their power.
As the goat transformed into a colossal ram, the power of Decay began to overtake Vitality, quickly flooding the surroundings.
Facing that enormous hoof—which carried such a withering force that even Beyonder powers would falter—Tolzna, however, remained calm. She lifted her hand, and countless flurries of snow and frost howled forth, entwining around the descending hoof that blotted out the sky. Within seconds, it froze solid.
Even the very power of Decay itself was frozen into tangible ice.
Since the doll was possessed by the Queen of Ice and Snow, it naturally had to display the Queen of Ice and Snow's might.
That stray thought flitted through Tolzna's mind as she swung the doll's arm once again—and in the next instant, the frozen hoof was cleaved cleanly off.
Because of the frost, the cross-section was perfectly smooth.
After that brief exchange, the Glorious One, Boris, seemed to realize the vast gulf between his strength and Tolzna's!
Letting out an unwilling roar, he cast a deep, burning glance at Ebner—who still appeared in his "Professor" guise—before tearing open space and stepping directly into the Spirit World.
—The world of The Groselle's Travels could not prevent an angel from leaving.
Tolzna watched him go without attempting to stop him. Her mission was to protect Ebner's safety, not to risk her existence fighting an angel.
Ebner didn't fault her for that. After a moment's thought, he looked at Tolzna and said carefully:
"That giant's strength surpasses that of most angels. If he had revealed his mythical form from the start, I wouldn't have lasted long enough for you to arrive."
After all, Rhine had been one of the strongest existences among Sequence 2. Even though the power Ebner borrowed from history wasn't complete, it shouldn't have been inferior to a typical angel's… yet he had been thoroughly suppressed throughout that fight. Even with the uniqueness of the "Wheel of Fate," he had barely clawed out a single thread of survival.
Tolzna shook the doll's head, then pointed toward the massive double door that had formed from the corpse of the King of the North, saying:
"Had he assumed his mythical form, that dragon would've been dead long ago."
"That's true… And if he had turned into a mythical creature, that 'cage' of his might've collapsed under his own weight. Then I wouldn't have even needed to risk my life,"
Ebner said in realization. Then, recalling his earlier doubts, he asked again,
"That giant seems to have lived since the Third Epoch—perhaps even the Second—and he even knew the God of Luck… Do you know anything about him?"
The Chained God and Spirit Angel before him had once been the subordinate god of Kvastir, the Mutated King, during the Second Epoch, so she naturally wouldn't be unfamiliar with the powerful figures of the Giant Kingdom.
At his question, Tolzna recalled carefully before murmuring with some thought,
"He does indeed feel familiar to me… but also, somehow, not quite."
"Who is he?" Ebner pressed.
"The God of Glory, Bladel," Tolzna replied.
The God of Glory, Bladel? Wasn't he the youngest son of the Giant King, Aurmir?
Ebner remembered that in the original canon, Bladel had publicly cursed the Ancient Sun God and was punished to wander eternally across a desolate plain shrouded in gray-yellow fog. Even until his death in the Cataclysm, he had never been freed…
Could it be that this world, altered by me, has changed?
That might explain why he showed so little respect for the God of Combat… But what about his hatred for the God of Luck? Where did that come from?
Just as that thought flashed through Ebner's mind, Tolzna spoke again, her tone uncertain:
"Bladel's birth may have been… problematic. It occurred right before the battle between the Giant King and the Ancient Sun God. I think it's quite possible he was meant to serve as Aurmir's vessel for resurrection…"
Though Tolzna didn't finish her sentence, Ebner already grasped her meaning.
In other words, the Glorious One, Boris Vasika, might actually be either the God of Glory, Bladel—or the resurrected Giant King himself!
Wait a minute—Ebner remembered the image shown by Arrodes, in which Boris, as the Glorious One, had to perform a ritual of prayer whenever he used the Twilight Authority to freeze time. He didn't wield the God of Combat's authority directly, unlike the other high-ranking bishops of that church.
Could it be that the one he prayed to… was his former self?
Moreover, in Feysac, Boris meant "warrior," and Vasika meant "loyal." Put together, his name literally meant "Loyal Warrior"…
Adding to that his hatred of betrayal—did that mean Bladel or Aurmir had once been betrayed?
Still… what did any of this have to do with me? Why did he look at me with that kind of seething hatred, as if he wanted to devour me alive?
Could Adam's entire "arrangement" this time—besides pushing me to complete my acting—also be to make me aware of this hostile entity?
Hmm… come to think of it, Bladel had been punished by the Ancient Sun God. The only one who could've freed him later… would be Adam.
Adam was pure divinity—he wouldn't care about being cursed or insulted. If someone was useful, he would simply use them.
Still, Ebner couldn't shake the sense that Adam's motives went far deeper.
And then there was the Seal of Calamity… what role had it played in all of this?
As that thought swirled, Ebner rubbed his temple, his headache worsening from spiritual exhaustion.
At that moment, Tolzna dragged over the massive, frozen hoof she had sliced off earlier. With a flick of her wrist, she shattered it into countless motes of light that scattered and released a residual spiritual aura.
—When a Beyonder was "transformed," their severed limbs still retained a portion of their extraordinary characteristics, which could not return to their original body.
Soon, those motes reassembled into Extraordinary characteristics from Sequence 9 up to Sequence 4—one of each.
Tolzna didn't hesitate. She collected them all—they were, after all, her spoils of war.
Seeing her do so, Ebner snapped back to focus and began gathering his own "rewards"—the miniature scepters Rhine had created.
Those scepters were now a brand-new kind of lifeform, though their creator had been too casual in their making. Barely ten minutes after their "birth," most had already lived out their short "lives." By now, all except the one carrying the Sequence 2 characteristic of the Desolate Matriarch had "died," becoming pure extraordinary items.
Sensing the faint "affection" the surviving little scepter directed toward him, Ebner hesitated briefly before deciding not to erase its mind or seal it into a card. Instead, he simply kept it by his side—for now.
Once that was done, Ebner turned to glance at the corpse of the King of the North, then looked down the mountain slope.
There, several figures hesitated at the foot of the peak—clearly wanting to come up and investigate, yet too afraid to do so.
(End of Chapter)