"O King, may you live forever. Your servant is in distress."
The Lord of the Graveyard muttered the prayer compulsively.
"Let your will be done on earth as it is in heaven."
Isaac stared deeply at the Lord of the Graveyard, and the latter stared back just as intently. Yet, what he saw was not Isaac’s noble journey as a Holy Grail Knight, nor his monastic life, nor even the life he had led as a man nad Isaac.
It was an indescribably grotesque scene.
A world defying description, where the distinction between living and inanimate, liquid and gas, solid and amorphous, was aningless. lting flesh writhed chaotically, devoid of uniformity.
The entities in this world desired only one thing. Those that crawled, slithered, or flew across the walls and floors, their mucus-covered orifices gaping, all spoke in unison.
[■other, lo■■g ■or ■ea■’s ord■, best■w u■■on u■ order’■■■■es■!]
The sound was unholy and alien. rely hearing it threatened to shatter one’s mind. The Lord of the Graveyard trembled in his soul, unable to block out the noise or scream.
This world was not rely Isaac’s inner self; it was the domain of sothing wearing Isaac’s skin.
[■other, loving mot■er of th■ gods, cl■the u■ in order’s fl■■h!]
Despite the distorted sounds, the Lord of the Graveyard understood the prayer’s aning.
He had once encountered fragnts of this profane incantation while scouring the Holy Land of Lua, seeking the secrets of immortality. Now, he recalled the forbidden rite, realizing its true significance.
The Lord of the Graveyard desperately tried not to recall the prayer’s aning. At the ti, he had recited it without understanding its purpose. But now, he knew. He knew what it invoked and to whom it was addressed.
To understand the prayer was to descend into madness, to beco one with these creatures.
If only he had remained ignorant.
But the cost of glimpsing even a sliver of truth was now bearing down upon him. Escaping this place was impossible. The more he fought to suppress the mory, the sharper it burned in his mind.
Suddenly, the Lord of the Graveyard noticed every creature stretching their fragile tendrils toward the sky.
He instinctively looked up. Above, a sky made of pulsating crimson flesh lood. From it, a colossal eye stared down at him.
"Mother! Beloved Mother of all gods!"
It was Isaac’s eye.
Tentacles erged from the flipped eyelids, their massive forms reaching down like pillars to touch the earth. The Lord of the Graveyard felt his sanity crumble, rely gazing upon them.
The entire world gaped open, clamoring for Isaac, crying out for love and devotion.
"Bestow upon us the flesh of order!"
The Lord of the Graveyard tried to scream.
But he had no mouth.
***
[...stow upon us... the flesh of order...]
Crack. Crunch. Crk-crk-crk.
The Lord of the Graveyard’s skull crumbled under Isaac’s grip, fragnts scattering.
Isaac glared at the remnants. The white dust slipped through his fingers and tentacles. Now, the strength emanating from the fragnts had weakened to a level Isaac could fully absorb.
The true feast could begin.
"As expected, this is exhausting."
Isaac was drenched in sweat.
Though he had consud an imnse amount of power through his tentacles, the act of absorption had consud most of that energy. It was less a feast and more an act of erasure, but he couldn’t deny the wasteful nature of it.
"It’s like being a snake," he thought.
Isaac recalled how snakes would sleep for days after swallowing a massive prey whole. Yet, he soon dismissed the comparison as inadequate.
"No, more like a hummingbird burning calories as fast as it eats."
He found the image sowhat undignified, but it wasn’t as though anyone was listening.
In any case, Isaac confird that the Lord of the Graveyard was completely gone. Unlike with Pallor, he doubted the creature would reappear in his mindscape. There would be no revenge, no blade sharpening in secret.
"But what was that mumbling before he disappeared? Sothing about a mother? Flesh?"
Isaac tried to recall the words the Lord of the Graveyard had uttered in his final monts, but the fragnted sounds eluded him. It felt like an incomprehensible dialect.
He assud the dying man had been reminiscing about his mother. Even a once-glorious king, who commanded armies and led legions of skeletons in undeath, would have had a mother.
"Though I don’t rember any ntion of a mother in his mories... Maybe he was embarrassed to admit he was a mama’s boy. Well, whatever. He’s been digested—he won’t be moving on to the afterlife. Guess that’s part of the undead deal. Rest well... or not."
Isaac rubbed his abdon, uncertain how else to respond to the bizarre situation.
As for Sarka Noir’s struggles and trials, they elicited little sympathy. While it was tragic that his child suffered from a hereditary illness, forcing countless others’ children into wars and performing profane rituals stripped him of any remaining pity.
Sarka Noir had, in his misguided love, condemned his entire family—and himself—to hell.
Still, his last words lingered in Isaac’s mind.
"Bringing heaven to earth."
Perhaps it was a reference to the Immortal Emperor’s ambition to make the world like the Urdantu Empire, where the boundaries between life and death had dissolved. But on further thought, Isaac rembered hearing sothing similar in another faith.
"Let heaven descend upon the earth."
A slogan tied to the Millennium Kingdom.
Now it seed that the goals of the Immortal Order and the Codex of Light were eerily similar.
Though the specifics might differ, Isaac couldn’t ignore the strange relationship between the Immortal Emperor and the Lighthouse Keeper.
"Could the Lighthouse Keeper have used the Immortal Emperor as an experint?"
An experint to bring heaven to earth.
Isaac considered the possibility that the creation of the Immortal Emperor had been an attempt to test whether such a feat was achievable. After all, the Immortal Emperor had, on a localized scale, brought the Immortal Order’s vision of heaven to this world.
Although that vision bore little resemblance to a conventional paradise.
"Then what about the Codex of Light’s version of heaven?"
Isaac suddenly recalled that the concept of heaven described in the Codex of Light was remarkably vague compared to other faiths. Considering the Codex of Light centered on preserving and executing the laws of physics, the existence of heaven itself seed contradictory.
People imagined heaven as a place of their choosing, a paradise where their desires could be fulfilled, precisely because its nature remained undefined. Even the Lighthouse Keeper was striving to bring heaven down to earth.
Yet, there was one thing Isaac was certain of.
No heaven could ever exist that satisfied everyone.
“Whatever it is, I’ll figure it out when I reach the Holy Land of Lua. The rest… I’ll deal with when the ti cos.”
***
Isaac’s body and clothes were in tatters, the aftermath of the rampaging power from the battle. Still, he decided to wear the scars as proof of his intense struggle and pulled back the veil of the Hidden Rite.
As the veil, made of the Colors from Beyond, dissolved like mist, the people who had been waiting outside imdiately rushed forward. Tuhalin and Edelred led the charge, their tension lting into relief upon seeing Isaac standing upright and alive.
"By the heavens! You just walked into that pitch-black sphere without a word! I thought you were attempting so sort of suicide attack! Can’t you at least tell us before doing sothing so reckless?" Tuhalin yelled, his voice filled with exasperation.
Edelred, suppressing a bitter smile, slid Kaldbruch back into its sheath. "We were inford by Commander Rottenhamr and Sir Gebel about what happened during your fight with Pallor. But knowing that you were trapped alone with that infamous Archangel of Death was hardly reassuring."
Edelred looked around, scanning the area. "What of the Lord of the Graveyard? Even the Lion Knight said they couldn’t discern what was happening beyond the veil."
"The Lord of the Graveyard has been annihilated," Isaac said calmly.
A stunned silence fell over the group. Even Tuhalin’s jaw dropped.
"A-Annihilated? The Lord of the Graveyard? That one?"
Isaac was perplexed by their shock. What was there to be so surprised about? They had already witnessed sothing similar with Pallor, and this ti they had the aid of an army and four Archangels. All Isaac had done was land the final blow.
"It was only possible because of all your help," he replied modestly.
"No, no! Do you even understand what you’ve done?" Tuhalin exclaid. "You’ve annihilated two Archangels within a single month! And this ti, it wasn’t just any Archangel but the Lord of the Graveyard—the one who practically commanded the Immortal Order’s entire military!"
"I rely finished what everyone else started…"
"Even so! To annihilate an Archangel is…"
Their astonishnt was understandable, even predictable. Tuhalin seed poised to barrage Isaac with questions, but Edelred quickly intervened.
"Praise the Grail Knight! Another great foe of the Issacrea Dawn Army has fallen before his blade! The Issacrea Dawn Army will never falter under this banner!"
"The Issacrea Dawn Army will never falter under this banner!" the soldiers echoed, their cheers rippling across the battlefield. Those who had been watching quietly from afar joined in the jubilation, chanting loudly.
As the clamor grew, Edelred leaned in closer to Isaac and Tuhalin, speaking in a hushed tone.
"It’s best if we don’t make too much noise about this."
"Why?" Tuhalin asked, his voice tinged with confusion. "This is a monuntal achievent!"
Edelred’s expression turned uneasy. "Indeed, it is. But the issue lies in the fact that the Lord of the Graveyard was an Archangel—and not just defeated but ‘annihilated.’"
"And why is that a problem… Oh."
Tuhalin stopped himself, realization dawning on him.
Even if the Immortal Order was an enemy faith, Archangels were still Archangels. The idea of soone capable of annihilating such beings posed a threat to other Archangels as well.
It was akin to the unwritten rule in wars between nations: even amidst conflict, royalty or nobility were seldom killed. If the people beca desensitized to the deaths of the "noble" or "divine," the victors might face the sa disregard one day.
"So, nobles bleed red after all?"
Such thoughts couldn’t be allowed to take root.
"But we already annihilated Pallor. Won’t it be too late to worry about that now?" Tuhalin asked.
"The Lion Knight ntioned that Pallor was stripped of his status as an Archangel before his death," Edelred explained. "This ti, however, the Archangels remain silent, and it’s clear they are displeased."
"Even if we stay quiet, the Archangels will surely know," Tuhalin argued.
"True," Edelred admitted. "But at least we can prevent it from spreading among the common people, which would only infla tensions further."
"We should follow His Majesty Edelred’s advice," Isaac interjected.
He was right. In fact, it was sothing he should have thought of first.
After all, it was his own life on the line.
Isaac had begun to grow complacent, basking in the illusion that the Archangels who watched over him—and the fact that he had been nad as a candidate for Archangel status himself—ant he was on their side.
But war always ended with swords being lted down into plowshares. And if a sword like Isaac ever beca a threat, there was no doubt the Archangels would seek to destroy it.
Tuhalin nodded in reluctant agreent but grumbled under his breath.
"Hmph. It was only because the Lord of the Graveyard was part of the Immortal Order that this was possible. The Immortal Order foolishly disregards the boundaries between heaven and earth, which is why annihilation could occur. No other faith’s Archangels could be brought down like this."
Tuhalin’s words weren’t ant to diminish Isaac’s accomplishnts. Rather, they were a thinly veiled attempt to assure any listening Archangels of Isaac’s limitations, deflecting their ire.
Isaac, finding the reasoning sound, was about to nod when a thought struck him.
"Then… what happens if the boundary between heaven and earth disappears?"
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