episode_0122

*

My side is hot.

A searing heat accompanied by terrible pain spread from my side throughout my entire body.

I could feel the monster’s fingers piercing my side and churning through my insides.

The sensation of my organs being pushed aside brought on a wave of nausea, and I vomited directly onto Sola, who was lying beneath me.

However, what came out wasn’t vomit, but rather, uncongealed clots of blood.

Sola nonchalantly licked the blood that had splattered on her face with her tongue.

“Tsk, disgusting.”

“Damn… it,”

Ignoring the Devil’s taunt, I desperately tried to pull the monster’s hand out.

However, there was no way I could pull out its steel-like arm with my strength.

Rather, it dug in deeper, like a root burrowing into my body.

Because it had attacked near my abdomen, it was difficult to even properly exert force.

I gave up on the monster’s arm and tried to pull my body back, but it twisted its body flexibly, avoiding Sola’s body and following my movement.

I bit my lower lip and swallowed my scream at the pain of my intestines being shredded.

Forcibly holding onto my blurring vision, I glared at the monster’s arm.

The arm that had risen from beneath the ground was moving freely as if swimming on the surface of the water.

The sight of only the arm protruding while the entire body was hidden beneath the ground was bizarre and infuriating.

Perhaps the reason it wasn’t coming out of the ground was because Sola’s body, a Devil, and the broken Devil’s horns were scattered around.

Monsters instinctively avoid Devils.

In fact, that pale and skinny arm was skillfully avoiding the horns scattered on the floor and Sola’s body as it moved.

“Kuk,”

I grabbed one of the Devil’s horns that had fallen on the floor and stabbed it with all my might into the arm that had pierced my side.

Only then did the monster’s arm spasm and pull out of my body.

A terrible shriek, like the sound of a canary’s neck being twisted, was heard from beneath the ground.

An enormous pain overwhelmed my abdomen along with the sensation of something large suddenly being pulled out.

My vision flickered for a moment.

Because I felt like I was about to faint, I bit my lip hard enough that blood splattered.

A few pieces of my intestines came out along with the hot blood pouring from my side.

I covered them with my hands and breathed roughly.

Sola, who was lying beneath me, sneered as she looked at me.

“Oh my, you look like you’re really in pain. I wonder if I was in this much pain too.”

“You…”

“You reap what you sow, right? Don’t you think?”

“…”

“But, I’m alive, and you, in that ordinary human body, will soon die. Ah… considering your once fearsome reputation, isn’t this a surprisingly anticlimactic end?”

“…”

“There will be many Devils who will adore you when you go to Hell.”

I sneered.

No, it might not have been a sneer, but a small hiccup as I was dying.

I looked down at Sola’s face.

Then, looking directly into her eyes, I murmured quietly.

“Me too…”

“Hmm?”

“Me too… when I go to Hell… I’ll adore many of you Devils… you can look forward to it…”

“…You’re creepy.”

It was then.

“Priest!”

Lucia was running towards me, who was injured.

However, she wasn’t flustered or frightened by my injury.

Even as she ran towards me, Lucia was calmly scanning the floor around me, tracking the monster’s traces.

Lucia, having discovered the white arm floating on the surface like a float at the end of a fishing line, dyed both of her legs black and leaped towards the monster’s arm.

“No.”

The Demon King muttered quietly, following Lucia with his eyes.

At the same moment Lucia was captured in his gaze, the Ebony Wolf’s power that had been enveloping Lucia’s body vanished in an instant.

Having lost the power that had propelled her leap, Lucia fell straight down from the air and rolled on the floor.

“Eek!”

“The Ebony Wolf? How dare such a low-level Devil try to be clever in front of me,”

“Luc… ia,”

“Lower your head. I haven’t permitted you to move.”

Lucia tried to get up after falling, but she staggered like a newborn deer and collapsed to the floor.

Then, as if realizing something, she slowly looked back at her legs with a pale face and murmured.

“Ah… legs… my legs… my body…”

“Lucia… you,”

“My body… isn’t like… before…”

Lucia trembled and cowered on the floor.

It was a trembling that seemed closer to her body physically not moving, rather than fear.

For some reason, I was very familiar with the sight of Lucia trembling like that.

Come to think of it, she always looked like that before she gave her body over to the Devil.

“…Ah,”

Although I wasn’t certain, it was clear that this Demon King had neutralized the Ebony Wolf that had possessed Lucia’s body.

And thanks to the Devil’s influence disappearing, Lucia’s body had returned to its original, weak state.

To the weak former self that Lucia had so hated, to the point of willingly giving her body over to a Devil.

“Lucia, run… away, quickly.”

I said in a trembling voice.

Each time I opened my mouth, the blood that was piled up in the back of my throat flowed out in a stream.

However, there was no time to hesitate.

Lucia, who had lost the Devil’s power, couldn’t fight the monster.

No, in her current condition, it was difficult for her to even run away.

I gathered Holy Power and grabbed the remaining horn on top of Sola’s head.

“You, you bastard… what the hell… did you do.”

“I simply met her eyes. That alone is enough to convey my majesty to a Devil.”

“Let Lucia, let the Ebony Wolf go. Release Lucia… this is between us. Aren’t you… ashamed, being a King… and all?”

“I don’t want to.”

Yeah, I guess so.

Devils are all like that.

I slowly tightened my grip on the horn.

I can’t get a good grip.

It kept slipping because it was covered in blood.

I gritted my teeth and forced myself to exert strength, and my entire fist trembled.

Sola’s lips opened with a sneer.

“Oh, torture? In that state? Go ahead and try.”

“…I’ll grant… your wish.”

The Demon King smiled broadly, as if impressed, and laughed heartily.

“Hahaha, yes, I admit it. Your torture is truly horrific, but alas. Unfortunately, the flaw is that you are too foolish to see any effect.”

“…”

“A way to save Sola? There is no such thing. You wasted your torture time asking questions that have no answer, so aren’t you being attacked in reverse like this.”

“…Shut up,”

“Now, let’s see. Which will be faster, for you to torture me and make me grovel before you, or for the monster to kill you and that nun?”

“Shut up…”

“Ah, that’s right, that might be a way to save Sola. If you die, you’ll fall into Hell together. Don’t you think?”

“Huuuh!”

I broke off the horn.

It’s nice to say I broke it off, but it was practically ripped out.

The inside of his scalp where the horn had been located was deeply indented.

The expression on his face instantly changed from a sinister smirk to a look of horror, letting out a terrible scream.

He clearly hadn’t expected that I would pull out the horn using such a barbaric method.

With a venomous face that belied his earlier composure, he spewed out terrible curses and insults.

Because it was the language of Hell, there wasn’t much I could understand.

“Kyaaaa! I will devour your soul, you will die! Theodore!”

“Haaa…”

I closed and opened my eyes or rubbed my eyes with the back of my hand to correct my blurring vision.

However, it was no use.

The weight of my eyelids was gradually becoming unbearably heavy, and the periphery of my vision was darkening moment by moment.

Whether I was falling asleep or fainting,

Whatever it was, it would be the end if I collapsed like this.

Clenching my tongue to prevent my mind from shutting down, I struggled to roll my eyes to check where the monster’s arm was.

“Priest! Left!”

Anna’s shout came from above.

When I turned my head to the left, the monster’s wide-open maw was right in front of my eyes.

A face covered with white, disgusting blisters, most of that face opened in a cylindrical shape, revealing its maw.

A cylindrical gum protruding from that maw, and countless molars densely packed in several layers inside that gum.

“Kuek!”

I reflexively arched my back.

An unbearable, terrible pain vibrated from my pierced side.

I couldn’t bear it, and a scream leaked through my teeth.

The monster brushed past me, leaping out of the water like a fish, then disappearing as if being sucked into the ground.

“Succubus, how dare you fly above my head! How impertinent!”

Sola shouted.

At the same time, Anna plummeted from the night sky.

“My, my wings! Lilith!”

Anna screamed and fell towards the ground.

I wanted to catch her, but my body, which had been arched backward, couldn’t be quickly pulled forward.

When I tried to raise my body, blood spurted out of my side like a fountain.

Anna didn’t curl up her body, but instead reached out her arm towards me.

At the end of her arm was a large crossbow.

“Priest! Grab this—!”

Bang!

With a deafening roar, Anna crashed to the ground, and Anna’s voice stopped immediately.

Dust rose in all directions, obscuring my vision.

I couldn’t confirm where the monster was.

I couldn’t confirm whether Lucia had run away.

I couldn’t be sure if Anna was okay.

Thud.

“…”

However, the crossbow rolled to in front of me.