Chapter 296 : Sin of Greed (7)
A massive hand descended, absorbing even the ashen clouds.
Alon stood dumbfounded, his mouth agape as he watched the hand reduce everything to nothingness.
It was Alon who had awakened Rine, who had been sealed away.
There were two reasons for this.
One was that Rine's help was essential in dealing with the Sin of Greed.
What Alon had discovered while attacking the Sin of Greed was this:
Though the incarnation before him differed in form, it wielded the same power of "knowledge" as the Sin he had seen in Psychedelia.
And because Rine possessed knowledge on the same level as the Sin—
Alon believed that with Rine's insight, they could easily deduce and counter the powers the Sin used beyond what Alon already knew.
The other reason was that Alon believed Rine had become far stronger than before.
To Alon's knowledge, the place where Rine had been imprisoned was where the Ash Seeder—no, the "Mother of Greed," who only appeared upon the Sin's birth—had settled.
And that alone…
Was enough for Alon to easily imagine what choices Rine must have made while trapped with that beast.
The existence of the Mother of Greed meant that Rine had likely delved into the forbidden knowledge housed within the Eternal Library.
That's why Alon had felt relief when he saw the inscription in the place where she had been sealed.
It was writing that a Sin could never have created.
Thus, based on this judgment, Alon decided to enlist Rine's help to defeat the Sin—and that decision proved correct.
Despite having sought forbidden knowledge, Rine remained unharmed and, just as Alon had hoped, she had grown far stronger.
However, there was one thing he had miscalculated.
…He hadn't expected her to grow this strong.
Rine had surpassed even what Alon had imagined.
He never thought she'd become this powerful.
With a blank stare, Alon looked up at the towering figure—no, the massive fist that had fallen from the sky.
"Rine..."
As the enormous fist withdrew, a figure was revealed, and Alon instinctively murmured.
She looked the same as before.
Her hair, like that of wild grass, showed its color even under the gray sky.
And her vivid green eyes gleamed brightly.
There was so much he wanted to say.
He wanted to thank her, and at the same time, scold her.
But more than anything, he felt sorry.
Alon had never experienced centuries of time.
He couldn't even begin to imagine what it was like to live for hundreds of years.
Even a mere ten years was enough for the world to change easily.
Even ten years was enough for most of Alon's memories, save for the precious ones, to sink into the depths of forgetfulness.
Because of that, he couldn't open his mouth easily.
He couldn't just say "You've been through a lot."
Or even "Thank you."
Because he couldn't begin to fathom how hard it must have been to endure hundreds of years in silence.
As he remained quiet, Rine, now standing right before him, lifted the corners of her once-still lips gently.
"Yes, godfather."
"..."
"I'm your Rine."
She smiled and responded.
Alon opened his mouth to say something.
But—
"But I think the greetings will have to wait, godfather."
At Rine's following words, Alon quickly snapped back to reality and looked ahead.
[...What… are you?]
There stood the Sin of Greed.
As its completely shattered body regenerated, it looked at Rine as if it couldn't comprehend what it was seeing.
As the regeneration finished, the paper that had been clinging to her shoulder blade lost its power and fell off.
[What in the world are you—]
The Sin of Greed, forcing out words it could barely utter,
[!]
Suddenly widened its eyes in realization, staring at Rine.
And then—
[No way… you're the one from back then…]
In contrast to its usual emotionless tone, the Sin muttered in disbelief.
Rine replied with a smile.
"I'm glad. You've got a new body instead of Aghui's."
[...I thought I'd cast off all worldly desires and emotions.]
The Sin muttered—
[But it seems I haven't.]
And in the next moment—
[...Let me repay the debt from back then.]
Its body began to swell as if about to burst.
The Sin of Greed that Alon had faced in Psychedelia had two distinct phases.
The first phase was the humanoid form currently before him.
During this phase, the Sin uses numerous unconventional debuffs and spells through forbidden knowledge—powers no one else in Psychedelia wielded.
However, in the game, Phase 1 of the Sin wasn't particularly difficult to deal with.
Unlike now, when facing the Sin in the game, Alon was joined by three party members including Eliban, plus three powerful allies.
Additionally—depending on the approach—
There were generally at least three knight orders and between thousands to tens of thousands of soldiers supporting the battle.
So when facing the Sin of Greed in the game, the main concern was:
How to deal with debuffs and near-instant death spells by avoiding or enduring them—this was the method to survive Phase 1.
But when all the numerous pages on the Sin's wing-blades were destroyed and only five remained—
The Sin would then enter Phase 2: the Monstrosity Phase.
Just like now.
"…Tsk."
As he watched the Sin swell rapidly, Alon grimaced.
Its pure white body suddenly began to mutate and explosively grow in size, taking shape.
Before he could react, it started to form the massive shape of a skull.
Seeing this, Alon thought:
'What should I do?'
Phase 2 of the Sin of Greed was essentially a final frenzy.
Once it transformed into a giant skeletal beast, it began spawning dozens of arms to simultaneously cast all the spells it had used so far.
In other words, the difficulty increased drastically compared to Phase 1.
What made it worse was that the current Sin had skipped to monstrosity form even though it still had many lives left.
That made things far worse.
Just then, as Alon frowned further—
"!!."
From the sky, a massive hand like the one before began to fall again.
Like a giant tower crashing down, the mechanical hand surged to crush the Sin completely.
|-!!!
Swallowing everything in its path and ripping the very air apart, the enormous hand slammed into the Sin's body once more.
From its massive wings, countless Sin-lives were torn off and scattered in an instant.
Perhaps, even this alone was enough to give Alon hope that the Sin might be defeated.
However, unfortunately—
Alon's hope did not come true.
The moment the retrieved hand fell once again—
Woooooooong~!
A massive magic circle appeared in midair, blocking the descending hand.
Crackkk~!
The magic circle began to shatter.
However—
Before it completely broke, dozens of hands—like those of a thousand-armed deity—suddenly regenerated and began forming hand seals all at once.
Wooooooong~!!!!
Dozens of magic circles began to form above the Sin's head.
And then—
The moment two idle hands among the many formed seals—
Alon instinctively grabbed Rine and used Thunder God's Form to escape from the spot.
KWAHHHHH!!!
As the green light devoured everything, Alon saw it.
-!
The western region of Fildagreen, now turned entirely into a wasteland.
The moment he saw it, a chill ran down his spine.
Despite most of the Sin's magic being used to block the mechanical hand—Pluto—that was falling from above—
Just two hand seals had created magic capable of such destruction.
"Godfather."
That thought only lasted a moment.
At Rine's voice, Alon lowered his gaze and met her eyes.
"May I ask a favor, just for a moment?"
Just a short request.
But Alon understood its meaning and nodded.
With that, a massive magic circle formed beneath Rine's feet.
And the golden eye that hadn't been visible until just now began to shine brilliantly.
Alon turned his gaze and moved again toward Rine, spotting the Sin forming seals once more.
"Blackie."
[Meow-]
He lifted Blackie from his pocket onto his shoulder.
"Awakening of the Shadow."
He began chanting the incantation once again.
Alon's body was once more filled with pupils, and soon a giant eye formed in his halo.
"Reverse Heavens."
The moment his voice echoed, a galaxy began forming once more in the gray sky.
Alon saw it and felt it in his core.
'There isn't much time left.'
Ever since he resolved to buy time for Rine, he had used divinity to restore his body, but—
The countdown had not reset.
"Hoo—"
As if even a fleeting moment was too precious, he began controlling the galaxies without hesitation.
With a cracking sound, red fissures opened up.
Though the Sin had once taken control of them, it didn't matter now.
The Sin didn't have time to seize control of his spells again.
CRACKCRACKCRACK—!!!
The swiftly spreading fissures brought the magic orbs under control.
Extending his index and middle fingers, he immediately fired the magic orbs.
But they weren't aimed at the Sin's body—
KWAHHHH!!
They targeted the hands forming seals.
The magic orbs, streaking like flashes, shot toward the hands enacting the spell.
CRACK—
At the same time, the massive magic circle blocking the mechanical hand began showing signs of collapse.
The seals that had just been cast toward Rine shifted in form.
But it was only for a moment.
"Ugh!"
Alon felt his limit.
His brain was sending warning signals.
A sign that even a few more seconds of maintaining this technique would be irreversible.
As if to prove it, the weakening magic circle began to stabilize again.
And the Sin's now-free hands completed their seals—green light burst forth.
It was so fast, Alon couldn't even react in time.
But rather than thinking to block it, Alon instinctively redirected the magic orbs mid-air into the green light.
KWAHHHHH~!!!
His vision and hearing were consumed by the violent explosion.
"Ah."
And at that very moment, Alon realized two things.
One was that he had successfully blocked the incoming spell.
And the other—
"Cough—!"
Was that the Reverse Heavens spell could no longer be sustained.
Coughing up black blood, Alon looked forward with blurred vision.
The attack had been stopped.
But the Sin, unaffected by Alon's desperate efforts—
Wooooong~!
Had already nullified it and was preparing the next strike.
"Hah—"
Alon let out a hollow laugh at the absurdity.
Grit—
He clenched his teeth and tried to cast another spell.
At that moment—
Click—!
Everything stopped.
The massive mechanical hand falling from the sky stopped.
The magic circle holding back that massive hand stopped.
The spell that had been aimed at Alon and Rine stopped.
The watching elves—
Penia, who had been about to rush in while chanting a spell to save Alon—
And Magrina, watching anxiously—
All of them froze.
Instead—
They all turned their gaze in one direction.
And they witnessed it.
Far off—
A colossal rift in the gray sky, like an abyss capable of devouring everything in this space.
And from within it—
"A manufactured god."
—revealed its form.
"Pluto."
The massive—
"Full Deployment."