The Life of a Wise Cult Leader - Chapter 127

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 127

 

“What should I do!”

 

Celestia spun around me frantically, jumping up and down. Kalebrin showed a calm demeanor, having seen me in this sorry state so many times before.

 

“I’m fine… It’s just a simple, um.”

 

What excuse should I make?

 

“You’re fine? No, you coughed up blood, so you can’t be fine…! Healing, healing magic, no, if the Saint is hurting this much, healing magic won’t work either. Think, Celestia…!”

 

Celestia wandered around me with her staff, chanting incomprehensible spells.

 

This was the first time I’d seen someone make such a fuss, so I completely forgot how to make excuses. More importantly, I want some water.

 

“Sister Celestia… Please calm down. This is simply a side effect of using God’s power through a human body.”

 

Kalebrin nodded.

 

With this, everyone usually lets it slide, so it should be fine…

 

“That’s extremely serious though…?”

 

Contrary to my expectation that she’d just let it go, Celestia covered her lower face with an extremely shocked expression.

 

“I, I heard that such things… damage the soul.”

 

Damage… it’s probably not that serious? Or is it? Anyway, I’m not sure. Kalebrin is the expert on these things.

 

“Well, that’s true but… It’s fine. This only happens very occasionally, so you don’t need to worry that much. I’ll be better in a little while.”

 

For the first time, faith disappeared from Celestia’s devoted gaze.

 

‘Why…’

 

In the end, I had to spend a full hour in the Evergrace family’s reception room explaining ‘why I’m in this situation and what the solution is~’ before I could escape from that gaze.

 

Phew…

 

“Then shall I send you to the temple under the Ascetic? The First Branch Temple in Astrapolis.”

 

“Is teleportation magic possible in your current state?”

 

I heard that teleportation magic consumes an enormous amount of mana.

 

The farther the distance, the more people involved, the more it consumes.

 

Even modern science doesn’t have technology for teleportation, so it’s natural that accomplishing it through the mystery of magic would be costly…

 

“It’s the gift you gave me, Ascetic. It’s been very helpful to me.”

 

The gift I gave Celestia was just a necklace that stores mana and doubles it after a certain amount of time.

 

It’s not quite a sacred relic, but it’s still a pretty good item that was popular among players.

 

It’s rechargeable, but anyway, an item that doubles whatever you put in is useful for any class.

 

I just remembered it and had Antonio prepare it through a letter, but since Celestia’s mana was so large, the doubled amount came back like a pile.

 

“If it won’t be a burden, please send me.”

 

“This much isn’t even a burden.”

 

Celestia had returned to a comfortable expression after hearing from me why my health was like this and some of my secrets~.

 

“Next time we meet, I’ll return as a Celestia who’s truly helpful!”

 

“You’re already helpful now.”

 

Celestia was very admirable. She smiled and sent me to the temple before disappearing.

 

Now in the temple, there were only Kalebrin and me.

 

The dark temple without any lights was familiar enough that I could walk around with my eyes closed.

 

“Then shall we rest a little now? We’ve been busy traveling, after all.”

 

When we returned to the Saint’s room prepared in the temple, Yelena was there, whom I had contacted in advance.

 

As soon as Yelena saw Kalebrin, she rushed toward her.

 

“Kalebriiiin!”

 

“Yes, Yelena.”

 

Kalebrin and Yelena, returning to my temple after a long time, created a joyful reunion scene as if they were sisters meeting again.

 

Yelena came running with a clatter and hugged Kalebrin.

 

Then she spun around in the air a couple of times before setting Kalebrin down and checking every corner to see if she was hurt anywhere.

 

I politely stopped Yelena, who was even lifting eyelids to check.

 

“Since I’m here, Sister Kalebrin has no injuries. So please be at ease, Yelena.”

 

“Still, I can’t feel at ease unless I see with my own eyes… Anyway, it’s a relief that you look healthy and well, Kalebrin!”

 

“Yeah… Ye, Yelena also looks go, good, so that’s a relief…”

 

“As for me, I’d be a corpse if you took away my health.”

 

Yelena, speaking in half-formal language, tidied Kalebrin’s hair.

 

“I’ll go organize my energy in that room over there for a moment, so please catch up with each other.”

 

“Organize your energy? Did something happen?”

 

“I do it periodically.”

 

“I see.”

 

If Kalebrin or Yelena were around, it wouldn’t be much of a hindrance to creating Sacred Relics with my power.

 

‘Last time, the Sage’s Book had weak energy, and the other Sacred Relics were favorable to me, so I could devour them quickly, but…’

 

Only when I picked up the galaxy-like veil with my hands did I realize.

 

This thing was not a Sacred Relic created with goodwill toward me.

 

This ‘Sacred Relic’ worthy of the name ‘World’s Darkest Veil’ was a Sacred Relic of the god of darkness.

 

‘And darkness… conflicts with the image of light. It should be most hostile to light. However…’

 

When I saw the Serpent’s memories at the World Tree, there was no god of darkness.

 

‘It’s the most conflicting image, but at the same time, just as there’s no darkness without light, there’s no light without darkness.’

 

What if the gods of light and darkness were actually one?

 

‘Though such assumptions are useless without information.’

 

Slither.

 

Ife crawled up my wrist and poked her head out through the loose sleeves.

 

-{If you devour this veil, you might face a backlash instead. Prepare thoroughly, Ascetic!}

 

A black tongue flicked between the snake’s characteristic mouth that wore a slight smile.

 

“I know. But I have no choice if I want to collect Sacred Relics.”

 

It’s the quest you guys gave me, and what I need to do to clear the main quest is to gather Sacred Relics, which are fragments of gods, and use them to oppose Lumensia.

 

“More importantly, is my guess correct? That the god of darkness and the god of light… Lumensia are the same person.”

 

Though she’s revered as a sun god in the Empire, Lumensia is a god of light.

 

Ife’s light green scales glittered.

 

-{I don’t know that either?}

 

“You usually act like you know everything, and now you’re saying this?”

 

-{For knowledge like that, I need to observe and learn it through experience. I’ve never seen the gods. No other gods have ever told me about it either.}

 

Pressing Ife for answers wouldn’t yield anything useful anyway.

 

I let out a deep sigh and picked up the veil with one hand, pulling it over my head.

 

“Honestly, I’m not sure how this will turn out… but I have no choice… There’s nothing I can really prepare anyway…”

 

Since there were no items or magic that could help me absorb God’s energy better, dragging out time to prepare would be meaningless.

 

Since this Sacred Relic has such modest effects, I hope the backlash Ife warned about won’t be too severe.

 

I took a deep breath.

 

When I opened my eyes, I was in space.

 

*

 

What spread before my eyes was perfect darkness without a single point of light.

 

Even though I had only covered myself with a thin veil, it was so pitch black that I couldn’t even perceive one of my hands right in front of me.

 

However, that darkness wasn’t simply an empty void.

 

I seemed to be floating in a space without gravity, yet conversely, I felt pressure from all directions threatening to crush my body.

 

“Cough, guh…”

 

Without the Defense Relic, I might have been compressed down to the size of sugar cubes. The pressure felt that intense.

 

I gritted my teeth and drew out all the energy within me.

 

Like when controlling Divine Aura, like using the power of the Healing Relic and Purification Relic as extensions of my limbs, I pulled out my energy.

 

Without doing so, I felt I wouldn’t be able to shake off this crushing pressure.

 

“Huff…”

 

A wave of pressure intense enough to make my hair stand on end swept through like a storm, and soon after, the darkness receded.

 

And there was a giant eye… eyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyesblinkblinkblink between the darkness giant eyes blink endless darkness watching me.

 

“What the…”

 

A large, pitch-black pupil and the white sclera that seemed to outline it. The giant eyeball was massive like a black hole and seemed to be pulling me in.

 

In this vast, enormous, endless universe, I am an insignificant existence smaller than an ant.

 

Something was looking down at me intently. Only then could I understand the true nature of that earlier pressure.

 

The gaze had been that heavy.

 

Did I break out in cold sweat? I don’t know. I couldn’t even hear my own words.

 

Words don’t come out as language, senses become dull, thoughts become paralyzed, and in the end I forget everything… falling into eternal oblivion, being forgotten. Forgetting, being forgotten, being swallowed, falling into the endless darkness of the Abyss…

 

“Aah… Aaaaah!!”

 

I clutched my head.

 

No, did I?

 

I was certain I moved my hand.

 

No, think. I can’t collapse here.

 

I will live in This World…

 

In this extreme moment when my sanity was collapsing, I used my energy to survive.

 

This was a kind of… instinct.

 

Just as the God of healing mends the flesh of living beings more freely than breathing.

 

Just as the Sage, the God of all knowledge, thoroughly understands all things in creation.

 

Just as the God of war slaughters people more easily than anyone else…

 

In the pitch-black darkness, in a universe without light, I burst forth with light like a supernova.

 

The universe trembled. As if eyes that had been watching me flinched in surprise at the sudden action of an ant.

 

Light flashed and drove away the darkness.

 

Only then did I notice that tears were streaming down from my eyes. My eyes stung.

 

When I wiped my face with my hand, blood smeared thickly across my palm.

 

They were tears of blood.

 

A headache arose.

 

My body should be undergoing Restoration immediately…

 

It seemed the damage from my brain nearly turning to mush was quite severe.

 

“Hah…”

 

I let out a slow sigh. It came out mixed with the smell of blood.

 

The giant eye, smaller than before, slowly blinked its pupil. Blinked? Could you call it blinking-

 

‘Don’t look, don’t even think about it.’

 

That thing… There’s nothing I can do about it.

 

Unless a God of equal rank comes, that thing… was beyond what I could handle.

 

‘Can I consider it equivalent to Lumensia? I don’t know anything. Then am I trapped here? Usually when I absorb power, it feels like I’m making the God’s Power in the Sacred Relic my own, but this is like… I’ve just fallen into this God’s space.’

 

The World’s Darkest Veil. A piece of cloth that looked as if it was made from a fragment of the universe itself.

 

‘You’re telling me that mere thing acts as a passage to meet the God of darkness?’

 

‘Is what’s next to me right now the God of darkness?’

 

‘When I met Servantis last time, there wasn’t this kind of oppressive feeling.’

 

‘Is it because she wasn’t a complete God to begin with?’

 

‘Do Gods have different ranks among themselves? Or does it change depending on the target’s goodwill?’

 

Even while thinking, I didn’t forget to scatter light around me. If I eliminated the light even for a moment, my brain would turn to mush again.

 

‘What should I do? What method should I take…’

 

I pulled out my Staff of Light and gripped it. Just the fact that I was holding something I had used familiarly all this time allowed me to barely grasp the thread of reason in this madness.

 

Then, with a sound like metal tearing, my brain rang out.

 

Keeeeeeeng…

 

“Urgh!”

 

It wasn’t a simple sound. It was a resonance like some kind of ship’s horn.

 

A vibration that shook my entire being seemed to pierce through my eardrums and stir my brain matter. My brain felt like it would become lasagna.

 

[Bright. Bright. Bright. Bright. Bright.]

 

A will pierced into my mind.

 

It wasn’t simple words, but intense rejection transmitted through pure sensation.

 

The giant pupil, the God of darkness’s gaze, was showing hostility toward the ‘light’ that had invaded its domain, like a shadow looking at the sun.

 

‘But if I eliminate this light, my brain will turn to mush like before. But I also can’t go against the mood of this space’s ruler…’

 

I could feel the displeasure building up on my skin. Soon after, with a dripping sound, blood flowed from my nose.

 

‘I have no choice…’

 

I let the light fade away. Only the Light Staff gripped in my hand was emitting light.

 

However, there wasn’t the same oppressive feeling. The displeasure also subsided.

 

I let out a sigh of relief. Anyway, if that eye was the God of darkness, if it had transmitted its will earlier, then it was a being I could communicate with.

 

Then I could have done something about it sufficiently.

 

I tried to look at the eyeball to speak to something.

 

“God of Darkness…!”

 

As soon as I finished speaking, indescribable amorphous tentacles stretched out from the giant eyeball and…

 

Huh.

 

Crunch-

 

It crushed my head.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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