Ch.32Descent – 2

The gaze of something dwelling within Kartina’s body reached the man before her. As her finger pointed at him, the man’s body exploded from within, bursting outward in all directions.

The human body, transformed into bright red chunks of meat and fragments of internal organs, splattered against the walls, ceiling, and floor.

The lower half of the body, suddenly separated from its upper portion, wobbled in place before collapsing with a thud. Remaining organs spilled out from the cross-section.

Clothes soaked in blood turned a dark reddish color.

Beside it stood a blonde woman in armor, holding a sword in her right hand while staring blankly. She made no attempt to wipe the blood from her face and armor.

This woman would be the next sacrifice. Kartina twitched her finger to make the man’s corpse dwell within her body.

But nothing happened.

Faced with this unexpected situation, Kartina tilted her head. Why weren’t the corpse fragments being absorbed into her? It made no sense. A slight crack appeared in her expressionless face.

Just as Kartina was about to move her finger again, the man’s body began to restore itself. The scattered pieces of flesh stacked themselves back together neatly.

The man, instantly restored to his original form, frowned and clicked his tongue. For some reason, he seemed displeased.

Witnessing this, Kartina inwardly understood. He hadn’t been absorbed because he wasn’t dead yet.

If that was truly the case, she simply needed to try again. Kartina’s finger pointed at the man once more. His body exploded again.

Kartina failed to absorb the corpse this time as well. This meant the man was still not dead.

This couldn’t be right.

Kartina turned her gaze to the woman beside him. Though her face remained expressionless, it was clear. Inside her burned a fury like the flames of hell.

Her long, slender finger pointed at the blonde woman. The woman’s body flinched. And that was all.

The crack in Kartina’s face grew larger. Having encountered two completely unexpected situations, she could no longer maintain her composure.

One man had his body explode twice but wouldn’t die, and the other wouldn’t explode at all.

While Kartina was bewildered, the man who had finished reconstructing his body stood up on both feet. He shook his head.

“Is that all?”

I had high expectations since they sacrificed an entire city’s worth of people to summon this thing, but as expected, it’s pretty useless.

Having your body explode just by being pointed at is certainly a powerful attack. But surely that can’t be all it can do.

I’ve encountered many like this before. It’s what those heretics choose as their last resort.

They sacrifice offerings to summon something from their religion, whether a god or its servant.

The wishes they pray for are generally similar. Defeat their enemies, grant unlimited power—those kinds of wishes make up the majority.

And the endings are usually similar too.

The heretics get swept away by whatever they summoned, and that entity either goes berserk alone until it disappears when faith and sacrifices run out, or it gets eliminated by an extermination squad.

From the beginning, the mental state of something summoned through forced living sacrifices can’t possibly be normal. It would be different if it gained power through the belief and voluntary faith of numerous followers.

In fact, before Christine utterly destroyed it, the Holy Church wielded absolute divine power based on its numerous believers.

At any rate, whatever dwelled in Kartina’s body was undoubtedly an extremely powerful entity.

If there had been crowds of people around and no exceptional powerhouses like Serena, it could have easily annihilated several cities’ worth of humans.

The problem was that all the people here had already been sacrificed to summon this thing, and Serena was right in front of it.

Serena, who had been quietly watching me, asked in a subdued voice.

“Are you alright, my lord?”

“I’m fine as always. Just like usual.”

The problem is that I’m too fine.

I clenched and unclenched my fist to check my body’s condition. Nothing immobile, no parts feeling damaged. Still in the same condition as before.

“How about you, Serena?”

“I’m perfectly fine as well.”

“Really?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

Your eyes don’t look like it at all.

At a glance, Serena seemed to be maintaining an expressionless face.

But looking closely, perhaps because she had witnessed me explode twice, she looked ready to slice Kartina and whatever dwelled inside her into pieces. Her slightly pursed lips trembled.

I patted her head to calm her down. It’s not like this was my first time experiencing something like this, and getting angry would only hurt Serena.

When my hand touched her, Serena’s face flushed, and she slightly lowered her posture to make it easier for me to pat her. Her intentions were transparent. She obviously wanted more.

“What are you two?”

As I continued patting her head as she wanted, Kartina spoke. Serena turned her head in that direction.

She had been managing her expression somewhat when looking at me, but she didn’t bother when looking at Kartina. An ominous aura emanated from Serena.

Though it quickly subsided. She wanted to be angry, but with me continuously patting her head, she couldn’t properly manage her expression.

Serena was desperately trying to maintain a solemn expression, forcibly controlling her eyes that kept softening and the corners of her mouth that kept trying to curl upward.

“What kind of answer are you looking for?”

“Your identities.”

“A being made of blood is demanding we reveal our identities? That seems rather backward.”

“I have never seen humans like you before.”

“Why, never seen humans with super-regeneration abilities before?”

“That’s not the issue.”

Kartina’s body floated up into the air. Her hair began to flutter in all directions again. Is something bigger coming this time?

The binding magic circles on her wrists and ankles emitted a bright red light again. Blood splattered throughout the reception room was absorbed into Kartina as if being sucked in.

The magic circle on the floor disappeared. Instead, a magic circle appeared on Kartina’s chest. It was a hexagram rotating counterclockwise, emitting an ominous sound.

Between the two circles enclosing the hexagram were densely written characters too small to make out.

“I accepted the contract and received the appropriate sacrifice.”

The mansion shook. As I removed my hand from Serena’s head, she returned to being the stoic royal knight captain and responded by enveloping her body with mana.

“However, beings who have deviated from the flow are interfering with the fulfillment of that contract.”

“…?”

“Ah, it’s nothing. They’re always like that. When things don’t go their way, they say it’s deviating from the flow.”

Seeing that Serena seemed confused about what that meant, I gave her a hint.

For these beings, the normal flow would be successfully fulfilling their contract, but since they were hindered, they say it’s deviating from the flow.

And we, standing before it, become beings who have deviated from the flow.

Trying to understand them would only be our loss.

“Therefore, you—”

“Serena, attack. Don’t use techniques.”

As soon as I finished speaking, Serena shot forward at a speed invisible to the eye.

The response was getting drawn out, and since it would only be sophistry anyway, there was no reason to listen further. What’s the point of listening to someone who can’t even kill me?

When Serena swung World Eater, Kartina’s body along with the reception room was cleanly split. The cut was so clean that the fracture was barely visible.

We need to keep Kartina alive, but I ordered the attack knowing that this level wouldn’t kill her. If she died from one slash after consuming that many sacrifices, they’d be the ones getting scammed.

Due to the vibrations shaking the mansion, the split pieces of the reception room, unable to bear their own weight, slowly sank with a grotesque sound.

Kartina, precisely cut in half, looked down at her body for a moment before rejoining herself.

Of course, Serena didn’t let that happen. Wrists and ankles were severed, thighs were cut off before she could even register it, and her head was sliced off before her body could collapse.

In the blink of an eye, Serena had diced Kartina as finely as if she’d been put through a sieve, then returned to my side.

A red light leaked from Kartina’s body, which was scattered almost to powder. The light gathered into a human shape, gradually subsiding to recreate Kartina’s form.

Just like Serena who had witnessed my body explode before her eyes, a menacing light dwelled in her otherwise expressionless gaze.

“Annoyed that I interrupted you? Well, try attacking with something stronger this time. Not something crude like making bodies explode.”

The expressionless face of Kartina cracked slightly.