Ch.80Secret Weapon (2)

KWAAANG-!!!

KWANG-!!!

KWAAAAAANG-!!!

Multiple pillars of fire fell from the sky.

Each pillar of fire contained Cecilia’s sincere determination—deadly attacks meant to kill that old man without fail.

The old man’s defenseless body was instantly engulfed in flames, oxidizing into a handful of ashes.

But the old man didn’t die.

Even though his body had turned to ashes and those ashes had been scattered by the explosion, the old man did not meet his death.

From the scorch marks left where he had been standing, the old man emerged again. First, bones regenerated from the bottom up, then various nerve tissues attached to the bones, and finally, flesh filled out the body.

“Wh…what… kind of… trick… is… this…?”

“That’s quite disgusting…”

The scene of a human body being reconstructed from zero was extremely grotesque.

If this were a scene in a game, that game would undoubtedly have been slapped with an adults-only rating.

Seeing this, Cecilia and Lilly launched attacks again and again. But as it seemed to be of no use, they eventually had to stop their attacks as he continued to regenerate.

Finally, after completing his regeneration, the old man glared at me with sharp eyes as if demanding answers.

“You couldn’t possibly have dealt with the lower levels already… What exactly did you do?”

“Well, I’m not sure. Maybe Cecilia is just more capable than you thought?”

I shrugged my shoulders in response to the old man’s questioning and feigned ignorance.

The old man had revealed various things due to his sense of superiority, but I didn’t have the luxury to do the same right now.

‘More importantly, I need to figure out the principle behind that regeneration to kill him…’

At first, I thought he might have a Life Vessel hidden somewhere, but unfortunately, I couldn’t sense any external entity connected to the old man.

If that was the case, this immortal-like regeneration ability had to be the old man’s inherent power.

‘Without any hints, I might have thought he was truly immortal.’

I examined the old man’s body as he continued to look at me with apparent composure.

His body appeared to be completely regenerated, but there was clearly something awkward about it somewhere.

“But why do you have a fake arm on one shoulder?”

“…”

Despite appearing perfectly recovered, there was one part of the old man’s body that hadn’t healed.

It was the arm that had been cut off by me earlier.

‘Honestly, I don’t know why only that wound couldn’t heal.’

What mattered now was that my sword imbued with True Word might be able to kill the old man.

Look at him.

Despite trying to hide his expression behind a facade of composure, he couldn’t conceal his agitation.

“Have you considered that I might be feigning weakness? And I wonder if you, who looks like you might collapse at any moment, have the strength to attack me.”

“If you were feigning weakness, you would have reacted more strongly to appear more convincing. And don’t worry about me. I’m recovering well, and Cecilia will help me a lot.”

From behind Cecilia, who had landed on the ground in her massive dragon form, I showed the old man that I was drinking a potion as if to taunt him.

We continued our psychological warfare, neither of us taking our eyes off the other.

The old man chose to move first.

It seemed like a decision based on the judgment that if this standoff continued while my body kept recovering, his position would become more disadvantageous.

“You really seem determined to see hell yourself.”

“Whether I see hell or not, I’m going to die anyway. If I’m going to die, wouldn’t it be better to see a bit more before I go?”

I provoked the old man again, but this time there was no response.

Ignoring my words, the old man pulled back all his Death Knights except one.

The only Death Knight remaining in this succession chamber was Vargan, who had originally been the king of the dwarves.

‘Is he trying to properly control Vargan now…’

Until now, Vargan had been in a machine-like state without reason, making him manageable to deal with. But if he were to return to a state where he could exert his original power, he couldn’t be ignored.

A king representing an entire race was a being with power befitting that position.

But that couldn’t be all. No matter how strong a king was, he wouldn’t be enough to dismiss all of us.

‘The secret weapon hasn’t appeared yet… There must be something more…’

Instead of moving rashly, I remained vigilant of my surroundings, and as if confirming my suspicions, vibrations could be felt from the direction of the royal castle.

Simultaneously, I sensed the flow of enormous magical power. In terms of sheer size, it was similar to or even larger than Cecilia’s.

Whatever possessed this enormous magical power emerged from the royal castle and moved quickly in our direction.

As it got closer, the outline of this entity became clearer.

By the time it was close enough to be properly distinguished, Cecilia frowned as if she had seen something repulsive.

“This is… unpleasant.”

“Don’t look at it like that. That is clearly a dragon, is it not?”

“To call that a dragon—you seem intent on insulting the dragon race.”

It was covered in well-crafted armor as if hiding its shame.

But as if to say that the armor couldn’t hide all its flaws, between the pieces of armor, flesh and a foul stench were seeping out.

“I think we’re seeing too many disgusting things today… Kitsune is about to throw up too.”

“Kuhup, I’m fine. Yes, just using a barrier to block the smell for a moment…”

It was a zombie dragon.

An undead created by forcibly attaching various bones and flesh from different corpses to the base of a dead dragon’s body.

“You still pretend to be composed. You must know that you cannot overcome a king and a dragon.”

“Just us alone might be difficult… but we’re not the only ones here, are we?”

I sensed magical powers gradually approaching from far away.

It was the magical power of adventurers and dwarves breaking through the undead hordes and apostles, led by the hero Leon, and heading this way.

At first, they seemed to be slowed by the numbers, but now they appeared to have gained momentum and were increasing their speed.

“If we hold out a little longer, they’ll arrive soon. And they’re not weak either.”

While many were too weak to participate in the zombie dragon raid, there were plenty who could be of help.

There were more than five adventurers in the S-rank category, so even the old man couldn’t ignore them.

“And with the hero chosen by the goddess too. That kind of support seems enough to destroy your pride and joy.”

“Heh heh…”

I continued to provoke the old man.

I kept up the provocation, hiding my true intention of making him and the prince use the secret weapon given by the evil god.

‘His hidden card needs to be used as a weapon.’

As I mentioned before, the large amount of bloodstone the old man had collected could also be used as a bomb.

If I caught the old man off guard now and defeated the zombie dragon with the help of the Titan, I didn’t know how the old man would react.

So I continued to provoke him with my words to make him use the bloodstone he had collected.

And eventually, my provocation bore fruit.

“So… do you think you can kill us before reinforcements arrive?”

“Reinforcements… reinforcements, you say. It seems you should be the one to go. If you can, that is.”

KUUNG-!

KUUUNG-!!

Heavy vibrations could be felt from far away.

A sticky and unpleasant magical power spread.

“Yes… you said you knew many things. Then do you know why this king became like this?”

“That’s obvious. Well.”

The moment I confirmed that the prince was an apostle, I could understand why Gagap had become like this.

Very unfortunately, the prince had bad luck and became an apostle.

Would someone of royal status not have known? He probably knew but concealed it, believing there might be a way to reverse it.

As king, he probably had confidence that he could control the prince.

After all, an apostle who had just been possessed would have been in a state with virtually no power or strength.

‘At best, he would have been able to hunt a few Demonic Wolves like me.’

But as long as the king kept the fact that the prince had become an apostle a secret, he couldn’t keep him confined, so the prince had no choice but to grow little by little.

The evil god must have provided full support, finding such a useful pawn.

“And then Vargan was backstabbed by the prince who had grown sufficiently.”

“Similar, but a bit different. The prince proved his legitimacy! Everyone in the kingdom saw that form and acknowledged it!

Not knowing who was behind it! The king was pulled down by the hands of fellow dwarves. By fools who believed their god had descended upon the prince.”

And those fools were gradually replaced by the prince who had seized power within the royal castle.

As the old man’s words were coming to an end, a familiar form appeared in the distance. It was a form I had seen once before and was very familiar with.

“Sigh… why is that there? It’s practically a divine artifact of Vulcan…”

“Because it was bestowed by the god. Not the Vulcan the dwarves believe in, but our god.”

What was visible in the distance was a Titan.

No matter how I looked at it, it was undoubtedly the Titan that Vulcan had created in the past.