Chapter 340

EPISODE 340 – THOSE WHO ARE PREPARING (4)

At the center of the empire.

In the imperial capital currently occupied by the demon followers.

Inside the deepest part of the imperial palace, Archbishop Manuela listened to the voice of a great being.

“It’s a simple task. Help Auriel. Help her bring about the Great Summons.”

The leader of the Devil’s Hand.

Manuela could not help but feel puzzled by the command delivered through her mouth.

Auriel, the archangel of judgment, was the enemy of Asmodeus, the overlord of lust.

So he had never imagined that they would be working with Auriel.

“You don’t seem to understand.”

The leader of the Devil’s Hand who became Asmodeus’ eyes and mouth was much more human than usual.

Sitting on the throne, she crossed her legs and smiled, and Manuela who was kneeling beneath her did not dare say anything as he only bowed his head.

“It’s simple. The continuous copying and pasting that Pleiades did… Yes, that act is absolutely unacceptable.”

The same point was repeated several times to avoid the destruction of Pleiades.

Whether or not there was damage in the process did not matter.

What mattered was that Pleiades played around with the fate of Heaven.

“That’s the biggest reason. Perhaps… the remaining archangels, except Raguel who had been restricted, think that the Great Summons must take place just like the original.”

It was the right thing to do even if it resulted in enormous sacrifices.

Moreover, the sacrifices would be from Pleiades and not Heaven.

From the perspective of Heaven, Pleiades was another world.

The humans of Pleiades were beings of another world.

It did not matter to them on how many humans would die or be sacrificed.

“The angels who care about such things have already disappeared, except for Raguel.”

Solari, Eros, and Gabriel.

Manuela swallowed hard at Asmodeus’ explanation.

Even Manuela had no objection to the words so far.

From a rational point of view, the wrath of Heaven was justified.

But the next topic repulsed Manuela.

Heaven and Hell working together to bring about the Great Summons.

They would hold hands to cause the Great Summons.

For the Armageddon after the Great Summons.

For the battle between Heaven and Hell.

Was that really possible?

For Heaven and Hell that had been fighting for so long?

And technically, Solari’s enemy was Hell and not Pleiades.

Joining hands with Hell to crush Pleiades was such a strange situation.

“It’s not strange.”

Asmodeus said with a white smile.

She gave a more detailed explanation to Manuela who flinched because his mind was read.

“Auriel hates Hell. She hates us more than Pleiades. But in order to stab her sword to us, we must first stand in the same place. Up to this part… do you understand?”

“Are we holding hands to… get revenge?”

Asmodeus nodded at Manuela’s cautious answer.

“Yes, that’s it. Heaven and Hell are currently not connected. We need a connected land to get revenge. And Pleiades is the land suitable for that. Moreover, we’re just following the natural order since Pleiades was the battlefield in the original history.”

Auriel did not truly hold hands with the demons.

In order to bring the demons to the battlefield, she simply accepted a temporary alliance that would remain until then.

“Of course, she herself is greatly repulsed by it. Perhaps the other archangels in Heaven… Sariel and Raphaela will not help with the Great Summons itself. If the Great Summons happen, they will fight against Hell as archangels of Heaven… but only when that happens. It is highly likely that Auriel has sealed Raguel who is trying to prevent the Great Summons itself.”

It was the words of Asmodeus as if she had looked directly into Heaven.

“Right after the Great Summons… Auriel must be thinking of stabbing the backs of the overlords of Hell. We are thinking the same too. It’s like shaking hands with each other while hiding knives behind our backs.”

Asmodeus’s shoulders shook as she laughed.

She was a master of the sword, but did not dislike this kind of plotting either.

“Those are two reasons. And the last one. Auriel’s hostility towards Pleiades. Or rather… Auriel herself has gone mad.”

The present Auriel was different from the past Auriel.

After losing the sun called Solari, she was crushed.

“Anger requires a target.”

She was angry at everything related to the disappearance of Solari.

Auriel was very angry with herself.

What made her endure so far was the existence of reason and the absence of a justification.

But a strong justification had now been created.

The sin of Pleiades.

A law that must be obeyed.

A chance to burn together the Pleiades and Hell that she hated.

It was not based on reason.

It was based on emotion and was too subjective.

But she did not care about that. After all, the world did not always run according to reason in the first place.

Asmodeus laughed again.

She continue to talk, feeling a little sad yet willing to see her old nemesis become so broken.

“Help Auriel. Prepare a ritual so that she can descend to Pleiades.”

The descent from Heaven was a little easier than from Hell.

So if Heaven and Hell worked together, the archangel’s descent would succeed.

It was definitely not something normal.

A huge amount of power would be consumed, and Auriel would have to sacrifice a lot too.

But that was why it was something that Asmodeus could not refuse.

“The scales are too tilted. We ourselves can’t cause the Great Summons now. So we need Auriel. If she, an archangel, personally descends to the ground and causes chaos, we can bring about the Great Summons.”

They would bring the goddess down.

The goddess of judgment who hated Pleiades.

“I… obey your command.”

Archbishop Manuela politely bowed, and Asmodeus looked up high through the eyes of the leader of the Devil’s Hand.

She had a complicated smile as she recalled Auriel’s face.

***

At the same time.

The heavenly voice reached the ground.

Princess Daphne and the empress dowager were shocked at Raguel’s desperate warning.

An archangel from Heaven was about to descend.

She would try to cause the Great Summons with her own hands.

Malekith who had the same power as the Demon Prince dominated everyone with his god-like existence.

But if a true god who surpassed a Demon Prince would descend on earth, it would be all over.

Princess Daphne and the empress dowager were greatly astonished and hurriedly gathered the people they could trust.

It was such a shocking news that could not be widely spread.

At the same time in the eastern part of the empire.

There was one more person who heard Raguel’s warning.

Because he had heard Raguel’s voice since he came out of seclusion in the first place.

“Good heavens.”

Druid Fran.

The youngest of Paragon’s five heroes, he had been reborn as a beautiful young man after 10 years.

He did not have the beauty that would mistake him for a woman like Kamael, but his body covered in grass and animal skin was like that of Orion, a mythical god of forests.

“Crazy, this is seriously crazy.”

He got up from his seat and hurriedly left the room.

The five heroes of Paragon were concentrating their power on the fortress of the Guardians of the Holy Cross in the eastern part of the empire.

‘Landius, I have to tell Landius first.’

The one who led the five heroes.

A being like the sun whom they could trust and rely on amidst any despair.

“We greet the Druid.”

“Ah, yes. Hello.”

Fran sniffed with his nose after responding appropriately to the members of the Guardians of the Holy Cross who respectfully greeted him.

It was to track the scent of Landius.

“He’s over there.”

Fortunately, he did not need to transform into a wolf.

Fran started running towards the outskirts of the fortress.

“Fran.”

“Lena?”

At the end of the wall.

On top of the fortress overlooking the forest, Lena, Velkian, and Kamael were standing there.

Everyone looked worried.

“What happened? Don’t tell me you all heard the heavenly voice?”

“Heavenly voice? Did the Archangel Raguel say something?”

When Lena asked with a surprised face, Fran bit his lips.

It was a matter that had to be conveyed as soon as possible, but his worries prevailed.

He wondered why they were making such expressions if it was not the urgent issue that Raguel conveyed.

Was it because the situation in the battlefield was not good?

It was definitely possible.

But it did not seem like that was a reason to get together like this and frown together.

Moreover, Landius was not present here.

That fact made Fran very anxious.

“Where’s Landius?”

No one answered his question, but Lena gently pointed to the bottom of the wall and said.

“He’s down there.”

At Lena’s reply, Fran inhaled and swallowed his breath. By this point, he had guessed why Landius was not here and what Landius was doing.

“He will be fine.”

Velkian’s expression hidden behind the plague doctor’s mask was unknown.

But he could not hide his tone.

One could read Velkian’s tension from his trembling voice.

“Kamael?”

Kamael did not answer Fran’s call.

Unlike Lena, Velkian, and Fran, he had recalled some of the memories of his past lives.

So he knew.

Landius had never crossed the wall of the seventh door so far.

“Landius…”

Kamael clenched his fists and looked down the wall.

If he could, he wanted to stop Landius right now.

But he could not.

Landius would reject it.

It was impossible for Kamael to break Landius’ will.

“Fran, I’ll ask you again. Did you hear Archangel Raguel’s words?”

Lena asked again.

She was also worried about Landius, but could not ignore the news that Fran had brought.

“Well…”

Fran told everyone what he had heard from Raguel in order.

The wrath of Heaven.

Auriel working together with the demons of Hell to cause the Great Summons.

Lena and Velkian could not help but be confused by the sudden events.

Even Kamael, who had been aware of the whole story to some extent because of the memories of his past lives, was shocked to hear that Auriel was planning to descend directly.

Pleiades had experienced destruction several times so far.

The Great Summons repeatedly occurred as if it were inevitable.

But it was the first time an archangel would descend for the Great Summons.

An archangel.

A goddess from Heaven.

An absolute existence that a Demon Prince could not even compare to.

The angel Lena was so shocked that she could not speak. Velkian staggered and leaned against the wall, while Kamael tightly shut his eyes and roughly breathed.

Because they knew the power of a Demon Prince more than anyone else, so they were in great despair over the existence of an archangel.

What should they do?

What should they do now?

It felt like their vision was turning dark.

The darkness of despair seemed to cover the world.

The dark night.

The darkness.

The sense of helplessness they felt when they first faced the Demon Prince.

But it was at that moment.

Kamael unconsciously opened his eyes.

Lena turned her head.

Velkian and Fran looked in the same direction.

It was a dark night.

It was a time full of darkness.

However, they saw a ray of light.

The deeper the night and the darkness, the brighter it rose into the sky.

The golden sun.

A brilliant light of hope that dispelled the despair and the darkness.

Lena blankly stared and realized what happened. She stood up from her seat and flew with her wings.

Velkian and Fran also cheered.

Kamael smiled too.

Ironically, the sense of helplessness he had felt until now made him brightly smile.

“Landius.”

Our sun.

No matter how deep and dark our despairs may be, we can always find our way forward with you.

You will always lead us.

A golden flash of light illuminated the entire fortress as well as the forest.

It was truly the golden sun itself that drove away the darkness and led to the glory of the morning.

Iron Man Landius.

In the center of that golden flash, he let out a cheerful laugh.

Having recalled the memories of his past lives, he realized how many times he failed and died every time he tried to open the eighth door.

But it was different now.

He had the experiences of his past lives.

There were also the things he learned through Jude.

“May the muscles always be with you.”

The eighth door of the Ninth Heaven’s Nine Doors.

The boundary of true transcendence.

Landius clenched his fist.

He raised his fist towards the high sky.