The Celestial Gate.
It’s said that if a Saint sacrifices their divinity, it can be summoned.
Until now, there has been no record of the Celestial Gate appearing.
So, no one knows what role it actually plays.
The only known fact is one legend: when the Celestial Gate reveals itself, all evil disappears.
“What… what is this?”
Damian was rarely seen in a state of panic.
Perhaps it was the first time he had shown such a face since he made his appearance.
Even for him, after living for so long, this was his first encounter with it.
He didn’t even know the Celestial Gate existed, so seeing it now was a first for him.
Vigrind was in a similar situation.
He only knew of it as the last, truly final move a Saint could make.
Since they were all going to die anyway, he thought he might as well stop that, with the hope that if it succeeded, maybe even Damian—
That hope turned into reality.
Meanwhile, the Celestial Gate that had emerged in the sky slowly descended and finally stood on the ground.
The stone gate positioned between the stone pillars on either side slowly began to open with a heavy sound.
As the gates opened, the inside was shrouded in a blinding golden light, so dazzling that one couldn’t bear to look inside.
Watching this, Vigrind managed a weak smile.
Now, not a single bit of his divinity remained.
His lower abdomen felt emptier than the void, and he had no strength left for even the simplest healing spells.
Struggling to support himself, Vigrind gazed at the Celestial Gate.
It was a massive gate that radiated a sense of holiness just by looking at it.
The gate stood firmly on the ground, slowly opening.
And the golden light pouring from the gate pushed away all of Damian’s territory.
The brilliance that flowed from within granted healing grace to the fallen members of the Church of the Celestial God.
All their wounds, big and small, healed, and vitality began to return.
—Except for Vigrind.
And one more person, the summoner Vigrind, in this place—a demon.
“Ugh, c-cough…?!”
Damian staggered back several steps, shielding his eyes.
As soon as he made contact with the light, smoke began to rise from his body, and tremendous pain pressed down on him.
He yearned for pain,
and craved the death that awaited him at the end.
But when that death approached, Damian instinctively stumbled backward.
“Th-this…?”
His body couldn’t stand properly, and he kept wobbling as the light touched him.
Every time the radiant light made contact with his body, which could be considered the embodiment of his magical energy, thick, dark smoke billowed forth.
And then, at that moment, the radiance started to wane.
In the space dominated by golden brilliance, as the light faded, silence fell.
Taking advantage of that silence, Damian sought to escape.
He usually wore a gloomy expression but always maintained the composure of a ruler. Now, that composure had long vanished.
Whatever that was, it would bring nothing good for a demon like him; with the brilliance gone, he hurriedly sought an escape.
He hurriedly tried to escape.
– Tick, tick, tick, tick…
Then it happened.
From inside the door, the sound of a winding mechanism echoed, growing louder and faster.
The ticking sound became so rapid that it overlapped, causing Damian to stop in his tracks.
A sudden twist of fate approached him.
The countless lives he carried were definitely, albeit slowly, diminishing.
– Ding-ding— ding-ding— ding—
The winding sound eventually turned into a bell toll.
A toll that seemed to resonate from a gigantic cathedral.
With that bell toll, Damian’s face turned deeply flustered.
Lives were being extinguished.
To be precise, life was being sucked into that door.
The countless lives he possessed.
Those lives were rapidly being pulled away, vanishing into that door.
“Saint! Wh-what have you done…!”
Damian glowered at Priest Vigrind.
Exhausted to the point of being unable to resist, Vigrind wore a painfully pale smile on his face.
“What have I done? I am merely granting your wish…!”
Vigrind could see it.
The lives that Damian held— surely, those numerous souls were being pulled into the heavenly door. Like wildflowers swept away in a storm, lives were vanishing without a trace.
“My, my lives…! Stop it, stop it right now, Saint…!”
“Ah… Is that so? Didn’t you wish to die…? If you stay like this, you’ll die soon enough.”
Vigrind found it hard to even speak.
Meanwhile, Damian’s lives were being devoured at an alarming rate.
‘N-no way…!’
The death he had yearned for was approaching him.
If the heavenly door mercilessly consumed Damian’s life, he would finally achieve his long-desired wish.
But in that situation, Damian shouted out loud.
“Stop it, stop it right now—! Right now!”
“It’s funny… You wanted to die so badly. Yet now that the moment has come, you’re scared…?”
Damian didn’t respond to that.
He merely hurriedly moved towards the Saint.
If the Saint was the one who summoned that door, then taking the Saint’s life would surely make that door disappear as well.
Yet in front of the imminent death, Damian felt fear.
A deep fear of death.
“If I kill you, that will disappear too…! I will kill you, Saint…!”
But Damian could no longer move.
A streak of crimson magic had wrapped around his feet—
“Are you just going to let this happen…! You damned bastard…!”
Lying on the ground, Yona gritted her teeth.
Though she had ended up shielding Alex, inadvertently including Scarlet in her range, there was no time to think about that. Yona poured all her strength into erecting a magical barrier. Thanks to that, she narrowly saved herself from Damian’s breath that swept across the ground, but that was all.
When Yona, feeling as if her whole body was on fire, fainted and later opened her eyes, that was exactly when Damian was screaming.
This was the first time she had seen the heavenly door, but with Damian’s outcry, she could roughly understand the situation.
However, I could roughly grasp the situation from Damian’s incessant chatter.
I also figured out why Damian was approaching Vigrind.
So, she gathered her strength, clinging to Damian’s feet and hanging on.
“This, this half-wit saint girl…!”
“Just shut up and die quietly, you blood-red brat…!”
Yona, trembling all over, barely managed to get up.
Her pale, horrified face was a mess, and her sickly complexion clearly indicated that she was not in a normal state.
“You say you want to die…! Then you should just stay still…!”
Damian did not hide his murderous intent towards Yona.
Yona’s magic ensnared Damian’s steps that were headed towards Vigrind.
As Yona unleashed it, Damian raised one hand and conjured a magic projectile.
“Saint, that’s as far as your bravado goes!”
At Damian’s gesture, the magic projectile that had gathered in his hand soared toward Yona.
And just when Yona, too exhausted to even create a barrier, tightly closed her eyes—
A shadow blocked her way.
– Boom!
A massive silver tower shield intercepted the magic projectile.
Despite being battered and torn, the tower shield, firmly clutched by the knight, successfully achieved its purpose of blocking the projectile.
However, the impact sent the knight tumbling back a distance.
“Ugh…!”
With a long groan, the knight barely lifted himself up.
Somewhere, his helmet had flown off.
His armor was covered in dents and scratches.
The tiny head peeking out from the armor was absurdly small in comparison.
Yona glanced back at Scarlet, whose red hair was whipping around as he blocked the magic projectile.
“…D-Don’t get the wrong idea…! I’m just trying to repay a debt…!”
Scarlet, facing Yona, whipped his head around and replied.
For a moment, she almost felt touched.
But why did it have to come out like that?
“Alex… Ugh?!”
Just as Yona thought of Alex and was about to look for him,
Someone picked her up from the ground.
“Yona, are you okay?”
“Uh, uh… You… look fine.”
Seeing Alex’s well-defined muscles peek out from his burned shirt, Yona quickly turned her head away.
Knowing that both Alex and Scarlet were okay really made Yona feel that her efforts in creating a barrier were worth it.
“Ughhh…!! You miserable wretches—!!!”
Yona’s thoughts were shattered by Damian’s scream.
At that moment, the heavenly gate stood firm, steadily draining Damian’s life force, pushing him to the brink of madness.
It was the lives of millions!
His people, and the once fertile land that had turned into the Great Desert, were being devoured at an alarming rate by that mysterious entity and now truly felt the threat of destruction!
Those lives were drained to the point of revealing the ground beneath.
And death was inching closer to Damian.
“It can’t be helped—! I’ll kill every last one of you—!!!”
“Ugh! You pathetic lot, I’m going to kill all of you!!!”
Damian began to shift into the form of the black beast once more.
With a crack and a crunch, Damian transformed into his usual black beast, spreading his wings with a flourish and soaring into the sky—
Once again, his chest swelled massively.
And at that moment—
A shadow of a black snake loomed over the ground.
Beaten back by the black giant, Vervaria returned to Yona, restoring her strength with her magic.
Vervaria opened her massive jaws wide and lunged to swallow Damian.
The life was being sucked into the celestial gate.
A body viciously torn apart by Vervaria.
“This worthless piece of trash—!!! Can’t you just stop it already! It hurts, it hurts so much—!! Please, stop it, stop it—!!”
Vervaria remained silent.
She merely tore into Damian, captured in her jaws.
Damian’s blood flowed copiously between Vervaria’s teeth.
“NOOOOOM!”
Spells blossomed from both of Damian’s hands.
And Vervaria’s teeth crunched down on those hands.
With each recovery of his hand, Vervaria’s teeth crunched it again, blood splattering, then reappearing, only to be crunched down upon again.
Bright scarlet blood.
Ironically, it proved that Damian was also human.
Damian’s cries directed at Vervaria fell on deaf ears.
Even as the blood-red petals of his magic blossomed and clawed at Vervaria, she remained solely focused on chewing Damian to pieces with Yona’s support.
Life being sucked into the celestial gate,
And life being chipped away with every bite from Vervaria.
Death, which had been so far away,
Was now closing in on Damian.
With a face stained with blood and filled with scars, Damian howled.
In his normal state, he wouldn’t have allowed such a scenario.
But with life being devoured through that celestial gate, and the shocks caused every time that life was consumed striking him without pause, the intensity of the shock continued to escalate.
Damian, unaccustomed to pain, had no chance of regaining his senses under the overwhelming suffering.
“I—I don’t want to die—!!! I don’t want to die, I’m telling you! Stop it! Please, please! Stop it—!! Oh, revered saint of the demon realm!!! I—I swear my loyalty….! Aaaaargh—!!!”
Finally, the vow of obedience burst forth.
Vervaria’s gaze flickered towards Yona.
There was no need to compel obedience.
For the sake of absorbing power, simply killing him would suffice.
Struggling would only result in mutual suffering; she only suggested submission.
Moreover, he had done such dreadful things to her and left Priest Vigrind in such a dying state, she had no intention of forgiving him.
So, Yona merely shook her head while nestled against Alex.
More than any talk of obedience or whatnot, he had taken countless lives, including her own people,
And after committing such heinous acts, she had not a single reason to spare him—
“Please, spare me, spare me—!!! I will swear loyalty, loyalty—!!! Aaaaah—!!!”
And so for quite a while, Damian’s screams echoed.
Along with his cries, the sounds of bones breaking and flesh tearing resounded for some time.
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