episode_0083

“My liege. Here, today’s new corpse.”

A broken throne. A ruined palace. Blood and flesh were scattered everywhere, and decaying corpses rolled on the floor. A corpse with nothing above its neck pointed to the limbs of priests from the Order that had been cut off, and spoke.

The reason she could speak despite having no vocal organs was simple. Before becoming a corpse, she had been a magician who had mastered scale magic. Fortunately, she had transplanted her brain to her abdomen, so producing a voice through magic was not a difficult task.

She used her finger to remove stone dust that had gotten into her exposed throat, and then knelt down towards the man sitting on the throne.

“Please feel free to use them.”

“You bastard!!!”

One of the priests whose four limbs had been blown off shouted.

Not all members of the Order awaken Holy Power. Rather, those who possess Holy Power and can wield it are few in number. But once awakened, it circulates through the body and mind almost eternally, until the faith of the believer is exhausted.

That process even postponed death.

The ability to shout normally while blood was gushing from their limbs was largely due to such Holy Power. This was because blood similar in quantity to the pouring blood was being generated in the bone marrow. Thus, the priest did not lose consciousness and could still retain a normal head.

There’s a reason why Holy Knights are called cockroaches. Their appearance, rushing forward while instantly reattaching or regenerating their limbs even after they are blown off, resembled the armies of hell. The sacred Holy Knights of the Order resembling the armies of hell. It was quite an irony.

However, unlike them, the priest’s severed limbs were not restored. Blood merely poured from the bright red cut surfaces.

The reason was simple.

A dreadful level of death energy was constantly burning the cut surfaces. There was only one being on the continent with death energy powerful enough to consume the priest’s Holy Power.

Corpse Master, Zerbil.

“How many times have I told you?”

The man sitting on the throne tilted his head crookedly and opened his mouth.

“That I’ll kill everyone who enters my domain. I think I even warned the Order?”

“Do you think we would listen to the words of an evil corpse magician! For the sake of our brothers and sisters who were sacrificed to you, we will definitely cut off your head!”

“Haa… It’s always the same repertoire. Do you know how many times I’ve heard that?”

Zerbil put his hand into the air and moved his arm as if stirring water. Then, flesh rained down from the air and soon formed a gigantic sphere of corpses. The priest widened his eyes at the sight.

-Ah, ahh… Dean…

-O God, please give us rest…

-Die, die, die, die, die-

Hundreds of heads sprouting from the sphere. Each and every one consisted of priests from the Order. Blood flowed from their hollowed eyes, and they either cried out to God or spewed curses with their mouths. Unlike the hundreds of heads, a large heart pulsed violently inside the single, round body. Each time it pulsed, blood flowed from the hundreds of mouths.

A crimson banquet instantly drenching the floor. Zerbil painted his black shoes bright red by stepping on it as if it were a carpet. The priest could no longer bear it and screamed loud enough to make the palace tremble.

“ZERBIIIIIIIL!!!”

“I gave you a chance.”

Zerbil said, manipulating the tiny chunks of flesh within the blood.

*Crunch*, *Squish*!

“Personally, I don’t like killing priests either. But what can I do? I still have to deal with the ruffians who come into my house. As for subjugation or whatever, that’s none of my concern.”

“You, you! You are an evil person who goes looking to kill even those who don’t enter your domain! Don’t justify your actions with such trashy words!”

“Well, I admit it. But so what? I’ve never thought of myself as a good person, or a saint. Killing people who didn’t come into my domain? Some I killed just because I was bored, others to replenish my corpses… It’s something like that. Assigning meaning? Is that really necessary?”

The wriggling pieces of flesh transformed their shape, resembling a giant scythe. Zerbil picked up the scythe himself and strode towards the Order members crawling on the floor like insects.

“Let’s be honest. You honestly came here to raise your profile by killing me, didn’t you? You got cocky because the Order praised you as strong, and you led a gang in here, didn’t you? Did you really come here with a noble purpose?”

“Who, who are you to judge my intentions! I was the vanguard! I was the vanguard dispatched to subjugate you!”

“Ah, really?”

Zerbil grinned, put the scythe on his shoulder, and knelt down to look at the priest.

“But what can I do? I’m capricious, so it’s hard for me to simply accept your noble intentions. In my head, you’ll probably be remembered as a priest consumed by selfish desires. Meaning you’re a moron.”

“You bastard!!!”

“This is the mental breakdown symptoms of a common drug addict. If that’s the case, just cure me.”

Zerbil did not listen to the priest’s reply. Instead, he used the scythe to stab and burst the heart, dividing the corpse into the head, chest, abdomen, and waist. No matter how great a member of the Order, they couldn’t survive being divided into four parts. Life force drained from the priest’s corpse in an instant.

“You can eat it, Katarina.”

Zerbil said, personally handing the rolling head on the floor to the scale magic user. The scale magic user accepted the head with an ecstatic voice.

“Thank you.”

“Hmm. You worked hard. You should eat this much.”

“…Your speech patterns are inconsistent. It seems the effect of the drug is wearing off.”

“Ah, really? That’s probably because I took a moderate drug. This time I’ll take a high-quality one. So you should eat quickly too, Katarina.”

“Yes.”

Katarina replied with a slight bow, then peeled off the priest’s scalp entirely, split the skull, and took out the brain and brain fluid. Then she sliced open her abdomen and poured it inside.

Katarina’s brain in her abdomen exists inside her stomach. Naturally, there is stomach acid in the stomach, and the acid was continuously dissolving her brain. If she didn’t ‘consume’ brains periodically like this, her brain would melt away and she would no longer be able to think normally.

The reason the corpse has stomach acid is that she actively uses acid. Most people wouldn’t think that stomach acid would flow back up beyond the exposed throat. That’s why it could be a hidden weapon.

“The brain of a priest is indeed delicious. It exceeds expectations.”

Katarina said with satisfaction, putting her organs that spilled from her slit abdomen back in. Zerbil smiled faintly, attaching the head without a brain to the corpse sphere.

“This makes it roughly three hundred, I guess.”

He brushed the blood off his hands, stretched languidly, and plopped down on the priest’s chest. Then he took a drug pouch from his pocket and shook its contents out into his nose and mouth.

“Hmm.”

The sweet and bitter taste of high-grade drugs massaged his brain. Feeling the pleasant breakdown of his body, Zerbil recalled Virsia and the Saint he had seen a few days ago.

“I wonder if those people are doing well.”

The Saint’s declaration to close the sky. The very statement that magicians living in the shadows and a parasite would wage a subjugation war against a Great Magician in the light interested Zerbil, but it didn’t go beyond that. He didn’t feel the necessity to kill Ena either.

So he didn’t participate.

However, separate from that, he was curious about how far the joint work of the two would extend its devil’s hand. To what extent could an 8th-tier necromancer and a devil’s saint do against a Great Magician who wields lightning? Murder? Sealing? Or make her a puppet? Just strip her of power and make her an old person stuck in the back room?

Thinking that far, the Disciple of Genesis at the Academy suddenly came to mind. Zerbil stretched the corners of his mouth wide and lay back.

Actually, he was personally more interested in Ashel than Ena. The fellow he coincidentally met when he was just a child who was nothing, had become a great magician capable of being the Great Magician’s disciple.

It would be stranger not to be interested. And the largest portion of Zerbil’s motivations were interest and curiosity. He was more faithful to the basic desires of a magician than any other magician.

“Hoo. Can’t help it.”

He sprang up and mumbled.

“Since other people are focusing their attention on Genesis, shouldn’t I at least balance the scales?”

A scale tilted to one side. Zerbil decided to personally balance that scale. He decided that for all the attention others gave to Genesis, he alone would pour his interest into Ashel.

“Let’s go, to the Academy!”

He shouted with a wide smile.

Inside the palace where there wasn’t a single living person, thousands of corpses responded to Zerbil’s will.

***

“This is the place. This is where the ‘Saint’ last visited.”

Said a Holy Knight clad in pure white armor. Her name was Euphoria. She was one of the high-ranking members of the Order among the Holy Knights. Ena passed by her with a expressionless face.

A restaurant located in the Imperial Capital. A high-class restaurant normally visited by nobles and owners of large merchant groups. From within the skyscraper that rose high, symbolizing its authority, a strong smell of blood permeated. Ena contorted her face, broke down the firmly closed door, and entered the restaurant.

-Kyaaaak!

At the same time, a centipede shrieked and charged at Ena.

It was no ordinary centipede. A ‘grotesque’ with a horrifying appearance as if dozens of people were connected together, it tore its mouth wide open and flicked its sharp tongue.

Ena killed the centipede by merely lightly flicking her hand, causing it to burst.

Then, from the bursting blood, bones, muscles, and organs, hundreds, thousands of parasites surged out all at once. Ena clicked her tongue and filled the interior of the space with white lightning.

*Crackling!!*

Lightning running through the space tore the parasites apart one by one. Just like that, nothing was left on the first floor of the restaurant in an instant. Only faint ashes scattered on the wind.

Ena sighed deeply and began walking up the restaurant. In the process, she dealt with the ‘infected’ that rushed at her one by one. Each time, memories from the past would unnecessarily surface.

A man who visited the kingdom. The king entertaining him. Two girls sitting and observing the outsider with interest. The crown prince trying to maintain a stern expression. His other siblings suppressing their laughter at him.

“…”

The collapsing palace. The queen bathing in blood. Boys and girls tearing apart human flesh. Herself running away and abandoning her teacher. Family members erupting in insane laughter. The king and people infected with parasites. The revealed devil.

My own helplessness.

The teacher who didn’t show his face until the very end.

*Crackle!!*

-Kweeeek!

The surging lightning split the body of the infected in half. But the creature didn’t die; it divided and crawled across the floor and ceiling like separate entities. Ena clicked her tongue and burned the crawling upper and lower halves, leaving no trace.

Having arrived at the top floor. The Holy Knights who followed belatedly trailed behind Ena, and she stared at the table placed in the center, her eyes chilling.

On the table, which was pure white unlike the crimson everywhere else.

[It has been a while, Princess.]

Familiar parasites, forming a cluster, were drawing letters.

[Perhaps if you are reading these letters, it means the Princess has arrived at this place. Ah, I will correct the title. You preferred the word Royal Princess more than Princess. Your face, still pure back then, remains in my memory.]

“Master Genesis, what on earth is this…?”

[It is truly regrettable. That the child who smiled so brightly, always seeking praise from her teacher, has become such a dry person. How sad your teacher, who sacrificed himself for you, would be if he saw you now? Ah, perhaps you have already forgotten the feeling of sadness?]

Despite Euphoria’s murmuring, the parasites’ movement did not stop.

This was not a conversation. It was merely one-sided communication.

Nevertheless, Ena clenched her fist tightly and muttered inadvertently.

“…Saint.”

[Anyway. Let’s get to the point. My master, our savior, whom you killed, is actually not dead. He succeeded in transferring his consciousness into the small labyrinth. If his consciousness grows normally, he will resurrect through the corpses remaining in the ruined kingdom. This is a definite proposition. There is no error.]

“…”

[But if, by any chance, you break through the small labyrinth and destroy or weaken my master’s consciousness. The resurrection will not occur. How about it? Simple, right? It should be easy for your brain to understand.]

Ena was silent.

[Does it feel like a trap? Yes, that’s right. It is a trap. But what are you going to do about it? If you leave it alone, the devil will resurrect, and how could a vengeful spirit like you not go? You will definitely go to the small labyrinth. You have been guided that way, and cursed that way. As you know, if a devil worshipper is born among the bloodline of the long-lived race, a curse is activated that requires them to definitely kill the summoned devil through that bloodline, isn’t it? You are not free from it either. Unless it is Virsia, who severed her soul connection.]

“…”

[So welcome. I will be waiting in the small labyrinth. The sole missionary and saint of the Magic Kingdom.]

Upon saying those words, the parasites simultaneously began to commit suicide. The letters collapsed, and crimson blood soaked the table.

“…Ha.”

The corners of Ena’s lips twisted crookedly.

***

[Grade Joint Sparring Bracket]

One day. Such a poster was suddenly put up in the Academy hallway. Ashel, who was moving to the classroom for the next class with Elena, stopped for a moment and scanned the bracket.

Sparring that would continue for three days. Among them, Ashel’s sparring was scheduled for the second day.

[1st Year Magic Department Top Student Ashel] – [2nd Year Overall Top Student Harmon Yankov]

His opponent was the strongest in the 2nd year.