Ch.495Creatures Sad for Having Many Legs

Hersella chose to remain silent, dismissing the reality of my becoming a saint as merely a dream, rather than accepting it. Not that it would change anything.

She’d probably come to terms with it in about thirty minutes anyway.

I shifted my attention away from Hersella and glared at the Church of Saulite cathedral that had nearly come into view.

I’d killed about forty of them on the way here. All trash, not even worth remembering.

Since I’d targeted those who tried to retreat first, the vermin hiding inside the cathedral probably hadn’t even grasped what was happening yet. At most, they might have noticed some commotion in the city.

Even if they somehow realized that a Paladin of Astraea was charging toward them to slaughter them, they wouldn’t know who I was.

The brilliant golden barrier that Ceylon had deployed was faithfully concealing our appearance.

The proof was that none of those blocking our carriage shouted my name. To their eyes, we must have appeared as nothing more than a massive ball of light rushing toward them.

However, once Ceylon withdrew the holy light, they would recognize me.

From that point on, it would be a race against time.

Those with more guts than brains might try to fight us, but… if I were Valkers, I’d pack my bags and flee the Holy State as fast as possible.

So, I needed to find and tear them apart before they could escape.

– Thud-thud-thud-thud!

Hoofbeats thundered like lightning. The cathedral’s exterior walls, decorated with marble and gold, approached within inches. I turned my head, spat out the cigarette I’d been smoking, and gripped the hilt of Durandal.

“We’re going in! Everyone get ready to jump out!”

The hemispherical holy barrier concentrated toward the front like Leopold’s balding forehead. It resembled a battering ram. The carriage, transformed into a massive golden stake, collided mercilessly with the side of the cathedral.

– CRASH!

The tremendous impact struck the cathedral’s outer wall, but thanks to the holy barrier, the backlash that reached us felt like nothing more than a gentle breeze.

Newton, you were wrong. Behold this sight. The moment when the principle of action and reaction kneels before a divine miracle.

—-

Shattered marble fragments swept across the garden, reducing it to ruins, while statues depicting Saulite were pulverized like victims of dismemberment.

Saulite would surely be pleased. The broken statues had been covered in obscene graffiti, seemingly to desecrate the goddess.

The clothing portions had been completely destroyed and replaced with nude sculptures painted in flesh tones, with white paint splattered here and there. It was filled with artistic vulgarity, as if a deranged Michelangelo had sculpted it after consuming aphrodisiacs.

Even the inner thighs were thickly coated with white paint to create the texture of dripping liquid, with numbers carved beside them.

What kind of sick bastard would create something like that?

“W-what the fuck is happening?!”

A curse filled with bewilderment interrupted my thoughts.

I turned my gaze away from the shattered statue and glared back at the cultists who were staring at us with shocked faces.

The scene inside the cathedral was exactly as I had expected, so it wasn’t particularly shocking. Well, not shocking, but it did make my blood boil the moment I saw it.

Nuns who worship the goddess of the sun and compassionately care for wounded lives.

Paladins who temper themselves through faith and training, fighting with passion and pride at the forefront. Such people no longer existed here.

All that remained were women moaning with vacant eyes, having become playthings for the cultists.

Paladins with their heads buried in the floor. Priests embracing cultists with their fragile limbs and kissing them. Their exposed bodies were covered in bruises, and their skin was soaked in a terrible mess.

It was a hideous sight.

“Paladins! The fucking paladins are attacking! Grab your weapons!”

Seeing us rise from the driver’s seat, the cultists finally understood the situation and hastily adjusted their clothing while tossing aside the women.

…Good thing I left Lena inside the carriage.

The sight of dozens of dangling phalluses was disgustingly obscene.

“Paladins? You nobodies, do you know where you are…!”

The cultists drew their swords and spears, baring their teeth and spitting.

Nobodies? Had it not been for the atrocity before us, Ceylon would have burst into laughter. These thugs, no different from back-alley gangsters, were spouting such nonsense in front of the church’s strongest paladin.

“Oh, there’s a woman too! And she’s got quite a large one…!”

“Wait… that woman, is she…?!”

There was no reason to listen any further. I’d already surveyed the entire prayer hall while they were babbling.

Most of the naked paladins and priests sprawled about were women, with hardly any male clergy in sight. Perhaps three or four at most. The rest, judging by their faces and hostile demeanor, were undoubtedly cultists who had stripped off their clothes.

“You trash who have been so actively causing trouble since the new year…”

I drew Durandal and pronounced in a contemptuous tone.

“…It’s time for regret.”

Hell had come for them.

—-

– Whoosh!

A leap like a winged beast. The hulking figure jumped from the driver’s seat and landed in the midst of the cultists. The overturned hem of clothing settled against the scale armor with a heavy sound.

“T-this woman. She’s an Aishan-Gioro! The Empire’s monster, Aishan-Gioro Haschal-!”

“You know me well.”

A cultist who recognized my identity widened his eyes. I grabbed his face with Frosting and ripped it clean off. From his face down to his groin, his skin was completely peeled off, exposing the bright red flesh underneath.

“GAAAAAAHHH!”

The tongue dangling from the mouth with no lips left screamed in agony.

I shoved aside his half-remaining body like garbage and crushed the hand of another cultist who was frantically swinging his sword at me.

“GUEEEEEK!”

A pig-like scream. Meat turned to pulp flowed between my fingers. I tore off what remained of his right arm at the shoulder, then swung Durandal twice to open up his lower abdomen and groin.

The monstrous piece of flesh that had been committing sacrilege until just moments ago fell and rolled across the sea of blood.

“GYAAAAH!”

“Why is this crazy bitch heeeeere?!”

I thoroughly adhered to two principles as I slaughtered every cultist in sight: inflicting pain that would make them regret being alive, while ensuring they didn’t die instantly by leaving their heads intact.

“The justice of Astraea has come upon this place! Her light shall judge your sins!”

Ceylon had become almost an avatar of wrath.

Unlike me, he wasn’t cutting off groins, but with each swing of his golden burning sword, cultists with only torsos remaining writhed like caterpillars.

Though they served different gods, the brainwashed women were also clergy who had served in holy orders. The sight of them reduced to such a miserable state had apparently filled him with indescribable rage.

“Tremble in fear and worship the heavens. He shall unleash His wrath to destroy you, and His anger shall burn everything!”

Lacy, who had burst out by blowing off the carriage roof as soon as the battle began, recited a prayer and drove her cross-spear into the floor.

A pure white circular formation spread beneath the feet of three cultists who were gathering mana, and the next moment, their bodies were torn to shreds by pillars of light that shot upward.

“GYAAAH-! GYAAAAAAAH!”

“My feet, my feeeeeet!”

With the original power, they should have exploded instantly upon contact with the light pillars, but it seemed she had reduced the output as I had advised, as the power was weaker.

As a result, the cultists caught in the light were pulverized smoothly like fruit in a blender over several dozen seconds.

“How does it feel to be on the receiving end? You seem to be enjoying it immensely?”

Leonore, who had slipped between the cultists with nimble movements, rained down her silver sword like a downpour. The body of a cultist who had raised a naked woman as a shield was riddled with holes, and streams of blood gushed like fountains from the gaping flesh.

With a sadistic expression reminiscent of Isabella, Leonore pierced the cultists again and again. She occasionally knocked out the women she encountered with the hilt of her sword.

Agnes and Nigel stayed with the carriage to protect Lena while fending off approaching enemies.

Each time the Moonlight Blade, a sacred artifact of the Church of Menes, was swung, blades of holy light shot out and dismembered the cultists’ limbs. Men who managed to approach by throwing their bodies to avoid the light blades collapsed with pierced lungs from Nigel’s spear, letting out shrill groans.

“Hiiik-! Hiiiik!”

“Run away! These bastards are monsters! With our power…”

Seeing more than fifty men slaughtered in the time it takes to drink a sip of water, the cultists lost their will to fight and began running in all directions. But they were far too slow.

“Where do you think you’re fleeing to!”

Ceylon cast Judgment Light, which spread above the heads of the fleeing men.

Astraea’s wrath poured down like rain. Everything within range turned to bloody mist and scattered.

The power was on a completely different level from when I had been hit by it. It was a sight that gave me an idea of how deep their sins must be.

—-

“Where is that bastard Valkers?”

While my companions vented their anger by turning cultists into corpses, I interrogated men who had lost their will to fight.

I repeatedly stuffed the heads of cultists who couldn’t answer into the groins of other cultists, creating an inhuman human centipede.

“W-well, you see…”

“You don’t know? Can’t be helped then. Let’s go meet your friends.”

I dragged the cultist I was holding by the collar toward the vermin I had finished interrogating.

“N-no! Nooooo! Fuck! Fuuuuuck!”

He realized his fate and struggled frantically in resistance, but with broken limbs, his resistance was nothing but laughable.

Shortly after, a new segment was added to the human centipede.

It was a truly satisfying sight to see him convulsing with his head stuffed into his comrade’s intestines while another comrade’s head was inserted into his own stomach.

[You’re becoming more creatively barbaric as time goes on. Stigmata? That thing embedded in your chest is undoubtedly the mark of an evil god.]

Hersella, who had recovered from the shock of the stigmata, sneered with a hollow laugh.

‘The evil gods are the ones these bastards worship.’

I replied nonchalantly as I continued to extend the length of the human centipede, hoping someone who knew Valkers’ whereabouts would emerge.

By the time the human centipede had grown to about fifteen segments—

“Dogs of the Holy State have tracked us by scent! We’ve been waiting for you to come!”

The core forces of the cultists, who had come running at the sound of screams, began pouring into the prayer hall.

Are the real fighters finally showing up?

I pulled Durandal from the head of the centipede and quickly assessed the newly arrived cultists. Most of them were merely knight-level fighters, but those who appeared to be officers emanated an aura comparable to masters.

It was obvious at a glance that their level of attainment wasn’t achieved through their own efforts, but through the blessings of evil gods obtained through the atrocities they had committed in Arbil.