Ch.500The Underground of the Sun Cathedral

– Kuuuuuung!

A wave of dust rises like a tide, obscuring my vision. The beheading strike—combining the impact of my fall with my strength—comes down like a guillotine. It was a single blow that concentrated the force that shook the entire cathedral into Durandal’s blade.

Despite its boasted dragonscale armor, Diread’s neck couldn’t withstand the force and was cleanly severed. Blood spurted from his neck, staining the broken marble black.

I grabbed Diread’s head as it flew into the air with my left arm, then slashed away the dog-like tentacles wrapped around my body before landing on the ground.

“L-Lord Guide!”

All eyes—both enemy and ally alike—focused on me. It was the moment when the battle between leaders, which would determine everyone’s fate, had finally ended.

“No, noooo!”

The cultists of the Eternal Ascension wailed in despair with faces full of anguish. Their expressions twisted as if the sky had fallen. Unlike the ragtag bunch they’d gathered, it seemed their elite soldiers genuinely believed in the cult’s doctrines.

In that moment when dozens of eyes were fixed on the headless Diread, only Nigel didn’t look back.

Knowing full well that I couldn’t possibly lose to such a creature, she focused solely on her duty, ignoring whatever was happening beside her.

– Thwack!

Like lightning, she thrust her spear through one executive’s head while simultaneously drawing her longsword with her left hand to cut down another. They paid for their momentary distraction with their lives.

“Hyaaaaaak!”

The anemone-human screamed with his upper body half-split. Hearing his shriek, Leonore snapped back to attention and severed all the anemone’s tentacles with a series of attacks swift as rapids.

– Crack!

Ceylon’s judgment came down on the head of the anemone-human who had lost its reproductive ability. Its head burst like a dropped watermelon.

The battle at the Saulite Cathedral had ended.

…Or rather, it had almost ended.

“Grrack! Keurk! Karrrrrack!”

The headless body of Diread convulsed like a rabid dog. Dozens of demonic maws emerged from between the scales, breaking through the skin.

Mouths resembling humans, insects, fish, and beasts—it was as if every type of creature’s maw had been collected in one place.

“Still alive after that…? You’re disgustingly tenacious.”

I watched its convulsions with a hollow laugh. Surviving even after having its neck severed by Durandal—even Rurik wasn’t this tough.

Of course, this wasn’t so much “alive” as it was the demonic body desperately searching for a replacement for its lost head.

The fact that the head in my hand remained motionless, unlike the thrashing body, was proof of this. If Diread’s consciousness were still alive, his eyes would at least be blinking.

Either way, I couldn’t leave that thrashing body alone.

– Squish.

First, I lifted Diread’s head and thrust my fingers into the severed surface, digging around.

While the outer surface might be protected by scales, the inside of the cut was just human bone and muscle. My fingers dug through the flesh, crushing his skull and mercilessly pulverizing everything inside.

The skull, eyeballs, brain, and nerves were all mashed together, flowing out like a viscous jelly. Not even Saulite’s saint could restore a head in this condition.

“Krylarak! Gorruk! Degyaaak! Megegeek!”

After tossing away his pulverized head like garbage, I bent down toward Diread’s still-convulsing body.

It was flailing its left arm in all directions, but having lost its head, it couldn’t even stand up—just thrashing at the air. Like a three-year-old throwing a tantrum for a toy.

I thrust Frosting into its nape.

– Stab!

“Gweeeeek!”

The body stiffened and trembled like a dog struck on the head. The curse within Frosting, the cold of the netherworld, began to penetrate its flesh and drain away its vitality.

This curse had little effect on me since I gained the Kenaz, and most enemies would simply explode upon being struck by Frosting, so its effect wasn’t particularly noticeable. But it was perfect for finishing off creatures like this.

Before long, Diread’s body went limp and exhaled its final breath.

—-

Even after eliminating all the Eternal Ascension cultists, we had no choice but to keep the women of the Saulite Order unconscious.

While they could use the miracle of mental protection and could shield themselves from brainwashing once they regained consciousness… would they even have the will to do so?

Considering what happened here, it wouldn’t be strange if they committed mass suicide the moment they regained consciousness.

We carefully seated the unconscious women in an undamaged corner of the prayer room, then cut down all the hanging tapestries to cover their bodies.

While moving the women to the corner of the prayer room, I asked Nigel to make sure Lena absolutely did not leave the carriage.

Lena probably already knew what had happened, but if she were to see the face of someone she was close with among the victims, the shock would be immeasurable.

“Wouldn’t it be better for her to get used to it? If you intend to keep her with us…”

“There’s no need to get used to sights like this. What I expect from Lena is to grow as an excellent healing priest, not to raise her as some kind of inquisitor.”

I rejected Nigel’s suggestion. A bloody battlefield was one thing, but what good would come from getting accustomed to seeing old acquaintances violated?

“…This is tragic. To think this is the end result of serving the gods with all their heart and soul. Saulite is truly indifferent.”

Leonore muttered with a bitter expression as she looked down at the women leaning against each other unconsciously.

Even Lacy, who would normally have pointed out such blasphemous remarks, offered no rebuttal. The hellish atrocities suffered by Saulite’s followers too clearly revealed the limitations of the gods.

The gods of this world only blessed people; they weren’t beings who granted salvation.

…Or perhaps they couldn’t save them.

Since they couldn’t do it themselves, they blessed proxies with stigmata or powers to take on the burden instead. Telling people like us to save others.

—-

After cleaning up the prayer room, I left the others with the women and headed deeper into the cathedral with Lacy. We needed to find out what happened to the male clergy, whose numbers had been suspiciously few, and to slaughter any remaining Eternal Ascension cultists.

Our forces were split in two, but it wasn’t a major concern. Even if Valkers or Eljur themselves appeared, they couldn’t overwhelm Ceylon, Leonore, Nigel, and Agnes.

We weren’t going far anyway—if we heard the sounds of battle, we could return to them immediately.

“The flow of dark mana is… heading underground. The cult leader also emerged from below. We should investigate there first.”

“Understood. Here, get on my back. We need to hurry.”

I lowered myself slightly, presenting my armored back to Lacy.

There was no time to waste matching her walking pace. Lacy and Agnes’s holy power was continuously being consumed to maintain the miracle of mental protection, and there were plenty of other cultists outside the cathedral who weren’t part of the Eternal Ascension.

Lacy understood this well and climbed onto my back without hesitation.

“Then we need to find the entrance to the basement. I think…”

“Why bother looking for it?”

“Pardon?”

We could just make an entrance. I firmly secured Lacy’s thighs, raised my right foot high, and brought it down vertically.

– Kwaaaang!

The ground collapsed. The first floor of the cathedral shattered into pieces and poured down toward the basement. And so did we.

“Kyaah?!”

Startled by the sudden sensation of falling, Lacy let out a short scream and tightly gripped my neck with both arms. She held on so tightly that if I relaxed my neck muscles, my windpipe would be instantly blocked.

I kept my neck muscles rigid, deflecting the surrounding debris as I fell, and landed on the basement corridor with a heavy thud.

“…Next time, please give me some warning.”

Lacy complained, seemingly embarrassed by her scream. Though it was only a few meters high, it must have been quite a startling fall for someone who wasn’t a warrior.

The basement corridor was darker than I expected. Torches hung on the walls, but they had long been extinguished, and the fluctuating dark mana formed a black fog that obscured our vision.

Lacy tried to create a small orb of holy light to illuminate the surroundings, but the pure white orb she managed to manifest was quickly overwhelmed by the dark mana and faded away.

“Such intense dark mana… we need to be careful. Even the miracle of mental protection won’t last long in here.”

Lacy grasped her holy symbol and emitted a stronger holy light, casting two miracles on herself and me.

“White Night” to protect our minds from brainwashing, and “Celestial Protection” to enhance physical abilities and block dark mana infiltration. Pure white holy light enveloped our bodies, crackling as it came into contact with the dark mana and gradually began to dissipate.

I carried her on my back and ran toward where the dark mana was growing thicker.

[If you’re looking for the priests, shouldn’t you be going in the opposite direction? With dark mana this thick, they couldn’t possibly be alive if kept here.]

Hersella made a reasonable point. But I had no intention of following it.

‘That’s already a secondary concern. First, I need to identify the source of this dark mana.’

From the moment I landed in the basement corridor and sensed the dark mana, my priorities had already changed.

While rescuing the priests was important, honestly, they would be fine if left alone. Now that we had eliminated all the Eternal Ascension cultists, the priests’ lives were no longer in danger.

Rather, identifying the source of this dark mana was several times more important.

Dark mana thicker than anything produced by one or two demons. A place emitting this much dark mana would surely hide the cultists’ core facility or some deeply guarded secret.

And so, receiving Lacy’s blessings and running at a speed twice that of a decent racehorse…

I finally beheld the source of the dark mana that filled the cathedral’s basement.

—-

“My God…! Elpinel, this is…!”

As if speaking for me who had lost all words, Lacy covered her mouth with both hands in shock.

A circular prison two stories deep.

The clergy we had been looking for were sprawled unconsciously in cells arranged around the central cavity, but neither Lacy nor I could pay attention to them. We couldn’t take our eyes off the monstrosity occupying the central space.

– Huk… huuk…

Like the breathing of human pigs too fat to walk. On the ground covered with strange and complex magic circles, a mass of flesh the size of dozens of people combined was writhing and emitting dark mana.

It looked less like a living being and more like part of an internal organ, but it was clearly alive.

A triangular body resembling a bicycle seat. The elongated end was blocked by a rounded, swollen mass of flesh, while the opposite wider part was open like a funnel toward the air.

Inside was filled with bubbling dark red liquid, with unidentifiable masses of flesh floating on the viscous fluid.

Long tentacles extended from both corners of the wide part, drooping to the floor, with the ends of the tentacles opening and closing like the mouth of a Venus flytrap.

[…What in the world is that?]

‘I’m not sure… A giant uterus…?’

Except for its enormous size, the shape was familiar. If you removed a uterus, cut off the ovaries, and opened the top to expose the inside, it would look something like that.

I didn’t know what it was, but judging by its shape, it was clearly an organ meant to “birth” something.

As for its exact purpose… I’d have to find out now.