Chapter 54

There are three apostles of Horus in total.

All three of them had come to Korea.

The first apostle of Horus was a hunter of pure Egyptian blood, named Radames.

He was tall beyond the average, with the dusky skin typical of Middle Eastern people, and heavy eye makeup like an ancient pharaoh.

He claimed to be a descendant of pharaohs and was a strange fellow who prayed to his god almost every day.

He had a fierce loyalty to Horus, the emblem of the pharaoh, and even in a past life he had a certain connection.

—“I will avenge that monster who killed my ancestor and pharaoh, Lord Horus.”

In his previous life, he stood at the head of the vanguard that tried to kill the night-eating fiend that had devoured Horus, and he died fighting to the end for his god.

He had the death befitting an apostle of Horus, the god of vengeance.

The second apostle was a warrior from Russia, the revenant Nikolai Igor.

Horus had taken him in and raised him as a warrior after his family had all been killed by monsters.

Unlike Radames, he swore loyalty to Horus for a different reason.

He was loyal as a guardian of the lord who had completed his revenge.

Together with Radames, he was one of Horus Guild’s finest warriors for executing Horus’s enemies.

Seeing the giant over two meters tall flying swiftly through the sky could even inspire terror.

But the truly frightening thing about these two wasn’t their size or strength.

It was magic.

They had been blessed by the greatest mage of the heavens’ renown.

It was natural that magic, rather than brute force, was the more powerful tool.

I had seen their fighting styles so many times I’d grown tired of them.

They fought with each other sometimes, and sometimes hunted monsters together.

When those guys rained down fire magic from the sky, they looked like bombers.

However, the real problem was the third apostle.

She was Korean and her name was Kim Young-ah.

Unlike the other two, there was almost no information about her from past lives.

By the time I learned anything, all I knew was that in a past life she had already been absorbed by the night-eating fiend together with Horus.

According to what Lee Soo-yeon told me:

—“Horus came here for a direct reason. He met Kim Young-ah in Russia and took her as an apostle to raise her.”

—“Unlike the other apostles, she’s been observed using magic of more than three different attributes.”

A multi-attribute mage.

Among the gods of Egyptian myth, a mage who could use more than three attributes was an extremely rare resource.

By the law set by the sun god Ra, each god had a single prescribed attribute, and thus mages blessed by those gods commonly used magic of only one attribute.

Occasionally a mage using two attributes would appear, but that was very rare.

But someone with three or more attributes — multi-attribute — that was something Horus would cherish.

“If it’s just Horus himself, I can handle him easily.”

After all, he’d already killed an intermediate god like Hephaestus.

But even among gods of the same rank, their renown and the number of followers they commanded made a difference.

Considering divine power and divinity vary depending on the number of guild members they had, Hephaestus might even hold some advantages.

The real problem was the apostles and guild members around him.

We had to deal with them all.

“It won’t be easy.”

Of course, that didn’t mean it was impossible.

I was far stronger than when I caught Hephaestus, and I had an ally named Jormungandr.

I’d also gathered all the equipment I needed to win.

“There’s a possibility.”

What mattered was the ability and the will to carry it out.

Lee Soo-yeon, who was sitting in the passenger seat beside me, clenched and unclenched her fists several times as if nervous — not like when she first got in.

“Horus… we’re really going to kill a god, right?”

“Yes. Is it starting to sink in now?”

“Not yet. When we actually face him, it might get scarier.”

She swallowed, made a small gulping sound, and spoke.

“But is it really the right choice that I have Arachne’s pocket of spider silk?”

“You’re not just going to stand by and watch.”

“That’s true, but… it’s such an important mission.”

“Are you scared?”

“A little nervous.”

She took several deep breaths to calm herself, then swallowed again.

“I’ll try my best.”

She fidgeted with the pouch filled with Arachne’s web and spoke.

Arachne had been cursed into a spider as punishment for her weaving skill — or rather, for exposing the gods’ misconduct and hypocrisy, and thus incurring Athena’s wrath.

I thought she hadn’t become a spider simply because of her weaving skill.

She represented the hypocrisy and contradiction of the gods.

They professed to be righteous on the surface, but when someone insulted or surpassed them they couldn’t overcome their jealousy and mercilessly killed people.

Although she had died and been reborn as a spider in myth, Arachne had not descended in this world as either a divine spirit or a hero.

She did not manifest, but in our world there was Arachne’s pocket.

Hunters sometimes called giant spider monsters that appear from the Abyss “Arachne.”

Athena had first discovered that monster, and when Arachne was hunted and the spider’s nest was found, hunters named the nest “Arachne’s pocket.”

“You should be able to use it well. If it looks too dangerous, isolate the area with space separation for a while. You’ll be safe during that time.”

“Okay.”

After repeating deep breaths, her tension eased a little and she opened her mouth again.

“Ahem, come to think of it, how far did I tell you?”

“Horus is a god of the heavens here, but in myth he was more focused on war and revenge to claim the king of the gods’ position.”

“That’s right. What we need to consider here is that Horus might be a versatile god…”

Rather than being intimidated, she became more talkative.

Being nervous didn’t make her make mistakes, so talkative was better than shutting down.

At the foot of a mountain in Yangju, Gyeonggi Province.

What used to be a resort for skiing had become a deserted wasteland that no one visited.

Most of the resort had been destroyed by the effects of an Abyss that appeared during a past Great Descent, and after more than a thousand people died there, people avoided the place, saying it was haunted.

And now it had become the stronghold of the otherworldly god Yamyeonggoe.

“Leader, Azur’s side has gone dark.”

“I know. They made it a big headline on the news.”

The apostate leader of the Yamyeonggoe worshipers, Lee Jung-woon, clicked his tongue and watched TV.

Only a few months ago, Azur’s cult had been functioning normally — and now there was unbelievable news that Viking-looking men had annihilated them.

“Those stupid gods really wiped out Azur’s believers?”

It was incomprehensible.

The Great Descent of Azur had been something the Azur cult had been preparing for a long time.

After the first Great Descent, those chosen by the exalted otherworldly leaders were no longer false gods who were little different from humans; they prepared for a long time to make true gods descend into our world.

In particular, the Azur cult disguised itself as a newly created religion and had made several coastal towns and villages along the east coast of Gangwon Province its territory.

Jormungandr had been blocking the passage where their god would descend, but they planned to kill Jormungandr by using divisions among the gods and poison the East Sea area, making it into a death sea.

If Azur descended on that sea, it would become an impregnable fortress impossible to subdue.

Those fools who loudly proclaimed they were supreme gods had been busy spreading their faith in Seoul where people were densely gathered.

They expected no one could possibly predict their plan.

But the Viking men on the screen had smashed that expectation.

‘Gunter…’

The miserable Viking who’d been driven out of Germany after killing the German heroes Siegfried and Kriemhild.

Was Azur’s cult leader really that weak? Had he been killed by the author?

No.

Absolutely not.

There was definitely someone helping behind the scenes.

Who could it be?

Ares, who appeared on the news alongside them?

No. It wouldn’t be that fool.

If it were Ares he could have beaten the cult leader easily, but he wouldn’t be clever enough to know our plan.

“Like an idiot. Believing in whales made their intelligence sink below a whale’s.”

He left without leaving a single clue.

The original plan had been to have four cults in the Korean Peninsula — each worshipping a great god — begin the descent in their respective places: Azur on the east coast of Gangwon, Yamyeonggoe in Gyeonggi, Dvauchi in Cheorwon, Gangwon, and Seliba in Jirisan.

Using the power of these descended great gods, they would make other gods descend in a chain reaction, recreating the Great Descent that had happened in the past.

But the Abyss meant for Azur was completely sealed, and the Jormungandr that had been blocking that gate was freed.

The very first step of the plan went badly wrong.

“Those idiot whale gods made trouble for our grand scheme, but there’s something to be glad about.”

Lee Jung-woon, the leader of the Yamyeonggoe worshipers, placed his hand on the crystal on the table.

Horus’s face reflected in the crystal.

“He’s arrived in Yangju city. Faster than I thought.”

Horus.

The god of the heavens who had been robbed of the sun god’s position.

A god dissatisfied with the current Egyptian order, sharpening his blade for revenge.

And the one who would become the light for the great Yamyeonggoe.

The incomplete hawk of the heavens was approaching them.

If it wasn’t Ares, could it be Horus?