A brutal force hurled me backward.

Swoosh!

From the stele marked with Ilien's sigil, light surged and wrapped the gate of the inner sanctuary in a radiant circle.

"What the hell? I thought we were welcome?!" Naneow muttered irritably.

Even the three clerics showed signs of confusion.

"Perhaps my discernment was lacking."

"No, I examined all three of us thoroughly."

"This is the first time I've seen such a reaction..."

Swoosh!

The golden clouds drifting above swept toward us at alarming speed. As they shone, the air itself bubbled and churned. What had scattered peace and bliss now reacted violently to something at my side.

The small dot hovered next to me. It was my compressed three-dimensional storage.

Swoosh!

The golden glow magnified its brilliance. The temple's whitewashed walls only amplified the effect, as if the entire place had been painted for this very moment.

Boom! Boom!

Scarlet eruptions spread outward, boiling violently. It was more heat than a single point could contain as it spread across the floor, the air, and the sky.

[There is a False Weight in your inventory.]

[A great corruption has formed upon contact with the False Weight.]

[Destroy the False Weight.]

[Cast away the Unjust Scale.]

[Sever your link to the Unjust Scale.]

[Stand against the Unjust Scale.]

Naneow and Miyu both cried out in panic.

"What is happening?"

"Neigh! Neigh!"

The focused light was unbearable. The dot—my inventory—was starting to boil. It was so hot I couldn't even touch it.

I grasped it with my consciousness and stretched it outward. From dot to line, from line to plane, my inventory unfolded like a single square of hellfire.

A searing, blood-red status window appeared. On a specific portion of my inventory, twisted messages appeared.

[Detected within Ilien's domain.]

[Did you think hiding in the shadows would keep you unseen?]

[Those who cannot discern the sacred from the profane shall not dwell within me.]

[I shall melt away the False Weight.]

The status window warped, distorted by the searing light.

Is this even possible?

Status windows and inventories weren't part of the physical world. They had no form or matter. I firmly believed that they couldn't burn, freeze, or bend, but...

[Assimilation Rate has decreased.]

[64.97% → 64.15%...]

[External interference is disrupting spatial stability within the inventory.]

[Density distribution destabilizing.]

[Spatial measurements adrift.]

[Assimilation Rate has decreased.]

[64.15% → 63.35%...]

[63.35% → 62.71%...]

Skills like Flare of Detonation or Frost could burn or freeze real enemies. The inventory stored countless weapons capable of crushing foes.

But this... what's happening now?

Time seemed to crawl. Even Naneow could not comprehend it.

Frost. Frost.

I tried layering spell after spell over the inventory and the flickering window, but the concentrated blaze warped and unraveled them in an instant. And the light did not only fall upon my inventory.

Zzzzt! Brr!

The divine cloud pierced straight downward, golden radiance spearing the heads of the three clerics.

Woong...

The clerics were wrapped in holy brilliance as they rose more than ten meters into the air.

"Ooooh!"

"I see the path of the lord!"

"Grace, grace descends upon us!"

Crackle!

The glow enveloped them completely.

"Hah... haha... what the hell is that?" Naneow muttered, half-laughing in disbelief.

Even Miyu backed away a step, startled. When the clerics' languid bodies vanished, what replaced them was a being I had never seen before.

Flutter!

Angels with compound eyes and long antennae sprouting from their heads beat six translucent wings furiously. In their hands gleamed a golden mace and a thick shield. They were sheathed in white carapaces, each crowned with a halo of light. However, with wings attached to their chests and massive multifaceted eyes on their heads, no one could mistake the angels' insectoid visages.

"..."

Woong.

One angel stilled the forewings on their chest. Only the hindwings thrummed, four strokes each second, as they plummeted downward.

"Faith has given wings swift as an eagle striking prey!"

The angel's dive was faster than freefall, yet perfectly controlled, hugging the ground as though they had flown their entire life. The mace swung exactly where I stood. I barely evaded it. Without the heightened perception of the status window, I never would have managed to do so.

The marble floor sank beneath the force of the angel's strike, crushed by sheer wind pressure alone. With that same unrelenting speed, the angel swung their golden mace again, this time horizontally.

Too fast. No time to draw my blade.

Clatter! Clank!

A violent clash of metal rang out. The golden sparks scattering from the mace deflected against a battle scythe wrapped in white light. Only then did I realize that the gouges torn into the floor earlier hadn't been caused by mere shockwaves.

Naneow's voice was low and grim as she blocked the angel's weapon. "Tch. Guess it won't cut cleanly after all."

Even after stopping the blow, she had not been forced back a single step.

The angel was utilizing some sort of technology. A press-driven weapon might impress or surprise, but to one who could wield Sword Energy, it meant little. Yet this scythe went beyond hydraulic amplification, its magic circuits twisting both vibration and recoil toward the direction of attack. At that level, the story changed entirely.

Flutter!

Overpowered, the angel staggered backward, bouncing through the air for more than ten meters before their wings churned upwind and steadied themselves aloft once more.

"This is bad..." Naneow murmured.

Three angels strong enough to withstand Naneow's strikes blocked the path.

"They greeted their companions in another boat and asked for aid, and so their nets were filled with fish!"

The transparent barrier dissolved. Clouds overhead magnified the brilliance, showering golden radiance everywhere. With each flash of light, angelic figures blazed into being. One by one, the vacant-eyed humans sprawled on the ground twisted into compound-eyed angels and took flight.

"Ten... twenty... what in the—!" Naneow exclaimed.

Angels blazing with golden light filled the sky.

Flutter!

Suddenly, from within my expanded inventory, a black crow burst forth. Beams of light lashed down in frenzied succession, hammering the crow like a rainstorm of radiance trying to drown a single point. The brilliance formed a net, filling the very air. There was no time to shield him.

[Impurity! Be dissolved and vanish!]

"Isaac!" I shouted.

Had he always been able to emerge on his own?

There was no time to ask.

As I moved to shield him against the warped system's command, I could hear Isaac.

"Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop..."

He did not recite poetic lines. It was just stark repetition, delivered with brutal precision, jammed into the throat of space itself.

Skkrt.

The light froze. At some point, the crow had wrapped my inventory around him. The instant the radiance touched it, the blazing fragments quivered and lost all momentum.

Skrrsh!

The golden torrent could not pierce even a speck of the transparent mantle Isaac had donned.

"Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop..."

He repeated the single syllable again and again, each repetition laden with the searing comprehension of ages spent bound in seal. Contraction, release, recognition—his deep understanding of light's assault compressed into that word until at last, the attack collapsed.

Through repeated freezing and crushing, the light guttered out completely. With their brilliance stolen, the clouds vanished too. The endless downpour of radiance ceased. All that remained were the three angels before us, and twenty more swarming closer.

"How dare you... how dare you profane the Light!"

Clang!

Naneow met Kinokhapden's charge, her scythe clashing with his mace. The other two angels held firm before the temple doors, as though biding their time until reinforcements arrived.

"Inventory..."

The warped space re-formed, returning to my grasp. However, the portion Isaac wore like a mantle remained separate, beyond my reach.

The crow tilted his beak. From it, the mantle of my inventory gathered into a perfect sphere, suspended in the air.

"You... how can you possibly..." I blurted.

The crow clacked his beak.

Clack! Clack!

His long-observing eyes glowed crimson as he murmured, "First, listen. I'll tilt the world a little in your favor."