Chapter 57: Massacre

The faces of the humans turned pale as they felt the strong energy approaching.

Ryandel quickly gripped his staff tightly after feeling the flow of the surrounding air, and Revi tightened her grip on her bow.

Evan also took out his axe again and started to stand guard.

“What’s wrong? Don’t worry. Do you think I’ll lose?”

I said with a giggle.

It was funny to see the humans worrying so much.

Something began to rumble beneath the mountain range.

It started out small, but gradually grew louder.

It was a majestic roar, as if a storm was brewing.

A huge group began to rise from the darkness below the mountain range as if a blizzard was sweeping in.

They appeared with a powerful presence between the snowflakes that glistened in the red moonlight.

『 ☆☆☆☆ Frost Werewolf LV121 』
『 ☆☆ Frost Werewolf LV106 』
『 ☆☆☆ Frost Werewolf LV109 』
『 ☆☆ Blizzard Wyvern LV102 』
『 ☆☆☆ Blizzard Wyvern LV112 』
『 ☆☆☆ Blizzard Wyvern LV115 』
『 ☆☆☆☆ Guardian of Ice LV142 』
『 ☆☆☆ Guardian of Ice LV140 』
『 ☆☆☆ Guardian of Ice LV145 』
『 ☆☆☆☆☆ Guardian of Ice LV154 』
……

There were a lot of high-level and star-count monsters gathered there.

Their bodies were covered in blood; it seemed like they had killed a lot of small monsters on their way here today.

The Frost Werewolf was the same species as the monster Glessia had caught last time.

The pure white fur, red eyes, and sharp teeth gleamed in the moonlight.

‘I think the master said something about Seolhanryeong…’

When I was lost in thought for a moment, Ryandel opened his eyes wide and said,

“This can’t be… Those are the guardians of Seolhanryeong!”

His voice trembled.

“Oh, that’s right! The guardians of Seolhanryeong!”

The words Seolhanryeong guardian caused fear to appear on the faces of the humans.

“This is truly dangerous. In particular, the Guardian of Ice is known to have never been defeated!”

Ryandel said in a trembling voice.

I heard Revi gulp, and Evan’s face also turned pale.

‘My goodness, I’m almost level 300, and these guys won’t budge even if hundreds of them come.’

I was a little disappointed because the humans’ reactions seemed too excessive.

If you get scared here, you’ll be too weak to walk around with me in the future.

‘I have to show you my strength!’

“If you’re scared, tremble and just watch from here.”

I said with a smile to the humans.

I then signaled to Lotte with my hand.

Lotte immediately flew around the humans.

“Lotte, protect them well. They’re useless cowards.”

Lotte began to circle them with her shining body.

“The sacred temple begins now!”

Dododo.

I lightly rolled my feet and ran toward the group of guardians.

Cecilia followed me, shining from my shoulder, and Miel clung tightly to my hair, trying not to fall off.

Glessia also flew after me, seeming excited.

When I got closer, I saw that they were all incredibly huge.

The Frost Werewolf in human form was more than twice my height, and the Blizzard Wyvern was big enough to cover the sky when it spread its wings.

The Guardian of the Cold was an ice golem that was almost as big as a three-story villa.

“Wow… This is a truly fitting sacrifice to the great Lord Mikel!”

Hehe!

“Auuuuuuu!”

As I was preparing to attack, suddenly the Frost Werewolves started howling all at once.

In an instant, the surrounding temperature dropped rapidly, and the ground around my feet froze in an instant.

Not only that, but even the moisture in the air froze, creating sparkling ice particles floating around me.

“Ohhh!”

Meanwhile, the Blizzard Wyverns began flapping their huge wings all at once.

The first flap of their wings created a gust of wind, the second became a whirlwind, and the third became a huge blizzard that covered my surroundings in white.

‘These ones use something similar to moths.’

The Guardians of the Cold began to move slowly within the blizzard.

Blue energy gradually condensed into their heavy icy fists.

The cold air swirled around it like the eye of a typhoon.

‘It won’t do much damage to me since I have ice immunity.’

But then a question suddenly occurred to me.

‘Do golems react to the scent of flowers?’

When I thought about it, golems weren’t actually alive, so they might not react to the scent of flowers.

But since they were here, they must have reacted to something.

‘Well, that’s not the important part!’

“Be a sacrifice!”

I gathered all my strength and activated the Red Moon to its maximum.

The blood moon became even darker, and the crimson moonlight shot out intensely at the snowy mountain.

It was as if I was immersed in a sea of blood.

I felt my body heating up.

It felt as if Michel’s blessing was spreading throughout my body.

“Good! Good!”

I activated Dark Root Rampage.

Hundreds of sharp black roots of a different dimension than before pierced through the ground and rose up.

The roots wriggled as if they were alive, extending sharply toward the Frost Werewolf.

Slap! Slap!

The Werewolf’s solid body let out a desperate scream as the roots pierced it.

Their pure white fur was dyed red with blood.

One, two… a dozen werewolves fell in an instant.

“Give us all your blood!”

At that moment, the werewolves that were still alive began to react strangely.

The ones who had been rushing at me with hostility just a moment ago suddenly stopped and seemed to freeze for a moment.

“Kururur…”

The werewolves made low sounds and glanced at each other, then suddenly turned around and started to run away.

“Huh?”

White shadows ran hurriedly through the blizzard.

Their ears were pulled back and their tails were completely down.

“…Kururuk! Kururuk!”

Now I understood the situation.

Are these guys scared of me?

“Hehe, you’re realizing it now?”

I lightly waved at the werewolves who were running away while laughing.

In an instant, countless black roots rose up, forming a huge barrier, blocking the escape route.

“…Kkiing.”

Despair settled into the wolves’ eyes as they realized their situation.

It was the same in the air.

The sight of the Blizzard Wyverns flying fiercely in the snowstorm had already disappeared.

They rose high, hesitated for a while, and then suddenly began to change direction toward the sky.

‘Huh? No way?’

And just as I expected, they quickly tried to escape from this battlefield.

“Poohaha! You’re running away too?”

At that moment, paralysis pollen spread through the air.

The Wyverns who were trying to escape flapped their wings, lost their balance, and fell headfirst into the snow.

Thump! Thump! Thump!

“Heehee, no! What if the offerings to Lord Mikel escape?”

Finally, the Guardians of Cold remained.

These guys have no emotions, so they probably wouldn’t run away.

But whatever.

“I’ll destroy them all!”

Kukukuku!

The body of the ice golem looked solid at first, but it was shattered without resistance in front of my roots.

At first, cracks appeared, but soon it shattered into pieces.

The golem collapsed without a scream.

I happily pulled out the Crimson Bind.

This time, the blood of the werewolf and the wyvern was absorbed into the sword.

The sword glowed redder and redder.

I felt disappointed when I saw the golem’s corpse.

These guys had no blood, so I felt sorry for them as sacrifices to Lord Mikel.

‘Lord Mikel would hate these.’

Now that I think about it, I couldn’t use the evolved blood system of the red fog because the sword was absorbing blood.

Normally, I would create a blood fog to block my vision and attack, but since the Crimson Bind kept absorbing blood, I didn’t have any blood to create the fog.

As if it had read my thoughts, the Crimson Bind suddenly emitted a thick, pungent blood fog.

It was the blood absorbed by the sword that created the fog!

“Ouch!”

I can store the blood here and use it as I please!

In the thick fog, my body felt incredibly light.

I didn’t know when I was a flower because I couldn’t move, but in this fog, I seemed to have the ability to become very agile.

“Yahoo!”

Dododo!

In high spirits, I quickly swarmed through the blood mist and began slaughtering the Guardians again.

I tried to swing Crimson Bind, but the sword still moved on its own in my hand.

“Uuuu, why is this so hard to handle?”

Still, it seemed to have improved a little since I slaughtered the trolls earlier.

The sword didn’t move completely against my will, and sometimes it seemed to move a little in the direction I wanted.

However, since I still couldn’t handle it well, I just carried it around as a decoration and continued to attack with the roots.

Glessia seemed to be aiming at the wyverns excitedly.

She flapped her wings and flew high, stabbing the neck of a wyvern that hadn’t fallen yet, like a professional hunter.

This time, even Cecilia joined the fight.

The flames that burst from her small body melted the Guardian of Ice.

The sight of the ice golem turning into a puddle of water in an instant was something to behold.

Miel was still holding onto my hair tightly, trying not to fall.

It seemed like she was worried that I would fly away because I was moving too fast.

“Hehe! This is so much fun!”

As I continued to kill enemies without thinking, the eastern sky began to brighten.

The sun was rising.

“Huh! It’s already morning.”

I looked around and saw a mountain of monster corpses.

Even the guardians of Seolhanryeong were helpless against me.

However, I had sucked all the blood out of them, so there was almost no blood left.

“Whew… Thank you, Michel.”

I looked up at the blood-red sky and offered a devout prayer.

Now, the effects of the Bloodline and Red Moon skills were slowly fading away, and the sky and moonlight were returning to their original state.

After finishing my prayer, I decided to return to the humans.

Lotte was still circling around them, guarding them.

“Guys, wake up! The ritual is over!”

The humans looked dazed, as if they had lost their minds.

They seemed to have come to their senses at my voice, but they were still completely terrified.

Their eyes were a mixture of fear and awe.

Evan opened his mouth with a slightly trembling voice.

“Ah… This is really amazing…”

“Hehe! Right?”

“Yes… This, it seems like there won’t be any monsters left around the village.”

He then added, pointing to the corpses of the guardians scattered around.

“Furthermore, if this many guardians of Seolhanryeong have died… Adventurers will be able to easily pass through Seolhanryeong for the next few years.”

Revi and Ryandel nodded in agreement.

“Of course! And with this level of performance, I want my adventurer rank to be either national power or SSS-level!”

Evan looked flustered at my words.

“Oh, yes! I will definitely… tell you.”

Evan looked around for a moment and then asked carefully.

“Lord Lycoris, what are you going to do with these monster corpses?”

“Huh? Why, is there anything you want to do with them?”

I asked with a puzzled expression.

Can’t we just leave the corpses as they are?

Then Revi opened her mouth.

“Well… A lot of materials come out of the corpses of these enormous monsters… Usually, adventurers make money by selling the corpses of monsters unless they’re carrying out a quest.”

Ryandel chimed in.

“Yes, especially the corpses of the Guardians of Seolhanryeong yield extremely valuable materials. This will be the first time we’ve seen the corpse of the Guardian of Ice, so there’s a lot of material…”

“Oh! So this is all for money?”

Evan nodded.

“Yes, the guild will purchase these materials. We’ll process them too.”

Then he made a slightly embarrassed expression.

“However, our guild… doesn’t seem to have enough money to buy this amount and all of these valuable materials.”

“Just take them all. Just give me as much money as you can.”

Evan made a surprised expression.

“Really? Are you really okay with that?”

“It’s okay. Instead…”

I said with a playful smile.

“I have to get something at the national power level or SSS level!”

Evan nodded with a serious expression.

“I will definitely do it. I promise with my honor!”

“Hehe! Then that’s enough!”

Now that the shabby monsters and the guardians of Seolhanryeong have been dealt with cleanly, the villagers no longer need to worry about the monsters.

It seems like my adventurer rank will go up too!

Everything is perfect!

‘I did the right thing by performing the ritual for Mikel-sama!’

***

Today too, the heavens were peaceful.

Clear and elegant clouds were enveloping the magnificent temple.

However, a howl broke the tranquility and tore the sky apart.

“That’s right! I am now the god of war, Mikel! I love blood and slaughter! Woohahahaha!”