Chapter 860 |
Chapter 860 - Purification and Cleanup
"Everyone dies anyway. Accept me before that. That's all. Turn from your suffering. Become the one who eats, not the one who is eaten."
The soldier knew this was the whisper of an evil spirit, but it was too sweet.
It was a whisper that tickled his ear, like a lover's.
It was hard to ignore.
No matter how much they prioritized their sense of duty, there were those whose hearts were breaking.
Even if the knights stepped up to cut down the Drowned Ones and to find and kill the monsters rampaging outside, a gap was bound to form.
From that gap, the hand of an evil spirit wrapped around the soldier's neck.
He was on the verge of being possessed.
Bang!
The black soot that had been at the head of the exhausted, collapsed soldier exploded and tore apart.
It was because the fist of a man resembling a bear had brushed past it.
The soldier's eyes flew open in shock.
"Wh-what?"
The startled soldier could not continue his words.
"Rest assured. If you are eaten by the spirit, I will personally smash your head and send you to the Lord."
What is he saying? Is he saving me? Or killing me?
The soldier blinked.
His mind was muddled.
His spirit, which had been floating, was in the process of finding its place.
It was the effect of the light of divinity brushing his head.
"Hahahaha!"
The man who had swung a fist filled with white light laughed and straightened his body.
He stood in front of the tent's torch, and his shadow covered the soldier's entire body.
"If you're fine now, get up."
Behind him, a familiar face came into view.
A head popped out from behind the large man.
"Rapild?"
It was a face he knew.
Rapild spoke with an uncharacteristically clear gaze.
"We are going to restore the holy relics. No, we are going to erect a new one."
The reason Audin had said they were "a little late" was because it would take months of recuperation for the sick priests' divinity to return.
"Restoring the holy relics will be difficult," he had said after saving them.
"Instead, it would be good to erect a new symbol."
"Anything."
Rapild had bowed his head in respect and followed the two.
Audin and Theresa crossed the camp.
They stopped at every place that looked or felt impure, and if they saw a soldier in a dire situation, they lent a hand before heading to the holy relic.
The faint divinity remaining in the relic, the symbol of the scales, was barely managing to protect this camp.
If not for the symbol that now stood before Audin's eyes, hundreds of Drowned Ones would have burst from the middle of the camp.
Instead, the creatures that had smelled the humans had all flocked to the camp's perimeter.
Thanks to this, weren't Sir Cypress and part of the Crimson Cloak Knights outside the camp right now, cutting, slicing, and crushing the Drowned One hordes?
Snap.
Audin broke the pole.
He carefully laid the symbol down on the rain-soaked, muddy ground.
The holy relic that had stood tall between the tents was now gone.
The ominous rain seemed to grow stronger.
Some of the soldiers hurriedly clasped their hands and prayed, muttering for forgiveness for their blasphemy.
"…What do you think you're doing?"
Among them, one young soldier glared.
His attitude was cautious, but this was something that should not be done.
Especially when the holy relic's existence had been protecting a part of this camp.
"Be still."
Rapild stopped the soldier.
His eyes were clearer than ever.
The pattering rain still fell, carrying its malevolence, and the camp was filled with an ash-gray atmosphere.
The people's eyes were clouded with gray.
No matter how strong-willed they were or how much they used their sense of duty as a shield, they had reached their limit.
Dozens of eyes were filled with distrust and anxiety.
Audin saw this as the perfect place to spread his god's teachings.
His voice rang out amidst the spreading plague and those who had abandoned hope.
"Will you listen to the Lord's words, which rebuke this battlefield?"
With those words, Theresa began to sing.
The hymn spread, and divinity radiated from the center of the camp.
Audin also spread his divinity without restraint.
A Drowned One that was just peeking its head out to be born had its head crushed by the blessing of the God of War and retreated.
The screams of evil spirits that had been hiding in the tent shadows, awaiting their chance, rang out.
The words of Theresa's song pierced everyone's ears.
"When you walk through the wind and storm, when you try to walk a dark path with no light, I will never let you walk alone."
It was a hymn titled, 'I Will Not Let You Walk Alone.'
As the lyrics echoed, a sense of peace settled in the soldiers' hearts.
Of course, it wasn't just peace.
The teachings of the God of War were not so soft.
"I erect this holy relic, so all servants of the Lord, convert and serve the Lord's power."
"O, God of War!"
Rapild shouted with a fervor that made the veins in his neck stand out.
The soldiers he had saved on the way, those who had experienced the miracle, shouted after him.
Soon, a group of soldiers was embracing the power of fanaticism.
"Now, are you ready to smash the heads of those who attack us and send them to the Lord's side?"
"WAR!"
"Our duty is?"
"To send them to the Lord's side!"
"Judgment is done by?"
"The Lord!"
Enkrid, watching from the side, briefly suspected Audin.
'Are his Lord's followers dwindling lately?' Is that why he's seizing this chance to go wild?
Theresa continued to sing on one side.
It only took a moment for their divinity to spread throughout the entire camp.
'Well.'
Whatever the case, the Demon Realm's air that had stagnated in the camp was retreating.
For a short time, this land became a place cared for by the God of War.
The damp, humid rain suddenly felt like a refreshing autumn shower.
***
"Hey, if you fall behind, I'm leaving you."
"Do I look like a cripple who can't find his way? If you leave me, I'll find my own way back."
"Sure."
Rem and Dunbakel exchanged trivial-sounding conversation, as if they were on an outing.
It was a leisure that did not fit the situation.
Outside the fence was hell.
At least, that's how it looked to ordinary soldiers.
Monsters were everywhere.
There were also many magical beasts that had drunk monster blood.
An eagle with an eyeball dangling from its beak circled the air.
A harpy then skewed the eagle's head, caught it, and began to eat it.
That harpy was flying with pieces of rotted intestines hanging from it.
"Reminds me of the old days."
Once, when the Western Demon Realm 'Silence' had stirred, he had seen a similar sight.
It was the day all eight Divine Generals had come forth to protect the West.
"We just have to cut down whatever we see, right? Right?"
Dunbakel was also used to this kind of environment.
The depths of the East were just like this.
A place where monsters and magical beasts, killing and being killed by each other, held a party every day.
Screeeeeech!
Four screaming evil spirits suddenly attacked Rem from behind.
Dunbakel jumped off the ground and dodged to the side, while Rem swung his axe as if annoyed.
He swung it in a half-turn, and the axe blade caught all four spirits.
Swiiiiiish.
The sound of it cutting the air was gruesome.
With the light axe swing, some of the rain was caught on the blade, swirled to one side, then splattered.
The screaming spirits, banshees, dispersed and vanished.
Normally, their screams would shake a human's mind, and some of the older ones could even summon draugr, but the four spirits that appeared here missed their chance.
The axe-swing from the warrior of the West killed all four, annihilating their existence from this land.
"A good 'feel' to that cut."
Rem muttered, one corner of his mouth lifting.
He wielded sorcery.
That's why he could feel the sensation of cutting even when cutting formless monsters.
"Yeah, yeah, it was 'tasty,' right? Let's cut to our heart's content."
Rem stroked the back of his axe with his free hand, then turned.
Dunbakel wasn't playing around, either.
She moved her feet, neatly pop, pop, pop, splitting the heads of the Drowned Ones that appeared.
Was this the main battle?
No.
Just a process of warming up.
"Hey, you find it?"
Rem asked, while fighting about ten steps away from her.
Beastkin have a highly developed sense of smell.
And Dunbakel was born with a sense of smell rare even among beastkin.
"Yeah."
The white-haired beastkin nodded.
"Then why aren't you leading? Want me to kick your ass to get you moving?"
"Going now."
The two understood the principle by which monsters moved.
Enkrid had said he needed Rem the hunter.
Not Rem the vice-commander, but Rem the hunter.
For a moment, he set aside his usual role of controlling the knights.
'Monsters not in a pack scatter easily.'
A group that attacks together is called a 'colony'.
This was a borderland to the Demon Realm, and even here in the South, this basic rule was not broken.
The reason all the monsters were flocking here?
There was a reason for it.
That knight, Cypress, had probably charged in with a general idea of it.
'The commander probably figured it out too and gave us the order.'
That's why he told him to step up.
To find the 'subject' of the colony and destroy it.
If he were alone, he might have had some trouble finding the monster that was the lynchpin, but with him was a beastkin who could smell every other scent in the world, just not her own.
"That way."
The two kicked away the rotting Drowned One heads that burst from the ground to grab their ankles, and threw aside the 'plague ghouls'—the kind that explode to spread disease—as they advanced.
The types of monsters appearing seemed varied, but every one of them was rotting somewhere.
The two discovered a small puddle.
A mud puddle, big enough for three or four people to fill.
In the middle, they saw a monster that boasted a pale skull.
The monster hide it wore hung like a robe, and in its hand, it held a bent rod with sharp, jutting thorns.
"A lich."
Rem said.
"A magic-using monster? First time I've seen one."
"Me too. Only heard stories."
It was a monster born from ghouls and Drowned Ones, one that raised the dead.
It was one of the so-called 'named' beings.
The wizard born of rain who never dies, nicknamed "the bastard who dreams of eternal life."
A human-given nickname, of course.
This monster was one of the South's headaches.
To be precise, one of the Crimson Cloak Knights' headaches.
It could be called an unsolved problem, right up there with the Thornbriar Walls.
But this time, its opponent was not good.
For the monster, that is.
The skeleton monster, born of rainwater, waved its hand.
Its bones clacked and clacked, making noise.
At the same time, the rainwater bunched together, turned into spears, and flew at the two of them.
Rem, with his axe resting on his shoulder, simply swung his arm and split the spear head-on.
Dunbakel swung her scimitar from right to left, cutting the water spear in the middle.
The water spears scattered in mid-air, mixed with the rain, then turned into snakes and flew at their necks.
Simultaneously, hands of the dead shot up from the ground and grabbed at their ankles.
"Annoying."
Dunbakel muttered, kicking the pale hands and swinging her scimitar, cutting the water snakes into six pieces.
Rem, meanwhile, quietly called the name of the god within him.
'Descend. Sapsal.'
The name of a divine beast, who proved its worth by tracking and biting vile things.
It was the moment the water snake was wrapping around his thick neck.
The moment his ankle was seized by a pale, blue-glowing hand.
Rem swung his axe, imbued with Sapsal.
Against the snake on his neck, he just touched and pulled back.
Towards the things gripping his ankles, he stirred lightly, like a ladle in stew.
The motion was light, but the result was not.
Kiiiieeeee!
With a strange sound, the water snake dried up and vanished.
The same happened to the draugr.
"What?"
Dunbakel asked, her eyes wide.
"Don't talk to me. I have to concentrate."
If Sapsal gets testy, it bites everything in the vicinity.
It is vicious, rough, and ferocious.
It bares its fangs at anything unfamiliar, foe or not.
"And don't look at me. My axe doesn't like you right now. Whoa, whoa, I said no, no. Not that one. You know it'll give you a stomach ache just by the smell."
Dunbakel was dense, but she could tell he was teasing her.
"You're messing with me, aren't you?"
Rem cackled, approached the lich, and swung his axe.
Did the dying monster feel a last-second dread?
Who knows.
Who cares.
The West has eight Divine Generals.
And the axe, imbued with the power of the general Sapsal, split the monster who dreamed of eternal life.
The creature crossed its hands and attempted a few acts of resistance, but to block an axe bearing Sapsal, something with a distinct physical form was needed.
The axe flew without hesitation and, with no regard for decency, split the head of the creature who had its skull exposed.
Rustle.
Bone fragments mixed with rainwater and scattered on the ground.
The vanguard of the Demon Realm, born in a mud puddle, was dead.
Grhaaaaaa!
With a scream, black smoke billowed into the air.
The soot, which had been flowing against the rain, was quickly torn and ripped apart, then scattered.
The cleanup was finished.
Immediately after, the ones who called themselves the original cleaners of this land appeared.
While Dunbakel had found the enemy's location in an instant with her nose, the ones who had been fighting in this land found the location through experience.
"A curious talent."
The man at their center spoke.
He was in light ceremonial armor.
The sword in his hand was held outstretched, making it look a bit longer than a normal longsword.
"A step too late," Rem replied, looking at them.
They wore crimson cloaks.
Their identity was obvious, even without being told.
Well, it was to Rem, but not to Dunbakel.
She showed hostility, raising her scimitar.
She let out a Grrrr, baring her fangs.
A strong enemy.
That is, in her eyes.
"What? Who are you?"
Her attitude was that of facing a strange enemy.
She didn't know why she was here and had no interest in the knights defending the South.
"They're allies, you idiot."
Rem said, kicking Dunbakel's calf.
He was used to the picture of him starting things and Enkrid stopping them.
It felt like their roles were reversed.
"The Madmen Knights?" the man from the other side asked.
"That's right."
"Are you Enkrid? Your face is a bit worse than I heard."
The opponent, a middle-aged knight in a crimson cloak, said.
"Well, you've got a fresh mouth, starting right off the bat," Rem said, as usual.
"Do you know who stands before you, that you speak so recklessly?"
At that, the man next to him also stepped forward.
He was in a perfect stance to be 'lopped' by a single axe-swing.
The following threat was laced with killing intent.
In other words, it was a provocation.
"Yeah, stick your neck out a little further. I need to cut it off and put it in my display case."
A fierce aura flowed between the two groups.
Three or four surviving ghouls looked on, hesitant.
If they attacked, their instincts bound their hands and feet.
The murderous aura oppressed the air and even the monsters' instincts.