episode_0055

*

The hallway began to fill with dirty blood and filth.

An unbearable stench emanated from the disgusting, stagnant water that reached up to his ankles.

A smell potent enough to break down a human’s mind and throw them into chaos.

Blood poured from the cracks in the walls, and the Order’s decorations adorning the hallway began to twist grotesquely.

An irritating noise and the high-pitched flapping of wings buzzed in his ears.

Touch, sight, smell, hearing.

It was a cunning trick of the devil to induce errors in human senses and judgment, leading them to make mistakes.

Mainly used to make victims flee in the wrong direction or to mock arrogant humans who dared to resist,

This was a method favored by demons who, besides tempting humans, would establish themselves on Earth and then cruelly torment and kill any humans who approached.

Haunted houses or abandoned ruins rumored to be haunted were typical spaces defiled by such spells.

“It’s always a hellish sight.”

But the Priest was already used to such tricks.

Father Theodore, who preferred fighting demons in the field rather than formal and solemn exorcism rituals, had sought out such places and beat down demons.

To put it mildly, until he came to the island, he had spent more time in hells created by demons than in cities built by humans.

In the past few months of peaceful life on the island, it felt like his fading instincts were vividly reviving.

“Feels like coming home.”

The Priest slowly raised his fist, wrapped in a rosary, and glared at the demons.

Demons who had faced Father Theodore directly, even once, screamed in desperation while hesitating and stepping back.

Demons who had only heard of him were trying to intimidate him by constantly spewing out disgusting blood, guts, and filth.

However, the Priest snorted and grabbed Lucia, who was lying on the floor drenched in dirty filth, and lifted her up, saying,

“Lucia,”

“F, Father…”

“Take Kunat’s head and go to my room. Close the door tightly.”

“… Father… alone… are you okay…”

“I’m fine. Anna will be collapsed and tied up in my room. Don’t be surprised, I did it, and never untie her.”

“…”

Lucia closed her mouth and only nodded.

The Priest’s tone sounded as friendly as usual, but his angry gaze was fixed straight ahead at the demons, not Lucia.

The Priest pointed his index finger at Kunat’s head, held in Lucia’s arms, and continued.

“Kunat.”

“…”

“Let’s talk later.”

“… Hng,”

Kunat, with only his head remaining, involuntarily swallowed.

Even Kunat, who had never hidden his glib attitude in front of the angry Priest, couldn’t say anything.

Kunat knew instinctively, having walked the tightrope just barely within the limits he could endure.

If he teased him now, he would really die.

“Go now.”

The Priest said briefly and lightly pushed Lucia’s body.

A small lightning bolt seemed to flicker from the Priest’s fingertips, and Lucia’s body flew backward as if being sucked into the Priest’s room.

He slowly closed the door and walked to the center of the hallway, standing upright.

Taking out a cigarette from his pocket and placing it between his lips, the Priest raised his index finger and strongly waved it at the wall dripping with blood.

Golden lightning flashed between the wall and his finger, and a yellow light instantly bloomed from his fingertip.

Lighting the cigarette with his flaming finger, the Priest slowly took a drag, raised his head, and exhaled the smoke.

His attitude of leisurely smoking a cigarette in the middle of the hallway teeming with demons revealed an arrogant aura.

“Hoo,”

The Priest opened his mouth quietly.

“Why are you just watching? Are you going to wait until I finish smoking?”

The demons twitched with humiliation but couldn’t bring themselves to step forward.

The demons weren’t like foolish humans who couldn’t gauge their opponents and rushed in to meet their deaths.

They all knew it.

If they got close to the Priest now, they would be defeated.

The demons were confused.

They had heard that he had been defeated by a monster, but he looked too fine for that.

He was exuding an even fiercer aura than when they had met him before.

He possessed even more powerful holy power than they had heard.

Only one thing matched the rumors.

Only his fierce appearance and deep, low voice.

“I’m in a very bad mood right now.”

The Priest continued, exhaling smoke filled with the scent of herbs steeped in Holy Water.

“A filthy monster pierced my stomach, demons came into my house with their disgusting feet, they swung around the children I protect as they pleased, and when I came to my senses, some Succubus was sucking my dick.”

As anger seemed to seep out of every word he uttered, the demons twitched greatly.

The Priest took one last deep drag of cigarette smoke and threw the half-smoked cigarette into the dirty blood filling the floor.

“So, all of you, go back where you came from.”

“…”

“Like nothing ever happened…”

“I can’t take it anymore!”

The Thorn Lord rudely interrupted the Priest’s words, shouting loudly.

Shaking his twisted head wildly and slowly raising his bent neck, the Thorn Lord approached the Priest and said,

“You’re too arrogant for a human, Priest. No matter how famous you are as a Demon Butcher, how can you deal with this number of us!”

“…”

“Even if half of us are burned by you and sent to Hell, the remaining half is more than enough to play with the women you cherish.”

“…”

“No, there’s no need for that. You’ve already lost. While you were sleeping without knowing the world, all the nuns have already fallen into the clutches of demons!”

“Rest assured.”

This time, the Priest answered as if cutting off the Thorn Lord’s words.

“What?”

“Rest assured. Don’t worry about anything.”

“… What does that mean…”

The Thorn Lord’s vision suddenly darkened.

No, it was that Father Theodore had suddenly run up to the Thorn Lord’s eyes.

The Priest struck the Lord’s dangling head.

With a loud roar, the Lord, whose neck was bent in the opposite direction, struggled to raise his twisted head, only to find half of his face burned away in the shape of a fist.

The Priest grabbed the Thorn Lord’s head, which had a large hole in it, and wore a twisted smile.

“…!”

“I don’t expect you to be scared of just one of me and quietly go back. After all, you demons are a symbol of terror to us.”

“Y, you…”

“All of you will fight valiantly with me and return to your homes with one limb or another torn off by my hand.”

The Priest forcefully pulled the Thorn Lord’s head from its twisted neck.

Covered in the jet-black, sticky liquid gushing from the drooping throat, the Priest said,

“I’ll ignore you even if you beg me to spare your life, so you won’t have to experience the humiliation of running away shamefully. So, everyone, rest assured and charge.”

The demons screamed and rushed at the Priest.

Whether they could win or not, such calculations and predictions were already useless.

If they couldn’t get rid of him, they would all suffer terrible fates.

That one unchanging truth was engraved in the demons’ minds like letters written with a stiff quill.

Father Theodore quickly unwound the rosary wrapped around one fist and swung it like a whip.

The torsos of the demons rushing toward him were sliced off in chunks by the whip’s end, imbued with divine power, and fell to the floor.

The demons’ bodies, spewing jet-black ashes and sticky liquid from the cross-sections, let out pathetic screams before disappearing.

A demon who was already close had his body burst by the holy power filling the fist wrapped in the rosary, and the demons who were backing away from that sight were caught by the flying rosary string and had their necks severed.

“Come on.”

“Kiiiik”

The Priest laughed, covered in the jet-black liquid and ashes splattering all over his body.

As it was something he had done all his life, it was so natural that it somehow resembled Lucia fighting the monster.

As Kunat always said, the Priest certainly belonged in Hell.

His nature was that of a priest who rightly guided the world, and his desire was to kill demons.

To Kunat, he must have looked like a demon killing demons.

And now, so did the other demons filling this hallway.

The Priest busily moved both hands, bursting the demons’ bodies.

Among the demons, there were those who regarded pain as a game, and there were those who didn’t know pain, but there were few who enjoyed even the pain of their souls burning with holy power.

In the first place, holy power was the Goddess’ power to burn away evil, and if they were hit with a sufficient concentration of holy power, the demons would have no choice but to die.

It was just that even the most devout priest couldn’t possess such a high concentration of holy power in a human body, and even the holy power that Father Theodore was emitting now wasn’t enough to completely kill them, but it could still drive the demons close to death.

In the first place, it was impossible to be calm in the face of holy power, the Goddess’ power, unless they were crazy like Kunat.

“… Kiiiik!”

“Oh dear,”

Of course, no matter how much he flew and ran, Father Theodore was ultimately just a human.

The demons, who were far ahead of humans from the very source of their species, couldn’t just be helplessly beaten without even retaliating once.

Countless hands stretched out from the opaque stagnant water that had risen to his calves, grabbing the Priest’s body,

And the sharp thickets of thorns summoned by the Thorn Lord, who was still not dead, stabbed and wrapped around the Priest’s body wildly.

The demons’ sharp spears flew towards the Priest, and a giant beast of Hell that suddenly appeared crushed the Priest’s body.

But each time, the Priest lightly dusted himself off and got up again.

The things that had wrapped around him burned and bounced off, and the spears turned into black ash before they could pierce his body, barely leaving a scratch.

In the process, the demons witnessed that the Priest’s body was being protected by holy power that danced like lightning.

Sola, who had been watching the Priest quietly after getting up from where she had fallen, muttered with a shocked expression.

“Lightning of the Goddess…”

Lightning of the Goddess.

That was the epithet of the Archangel Sandalphon.

Could it be that Father Theodore was an incarnation of Sandalphon?

The angel army that confidently invaded the middle of Hell and hunted down every demon in sight.

And Sandalphon, the vanguard leading that army, cut down demons and Satans with overwhelming power.

Just like the Priest right now.

*

“Hoo… there are so many. These disgusting things.”

The Priest was leaning against the wall with one arm, breathing heavily.

Although it couldn’t compare to the demons’ bodies piled up on the floor, his body was also gradually accumulating wounds and fatigue.

In the first place, even though Kunat had healed him, he wasn’t in very good condition since his stomach had been pierced yesterday.

It wasn’t to the point where it was difficult to fight, but the biggest problem was that no matter how much he fought, the number of enemies didn’t decrease, and he couldn’t easily catch his breath because he was only fighting in the narrow hallway.

The demons were also aiming for that.

No matter how much he flew and ran, he was still just a human.

Even if holy power flowed out endlessly, his stamina wouldn’t.

The demons attacked the Priest again to prevent him from resting.

They poured curses on him along with physical attacks, confused him with various spells, and simultaneously created terrifying illusions.

The illusion of severed demons’ bodies appearing as the heads of severed nuns was particularly effective.

Of course, some demons were burned to death by the Priest’s angry holy power, but it was damage worth enduring.

The Priest, who was gradually starting to struggle, was slowly being pushed to one side of the hallway.

Before he knew it, the Priest, who had been pushed to the end of the hallway, in front of the Prayer Room, entered the Prayer Room as if throwing himself inside.

The demons guessed that the end of this battle was approaching.

The Demon King, who had taken over Sola’s body, finally began to step forward.

While the other demons were lingering in front of the Prayer Room, the Demon King pushed them back and slowly entered the Prayer Room, seeing the Priest sitting on the floor, panting.

He contorted his body and transformed it into the Goddess’ form, just like when he had approached Sola.

He intended to show the priest the worst blasphemy and mock him.

As expected,

As soon as their eyes met, the Priest frowned and spat out curses.

“That’s very blasphemous. Devil.”

“There’s nothing as pleasing as being praised by an enemy.”

“You were just watching from the sidelines all this time, where are you getting the nerve to speak so loudly?”

The Priest instantly jumped up and rushed towards the Demon King, but the Demon King reached out and sent the Priest’s body flying backward.

Rather than sending him flying, it was closer to the appearance of a huge force pulling the Priest’s body backward.

The Priest flew backward as he had sent Sola’s body flying, crashed into the wall, and fell to the floor.

A huge crack formed in the wall the Priest had hit, and several large decorations attached to the wall and ceiling fell to the floor with a roar.

“Kghack,”

A huge cross fell on the Priest’s back.

Blood spurted out from between his tightly closed teeth.

“Ha, it seems even the Goddess isn’t helping you.”

The Demon King opened his mouth in a solemn voice.

It was a mocking sentence, but unlike when he spoke to Kunat, it was a soft tone mixed with benevolence,

As if he was imitating the Goddess’ appearance he was taking on.

The Priest felt that the tone was even more insulting than the mockery.

“I clearly understood why that bitch wants you. I reaffirmed why we rushed to stop that bitch’s plan. Indeed, you are a truly great Priest. Father Theodore. I am truly impressed.”

“… Ha,”

“It wouldn’t be inferior even if compared to the saints who left their names in history. If you had been born a hundred years earlier, you would surely have been recorded as a great man respected by many people.”

The Priest slowly caught his breath.

The Demon King, seeing the Priest still showing a rebellious glint in his eyes, said as if exhaling a sincere exclamation.

“At the very least, Hell will record this day today. You will eternally leave your name in Hell’s records instead of human history.”

“I don’t need it.”

“…”

“If I’m going to be recorded anyway, I prefer the Order’s books. You demons can only write disgusting and dirty sentences.”

“… Father Theodore.”

The Demon King in the Goddess’ form shook his head, fluttering his wings.

“Humanity has met its end.”

“Hoo…”

“You are not fighting to save humanity. You are just being used like a mercenary and dying in a power struggle between demons.”

“Ah, is that so.”

“No matter what you do, this is an unchanging fact. The age of humanity is over.”

“Not yet… it’s not over. As long as I’m here,”

“Is that so, then it will end right now, at this moment.”

“Haha…”

The Priest laughed softly with a sound like air escaping from his lungs.

Then, with the cross much larger than his height still on his back, he slowly began to rise.

“Then I have no choice but to work harder.”

“I didn’t allow you to, where do you think you’re… Kck,”

The Demon King tried to reach out his hand once again, but before that, the Priest swung the cross on his back in an instant.

The cross was already wrapped in golden flames.

As the massive mace engulfed in holy power struck his side, the Demon King wore a shocked expression and flew to the side wall, colliding with it.

The Priest supported the cross, which he had swung with all his might, with his back and shoulders, and said.

“It won’t end unless I die.”

“… K, that damn Priest!”

“Yes, I am a Priest. A priest of the Goddess Order, the head of this Monastery, and the protector of the nuns.”

The Priest grabbed the burning cross with both hands.

“I have to get our Sola back.”