Mushoku Tensei: Reincarnated as a Beast Race

Chapter 373 373: 373 - Ascalon’s Sacred Judgment

At the exact moment Milis opened his eyes, the enormous purple Resurrection Stone surrounding him shone intensely.

It was like a strange, wavering gleam, similar to a mirage. The crystal surface trembled, and then that entire mass of power began to come apart into light, being drawn into his body.

A white-and-violet wave flooded the hundredth floor.

The entire hall was swallowed by that radiance. The walls, the floor, the pool of blood, the stone columns—everything was covered in a glow so intense that it was difficult to look directly at its source without feeling your eyes ache.

At the same time, the aura being born from Milis spread throughout the place, reaching every corner of the dungeon.

The blue veins that had once run along the walls of the final floor came apart, as though they were losing their material form and returning to the raw state of mana.

The Ever-White Labyrinth began to tremble.

It was as if the very existence of the Labyrinth was reacting, shuddering before a threat to its existence.

As if it were instinctively trying to close itself off, to protect itself, to hide from that newly awakened being.

Milis was naked.

He remained standing still for a brief moment, looking around in silence, still wrapped in white light. There was confusion in his eyes.

Before awakening, he had met an old acquaintance in his dreams.

An acquaintance from whom he had not parted on good terms.

His lips moved in a whisper.

"Human God..."

But in the very next instant, his irises gleamed black.

A strange sludge, hidden behind his pupils, stirred, and suddenly an endless flood of memories invaded his mind.

Milis brought a hand to his head and made a brief grimace, more irritated than truly shaken.

Images, lives, emotions, and perspectives began pouring into him like a flood.

He saw years upon years of other people's experiences pass before him, as though he were watching the world through the eyes of countless individuals.

But everything revolved around a single event.

The fall of the Holy Kingdom of Milis.

Vita had gone out of his way to show only one side.

The side of the ordinary priests and knights. The vision of fear, horror, and desperate resistance in the face of an invincible monster.

He saw walls being breached, people running in panic while temples collapsed.

And at the center of it all, he saw the figure of the Apocalypse Beast leading the destruction alongside the Iron Legion.

Fury flashed through Saint Milis's eyes.

Six thousand years ago, the Beast Race was still seen as a variation of the Demon Race. The modern distinction did not exist. In Milis's eyes, therefore, the matter was very simple.

His kingdom, which had endured and prospered for six millennia, had been destroyed by demons.

But the visions did not last long.

In the next instant, Milis touched his own head with two fingers.

There was a brief flash.

And the fragment of Vita lodged in his mind was reduced to nothing.

Not far from the crystal in which he had awakened stood a man dressed in priestly robes.

He was an ancient priest of Milis, one of the members of the True Order who had resisted Gaia's rule.

Having been brought to that place at Geese's suggestion, he now watched the scene in utter shock, staring with trembling eyes at the figure he had worshipped his entire life as a divinity.

But before he could say anything, Milis spoke in a voice heavy with contempt.

"Filthy demon. Leave that man's body before I erase you from this world."

The priest did not understand immediately.

But in the very next instant, a dark blue-and-black sludge burst from his mouth and leapt out.

It was Vita.

He fell to the ground with a revolting sound, writhing slightly before taking on his slime form.

He seemed extremely cautious as he observed the mysterious human.

He had left a fragment of himself in both the priest and in Milis as a safety measure, but even he himself had not understood how Saint Milis had simply extinguished a part of him like that.

Milis cast him a single hostile glance.

And then ignored him.

Before the priest could even catch his breath or gather his thoughts, a white aura enveloped him.

A pure and inescapable aura. Saint Milis turned his white eyes toward him and asked, with a calm smile:

"Sir... are you a genuine Priest of Milis? Is it true that the Kingdom of Milis was destroyed by the Apocalypse Beast?"

The man felt his mind being pierced by that light.

It was like standing before something so pure, so exalted, so inevitable, that lying became impossible. His throat went dry and his heart pounded.

He felt that, before such a being, any falsehood would be an intolerable blasphemy.

And he answered without being able to resist.

"Yes! I am a Priest, sir! The Beast God destroyed the Holy Kingdom and erased Milishion from the map! It's all true!"

Even he seemed startled by how quickly the words came out.

He had not even had the chance to provide context; he had simply spoken at once. It was as though his very heart had been torn out and laid bare before Milis.

That was the power of Saint Milis.

The Miko of Transparency.

As long as he asked a question, the truth was torn straight from the depths of the other person. It did not matter how much someone wished to hide, omit, or distort it.

Upon hearing the answer, Milis seemed reassured and nodded.

The priest, still shaken by the sensation of that white aura passing through his soul, hurriedly picked up the box he had brought and knelt down.

"Saint Milis... we kept your sword so that you could wield it. Unfortunately... we no longer have the Divine Armor you once used..."

Milis accepted the box without taking his eyes off him.

When he opened it, he found his sword.

Ascalon.

It was a broad sword with an ordinary appearance. Its blade was such a pure silver that it looked almost white.

The guard, metallic blue, resembled open wings. The hilt, dark gray, was wrapped in the design of a golden dragon spiraling upward to near the base of the blade.

At first glance, it did not look extravagant. It was not a weapon made to intimidate. It simply looked good, perfect in its simplicity.

Milis began calmly putting on the armor they had prepared for him.

As he did so, his mind still revisited the encounter he had had with Hitogami before awakening.

The memories Vita had shown him only reinforced that. He had not been brought back to contemplate a new world—he had been summoned to fight.

More than that, he had been summoned by the Human God.

The situation was terrible. His kingdom no longer existed. The Apocalypse Beast was marching toward complete world destruction, toward Hitogami's death.

Even though he had not parted on good terms with Hitogami, Milis bore no resentment.

Not even for the fact that Hitogami had betrayed him in his final moments. Not for the contempt and mockery he had received on his deathbed.

To Milis, Hitogami was still the God of Humans. His God. The God of the World. The being he had chosen to follow and obey.

Even if he was difficult.

Even if he was unpleasant.

Even if he was unworthy at times.

That was also why he had not killed Vita completely.

He could have done so with relative ease—exterminating demons was his specialty—but he had been warned beforehand that that sludge had its uses.

When he had finished adjusting the armor to his body, Milis lifted his gaze to the ceiling of the labyrinth. His white pupils shone.

"A strong enemy is coming. Ordinary face. He seems to be a warrior with sharpened senses, and very fast. He will be here in seconds."

His gaze then fell upon Vita.

"What is the current situation, Ooze Demon?"

Vita felt insulted.

Ooze Demon.

Even so, he was prudent enough not to react.

The white aura had already infiltrated his mind without him noticing, and when Milis asked, the answer came out before he could think it through.

"The situation is terrible on our side. We're surrounded at the bottom of the labyrinth. You need to go save the others before they die!"

Milis gave him a look of disgust, since Vita was speaking in his mind.

Then he finished securing the armor to his body and finally took Ascalon in hand.

The moment his fingers wrapped around the hilt, the white aura surrounding him flowed through the sword naturally.

As if the weapon were recognizing its owner.

Milis smiled for the first time, genuinely.

"Even after all this time... you still belong to me."

Mana began to gather around the blade.

The air changed. Particles of white light appeared around the sword like sacred spirits, slowly rising.

The floor of the hundredth level vibrated, and the light rapidly grew, condensing around Ascalon until it transformed it into the center of the mystical phenomenon.

The priest stepped back, and Vita retreated as well. Even the pool of blood around the old crystal seemed to shrink before that strange Magic.

Milis raised the sword.

His expression turned cold.

He did not point the blade at a specific enemy.

He aimed at the very concept of the labyrinth.

"Let us begin by destroying this abomination that dares profane life and death."

And it was at that exact moment that Jino arrived.

Fast as lightning.

He appeared at the entrance to the hundredth floor without hesitation, without stopping to ask, without wasting time evaluating anything beyond the essential.

Storm Tremor was already in motion before the rest of his body had even fully entered the hall.

"Nine Flying Heavens!"

His sword struck nine times.

Nine flashes were born almost simultaneously from the blade and tore through the labyrinth in devastating trajectories, ripping through the hall with violence.

Time seemed to slow for an instant before the speed and precision of the blow.

The priest threw himself backward in panic. Vita slipped to the side, trying to vanish from the path.

The ground split open, and lines of destruction raced across the hundredth floor toward the newly resurrected man.

Milis looked at Jino with mild surprise.

But he did not interrupt what he was doing.

Mana continued to converge upon Ascalon. The white light around the sword thickened until it was almost solid.

Luminous threads emerged from the very air, from the mana spread throughout the labyrinth, all of them being pulled toward the blade.

The brilliance became so intense that the shadows disappeared. The hundredth floor was covered in sacred radiance.

Then Milis moved the sword toward the heavens.

And spoke:

"Ascalon's Sacred Judgment."

In the next instant, white light consumed everything.

---

Milis was known for many things.

His deeds were so numerous that listing them all in full would take entire days.

He was a founder, a conqueror, a symbol, a saint, a warrior, a god among men.

His name crossed ages like a pillar supporting the faith of countless generations, and even after thousands of years, it was still spoken with reverence.

But among all the legends surrounding his name, there was one that always elevated his image above that of a mere human hero.

With Ascalon in hand, Saint Milis was capable of destroying Labyrinths.

And in that instant, the Ever-White Labyrinth received its sentence.

The white light born from the sword did not remain confined to the hundredth floor. It spread like a divine ordinance, imposed upon an existence that should not exist.

It was a light that seemed to pass through space itself, filling corridors, halls, stairways, and chambers in the same fraction of time, as if the very concept of distance were being completely ignored.

In one instant, it was on the final floor.

In the next, it was throughout the entire Ever-White Labyrinth.

The walls began to shine from the inside out, and the corridors became unbearably bright.

The mana sustaining the labyrinth's colossal structure vibrated in disharmony, as if it were being repelled from this world.

The light rose, descended, pierced through, and raced onward unhindered.

It pierced the dungeon's internal skies like an endless white pillar, tearing through floor after floor as though they were fragile sheets stacked atop one another.

Everything unnatural within that place began to tremble before it. The evil embedded in the structure, the mana steeped in death—everything began to come apart beneath that radiance.

It was not a harmful light to the living.

It did not burn skin or flesh.

But to the Labyrinth... it was utterly destructive.

The structure of the Ever-White began to collapse.

The corridors bent into impossible angles for a brief moment. Entire halls seemed to stretch and compress at the same time.

Stairways came apart into fragments of light.

In some places, space cracked like glass, revealing for an instant dark fissures where there was no floor, no ceiling, no direction.

Anyone inside the Labyrinth at that moment felt it.

It did not matter what floor they were on, nor their strength or power.

Everyone felt that force.

A repulsion so immense and unnatural that it seemed to come from nowhere specific. It did not blow from the front or the back.

It was as if the world itself were rejecting everything inside the Labyrinth.

Warriors were hurled against walls that were no longer where they should have been.

Entire groups lost the ground beneath them at once and were thrown through corridors that were breaking apart into light.

The Ever-White was being undone.

And then, outside, in the Ever-White Desert, the phenomenon finally became visible to the world.

From the center of the Labyrinth, a white light rose into the heavens like a pillar of white radiance piercing the skies of Begaritt.

The shockwave swept across the desert sands in gigantic rings, raising walls of dust.

For an instant, the entire sky of Begaritt was washed white. Anyone anywhere on the Desert Continent looked up and saw it.

It was far too mystical to be understood through ordinary logic.

And at the center of it all, in the heart of that sacred annihilation, Saint Milis remained standing with Ascalon in hand.

----

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