Chapter 10: Pride
Chapter 10: Pride
“YOU feel the need to ask who I am?” Nako snorted, bemused by Johann’s wariness of her. “You already know the answer, don’t you? Johann Clarence.” She pushed the bangs off her forehead and showed him the moon crest engraved there.
I knew it. That’s the Creation Goddess’s crest.
An exact copy of the crest recorded in the Book of Creation was right before him. This was his first time seeing the real thing. The crest was far more beautiful and fear-inspiring than he had imagined.
Johann slowly exhaled and fixed his eyes upon Nako to ascertain the truth for himself. “You are the Creation Goddess—nay, seeing as you bear the mark of the moon on your forehead, I suppose you are the Lunar Goddess?”
Instead of a verbal confirmation, a thin smile stretched her lips.
From the start of Creation, the world’s very existence hinged on circulating the Creation Energy said to be its lifeblood. Every world leader knew that fact well, although the general public was wholly unaware. And only these world leaders knew that the world occasionally gave birth to the Hero and Dark Lord in order to supplement its energy supply with their sacrifice.
Things weren’t always this way. In the beginning, the world didn’t burn through more energy than could be naturally restored. This natural order was only possible through the Creation Goddess’s careful maintenance of the world’s energy, eliminating the need to give birth to the Dark Lord and Hero as sacrificial energy replenishers.
So then why did the world lose its natural balance?
It all went back to the Pope’s bloodline that served the Sanctuary for generations—back to Johann’s ancestor, the Sanctuary’s founder.
This world came into existence when a being called the Creator used his wisdom to create the world from scratch and left the two goddesses he created in charge of managing it. The two goddesses were named the Solar Goddess and the Lunar Goddess, respectively. The Solar Goddess reigned over the positive energies that filled the world, and the Lunar Goddess reigned over the negative energies, creating balance in the world between the two of them.
The world developed beautifully under their exceptional dominion. First, they allowed the flora and fauna to flourish, and then they created mankind with sophisticated minds capable of creating civilizations and cultures from nothing.
Mankind called this first era the Creation Era, the people of the time Ancients, and their system of writing Ancient Script. The Ancients consolidated language with their ancient letters and transferred their knowledge to future generations by writing on stone plates and paper. Thanks to their efforts, the world’s industries and technologies developed at tremendous speeds.
The goddesses watched over the developing world as if it were their child. Thus, the world should have woven an eternally peaceful history. Peace, however, is finite.
The peace of the prosperous Creation Era, did not last long.
The Ancients formed a governing body known as the Sanctuary, and the grave sin committed by the Ancient who founded it—by Ivan Clarence, Johann’s ancestor, invited the disaster that caused the negative energies in the world to overwrite and overwhelm the positive.
This caused the world to become unbalanced and constantly afflicted by natural disasters until it teetered on destruction.
The Creator, who had watched the whole story unfold, made a crucial decision when the problems grew beyond what humanity could solve.
Diminishing the powers of the Lunar Goddess who governed negative energies was the only way to calm the chaos. Sealing the Lunar Goddess was the only option.
For the Creator, it was a difficult decision to seal one of the two goddesses he thought of as beloved daughters because of humanity’s selfish conduct. Inevitably, he chose to prioritize the world he had created over the Goddesses he loved.
The Creator and Solar Goddess took down the Lunar Goddess, deranged from the rapid explosion of negative energy, and laid her body and soul to rest at the center of the world. Left in charge of maintaining the world alone, the Solar Goddess used her powers to repair the half-destroyed world.
However, it was too difficult to maintain the world’s order when it was built on a system of two. Without the Lunar Goddess’s assistance, she lost the ability to regulate Creation Energy.
Thus, the Solar Goddess gave birth to the Hero and Dark Lord as a last-ditch method to replenish the unbalanced Creation Energy through their sacrifice. That was the start of the Hero and Dark Lord’s relationship with the Creation Goddesses.
Since the entire history of the Creation Era was recorded in the Book of Creation, the Sanctuary doggedly kept it locked away, viciously hiding the secrets about how their founder was the deadly sinner who had brought the world to near destruction.
That is the extent of what I know… Johann relied on his memory to recall the world’s history as told by the Book of Creation. If memory served him well, the Lunar Goddess’s body and soul were sealed at the center of the world—she shouldn’t be capable of speaking with him now.
Yet the Lunar Goddess had taken over Nako’s body. What in Creation did all this mean?
Johann sharply raised his gaze to meet hers. “Please answer me this one thing: Lunar Goddess, you should have been sealed by the Creator and Solar Goddess to silence the chaos in the world. How are you capable of borrowing Nako’s body? Has your seal been released?”
“…I’m surprised you know that much, boy. I suppose you could roughly summarize it as my seal being released. I’ve been dying for a new body to inhabit since mine has long since decayed. So I took preemptive action by imbuing the sisters the Solar Goddess planned to summon this time around with my magic, altering their constitutions to easily house my soul. The older sister’s wavelengths outright rejected me, but the younger sister is a surprisingly perfect match. Hence why I’m enjoying her body right now.” She waved her hands suggestively over Nako’s body.
Johann frowned. “You did it preemptively? You knew Aki and Nako would be summoned to this world beforehand?”
“Naturally. I knew from the day they were conceived. The Right-hands are born around the time the Hero and Dark Lord are created.”
Johann’s head hurt. He fairly easily grasped that the Lunar Goddess had been freed from her seal. He also understood how she had possessed Nako. The question was why she felt the need to do so. What was her ultimate goal?
“Lunar Goddess, please tell me what you are after. What do you want to do with Nako’s body? Won’t the world regain order and no longer need the Hero and Dark Lord if you work together with the Solar Goddess?” Johann eagerly asked of her.
Nako shook her head. “Johann, I don’t want to let this world that he—that the Creator loved so much—continue existing in this volatile state. This failure that can’t exist without us Goddesses imbuing it with Creation Energy isn’t the ideal world he set out to create. That’s why I want to end this world with these hands. To do that, I must destroy the current Dark Lord and Hero. The world will fall apart on its own as long as it doesn’t get a fresh injection of Creation Energy.”
“What is wrong with you…?” he bit out.
Didn’t the Creation Goddesses exist to protect the world? Johann had never heard of such ridiculousness as a goddess desiring world destruction.
The Solar Goddess created the Hero and Dark Lord to fulfill her wish of extending the world’s life, but the Lunar Goddess just announced the opposite—she wanted to erase the Hero and Dark Lord to fulfill her wish of ending the world.
The Goddesses want two different things?
The situation was out of his hands before it even started. It was questionable if the Lunar Goddess would even answer him if he asked her more. In which case, he had better figure out what he was going to do about this situation before time ran out.
The Lunar Goddess wanted both Hero and Dark Lord dead. In other words, she was a threat to his best friend Elias and Nako’s beloved Dark Lord—Nako who he had come to care for.
Elias, the Dark Lord, and the possessed Nako—he had to stop the Lunar Goddess here in order to protect them.
He had to fight her—even if he stood no chance of winning.
Johann expelled all the air in his lungs, fastened both hands around his staff and held it out in front of him.
Nako narrowed her frigid eyes on him. “I had no intention of harming you now if you obediently told me where to find the Hero and retreated, but…it appears you have taken that option off the table.”
“…Your circumstances are too complex for a mere mortal such as myself to fully comprehend, but…you have made your intentions to harm my friends clear. Thus, I cannot retreat from your presence now. Tell me this: why didn’t you take over Nako sooner? You should have had ample opportunity to take Elias and the Dark Lord’s lives using her.”
Pretending to be Nako would’ve given her plenty of chances to get close to Elias and the Dark Lord. Why was she going about it in such a roundabout manner?
Nako held out her left hand and showed Johann the crimson gemstone ring on her ring finger. Johann puzzled his brow over that blood-colored ring.
The ring had been on her finger from the moment they met. She had likely received it from the Dark Lord.
The Lunar Goddess glared hatefully at that ring with Nako’s face. “…This is why I haven’t taken over this girl sooner. That wretched Dark Lord gave her this powerful magic charm. This ring is imbued with enough of his magic to suppress my personality. But its effects wear off when she is too far from him. So here I am, taking control at last. I assume the Dark Lord has already sensed I’ve possessed this child and is preparing to push me back under the surface.”
“…I see. So it wasn’t an ordinary ring.”
The Dark Lord had used a magic ring to protect Nako from the Lunar Goddess. He had succeeded until now, so he was capable of fending her off. Johann just had to buy enough time until he came running to Nako’s aid then. After all, a mere mortal couldn’t exchange blows with the Lunar Goddess and walk away from it.
Cold sweat trailed down his cheek. Johann was stronger than the average magic wielder, but storing most of his magic into the mirror had left him bone dry.
I don’t have enough magic left to hold her back for any length of time. I have no choice but to…use that.
Johann slowly raised the cross-shaped staff and powerfully struck it into the ground. A high-pitched clang shook the room.
Nako raised a dubious eyebrow. “What do you think you are doing, boy?”
“I am playing my trump card to increase my odds of standing against you. You should know what that is.”
Johann supported the staff with one hand and touched the tip with his other. He quietly closed his eyes in prayer. “O Goddess of Creation, release the golden scabbard,” he whispered sanctimoniously.
With his final word, a crack formed in the staff and spread like a spider web. Bluish-white light leaked from the cracks, radiating mightily in every direction. The cracks eventually spread across the entire staff until it burst into pieces and out came a long spear like it was breaking free of its shell.
Beautiful golden wings held the spear’s large, silver head in place. The elaborate, slender weapon stood at twice Johann’s height.
Nako’s eyes went momentarily wide before she ran a finger over her lips. “I see. You called forth the Holy Spear—one of the holy relics on par with the Hero’s Holy Sword. You kept it hidden on you.”
“Indeed. This is the Holy Spear the Creation Goddesses—you and your sister—bestowed upon the Sanctuary’s founder, Ivan Clarence. I am his descendant and have inherited his holy relics.” Johann spun the spear in his hands and thrust it back into the ground.
The Holy Relics were sacred weapons created with blood from the Goddesses during the Creation Era. As the Lunar Goddess alluded, Elias’s Holy Sword was one of those sacred weapons.
Unlike normal weapons, the holy relics possessed the special ability to increase the user’s magic and attack to abnormal levels. In return, the user’s body had to bear the burden of that overwhelming strength. In Johann’s case, he’d be able to launch off powerful spells by draining his MP dry.
Only people related to the Goddess such as Elias and the Dark Lord, or direct descendants of Ancients who had been bestowed one during the Creation Era were capable of wielding the holy relics.
I can’t believe I’m resorting to wielding the Holy Spear that already guzzles magic on my best days when I barely have enough left in the tank to stand…
Any groundbreaking spells cast with the Holy Spear could probably only be used once or twice before he fainted from the strain. Johann tightened his hands on the spear until they turned white.
But I have no other way to stand against the Lunar Goddess… He was about to fight one of the Creation Goddesses. Chances of winning the battle were nil, but fighting with the Holy Spear would help him hold out longer. The odds aren’t in my favor, but I just have to last until the Dark Lord shows up!
Johann lifted his head to show her he was determined to fight. “Lunar Goddess, I vow on my name as Ivan Clarence’s descendant and Hero Elias’s party member that I will stop you here. You will be returning Nako to me.”
“Cute. Bravery is nothing more than foolishness when it comes to throwing your life away. I wonder how long you will last, spawn of Ivan,” Nako cackled.
Johann reached inside his vestments and pulled several gold talismans out between his fingers and threw them. They embedded in every corner of the room with a cool clang.
Without missing a beat he held up the Holy Spear and began chanting, “O Creation Goddess, wrap us in your protection.”
Pale light framed the spearhead, and the talismans he sent to the four corners shone in resonance. A square barrier like a thin veil of glass deployed from the talismans.
Aggh… Johann staggered forward with what felt like a ton of bricks having fallen on his back. He used the Holy Spear as a makeshift cane. This is more burdensome than I expected.
Sweat rolled from his downturned head, forming tiny puddles on the floor.
Nako swept her gaze around the room, looking wholly impressed with him. “Interesting play. You put up a barrier to reduce casualties.”
“Yes, I did. One hit from your attacks could blow this city off the maps.”
I just used one of my spells… Two left, if the Creator is on my side. Johann pressed his forehead against the spear and caught his breath. He used some of his remaining energy to create a barrier capable of separating the inn room from the rest of the city, effectively limiting the damages to that single location. It was an advanced dimensional spell that couldn’t be activated without assistance from the Holy Spear.
…Casting one spell has created this much strain on my body… Biting his lower lip to stay grounded, Johann concentrated on Nako in front of him.
Spells cast through the Holy Spear were so draining he felt like passing out after just one. Forcefully casting them could cost him his life. But now wasn’t the time to be stingy—the Lunar Goddess would kill him if the spear didn’t.
Smiling in merciless ecstasy, Nako slowly spread her arms. Wind swept up her chestnut hair and her body rose off the ground. “It’s a magnificent barrier. You certainly inherited Ivan Clarence’s talent, spawn. And I couldn’t be more disgusted by it,” she seethed.
Johann’s lips curled into a triumphant smile. “…I’m sure you are. Ivan was the sinful man who threw your life into chaos. You could never forgive a blood relative of Ivan’s after what he did to your precious Creator. But I’m in the same boat because I cannot forgive you for controlling Nako. I will stop you here even if it costs my life.”
“I see. You have my respect for your unwavering determination. I have nothing against you personally, but…your body has to pay the price for that man’s sins.” Nako’s pitying smile vanished with the rest of her expression.
Johann’s body tensed before the godly monster facing off with him. My spine feels like ice. He tightened his grip on the spear in a bid to stop his arms from shaking. He knew this was a battle he couldn’t win. That he might lose his life here. But…
Unfaltering determination burned in his eyes. Elias, Aki, and Leo’s faces came to mind. Knowing them, they would face any enemy without faltering, even if they knew they couldn’t win. They would do everything in their power to save a friend.
Johann wanted to put up a fight that wouldn’t shame his fellow party members. Perhaps he didn’t deserve to call them his friends when all he ever did was keep secrets from them and lie through his teeth. But, the truth was, he always looked up to them. He admired the way they trusted each other, their strength, and their kindness.
Can someone as filthy as me become a part of their brilliance? If I could become their ally in the truest sense, I’d…
Burning with his desire to survive, Johann trained his eyes on Nako and readjusted his grip on the spear. Closing his eyes in concentration, he ordered every ounce of magic in his bones into the spear.
This was a do-or-die battle. He had to go big or go home if he wanted to welcome the others back with Nako.
“I can’t lose to you here…!” Johann swept the Holy Spear glowing silver with his magic down on Nako.
Elias, Aki, Leo! Please lend me your strength!