The Whisper of the God of Love (Part 12)

Elka’s eyes snapped open. And in them, there was no white, no iris, no pupil. Only a void. A perfect, endless, and utterly terrifying expanse of pure, absolute black.

Her head slowly floated into the air, and then, her mouth opened wide.

In a single, horrifying instant, the monster’s massive body collapsed, dissolving into a grotesque, churning river of blood, bone fragments, and mangled limbs.

The river of blood flowed, and under the influence of some strange, unseen power, it gradually shrank, becoming a thin, viscous stream that was sucked into her small, cherry-like mouth with a sickening slurping sound.

Gulp. Gulp. The sounds were like someone savoring a delicious, forbidden drink.

And as the last of the blood river was consumed, a terrifying, world-ending aura began to brew around the floating head.

“Eat this!”

Ewan snapped back to reality and, without a moment’s hesitation, brandished his short sword and lunged. Whatever you are, I’ll cut you down first and ask questions later! I’m not giving you time for a magical girl transformation sequence!

Clink.

With a crisp, metallic sound that defied all logic, Ewan’s face froze.

A feather.

A single, pure-white feather had floated down from nowhere, stopping his blade dead in its tracks.

The feather was light, airy, swaying in the gentle breeze, seemingly weightless. And yet, when Ewan’s short sword struck it, it threw off a shower of brilliant sparks as if he’d struck solid adamantium.

What kind of feather is this hard?!

If that’s the case…

“ANNE!”

If I can’t cut it, I’ll call for backup!

A piercing scream of tortured steel!

The forest of metallic thorns bypassed Ewan and, from every other conceivable direction, shot toward Elka’s head with murderous intent.

Clink. Clink. Clink.

But the next moment, all that could be heard was the sound of countless, futile impacts. The steel could not get close to Elka. Because a pair of pure-white, feathered wings had suddenly, impossibly, unfurled from behind her head, batting away every single metallic blade with contemptuous ease.

The wings were holy, immaculate, untouched by the filth of the world. Like an angel descending upon the mortal realm, they radiated a golden, sacred light so brilliant it was almost blinding.

But…

A pair of magnificent, awesome, holy-looking wings attached to the back of a floating head… was just so damn creepy!

Where’s your body?! You could at least conjure up a body! Even if you look powerful, no one is going to worship you looking like this! Give me my little monster back! After looking at it for a while, it was actually kind of cute!

“What in the world is this thing…”

Ewan grumbled to himself while frantically trying to recall the descriptions from the original novel. He had to at least know what he was up against, right?

An angel? No, the angels from the Church of Life didn’t look this bizarre.

A familiar? But because of the Evil Gods’ charming tendency to kill their own people when they went crazy, they didn’t really have any familiars, aside from a few insane cultists. And the fact that it needed to use Elka’s head as a vessel meant it didn’t have a physical body of its own.

As he was racking his brain, the last of the blood was gone, and Ewan suddenly felt a gaze lock onto him.

A gaze from those pitch-black, bottomless eyes.

In an instant, a bone-deep, soul-freezing chill washed over him. His body felt as if it had been encased in ice, and he found it difficult to breathe. It was as if he were an ant, crawling on the ground, suddenly and completely noticed by a great, transcendent being from the heavens above. He couldn’t help but tremble at his own utter, pathetic insignificance.

“No way…”

The most terrifying, world-shattering thought imaginable began to surface in Ewan’s mind.

“You’ve got to be kidding me…”

“I just called you a bastard once. You’re not going to get this bent out of shape over it, are you?”

“It’s… personally descending?”

Even if it was just a thousandth, or a ten-thousandth of its will, the gaze was undoubtedly from a higher form of life, and it was absolutely, positively not something he could handle.

So, without a moment’s hesitation, Ewan unleashed his long-hidden, last-resort, mother-of-all-ultimate-moves.

—”BLACK BOOK, SAVE ME!”

He had no idea if it would work, but it was worth a damn shot!

【■■】

At that moment, Elka’s head… no, the Evil God’s head, opened its mouth slightly. An ancient, arcane syllable spilled from its lips, a sound that was not a sound, a word that was not a word.

It was a language beyond mortal comprehension, but the moment it was spoken, it was as if a command had been issued to the entire world itself!

In an instant, all of creation froze.

Not just Ewan, but the surging metal, and even Anne in the distance, were all frozen in mid-air, unable to move a single muscle.

Their consciousness remained clear, trapped within their paralyzed bodies.

As if they had been turned into living dolls.

All Ewan could do was stare in abject, silent horror.

And then, he saw the Evil God’s malicious, suffocating gaze sweep past him as if he were a speck of insignificant dust, and settle, with a terrifying intensity, on Anne.

Joy, and then greed. Such raw, human-like emotions flowed from those pitch-black, inhuman eyes.

“Don’t tell me…”

“The Evil God’s target…”

“…is Anne?”

In that instant, Ewan understood why the Evil God would pay such a high price to personally descend.

A God-chosen.

Blessed by a god.

And those blessings were, in a way, a partial manifestation of a god’s very authority.

To an Evil God, the authority of another god—their divine essence—was the most delicious, decadent, five-star feast in the entire world!

“How could I have forgotten?”

“In the original novel, the protagonist was a walking, talking Evil God magnet precisely because she had too many blessings. Wherever she went, an Evil God would inevitably pop up.”

“In that case, Anne, who is also a God-chosen…”

“That’s why Elka was so obsessed with her.”

“Damn it! I knew I shouldn’t have let Anne get involved in this!”

Ewan’s eyes were wide with a furious, helpless terror as he watched the Evil God slowly float toward Anne. A look of pure horror was frozen on Anne’s face as well, but there was nothing she could do. Under the absolute, oppressive power of the Evil God’s will, she was like a helpless, mesmerized lamb, unable to even use her own divine abilities.

So powerless.

She was going to be eaten by the Evil God!

Damn it. I have to think of something. I have to move. I have to stop that damn bastard Evil God. How dare it try to touch my maid!!

…

【Sigh】

…

Like a sudden, gentle breeze whispering through the stillness.

A faint, almost inaudible sigh echoed in Ewan’s ears.

His vision went black.

But he hadn’t lost consciousness.

“This is… the black book’s space?”

Ewan looked around. The pure, featureless black environment was undoubtedly the familiar space of the black book. But this time, he hadn’t entered it voluntarily.

“Does that mean… you pulled me in?” Ewan looked at the floating black book before him. He didn’t have time for anything else. He asked, his voice sharp with a desperate urgency, “Do you have a way to save Anne?”

The black book trembled slightly, and then its pages began to flip, faster and faster.

The pages flew by, a blur of light and shadow in the darkness.

Finally, they stopped on a single, blank page.

But before Ewan could ask another question, a flame suddenly ignited on the blank page.

A deep, crimson flame.

It looked… familiar.

He didn’t have time to think. The crimson flames suddenly coalesced into a bizarre, terrifying, and mesmerizing pattern.

A single… burning, ferocious, all-seeing eye.

“This is…” Ewan frowned. The light from the flames wasn’t particularly bright, but looking at the ferocious eye, he felt a stabbing, searing pain in his own. He had a very, very bad feeling about this.

But…

He had no other choice.

“This method can save Anne, right?”

Ewan reached out, his hand closing around the bizarre, burning pattern.

“Then there’s nothing to hesitate about.”