Chapter 259

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It felt like being buried in an ant colony and being eaten away from the extremities of my body.

I was being sucked into a bottomless swamp.

I couldn’t help but be bewildered by the strangely familiar sensation.

From the moment I was forcibly knocked unconscious.

I was falling into a deep darkness.

I felt nauseous.

It was as stuffy as if a viscous liquid was blocking my throat.

A headache that felt like my skull would shatter and a pain that felt like my eyeballs would fall out assailed me.

‘Mental corruption?’

It was an ability that all monsters from the otherworld possessed as a passive.

The monsters’ primal power to infiltrate and contaminate the mind simply by being witnessed.

A fragment of the authority inherited from the ‘Ancient One’, the progenitors of all monsters.

It was the cause of the humans being helplessly massacred at the beginning of the war, and the reason why Supernaturals became indispensable.

Humans with exceptionally strong mental fortitude could withstand mental corruption. There were definitely cases of non-Supernaturals repelling monsters by using tools.

However, if one was able to overcome mental corruption, it meant that they possessed superhuman mental strength, and such people were obviously few in number. It was impossible to continue the war with only a small number of people.

Supernaturals had different prerequisites than non-Supernaturals.

They possessed a mental barrier that protected their consciousness.

They could directly oppose the mental contamination of monsters.

I am also a Supernatural.

Lucia also has a mental barrier that protects her mind.

That’s why the current situation was a bit embarrassing.

‘My mind is… being contaminated…?’

I could easily grasp the situation.

It wasn’t an invasion from the outside, but an attack from the inside.

It was eroding me directly from inside the mental barrier.

If there was anyone who could do this, there was only one person.

“Belial…!”

I didn’t expect this either.

I was aware that I could be attacked at any time because a devil god was dwelling inside me.

However, Belial was definitely sealed by Lucille’s arrangement. Yoo-seong also put his heart and soul into suppressing Belial.

Thanks to the efforts of the two Heroes, Belial was in a state where most of her power was suppressed. Her soul was shattered, right? Even if she couldn’t be bound forever, she should be unable to move for the time being.

My prediction went wrong in a spectacular way.

I frowned at the throbbing headache.

It was on a different level than the instinctive aversion I felt whenever I saw a monster.

The mental barrier wasn’t blocking the mental contamination.

It was contamination that started from inside the barrier protecting my consciousness.

I could block external invasions, but I couldn’t stop an internal bomb.

“But if I recognize the situation, it’s a different story!”

Just like mental corruption was a monster’s passive ability.

The mental barrier was also a Supernatural’s passive ability.

It automatically defended against external attacks even without being consciously activated.

Belial’s mental corruption accurately targeted the loopholes in the mental barrier.

Thanks to that, I was properly attacked, but that was because it was a surprise attack.

If I can’t block it with a passive, I can respond with an active.

“This is my world.”

If she was a complete devil god, even I wouldn’t be able to do anything.

But if her soul is shattered and weakened.

It’s not like I have no chance of winning.

I shook off the persistent contamination and went down to the depths of my consciousness.

Beyond the unconscious.

To Lucia’s mental world.

To meet Belial who would be bound there.

◈

‘Mental World’ was a name I made up arbitrarily.

A world that literally embodies the mind’s image.

Therefore, the form and structure were determined by the will of the owner.

For Lucille, it was a field where white snow fluttered.

A pure white world covered with snow to the horizon.

The turning points in her life always came in winter.

So it wasn’t strange that Lucille’s mental world was winter.

My mental world, which inherited everything from Lucille, was also winter at first.

A snowy winter that somehow made me feel nostalgic and longing.

But that was Lucille’s mind’s image.

I inherited her body and will, but I was Lucia.

When I first stepped into the mental world to meet Belial.

I changed my mental world into a familiar place.

The dormitory room that the academy provides to students.

The most familiar and well-known place for Lucia.

“…Even if you are a tenant, how can you remodel the house without the owner’s permission?”

I let out a deep sigh.

The familiar scenery of the room was nowhere to be seen.

What awaited me was a burning street and acrid smoke.

Dark clouds swallowed the sunlight.

The broken sky created cracks like glass.

I don’t know, but Lucille’s memories knew this sight.

The incident that became a turning point in the lives of many people, including Eugene.

The Great Catastrophe.

The day an unprecedented massacre occurred.

The 6th Demonic Beast descended in history.

And in the shadows, the devil gods sneaked into the land.

Lucille also died once at this time and had to be a corpse for four years.

“Where is Belial?”

If she’s remodeling the mental world to this extent, it means that the mental corruption has progressed considerably.

It means that Belial has taken control of my world to some extent.

I never thought she would have this much energy left.

I thought I could definitely control her for the time being.

Even if I couldn’t stop the bomb called Belial from exploding, I thought I could delay the explosion to the maximum.

That’s why I returned to the academy with peace of mind.

If I had known this would happen, I would have stayed by Yoo-seong’s side.

At least I would have received care from Yoo-seong until the internal bomb was resolved.

Anyway, why do my judgments keep going wrong like with Arin?

A sigh came out on its own, but now wasn’t the time to be lamenting.

I looked around. Burning houses. Collapsed streetlights. A car emitting thick fumes. What illuminated the ground, where the sunlight couldn’t reach, was ironically a vicious fire. The street, where no human presence was felt, exuded a gloomy atmosphere. Only the sound of crackling was the only noise.

Finding Belial was surprisingly easy. At first, I was at a loss as to how to find Belial, who was hiding in this vast mental world, but in reality, Belial wasn’t hiding. I took a step towards the source of the mental corruption. The tingling skin became a landmark as I got closer.

“…Have you come? You’re later than I expected.”

Where she resides was a huge epicenter.

The scattered traces told me that there had been an unusual battle here.

It’s difficult even for Supernaturals to leave such an aftereffect.

It was almost impossible unless they had reached the realm of a captain.

A crater that had swallowed up a radius of dozens of meters.

Belial was waiting for me there.

She looked pretty much the same as the last time I saw her.

The chains that bound her were still functioning properly.

The chains were symbolic items.

They were devices that visually showed Belial’s seal.

There were some cracks, but it didn’t seem like they would break right away.

Upon recognizing that fact, I couldn’t help but smile bitterly.

The mental corruption that had instantly inflicted internal injuries and eroded the mental world.

That was the achievement she made in a state where her soul was shattered and sealed.

In other words, she had done this with only a small portion of her original power.

As expected, a devil god is a devil god.

A transcendent being who continues the lineage of the ‘Ancient One’.

The apex of monsters that even surpasses the apex of humanity.

‘But even for Belial, this is the limit.’

It wasn’t speculation or wishful thinking, but conviction.

I confirmed that the seal was intact. It was slightly cracked, but not to the point where the seal would be released. It meant that even Belial couldn’t break the seal itself. At most, she had only created a slight gap in the seal.

If she was going to do something like this, it would be best to try after completely releasing the seal. It’s not like she can’t. It just takes time, but Belial could break the seal someday. Even if Yoo-seong periodically reinforces the seal, there is a limit. If she had waited quietly until then and then rushed in at once, I might have been deprived of my body again.

It would have been much more likely to succeed than doing something like this while sealed.

If she had pretended to surrender and induced my carelessness, she would have more easily stolen the initiative of my body.

‘The fact that she didn’t…’

Means she couldn’t, right?

She couldn’t wait any longer, so she did something reckless.

Then why couldn’t she wait?

Why did she force herself while ignoring the efficient method?

Why did she attack me directly while wasting the power to gnaw at the seal?

‘Ehehe.’

I tried to calm the corners of my mouth, which were rising on their own.

In fact, I was quite anxious on the way here. It would be difficult for me to handle if Belial’s seal was released too early. But now, that anxiety has disappeared as if it had been washed away. I smiled inwardly with satisfaction.

‘This is the limit.’

Belial’s patience had run out.

She couldn’t bear it any longer, so she recklessly committed the act.

Because if she stayed like this, she felt like she would be completely eaten by Lucille’s body.

She was squeezing out the remaining power to resist, whether it turned out good or bad.

Yeah, I sympathize with your feelings too.

When I first became ‘Lucia’.

I felt like I was going crazy from the self-harm urges that were rushing in like a violent tidal wave.

I immediately ran to the bathroom and started by cutting off my fingers.

It wouldn’t be different for Belial.

Unlike me, who was an ordinary human, she was a devil god, so she could endure it.

But even a devil god couldn’t handle Lucille’s body, which had been trained through hundreds of millions of regressions, right?

“Hello, Belial. Your invitation was extravagant, wasn’t it~?”

Smiling faintly, I waved my hand.

Braving the intense heat, I walked towards Belial.

Author Note

A/N (Author’s note):
Lucia is a fool, but she still has some common sense.

Except when it comes to love.

Translator Note

T/N (Translator’s note):
Lets punish the naughty Belial~