Paladin of the Dead God

Isaac glanced back at Ulsten. It was information he couldn’t have known without being told.

However, Ulsten shook his head.

If he were human, it might have been a lie, but straightforward dwarves, while they may act boldly, don’t bother with lies.

“There’s no need to doubt Ulsten. I asked the Thunder Artisan directly and confirmed it.”

“I was merely trying to verify it.”

Isaac responded, feigning calmness. If the information came from an Archangel, then it clearly wasn’t about a mere fragment of a fallen angel.

It had to be a story encompassing the thousands of fallen angels buried beneath the earth.

‘Or perhaps, it was pointing to something even deeper.’

Isaac thought it was just as well.

The Thunder Artisan was the oldest Archangel associated with the World’s Forge. If he was somehow connected to those fallen angels, Isaac would have access to even more information. After all, Isaac was just as curious about the fallen angels.

“This isn’t a matter to discuss in a crowded place, so I’d appreciate it if everyone else could leave. I’d also like to politely ask the King of Elil to do the same.”

Tuhalin addressed Edelred with respect.

When a dwarf twenty times his age made such a polite request, Edelred could only nod in bewilderment and step back. Soon, only Tuhalin and Isaac remained in the forge.

The only sound that filled the silence was the crackling of embers leaping from the roaring forge.

Tuhalin’s face flickered in the dancing shadows cast by the flames. Isaac didn’t know what conversations Tuhalin had with the Thunder Artisan or what secrets he had overheard. But the dozens of swords embedded in the ground reflected his inner turmoil.

Even Isaac could deduce that they symbolized preparations for war.

Suddenly, Tuhalin spoke.

“The Thunder Artisan is listening.”

“What are you curious about?”

“Do you know what it is?”

Isaac shook his head.

“All I know is what Ulsten knows. That an enormous number of fallen angels from the Codex of Light are buried beneath this land. I may have used fragments of fallen angels here and there, but I didn’t know what I was doing.”

In response to Isaac’s words, the flames in the forge hissed. Tuhalin, listening to the sound, spoke again.

“They aren’t fallen angels of the Codex of Light.”

“Excuse me? But they had the basic form of an angel from the Codex of Light. A body made of flames with six to eight wings and eyes. Isn’t that the basic appearance of an Archangel from the Codex?”

“More precisely, they’re Archangels of ‘All Faiths.’ In the past, all angels had that same form. Over time, as their personalities became more distinct and their purposes diverged, they each took on different forms. The Thunder Artisan captured the original form of those Archangels.”

Isaac looked at the forge in shock, but he knew there was no way to see any expression on the flames. The flames continued to hiss incomprehensibly.

“An angel capturing the form of an angel? That seems… out of order.”

“If I’m not mistaken, you’ve visited Urvansus several times. Then you should know that the order of time is irrelevant.”

“…”

True, angels primarily operate in Urbansus rather than the present. Even now, fierce battles are being fought in Urvansus as angels struggle to fix or alter the course of current history.

That’s why Archangels can’t solely focus on the present.

Isaac understood what Tuhalin was implying. It was possible that those angels were evidence of an attempt by almost all the faiths, not just the Codex of Light, to seal something away.

At the very least, the World’s Forge was definitely involved.

“What exactly is beneath us?”

At this point, Isaac had a hunch, but he asked the question to confirm it.

“That’s why I said I would decide on my participation based on your answer.”

Tuhalin looked at Isaac with somber eyes.

“Do you know why the gods sealed the corpse of the Nameless Chaos deep beneath the earth? As the only one who inherits his will, do you perhaps dream of resurrecting the Chaos slumbering deep within?”

***

Isaac Issacrea was a Paladin of the Codex of Light. That’s how he was publicly known.

But in truth, he was a devotee, an apostle, a pope, and a proxy of the Nameless Chaos. He was the only being in the world permitted to share the power and spread the will of the Nameless Chaos.

However, to be more precise, Isaac was an atheist. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe in existing gods, but rather that he didn’t see the need to rely on them.

“No.”

Isaac looked at Tuhalin, appearing incredulous.

“It’s true that the Nameless Chaos grants me power. Sometimes, I feel like a monster when I use that power. But I can’t stand the thought of a chaotic monster running amok in the world. Isn’t it evident by my insistence on being associated with the Codex of Light?”

No matter how much Isaac disliked or found the Codex of Light distasteful, it was still better than warmongers, recluses, plutocrats, pirates, vampires, skeletons, or marauders.

Of course, the Codex of Light has been veering into madness recently.

That’s why Isaac attempted to conquer a Holy Land on his own, thinking he had to do something.

But even those entities were better than tentacled monsters that devoured people. That was an unwavering belief.

Tuhalin didn’t respond to Isaac’s answer.

To be honest, suspicion was warranted. If Isaac wasn’t aiding in the resurrection of the Nameless Chaos, why would Chaos grant him power? Was it because it had plenty of time being dead? Or simply because it was Chaos and didn’t need a reason?

‘Hmm, that does sound plausible.’

It would be stranger if Chaos had a reason. Just as it’s possible to love without a reason, Chaos might have killed all its followers out of sheer dislike. But as someone loved by Chaos, Isaac hoped there was some reason behind it.

“I didn’t even know that what’s buried beneath us was the Nameless Chaos. But is that even possible? I never thought the Nameless Chaos would have a physical form. And the idea of sealing a god by burying it…”

“The Nameless Chaos isn’t something like that…”

Tuhalin was about to say something but closed his mouth at the hissing sound coming from the forge. After a moment, he seemed to realize the awkwardness of his silence and resumed his explanation.

“The fallen angels aren’t there to defeat something, but rather to act as a sort of lid. Their powerful bodies and divine energy were used to ‘patch up’ what lies beneath, to keep it from ‘seeping out.’”

“And that’s the Nameless Chaos?”

“There isn’t a precise term in the language of the living. To be exact, they’re more like maggots… or something similar, crawling within the corpse of the Nameless Chaos. Creatures that have feasted on the flesh and marrow of Chaos.”

Suddenly, an image flashed in Isaac’s mind—those who offered sacrifices, transformed into monsters, or sang hymns of destruction. The devotees of the Nameless Chaos. And the man in yellow standing atop a pyramid.

It was an image that hadn’t faded even with the passage of time.

As soon as Tuhalin mentioned ‘the maggots crawling upon the corpse of Chaos,’ that image resurfaced.

Tuhalin noticed the look on Isaac’s face, as if he had recalled something, and stared at him quietly.

He muttered as if speaking to himself, “You must know some of the mysteries of the divine, given your position as a guardian of future gods. Tell me, do you think gods can truly rule over humanity?”

“…Can’t they?”

While impersonal gods might be different, personal gods like Elil, the Dancer, Olkan, and Beshek certainly conveyed their will to their followers. Even impersonal gods made their intentions clear by appointing or casting down angels. Faced with their overwhelming power, no human dared to challenge them.

But Tuhalin shook his head.

“People only think that because of the gods’ immense power. In truth, gods are more entangled with their followers than anyone else. In fact, angels often disguise their authority and power to prevent themselves from being dragged down.”

Gods are the order of Urvansus itself. But the faith that shapes Urvansus is something that humans create, gathered from their individual beliefs.

Gods are merely representatives of unified will, capable of projecting power on behalf of humanity.

“The Nameless Chaos is a faith as old as the Codex of Light, or perhaps even older. It represents the incomprehensible, the unknown, the awe-inspiring, the darkness, the horizon beyond… Everything beyond human understanding bore the name of Nameless Chaos. What people could comprehend, they attributed to the Codex of Light, and what they couldn’t, they deemed the domain of Chaos.”

The forge hissed, releasing a sound like escaping steam.

Isaac realized that Tuhalin was merely conveying the words of the Thunder Artisan. Despite being the greatest warrior of the World’s Forge, Tuhalin humbly fulfilled his role as a mere messenger.

“With the dawn of the Age of Light, time passed, and all lands and seas, except the Apocrypha, were charted. The Codex of Light sought to inscribe immutable laws across the world. But… there were those who didn’t like the idea of the ‘coming paradise.’”

“Is it possible not to like paradise?”

“Let me put it this way. Imagine I’m a wealthy man who commands thousands with a mere nod, and you’re the one who cleans my latrines. Now imagine the world remains frozen in that state forever. Would you be content?”

“…Ah, it makes me want to burn the house down. And then?”

“Those who wanted to burn down the house found a source of unimaginable terror within the name of Chaos. There’s no force as powerful and limitless as the fear of the unknown. Even though they themselves didn’t know what would happen or what kind of destruction it would bring, they must have thought it was better than their current situation.”

Isaac suddenly remembered that Tuhalin was likely at least 400 years old. He would have witnessed the days when the cult of the Nameless Chaos roamed the world. He had seen the devotees of Chaos with his own eyes.

“And it was through them that Chaos became heavily corrupted.”

Tuhalin spoke with certainty, but Isaac found it hard to accept immediately.

‘Can a god be corrupted so easily?’

Isaac suspected that either Tuhalin was hiding something, or there were unknowable circumstances even Tuhalin couldn’t grasp. But he decided to keep listening without interruption.

“Whether the Nameless Chaos was pleased with that process, we can’t know. But considering it ultimately killed all its followers, it wasn’t exactly a positive outcome. Then again, since death itself is an unknown, maybe they got what they wanted. But there’s something that’s not widely known.”

Tuhalin pointed a finger at Isaac as he spoke.

“One of the Archangels from the Codex of Light helped facilitate its spiritual s*****e. Why or for what reason, I don’t know. But that Archangel defied even the orders of the Lighthouse Keeper to accomplish it.”

At Tuhalin’s words, Isaac recalled an Archangel. The list of candidates who could have done something so outrageous was very short from the start.

“She was called the White Owl.”

Tuhalin looked around as he murmured.

“This place is where she assisted in the euthanasia of the Nameless Chaos. For the followers of the Nameless Chaos, there couldn’t be a more sacred place. The gods have sealed the breach in Urbansus here, ensuring that the maggots don’t seep out.”

***

Once upon a time, this land was known as the Hendrake Estate.

Back then, it was nothing more than a remote, insignificant rural area, but the late lord of the estate, Lisfen Hendrake, and the Saint of the Sword, Kalsen Miller, who had visited on some mission, harbored grand ambitions.

Their plan was to create a new god and, in the process, declare independence from the empire—a plan that sounded like the delusions of a madman. Unsurprisingly, the attempt failed, and Kalsen fled in a panic, seeking refuge with the Immortal Order, where he became their lackey.

This was the official history Isaac had uncovered.

In the new history Isaac had crafted, Kalsen had disappeared—in reality, he had taken up long-term residence inside Isaac’s stomach. Unless Kalsen was capable of resurrecting from excrement, he would never appear in history again.

For the record, Isaac, who possessed the power of the “Intestines of the Dead God,” never needed to use the bathroom. It was a miracle befitting his handsome appearance. So, Kalsen had no chance of coming back to life from a latrine.

But today, Isaac had learned something new.

‘It wasn’t such a far-fetched idea after all.’

A Holy Land is deeply connected to Urbansus.

In other words, it’s a place where the boundary between Urbansus and reality is thin.

Kalsen Miller—or more accurately, the Archangel who had undoubtedly sponsored him—had likely intended to use the sanctity of this place to transform him into a god to replace the Nameless Chaos.

It was almost certainly a scheme concocted by the Lighthouse Keeper, who despised the Nameless Chaos, but in any case, the plan had failed. This time, they hadn’t even had a chance to attempt it.

As Isaac considered this, he understood why Tuhalin was wary of him.

Tuhalin didn’t know Kalsen, but he suspected that Isaac might be trying to become someone like Kalsen.

[End of Serialization] Paladin of the Dead God