Chapter 799
In front of the museum, a pale mist had descended.
Simon was running right through that mist alongside Prince.
Even though the fog was so thick that he couldn’t see an inch ahead, the moment he lifted his head, he could see those creepy, crimson crosses jutting upward.
And hanging from those very crosses, unconscious, were Professor Keyzen Grerion and his two assistants. It made his blood rush backward in a nauseating surge.
[What? The opponent is Leight?]
Prince jumped in shock at the words.
[Didn’t you skip way too many steps in the middle? How are you going to suddenly take on the current chief inquisitor!]
“I wasn’t trying to catch him, he came on his own.”
[Wait, hold up! There’s something ahead!]
Leading the charge, Prince suddenly stopped. Simon also halted at his side, raising the Greatsword of Destruction.
From within the mist, which rippled like ghostly wails, a pair of eyes gleamed.
Then those eyes multiplied endlessly, and soon, white-furred dogs began emerging from the fog one by one.
They were slightly larger than big hounds, with spiked collars around their necks. Drool dripped from their mouths in streams.
Grrr.
Woof! Woof!
Their low growls echoed menacingly. Holiness leaked from their fur, and their eyes were rolled halfway back.
They were clearly some kind of holy creatures Leight had stationed here to guard the place.
[Let’s go, Simon!]
Clenching his fist, Prince charged first.
“Be careful!”
Shouting, Simon also kicked off the ground.
Whoosh!
One of the white dogs lunged forward like a bolt of light, aiming to pounce on Simon. In response, Simon swung the Greatsword of Destruction with all his might.
Claaang!
When sword and creature collided, the sound rang out like iron smashing against iron. The white dog staggered back, blood spraying from its forehead.
‘Tough! And also...’
It was bleeding.
This wasn’t some holy creature like the ones he had seen in the museum.
‘Each one of these is a divine beast? And this many of them at once...!’
[Hidden Card Punch!]
Prince leapt into the air and slammed his fist down.
With an ear-splitting crash, the hounds were sent flying, and dirt around them whipped into a tornado.
“Nice one, Prince!”
Taking advantage of the moment, Simon dove into the swirling dust to hide himself. Leight’s divine beasts barked furiously as they gave chase.
‘If the opponent is divine beasts, then I’ll also...!’
Simon pulled a necklace from his pocket and gripped it tight.
A holy subspace for storing divine beasts. Since he was heading to the Holy Federation, he had brought it along just in case, and it turned out to be the right decision.
‘I can do anything!’
He triggered the self-switch, shifting from necromancer to priest, then activated the holy subspace.
“Akallion!”
Wooooong!
At Simon’s call, a tiny, doll-like bear cub popped out from the subspace necklace with a thump. The moment it saw the divine beasts around it, it let out a startled squeak and clung desperately to Simon’s leg.
Grrr!
Woof! Woof!
Leight’s hounds bared their teeth as if mocking, threatening them.
“It’s alright, Akallion.”
Simon placed his palm on top of Akallion’s head, as though to soothe him.
And with trusting eyes, he looked down at his very first divine beast and said,
“Transform.”
Flaaash!
The moment Simon infused holiness, Akallion’s body began to expand to an extreme degree. His fur bristled, his teeth grew, his muscles swelled. In an instant, he transformed into a massive, muscular bear and let out a roar.
Roooooar!
At that overwhelming force, Leight’s hounds instinctively faltered. Simon climbed onto Akallion’s back and shouted,
“Well done! Let’s go!”
The hounds seemed trained to hunt down necromancers and slay them when they sensed Darkness, but a divine beast and priest who shared the same holiness were not their targets. The hounds were visibly confused.
Taking advantage of that moment, Simon mounted the now-enlarged Akallion and began to run.
When Akallion bellowed, the hounds, though nervous and baring their eyes, couldn’t bring themselves to charge. The few that lunged in recklessly were struck back by Simon’s swing of the Greatsword of Destruction.
“Prince! You alright?”
[Of course!]
Simon had worried that the hounds engaged with him might redirect toward Prince, but as expected, Prince was fighting splendidly, befitting an Ancient Undead.
Passing through the pack of hounds Leight had scattered, Simon finally reached the crosses.
‘Professor Grerion!’
He climbed swiftly up the cross, reaching Grerion who hung there.
Both arms and legs were pinned with large spikes. His body bore gashes and scratches, some fingernails had been torn out.
Rage against Leight surged like an explosion, but now was the time for composure. He swiftly yanked out the nails, hoisted Grerion onto his back, and climbed down from the cross.
In the same way, he freed the two assistants.
“Let’s go! Prince!”
Placing the rescued men onto Akallion’s back, Simon ran on foot himself. Prince followed close behind like a guard, smashing hounds away with his fists.
‘I managed to save the Professor and the assistants somehow, but…’
Simon turned his head.
In the distance, sparks flew and feathers scattered in the air.
‘Will they be alright?’
* * *
Crunch.
Loraine clenched her fist tight and struck the air.
The sky shattered like glass, and from within the cracks a blazing crimson beam shot forth.
Kiiiiiiiiiiiing–!
Kiiiiiiiiiiiiiing–!
The world was dyed entirely in crimson rays. Wherever the beams streaked across the ground, boulders and gravel heated into vapor and vanished into steam.
“Hahahahahahaha!”
Leight twisted his body in the air, dodging. Throwing himself through the barrage of scarlet beams, moving as if with foresight, his evasive maneuvers were truly those of a seasoned veteran of war.
When he finally succeeded in evading every one of Loraine’s attacks and landed on the ground, the pursuing feathers of Serne disassembled, transforming into magic circles.
<Inferno>
Serne waved her fingertips lightly, like a conductor.
Kwoooarrrrrrr!
From the ten magic circles surrounding Leight, magma poured down like broken faucets.
When one circle finished spewing magma, another feather from behind would take its place, unfold into a circle, and pour molten fire again and again.
Ten minutes of relentless lava bombardment.
During that time, Loraine and Serne caught their breath, gazing ahead. Serne shrugged her shoulders.
“As expected, the infamy of being the priest who killed more necromancers than anyone else in the world wasn’t just rumor.”
At first, the two girls had driven Leight back unilaterally. Ripping, freezing, slicing, burning over and over without end.
But Leight lived. This time as well. Beyond the choking smoke, from within the molten crater where even his shape was blurred, a man lifted his head.
And then, the cross strapped to his arm was lightly swung.
“!”
Loraine instantly brought her two daggers forward, while Serne sent her feathers ahead to spread layers of defensive magic circles.
With a ground-shaking roar, a ghostlike ash-gray slash collided with the two girls, overturning the very earth beneath their feet.
“Ugh!”
Black and white hair whipped wildly as if competing, the two girls’ bodies sliding back under the shock.
Loraine, panting, fixed her eyes ahead. When she opened her trembling left hand, one of her daggers was shattered, leaving only fragments.
“Hhngh–”
Serne, who had managed to stop a little closer to the front, looked back at Loraine with a foxlike smile, raising her fingers in a V.
Loraine shouted urgently,
“Don’t let your guard down…!”
Whoosh!
As Serne grinned with the V sign still up, Leight’s cross suddenly swept down from above, tearing through her head.
Her body scattered like paint, and Leight, landing on the ground, spun and swung the Cross Blade. Loraine hastily brought up her one remaining dagger.
Claaang!
Loraine’s body was sent flying far back, and just as Leight crouched low to rush in, she extended her index finger, pointing straight at him.
[Fire!]
Cracks split open in every direction, and twenty clusters of crimson beams struck Leight at once.
Kwa-kwa-kwa-kwa-kwang!
While Leight blocked the beams with his Cross Blade, Loraine let her shattered dagger fall to the ground.
“Haa, haa.”
As she caught her breath, light shimmered at her side, and Serne appeared once again.
“You…!”
“Did you think I’d die from something like that?”
She ran her palm once across her forehead. A thin stream of blood trickled down.
“Still, that did hurt quite a bit.”
It was the first time Loraine had ever seen Serne bleed.
For a brief moment, she thought, so she’s human after all, before tightening her stance again.
The straight-falling crimson beams fizzled out, their power spent, and from the front, Leight emerged, the cross held before him.
“Interesting. For playtime with brats, this is quite entertaining. Are the next-generation rulers really that different?”
Leight stroked his chin with dissatisfaction.
“But you girls, the problem is, you’re too thin and frail. With Grerion, there was real joy in hacking and stabbing as much as I wanted, but with you, one slip of control and I might cut you in half right away.”
“!”
“If you lost an arm or leg, you’d just bawl, cry about the pain, and whine. And nothing kills my thrill faster than that.”
Ssshhk–
His Cross Blade scraped across the ground as it moved.
“So I’ll treat you delicately, like fragile glasswork, squeeze every drop of fun out of you, then take your lives.”
“Humans who trap themselves in their own little worlds are revolting.”
Serne caught a feather on her fingertip and tossed it into the air.
“Because that’s what I am. I hate my own kind.”
The feathers she threw scattered into hundreds, fluttering like rain. Then they transformed, taking the shape of ‘soldiers’. They were Serne’s summoned feather soldiers.
Clang!
Clang!
Two hundred armored troops, spears raised, lifted their weapons as one.
“Ha!”
Excited the instant new prey appeared, Leight swung the Cross Blade.
The entire charging force was cleaved in half by a single slash, torsos flying into the air, and Leight bent his knees as he rushed through the gap.
At that moment, Serne raised her fingers, smirking slyly, and drew her thumb down.
Boooom!
With the sound of fireworks bursting, the feather soldiers suddenly shifted into magic circles.
<Chains of Myriad Wings>
One hundred magic circles spread toward Leight, blazing with light, halting his movement in place.
He turned his head. Shackles of faint restraint bound his arms and legs.
“A binding curse? With something like this….”
Kuuuuung!
While Serne was holding Leight in place, this time Loraine drew something out from within a rift in the air.
A crimson body, the ground beneath its two legs scorched and blazing. It had the form of a demon with massive horns.
<Loraine Original – The Twentieth Liberator>
“Release.”
As she murmured, the seals on the demon’s wrists and ankles unraveled.
Loraine placed her hand on the demon’s back and closed her eyes. The two horns on her forehead gradually shrank, while the demon’s body roiled like an active volcano, veins bulging across its flesh.
Crack!
Craaaack!
Like an arrow nocked on a taut bowstring, the demon hunched low, preparing to charge.
“Go.”
Boooooom!
The demon tore apart the ground around it, erupting with Loraine’s crimson power like a volcano as it lunged forward.
Kiiiing! Kiiiing!
At Serne’s gesture, feathers flew ahead into the demon’s path, transforming into a line of magic circles arranged like dominos. As the demon crashed through them in succession, its firepower and momentum only grew.
Leight, shackled by Serne’s curse, wore a faint smile.
“A useful combination.”
The demon reached him, raising a massive hellfire sword to strike him down.
Boooooooom!
Loraine’s crimson Darkness surged up like mountains. The impact was so tremendous it altered the terrain itself.
“Haa, haa.”
Lowering her hand, Loraine caught her breath. Beside her, Serne watched the sight with narrowed eyes.
Ruuuuumble!
From within the thick smoke, Leight still stood tall.
When Serne looked closer, she saw his hand blocking the demon’s sword.
‘He shouldn’t have been able to break the binding curse, so how did he defend?’
As the smoke cleared, Leight’s full figure was revealed.
His left arm had fallen off at the shoulder, rolling across the ground.
And yet, another left arm had sprouted from his chest, blocking the demon’s sword.
“Not bad, but still.”
As Serne’s binding curse finally dissipated, Leight grabbed the demon’s head with his free right hand and crushed it like a watermelon.
“You’re still far from killing me.”
From afar, Loraine let out a short scream, collapsing to one knee. Serne frowned.
“You look confused. I concentrated holiness into my shoulder and tore off my own arm.”
Leight replied calmly, kicking the severed arm on the ground.
“My self-regeneration magic instantly heals any damaged part of my body. But I shifted the regeneration point from my shoulder to my chest. That’s how an arm sprouted there.”
With his other hand, he yanked the chest-arm off—splurt!—and again, self-regeneration formed a brand-new arm from the bloodied shoulder.
“When you roll around the battlefield, it’s not unusual to fight with dozens of extra arms hanging off. Why look at me like I’m some monster? Necromancer trash.”
The true terror of the infamous inquisitor Leight was not his transcendent physical prowess, nor his skill in swordsmanship, nor even his recovery.
Among the necromancers Leight had slain, there were those stronger than him, yet they all died, and he lived.
His true strength was infinite holiness. As long as his obsession and resolve did not waver, Leight endlessly drew on holiness. Even with his head crushed or his heart pierced, he revived and pursued his target to the ends of hell.
“You still have strength left, don’t you? Make me enjoy this more!”
He gripped the Cross Blade anew and swung it savagely. In an instant, gale winds and dust filled the area, and Leight stormed past Serne, charging straight at Loraine, who still hadn’t recovered from the backlash of her own attack.
“Let’s see if necromancers can regenerate arms too!”
The Cross Blade descended toward Loraine’s shoulder—
“!”
A white blade slipped in between.
Claaang!
With a ringing note of clarity, Leight’s cross was forced upward. A formless cloak whirled fiercely, delivering a second strike.
Chooong!
Leight grimaced, blocking the blow, and stepped back.
Loraine’s eyes widened.
“No way…!”
Fwoooosh!
Clad in Feer, standing tall and resolute, Simon spoke to the two of them.
[Run. I will face him.]
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