Chapter 357

Chapter 357
## Chapter 357

Abelov fixed his gaze on the man before him and began to speak.

“Pope. You are the one who kept the passing of the goddess a secret and shook hands with a minion of an outer god. We have climbed back from the depths of the underworld ourselves to ensure you answer for your treachery.”

“You insolent fools! How dare you speak such blasphemy, do you have any idea where you stand?”

“Show some reverence to the Holy See, Knights of the Round Table!”

The cardinals’ faces flushed a deep red, the veins in their necks bulging as they screamed their indignation.

However, the Pope lifted a single hand, signaling them to be silent. There was a far more pressing matter weighing on his mind at this moment.

“Wilhelm. Does he still draw breath as well?”

“That is hardly the concern you should have right now.”

“…Then it appears he is truly gone.”

A long, heavy sigh escaped the Pope’s lips. His expression shifted into one of quiet letdown. From Abelov’s vague dismissal, he had instantly deduced that Wilhelm was indeed dead. After all, if the man were still among the living, he would have come to claim his due in person rather than sending Abelov in his stead.

“Then who is the one pulling your strings now?”

He was genuinely perplexed. The Knights of the Round Table were an extension of Wilhelm himself; they were his loyal tools. It was shocking enough to find they had survived, but for them to launch an assault on the holy city meant they were following a directive.

Yet, with Wilhelm deceased, the group should have naturally fractured and vanished.

It was in that silence that a new voice rang out.

“That would be me.”

The figure who had remained at the very rear of the group finally moved. The individual who had been calmly observing the chaos until now stepped into the light.

“I am the new commander of the Round Table, O Pope.”

As he pulled off his helm and moved to the front, a sudden, jagged cry tore through the hall.

“Y-you are…!! Aaaaaaaaaah-!!!!”

One of the men present let out a wail that sounded more like a panicked shriek. His body convulsed, and tears began to pour down his face as he collapsed onto his knees. It was a visceral, irrational reaction that defied all logic.

“O, you who embody the very spirit of the goddess!!!”

It was Aaron. The young man, who had only recently been elevated to the rank of cardinal, was greeting the newcomer with every ounce of fervor he possessed.

—

It had been quite a while.

“The successor to the goddess’s will…?!”

“Could it be that this man is…!”

Aaron wasn’t the only one reacting as if he were having a fit. The other cardinals were beginning to piece things together based on Aaron’s frantic behavior.

By the way… Aaron. What on earth was he doing here? This was the inner sanctum of the Holy See, a restricted area reserved exclusively for the Pope and the high cardinals.

‘The last time our paths crossed was at the Tower of the War God.’

Back then, his pride had been astronomical. I had given him a bit of an “education” to fix that attitude, but I never expected to find him at the heart of the papacy.

‘Did he actually get a promotion?’

It wasn’t just a step up; it was a meteoric rise that shattered all tradition. The cardinals of the Goddess Cult were typically veterans who had spent decades proving their devotion. Aaron was a mere fledgling, barely an adult. Even as the son of Cardinal Johanson, he shouldn’t have possessed the track record required for such a high office.

“Your Holiness! This is the one! The man who opened my eyes to the goddess’s true love! He is the unique soul cherished by both goddesses, the one destined to be the light and the salvation of our faith!”

“So this man is…”

The Pope looked momentarily bewildered. To any outside observer, Aaron looked like a complete madman. However, the Pope quickly regained his composure and posed a question.

“…Are you the individual responsible for igniting the flame of holy power within Cardinal Aaron?”

The flame of holy power. That was likely how they described the sudden surge in his spiritual energy. Since Aaron had started to revere and believe in me, his divine strength had certainly grown to levels far beyond his previous capacity.

‘I see. That’s why he was made a cardinal.’

The pieces clicked into place. Since the passing of the two goddesses, the Goddess Cult had been in a state of decay. No new “Children of the Goddess” were being born, and the spiritual power of the clergy and the holy knights had plateaued. In fact, it had been steadily fading away.

In a stagnant church, Aaron’s power was the only thing showing growth—it was practically overflowing after he left the Tower of the War God. He was a miracle in a dying religion.

‘This works in my favor.’

It was clear that Aaron had been zealously spreading stories about me since his return. Judging by the looks on the faces of the Pope and the cardinals, his tales must have reached legendary proportions. If that was the case, there was no harm in playing the part.

“I am indeed the one summoned by the two goddesses.”

“Ah…!!!”

Suddenly, the sound of moisture hitting the floor could be heard. The Pope had begun to weep openly. I had simply provided the confirmation he was seeking, but the intensity of his breakdown was far beyond what I had anticipated.

‘Something is off here.’

The Goddess Cult was supposed to be rotten to the core. They had hidden the truth of the goddesses’ deaths and allied themselves with a void-born entity. I was certain of this because of Hypnos.

The entity formerly known as the ‘Eye of Ruin’ had shared insights after I restored his temple and awakened his authority. He spoke of how Pangenia was rotting, how the vacuum left by the old gods was being filled by malevolent outer deities. He noted that the very essence of the goddess’s followers had been warped.

This was because the Pope, the primary representative of the goddess, had invited an apostle of an outer god into their midst. Since the void was filled by a different power, the followers—clueless as they were—had their natures altered by proxy.

‘That explains the fall of Priest Andrew.’

Across the religion, priests were succumbing to corruption. Andrew was just one example. Under normal circumstances, it was nearly impossible for a priest of this cult to “fall” just by harboring a few dark thoughts. The goddesses were symbols of mercy; the concept of a fall shouldn’t even exist for their servants.

And yet, it was happening. I had come here intending to act as a judge and executioner because the Pope had buried the truth. But his reaction to my presence was baffling.

“You… you…!”

“Y-Your Holiness?”

“Please, do not exert yourself!”

The cardinals were panicked, trying to keep the elderly man from moving too quickly. Ignoring them, the Pope struggled to drag his heavy frame off his seat. As he did, a grim reality came to light.

“…He has turned,” Serengeti whispered softly.

From beneath the hem of the Pope’s ornate white robes, a dark, feline tail flickered. The Pope was no longer a being of light. He crawled toward me, his voice breaking with grief.

“I… I chose poorly. I believed the goddesses had abandoned us… and in my weakness, I let in a pathetic god from the outside.”

“…Whose power did you accept?”

“The lure of the Balrog Cult! I shouldn’t have let that forbidden strength blind me…!”

The Pope was a shell of a man, crushed by the weight of a choice that could never be undone.

“Give me a name, Pope.”

I needed to know exactly who was responsible for the rot inside the church. Since the Balrog Cult was involved, I couldn’t let this slide.

Finally, the Pope spoke a name I recognized.

“The entity was called… ‘Sonora’. Aaaah…!”

—

The Balrog Cult and the Goddess Cult had once been at each other’s throats. However, without the protection of their deities, the Goddess Cult was slaughtered. Many Saintesses and Holy Knights fell in battle. The Pope, faced with the terrifying martial prowess of the Balrog Cult, fell into deep despair.

Driven by desperation, he sought the source of their unnatural power. Eventually, he discovered the secret the Balrog Cult had been shielding.

Sonora.

“The girl was a vessel. A container crafted specifically to hold a deity. A hollow shell—the ultimate vessel capable of housing any god! The Balrog Cult tapped into her power to perform their dark miracles.”

A living sacrifice meant to house a god. I turned my gaze to Abelov and the rest of the Round Table. In another timeline, these men were also intended to be “vessels for evil gods.” If I hadn’t dismantled that plot while posing as Wilhelm, the world would have been overrun by children possessed by demons.

It seemed I hadn’t pulled out all the roots.

Sonora. A clone produced by the House of Dersian. She had been exiled to the edge of the void by the Desert Queen. She was Isabella’s dearest friend and sister figure, who had eventually lost her mind to the darkness. I thought I had dealt with her during Isabella’s “Survival” quest back when I was just a player, but she had apparently survived on the fringes of the abyss.

The Balrog Cult had found her and turned her into a host.

‘The Desert Queen’s plan was always to use Isabella and Sonora.’

The goal was to rot the city from within and use them as conduits to summon the ‘Blood King of Demonic Power’ from a dead dimension. Sonora’s body, having spent an eternity on the border of the void, was now the perfect biological anchor.

The Balrog Cult had successfully invited an entity to inhabit her. An apostle of an outer god—a nameless, minor thing. Then, they had intentionally “gifted” Sonora’s occupied body to the Goddess Cult.

‘Either it was too much for them to control, or they wanted to ensure the Church’s total corruption.’

The tainted figure of Sonora I had glimpsed when entering the city was that very vessel. She was being moved while clutching a shard of the Spear of Longinus. The Pope had been seduced by that dark, magnetic energy and made the ultimate mistake.

But corruption of this magnitude was permanent. Even though I had “cleansed” Priest Andrew’s power, his soul remained marked.

“The Goddess Cult is doomed as it stands. The fallen are everywhere… if that ‘thing’ fully supplants the goddess…”

The Pope couldn’t finish his sentence. He didn’t have to. I knew what he meant. It was the end of the world. Pangenia would descend into total madness. If an outer god took the goddess’s place, every priest and believer would be twisted into something monstrous.

I had seen a preview of this once before when I encountered the evil god of curses in the World Tree’s Dungeon. That entity had also tried to steal the goddess’s identity to be reborn. But a monster’s heart remains a monster’s heart. Had it succeeded, the world would have been consumed by a “blessing” that was actually a terminal curse.

“Take me to her.”

“B-but… those who enter her presence can never resist her. Even if you represent the goddess’s will or lead the Round Table…”

“It doesn’t matter.”

I understood his fear. She was a being that had broken the Pope himself—a predator that devoured the souls of others to claim the goddess’s throne.

But for us, it was different. We had developed a natural defiance against the divine within the World Tree’s Dungeon. The ‘Divinity’ I earned at 500 Dignity and the ‘Justice’ gained at 1,000 were specifically designed to allow a human to stand against the immortal.

I looked at the weeping Pope and spoke with absolute authority.

“Leave the rest to me. I will provide the salvation you seek.”

—

The lowest levels of the Holy See. We had traveled so deep into the earth that the air felt ancient and heavy.

The heavy door groaned as it was pushed open. On the other side…

“So…nora…?”

Isabella began to shake uncontrollably the moment she saw what lay within. She had every right to be there, but the sight of her friend—now a vessel for something else—was too much.

She knew that to save the church, she might have to end Sonora’s life. As the person closest to her, that burden belonged to Isabella alone. But faced with the reality, her composure shattered.

“Sonora. You… how can this be…?”

She couldn’t even form a coherent sentence. And who could blame her? The girl standing beyond the threshold was radiant.

“It’s been a long time, Isabella.”

Sonora was smiling, looking exactly like the girl Isabella remembered from years ago.

Isabella’s legs gave out, and she hit the floor.

“Y-you’re really… you’re actually alive, Sonora…!”

It felt like a dream. To find her not just alive, but seemingly sane and capable of speaking!

“Did you honestly think I was gone?”

“B-but, I thought for sure…”

“I was close to the end, but I survived. I’ve just been sleeping for a very long time.”

Sonora stepped forward and gently brushed Isabella’s face.

“My dear friend, my little sister Isabella. I have missed you so very much.”

“I missed you too. I… I thought I was going to lose my mind without you.”

“There is nothing left to keep us apart now. Right?”

“But they told me you were turned into a vessel for a god…”

“No. That is just a lie they tell. They keep me locked away in this dark hole. If I truly were a god, why would I be trapped in a basement?”

Her logic seemed sound. The room was layered with powerful containment spells and barriers, clearly meant to keep something in. But the Pope had confessed to “accepting” her. Why would anyone lock up the god they had chosen to follow? There would be no reason to keep a deity in chains.