Chapter 440 : Temple (3)
Alon looked at the enormous meteor created by ‘Drawing-In Night’, one so vast it covered even the sky.
After continuing his thoughts for a moment, he opened his mouth as if everything had finally been sorted out.
“...Certainly, it’s on a different level.”
“Right? Be grateful and di—”
“But it’s not something I failed to anticipate. I just—”
At Alon’s words, the man—no, Drawing-In Night—made a puzzled expression.
Of course, Alon knew.
The being before him possessed power far superior to the other divine-blood.
Even if his appearance was close to human, the aura he emitted was so overwhelming that merely facing him made every cell in Alon’s body tense and cold sweat form.
And yet the reason Alon had deliberately continued the conversation and gathered information once more was only one thing.
“I just needed time.”
With Alon’s quiet murmur.
Drawing-In Night, wearing a confused expression, suddenly looked up at a dot floating in the sky.
A very small dot, but clearly visible.
And the moment he perceived it.
“!”
Drawing-In Night realized.
It was not a dot.
It was—
“A spear?”
A spear.
A gigantic spear so enormous it caused goosebumps, growing larger in real time while greedily devouring mana.
And beneath that spear—
[Krr—!]
Blackie, transformed into the Poison Swallower, was there.
Its eyes gleamed as it stared directly at Drawing-In Night.
‘Good thing I activated Reverse Heaven in advance. If I hadn’t been able to summon Basiliora, that would’ve been disastrous.’
The enormous spear split the gray sky as it appeared.
Seeing even a trace of panic appear on Drawing-In Night’s face, Alon spoke.
“I’ll take the first move.”
He pulled out his right hand, which had been forming seals inside his pocket until now.
And then.
As Alon completed the seal—
Sniping of Oblivion.
The enormous spear descended upon the red planet floating against gravity.
The strike Alon had prepared from the very moment he arrived at the temple was fired toward Drawing-In Night.
The gray sky suddenly turned into a blinding white light that stole even vision itself.
The crimson vegetation was repainted in pure white.
A strike so absolute that the word “certain kill” did not feel exaggerated—crashed down upon the divine-blood.
What rang in his ears was a shrill noise that seemed capable of erasing all sound.
However, despite that chilling ringing, what Alon saw with his own eyes was—the gigantic strike that had shattered the red meteor and reached Drawing-In Night stopping right in front of him like a lie.
It was utterly strange and unreal.
The spear that should have advanced forward was halted, motionless before the man.
As if a bullet had stopped midair.
BOOM— CRRRRRACK—!
The meteor above his head slowly began collapsing, yet the strike remained frozen.
And then.
Gradually.
Slowly.
The spear, fired with mana from Reverse Heaven approaching infinity, began to disappear before him.
So easily.
So futilely.
As if nothing had existed from the beginning.
And then.
[What a shame.]
Drawing-In Night, whose smile had returned before anyone noticed, watched as the massive meteor that had been collapsing began to reform around him.
As if no attack had ever struck it.
Perfectly intact.
[............This is insane.]
Seeing that sight, Basiliora muttered in disbelief.
Meanwhile, the ecstatic smile on Drawing-In Night’s face deepened.
[............Wouldn’t it be better to run away now?]
Basiliora had never once spoken weakly before a divine-blood.
Hearing those words, Alon stared blankly at the sky.
The situation unfolding before them was overwhelming even for Basiliora.
Above them, Drawing-In Night floated arrogantly while looking down at them.
And above him hovered a meteor so enormous it covered the entire sky, making even Basiliora appear like nothing more than a giant snake.
It was overwhelming enough to destroy anyone’s will to fight.
Yes.
It was so overwhelmingly powerful that—
“There’s no need for that.”
Alon saw a chance of victory.
[What............?]
Basiliora asked in shock.
Without answering, Alon continued staring at the sky.
Floating in the air was unchanged, overwhelming violence and pressure.
If he had encountered such a thing without any prior information, Alon himself would certainly have lost his will to fight or fled.
However, Alon could remain calm.
Because of the information he possessed about Rhythm.
‘Great power always demands a great price.’
Heavenly Rhythm Creation was fundamentally the process of creating laws.
The laws created within Rhythm, the more stages they passed through, would eventually reach providence and approach omnipotence.
However, that was only the case after passing through those stages.
If that law belonged to a divine-blood who had only just reached the stage of Rhythm—
And if it was something so overwhelming that merely witnessing it could destroy one’s fighting spirit—
Then its restriction would surely be even more powerful.
[Certainly impressive for a human. If you were one of those nobodies, that strike would have killed you.]
Alon looked at Drawing-In Night.
The being clearly intoxicated with its own power as it spoke.
And above its head—
The meteor that had just maintained its shape began splitting apart with a horrifying noise.
No—
It was dividing.
Soon what appeared was—
Dozens, hundreds of divided meteors.
And a massive floating island that resembled a sky garden.
“Gravity...?”
For a moment, Alon murmured.
But he soon shook his head.
Calling it gravity didn’t fit.
The law used by Drawing-In Night functioned in many directions unrelated to gravity.
And Sniping of Oblivion hadn’t fallen due to gravity—it had simply stopped in place and vanished.
“No... attraction.”
After recalling the massive sky garden, the dozens or hundreds of meteor fragments, and everything that had happened so far, Alon reached a conclusion and muttered.
[Ho—?]
Drawing-In Night smiled as if amused.
[Impressive. To reach the conclusion so quickly.]
Drunk on confidence, he confirmed the answer himself.
[But even if you figured it out, it doesn’t mean you can do anything about it, does it?]
His carelessness was not strange.
The overwhelming difference in power gave him more than enough reason to relax.
[Hmm?]
Dozens of meteors slowly began falling toward Alon.
And that confidence only grew stronger.
But precisely because of that—
‘I solved the first puzzle needed to reach the answer.’
Alon gained an opportunity.
The battle had begun.
No—calling it a battle was hardly accurate, as it was completely one-sided.
The divine-blood simply dropped meteors downward with enjoyment, while Alon desperately dodged them.
Of course, it wasn’t as if Alon hadn’t tried attacking in between.
He fired Sniping of Oblivion once more.
He froze the entire space where the meteors were falling.
He even turned the meteors into ashes several times with lightning.
But unfortunately, none of Alon’s attacks inflicted meaningful damage on the divine-blood.
As a result, the battle dragged on longer and longer—and grew increasingly disadvantageous.
ROOOOAR—!
A meteor shower poured toward the ground.
Each meteor was powerful enough to bring instant death upon impact.
Yet even amid that chaos, Alon calmly continued thinking.
‘The opponent’s law is attraction.’
Attraction.
The force that pulls things toward a single point.
[Dammit—!]
Basiliora twisted its body wildly yet again to avoid the falling meteors.
Hearing its voice, Alon continuously processed information in his mind.
And then—
‘I’ve grasped the general details.’
Though the time had been short, Alon had already analyzed much of the ability.
‘The number of attraction points that can be created at once—confirmed so far is eighty-four. But there are likely more.’
‘The range for creating attraction points is enormous. If he wished, he could create one right beside me. In other words, escape is impossible.’
‘The movement speed using attraction points is absurdly fast. Even if an attack could land, landing it is practically impossible.’
‘He shows no burden in using attraction.’
And as the information accumulated, Alon realized two more things.
The first—his ability was built upon extreme unfairness.
The second—Drawing-In Night was blatantly going easy on him.
If the divine-blood were serious, there was no way Alon could respond like this.
In other words, Alon was currently surviving only because of Drawing-In Night’s arrogance, acting as nothing more than his experiment.
In conclusion, the situation was hopeless.
He was only alive thanks to the divine-blood’s arrogant mercy.
And yet, even within that desperate situation, Alon’s mind spun more sharply than ever, searching for clues to victory one by one.
‘His mastery over the law is still incomplete. The distribution of attraction points varies, and their sizes differ. When the number exceeds several dozen, his control becomes unstable.’
‘The number of attraction points can increase indefinitely, but the power they can use has a clear limit. As their number increases, the meteors and even the floating islands supporting them become unstable.’
‘If a specific attraction point exceeds its limit, another attraction point disappears to reinforce it.’
‘Considering all those points, the types of penalties possible are twelve.’
—He had already reached them.
[Alon—! I’m at my limit!]
Basiliora’s scream struck Alon’s ears.
In truth, Basiliora had already reached its limit.
Naturally so.
Avoiding this one-sided barrage for so long meant Basiliora had already done more than enough.
But—
“Hold on a little longer.”
[What—!?]
“Just a little. Just a little more.”
Alon still needed time.
Just a little more time.
Enough time to compare the penalties gained from such a perfect law with the possibilities he had deduced from the information gathered so far.
[Dammit!]
Basiliora twisted its body again to dodge a meteor, and at the same moment Alon fired another spell—but it stopped in midair and vanished again.
The first prediction was wrong.
ROOOOOAR—!!
Lightning spears tore apart the falling meteors, and the magic that fell to the ground shattered the earth.
The second prediction was wrong.
Then the third was wrong.
The fourth was wrong.
The fifth was wrong.
And when he reached the sixth—
The moment Alon’s frozen tundra froze the entire space through which the meteors were rushing.
Drip—!
As fragments of the meteors suddenly fell downward—
“…Found it.”
For the first time, joy appeared on Alon’s otherwise expressionless face.