V2 Chapter 23: That Damned Riddling Golden-Skin!
An endless void.
Nothing. No physical dimensions of up or down, left or right. No interplay of light and shadow. No movement of air. Even the most basic sense of temperature, or the passage of time, seemed to have ceased to exist here. This was a place of absolute nothingness.
Duvette stared at the void around him with an unfocused gaze. He stood in place, brow drawn together, mind briefly blank.
Then memory came back like a tide returning to shore, rapidly filling his thoughts.
He remembered.
On the way with the 112th's soldiers toward that Chaos-saturated space, to deal with what was ahead, he had pulled up the System panel and activated the skill called [Living Saint]. That was the trump card bought with a thousand points of Emperor's Wrath.
So why was he here? Was this reality, or some kind of spiritual space within consciousness?
As he thought, the void began to change. As though some invisible force was responding in real time to his subconsciousness, everything around him rapidly reorganized.
The void retreated. This became a golden plain.
Duvette found himself standing inside a simple thatched hut.
Through a half-open wooden door, he saw a child hiding in the shadows.
The child's eyes were full of shock and incomprehension, witnessing a killing take place on the plain outside. The oldest betrayal in human history: murder between the closest of kin.
Before Duvette could walk closer to look at the child, his perspective shifted sharply again.
This time he saw a conqueror, always advancing toward the east.
The sun blazed overhead. Yellow dust filled the sky. The conqueror rode a warhorse, and behind him an enormous cold-weapons army stretched beyond the reach of sight.
Every soldier followed him with blind and absolute devotion. They crossed mountain ranges and rivers. They conquered city-states and kingdoms without mercy, expanding the empire's territory to the edge of what eyes could see and then beyond it.
The scene shifted again.
Duvette was standing in a noisy and overwhelmingly crowded plaza. All around him, people in ancient robes wore expressions of fanatical anger, screaming themselves hoarse. "Death! Execute him!"
Following the crowd's gaze, Duvette looked forward. He saw a man wearing a crown of thorns, nailed to an enormous cross.
The man's body was covered in wounds. Blood ran down the wood. At this moment, an ancient soldier wearing a plumed helm stepped forward, raised a spear, and drove it through the man's body without hesitation.
Before Duvette could process what he was seeing, his perspective shifted again.
He was now standing on rolling, endless hills.
The distant sky was churning violently. Thick cloud layers seemed ready to collapse onto the earth beneath them. Dazzling green light flashed continuously from deep within the clouds, radiating a cold, inhuman pressure.
A knight in medieval armour, riding a white horse, drew his sword. He faced the storm phenomenon capable of swallowing everything without retreating a single step. He drove forward unstoppably toward the storm's centre.
The shifting of perspectives stopped.
Finally, Duvette returned to the starting point. The illusions around him dissipated like smoke. The space had become the interior of an ancient, solemn building.
A church.
This is the last church on ancient Terra.
Somehow, the moment Duvette took in his surroundings, the thought was simply there in his mind, complete and certain. He did not need anyone to tell him. He simply knew.
He raised his head and looked toward the front of the church. On the wooden pulpit, a man stood with his back to him.
Then the church began to burn.
Boundless flames ignited from nowhere and scorched the church. The wooden structure and the murals crackled and turned to ash.
But the man seemed entirely unaware of the sea of fire surrounding him. He stood where he was.
In the crackling of the flames, the man slowly turned and looked back at Duvette.
This was when Duvette could truly see his face. He had the features of Central Asia. Flaxen skin. Brown hair of medium length, worn loose and unstyled. He wore no magnificent armour. He only regarded Duvette with an expression of profound, accumulated exhaustion.
A deep voice arrived without passing through the ears, appearing directly in Duvette's heart.
"Do you think I was wrong?"
Duvette had not fully recovered from everything that had just happened. He stood in the burning church, looking at the man before him, his mind working at full speed.
Was this the skill's additional effect? Was this an illusion? Who exactly was this man?
Combining the historical fragments he had just witnessed: was this the Jesus nailed to the cross? The Saint George who charged at the storm? Neos from ancient times? Or the Emperor?
"All of them."
The voice appeared clearly in his heart again, answering every guess at once.
"What?" Duvette was completely stunned. The composure he maintained in the real world was, in this moment, effortlessly torn apart. "You can hear my thoughts?"
"You can hear mine." The man answered without any particular expression.
Duvette went silent.
He stood in the sea of fire and looked at the man's tired eyes, and his chest was full of questions he had no idea where to begin asking.
Why had he appeared in this world? Why did he possess the System, possess this power? He had fought his way through one dead end after another. Was he ultimately nothing but a chess piece being moved around at the pleasure of entities like this one for purposes he would never be told?
"I chose you." The man said again in his heart, having already seen through everything Duvette was not saying.
Then something complex moved through the man's eyes, and he continued. "But I gave you no power. That is your own nature. What I did was merely constrain you."
Duvette opened his mouth. He wanted to ask more.
But the man turned away again, placing his back to Duvette, leaving only a silhouette that looked profoundly alone in the sea of fire.
"You should go back now. I will lend you strength. Do not lose yourself. Do not... forget the past."
With the man's final quiet words, the burning church and the wooden pulpit collapsed at once.
The instant Duvette came back to himself, he found he was in the corridor again.
All those conversations, all those lengthy visions experienced in the mysterious space: in reality, only an instant had passed.
The sounds of battle in the distance had become clear again, the clanging of weapons and the screaming of daemons refilling his ears.
At the same time, Duvette clearly felt a vast power completely foreign to himself rampaging through him.
His heart, however, was full of an irrepressible exasperation.
What does constraining me mean? What does my own nature mean?
Duvette's expression was extremely unpleasant. Isn't this galaxy-spanning disaster the direct result of you speaking in riddles across all these ages? Why are you still at it?!
Recalling what had just happened in the church, Duvette couldn't help but let out a private, frustrated internal groan. Wouldn't it be better to just say things clearly? What exactly is wrong with telling me the truth directly?
Then, not far away, a terrifying roar erupted. The pressure carried in that single sound, enough to shatter the laws of physical reality, cut forcibly through his thoughts.
Duvette exhaled a long breath. Fine. Stop brooding for now. Use the strength the Emperor has lent you and deal with everything here first.
He glanced quickly at the System panel at the edge of his retina. The countdown displaying the skill's remaining duration read: 40 seconds.
Duvette did not hesitate. He extended his hand and gripped the power sword firmly. The cold flame spread from within his body through to the blade, igniting the entire length of the sword. He roared and hurled it forward.