The next second, the god high above waved a hand at him, and golden light enveloped him.
'Illegal program implantation detected. This program contains a large number of subconscious suggestions... ultimately turning the target into the caster's fanatical believer. Remove illegal program?'
Was this what they called malice?
Obviously, his assessment had been correct. Most gods were merely playing house.
If they truly wanted to guide humanity, was there any need to use such methods?
Obviously, this god had grown tired of playing and could not be bothered to descend personally. Tossing out a brainwashing-like spell was enough.
Then again, if this god was tired of playing, why not simply ignore him? Why throw out brainwashing technology to guide him toward glory?
The reason was simple: the god did not want humanity under this mythology to perform worse than those under other mythological systems. It was nothing more than vanity and a love of comparison.
At the same time, just as the golden light enveloped him, a book fell in front of him.
It was not something this god intended to give him. Rather, the wave had been a little too broad, and the book had slipped from the god's knee.
Then, as the book fell and before it hit the ground, its pages flipped, allowing him to clearly see the contents of two pages.
The next second, another wave of dizziness struck him, and his vision distorted again. The all-white Divine Temple vanished, replaced by the meeting hall from before.
'Illegal program successfully removed.'
He paid little attention to the system notification, because his brain was throbbing painfully.
It felt as though something was being continuously crammed into his mind. Like a high fever, his head hurt terribly.
So this was the consequence of removing the illegal program?
No, that was not it. The reason his head felt like it was about to explode was because he had activated the rewarded skill—Revelation.
The instant he had been granted so-called wisdom, he had activated Revelation.
As he activated it, he kept thinking about what he wanted to do most.
That was why the book had fallen: an "accident" caused by Revelation, allowing him to see the contents of two pages that happened to be related to what he wanted to do.
One of those pages contained an incantation, an incantation used to summon something.
Under normal circumstances, even if an ordinary human saw its contents, they would spend their entire life unable to understand its meaning.
Therefore, in order to understand its meaning, his brain was rapidly calculating and deducing under Revelation's effect. He had grasped the meaning of the content, but that was still not enough.
Because it was a spell used by gods, he also needed to continuously calculate how to activate it with a human body.
"Your Majesty? What's wrong?"
"Your Majesty! Your Majesty!"
The ministers had grown worried because something was clearly wrong with him, especially when blood began trickling from his nose.
"Quickly, go—"
"—I'm fine!"
After forcing out a response and taking a shallow breath, he smiled.
He had successfully calculated it.
Since he wanted to activate the incantation, he naturally needed a mysterious power humans had never been able to access—the Divine Realm.
Simply put, through Revelation, he had learned this world's Phenomenon Manipulation Arts—namely, Magic.
Good. Once this meeting ended, he would make the preparations needed to successfully activate this incantation.
This was a spell that could summon and control demons, a Puppetry spell specifically aimed at one particular demon.
God-Ascension Array?
The two figures arrived in the ninth century BC once again.
Their destination was a kingdom by the Mediterranean Sea—the Jewish Kingdom.
"So this is the Holy Land of that massive religion."
Standing on a main street in the heart of the country, Goll looked around like a curious child.
This city, as well as the history of this era, would have a considerable impact on future generations.
Mm-hm, mm-hm. For this era, being able to build such a city was already quite impressive.
"Hm? Sister Brunhilde, wait for me~"
Coming back to her senses, she discovered that Sister Brunhilde had simply left her behind and walked away.
Brunhilde, who was walking along the avenue, was also observing everything before her.
The avenue was bustling with traffic, with merchant caravans constantly coming and going.
Judging from the words and behavior of the people in those caravans, they were all quite satisfied with doing business here and looked as though they wished they could expand their trade.
The local residents around them also seemed quite satisfied with their current lives.
In short, the city was exceptionally prosperous, and people enthusiastically went about all kinds of work.
In the blink of an eye, they arrived inside the palace.
Since King Gilgamesh had previously been able to sense their presence, and since this time was somewhat strange and possibly a trap, the two did not approach too closely. They maintained a certain distance and watched.
Thinking about it carefully, the Supreme Four Pillars' attempt to lure her into summoning a fake King Solomon was simply too suspicious, too deliberate.
Even if she did not know King Gilgamesh's situation, faced with such an anomaly, Brunhilde would have wanted to personally enter the history within the Akashic Records and observe it. Would that not expose the deception?
The Supreme Four Pillars could not possibly think she was that foolish, could they? They should have guessed she would do this.
And now that Brunhilde had entered this historical projection, that was probably within the Supreme Four Pillars Gods' calculations as well.
In other words, after entering this historical projection, she might encounter something unpleasant.
Suddenly thinking of something, Brunhilde's expression changed slightly.
She recalled something that had happened in the past.
There had once been two gods who did not get along at all.
One god had taken advantage of the other entering the history within the Akashic Records and tampered with the Akasha System, causing the god who entered history to remain there almost endlessly. Only when another person used the Akasha System did they discover the god trapped in history and release him.
Though only a few days had seemed to pass in the divine realm, the tampering had caused the god who entered history to experience endlessly extended time, nearly driving him mad.
So, could she suddenly be trapped within history as well?
She immediately called up the logout system. Hm? It seemed fine. It had not been locked.
"Eh? What's wrong, Sister Brunhilde?"
Goll looked utterly confused. Why had Brunhilde suddenly logged out and returned to Akasha's Chamber?
"Nothing."
Brunhilde shook her head slightly, then closed her eyes.
After a brief silence, she opened her eyes again and returned to the historical projection with Goll.
So she had been overthinking it? Had she relaxed?
How could that be? She had already secretly contacted one of her other Valkyrie sisters. When she and Goll entered again, that sister had already arrived in Akasha's Chamber and hidden herself, ready to watch for anything at any time.
"Is that King Solomon? He looks like such a gentle person."
Goll could not help becoming a little starry-eyed, because King Solomon was truly handsome.
He had fluffy silver-gray hair, a handsome face that could charm anyone, and a friendly expression.
In truth, King Gilgamesh's appearance was no worse than King Solomon's, but the difference in their temperaments made Goll want to stay far away from him. Someone who could kill gods without treating them as anything was simply too terrifying.
Brunhilde stared for an entire day, yet she found nothing unusual. His activities as a human ruler were completely normal.
He either attended councils or handled government affairs, discussing cooperation with envoys from various countries.
In short, he was a remarkably qualified—no, remarkably outstanding—ruler working desperately to make his nation stronger.
When they skipped ahead a week, it was much the same.
After skipping ahead a month, he was no longer in the palace. Where was he? Relaxing outside the palace.
Another month passed, and he was seeing off soldiers departing for war. A conflict had erupted with a neighboring country.
A month and a half later, that country had been annexed.
They jumped directly to one year later.
It was nighttime, when people should have been sleeping soundly. Yet there was someone inside the great hall of a palace building: King Solomon.
At this hour, instead of sleeping, his behavior was somewhat strange.
Hm? He was drawing on the floor?
A circle? A pentagram? The sun? The moon? Stars? Strange symbols.
At that moment, Brunhilde's expression gradually turned solemn.
What King Solomon was drawing should not have been something human hands could create.
"Sister Brunhilde, that's a Magic Array, right?"
Goll asked uncertainly.
It would have been one thing if a human were simply scribbling at random, but Goll recognized quite a few familiar patterns.
Hm? Why was Brunhilde not answering? Looking up at her sister, Goll found an extremely shocked expression on her face.
"Is this a coincidence?"
Disordered words escaped Sister Brunhilde's lips.
"Sister Brunhilde, what kind of Magic Array is that? Do you recognize it?"
It looked as though she had recognized it. And it was no ordinary Magic Array, which was why she was so shocked.
"No, I don't recognize it. No, rather, this Magic Array looks very similar to one I know."
After saying that, Brunhilde calmed down a little.
It merely resembled it. The Magic Array she knew had overlapping hexagrams, whereas this one had overlapping pentagrams.
In the one she knew, the sun beside the hexagram was twice the size of the moon on the other side, while here, the opposite was true.
Some of the runes were also the same, but the order in which they were arranged around the circle did not match either.
Simply put, the runes, symbols, geometric patterns, and so on from the Magic Array she knew had been recombined.
So what was the Magic Array she knew used for?
It was a Divine Magic Circle that awakened the Divine Circuit. Its function was to officially elevate demigods like them into gods.
Of course, even if demigods knew how to activate this Magic Array, they could not casually attempt it, or they would die.
Only demigods who had passed the trials, whose bodies were strong enough to withstand the effects of this Magic Array, could ascend and become true gods recognized as part of the gods.
Once they became gods, they could truly come into contact with the Universal Substrate.
Then, could King Solomon's similar Magic Array truly be activated?
If it could, what would its effect be?
Brunhilde had an utterly absurd guess!
His wisdom surpassed the gods?
Could that absurd guess become reality?
No matter how she looked at it, Brunhilde believed that was impossible.
After all, the array used for divine ascension had been created by condensing unimaginable divine wisdom.
And Solomon, a mere human, wanted to successfully replicate it with human wisdom alone?
It was as absurd as a zoo monkey building a spaceship capable of reaching the moon by imitating humans.
She stared intently into the past and saw that a circular opening had been made in the ceiling, revealing the starry sky outside.
And a full moon entered her view, drawing ever closer to the center of the circle.
Before you continue