Alon looked at the temple standing far off in the distance.

A building made of red brick, sitting in the middle of a devastated world.

At a glance, it clearly had the shape of a temple, but in reality, it was closer to a ruin.

Red moss clung between the broken pillars, and red grass was growing from the cracked floor as well.

But no matter how it looked on the outside, Alon could not easily let down his guard.

He could feel it instinctively.

That there was something inside that temple.

And the closer he got to the temple, the more Alon’s intuition turned into certainty.

“...This.”

“It’s the same thing we saw in the territory.” 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

Alon looked around the area surrounding the temple.

There were red eggs there.

Red eggs by the tens of thousands, narrow and elongated like ant eggs, stretched endlessly from far away all the way to the temple itself.

A bizarre sight.

But to those who knew what the red eggs were, it was nothing but an endlessly revolting, nauseating scene, and in the middle of it Alon quietly gave the order.

“Evan, Penia. From here on, I’ll walk. Fall back.”

“You’re going alone, Lord Alon!?”

“That looks far too dangerous...”

At the ominous sight, the two of them openly showed their concern.

But Alon shook his head.

“It’s fine. If it truly becomes dangerous, I’ll escape immediately. So once I get down, pull back.”

He warned them once more and opened the carriage door.

Just then—

“I’ll go with you too.”

“...Yutia?”

“I don’t want to send you in alone, Teacher.”

Yutia stopped him.

“...It looks more dangerous than I expected.”

“Even so.”

Yutia smiled faintly.

But Alon caught the resolve hidden in that smile, thought for a moment, and then—

“All right... then let’s make some preparations first.”

—accepted what she said.

A little later—

“Lord Alon, have a safe trip!”

[Squee-!]

After confirming that the carriage was moving away, with Blackie’s cry the last thing left behind along with Penia,

“Let’s go.”

“Yes, Teacher.”

Alon and Yutia began carefully making their way toward the temple.

“...”

The closer they got to the temple, the more the red eggs filled their field of vision.

“...As far as I know, there shouldn’t be any territory here.”

When Alon muttered the information he had heard from Evan before, Yutia, walking beside him, spoke.

“I think they probably brought them here.”

“...Brought them?”

“Yes. There were eggs in the territory too, but not nearly this many, right?”

Alon gave a quiet nod.

The number of eggs in the territories they had passed through so far had been far too small to explain it as the residents being transformed by the power of Divine blood.

But at the same time, a question rose in his mind.

'Was there any need to gather the eggs here in the first place?'

As far as Alon knew, these red eggs had to be part of the process by which Divine blood turned humans into “tools.”

It stole their reason and reduced them to nothing more than tools for obtaining faith.

In other words, if what Alon understood was correct, there seemed to be no reason to deliberately move these eggs here.

'...What exactly is happening?'

Before he knew it, they had arrived in front of the temple.

Alon stared at it with a hardened expression.

The temple was covered in red eggs, as though it had become a nest.

“...Let’s go up.”

“Yes, Teacher.”

Carefully stepping onto the red temple, Alon quietly began forming hand seals inside his pocket.

He could already feel it.

The unmistakable aura of Divine blood coming from deep inside this temple.

So he kept his hand seals ready and headed inward, prepared to respond at any moment.

And after walking in silence through the crimson darkness for quite some time, Alon and Yutia reached the center of the temple, where the sky above was open.

The first thing Alon saw there was a giant sphere.

A massive red sphere so overwhelming that merely looking at it made him feel crushed, as if all the energy in this world had been gathered into a single place.

“...?”

And in front of that sphere, Alon saw a human being floating low in the middle of the temple—

“...!”

—no, that was wrong. It wasn’t.

Alon corrected his own thought.

That was not human.

From the back, it looked human.

Unlike the grotesque Divine blood he had seen until now, its form was clearly much closer to a human’s.

But Alon realized it instantly.

That was Divine blood.

And not just any Divine blood—

“...?”

—it possessed greater power than any being he had encountered so far.

And the moment he realized that—

“Hm?”

The man—no, the Divine blood—that had been silently gathering the red sphere at the center of the temple turned around.

Its appearance was as humanlike from the front as it had been from behind.

But it was also clearly different.

Right away, on the left side of its face—

“What’s this?”

—two grotesque red eyeballs were rolling and twitching.

And the moment those horrifying eyes landed on Alon,

“...Huh?”

a small exclamation slipped from the Divine blood’s mouth.

As if the situation itself was astonishing, the Divine blood stared at Alon and Yutia, rolling one eye on one side and three on the other.

“Well, this is really interesting.”

It muttered that as though it were delighted, then twisted up the corners of its mouth.

“The Star Eater really came, didn’t he? It’s like—”

Its lips curled higher.

“—you came here just so I could kill you comfortably.”

####

The speed at which rumors spread among Divine blood varied wildly.

Of course, it was the same among humans, but among Divine blood the difference was far more extreme.

That was because the groups of Divine blood that had fallen to the surface were split apart in mutually hostile ways.

And the factions themselves ⊛ Nоvеlιght ⊛ (Read the full story) were highly varied.

There were those who belonged to one of the four strongest factions.

Those who had formed groups around personal goals.

And those with entirely different aims, along with Divine blood hiding their presence without belonging anywhere at all.

Because of that, rumors among Divine blood either spread easily—or did not spread at all.

The rumor that the Star Eater could absorb the powers of Divine blood and distribute them had not spread very far yet.

On the other hand, one recent incident among Divine blood was spreading with incredible speed.

It was this:

the Father of Maggots, who could be called a loyal retainer of Rotten Mouth, had been attacked unilaterally by Divine blood and met his death.

Other rumors were one thing, but the fact that the head of Rotten Mouth’s faction—effectively a first-stage force—had been killed spread in an instant.

And that rumor did not have far to travel before it reached the ears of Burnt Vegetation in the Allied Kingdoms.

[Hm- not good.]

At those words, the Divine blood all nodded in unison.

Naturally, the statement carried several meanings.

The first was merit.

Up to now, Burnt Vegetation had been building trust by protecting the Allied Kingdoms, while constantly appealing to the Star Eater and to the Divine blood who had quickly joined Star Root.

But what the lower-ranked members of Star Root, including Darkness-Eating Sword, had done this time was, in practical terms, enough to surpass Burnt Vegetation’s accomplishments.

There was an obvious difference in merit between endlessly dealing with enemies pouring in and eliminating the very cause that gave those enemies a reason to come in the first place.

[Tch- those damned lower-ranked bastards!]

[How dare they try to cut in line-!]

“It’s not that they tried—they did it! With things turning out like this!”

The Divine blood around Burnt Vegetation fumed.

In a way, their anger was justified.

There was no one here who had failed to notice Darkness-Eating Sword’s intention.

[As expected, no sense of fair dealing.]

[I think the same, tch- to think they’d pull something that ridiculous.]

[But the bigger problem is what comes next. What are we supposed to do now? They’ll probably come charging in saying they’re going to avenge the Father of Maggots.]

At one Divine blood’s words, Burnt Vegetation gave a light nod.

The second bad consequence of this incident was that the odds of war breaking out had gone up.

There were several reasons the Divine blood had not touched the Father of Maggots.

The first was his strength—enough that he could laugh and deal with one or two Divine blood alone.

The second was that he enjoyed Rotten Mouth’s favor.

The third was that anyone could easily understand killing him would lead to war.

In other words, Darkness-Eating Sword had effectively erased the essence of the Divine blood that came looking for them, but at the same time it had all but started a war.

So while they worried over that only briefly,

[...Ahem.]

Burnt Vegetation, who had remained deep in thought, cleared his throat.

In an instant, every eye turned toward it.

After confirming all attention was gathered on it, Burnt Vegetation slowly opened its mouth.

[To begin with, I believe this is an opportunity.]

The Divine blood immediately broke into murmurs.

[How is this an opportunity? Darkness-Eating Sword already killed the Father of Maggots and took all the merit for itself, and we’re the ones about to suffer the damage.]

As resistance naturally rose, Burnt Vegetation watched for a moment, then continued calmly.

[What has already happened cannot be helped. Darkness-Eating Sword and Star Root’s lower-ranked members dealt with the Father of Maggots.]

[Then isn’t it over?]

[No, it is not.]

[Why not?]

[Because there is a next step, isn’t there?]

[...A next step?]

At the Divine blood’s baffled reaction, Burnt Vegetation nodded.

[Because of Darkness-Eating Sword, Divine blood will now head here.]

[...And what, we’re supposed to fill our merit by stopping them? Honestly, maybe it’s possible since we’ve already been doing that, but it still seems guaranteed we’ll fall behind in the end.]

It was a fair question.

But Burnt Vegetation, wearing an unhurried expression, said,

[Certainly, if that were all, then our merit would only be comparable.]

[...? Then what?]

[But what if, instead of merely stopping them, we draw them into our faction and strengthen our power?]

It threw out those words.

[!]

Among the Divine blood, exclamation marks sprang up overhead in an instant.

[Then this becomes the best possible opportunity. A very good opportunity to appeal our merit to Him.]

Burnt Vegetation’s eyes gleamed, and laughter slipped from it.