The Healing Solaris Cleric-Chapter 423: Ten Thousand Years Ago (2)

Perhaps due to the atmosphere so cold it felt like even the wind would freeze, Eos was extremely tense.

Cold sweat continuously forming on his face, Eos finally said, “That is... that is far too exaggerated an interpretation. You must simply feel envy, nothing more...”

“You know that's not true, don't you?” Muldine, with his arms crossed, pressed his lips together. “Hmm.”

He seriously contemplated in that state for a while, and then said, “This won’t do after all.”

“Pardon...?”

“Your ability, you know, the Eye of Insight.”

“Y-yes...”

“It’s too dangerous. Just from looking at a space, you can understand someone’s heart. You could become a major variable later.”

“I-I don’t understand what you mean.”

Realizing something was wrong, Eos quietly tried to stand from his seat. However, an unprecedented power had already tightly bound his entire body. It was a darkness that had reached out from who knows when.

“The one who made Helik and I is usually called the Supreme God. You know he recently restructured the world, right?” Muldine scratched his head and continued, “He said the balance was off and split the perfectly fine world into the Celestial, Middle, and Demon Realms. Then he just retired. Didn’t even officially name a successor.”

Muldine gritted his teeth. After taking a breath, he smiled again.

“Well, from my position, it’s not bad. That stubborn old man never intended to make me his successor anyway. Competing with Helik and taking it myself is easier. Besides, when all the worlds were one, I saw no chance and had half given up... but I thought about what benefit I could gain now that the world was split.”

Muldine tapped the table.

“And I figured it out. A real chance I could surpass Helik.” He shuddered as if thrilled just by the thought. “Congratulations. You’re the first step in that plan, Eos. I’m going to exile you and every other god who could interfere with my plan to the Middle Realm.”

“Th-that’s absurd...!” Eos roughly shouted.

But when Muldine lightly shook his head, the darkness sealed his mouth.

“Just listen. I’m only explaining why you have to die, so you can understand before you go.” After quieting Eos, Muldine continued, “I’m going to erase all your memories and create a new species. Arrogant, ferocious, but incredibly capable.”

That was all Eos needed to hear before his eyes widened. His Eye of Insight had been activated. He could faintly see the shape of the picture Muldine was drawing.

“Hah.” Muldine laughed as if amused. “So my judgment was right. Leaving you be would have been dangerous.”

Eos trembled as he watched the carefree Muldine before him. He felt deeply ashamed of himself and mortified about the situation.

Whether he knew Eos’s thoughts or not, Muldine asked, “I heard your insight has reached the level of foreseeing the future. What do you see for mine?”

Eos tightly shut his eyes at Muldine’s sly voice. The exile of forty-three gods including himself to the Middle Realm under the name dragon. As they committed acts of violence in that place, Helik and the gods would begin to slowly intervene. Growing resentful, the dragons would turn against the gods of the Celestial Realm. And at that point, Muldine would reach out to use the dragons, the greatest power in the Middle Realm, as tools under his command.

Oh Supreme God!

A vivid image formed in Eos’s mind. Temples with the symbol of the sun melted under the dragons’ breath. Clerics and paladins tried to resist but died screaming. Not even a trace remained of what had once been a brilliant civilization where the dragons passed by.

Just how far... how many years into the future has this man already calculated?

Eos’s body trembled again. This time, it was for a different reason. Fear. He felt terror from the being in front of him, Muldine. Unlike himself, Muldine had no Eye of Insight. He had no ability specialized in foresight. He had calculated and arranged all of that using only his own capabilities. Eos’s breathing grew faint, as if letting Muldine even hear it was frightening.

“Well, I guess you won’t be able to speak since I silenced your mouth.” Muldine shrugged and leaned back against the chair. “The world may be split in three, but the Demon Realm is beyond the reach of the gods’ power. There’s nothing I can do about it. However...”

His expression remained relaxed as he spoke on, like someone who already knew the ending to everything.

“If I make the Middle Realm my land... if I fill it with my conviction... then the power I can wield in the Celestial Realm will also grow.”

He would end Helik with that power.

“Of course, it will take an immeasurable amount of time. What I want is not an unripe fruit but a sweet harvest. When the people of the Middle Realm blossom a radiant civilization and grow as prosperous as possible, only then will I move the dragons.”

Muldine’s face suddenly twisted.

“I’m not at peace either. Erasing my one and only family, it is a painful thing. But it’s merely the sacrifice of the few for the many. I will endure this pain and seize the Celestial Realm,” Muldine’s voice, as he said this, truly sounded sorrowful.

Kai, who was listening, unconsciously muttered to himself, “Lunatic.”

Sacrificing his family for his own ambition and calling it the sacrifice of the few for the many? That was no different from vile self-justification.

“Hm, it should be about time now,” Muldine muttered, staring at the sky. “Just a moment ago, a massive massacre would have occurred in the Middle Realm. Various divine powers will be detected there. I will use that as an excuse to expel you all from my world.”

Eos no longer resisted. He knew it was meaningless now, but he still held onto a single thread of hope.

Please, let this memory remain...

He had to inform Helik of this terrifying scheme now being put into action. Eos remained silent with only that wish in his heart.

At the same time, the video came to an end.

***

[Secret memory, Prologue, has ended.]

Kai stayed silent as he thought about the conversation between Eos and Muldine. In a way, it was a shocking truth.

“That was the secret behind the birth of dragons...”

It was a dagger Muldine had hidden behind his back for a full 10,000 years.

He’s a seriously terrifying bastard.

It wasn’t just because he had prepared this for so long. It was the brutality of trampling on others’ dignity without hesitation for his own goal. The extraordinary foresight to predict even Helik’s personality and behavior patterns as if he had drawn them on paper. The one holding all of that was none other than Muldine.

“Wait, then... isn’t this kind of dangerous?”

Kai’s mind began to race.

The time Muldine mentioned, when the Middle Realm would have grown as prosperous as can be, must be around now, right?

Of course, there might be an error of a few years, but it wouldn’t be far off since this was a game, after all.

There’s not much other choice since they have to keep running events like that.

If that were true, then the war against the dragon race could likely be the main storyline once the players had reached their full potential.

But this actually works out.

If he hadn’t known this, he would have been completely caught off guard. Aside from himself, the only forces currently capable of facing the dragons were maybe the world’s top eight guilds and a few underdog guilds beneath them.

After leaving the Memory World I’ll talk to Eos... no, to Lord about this.

[Would you like to exit the Memory World?]

“Yes.”

As Kai nodded, his vision shifted from the dark navy space to a rather clean cave.

Kai’s hand was still resting on Lord’s forehead. Lord’s eyes were wide open and his body was trembling.

What’s happening? This didn’t happen with Roen...

Had something gone wrong?

Just as Kai was about to say something in fear, two streams of tears rolled down Lord’s wrinkled cheeks.

“Lord...?”

Even at Kai’s call, Lord didn’t respond.

“Sniff...”

He just swallowed breaths and let the tears fall. Even then, he didn’t close his eyes. As if afraid that closing them would mean losing something precious.

Oh, could it be...?

Only then did Kai realize what was happening and let out a quiet gasp.

Come to think of it, I unlocked the memory’s lock.

In other words, he had inserted a memory that hadn’t originally existed in the Memory World. To put it simply, Lord had now remembered the secret memory—he had remembered the Prologue series Kai had seen.

Kai silently patted his shoulder. For someone who was exhausted and burdened with sorrow, a single touch brought more comfort than a hundred fancy words.

At the same time, Kai’s hand began to glow gold. It was the effect of Sunlight’s Warmth being activated, which lasted for quite a while.

As Lord swallowed his tears, the atmosphere slowly lifted. Kai was surprised when he met Lord’s eyes as he lifted his head.

That gaze...

Even before, his eyes had held the weight of time, the gaze of a sage. They looked far deeper than those of Tardal, the Sage of Water. But now, the very rank of his gaze felt different.

It feels like he’s reading through me...

After looking at Kai for a moment, the Dragon Lord slowly said, “Thank you. Truly... thank you.”

When he said thank you the second time, his eyes turned toward Kai’s hand still resting on his shoulder.

Only then did Kai lower his hand and give a sheepish smile. “It’s nothing. Just a small gesture of comfort.”

“Light or heavy, those feelings are defined by the one who receives, not the one who gives. The feeling in your touch was heavy indeed.” Lord had a talent for making gratitude sound grand. “I’ve shown such a pitiful side of myself in my old age. How shameful.”

“Just because you grow older doesn’t mean you turn into an emotionless machine.”

“When you put it that way, that is true,” Lord let out a small laugh. “All this time, I’ve thought and wondered so much about why me and my kin become dragons...”

He closed his eyes. As the eyelids covered the eyes of insight, his outward appearance became nothing more than that of a simple old man. The charisma from his younger days that Kai had seen in his memories, the intellect he had shown during his time in the Celestial Realm as Eos, were nowhere to be found.

“I feel a deep sense of futility.”

“I don’t think I could ever grasp what you must be feeling now.”

“You probably won’t. I’m certain of that. 10,000 years... a full 10,000. That’s not a short span even for a god.”

It was as if those years had been thrown away, and not because they had done anything wrong, but because of someone else’s greed.

“My kin and I had our 10,000 years stolen by Muldine.”

“Stolen... That sure is a fitting word,” Kai nodded, deeply agreeing.

“That’s why I can’t overlook this. I want revenge.”

Lord’s eyes lit up. A light not seen before flared within them, and in that space, an unhidden fire of rage blazed.

“Take revenge in my place, for me and for my kin who fell from the heavens with me.”

“I surely am one of those who want to bring Muldine down.”

“It won’t be possible through ordinary means. You are human, and he is a god contending for the highest seat in the Celestial Realm.” Thus, Lord continued, “However... what would you think if I passed on to you my divinity, God of Insight?”

Kai forgot to breathe at Lord’s, no, Eos’, sudden proposal.