Chapter 346

Chapter 346
## Chapter 346

Scribe (1)

Pantheon, a massive coalition composed of innumerable religious groups.

Naturally, this organization was fractured into various cliques, each championing its own unique doctrines and tenets.

Low-level acolytes could simply dedicate themselves to their devotion, remaining completely oblivious to the intricate political games playing out above them…

Yet, as is true for any establishment, the further one ascended the hierarchy, the more inescapable politics became.

And if you happened to sit on the Steering Committee—the very body tasked with guiding the trajectory of Pantheon across multiple dimensions—while simultaneously acting as the voice for a major faction…

…your schedule was guaranteed to be utterly relentless.

Much like the woman currently seated in the rear of a luxury automobile, being ferried by a personal driver.

‘What a massive headache, but there is no avoiding it. That insufferable Heinrich… stirring up such an absurd, unnecessary tempest…’

Adeline Schneider, a woman distinguished by her silver-gray hair, closed her eyes tightly and kneaded her aching temples, letting out a heavy, weary breath.

She held a seat as one of the elite twelve members governing Pantheon’s Steering Committee, while secretly operating as Scribe, the commanding authority over the North American sector of the Heaven’s Turn Society.

The sheer volume of crises she had been forced to manage lately had left her stretched incredibly thin.

‘By what method did he manage to summon a Gold Dragon? We are not talking about a mere illusionary construct or a spiritual manifestation, but the actual flesh-and-blood creature. Drawing a legendary entity of that magnitude across realms is utterly unfeasible without direct divine intercession.’

This scenario was of an entirely different caliber than the rogue necromancer who had previously raised a Bone Dragon.

That incident had certainly been an aberration, triggering widespread panic… but this current development involved a living, breathing, highly intelligent apex predator from an alternate reality manifesting physically on Earth. It was an unprecedented milestone in human history.

Consequently, the proclamations of the individual who had orchestrated this staggering phenomenon—Heinrich Saint Landguard, the celebrated Saint of Auterica—now carried immense, undeniable leverage.

This sudden shift was precisely why she was drowning in work, frantically coordinating her loyalists and managing fallout within the Steering Committee, where the volatile matter was actively being debated.

‘Tsk, those blind zealots… They never cease to create chaos. Standard Earthlings, tainted by foreign deities, degrading the purity of this world… And now they are completely swayed by the fabrications of an otherworldly interloper.’

Adeline’s brow furrowed deeply.

She had earned her current status through decades of unyielding service and absolute competence, her mystical capabilities and devotion beyond reproach… yet she had never once viewed her fellow ecclesiastics as true allies.

She was merely biding her time, playing the long game until the perfect opportunity presented itself to execute her true deity’s grand design.

‘The situation is becoming precarious. The name of the Heaven’s Turn Society is beginning to slip from people’s lips everywhere. If those unpredictable fanatics start taking matters into their own hands…’

To be perfectly candid, the vast majority of these holy men and women, those who channeled divine essence, were fundamentally… deranged.

And she readily included herself in that assessment.

‘The masses constantly obsess over the perils of practicing dark magic… but channeling holy power is fundamentally just as ruinous to the psyche.’

The intrinsic hazard of wielding divine energy was absolute fanaticism.

It lacked the immediate, visibly grotesque corruption associated with dark sorcery, but it remained an open secret among the elite that nearly every high-ranking cleric was… mentally unhinged.

It made perfect logical sense; they were acts of conduit for the raw essence of cosmic entities existing far beyond the boundaries of mortal sanity. It was inevitable that their minds would be warped by the deities they served.

Furthermore, within a framework where deeper fanaticism directly translated to greater supernatural potency, the most powerful clerics were… well, anything but stable.

“Huu…”

Exhaling a soft, exhausted breath, she leaned her head back against the leather upholstery and shielded her vision with the palm of her hand.

The sheer magnitude of the obligations awaiting her attention made her skull throb.

‘…It will be fine. For the moment, it is restricted to closed-door debates. Besides, uncovering my true identity is no simple task. I am a sitting member of the Steering Committee, after all.’

She intended to draw out the proceedings as long as possible, eventually shifting the blame entirely onto an actual ‘servant of a malevolent god’ whom she had already thoroughly investigated and set up as a scapegoat.

Extreme caution was required for the foreseeable future, but it was her safest path forward.

‘That miserable Heinrich… I will ensure he pays dearly for this inconvenience… Huh?’

Right at that moment,

As if deliberately severing the thread of her calculations—.

Screech—!

…The vehicle slammed to a violent, abrupt halt.

The momentum pitched her upper body sharply forward. Already thoroughly irritated, Adeline’s expression darkened into an angry scowl.

“What is the meaning of this?”

“I-I am deeply sorry, Priestess. An individual suddenly materialized out of nowhere, blocking our path…”

Her brow twitched with irritation at the chauffeur’s panicked, stuttering explanation.

Peering through the front windshield, she observed a lone figure clad in a full-face motorcycle helmet standing defiantly in the center of the roadway, obstructing their advance.

Yet her scowl only deepened as she analyzed the situation further.

‘…Precisely when did he close the distance so flawlessly?’

She was a remarkably potent awakened combatant in her own right, irrespective of her public administrative role as a religious dignitary.

Despite her advanced perception, she had failed to detect even a whisper of his approach until he was positioned directly before them.

Honk! Honk!

“Hey! Are you out of your mind?! Clear the road!”

While she remained immersed in her silent analysis,

The chauffeur, misinterpreting her dark expression as impatience, slammed his hand onto the horn and bellowed out the window.

He was visibly terrified by the bizarre, threatening figure, but remaining passive was not an option. He was currently driving an incredibly influential executive of Pantheon.

Should he display cowardice and anger her, his livelihood would be instantly forfeit.

“Ahaha, my humblest apologies… I merely require a brief moment of your time to ask a question.”

“You can’t just leap into active traffic like a maniac! Do you have a death wish?!”

“Please forgive me. This is a matter of absolute urgency…”

The chauffeur’s rigid posture relaxed ever so slightly as the mysterious individual offered multiple polite retractions.

The stranger’s vocalization was remarkably serene and melodic, delivered in a slow, almost detached cadence that made him appear… entirely non-threatening.

“Therefore… would the esteemed passenger residing in the rear seat happen to be… Scribe-nim?”

However, any trace of the driver’s newfound ease evaporated the moment the final word left the stranger’s mouth.

An unknown assailant, specifically probing for the hidden identity of his passenger…

This was unequivocally an act of hostility.

“Scribe? I have no obligations to disclose the identities of our passengers to you, but you have clearly targeted the wrong vehicle. Let me offer a piece of advice: the individual inside possesses authority far beyond your comprehension. Turn around and walk away right now.”

Yet the helmeted figure paid absolutely no heed to the stern ultimatum.

A subtle smirk formed beneath his visor as he registered the sudden, immense eruption of magical pressure radiating from the back of the car.

“…It appears my coordinates were perfectly accurate after all.”

“You clearly fail to grasp the gravity of your situation. The title of ‘Scribe’ does not exist within the hierarchy of Pantheon, the interdimensional religious alliance…!”

The chauffeur’s furious admonishment was instantly cut short.

His upper body abruptly collapsed forward, his forehead slamming heavily against the steering wheel as consciousness completely abandoned him.

Honk—

The vehicle’s horn emitted a continuous, deafening blare.

Snapping the rear door open, Adeline stepped out onto the asphalt and locked a piercing, predatory gaze onto the interloper.

He was wrapped in a bulky, unidentifiable garb, capped with a heavy helmet that entirely obscured his facial features.

It was undeniable that he had deliberately ambushed her route, though his true allegiance and motivations remained completely shrouded in mystery.

‘A localized isolation barrier has already been deployed. Did he establish the anchor points prior to my arrival? He calculated this engagement meticulously.’

Furthermore, there was a profoundly eerie… non-human essence bleeding off him, a bizarre, primordial frequency that made it seem as though he were an extension of the biosphere itself.

It was a sensation she had never encountered before, an impressive feat given her status as a seasoned combat veteran who had survived countless battlefields.

She resolved to extract answers before unleashing her wrath.

“I am unacquainted with your identity, but do you truly comprehend the magnitude of your transgressions? Launching an assault against a sitting member of Pantheon’s Steering Committee? There is no corner of this world where you will find sanctuary from the repercussions.”

“Ahaha… I have never been the sort of individual who loses sleep over consequences. In all honesty, I am already beginning to lament my journey to this realm. Even with the assistance of this atmospheric filtration artifact, the air here feels incredibly suffocating. How your species endures existence in this toxic wasteland is beyond me…”

“Cease the useless banter. State your true objective.”

In spite of the suffocating tension suffocating the air and their competing magical pressures grinding against one another, their verbal exchange remained oddly civil.

To an outside observer, it might have resembled a tense but diplomatic negotiation…

“My objective… What else could possibly compel me to cross such immense distances to find you?”

…But that facade vanished in an instant.

Shimmering, ethereal manifestations began to solidify out of thin air around the lone assailant, who stood wrapped in his filtered headgear.

These were entities completely foreign to her encyclopedia of knowledge—creatures born of an entirely separate reality.

“There exists only a solitary outcome I desire.”

“…Elemental spirits?”

Adeline’s expression instantly turned to stone.

These were no ordinary, low-level elemental constructs.

These were ancient, high-ranking primeval forces possessing immense, undeniable destructive capacity, their sheer volume overwhelming… and their killing intent was explicitly locked onto her.

“My mandate is the total eradication of the Heaven’s Turn Society. To put it in simpler terms—”

And then,

At a juncture she could not have foreseen, initiated by a nemesis she never could have anticipated,

“…Your immediate execution.”

…The opening salvo was unleashed.

Kaboom—!

A cataclysmic detonation shattered the silence, accompanied by a sweeping shockwave of pure devastation.

—

‘Superb. Their output is even more formidable than my initial calculations suggested.’

Harris, the High Elf, having finally returned to Earth after a prolonged absence, gave a measured nod of approval, his features safely sealed behind his protective visor.

Ordinarily, the potency of his summoned elementals should have suffered a drastic degradation due to Earth’s hostile environment… but owing to the dual stacks of 『Dimensional Barrier Weakening』, the suppression was far less severe than he had anticipated.

Rumble—!

Volts of blinding electricity arced violently around Watt, the Lightning Spirit, while Callie, the Fire Spirit, projected a roaring deluge of white-hot plasma that mimicked liquid magma.

Lacerating vortexes of wind whipped furiously around Pascal, the Wind Spirit, as concussive, low-frequency vibrations radiated from Decibel, the Sound Spirit.

Simultaneously, his newly bound companions—Hectare the Earth Spirit, Lumen the Light Spirit, and Liter the Water Spirit—unleashed their respective domains, their collective magical signatures flaring like miniature suns.

“Ugh! A Spirit Summoner? I did not foresee this variable. And to command this many high-tier entities simultaneously…? Exactly what classification of unique skill do you possess?”

Yet, even this concentrated barrage of primordial forces was insufficient to instantly overwhelm Scribe, who was currently radiating a magnificent, twilight-colored protective shroud.

She resembled a celestial vanguard, encased in shimmering divine plate mail, wielding an immense tower shield and a crushing warhammer, her defenses completely impregnable.

She methodically absorbed the tempest of elemental strikes, intentionally drawing out the engagement as if fully aware that duration operated in her favor.

‘What is the source of that durability?… Ah, I see. It makes perfect sense.’

Harris, possessing an acute awareness of planar boundaries thanks to executing 『Dimensional Barrier Weakening』 twice, immediately detected a fundamental anomaly inherent to her divine energy.

The severe degradation of efficiency caused by the planar disconnect—a penalty that plagued every single divine caster operating on Earth—simply did not apply to her.

‘She receives her divine mandate directly from the Grandmaster of the Heaven’s Turn Society. And because that entity originates as a native Earthling, his power source suffers no penalty from the planar boundary.’

This anomalous loophole was undoubtedly the mechanism that had allowed her to secure such an elevated station within the echelons of Pantheon.

Her baseline parameters were fundamentally altered. Ascending to the apex of the organization would have required minimal exertion on her part.

‘Though, to be fair, Heinrich operates under a nearly identical advantage.’

Harris drew a measured breath, his distinct, stellar-patterned irises gleaming through the darkened visor of his helmet.

While the filtration artifact mitigated the atmospheric toxicity, he remained profoundly uncomfortable. As a lifeform intrinsically synchronized with the heartbeat of nature, his respiratory functions extended far beyond basic biological lungs.

‘Manifesting elementals in this wasteland accelerates the strain. This conflict must be concluded immediately.’

Clench.

Amidst the swirling maelstrom of violence, the immediate topography completely pulverized by the elementals’ ceaseless onslaught,

He wrapped his fingers tightly around the riser of Themis, his legendary longbow carved from the timber of a World Tree.

He had safely isolated the entire battlefield utilizing a customized version of the 「Gentle Eight Trigrams Secret Art (Modified)」, ensuring no collateral damage could bleed into the surrounding city.

He had even gone so far as to teleport the unconscious driver and the vehicle to a secure, distant perimeter.

The unique principles of the 「Gentle Eight Trigrams Secret Art (Modified)」 granted him absolute dominion over ambient natural energy, and the deployment of tactical formations—which could artificially manipulate a micro-environment to favor the caster—complemented his innate racial traits flawlessly.

Furthermore, he had successfully integrated the advanced theoretical mechanics acquired from both the Zhuge Clan and the prestigious Golden Island Sect!

Creak—

He drew back a specialized projectile, likewise fashioned from a branch of the World Tree, anchoring it against the string.

A terrifying concentration of kinetic and magical forces imploded into the arrow shaft, the immense structural tension rising to a critical point where it threatened to shatter the weapon entirely.

Goooo—

Raw environmental vitality, highly purified Ki, and the concentrated elemental essence of his spirits were forcefully pulled inward, compressed down into a microscopic, hyper-dense point of destruction.

Then, the exact moment the unstable mass reached its absolute apex of volatility,

———!

…it was set free.

A blinding lance of radiance, resembling a hyper-focused particle beam, incinerated the intervening space.

Kaboom—!

An earth-shattering detonation boomed across the barrier, and then…

Harris’s calm demeanor instantly fractured.

“Ah, this is an unexpected development…”

…Before his eyes, a devastatingly familiar silhouette stood resolutely positioned directly in front of Scribe, completely neutralizing his ultimate strike.