Chapter 410: A Complete Mess

“What the hell... is this situation?”

Muen stiffly turned his head, and when he saw the scene unfolding behind him, he almost jolted in fright.

The sun had grown larger.

No—wrong. It hadn’t grown.

That so-called expansion was only a trick of the eyes.

The truth was... the sun had—goddammit—fallen!

It was plunging straight toward him!

Everything on the great tower was rapidly swallowed by that crimson sun, yet even that couldn’t stop its descent. It was as if an invisible giant hand were dragging it down by brute force, smooth and unhesitating—almost gleefully.

“Why is it falling?”

Though Muen knew that the sun wouldn’t harm him, its former wielder, an inexplicable sense of dread still rose inside him.

Earlier, to completely burn away that million-strong crowd, Muen—unable to keep the Crimson Flame stable—had been forced to release the Divine Favor.

A Divine Favor was essentially a fragment of a god’s Authority given form. By all logic, once that Authority had finished burning its target to ash, it should have returned to the Withering King.

After all, what Muen had done was to abandon the Divine Favor in exchange for the pure, law-level power of the Authority itself.

Then why—why the hell—was it now coming back at him?

Your mother is the Withering King, not me!

Muen ground his teeth. He didn’t know what was happening, but almost by instinct he pulled Liya tightly into his arms.

“You okay?”

“I... I’m fine.”

Liya finally came to herself from the lingering haze of climax. She instinctively wrapped her arms around Muen’s waist, her wide eyes fixed on the terrifying sight.

“Your body doesn’t feel strange anywhere?”

Muen asked, worried.

If the Crimson Flame suddenly went mad, he wasn’t even sure he could protect Liya.

He wasn’t its master anymore, after all.

“N-no.”

Liya shook her head lightly. “Just... a little hot.”

“Just a little hot?”

Muen blinked. Since when did Brother Flame get so gentle? Its heat only made the girl feel “a little warm”? Not even as hot as my—

Wait.

A flash of lightning shot through his mind. Muen’s eyes widened in realization.

“The Crimson Flame’s target— is me!”

Boom!

In that split second of frantic thought, the sun finally crashed down onto Muen.

But the Crimson Flame didn’t bring destruction. The roaring fire surged toward him like a tidal wave—trying to force its way back into his body.

Not only that—it seemed to be searching for something. The feeling was like a child who’d been beaten outside, running home instinctively for shelter—or no, not for shelter, but to grab a weapon and head back out swinging.

But I’m not your dad, and I don’t have milk for you!

Muen turned back in total confusion—then froze again.

This time, as his body became completely engulfed by the crimson sun, he finally saw through the blazing corona what was really happening.

Falling down... wasn’t just the sun.

It was also—goddammit—a moon!

A damn moon!

Up in the heavens, a huge black hole gaped wide, and from it a brilliant white moon, glowing with holy light, looked as though someone had yanked it down by hand and hurled it straight from the sky—slamming squarely into the crimson sun.

The two utterly opposite forces collided with a deafening roar.

And right now, the moon—having the higher ground and serving as the Church’s medium of corruption, bolstered by the power of the Goddess Aimier—had the advantage. It smashed the sun, which lacked a physical form, straight down by sheer divine weight.

The Crimson Flame, in its instinctive resistance, sought support—but here in Kanteville, the Church’s core territory, the Withering King was likely off somewhere digesting the real moon.

Unable to find its true mother, the Flame had no choice but to settle for its stepmother...

Yeah, something like that.

The problem was—this stepmother had no milk either!

Muen gritted his teeth. He could feel the Crimson Flame’s frenzy as it poured back into his body, instantly devouring what little mana and fighting spirit he had left.

But that was only a drop in the bucket. The Flame rampaged wildly inside him, triggering the wounds and alchemical-core rejection already festering within.

Under the tearing agony, Muen couldn’t even register the softness and warmth still pressed against him.

“Muen...”

Liya, distressed, gently touched his face, wanting to help—but she herself was still weak.

And just as Muen thought he hadn’t been drained by Liya only to be drained dry by the Crimson Flame instead—something he’d long forgotten, buried thanks to Liya’s soul-sharing and the gratitude of the spirits—stirred awake again.

Beneath Muen, the black sea of mud began to churn. Confirming that he was completely without protection or resistance, countless resentful souls surged toward him once more.

Then—the churning stopped.

Because the blazing sun that enveloped Muen, at the moment the black sea emerged, reacted like a starving vagabond spotting a roast chicken leap out of a display window.

If the Crimson Flame had a face, Muen was sure its eyes would be gleaming and drool dripping down its chin.

Without hesitation, the sun rolled forward—boundless flames leaping eagerly toward the black sea.

In an instant, countless roars, cries, weeping, and curses echoed in Muen’s ears. The colossal resentment of a million souls did not burn away instantly beneath the Flame’s assault.

Because the sun still had to contend with the shattered remnants of that once-true moon.

The mud sea thrashed—failing to eat the roast chicken, it only cracked a tooth instead. In the backlash of that hatred, the crimson flame began to darken with a faint taint.

For a moment, five different forces clashed violently within him—

No, not three.

The Withering King’s Crimson Flame.

The remains of the Silent Moon.

The resentment of a million souls.

The divine power of the Goddess channeled through the moon’s corpse.

And the lingering mark left by the Mother of Abundance that had stirred all this hatred.

Five wholly incompatible powers crashed and tangled together inside him, a spectacle almost magnificent to behold.

“But the problem is...”

Muen’s face twisted, agony driving him nearly to smash his head into the ground.

“If you’re going to fight, fine—but could you not do it inside someone’s body? You’re going to break it...!”

He could feel his own body turning into a complete mess, a cauldron of chaos where those five incompatible forces mixed like oil, water, and concentrated sulfuric acid.

In that extremity of pain and weakness, Muen’s consciousness began to fade.

And yet—as it slipped away—he somehow sensed, absurdly, the familiar stench of being scammed.

Even though this was a place where that dead white-haired brat couldn’t possibly appear...

...

“Disciple?”

Meladomir tapped her forehead lightly, sticking out her tongue with a playful grin.

“Aiya, look at me. I went and forgot again.”

But ❖ Nоvеl𝚒ght ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеl𝚒ght) the Pope wasn’t buying the act from this thousand-year-old loli. He only fell silent for a moment, brows drawing together in a deep frown.

He looked at Meladomir uncertainly.

“You did that on purpose, didn’t you?”