Ch.213Night God (4)

“Night… is that you?”

Upon hearing Llewellyn’s words, the God of Dreams spoke.

Even though one could easily imagine the expression from the disbelieving voice alone, Llewellyn didn’t allow the God of Dreams to enjoy the reunion with his wife.

In one hand he held North Wind, while his other hand was clenched in preparation. Isla, standing right beside him, also kept her crossbow at the ready.

“Are you the Goddess of Night?”

Llewellyn asked, but no answer came.

The naked woman simply stood there, smiling.

How strange. Llewellyn glanced at Isla, who lowered her crossbow and ran her hand along her back.

Then, a soft blue light began to spread.

A clear provocation. One that could be a sufficient threat toward an unknown entity.

Yet the Goddess of Night remained motionless. Llewellyn stared at her intently, contemplating.

“Keeper, please, please take me to Night…”

“Quiet.”

The ignored God of Dreams wore a shocked expression, but Llewellyn paid him no mind.

What he needed to focus on now was what the Goddess of Night was doing here and what she wanted by appearing.

Surely the meeting place should have been where Life and Death were murdered.

As doubt appeared on Llewellyn’s face, the Goddess of Night finally spoke.

“You’ve come. At last.”

It was an ordinary-sounding voice.

A voice befitting a noble lady, with kindness deeply felt from the very tone.

“I have waited for you for so long.”

The naked goddess approached.

Though one might expect lustful thoughts or distractions, her body evoked only thoughts of astonishing beauty.

“Keeper, come, let me embrace you.”

As she approached step by step, Llewellyn couldn’t discern her intentions.

But a few things became clear.

The closer she came, the more his hostility diminished.

The wariness he harbored melted away like snow in spring, and his clenched fist gradually loosened.

His heart increasingly leaned toward the Goddess of Night. In place of the melted wariness bloomed reverence and respect.

“Night, is it truly, truly you? The Great Celestial, no, the other deities… no, how did you…?”

While even the God of Dreams was stammering, Isla too was frowning, unable to grip her bow.

Until something dawned on Llewellyn.

Llewellyn had suddenly awakened from his sleep, sensing something.

And he knew well what was causing his nerves to stand on edge and creating that tingling sensation at the back of his head.

One of the Mourner’s unique traits.

Haunted Intuition.

Effect: Immunity to ambush, advantage in detection actions.

And the current activation of Haunted Intuition wasn’t due to detection.

Then what remained was…

The moment Llewellyn made eye contact with whatever was imitating the Goddess of Night.

Swish.

Something writhed in the darkness. That writhing shadow gleamed with murderous intent, extended for just an instant but seeming much longer.

A sword. Single-edged.

It was a split second. Llewellyn moved.

[Mourning]

[Time remaining: 60 seconds]

Llewellyn’s foot rose high.

This action was read by neither the approaching Goddess of Night nor the God of Dreams swaying behind Llewellyn.

Not even Isla, who was frowning at the familiar sense of déjà vu and familiar enchantment beside him, could read it.

A movement so swift no one anticipated it. He limited the explosive leap to his knee, making only his knee surge at ultra-high speed.

Improvisation works. Llewellyn lowered his center of gravity faster than his rattling knee could regenerate.

The moment he brought his foot down was executed before the sound could even register.

His foot struck the ground. His foot sank in, and black plate armor manifestly appeared all over his body.

Fragments scattered in all directions.

A thunderous boom mixed among the fragments. Isla jumped up in surprise as the sound of collision finally reached them.

KWAAANG!

Along with the sound of his foot striking down, the floor flipped over, and through the scattered dust, the Goddess of Night became visible.

She was still a beautiful naked woman.

Not a goddess. As Llewellyn’s eyes gleamed brightly inside his helmet.

Behind the fake goddess, a large figure accelerated silently.

An acceleration that seemed to slide despite keeping feet planted on the ground. It was a sophisticated “ambush step” whose principle ordinary humans wouldn’t even comprehend.

SWAAASH!

The great sword cut through the air. The sword strike, flying at an ambiguous diagonal befitting its alias “Shield Breaker,” severed the waist of whatever was imitating the goddess.

With a thud, the swordsman slid to a stop, easing his acceleration.

Llewellyn advanced, crossing paths with the swordsman.

The step he had just learned by observation. A movement like sliding.

But with insufficient technique and fundamentals, the swordsman clicked his tongue lowly, while Llewellyn’s left hand was already swinging North Wind.

SLASH!

He aimed for the neck of the upper body of whatever had been imitating the Goddess of Night, now floating in the air.

The severed head fell from the upper body and rolled on the ground, and Llewellyn’s cape fluttered in the wind as he came to a stop.

“Ah, ah…?”

It was around then that the God of Dreams, looking bewildered with wide eyes, saw the Goddess of Night. He recognized the face that entered his vision but realized there was no divinity dwelling in that body.

“That’s not Night…? What on earth is this?”

“It’s a trap. You’re slow to wake up, future Sword Saint.”

“My body doesn’t feel the call of nature. I tend to sleep soundly until morning once I’m asleep.”

“Your words are smooth.”

The Sword Saint smiled faintly, and Llewellyn lightly tossed his hand axe up, caught it, and drew a line in the air.

One horizontal line, one long vertical line.

From the overlapping shape, a two-handed sword appeared, and Llewellyn grasped the light that formed, flicking his wrist.

“Situation?”

“As I said earlier, it’s a trap. Fakes are wandering around.”

“Fakes?”

“Things like that. Besides that one, there are fakes of you, the Golden Nightingale, and even that cat over there. There was also a fake of the head.”

Whatever he poked with his sword was an exact copy of the Goddess of Night. Even after death, it didn’t revert to its original form.

The vast majority present knew it was a fake.

“How do you tell them apart?”

“Well, you’d know if you cut them.”

“Perhaps…”

“What you’re worried about didn’t happen. Everyone’s quite unique, aren’t they? Their presences are all different, so it’s obvious.”

With their backs suddenly against each other, Llewellyn and the Sword Saint faced opposite directions.

Isla, who had jumped up, landed beside Llewellyn and muttered with a deep frown.

“There are many.”

Her voice, filled with displeasure, was directed toward the shadow-covered forest.

From its edge, numerous figures were walking out.

Countless companions standing expressionlessly. Those who couldn’t possibly exist in multiples were approaching with weapons, their faces devoid of emotion.

Outwardly, they were indistinguishable. That was what made it so chilling.

Moreover, those resembling Llewellyn even copied the Starry Cluster in his hand, creating identical versions to hold.

And that wasn’t all. The shadows resembling Isla created identical bows burning with light.

Beings that create hesitation and hunt using that hesitation as a vulnerability.

In appearance, they were indistinguishable from the real ones. That much was certain.

Isla drew her bowstring without hesitation, forming an arrow of light, while Llewellyn raised his glowing sword, aiming roughly at head level.

“Details.”

“When you mentioned the God of Dreams and the Goddess of Night, I thought, so this is what the presence of these so-called gods feels like… but this one had no presence.”

The Sword Saint wore a bored expression, as if uninterested.

“Your fake was the same. The Golden Nightingale’s fake had no magic, and seeing that the head fake wasn’t talkative, it was obvious. The cat fake tried to seduce me. I cut it down.”

Isla glanced at him, but the Sword Saint just chuckled.

“Or maybe it just came out without clothes. I cut first and couldn’t tell afterward.”

“That’s disgusting.”

The Sword Saint ignored Isla’s irritated and disgusted rebuke, and Isla focused on drawing her bowstring without paying him further attention.

“At this point, I wonder if how to distinguish them even matters.”

Llewellyn silently agreed.

The monsters charged, and Llewellyn’s heart pounded heavily.

*

CRACK!

Llewellyn’s fist, having dropped his sword, crushed the head of a form modeled after the Sword Saint.

His outstretched hand then grabbed the remaining neck, and his body shot forward as if attached, colliding with his knee first.

KWAAANG!

It was Knight Slayer, used experimentally.

The power was such that even the Sword Saint’s replica, which had been difficult to cut with simple hand-to-foot Dragon Slayer, was sent flying with its abdomen roundly caved in.

Llewellyn tossed aside the half-dismembered Sword Saint with satisfaction.

“Your attack seemed to have some ill feelings behind it.”

“You’re mistaken. I execute all my attacks without emotion.”

“For someone who claims that, you were quite thorough in stabbing that cat’s heart to finish it off.”

“You’re mistaken. Its body was agile, making it hard to hit, so I used a thrust, that’s all.”

“That sounds like an excuse… ha!”

The Sword Saint deflected an arrow aimed at his head with his sword hilt and brought his sword down.

Llewellyn knew that even such a light strike from the Sword Saint efficiently utilized the power delivered by the opponent’s attack.

Thanks to that excellent foundation and technique, the Sword Saint could face an army.

If he could block, deflect, and counter every attack.

It was a marvelous skill. While Llewellyn thought he should someday reach such a level of skill, he wondered if it was even possible.

Llewellyn picked up the Starry Cluster that had fallen to the ground and surveyed his surroundings.

Corpses were strewn everywhere. At a glance, it was grotesquely a mountain of corpses with multiple identical faces.

Some had died from penetrating wounds to the head or heart, but most had been cut and torn apart.

‘So they don’t acquire the regenerative abilities or physical capabilities of their targets.’

Llewellyn’s duplicates didn’t show transcendent regeneration, nor did Isla’s duplicates transform.

The Sword Saint’s duplicates felt the most troublesome to deal with, though that was mainly because their large body area meant more parts to cut.

Llewellyn carefully held the Starry Cluster away from his body as he looked for Isla.

“No more.”

As Llewellyn was looking around, Isla jumped down from a tree and landed beside him.

She extended her palm, and Llewellyn smiled faintly before meeting her palm with his own for a high five.

The corners of Isla’s mouth curving in joy was a bonus. Llewellyn watched her swaying tail before asking.

“What about Lorian and Melody?”

“Over there. They’re coming.”

“Ah, so they are.”

Looking in the direction Isla pointed, he saw two figures trudging toward them.

A woman and a girl who appeared tired but uninjured.

Melody and Lorian. Llewellyn focused his mind to fully activate his Haunted Intuition as he examined them, confirming they were real through his divinity.

More precisely, it was asking his divinity-enhanced intuition, but the fact that his armor didn’t appear was confirmation enough.

It meant they weren’t in a combat situation, that the battle was over.

So Llewellyn waved his hand, and the two hesitated upon seeing him wave before sighing in relief at his carefree smile.

“Sighing at the sight of a person’s face. That hurts.”

“It’s because it’s Lu.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Secret.”

While he was bantering with Isla, the two approached, and as the group gathered, Isla asked.

“What now?”

A question asking whether they would return or continue forward.

Llewellyn briefly looked down at the three-piece corpse of whatever had resembled the Goddess of Night.

“Pack up. Let’s go.”

Whatever awaited them deeper in the magical realm, they couldn’t turn back now.

Llewellyn led the group forward, deeper into the magical realm.