Solo Leveling- Ragnarok-Chapter 310

I can’t believe something like this founded the Church of the Outer Gods, Suho thought.

Even as he stood before the true form of the Apostle of Evolution, he couldn’t help but feel a little underwhelmed. The creature was a pink brain encased in a tank. This thing—this mere brain—had created the cult that became the Church of the Outer Gods, which had in turn filled the world with things like Star Fragments and Stardust.

It’s all because of this thing.

“So how’d you end up as just a brain?” Suho asked.

“The mana consumption required to keep that decrepit body moving was too great. This is a more efficient evolutionary form.”

“You call that evolution?”

“I think, therefore I am.”

It was a quote from Descartes, the philosopher. After awakening in the old man’s body, the Apostle of Evolution had immersed himself in countless books in an attempt to understand this world.

Meanwhile, those who had been force-fed his faith founded the religious organization known as the Church of the Outer Gods, slowly expanding its influence in the shadows. The Apostle had remained at the eye of the storm, reading books written by humans.

“Books... This planet has such a primitive method of conveying information.”

The Apostle could transfer knowledge to anyone he wished in the blink of an eye. That was why he had been even more fascinated with this primitive, inefficient method known as “reading.” It was so absurd, so needlessly convoluted.

“They could just transmit memories as they are, but instead, they fill them with subjective and biased commentary before spreading them to others. What inefficiency.”

But even as he grumbled, the Apostle continued to read. The more he read, the more he thirsted for knowledge. Each book contained different information, which made it difficult for him to determine which information was correct.

So he read more and more. In this world, these creatures debated a single subject endlessly, their arguments recorded in books and papers. They made painfully slow progress as they did so. The Apostle concluded that this was a form of evolution in itself.

Then he had an epiphany.

“The brain is what controls the human body,” he told Suho. “So I kept only what was necessary and let the other parts atrophy.”

The pink brain inside the tank twitched, almost as if it were lifting its chin in pride.

“This form is the result. Efficient, isn’t it? I give orders from here and continue to increase the number of minions that follow my commands. This is the kind of evolution I seek.”

Even now, the Church of the Outer Gods—full of the countless humans who were acting according to his plans—was active all over the world. They were obeying the impulses of their own faith as well as the directives sent down from the headquarters of the church.

The members of the church were also driven by their desire to grow stronger. Stardust, Star Fragments, the Stones of the Outer Gods—all these things boosted their mana and gave them wealth and fame.

The church had plenty of lures to expand its numbers. Villains were suppressed in South Korea thanks to Jinchul, but things were different in the other countries. The larger the country, the harder it was to keep criminals under control, and even more so with villains. The underworld was a jungle where only the strongest could rule. Those were the villains, and they were most desperate to have the Stardust that the church was spreading.

“And so the Church of the Outer Gods was born.”

Though the religious aspect had been the original purpose of the church, in places where the apocalypse had overtaken the land, devotion was discarded in favor of pure villainy. Such branches evolved into city-states made up solely of villains, such as the “Paradise” that Suho had destroyed in North Korea.

Suddenly, the Apostle fell silent.

“Ah... Finally!”

The pink brain began to tremble with a show of odd satisfaction.

Suho narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean, finally?”

He raised his fist, ready to break the tank, but the Apostle didn’t seem to notice. In fact, he sounded excited.

“All my preparations are complete.”

Even before he had finished speaking, the entire space began to tremble as if it might collapse.

Suho immediately drew his weapon and swung it, slicing the tank in half. Clear fluid rushed onto the floor. He held out his other hand, levitating the pink brain right into his palm.

The Apostle didn’t seem confused by the invisible power that had gripped him. Instead, he seemed intrigued.

“Ah. Ruler’s Authority. You really are a curious individual. If I had the time, I would have liked to capture you myself and study you as a specimen... What a pity.”

“What does that mean?”

Even though he could have been crushed in Suho’s hand, the Apostle remained calm. “My final experiment was just completed, you see,” he said.

Suho extended his senses to their fullest, scanning his surroundings, but he could sense nothing. This space—this dimension—was collapsing, but that was all.

“You should leave. This place will be gone soon. You can kill me, or you can abandon me here. It’s your choice. My role is complete.”

With that, the dungeon around them began to shatter like glass, the lab of the Apostle fracturing along with it.

“Young Monarch! This way!” Beru shouted, pointing in a certain direction.

Suho ran, escaping through the same gate they had entered through. The pink brain was still in his hand.

“I will die even if you take me with you. The tank you just broke was the only thing keeping this brain alive.”

The Apostle’s calm tone made Suho feel odd. “You seem... almost relieved,” he remarked. “I thought you were interested in immortality.”

“Well, I have no more regrets about dying.”

“What exactly did you do?”

“Hehe. You will find out at some point. By the way, even if I die, you won’t be able to turn me into a shadow soldier. The fragment inside this brain is in no state to be turned.”

Suho knew this as well. None of the followers of the Itarim he’d met so far had been eligible for extraction. This was similar to how Jinwoo couldn’t turn the dead Monarchs into his soldiers after the war. Most followers possessed something somewhat resembling the dead Monarchs.

However, this wasn’t true of every disciple of the Itarim. The Apostle had watched countless times from afar, a chill running down his spine, as Jinwoo killed the Itarim’s soldiers and immediately made them part of his shadow army.

Even as an enemy, the Apostle felt a thrill at such an overwhelming, awe-inspiring sight. That was likely when he began to want to mimic Jinwoo’s strength. The Monarch of Shadows, who ruled over death itself, was the pinnacle of evolution in the Apostle of Evolution’s eyes. It was why he had desperately worked on his research since arriving on this planet.

He tried to replicate the power and eventually created beings like Experiment Forty-Seven. They were soulless, but they were living weapons.

Still, while they might have looked similar to the real thing, they were a far cry from the shadow army. They contained far less power, and the truly frightening thing about the shadow ability was how it stole the souls of enemies to turn them into allies. The Apostle’s experiments had to be hand-crafted one by one. Even if he wanted to mass-produce them, they required a great deal of material, and their production involved a very elaborate process. In short, it was extremely inefficient, and as such, it was a colossal failure.

The Apostle, however, had found a favorite human saying: “Failure is a stepping stone to success.” Through his countless failures, he had finally achieved one success. The result wasn’t quite what he had intended at first, but still, it was quite satisfying.

“Sirka,” the Apostle said.

Suho’s eyes widened. “Wait, don’t tell me—”

“I was so surprised at first. Who knew that a successor could receive the power of a dead Monarch? To think that such a thing existed on this planet, a way to turn ordinary creations into apostle-ranked beings like ourselves!”

***

At that very moment, while Sirka slept in her pillar of ice and Jinchul and Greed were fighting off the villains from China, something strange occurred.

“Wh-what in the world is that?!”

Jinchul’s eyes widened as he scanned his surroundings. The blood that had covered the white snow, spilled by the many villains they had killed, was pooling together and rising into the sky.

“Watch out! This is the power of the Outer Gods!”

With Greed’s urgent warning, all eyes turned to the writhing mass of blood coalescing above them.

It wasn’t ordinary blood. Greed and Iron, both former high-ranking members of the Church of the Outer Gods, could sense the immense divine power within that mass. Their instincts immediately told them why this thing had suddenly appeared.

“S-stop that thing!”

“Keep it away from Sirka!”

Greed and Iron shouted to the others, but it was too late. The blood surged directly toward the pillar encasing the sleeping elf.

“Block it with your bodies if you have to!”

Greed and Iron launched themselves into the air.

***

“Were you stalling for time?” Suho asked, glaring at the Apostle. “You wanted to steal Sirka while I was distracted out here?”

“No. As I told you before, you arrived far too early. If you’d moved as I’d foreseen, I would never have had to meet you at all, and I wouldn’t have died by your hand. But the experiment was a success, and I welcome the error.”

Though the Apostle had been caught off guard by Suho’s unpredictable actions, his attitude hadn’t shifted much since their first meeting. Stalling wasn’t why he had told the hunter all his plans.

“Humans are the same. Those who are like me, who put in the hard work without any recognition, are eager to tell others of what they have accomplished. I wanted to tell you about everything I have worked to achieve so far. I now have no regrets about dying. So kill me and go save Sirka, if you can. Though, of course, it is already too late.”

“Still lying, huh? Perhaps you haven’t learned as much as you think you have about us humans,” Suho said with a grin. “No regrets about dying? I doubt that. If you die here, you’re going to enter that experiment yourself, aren’t you?”

“Huh... You, human, surprise me to the very end.”

The Apostle burst into laughter at the perceptive question. It sounded at once like the chuckle of an old man and the giggle of a small child.

“Haha! You are correct! That is what I’ll do even if you don’t kill me immediately! This brain is already dead. I’m just speaking through the last of my mana left inside it to—”

“All right. I’m sort of busy at the moment. See you there, okay?”

Suho grinned at the brain, which was beginning to lose its color.

“Shadow Exchange.”

[Skill: “Shadow Exchange” has activated.]

Suho’s body was cloaked in shadow, and the world around him shifted instantly. He reappeared in Iron’s place, just in time to see the bloody mass bearing down on Sirka’s ice.

“Nice to meet you again,” he said.

The Apostle was already within the blood, having become something else entirely. He was the amalgamation of all the research he had performed before his death—an evolved form that contained the final bits of useful material that the dead Apostle of Paradise had left behind, fused through the deaths of the villains who served as a sacrifice.

[The Apostle of Nightmare confronts you.]

The Apostle of Evolution had taken on a new name.

“The Apostle of Nightmare, is it?” Suho remarked. A chilling, vast malice washed over him like a tsunami.

“Let me stop it, master!”

Greed, having confirmed that Suho was back from Russia, jumped in front of Suho to block the red wave. What was at first nothing more than a red lump of blood suddenly began to emit an incredibly ominous aura and spread out in all directions as soon as the Apostle entered it. In fact, it was turning the snow-covered land red, affecting even the depths of the ice.

“This strange energy is everywhere! We have no idea what he can do, so let me take the lead...”

Black vapor wafted from Greed’s body as he stood firm, shielding Suho. But the red wave engulfed him like a thick fog, and there was no indication at all of what was happening inside.

[The Apostle of Nightmare laughs at you.]

“Oh, you’re laughing?” Suho asked, his eyebrows twitching. “Beru.”

“Yes, Young Monarch.”

Suho held up the brain that had been the Apostle of Evolution just a moment ago. “What happens if you eat this?”

With a broad smile, the shadow ant responded, “Let us find out.”

With that, Beru used Devour. He swallowed the brain whole without a second thought.