Chapter 88

Chapter 88
## Chapter 88

### The Holy Sword’s Trial (1)

“Please follow me.”

Heinrich trailed behind the Archbishop, who was acting as his guide, venturing further and further into the bowels of the Picaol Cathedral.

Given that the cathedral had been constructed specifically around the vault where the holy sword was sealed, that location was naturally situated at its deepest and most isolated core.

‘We must have traveled incredibly far underground. The crater left behind by that ancient clash must have been immense… ’

Then again, it had been a desperate, apocalyptic battle between the mightiest entities of that era, making such destruction entirely reasonable.

“As you are well aware, the nature of the test alters for every individual who attempts it, so there is no specific guidance I can offer you.”

The Archbishop spoke in a muted tone as they arrived before a massive stone portal etched with luminous incantations, having already passed through numerous secure checkpoints.

Heinrich gave a silent nod of agreement, fully aware of the circumstances.

Throughout his preparation period, he had thoroughly studied every available text concerning the matter.

“Because of this, the duration required to endure the test fluctuates wildly. Certain candidates emerged within mere hours, while others remained inside for close to a week.”

Naturally, every single one of them had met with failure.

The older man gave a slight shrug as he spoke, then turned his gaze toward Heinrich and gestured toward the entrance.

“Your test commences the very instant you step across this threshold and enter. Steady your mind and inform me when you feel prepared to face it.”

Having journeyed all this way, there was absolutely no reason to delay.

Heinrich inhaled deeply, offering a resolute response.

“I will go in right now.”

“…Very well. I shall unseal the entrance.”

The Archbishop nodded solemnly, stepping up to the stone portal. Placing his palm against the surface, he began to softly intone a holy prayer.

“…That which is concealed within this vessel is my flesh and blood. You shall…”

In response to his voice, the sacred inscriptions carved into the stone began to radiate a vibrant glow.

The Archbishop’s sacred energy was rapidly and continuously drawn into the sealed barrier.

Before long, heavy droplets of perspiration began rolling down the elderly clergyman’s face.

‘To think that a priest of the Archbishop’s caliber requires several days of rest just to recuperate the holy power needed to open this door a single time… ’

It wasn’t merely a matter of volume but the sheer refinement of the energy required, which meant gathering a crowd of lower-ranked priests wouldn’t suffice.

Because Heinrich resided within the cathedral and crossed paths with him on occasion, he had grown accustomed to his presence, but an Archbishop was a figure of immense authority.

They governed the spiritual centers of major metropolises and held a status equivalent to a marquis among the nobility.

‘I suppose familiarity dulled my perception, but the Saintess truly is a monumental figure whom even the sovereign of the Empire cannot afford to treat lightly.’

Living alongside her within the cathedral—the very heart of the Church—had somewhat skewed his grasp on reality.

Whirring—

As his thoughts drifted for a brief moment, the stone barrier began to vibrate heavily, casting out a blinding radiance.

Screeech—

The stone portal ground open with a heavy weight.

However, the space beyond was completely saturated with a brilliant illumination, obscuring everything within.

“…May fortune be on your side.”

Leaving behind the strained words of the sweat-drenched Archbishop, Heinrich strode forward without a shred of trepidation.

The moment he stepped entirely into the enveloping brilliance,

Slam!

The stone barrier swung shut with a violent thud.

The blinding light surrounding Heinrich vanished instantly, revealing a mundane, stone-walled corridor.

“…Hm?”

An instinctive realization washed over him.

This environment was an isolated realm, completely severed from the external world.

Glancing backward, he saw nothing but an identical, stretching corridor; the stone portal he had just passed through had vanished entirely.

‘Is this an ultimatum to choose between moving forward or retreating?’

Heinrich shrugged, sharpening his focus as he pushed his sacred energy and “Blessing: Fortified Body” to their absolute thresholds.

Activating “Auterica Holy Magic” as well to drastically enhance his sight…

“…The corridor still seems endless.”

The view behind him was precisely the same, indicating that his only real option was to advance.

Letting out a soft sigh, he refocused on the path ahead.

He intended to simply force his way straight through.

‘Though, there’s no reason not to make this a bit easier.’

Concentrating his mental focus, he extended his perception to the maximum distance his channeled sacred energy would allow.

Instantly,

Flash—

He activated “Blessing: Leap” to distort distance and bypass the space.

Yet, even at his new coordinates, nothing had altered; he was met with the same monotonous, endlessly unfurling hallway.

“Hah!”

Boom!

Infusing his fist with his entire reservoir of sacred energy, he struck the adjacent wall with shattering force, but the surface remained completely unblemished.

Right at that moment,

An ethereal consciousness resonated directly within his mind.

‘So it begins.’

However, no further instructions or clarity were provided.

He remained entirely ignorant of his time constraints or where the finish line lay.

‘Am I being tested on my endurance?’

He had already discerned that the passage of time within this realm operated on a different scale than the world outside.

A typical person would have struggled to realize this immediately, but he possessed multiple manifestations operating in the external world.

‘Roughly a ten-to-one ratio? The discrepancy compared to Earth would be a hundred-to-one.’

Thanks to the evolution of “Mind Hub” and his enhanced mental fortitude, he could adapt seamlessly, but had this occurred during his initial arrival in this foreign world, the temporal shift would have induced severe disorientation.

‘The real difficulty is the complete uncertainty regarding the duration and the distance. I have no alternative but to exert myself fully.’

The trials governing the holy sword typically consisted of multiple phases.

It appeared that this particular segment was designed to evaluate the contender’s resolve, psychological grit, and physical endurance.

With the clock ticking away, there was no point in wasting another moment.

Heinrich executed a brief stretch to loosen his limbs and immediately exploded into a forward sprint.

Relying on his meticulously conditioned physical traits and an assortment of active abilities—including “Super Recovery”—he tore through the corridor at a staggering velocity.

‘Since the benchmark for success is unknown, I simply need to push my pace to its absolute limit.’

The laws of this trial space nullified the necessity for sustenance or sleep, eliminating any outside distractions.

He channeled his entire mental focus into maintaining his stride and executing “Blessing: Leap” at regular intervals.

‘This is bound to be a prolonged ordeal. There’s no avoiding it.’

Heinrich pushed onward in absolute silence through the desolate, empty hallway.

His movements became mechanical as he ran, bounded forward, and triggered “Blessing: Leap” in a seamless, unending loop.

By the third day, the profound exhaustion fracturing his muscles began to outpace what “Super Recovery” could mitigate.

While the ambient energy of the environment sustained his core vitality, the rate of cellular repair fell behind the ceaseless strain he was inflicting upon himself.

One week.

He was rapidly approaching a critical threshold, forced to occasionally temper his speed to allow his physical frame a moment to mend.

He could feel the structural strain throughout his skeletal structure, but he dismissed it; such discomfort was a routine aspect of his extreme conditioning.

Two weeks.

True to the nature of a trial, the challenge extended beyond mere physical exertion.

Incessant murmurs began to echo through his consciousness as he ran, attempting to break his resolve.

Intrusive energies designed to foster despair, capitulation, and profound isolation constantly battered his mental defenses, yet they proved entirely ineffective against his mind, which had already achieved a state of absolute serenity.

Three weeks.

With the destination and the remaining duration still shrouded in mystery, slowing his pace was not an option.

He maintained a rhythm of brief pauses followed by frantic sprinting, utterly disregarding the agony coursing through his limbs.

For someone possessing “Mind Hub,” an ordeal of this nature could hardly be classified as a true crisis.

It was reduced to a tedious exercise in repetition.

Under these exact parameters… he was capable of advancing for days, months, or an eternity.

The internal clock continued to march forward.

When four days had elapsed in the outside world—translating to over forty days within the isolated corridor—

Heinrich continued his relentless advance.

—

“Tomorrow.”

“Hehehe… Quite right. Tomorrow marks the day this entire land mass and I will burn together. Ha-ha!”

Deep within a concealed subterranean refuge located in the continent’s southern reaches, a hulking figure and a withered, diminutive elder were engaged in conversation.

“The moment the incantation is initiated, our presence will be instantly exposed to the Holy Church. We possess a singular window of opportunity. Everything must be brought to fruition before their forces descend upon this location.”

“Ah—I am well aware, completely aware. Set your mind at ease. Failure is impossible. I have anticipated this exact moment for far too long.”

The frail elder’s eyes, crinkled in a faint grin, were thoroughly consumed by a manic fervor.

The larger man studied him briefly, then turned his gaze aside with a dark, mocking smirk.

To think that a legendary sorcerer, once lauded as the premier genius of the era and explicitly groomed to inherit the leadership of the Magic Tower Alliance, had degenerated into such a pathetic state…

‘Regardless, it serves our purposes perfectly. The details matter little.’

He harbored no interest in the specific betrayals the old man had suffered or the depth of the malice driving him to eradicate civilization.

They were merely utilizing one another because their destructive ambitions converged perfectly.

Furthermore, absolutely none of the conspirators gathered in this place retained their sanity.

‘Hmph… If they possessed rational minds, they wouldn’t be participating in this madness to begin with.’

He surveyed the chamber, which was heavily plastered with an array of grotesque, unsettling magical arrays, before pivoting to make his exit.

They had precisely twenty-four hours remaining.

—

A sudden shift broke the monotony for Heinrich, who had been sprinting in a near-trance.

‘…What lies ahead?’

As his conscious awareness snapped back into focus, he spotted a definitive barrier obstructing the path at the absolute terminus of the endless corridor.

Increasing his pace, he finally came to a halt before a plain, wooden door marking the end of the line.

“Is this the conclusion? Exactly how much time has transpired?”

Slightly over four days had passed externally… meaning he had been running continuously for well over a month within this localized dimension.

‘My physical condition is abysmal. I certainly overexerted myself, even with the structural advantages provided by this domain.’

In truth, that was an immense understatement.

Had “Mind Hub” not been actively suppressing the neurological signals of pain, he would never have been able to analyze his state so calmly.

His extraordinary physique, heavily augmented by high-tier skills and sacred power, had sustained enough structural damage to illustrate just how recklessly he had driven himself.

‘It will likely require a few days of total inactivity alongside “Super Recovery” to restore myself to peak form.’

Though he was currently in no shape to immediately tackle further challenges, his prior research gave him confidence regarding what would happen next.

The moment Heinrich decisively pressed his palm against the wooden surface to signal his progression,

Whirring—

The ambient mystical energy of the chamber was violently drawn into his physical vessel.

His depleted body, thoroughly ravaged by a month of non-stop exertion, began to reconstruct itself at an unbelievable pace, fueled by the influx of external power.

“Ngh…”

His muscle fibers involuntary spasmed and rippled, and a profound, burning heat radiated from his pores.

“Super Recovery,” which had previously been overwhelmed by the sheer volume of physical trauma, voraciously consumed the incoming energy, triggering a cataclysmic regenerative response.

Simultaneously utilizing “Blessing: Fortified Body,” his physical framework was systematically rebuilt to be substantially more robust, denser, and more resilient than its previous iteration.

“Phew…”

By the time the volatile transformation subsided, his physical form had ascended to a tier noticeably superior to his condition prior to entering the trial.

The internal voice resonated within his consciousness once more, but Heinrich was entirely preoccupied with evaluating his newly enhanced physical state, examining his muscles.

‘…This is remarkable.’

Reflecting on the circumstances, this environment was an unparalleled sanctuary for physical conditioning!

An absolute miracle of a space where he could focus entirely on breaking past his limits without the mundane interruptions of eating or resting.

Crossing his arms, he began to contemplate the possibilities.

‘Given the temporal distortion present here, there is no tactical advantage to rushing into the next phase immediately.’

The strict time constraint had dissolved upon the completion of the objective, and a single day of conditioning here yielded the equivalent results of over a week and a half in the real world.

The holy sword wasn’t going to vanish, so wasting a little time wouldn’t hurt.

‘I should linger a bit longer, just a fraction. Yes, one additional day will suffice.’

Completely driven by his obsessive training habits, Heinrich spun around, turning his back to the exit, and dropped into a deep squat.

He then began to navigate back down the corridor at high speed, executing continuous bunny hops.

After maintaining this grueling exercise for roughly an hour,

“Hah… Hah… What is this?”

He abruptly noticed that the exact door he had just left was now looming directly ahead of him in his path of travel.

Halting in front of the wooden barrier once more, Heinrich knit his brows and closely inspected the structure.

It was undeniably the identical door he had just walked away from, now appearing from the opposite direction.

‘How did it manifest here?… Though, the logic is clear enough.’

This domain was explicitly structured to administer a trial, meaning spatial anomalies and loops were to be expected.

Frowning slightly, he began to pivot around to try another direction…

“…!”

He flinched instinctively, taking a sharp step back as a dark brown door suddenly materialized inches from his face.

He whipped his head back toward the opposite direction, but the vast, stretching corridor had vanished entirely; both his front and rear views were now completely obstructed by identical doors.

‘Is this an explicit demand to quit wasting time and advance to the next stage?’

Given the environmental response, it was evident that his window for unsanctioned training had closed.

‘I suppose I could still perform stationary bodyweight exercises right here… ’

Ultimately, he decided against provoking the entity or system governing the trial.

Furthermore, the lack of high-density resistance equipment tailored to his immense strength made training here inefficient anyway.

Clicking his tongue in mild disappointment, Heinrich gripped the handle of the door before him, pushed it open, and crossed the threshold.

As the intense, enveloping radiance that swallowed his senses faded away…

He found himself standing entirely alone in the center of a grand, sweeping chapel.