Seeing Dietrich staring at him without the slightest hesitation, Kult couldn’t help but feel a sense of doubt.
Just a few hours ago, Dietrich had been shaken.
And that uncertainty had turned into utter confusion after Helena took her own life.
That’s why Kult had believed Dietrich wouldn’t be able to do anything.
So then, who was it that changed him so drastically in such a short time?
“Was it you, Mr. Johan? Are you the one who filled Dietrich’s head with nonsense?”
Kult asked, gazing steadily at the space beside Dietrich.
He had seen through Johan who was hiding using illusion magic.
The foundation of illusion magic was mirage.
A trick of the eye created by bending light. That’s the essence of illusion.
But for Kult who wielded divine power and the light itself….such tricks were meaningless.
“Yes, it was me. So what?”
Johan clicked his tongue as he quietly dispelled the illusion magic.
“How long do you plan on interfering with me like this? Struggling like that with no purpose… it’s not like you.”
Kult took a step to the side and gestured toward the distance, where Emily was.
Whether the procedure was over or not, Emily was kneeling in a daze.
“See? In the end, your efforts were pointless.”
Just from looking at Emily’s back, Johan could more or less grasp what had happened.
As he had suspected, transplanting the artificial heart alone hadn’t been enough.
“And yet you still want to go on? What meaning is there in that?”
“Whether it has meaning or not isn’t something for you to decide.”
“You’re right. That was a poor choice of words.”
Kult slowly extended his hand.
This time, an intense light began to gather above his palm.
“From the beginning, we were never able to understand each other.”
The light that had gathered solidified into the shape of a spear. This was Kult’s favorite weapon.
But this time, it wasn’t simply a spear made of divine light.
It didn’t look like light molded into the form of a spear, but rather as though a real spear from somewhere had been summoned into existence.
In a sense, it was rougher than the spears Kult had previously created from divine power yet clearly a tangible, existing entity of unknown origin.
“Holy Spear, Longinus.”
It was Kult’s most powerful means of attack.
“The time for persuasion is over. From here on, I’ll let force do the talking.”
***
The marks left behind by Dietrich’s sword could not be erased even by divine power.
That was because, in a way, they were already fixed in place. They were an immovable force.
The traces were the path Dietrich had walked.
A person’s past, being complete in itself, could not be overwritten by the perfection divine power sought to impose.
The marks were an extension of Dietrich.
Therefore, the only way to erase those traces was to erase Dietrich himself.
“Hup!”
Memories of Dietrich flowed along the arc of his swinging sword.
At times, a smile would flicker into view. At others, falling rain.
And so, the sword that left behind fragments of the past looked as though it were painting a picture across the world.
“Dietrich… I truly believed that in the end, you would understand me.”
“Sorry, but I still don’t know what’s right. I really don’t. But one thing I know for sure….I have to save Helena!”
The spear of Longinus in Kult’s hand was unlike any of his previous attacks.
If divine power was a force that pursued wholeness, the spear of Longinus existed only to destroy.
When its blade carved through the air, the world fell into darkness—
As though it were erasing reality itself.
Faced with that terrifying force, Dietrich knew he had to avoid direct clashes between his sword and the spear’s edge at all costs.
If there was one silver lining, it was that Kult wasn’t particularly skilled in actual combat.
Even without his awakened ability, Dietrich possessed the qualities of a swordmaster—
Which made dismantling Kult’s crude spear techniques relatively easy.
But still—
Boooooom!
“Guh…!”
“Impressive. You’re definitely a threat. But don’t you think it’s a little too late now?”
No matter how you looked at it—
The odds were against him.
The spear was only a fragment of the power Kult wielded.
His true strength came from the near-infinite divine power he possessed.
Just scattering it indiscriminately into the air was enough for Kult to hurl Dietrich far back.
“Dietrich, no matter how great your power may be, you can’t bring me down alone.”
Dietrich alone wasn’t enough.
Lobelia who might have supported him was already at the limits of her strength.
With her naturally falling back from the frontlines, there was no one left to fill the gap.
It made sense. Kult was one of the game’s final bosses.
No matter how capable Dietrich was of injuring Kult, doing so on his own was incredibly difficult.
Even if he avoided the spear, the divine power Kult manipulated constantly threatened to swallow him whole.
Every time Dietrich cut through the waves of that divine power with his sword, his body accumulated more wounds.
And Kult?
“No matter how powerful an attack is, it’s meaningless if it doesn’t land.”
Kult didn’t have so much as a scratch on him.
With godlike abilities and output nearing infinity, he had no openings now that he was fully accustomed to the relic’s power.
“But Mr. Johan…”
After driving Dietrich back once more, Kult slowly turned his head and looked at me.
“What exactly do you think you’re doing right now?”
“What does it look like I’m doing?”
“I wasn’t asking because I don’t know. I’m asking whether you really think something like that is going to work.”
“Haha…”
What I was preparing was an advanced illusion spell.
I’d grown used to basic sensory interference, but this one was still difficult even for me.
“Then how about we test it out?”
“No need. Why take a risk unnecessarily?”
The illusion spell meant for Kult was ready now.
The only problem—
was how I was going to land it.
To be honest, a spell like this meant nothing against the current Kult.
With divine power flowing through his body, external influences like illusions couldn’t possibly affect him.
Kult knew that too. That’s why he even asked what I thought I was doing.
Even if it hit him head-on, it probably wouldn’t matter.
That’s why I thought maybe he’d show the arrogance of letting it hit him without resistance…
“So much effort in your preparation. Maybe there’s something I don’t know about?”
He’s unbelievably thorough, right to the end.
Even while wielding that kind of power and overwhelmingly crushing everyone, he allows no room for possibility.
He acts relaxed, but he doesn’t take a single thing lightly.
“Senior! I’ll find an opening, no matter what!”
Dietrich who was bleeding charged toward Kult once again.
He has no idea what I was preparing, but he must’ve sensed the atmosphere and taken it as a chance to turn the tables.
Honestly, I don’t know either.
Whether this can actually reverse the situation…I won’t know until I try.
Pop!
I fired the illusion spell I’d prepared at Kult.
It was still unstable, wobbling like a soap bubble. Probably because I hadn’t mastered it yet.
Damn… I should’ve practiced more.
“You’re in the way, Dietrich.”
“Guh!”
But before my spell even reached Kult, he repelled Dietrich once again with divine power.
His eyes turned toward me.
Then, he locked onto the spell flying toward him.
“This isn’t even funny.”
Kult casually swung his arm.
A blinding radiance poured down as if it were about to consume everything.
“So all I have to do is land a hit, right?”
At that moment, a shadow fell across the space filled with light.
It was Ariel’s support.
However, the shadow that had expanded as though it would swallow the world itself was shattered to pieces before Kult’s divine power.
“Yes.”
But Ariel didn’t care. She already knew her magic wouldn’t work on Kult.
She had likely chosen shadow magic deliberately in order to make the boundary of power visible to the naked eye.
“I’m pretty confident in my mana too, you know?”
Ariel simply slammed her mana forward, overwhelming the divine power with brute force.
As Kult’s divine power clashed with Ariel’s magic and canceled each other out, my spell finally reached right in front of Kult.
“What…?”
Kult leapt to the side to dodge.
Until now, he’d only moved at a walking pace, but this time he threw his body to avoid my spell. I never imagined he’d go that far.
Was it too obvious? The spell shouldn’t have had any effect on him anyway.
He could’ve just blocked it, so why bother dodging?
What a petty bastard!
“So that was the last of what you had prepared—”
It was in that moment.
The spell I had thought had failed made a wide arc in the distance and flew back toward Kult.
“What…?”
And apparently, Kult hadn’t expected that either. This time, he didn’t even think to dodge.
“Puhihihi!”
Striking at a time when no one notices and no one suspects….that’s the most basic of basics for an assassin.
Pop!
Carried by the wave, the spell slammed straight into Kult’s body.
“…What did you do to me?”
Kult clutched his face.
In truth, a spell of this level wouldn’t work on Kult.
But within the paradise Kult had shown me, I had met Helena.
I could barely recall a single sentence from the conversation we’d shared.
– Doctor. Could you prescribe a sweet dream for big brother?
Just like when we first met.
She had asked me to heal her brother.
“…Kult Hereticus. This is your prescription.”
Illusion spell:
[Dreaming]
I had taken a long road to finally come and fulfill that promise.
***
“What is happening right now?”
It shouldn’t work.
There was no way someone like him could be caught by such a crude spell.
That’s what he must have thought.
But now, Kult had no choice but to accept the scene unfolding before his eyes.
“Mr. Johan, what exactly did you do to me!”
“Nothing special. Just a spell. What you see is what it is.”
Illusion spell: [Dreaming].
It was a high-level illusion spell that showed the target a dream, but I still couldn’t wield it properly.
Compared to when Olga Helmod had plunged the entire student body into a dream during the placement exam, I was definitely below standard.
On top of that, I didn’t yet know how to manipulate the dream from the outside.
That’s why I had to step in and intervene directly inside Kult’s dream.
“Tch!”
Kult began gathering divine power, as if desperate to break free from the dream immediately.
Well, it didn’t really matter.
Pssh!
Kult wouldn’t be able to escape this dream anyway.
The divine power he had been gathering scattered, as if something interfered with it.
“This…!”
His hand began to tremble.
No, to be precise, it was Helena’s sacred relic embedded in his wrists and ankles that was trembling.
“Helena…? Is that you, Helena?”
Helena had become a sacred relic of Eden.
But it wasn’t through a proper ritual. It was through her own suicide.
That one moment of distortion is what led to the current situation.
“That’s right. Helena helped. Her consciousness remained within the relic, which was created through an incomplete ritual. The divine power flowing through your body is also part of Helena. That’s why you fell victim to such a crude spell.”
It was essentially her who opened the door from the inside.
I merely created the opportunity; you could say this entire mental landscape was shaped by Helena’s will.
“And in this dream…”
At that moment, the sacred relics embedded in Kult’s wrists and ankles began to tremble, then pulled themselves free.
The relics that separated from Kult’s body began to take human form once more.
“Even miracles like this can happen as if they were nothing.”
Shaping the will contained in the relic into the form of a person—
That was my role in this dream, and it was the prescription for Kult.
Now then…
“Big brother.”
“Helena…”
It’s time to see just how effective the medicine called Helena truly is.
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