Chapter 403: The Beginning Of The End [LXV]

Tyrian looked around the ruined arcade with clear doubt.

“…Okay… even if there is a graveyard under us, how exactly are we supposed to get in?”

Kael followed his gaze to the cracked floor, then looked back at Aestrea.

“Yeah,” he added.

“Please don’t tell me you already have some insane idea.”

Aestrea didn’t answer right away.

He stood still, eyes lowered, as if listening to something beneath the ground. Then he hummed softly.

“Mhm…”

“I really don’t like that sound.” Kael’s smile stiffened.

FWOOOOM!

A violent surge of divinity gathered around Aestrea’s right fist.

Silver light spiraled inward, compressing tighter and tighter until the air around his arm started trembling.

The floor beneath his feet groaned, thin cracks spreading outward in a web.

“Don’t tell me that you’re going to—!” Tyrian’s eyes widened.

BOOOOOOOOOOM!

Before he could finish, Aestrea slammed his fist straight into the ground.

The impact shook the entire arcade.

The floor shattered like glass, chunks of stone and metal blasting upward as a deafening shockwave ripped through the space.

The poor arcade machines were torn from their foundations and hurled aside, illusion panels exploding into light before fading out completely.

CRACK!

CRASSSSHHHH!

A massive hole opened beneath them, the ground collapsing inward as if the earth itself had given up.

Dust and debris rained down into the darkness below, followed by a deep, hollow echo that seemed to go on far longer than it should have.

Kael barely managed to stay on his feet, arms flailing as he stumbled backward.

“WHAT THE HELL, AESTREA?!” he shouted.

“YOU COULD’VE WARNED US!”

Tyrian grabbed a broken pillar to steady himself, staring at the hole with disbelief.

“…I felt a barrier there before… but you broke it with a single punch?”

Aestrea straightened and shook the dust off his hand.

“The barrier was thin,” he replied calmly.

“And pretty old.”

From the depths of the hole, a cold wind rose upward, carrying with it a heavy scent of rusted metal, dried blood.

Kael leaned forward, peering down.

“…Oh.”

The hole didn’t lead to simple rock or soil.

Far below, massive broken structures could be seen, collapsed pillars engraved with divine runes, shattered weapons half-embedded in the walls, and enormous bones scattered like debris from a forgotten war.

Some of them were still glowing faintly.

“That’s… definitely a battlefield.” Tyrian swallowed.

A low hum echoed from below, like something breathing in its sleep.

“…You sure know how to pick vacation activities,” Kael slowly looked at Aestrea.

“You were the one who brought us to this arcade.” Both Tyrian and Aestrea looked at Kael, causing him to shut his mouth immediately.

Kael blinked once.

Then twice.

“…Okay,” he said, raising his hands.

“Fair. That one’s on me.”

Aestrea stepped closer to the edge of the hole and looked down.

The darkness below was thick, but not empty.

Broken divine weapons were embedded in the walls, cracked armor plates were scattered like trash, and massive bones were half-buried in debris.

Without another word, he stepped forward and directly jumped.

“WAIT—!” Kael shouted.

Tyrian immediately grabbed Kael’s collar and dragged him forward.

“Don’t just stand there!”

The two of them leapt down after him.

Wind rushed past their ears as they fell.

The hole was far deeper than it looked, and the air grew colder with every second. Strange lights flickered along the walls, ancient runes reacting faintly to their presence.

Aestrea adjusted his fall calmly, twisting his body and landing first.

BOOM.

The ground cracked slightly beneath his feet, dust rising around him.

Tyrian followed right after, flipping mid-air and landing in a crouch, his boots scraping against stone.

Kael was less graceful.

“SH—!”

He hit the ground hard, rolling twice before slamming into a pile of broken metal.

“…I’m alive,” he said after a second.

“Unhappy. But alive.”

“You good?” Aestrea turned around.

“Physically? Yes. Emotionally? No.” Kael gave a thumbs-up from the rubble.

They all looked around.

The place was enormous.

A vast underground chamber stretched in all directions, its ceiling so high it vanished into shadow.

The ground was uneven, carved by old impacts and explosions.

Huge craters dotted the area, and shattered pillars lay everywhere, each engraved with divine symbols worn down by time.

Rusty blood stains, some dried black, others strangely glowing, marked the stone.

“This is one of the front lines…” Tyrian took a slow breath.

“Front line of what?” Kael frowned.

“The war between the Gods and the Demons.” Tyrian walked forward, stepping over a broken spear taller than himself.

Aestrea listened without interrupting.

“The books don’t go into detail,” Tyrian continued.

“Most of them don’t want to. But this war didn’t happen in one place. It spread across realms. Cities were erased. Entire regions collapsed into nothing.”

He pointed at a massive clawed skeleton half-buried in stone. “That’s a high-ranked demon. Probably a general. And judging by the state of the bones…”

His eyes moved to a shattered divine statue nearby, its head broken clean off.

“A god died here, too.”

“So… this is where they killed each other until neither side could keep going?” Kael swallowed.

Tyrian nodded.

“Exactly. The gods used Mimic Tears to turn the demons’ strength against them. The demons answered with weapons that devoured divinity itself. In the end, both sides were so damaged that continuing meant extinction.”

“So they called it a draw,” Aestrea said.

“Yes. And buried everything they didn’t want the world to remember.”

For a moment, none of them spoke.

They moved forward slowly.

Every step felt strangely heavy, not because of the terrain itself, but because of the history pressing down on the place.

Broken armor crunched underfoot, and rusted weapons lay scattered everywhere, swords with snapped blades, spears twisted like melted wax, bows reduced to warped frames.

“Man… even the leftovers here could bankrupt a kingdom.” Kael nudged a shattered shield with his foot.

“Indeed… most of these were divine-grade weapons once. Time, battle, and corrupted energy finally destroyed them,” Tyrian muttered.

Aestrea walked ahead, his gaze was sharper than the other two, as his eyes weren’t fixed on those broken things.

They passed a massive crater where the stone walls were completely glassed, as if something impossibly hot had struck once and erased everything in its path.

Nearby, a demon skull larger than a house was split clean in half, its horns still faintly glowing.

Then Aestrea stopped.

“Hold on.”

Kael and Tyrian turned to him.

He crouched and brushed aside a layer of dust and ash with his hand.

Underneath it, there was a sword… that strangely wasn’t broken or dirtied at all.

The blade was pale silver, smooth and clean, as if it had never tasted battle. Soft divine light flowed along its surface, steady and calm, untouched by the chaos around it.

“…No way,” Kael’s eyes nearly popped out of his head.

“It’s… intact?” Tyrian’s breath caught.

Aestrea wrapped his fingers around the hilt.

The moment he touched it, the air shifted.

Swishh~

A low hum spread outward, and the divine symbols carved into the blade lit up one by one, reacting to his presence.

“That thing’s still alive.” Kael backed away a step.

“It’s a godly-grade artifact. It isn’t even sealed or damaged, which means that it was either protected… or never truly used,” Tyrian swallowed.

Aestrea turned the sword around lightly, examining the carvings along the blade.

“…Heaven Swallowing Sword?”

The moment those words left his mouth…

“HEAVEN SWALLOWING SWORD?!” Tyrian suddenly shouted, his voice echoing violently through the graveyard.

He rushed forward so fast he almost tripped over a broken spear, his eyes wide as he stared at the weapon in Aestrea’s hand.

“Do you have any idea what you’re holding right now?!” Tyrian demanded, pointing at the blade with shaking fingers.

Aestrea glanced at him.

“I’m guessing it’s important.”

’…I never heard about his sword before… which is strange. But what’s more strange is how Tyrian knows about all of these things.’ His eyes narrowed slighly.

’Does he have any kind of connection with the Akashic Records?’

“Important?” Tyrian nearly laughed out of panic. “That thing is a myth. A literal myth! A divine sword on the same level as Excalibur, no, even worse!”

“Worse as in stronger, or worse as in we’re about to die?” Kael leaned closer, his eyes sparkling.

“Both,” Tyrian snapped.

He took a deep breath, then spoke quickly, like he was afraid the information would explode inside his head if he didn’t let it out.

“The Heaven Swallowing Sword is a god-slaying weapon. Not metaphorically. Literally. It devours divinity. It was said that it doesn’t just kill gods… it erases their authority.”

“…That sounds illegal.” Kael’s mouth went dry.

“The only recorded wielder was the Demon God of Destruction. The strongest Demon God to ever exist. The one who nearly ended the war by himself.”

Aestrea looked down at the blade again.

“So a demon weapon,” he said calmly.

“No. That’s the scary part. It’s not aligned with demons or gods. It chooses its wielder. Only someone it deems worthy can even lift it.” Tyrian shook his head hard.

Kael stared at the sword like it was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

“…Can I try?”

“NO.” Tyrian whipped his head toward him.

Aestrea, however, nodded.

“Sure.”

And then casually threw the sword.

“HEY—! DON’T THROW DIVINE ARTIFACTS LIKE TH—HAGHHH!”

The instant Kael caught the hilt, his entire body slammed into the ground.

BOOM!

The stone beneath him cracked as if something incredibly heavy had been dropped. Kael’s arms were pinned straight down, his face mashed against the floor.

“WHY IS IT SO HEAVY?!” he screamed.

“MY SOUL IS BEING CRUSHED!”

The sword hadn’t moved an inch.

It was as if the weapon itself had decided Kael didn’t deserve to even stand.

“Heeeelp!!!”

Tyrian stared, torn between fear and curiosity.

“Well… for research purposes.”

He stepped closer and grabbed the blade near the hilt, bracing himself.

The moment he tried to lift… his knees instantly buckled.

CRACK!

Tyrian dropped to one knee, teeth clenched, veins bulging along his neck.

“Ghh!” he groaned.

“I can lift it… barely…!”

The sword trembled slightly, but didn’t move whatsoever.

“Interesting.”

“INTERESTING? GET IT OFF ME!” Kael wheezed.

Aestrea reached down and wrapped his fingers around the hilt.

The pressure vanished instantly.

“GAAAHGH… Dammit!” Kael collapsed flat on the ground, gasping for air.

Tyrian released the blade and staggered back, breathing hard.

Aestrea lifted the Heaven Swallowing Sword with one hand.

Swish~

The sword let out an approving hum.

Kael slowly rolled onto his back and stared up at Aestrea.

“…I hate you,” he said weakly.

Tyrian swallowed, staring at the sword, then at Aestrea.

“It accepted you.”

Hearing his words, Aestrea looked at the Sword with a faint smile.

’It erases divinity, huh?’

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