Multiverse: Library

"Tch..."

At this moment, Erica was biting her fingernail harder than before.

Her mood could absolutely not be considered good—it could even be described as terrible.

The reason she came to Sardinia was her own.

Having trained since childhood under her uncle, a Paladin, and having been personally instructed in martial arts by a peak human warrior, Erica had earned the title of prodigy from a young age.

Though only fifteen years old, Erica had already obtained the rank of Great Knight, not only possessing exceptional martial prowess but also having studied many profound magics and even secret arts. Whether in terms of strength or foundation, she far surpassed her peers, and even many veterans of the previous generation were no match for her.

In Italy, the only genius who could be compared to her was just one; anyone else was either no match for her or much older.

Such a girl had already enjoyed great fame and was considered the treasure of the Copper Black Cross. There was fundamentally no need for her to come to such a remote southern land and get involved in the dangerous descent of a Heretic God.

But Erica had chosen to come here without hesitation, determined to face a god head-on.

The reason was simple—she was not satisfied with her current achievements.

Once, her uncle had joined forces with the chairman of the ruling Witenagemot to confront a Campione, and through strategy, they had successfully repelled the Demon Lord, causing a global stir.

To honor the Paladin's feat, people had bestowed upon Erica's uncle the title of [Diavolo Rosso], allowing his name to go down in history.

Now, nearly twenty years had passed since Erica's uncle had been granted the title of [Diavolo Rosso].

And three months ago, her uncle returned that title.

Because he was about to become the Supreme Commander of the Copper Black Cross and could no longer serve as a knight.

However, the title of [Diavolo Rosso] had already become the greatest banner of the Copper Black Cross, the highest honorary title held by a knight representing the organization externally.

Unable to concurrently serve as a knight, her uncle returned the title to the Copper Black Cross, creating two candidates eligible to inherit it.

One of those two was Erica.

Erica wanted to inherit her uncle's title, to obtain the greatest honor of both the Blandelli family and the Copper Black Cross.

But although she was called a prodigy, she ultimately suffered from being too young, seen as lacking in experience, with insufficient merits to justify inheriting the title, and with even less public support—her support rate was extremely low.

To earn the title of [Diavolo Rosso] and gain the supreme honor of becoming the Copper Black Cross's premier knight, Erica was desperate to obtain achievements and renown.

Hence, Erica had volunteered to come to Sardinia.

Normally, when encountering the descent of a Heretic God, humanity could only respond in three ways.

The first method was to treat it as a natural disaster, an unavoidable calamity, and seek shelter while waiting for the god to leave, followed by post-disaster reconstruction.

The second was to defeat the god, resolve the root cause, and suppress the calamity.

The third was to use various means to seal the god.

The first method was a helpless move only chosen when resistance was absolutely impossible. Naturally, Erica did not want to see such a situation occur.

The second was far too unrealistic—not to mention a Great Knight, even if all the Paladins in the world gathered to hunt down a Heretic God, the final outcome would still be that the god casually crushed them.

The third was the most realistic. As long as ancient secrets hidden by various mystical factions or divine tools passed down since the mythological era were used, it was possible to seal gods with weaker Divinities—if lucky, even strong gods could be sealed.

Erica had come here to achieve that third objective.

As long as she could take active part in the greatest calamity in this world, the Heretic God, and seal it, Erica would earn immense achievements and renown, proving to others that she was a worthy candidate for premier knight of the Copper Black Cross.

By then, she would definitely achieve her goal and obtain the title of [Diavolo Rosso].

To someone like Erica, of course she wished that the god appearing on Sardinia would be as weak as possible—only then would the difficulty of sealing be manageable.

However, the situation developed in the worst possible direction.

The gods that appeared on Sardinia weren't just two, and both had extraordinary origins.

Verethragna was the invincible war god—perhaps not as famous as Odin or Zeus, but his Divinity was exceptionally powerful, definitely among the top-tier of Heretic Gods.

The other god's true name was still unknown, but being able to fight Verethragna to a standstill and perish together, scattering all his incarnations—how could such an existence be an ordinary deity?

She had to face two of the most top-tier gods!

How could she seal that?

Let alone someone as minor as a Great Knight—if even a Campione had to face two top-tier gods at once, wouldn't they likely be forced to flee?

Just one of those gods was already enough to cause despair, let alone two.

At that point, just surviving would already be a miracle, let alone establishing merit.

If things went wrong, not only would she fail to gain merit, Erica Blandelli might die before achieving anything, sinking into the Mediterranean along with all of Sardinia.

"How could it turn out like this…"

Erica truly hadn't expected that the event she had placed even a sliver of hope in would turn out to be such a hell-level difficulty.

"What is the true name of that other god? Do you know where He is currently recovering?"

Driven by anxiety, Erica began to fire off questions at Kaiser one after another.

"And that boy who was with you during the day—what's his identity?"

"And you?"

"What's your identity?"

Erica's interrogation, however, did not bring about another generous answer from Kaiser.

"You're asking way too many questions. I'm really not in the mood to answer them all," Kaiser glanced at Erica, as if he could see the anxiety in her heart, and said indifferently, "You should just go back to Milan, young lady."

"This time's Heretic God is indeed a bit tricky. Not just you—even if your uncle came, he wouldn't be able to do anything."

"If you really want to resolve the issue here, it'd be better to call over Italy's King."

Kaiser turned around, back facing Erica, and began to walk forward.

"Lord Salvatore is in South America right now; there's no way he can make it back in time," Erica followed Kaiser, unrelenting, and said, "You're telling me to retreat from the battlefield, but what about you?"

"Do you have a way to handle those two gods?"

"Wait! Answer my questions!"

Kaiser paid no attention to the shouting behind him and walked away directly.

...

As a place famous for tourism, Cagliari had no shortage of inns.

Although Kaiser had run out of money—truthfully, even if he hadn't, he didn't have the local Italian currency—still, as mentioned before, money was no longer something difficult for him to acquire. If he wanted money, it would only take a few minutes.

He didn't even have to go diving for fish. Kaiser just borrowed a bit of Hyōrinmaru's power to create a beautiful, never-melting ice sculpture, and that alone stopped passing tourists in their tracks. Even the locals showed interest in the ice sculpture.

Eventually, a passing tycoon bought the sculpture for a large sum to add to his collection, and all Kaiser had done was place the sculpture on the road and stand beside it for a while. The issue of money was resolved just like that.

Thus, Kaiser checked into a fairly expensive inn and spent the night in a room whose decor reminded him a little of Claudia's old dorm.

After one night, Kaiser left the inn.

What surprised him was that someone was already waiting for him outside.

"You're still here?"

Seeing Erica in a bright red dress like some noble lady on vacation, Kaiser blinked.

"Didn't I say it already? I, Erica Blandelli, will never retreat from the battlefield!"

Erica declared firmly.

"Who cares whether you retreat or not?" Kaiser said with some exasperation, "I meant, why are you waiting for me here?"

"You're the one who has the most information and yet refuses to share it," Erica said as if it were obvious, "If you're willing to tell me everything you know, that'd be ideal."

"Miss Erica Blandelli, I am neither your subordinate nor your boy toy. I have no reason to solve your problems," Kaiser didn't even look at her. As he walked past her, he said, "That I told you as much as I did yesterday was already me showing mercy because this is Sardinia."

"Being able to receive assistance from Erica Blandelli is an honor many beg for but never get," Erica immediately followed up, saying, "What complaint do you have?"

"Not really a complaint. I just think you're quite clingy," Kaiser glanced at Erica and said, "Where I'm going is very dangerous. If you keep following me and something happens, I'm not responsible."

Upon hearing that, Erica didn't retreat—she even smiled fearlessly.

"Is there anywhere more dangerous than a battlefield of gods?"

The implication being, if she dared to face gods, what danger could scare her?

"That's because you've never seen a real god."

Kaiser stopped, turned around, and looked at Erica.

"This must be your first time facing a Heretic God, right?"

Faced with Kaiser's question, Erica had only one reply.

"Is there a problem?"

She still wore that fearless smile, as if she didn't know what fear was.

Kaiser narrowed his eyes, his expression becoming meaningful.

"In that case, I hope you can maintain that confidence."

With that, Kaiser once again began walking.

"Where are you going?" Erica followed closely and said, "Our Copper Black Cross Spirit Vision users have sensed a large concentration of Magical Power near Dolgali."

This was something she had just learned in the morning.

"Copper Black Cross has Spirit Vision users too?" Kaiser showed a bit of interest. "Then you must've already gotten plenty of intel from them. Why are you still following me?"

"What do you think Spirit Vision users are? Prophets?" Erica said irritably, "Their visions are extremely limited. If not, I wouldn't be completely clueless about the identities of the gods appearing on this island."

Hearing this, Kaiser curled his lips.

"Then Copper Black Cross's Spirit Vision users aren't that impressive—much worse than the one I know."

If it were Mariya Yuri, not to mention the identity of the god—even what the god was doing now and planning to do later could likely be seen.

Unfortunately, to Erica who didn't know Mariya Yuri, that level of Spirit Vision was already beyond her comprehension.

"If it were Liliana, maybe we could see more—too bad she's not here," Erica chatted casually, "By the way, I mean Liliana, the eldest daughter of the magic noble family Kranjčar, affiliated with the Bronze Black Cross. You've heard of her, right?"

"Liliana Kranjčar?" Kaiser nodded vaguely and said, "The rumored [Fairy Knight], how could I not know?"

The two major magic associations that dominated the Milan magic world were the Copper Black Cross and the Bronze Black Cross.

Both were part of the [Seven Sisters], yet they were rivals—or at least competitors—and did not get along.

Each of the two groups was backed by a noble magic family—one being the Blandelli family, the other the Kranjčar family.

The former's representative was the prodigious Erica, while the latter's was the only peer who could compare to her in Italy—Liliana Kranjčar.

This girl was both Erica's rival and her complicated best friend.

Unlike Erica, she was the descendant of a traditional witch, proficient in European witchcraft, and like Mariya Yuri, possessed the qualifications of a Hime-Miko and Spirit Vision ability.

Although her Spirit Vision wasn't as powerful as Mariya Yuri's and didn't trigger as easily, it was still far stronger than ordinary Spirit Vision users—if lucky, she might really see the god's identity and origin.

"So?" Erica followed Kaiser into a deserted alley and said, "Want to go to Dolgali?"

"No." Kaiser shook his head. "I'm going to Oristano."

"Oristano?" Erica was stunned. "Didn't a 'Shepherd' incarnation already appear there?"

"I'm not going there to see an incarnation," Kaiser looked at Erica and smiled, "This is a rare opportunity. Let me show you something amazing."

As he spoke, Kaiser grabbed the back of Erica's neck and lifted her up.

"Eh?"

Erica only had time to utter a dumbfounded sound before she was launched into the sky.

"Whoosh!"

Kaiser used Shunpo, and his figure vanished from the alley.

Not long after, a silhouette streaked through the sky, darting off in a certain direction...