Ch.829How curious.

The impact of the fall crushed the earth, melting it in Karma flames and scattering waves of lava.

The Sorcerers hastily retreated, extending their arms to create stone walls or releasing freezing cold to block the lava, but two Sorcerers who couldn’t respond in time rolled on the ground, screaming in agony as lava covered their entire bodies.

“AAAAARGH!”

“My stomach, my stomach is melting…!”

Melted skin and flesh dripped down mixed with reddish mucus, and exposed intestines shriveled as they cooked in the rising flames.

Blood boiled and released steam, while regurgitated gastric acid poured out as vomit through mouths that had lost their lips.

Two corpses transformed into roasted meat porridge in an instant. It was a horrific death one would only expect to witness in the pit of hell, yet no one present could spare proper attention to their deaths.

Neither Imara nor the other Sorcerers who had been their comrades. The luxury of leisurely observing chunks of meat whose death was certain was as extravagant to them now as building a mansion of gold.

– Thud.

In the semicircular crater where lava remnants flowed, a being wrapped in fire and steam like a cloak was drawing the sword at his waist, his blue eyes flashing like ghost fire.

Kagan Slayer. The Patricidal Wolf, Haschal Median Aishan-Gioro.

ᠠ ᠪ ᡴ ᠠ ᡤ ᡳ ᠰ ᠠ ᡴ ᠠ

The Demon who kills Heaven.

He was the incarnation of a living requiem, the pronouncement of death itself that could neither be avoided nor withstood.

“What conspiracy are you vermin plotting together?”

Haschal looked up at the Sorcerers, then in the next moment, he kicked off from the crater and lightly landed before their eyes. The Sorcerers’ pupils trembled convulsively.

“And you dare do so within the domain where my gaze falls.”

A crimson killing intent began rising like mist. The power of embodied Karma of Murder rippled over the scales of his winter armor.

The Sorcerers felt the terror of a massive wolf growling as it pressed its fangs against their necks.

“Retreat! Scatter and flee!”

The high Sorcerer in command bit his lip to shake off some of his fear and shouted. An order to scatter in all directions like insects that had lost their footing.

“If you stand dazed, you’ll all die!”

He understood their position well.

Even if they all launched a coordinated attack as if they were brothers born on the same day, it would be nearly impossible to even wound this monster, let alone defeat him.

That’s why he gave the order to retreat.

“Do you think you’ll live if you run?”

Of course, it was meaningless anyway.

– Squelch!

A sound like wet flesh connecting then separating.

The brain split in two fell between severed intestines, sliding as brain matter smeared across the excrement that had flowed out.

The high Sorcerer, who had been desperately casting a spell to buy even a little time to escape, was split in half and collapsed as blue afterglow flashed, without even realizing what had hit him.

“HUAAAARGH!”

Seeing their commander split from crown to groin the moment something flashed, the Sorcerers’ fighting spirit immediately plummeted to rock bottom.

The seventeen remaining Sorcerers began scattering in all directions, quacking like ducks as they screamed.

“To withdraw without even answering, how utterly disrespectful.”

Haschal, who had split the high Sorcerer with his Defying Fate sword, smirked at the Sorcerers’ disgraceful behavior and charged forward, kicking off the ground.

To hunt down every single one of the prey desperately trying to escape, without letting even one get away.

—-

“Uh…”

Imara doubted her own eyes.

She couldn’t tell whether what she was seeing was reality or if she had unwittingly fallen under some illusion-casting spell.

‘Sister Haschal…? Is that really her?’

She had heard that Haschal had defeated her father, Kagan Orhan… but Imara, not fundamentally a warrior, hadn’t properly understood what that meant.

Until now.

“KWEEEEEK!”

With a light stomp of his foot, dozens of blood-colored thorns shot up through the shadows, impaling and lifting a Sorcerer who had been fleeing on all fours like a wolf.

He was truly as fast as a wolf, but not fast enough to outrun the shadows.

“KYAAAAA! It burns, it BURNS!”

Flames erupting from his outstretched right hand summoned a flock of crows that engulfed a female Sorcerer who had tried to block his path, burning her along with the crows.

Heat that could melt even rock in an instant. Even in magical power, Haschal held overwhelming superiority.

“Damn it, it’s all or nothing now!”

A large-bodied Sorcerer who realized he couldn’t escape turned around.

He raised both arms and crossed them downward, summoning a translucent form resembling a giant bear’s forepaws that appeared like a ghost and swung its claws.

It was a spirit-summoning spell that manifested the soul of a beast, the large man’s specialty and an attack so powerful that ordinary warriors couldn’t even respond before being torn apart.

A fierce, violent momentum like a rabid dog. The ground split like tofu where the claws touched. Before those claws, human fabric would be torn apart by just the air pressure.

However.

“That’s interesting.”

To Haschal, it was merely a slightly curious technique.

Durandal, swung in a semicircle above his head, shattered the bear’s paw like glass, and Frosting, thrust forward afterward, penetrated the Sorcerer’s face and emerged through the back of his head.

“Gurk…”

“But that’s all it amounts to.”

Haschal swung his left arm sideways, throwing the man with a hand-shaped hole in his face at another Sorcerer, then kicked off the ground and charged at the middle-aged man who had inadvertently caught his colleague’s corpse.

– Splat!

The upper body of the middle-aged man burst like a water balloon when kicked, spraying a fountain of blood.

Overwhelming power. To the current Haschal, a human body was nothing more than a piece of meat as fragile as cotton candy.

“――.”

A Sorcerer wearing both a hood and mask muttered an incomprehensible incantation in a gloomy voice.

High sorcery, Shadow Transition.

The masked person disappeared as if sinking into the ground, then suddenly emerged from Haschal’s shadow the next moment, silently bringing down a dagger imbued with lightning power—

“Predictable.”

In the next moment, struck by Haschal’s backhand without him even looking back, everything above the neck exploded into powder.

The headless masked figure staggered like a drunk before collapsing, wetting himself and convulsing briefly before going limp.

It was a ridiculous and ugly death, hard to believe it was the end of a high Sorcerer who could have easily handled two or three Champions.

—-

The Sorcerers, faced with the calamity that was the Heavenly Demon, desperately resisted and fled to survive, but none of them achieved their goal of survival.

A charge that shattered the earth. A blade swung at invisible speed. Strength that burst human bodies just by touching them. Flames with firepower surpassing even high sorcery.

Add to that armor and protection that blocked most attacks, and Mana Resistance and Stigmata that dispersed all binding spells and curses. From the beginning, they had no way to survive.

Like harvest-time ears of grain helplessly waiting to be cut, they were hunted down one by one after meaningless flight.

Imara watched all these deaths with blank eyes.

The majesty of her half-sister demonstrating strength far beyond what she had vaguely imagined.

‘…Is this really human power?’

Imara, not knowing the strength of warriors who had crossed the wall, had mistakenly thought a hero’s realm was just a Great Warrior with special abilities, but…

Great Warrior? The power Haschal displayed was literally close to a natural disaster in human form.

Moreover, judging by Haschal’s expression and behavior, she wasn’t even using her full strength, but rather just playing around.

In other words, twenty Sorcerers, including high Sorcerers, were merely toys for her to enjoy briefly.

‘How can such power…’

Haschal’s battle was a shock to Imara. More than when she had witnessed the monstrosity of the prison guard.

‘…Amazing.’

Watching Haschal pulverize human bodies like dust with casual gestures, Imara felt an unknown heat strongly stirring her heart, blooming like a fully opened flower.

A strange elation that made her head dizzy and her lower abdomen tingle.

Perhaps because of the heat that filled her chest and spread throughout her body, Imara thought her rapidly exhaled breath had become as hot as flames.

The instinct of a girl of the Ka’har, the warrior tribe of the great plains, had completely awakened upon encountering a transcendent strong one who far exceeded her common sense.