Chapter 8 - Turning Point [3]
"Looks like I was spot on. You do know who I am."
Alden Thena, or now Noah Heavenfall, said to me while we went to a nearby alleyway.
"You don't have to repeat it twice."
As I said before, Noah is the descendant of the hero who stood up against an evil god.
Or more precisely, Eldias that appeared from the fissures of the Cardinal Sky.
…Let's start from the beginning.
Demiurge, the nation that once sought longevity, was founded by another nation called Morze in ancient times.
During the early stages, Demurgians were neither treated as enslaved people nor as humans.
They were treated as giant mana reserves and ruled over them to take advantage of them.
Despite having unimaginable power, they were oblivious, naive, and blind, living in their own bubbles, insulated from humanity's sins.
It wasn't until Morze took advantage of that and ruined everything.
As time went on, they lived comfortably thanks to Morze's help in dictatorship. It didn't take long for things to go south.
Not everything is given out like free candy. It always comes with a price.
One day, Morze introduced them to a being known as God, and in return, they were heavily influenced by that same God.
Things went south when Morze demanded more from the Demurgians.
Demurgians were used as power sources for their experiments, until hundreds remained after tens of thousands were taken away.
This kept going until they discovered that Morze lied to them and witnessed how their kind was slaughtered if they didn't comply.
Shortly after that, the Demurgians stepped out of their bubble and began thinking for themselves, bringing Morze to the brink of collapse.
Their rampage came to a halt when the Demurgians thought of killing the God whom they once worshiped.
That same God… is the story's final antagonist.
The deity's name is Xelthatl, the Eldritch God who governs a world beyond.
Its name is self-explanatory; it's Omnipotent.
The only thing stopping it from destroying the world was its inability to manifest a form akin to ours.
Such an unimaginably powerful being will descend if not taken care of, and failing to stop it in time will result in a fate worse than death.
The first contact with Xelthatl occurred thousands of years ago, when the founders of Demiurge summoned it to satisfy their thirst for vengeance.
That day, they thought they could take on a god.
With our fragile, mortal flesh,
In the end, we're all the same.
To go against a god, this was Demiurge's most ambiguous honour—
—and their greatest sin.
Theodore the Legend, Demiurge's national hero. The one who banished all evil from this world at the cost of his life.
To avoid history repeating itself, he made teachings and passed them down to not dabble in eldritch magic.
A magic art where, if an individual uses it, no trials shall be held, and an immediate death penalty will ensue.
All of these actions, despite being under the name of the greater good…
It was all a lie, a facade to hide their sins.
What happened that day was a tragedy, a fool's end.
They underestimated a god.
Their negligence led them to overestimate their strength as the world's strongest beings.
But what can a human do against a god, a being that is above all?
Without an end, they were brutally tortured, slaughtered, resurrected, turned into playthings, and morphed into a hybrid of a mammal with human skin in an endless cycle.
Noah's ancestor, Theodore Heavenfall, was one of the Demurgians involved in the operation and fled.
He was one of the few who witnessed everything until Xelthatl lost its vessel after the summoning ritual exhausted its magic.
To summarize, it's our ancestors' fault that the world is on the brink of extinction due to some crazy cult.
—Thanks for that.
Hmm, it doesn't feel pleasant when I'm the reason for all of this if I think about it.
Ahem, anyways. This will also be the final blow that leads to Noah's breakdown in the future.
Imagine the ancestors you looked up to were cowards all along.
Beings who you thought had successfully sealed the Eldritch God and died with glory were fools who ran away in fear and fabricated the truth.
This information alone could put Demiurge at odds with itself.
I am not exaggerating when I say this: Theodore is regarded as this country's national hero.
He stood at the capital as a monument for a millennium.
I'll probably get executed if I speak the truth.
Even worse, when his descendant was in front of me with a nasty smirk on his face, boasting how he was right about me.
This all boils down to this asshole here, who possesses a skill I do NOT want to deal with.
The ability to perceive the truth and lies.
To think that it was directed to me when it's only used against people with malicious intent.
Karmic retribution, I guess.
"Fine, I do know who you are,"
"…Hmm."
Noah looked at me with clear suspicion and accepted my statement as the truth.
Thankfully, it's not really the infamous lie detector depicted in fiction.
…But that ability is terrifying in more ways than one; a lie detector cannot do what he was doing right now.
"What do you know about me?"
Noah questioned me, examining me with his red, crimson eyes.
If the Historia family has golden eyes, then the Heavenfall family has red eyes, sufficient proof that he was of royal blood.
A trait exclusive to him that grants him broken abilities. The Eyes of Verity.
It allows him to see what I feel, my temperature, blood flow… everything, actually.
The downside is that it severely strains Noah's eyes if overused.
I shook my head and answered his questions without revealing anything important.
"…No comment."
"Are you aware of my eye's ability?"
"Yeah."
"Wait, you do?! Who are you?"
"No comment."
"Ugh… anything else you know?"
"No comment."
"…Am I annoying?"
"Yeah."
"Oh shut up! This isn't an interrogation!!!"
He shouted in frustration, surprised that he wasn't getting through to my head.
"Tch, I'll just give you what you probably want to see."
Noah took something from his bag and grabbed a piece of stone.
It was heavily wrapped in cloth, so I couldn't see what it was.
—Fwoop!
"Here, catch."
Noah threw something at me after he unravelled it from the cloth. The object was rough and rugged, but it had a soft touch to it.
I was confused about what it was until I saw it.
Ah, haha… meeting this man here was truly the biggest mistake of my life.
"Holy SHIT!!!"
My face morphed in horror upon realizing what it was.
I wanted to throw it so far away that it disappeared into space, but that would only make matters worse.
"Why... why the hell did you throw this to me when you could have reported this to the officials!?"
I lost my composure and hid it away from any prying eyes. What he gave me was something that's beyond dangerous.
"Do you think anyone would believe me right now?”
Noah shook his head, hinting that he had already done so.
"Ah...! This is a disaster! To think you gave this to me as if it were some stupid rock!"
This shabby rock was an Exitium stone, a vessel made to summon the God known as Xelthatl.
Besides the one in my hands, there are 11 stones all over the world, each possessing a fragment of Xelthalt itself.
Suppose the stone falls into the wrong hands. What do you think will happen?
The individual will literally cease to exist or convert into a grotesque monster as it is made with the blood of thousands of humans, sacrificed to form this disgusting stone.
Noah and I weren't dead because we possessed pure mana cores, one of the conditions to hold one without these restrictions.
'So if I didn't have one…' Shivers crawled down my spine.
Indirectly, I narrowly avoided death just now. And it's all because of this guy.
"You… Where did you find this?"
"No comment."
"..."
"..."
"Oh, that's it. You're fucking dead-"
"I-It's a joke! Calm down! I'm sorry!"
Noah backed away after I nearly punched him in the face.
If he hadn't noticed my approach a split second later and stopped joking around, I would've bashed his face in by now.
"My mother… gave this to me to find someone who can handle this stone."
"But why me? I'm just some guy with no redeeming qualities."
"No, that's not true, I can tell. Your mana core, it feels... the same as mine."
Noah pointed beneath my heart. It was where the mana core organ was located.
"Even so, I'm still a lowly mage right now. I'm not even that strong; I barely have enough mana that it's hard to keep up."
There wasn't any point in hiding secrets anymore from him.
The presence of an Exitium stone was catastrophic in itself. It's enough for me to set my thoughts aside and stop wasting time with jokes.
"Hmm… now that I think about it, you're right."
"Are you kidding me right now?"
This guy… When did he get so stupid?
He was supposed to be the smart protagonist who endured hellish trials and ultimately kept smiling.
Not whatever this is.
"Tch, fine. Be glad you came to the right person-"
—Vooom…!
Without warning, a red light came from my right hand.
I didn't get the time to react when it all went south too fast.
"■●□○●¤▪︎●□"
My eyes widened in a primal fear, a fear I have never felt before.
It was enough to leave me frozen, tilting my head slowly to see where the ominous sound came from—
“…Ah.”
There, a portal emerged above the stone.
Dark, murky thoughts invaded my head like the plague. I couldn't breathe.
"Haaah… Haaah… Haaah…!"
I started losing my mind. I stopped thinking.
"Haaah…! Haaah...!"
My vision turned dim. It was like I endlessly fell into the abyss… my consciousness… slow fading… away…
…
…
…
—SLAP!!!
"KURO! COME BACK TO YOUR SENSES!!!"
Noah tried to reach out for me and jolted me awake.
—But it was far too late.
"AAAAAH!!!"
"GAAAAAH!!!"
Everything around us was sucked inside the ominous portal.
All of this happened in mere seconds.
========
"Urgh… what on earth just happened?"
"…"
"…Kuro?
"Ah… It's over."
This domain can be explained with one word—
—Incomprehensible.
It's as if we, as three-dimensional beings, were transported to the fourth dimension without our consent.
It was a dimension called Aleph, the realm where eldritch creatures— Eldias reside.
"What is this place…?"
Noah couldn't believe that a world like this existed in the first place.
"Noah."
I called his name in a chilling tone.
"Whatever you do, even if it sounds like bullshit…"
I clenched my hands in fear. It… still won't stop shaking, but now isn't the time to be scared.
"Follow my every instruction, understand?"
"…Okay." Noah quietly nodded his head. Realizing the gravity of this situation.
If we both die here…
Then the world is doomed.
