Chapter 358

Chapter 358
## Chapter 358

Sonora leaned in, her voice a low, urgent murmur against her ear.

“Pay no mind to the Pontiff’s deceptions. The entity he welcomed into this place was not my true self, but the malevolent deity Balakkas.”

“In that case… why has he imprisoned you?”

“It is because I possess the innate strength to defy the influence of a dark god. His plan is likely to manipulate you, Isabella, into ending my life. He knows that if the blow comes from your hand, I will be unable to resist.”

“I… I could never bring myself to do such a thing.”

“Then we must flee this chamber together. You have the capability to release the seal holding this door.”

“The seal?”

“Look there. That object is what binds me here.”

Sonora gestured toward a specific point with her hand.

In that direction, a shadowy radiance flickered with a dark light.

“A fallen star…”

“A Fragment of Ruin. That is the anchor of my captivity. It possesses the trait of consuming holy energy. To interact with it, you must completely relinquish all your divine essence.”

Relinquish her divine essence.

This required Isabella to cast aside the sacred power she held as a knight of the ‘Knight Order of the Golden Rule’ just to make contact with the shard.

Isabella’s gaze wavered, her pupils trembling with uncertainty.

“Do you truly not wish to rescue me?”

“I do, but…”

“Then lose no time, cast off the divinity—”

*Shhhwiiiiiick!*

In that fleeting second, the very fabric of the air was rent asunder. From the rift, a hand of immense power lunged forward.

“K-kuhuk…!”

The hand clamped firmly around Sonora’s throat.

“S-Sonora!”

Isabella gasped, her head whipping around in shock.

What she saw left her stunned.

“Lord Hyunmyeong…?!”

It was Park Hyunmyeong.

He had been standing right beside her just a moment ago.

How had he suddenly materialized there, tearing through the dimensions of the room?

She looked back to where he had been standing.

‘He’s gone?’

The figure she thought was with her had vanished.

For a heartbeat, her mind went blank, unable to process the logic of the scene.

“H-how is this possible… my ‘barrier’ was absolute…!”

Sonora shrieked in disbelief.

Someone had shattered the boundary and stepped across the threshold.

But that barrier was woven with the literal essence of a god.

He had trespassed upon a sanctuary of power that no mortal should ever be able to violate.

Sonora—or rather, the outer god inhabiting her—shifted her gaze to the left arm of the man who had intruded.

In an instant, her expression was overtaken by sheer terror.

“W-wait. That ‘power’ residing in your left arm… how could a human possibly hold His Excellency’s authority!”

—

Even if they spent an eternity groveling in the dirt, a mere mortal is fundamentally incapable of breaching a god’s barrier.

Such an act is reserved exclusively for a deity of superior rank.

This was the singular reason the goddess’s protection still shielded the holy city of Adrium, even after the terrifying emergence of Ruin.

The goddess’s barrier existed to repel low-tier evils and insignificant threats.

However, an outer god functioned on a different plane of existence.

They were entities from the Great Beyond.

Vast, cosmic beings of total awareness.

Their origins were shrouded in mystery; some claimed they descended from the highest firmament, while others whispered they were the surviving gods of slaughtered universes.

The only certainty was that the laws governing the natural world held no sway over them.

Their arrival served only to accelerate the descent into entropy.

That was precisely how a minor outer god had managed to infiltrate the goddess’s shield and occupy a throne within the sacred city.

“Impossible. There is no logic where ‘His Excellency’ would grant his divine mandate to a common human…!”

Yet, even these horrors were bound by their own esoteric constraints.

For instance, an outer god could only manifest when the world’s instability peaked and a suitable vessel was available to house its essence.

Just as this entity had claimed Sonora’s hollowed-out spirit as its shell.

‘His Excellency’ appeared to have chosen the man standing before her as his conduit.

Moreover, ‘His Excellency’ had restricted his divine weight solely to the man’s left arm.

This implied that the man possessed a spiritual vessel vast enough to anchor ‘His Excellency’, and a personal status so dominant that he could actually command that borrowed authority.

“Where have you hidden the genuine ‘Sonora’?”

The man’s eyes locked onto her.

The outer god’s vision blurred with frantic fear.

Simply meeting his gaze felt as though her very consciousness was being drawn into a vacuum.

It felt as if the fundamental truths of the cosmos were etched into his retinas.

How could the soul of a mortal be this expansive?

The outer god scrambled for a strategy.

The man only possessed the energy residing in ‘His Excellency’s’ left arm.

‘His Excellency’ was a transcendent being whose true name was a forbidden vibration, an unspeakable concept.

While the authority in that arm could shatter any wall, she wondered.

“…Do you truly think you can hurt me?”

The outer god’s panicked expression smoothed into a confident smirk once more.

If he struck her down, the real Sonora would perish as well.

Furthermore, if the conflict was merely a contest of maintaining barriers, she believed she would remain undefeated.

*Swoooosh!*

The outer god’s physical form began to phase, turning translucent like a fading memory.

Breaking free from the man named Hyunmyeong’s grip, a pair of colossal wings erupted from the entity’s back.

“The authority of the goddess is already mine to command.”

*Fwhoooosh!*

Glittering specks of radiance cascaded through the air.

It was an aura as hallowed and pure as a merciful deity.

An impenetrable sanctuary that no user of holy light would ever dare to violate!

Even those with divine sparks of their own—would they truly risk striking at the Goddess of Benevolence?

Humanity was hardwired to never flee from the goddess’s soothing warmth.

“Oh, Holy Goddess!”

“We must shield our lady!”

The silence of the inner chamber was shattered by the roar of the crowds outside.

This was the ultimate proof of her borrowed majesty.

From the second Sonora’s body entered the city walls, every soul in the holy city had fallen under the outer god’s subtle reach.

Now that she had unveiled her radiance, the entire population would move as one to defend their “goddess.”

“Bow down. You are incapable of triumphing over me.”

The outer god, having regained her poise, wore a smug grin.

The man was trapped.

To defeat her, he would have to slaughter Sonora and every innocent inhabitant of the holy city.

Could he truly choose a path drenched in such a sea of blood?

It was at that exact moment.

“I’ve realized that all outer gods are essentially just parasitic deities.”

The man who had just labeled the entity, Park Hyunmyeong, let a smile of his own play across his lips.

Ha.

A parasite.

The term felt like a personal insult to her divine ego.

Moreover, the outer god could not fathom why the man was smiling at all.

This was a moment of total crisis for him.

He stood before a crushing wave of opposition that was about to break over his head.

And yet, he seemed completely at ease?

Was he merely planning to use his barrier-breaking power to flee the scene?

“You claim to have seized the goddess’s authority?”

“I am currently the very deity you are sworn to serve.”

The outer god had already supplanted the goddess.

The vacuum left by the two goddesses had been filled.

The matter had been finalized the moment the outer god stepped into Adrium and was consecrated by the Pope, the highest-ranking servant of the faith.

So, what is your move?

If you destroy me, the Goddess Cult loses its source of holy power forever.

The church will collapse into ruin, and darkness will overrun the land.

And the girl who owns this body will vanish into nothingness.

To this, he replied with a voice of heavy resolve.

“In that case, I suppose I’ll just have to reclaim the goddess’s power first.”

Reclaim?

The statement was a logical fallacy.

The essence of a goddess was not a physical object that could be stolen back.

…However, it wasn’t long before the truth of his words became terrifyingly clear.

*Krrrrrrrung!*

The foundation of the world shuddered, and a massive presence erupted from beneath the earth’s crust.

“…”

Something rose up, radiating an abyss of vast, suffocating darkness.