Ch.505Subjugation

“How… How the hell did you see through the Dark Conception!”

Valkers stared at me in shock, his earlier composure completely gone. His expression showed the total collapse of his source of confidence.

Yes, he must have had absolute faith in his power. He probably thought he had a chance against me if he could just succeed with a surprise attack using his ability.

It was an incredibly bizarre power, but judging by both its activation speed and effect, it was a formidable ability that would be impossible to counter without prior knowledge.

“Dark Conception… certainly a fearsome power. So, I peeked into the future and confirmed how to counter it.”

I charged toward him with my sword while taunting him, half-joking and half-serious. It wasn’t entirely a lie since I had experienced it in the game a few years later.

“Future…?! You said future?”

Valkers enhanced his physical abilities with dark mana to meet my attack, but his unstable trajectory clearly revealed his confusion.

Sharp metallic sounds rang out. Each time his pitch-black longsword collided with my blue-silver sword, his body shook violently and was pushed backward.

“Impossible. Such a thing… cannot be possible…!”

As expected, Valkers struggled to regain his composure. His confusion was palpable. His use of dark mana became sloppy, and the trajectory of his sword grew increasingly erratic.

Did he believe my bluff about seeing the future? How stupid.

Even minimal brain power would reveal it as nonsense, but Valkers, having lost his composure when his power was blocked, seemed to have dropped to monkey-level intelligence.

[Peeking into the future…? How could that be possible?]

…Looks like there’s another monkey here.

“You actually believed that? You’re dumber than I thought.”

[…..]

I sneered at both Hersella and Valkers while catching Valkers’ predictable sword strike with my blade and forcing it upward. His sword shot skyward.

“Obviously it was a joke. If I could see the future, I would have found and dismembered you long ago.”

Before you could pull this kind of crap.

“Then how…!”

Valkers extended tendrils of dark mana to reclaim his sword from the air, and with his empty hands, he fired black lightning while shouting.

I bent backward to avoid the first strike, then rotated to his side, moving out of his line of fire.

Valkers tried to impale my stomach with black spikes emerging from his feet, but when I clenched my left fist and struck downward, his concentrated dark mana simply burst apart. The magic of someone who had lost their composure was this pathetically weak.

“How? It’s just intuition.”

I swung Durandal with a nonchalant response. Valkers gripped his sword with both hands, using dark mana tendrils as support to barely block my slash.

The collision sounded like an explosion. Deep cracks appeared in Valkers’ blade as it twisted. He struggled to maintain his stance with dark mana while desperately withstanding my continuous attacks.

With each strike, I could clearly hear his bones and muscles screaming in protest.

Valkers occasionally counterattacked with irregular magic using dark mana, but such tricks couldn’t overcome our fundamental difference in capability. Just from the crossing of our swords, his body was rapidly breaking down.

“This… is impossible. It can’t be. There’s no way mere intuition could identify the true nature of my power!”

“Maybe not for someone like you.”

In truth, it would be impossible for me too. Identifying and countering a power through intuition alone? That’s not human.

Of course, there was no reason to tell him the truth. We’d be parting ways soon anyway.

*Clang!*

Valkers’ blade finally snapped, unable to withstand the impact. The broken blade fragment grazed his cheek as it flew off.

“No…!”

“Should’ve used a better sword!”

A critical opening. I sliced through his writhing tendrils, destroyed the shadowy hands with kicks, and tore apart his black barriers with Frosting. The dark mana fragments dispersed like smoke.

Valkers formed a blade of dark mana over his broken sword and took a defensive stance. A meaningless gesture.

I stepped closer to him and raised Durandal high.

“Kyaaaah!”

The Sword of Defying Fate. A slash difficult even for heroes to defend against came down with enough force to split black iron. Like blue lightning striking the ground.

Valkers startled and tried to roll sideways to avoid Durandal, but this wasn’t an attack that could be dodged so easily.

*Crack!*

Durandal’s blade shattered his shoulder plate, dug into his shoulder, and severed it. The severed left arm spun through the air, spraying dark mana-filled blood everywhere.

“Khaak…!”

Valkers screamed and lost his balance, falling flat. Like a headless chicken flapping its wings in the air. Blood soaked the ground thoroughly.

“Save your screams. We’re far from finished!”

I pulled my right foot back and kicked his body like a ball.

Even in his agony, Valkers hastily formed a dark mana barrier to block my kick, but the moment my foot made contact, the barrier burst and my right foot plunged straight into his chest.

His steel breastplate instantly caved in, and I felt several ribs shattering through my leg.

“Kughk…!”

Like stepping on an open toothpaste tube, blood gushed out under the strong pressure. Valkers flew like a blood-filled water rocket and tumbled across the ground.

I asked Lacy for another blessing to block curses before leaping toward Valkers.

“Not yet, not yet…!”

Valkers staggered to his feet and sent slashes of dark mana toward me, but these dark mana clusters, flying like cutting winds, all shattered upon contact with Durandal’s tip.

“I’ll carve your limbs one by one. Just like when you were in your mother’s womb!”

I descended toward Valkers, dispersing all the black wind. He glared at me and pointed his broken longsword in my direction. The darkness covering his blade surged like a whirlwind, aiming for my solar plexus.

“You don’t learn, do you? Dark mana is useless against me!”

I approached him, vertically cutting through his dark mana with Durandal’s edge. The black whirlwind split in half and collapsed. With Durandal in hand, I wouldn’t fall to a magic swordsman’s magic.

The same went for his desperate attempt at “Dark Conception.” The Church of Elpinel’s womb tattoo purified and eliminated the curse seeping into my lower abdomen.

It was worth asking Lacy to place the curse protection miracle on me again.

Valkers’ desperate attempt failed. All that remained was for him to pay the price. I caught his half-broken longsword with Frosting and landed on his right shoulder, stomping it down.

*Boom!*

With a heavy impact, his right arm was torn off completely.

“Kyaaaaargh!”

Blood gushed like a fountain. Valkers screamed and tried to grab his right shoulder, but unfortunately, his left arm had already been severed.

Having lost both arms, Valkers writhed on the ground like an insect. I stepped on his torso and pointed Durandal toward his lower body.

All the anger I had accumulated since first encountering this city was concentrated at the tip of my sword.

“I told you, didn’t I? That I’d carve off your limbs.”

“Kughk…! Wait, wait stop! Don’t you want to save the city’s residents!”

Cornered, Valkers shouted with a desperate expression. Was he trying to negotiate? How dare he.

“That’s what I’m doing right now.”

“If you! If you kill me! Salvation becomes impossible! Good memories may remain as faint impressions beyond recollection, but nightmarish experiences become eternal brands that never fade! In the darkness of night before sleep, while walking down streets when encountering someone who reminds them of their past—they’ll have no choice but to relive their nightmares! Like corpses thrown into a river that swell and resurface! The younger they are, the greater the trauma will remain!”

“…You’re saying this with your own mouth?”

This garbage piece of trash. What right does he have to say such things?

I raised my leg high and stomped on one of his legs, crushing it.

“Kyaaaaargh!”

Bones and flesh flattened with a squelching sound. Having lost his right foot, Valkers screamed while dripping cold sweat.

I beckoned Lacy over and pointed at Valkers’ torso. He might die from excessive bleeding at this rate, so I wanted her to somehow keep him alive.

Whether she clearly understood my gesture or not, Lacy placed a curse-protection blessing on her lower abdomen, wary of his power, then approached me.

“Thank you, Lord Median.”

…For what?

As I looked at Lacy, puzzled by her unexpected gratitude, she raised the cross spear she had been holding—

*Crunch!*

—and began crushing Valkers’ last remaining limb.

Like sewing fabric with a sewing machine, she worked from the toes all the way up past the knee. Valkers’ leg was instantly minced like hamburger meat.

“Gyaaaaargh!”

Valkers screamed and arched his back. I was so shocked that I failed to stop Lacy’s cross spear until it reached his thigh.

So when she thanked me, she meant for giving her the opportunity to torture him…!

“Wait, wait! Lacy! Not that! I meant keep him alive!”

“Pardon…?”

After mincing Valkers’ leg, Lacy was about to raise her cross spear toward his groin when she turned to me with a tilted head. Her expression asked why there would be any reason to do that.

“He’ll die from blood loss at this rate. We need to at least stop the bleeding.”

I didn’t want to kill him yet. He still had one last power left.

Valkers’ third power, “Unholy Legacy,” was an ability that transferred his soul to a fetus born through “Dark Conception” at the moment of his death, allowing him to be reborn.

The lifespan of offspring born through Dark Conception is only about thirty minutes without Valkers’ soul inhabiting them, making it a difficult power to use as a backup life line.

In other words, we needed to keep him alive for about fifteen more minutes. Even if he had created offspring right before encountering us, it would have died by now.

Of course, I couldn’t explain this to Lacy. If she asked how I knew about an ability that no one in the world except Valkers himself knew about, I would have no answer.

“…Come to think of it, you’re right. His crimes are too grave to kill him so quickly.”

Fortunately, Lacy seemed to interpret it as wanting to keep him alive longer for torture, and she nodded before stopping the bleeding from his limbs. With holy fire.

Valkers’ screams echoed to the heavens. The smell of burning flesh filled the air.