Ch.28Revenge

Nepy’s declaration resonated throughout the Great Cavern, clearly reaching Zikharun Misrakh’s ears.

In response to this rather arrogant declaration, Zikharun straightened his posture and enveloped his entire body with spirit blood.

“Hey, old man. The spirit race’s characteristics…”

[Don’t worry. Thanks to your pathetic appearance, I’ve learned quite well.]

“Just drop dead already.”

While hurling curses in my mental landscape, I simultaneously began focusing on the external situation.

The main characteristic of spirit blood is its strong counter-elasticity. In gaming terms, it would be called reflection damage, which Zikharun could activate at will.

The stronger the opponent’s attack, the more spirit blood Zikharun would release at that precise moment to counter—this was his standard fighting technique.

“This will be very different from last time.”

Zikharun’s chilling warning.

“This time, I’ll make sure to confirm the kill.”

Whoosh!

Zikharun enveloped himself in a blood-red aura and approached with swift movements. His distinctive way of lowering his body to avoid eye contact made him look like a predatory beast.

His appearance—armored in spirit blood and closing in—seemed almost incomprehensible at first glance.

“Old man, do something!”

I shouted urgently as Zikharun approached within arm’s reach in a fraction of a second.

What Nepy did next defied common sense.

Crack!

Suddenly, the left wrist detached from his body. Even while charging, Zikharun couldn’t hide his bewilderment.

[Here, catch.]

Nepy’s left hand traced a pathetic arc through the air. Zikharun easily dodged it, then immediately drove his blade straight into Nepy’s heart.

[Cough! Hehehe…]

Thud.

The sound of the left hand falling limply to the ground on the other side came belatedly.

“…What are you trying to do?”

He asked unconsciously, unable to readily believe this anticlimactic ending.

Nepy firmly gripped Zikharun’s wrist with his trembling hand.

[Do you know? My body in rigor mortis is quite solid.]

“What?”

Nepy pulled at the corner of his mouth and closed his eyes. The next moment, Zikharun could only be shocked.

Whirr!

For an instant, Zikharun felt the terrifying sensation of a giant snake wrapping around his neck.

It didn’t take long to realize this was a massive misconception.

Looking down, he saw someone’s arm. A powerful arm was wrapped around his neck, compressing his carotid artery.

“Kuh… huk! There was… definitely no one… ugh.”

[Naturally, there’s no one here but us, right?]

“You?”

Zikharun stared straight ahead with wide-open eyes. While Nepy clearly had a sword pierced through his heart with eyes closed, the voice of the man strangling him from behind was identical to Nepy’s.

[What good is counter-elasticity? It’s powerless against techniques that aren’t strikes.]

“Wow, you’re surprisingly good at martial arts.”

Nepy’s snake-like grip around Zikharun’s neck from behind resembled a jiu-jitsu technique.

“Ugh… keuugh…!”

The secret behind this phenomenon was Nepy’s extraordinary regenerative ability. The moment he pulled out his wrist like a root and threw it, Nepy had already prepared for bodily regeneration.

He abandoned the body stabbed by the sword and completed ultra-rapid regeneration using the discarded wrist behind Zikharun as a base.

That wasn’t all.

“Kuk, my hand…?!”

Due to the rapidly progressing rigor mortis, Zikharun’s wrist, which Nepy had firmly gripped, was sealed as if handcuffed.

‘He planned all this in an instant!’

Even if he wasn’t at full power, how could the original protagonist be rendered so helpless?

This was an achievement that properly deviated from common sense.

Though Zikharun was rendered helpless, in the future, he would be the one to eliminate none other than the Destroyer Irefi Justitia.

That was the destiny of the protagonist named Zikharun.

Nepy was spectacularly twisting that destiny along with his joints. And without even using Malice!

[Vulgar child. Do you now understand the difference between competence and incompetence?]

“…I’ll admit, that was impressive.”

I had no choice but to acknowledge it.

“But more importantly, can you find Charle? Is she here?”

[I sense faint breathing. Though her condition doesn’t seem particularly good.]

He was still firmly restraining the staggering Zikharun.

That’s when it happened.

The lips of Zikharun, who seemed about to lose consciousness and go limp, gently moved.

“Spi… rit… tribe…!”

The ground boiled at his stuttering incantation.

The return of a brilliantly shining golden pillar of light. However, it wasn’t the overwhelming scale seen at the duke’s manor.

A small pillar precisely targeting Nepy behind him and the corpse sealing his wrist. Though its destructive power was incomparably reduced, it was sufficient for him to gain freedom.

“Huff! Huff!”

Zikharun’s lungs continuously drew in and expelled air. Watching him, I inwardly realized that this was reality, not a game.

‘In the game, it was an ultimate skill that couldn’t control its power. Can it be used like this?’

Honestly, one reason I had been confident was because of the penalty Zikharun would face. Considering the closed space of the Great Cavern and the presence of a hostage, he couldn’t use large-scale area attacks.

[Now try it yourself.]

That’s what Nepy said right after perfectly regenerating his body.

“What? What nonsense is that? You were desperate to use my body earlier, so why are you giving it back now?”

My question went unanswered. I was forcibly ejected from the mental landscape and had to face Zikharun’s ruby-like eyes.

“Do you really want to see me climbing a fountain?”

[Go ahead and try. Though it will only be possible after you defeat this youngster.]

“Kuk…!”

I don’t know what his intentions were at this point…

Even if Nepy’s intentions weren’t clear, I resolved to accept the situation.

“Fine then. I’ll use Malice and everything else. But there’s one thing I need to teach you for our dignity.”

[What is it?]

“How did you make clothes when you regenerated? At this rate, I’ll definitely be rubbing naked bodies with Zikharun.”

[You still have such vulgar and terrible imagination. However, it would be difficult for you… I’ll help you just this once.]

Tsk.

The sound of clicking a tongue in the mental landscape was surely my imagination.

Shaaaaa…

A pitch-black ink-like aura, contrasting with Zikharun’s red aura, ominously enveloped my body.

‘Damn, why does this feel so bad?’

Just releasing Malice made me nauseous. It had a vile quality that seemed to flip my stomach and contaminate my mind.

Zikharun’s reaction wasn’t much different. He fixed his gaze on me as if looking at disgusting filth.

Eventually, our movements aligned perfectly. As if matching steps in a Chinese opera, we rushed at each other simultaneously, clashing sword against fist.

‘The reason Zikharun almost got defeated so pathetically was because he had no idea about the immortal’s existence. The same trick won’t work again!’

Slash!

Zikharun’s sword gallantly cut through my body in a straight line from fist to shoulder.

A fountain of blood rose spectacularly.

“What is this…?”

Zikharun’s brow furrowed as his slash connected cleanly. I easily guessed the reason.

Because the fountain of blood soaking the ground was ink-black, far from human blood.

Drip. Drip. Drip-drip.

The puddle of ink-black blood gradually expanded. Soon, insects of all shapes were born from the black puddle and flew toward Zikharun like moths to a flame.

Nepy’s dark art – The Fifth Trumpet.

My vision was filled with the march of bizarre creatures with shapes I had never seen before.

“I don’t need to face this head-on.”

Zikharun chose to flank. He seemed to have judged it unwise to carelessly strike down the insects without knowing their function.

Rather than cutting down the insects with his sword, he approached me at a speed they couldn’t match and slashed mercilessly.

“Kuhuk!”

This guy, as expected of a protagonist. His quick-wittedness was almost supernatural.

Nepy’s regenerative ability might seem incomprehensible, but it wasn’t invincible.

If he could truly regenerate from just a single piece of flesh, new bodies would have sprouted like seedlings from the blood on Zikharun’s hood.

This fight would inevitably become a battle of attrition. Either he would slice me up enough to overwhelm my regenerative ability, or he would be devoured like prey by the creatures born from my blood.

One of these two outcomes would eventually come to pass.

Slash! Slash!

Drip, drip.

In this demonic realm of cutting, being sliced, and new life being born, he spoke.

“You’re different from before. From your motor skills to how unpleasant you feel… Yes, it’s like you’re a different person.”

“How could such… an absurd thing be possible!”

I raised my voice and extended my fist with all my might, but he easily stepped aside and cut me up like meat at a butcher shop.

‘This… is tougher than I thought…!’

Six pieces of legs, twenty-seven pieces of arms. Six lower bodies, and seven upper bodies. That was the count of my body parts scattered across the Great Cavern floor.

‘What am I, fried chicken?!’

Meanwhile, Zikharun’s response was flexible. He periodically summoned small pillars of light to reduce the insects born from dark arts, while continuously pressuring me toward the outside of the Great Cavern.

The dark arts using Malice were surely powerful, but I knew nothing about them. The insects I was controlling now were from the only dark art that Nepy had imprinted on me at Duke Feita’s manor.

[It was energy that the white girl had contained for quite some time. How could you, who couldn’t even properly harness it, use any impressive dark arts?]

Nepy made a cutting remark as I inwardly made excuses.

It was true, but it made me feel really dirty.

“Still… I have to win somehow. I’m going to land a blow on that shameless face and take Charle back.”

Against an incomplete Zikharun, it should be possible. At least to overwhelm him with biological specs and make him kneel!

I need even more power. For the corrupt and rotten Malice, I need to look deep into the abyss of Nepy’s soul.

That means using the fundamental energy that forms his mental landscape.

I continuously draw out human malice that knows no bounds, festering resentment. The sensation of decadent black mist flowing through my veins is truly horrifying.

The first to notice the anomaly was Zikharun, who was facing me head-on.

Crack!

Snow-white frost rose from beneath my feet. Following my two legs becoming firmly fixed to the ground, a cold like an icy hell engulfed my entire body.

Spirit art of controlling cold – Sealing Frost. If Zikharun had grown a bit more, it would have been more effective than any attack…

“Yes, I’ve mastered this much at least!”

Crash!

I broke through it all with sheer force and rushed into Zikharun’s embrace.

Boom!

Faced with unexpected speed, Zikharun chose to counter using spirit blood. However, this was his first misjudgment.

“What good is reflection damage? I can’t die anyway!”

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

“Ugh…!”

My head is confused. In fact, I don’t even know what I’m thinking right now. I just enjoyed beating up the man I instinctively recognized as an enemy.

I grabbed Zikharun, who had been sent flying, mounted him, and pounded him mercilessly. Though he was mitigating some damage with spirit blood, it wasn’t invincibility.

It was merely mitigation, not defense, and it only reflected damage proportionally, so some impact continued to accumulate.

Nepy’s immortality was the perfect counter to spirit blood.

“Haha, so much for spirit blood! Keep spewing it out. I won’t get tired!”

[Tsk, madness from reckless use of Malice.]

“Hm? Did I hear something… nah!”

I mutter to myself as I brutally kick Zikharun away like a soccer ball.

Now even the spirit blood that had been rising like a heat haze around Zikharun had subsided. To finish off the clearly unconscious Zikharun, I walked toward him with murderous intent.

That’s when a small light shone brightly from Zikharun’s sleeve. Focusing my vision, I saw it was a small cufflink.

Then, an unfamiliar man’s voice resonated inside the Great Cavern.

“Ah, can you hear me, friend?”

“…”

After a brief silence, a frivolous male voice came from the cufflink.

“Oh my! Is this completely broken? Well, we miscalculated too, so it can’t be helped. The White Knight’s escapade was beyond imagination.”

“A communication stone? Wait, Irefi?”

I briefly regained my senses at the keyword “White Knight” and dispersed the Malice.

Perhaps because the Great Cavern’s characteristics amplified voices, my voice seemed to reach through the cufflink.

“Oh my, did you take down my friend? Judging by the unfamiliar voice, you’re not the second Bartlant Chester… Who are you?”

Since I couldn’t simply answer with my true identity, I gave a somewhat embellished response.

“I am a disgraced noble from the Multi Bad Ending nation.”

Founding Noble? What nonsense.

Being treated as a disgraced noble is just right.

“Hahaha, well, I’ll hear directly from my friend. Unfortunately, we’ll be retrieving Zikharun from here.”

As soon as the man finished speaking, a pale blue light shone brightly from Zikharun’s jacket pocket. Then the ground rippled like waves, and Zikharun’s limp form was sucked into the floor.

I rushed over urgently when I noticed the anomaly, but I was like a dog that had been chasing chickens.

“Spatial jump… no, a disposable portal!”

An item that only the saint who sealed Nepy with the protagonist 400 years ago could create.

It’s not strange that Zikharun had it. Because it was a kind of destined encounter that the protagonist would obtain as the story progressed.

But learning about the burial site of disposable portals should be much later in the timeline…

“I don’t understand what’s going on. And what’s this about the White Knight’s escapade?”

No, forget it.

Perhaps due to the excessive use of Malice, my mental fatigue had reached its peak.

I gave up thinking and headed in the direction where Charle was.