Zeke wore an incredulous expression at Harvey West's words.
"The Leader of the Highlander created Harvey West? And he is the Great Sage...?" Great Sage Atrahasis.
He was the only figure who had lived from the Age of the Constellations through to the Era of the Hero King.
The sudden revelation that such a being was the Leader of the Highlander and had created Harvey West left Zeke in profound confusion.
Moreover, Zeke had previously encountered the heroic spirit of the Great Sage in the Primordial Temple of Carcosa.
There, the Great Sage had shared the secret history of King Solomon with Zeke, and by forging the Black Darkness Sword Laevatein and the Holy Sword Ascalon, he had granted Zeke the power to stand against the constellations.
Zeke recalled the heroic spirit of the Great Sage he had met in person and the Leader of the Highlander.
He had ties to the Highlander from his past life through to his current one.
Though he had learned more about the Highlander after his regression than in his previous life, it had never occurred to him that the Leader's true identity was the Great Sage.
Even though he had met the Leader face-to-face, of course, the Leader he had encountered in Storm Castle had his face concealed, so Zeke had not been able to see it clearly.
"But even with the face hidden, I felt none of the Great Sage's power from the Leader of the Highlander."
That was why Zeke had never suspected the Leader of the Highlander was the Great Sage.
Harvey West continued.
"You must not have known. Who the Leader of the Highlander truly was." Hearing this, Zeke recalled his meeting with the Leader.
"The heroic spirit of the Great Sage once said that the High Priest of Narak had strayed from the laws of the world. Did he know that because he himself had created him?"
What Zeke had met was unmistakably a heroic spirit. So, he had assumed the Great
Sage's original soul had ascended through feathered transcendence to Peach Blossom Paradise.
As he pondered that encounter, something flashed through Zeke's mind.
It was the time he had gone to Storm Castle to meet the Leader.
[Welcome, Administrator. We greet your arrival in the Deep-Sea City "Rʼlyeh," abode of the constellation "Master of the Great Dream."]
The Leader of the Highlander could only be found in the Deep-Sea City Rʼlyeh.
It seemed he endured many restrictions to remain in the Phenomenal World, residing in the city of the constellations.
"He has long led Narak and built his current forces. We hermits of the High Table pooled our strength to hold him back as best we could, but most of us are bound by limitations on our movements, so we couldn't stop him effectively."
Upon reflection, it was the Leader of the Highlander who had first revealed to Zeke that the High Priest of Narak was Harvey West.
He had told Zeke to eliminate Harvey West to prevent the Demon King's descent and preserve the balance of the Phenomenal World.
"So, he tried to stop the one he created—Harvey West—from leading Narak and disrupting the balance of the Phenomenal World."
Zeke felt the storm of fate swirling fiercely around him.
It was as if countless tangled events from the past converged on him all at once.
He stared at Harvey West, who stood facing him, and steadied his mind.
"Coming from the High Priest of Narak of all people, it's hard to believe how much of this is truth."
Sensing Zeke's wariness, Harvey West spoke again.
"The Great Sage has long sought to shatter the Wheel of Fate. To that end, he first orchestrated the war against the constellations through King Solomon and the Elder Dragons. But he failed. Next, the being he created was the Hero King Kaisir."
Kaisir, said to have been born between the Fairy King, bearer of primordial power, and the Great Sage.
Harvey West paused briefly, giving Zeke time to process, then continued.
"A half-blood of the Fairy King and a human. Do you truly believe that was possible?" Zeke's expression hardened at his words.
"...So the Hero King was also a creation of the Great Sage." At that, Harvey West turned his head toward the window. "You must remember the homunculus of Kaisir that absorbed the angel's fragment. How do you think the Great Sage could have created the Hero King's homunculus?"
He spoke slowly.
"The Hero King is a being the Great Sage forged by using the Authority of the Arrogant
Savior to infuse the soul of the Fairy King."
Zeke was stunned by Harvey West's words.
"He used the Authority of the Arrogant Savior to create Master Kaisir?"
The Great Sage, Master Administrator. The Authority of Re-Creation held by the Arrogant Savior. And the soul of the Fairy King, bearer of primordial light. These mysteries had combined to birth the unparalleled existence known as Kaisir.
Zeke now understood why no one else could learn the Elemental Sword that Kaisir had created.
"The Elemental Sword was never a technique meant for humans to master."
Zeke himself had manifested elemental power to imitate the Elemental Sword, but perfectly replicating the Hero King's strength—born from a fragment of the Fairy King's soul—was practically impossible.
Kaisir's homunculus was the same; it bore his form and could wield the Elemental Sword, but it could not draw forth his true power.
"The Great Sage created the Hero King to break the Wheel of Fate, but Kaisir, made from the Fairy King's soul, became the being most constrained by that very wheel, leading to failure. In that process, the Great Sage produced countless errors, and eventually, the situation slipped from his control."
The beings he had created to escape the world's order had backfired, creating openings for the intervention of fallen constellations. Moreover, Siemens Apollyon, of the bloodline the Great Sage had protected—King Solomon's—had fallen and invited the Demon King's power into his own body.
In the end, to rectify the problems he had caused, the Great Sage sacrificed his own soul to seal the Demon King's spirit in the Book of the Lion.
Yet the balance of the Phenomenal World was severely damaged and could not be restored, so the Great Sage remained, leaving traces on the earth and founding the Highlander to maintain equilibrium.
Harvey West looked at Zeke and said,
"To rectify his failures, the Great Sage next used the soul of the Arrogant Savior to create me. He needed a new being to shatter the Wheel of Fate and liberate the Phenomenal World as its savior—one possessing both the power of the Nephilim and the power of the Outsider Species."
As he listened, certain figures came to Zeke's mind.
The children of angels born between Nephilim and humans.
The triplets discovered in the Forest of the Forgotten.
They were Irregulars and descendants of the Nephilim, which granted them the power to accumulate infinite mana.
The Hermit of Stories had said the odds of them being born naturally were minuscule, so they were likely artificial creations.
Zeke glared at Harvey West and asked,
"The triplets with infinite mana. Are they beings like you?"
Harvey West nodded.
"They are no different from my siblings. The Great Sage conducted countless experiments to create me, and the failures he discarded were innumerable. I retrieved what was necessary from them and continued the research in Narak."
It was the horrific truth hidden behind the name of the Great Sage. The paradox was that salvation required sacrifice.
Zeke suppressed the nausea rising in his throat.
Without his Unique Authority, he might have lost consciousness from the shock.
Harvey West continued.
"But I questioned my own existence and uncovered the truth he had hidden. I realized that to break free from all the chains binding my being, I needed to reach the final arc scenario by using the Demon King's power to eradicate the constellations of the Celestial Realm. To achieve that, some sacrifice of lives in the Phenomenal World was inevitable."
But the Great Sage rejected my words, and so I threw myself into Narak."
Created as a savior, Harvey West had betrayed his creator's will and taken the opposing side to pursue what he believed was right.
Zeke met his gaze with a heavy expression.
Zuaaaaaang!
Zeke sensed that the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, clashing with the Spear of Light beyond the window, were gradually being pushed back.
He slowly raised his head, looked at Harvey West, and spoke.
"I've grasped what you are. But don't think that makes the atrocities you've committed some unavoidable sacrifice that can be brushed aside."
At that, Harvey West gave a faint smile and said,
"Zeke Draker, you still don't understand that you, like me, are a puppet struggling within the chains of fate."
"What do you mean by that?"
Harvey West slowly extended his finger and pointed at Zeke.
"Knight of Salvation. Have you never considered that you yourself might be a pawn created by the Great Sage?"
Zeke, frowning, suddenly recalled something.
The Great Sage's arrangements.
What had regressed him and sent him back to the past was the "Irreversible Promised Power" prepared by the Great Sage in the Elder Dragon's legacy.
"If all of that was planned...?"
The heroic spirit of the Great Sage had said Zeke could awaken the Irreversible Promised Power because of his strong will.
"But if he knew I had the will to awaken that power and prepared all those arrangements to use me...?"
Doubts chained together in Zeke's mind.
Harvey West looked at him and said,
"Zeke Draker, you and I share the same goal. There's no need for us to turn against each other."
Zeke slowly lifted his head, met Harvey West's gaze, and replied,
"You're saying I should join hands with you, awaken the Demon King, and annihilate the constellations of the Celestial Realm."
"If you truly wish to liberate and save the Phenomenal World, that is the right path."
Zeke fell silent at Harvey West's words.
At that moment, a massive explosion roared from outside.
Kugugugugu!
Through the window, Zeke saw the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, who had been blocking the Spear of Light, plummeting in tattered states.
Harvey West said to Zeke,
"Zeke Draker, decide. Will you follow me to save the Phenomenal World? Or remain a puppet of the Great Sage and the Elder Dragons?" As he spoke, Zeke slowly opened his mouth.
"...I."
It was then, as Harvey West calmly awaited Zeke's response, that he suddenly sensed something amiss.
"The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are vanishing."
He had used the Authority of the Arrogant Savior to re-create powerful knights from vanished ancient civilizations, naming them the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and binding them as his vassals.
Yet their existences rapidly faded.
"This...!"
In an instant, he felt the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse completely disappear.
As vassals painstakingly created with the Authority of the Arrogant Savior, their loss struck Harvey West hard as well.
"Cough!"
A thin stream of blood trickled from his mouth.
At the same time, Harvey West sprang to his feet and glared at Zeke before him.
"Zeke Draker! You!"
The figure of Zeke in front of him shimmered and dissolved into shadow.
In that instant, the shadow lashed out in all directions, attacking Harvey West.
He hastily raised his hand to deploy a defensive spell, but the shadow blades pierced through the barrier and stabbed into Harvey West's body.
"Urk!"
Harvey West groaned at the sudden ambush.
In the next moment, Zeke's true body, hidden in spiritualization behind him, revealed itself.
Laevatein, infused with the energy of the Chaos Field, pierced Harvey West's back.
Kwaduduk!
Harvey West's eyes, pierced by Laevatein, turned demonic and glowed red.
"Zeke Drakerrrrr!"
Zeke, gripping Laevatein tightly, looked at Harvey West and said,
"My answer is fuck off."
At the same time, Zeke unleashed the Authority of the Third Eye.
Wuuuuuung!
The Authority of the Third Eye manipulated the essence of souls.
Zeke simultaneously deployed the Authority of the Third Eye and the Authority of Absolute Dominion to draw out the soul of the Arrogant Savior embedded within Harvey West.
Because the soul of the Arrogant Savior, tightly bound to Harvey West's soul, would not reveal itself easily.
Zeke channeled his authority into a draconic incantation.
"Soul of the Arrogant Savior. Reveal yourself."