Berserk of Gluttony (LN) - Volume 8 - Chapter 27

Chapter 27:

A Door Opened

THE BLACK FLAMES spread quickly. They wouldn’t burn me, their caster, but they also wouldn’t extinguish until everything else had been completely burned through. I had never once seen these flames extinguished except for when I myself willed it.

“Take this!”

The flames raced along the black threads and slammed into the black angel’s blue flames as if they were alive. The black flames were pushed back for just a moment, but they quickly engulfed and devoured the freezing fire before speeding onward to the black spear.

The black angel let out another roar and looked straight at me. The sacred mark on its pitch-black mask grew an even brighter shade of red. It was not about to give up. In the air behind it, the black cubes were in the process of activating the magic seal they had formed. 

I was running out of time, and fast.

The spear appeared behind me, racing from a portal jump to impale my heart.

“Saw that coming!” I cried.

I knew the black angel’s attacks. As long as I stayed focused, evading its portal jumps was simple. But I let the blade stick into my side, so the black angel couldn’t use its other spear attacks. If it was capable of combining its skills, then it would have used them long ago. The black spear’s attacks were manifestations of its wielder’s emotions, and it couldn’t layer those emotions upon one another.

The black angel was defenseless. There was no way out.

“Press the attack!”

The black flames responded to my shout, engulfing the black angel before rising into a flaming crucifix. The explosion sent the black angel plummeting to the ground. Its wings were charred as the black flames continued to eat away at both them and the angel’s body.

“Hurry,” I heard Greed say. “We have to blow up the black cubes!”

But as I watched the black angel fall from the sky, I saw its mask burn away and a fracture run through its glowing sacred mark. Through a broken section of that mask peered the pained face of my father. Before I could even think, I was already running toward him.

The black cubes released a light like that of the sun. As that blinding light fell upon me, I took my father in my arms. Greed and I separated from the Crossing.

“Dad!” I cried.

“What are you doing? There are much bigger things for you to worry about…than me…”

I extinguished the black flames.

“Damn it! You idiot!” I shouted, my words echoing into the sky.

My father simply nodded. As he did so, the black mask and his sacred mark both crumbled away. My father was free of what had bound him.

“I have completed my task,” he said.

The moment he murmured those words, the sky above the imperial capital tore apart, revealing another world entirely. The black cubes fell from the sky like rain, their mission now complete.

“So this is how it’s going to be in the end…” muttered my father.

He was beaten and battered. The black flames and poison had taken their toll. He’d used the black spear for far too long, too. It had sapped away his blood. Even if the wielder could suppress Vanity somewhat, it was impossible to subdue completely. Every Weapon of Mortal Sin came with a cost.

“I’ll heal you,” I said.

I transformed the black gauntlets into the black stave, but before I could do anything, my father stopped me.

“Don’t,” he said. He looked up at the huge wound that had opened in the sky. “Don’t waste your energy. The battle’s not over yet.”

“But, Dad…”

“I told you that you’d have to kill me. In any case, I died a long time ago.”

The words froze me in place. I still remembered his death. But I had always wondered what’d happened. I hadn’t known for the longest time. But after facing my Gluttony, I understood.

The being known as Fate was, in fact, two people. Two separate personalities—my own and one other. The other Fate was aggressive and combative. At times, he had swayed my own behavior. That unstoppable rage had manifested itself in the spiritual plane as Fake Fate. Even now, my other personality despised me and waited for a chance to take over.

That Fate should have become the true Fate, but my father hadn’t allowed that to happen. I’d learned this during my battle against Kairos. My missing memories fell into place, and I finally understood who I really was. If Eris was constructed from a collection of monsters, then I was constructed from the souls Gluttony had devoured.

My father reached out and touched my face. “You look just like your mother,” he said. “You’re a man now… You’re all grown up, Fate.”

“No, Dad, I…”

“You have it all wrong, Fate.”

“I’m not your son. I’m a fake made by Gluttony…” I said, struggling to vocalize the words I never wanted to say. “Your real son is trapped within it…”

“You are my son,” said my father, shaking his head. “The Fate trapped within you is the holy beastfolk who inherited my power. You are no fake. You weren’t created by Gluttony. You are a human who inherited his mother’s traits. However, the Gluttony skill is far too powerful for a human to bear. The moment you were born, you were consumed by Gluttony.”

“But I’m here… I don’t… No…”

I had a memory of my mother being killed by my Gluttony. I had always thought it was the strain that the skill put on her.

“Yes. Your mother didn’t die giving birth to you. She gave up her soul to save you from Gluttony. With her physical connection to you, she was the only one who could do it.”

My father then pointed to my navel, indicating that it was the umbilical connection between us. At that point in time, my mother, too, had been connected to Gluttony.

“She paid the price of her own soul in order to lift you from Gluttony. But your soul was already mixing with those Gluttony had once devoured, and they could not be separated on such a deep level. Your mother formed a wall to protect you and keep you from it.”

“She protected me?” 

I thought back to the day Gluttony had first activated. I’d been on guard duty at Seifort and had killed a bandit who’d snuck into the castle. I remembered the feeling of release and the voice that spoke as a new power flowed into me.

“Your mother wanted you to live an ordinary life. But this world is one where skills trump all, and lives are determined by the skills one inherits. It is not something that can be overturned merely by hard work. For one with a skill that is locked away and otherwise useless, it is a harsh, unforgiving world.”

Dad had always worried about me—about this very thing—right up until the moment he died.

“I could easily imagine your Gluttony awakening after I died. But it seems my worst fear never came to pass.”

“What do you mean?”

“You were not consumed by Gluttony. Instead, you have maintained equilibrium. Rest easy, Fate. You are a human at your core. You are not an imposter constructed from other souls. Your mother watches over you, even now.”

“Dad…”

I laid my father down somewhere safer to rest.

“Looks like your friend is here,” he said.

I turned to find Eris standing behind me. Her clothes were in tatters, and I wasn’t sure where to put my eyes. But she had managed to survive the black angel’s freezing power, at the very least.

“That was one hell of a family squabble,” she said. “But I’m glad you managed to work things out. I know you’ve probably got stuff to talk about, but I don’t think that’s going to wait for us.”

The tear in the sky was slowly widening. A bright-red light streamed from the opening. It struck me as a place not unlike my Gluttony—a place where the dead writhed. It was not a place for the living.