Chapter 1281: Demonic Realm Beyond Humanity (4)
Human sacrifice is a forbidden spellcraft performed by offering the flesh and soul of living humans as tribute.
Because it is the pinnacle of depravity to gain power by sacrificing humans, its process far surpasses the efficiency of conventional spellcraft.
A malevolent and sophisticated forbidden art, so precise that the old man failed to recognize the premonition until he was on the verge of transforming into a flesh monster.
Splosh!!
While Lennok gazed down at the mutated being with a heavy, sinking gaze, the woman moved.
“……”
“Contact the conductor. We need to cut the fuel supply and get this train moving right now.”
Wiping the slime from her arm with one hand, the woman spoke in a calm tone.
“There’s nowhere to run around here except for the undersea tunnels, and outside is all ocean. If we don’t escape, we’ll have to fight whatever mutated that old man until we die.”
The maritime train had stopped at a gigantic undersea passenger terminal, located beneath the Sea of Understanding.
The terminal’s main building, which resembled a colossal glass structure, served as the hub from which numerous vast undersea tunnels branched out.
If the terminal’s main building, which supported these tunnels, were to collapse, they would be buried alive beneath the Sea of Understanding right here and now.
Powerful resilience, unaffected by the sudden ambush. An attitude that showed no aversion to this type of mutated being.
And a cool judgment that allowed her to grasp the rapidly evolving situation and propose the best countermeasure.
Despite her uniquely refined demeanor, she was undoubtedly a veteran who had worked in the field.
“I understand what you’re saying… but it’s already too late.”
However, Lennok agreed with the woman’s words but turned his gaze away.
“This maritime train stopped at the terminal for fuel resupply. Someone must have contacted the terminal staff to follow the procedures.”
“……”
“Furthermore, he was talking to me and disembarked relatively later than other passengers. If he’s already in this state, then everyone else must be…”
Rumble, rumble, rumble…!!!
As the terminal gate faintly vibrated, the train’s fuselage connected to it rattled along.
Beyond the transparent glass wall of the gate passage, something pinkish-glowing surged toward the train at an incredible speed.
Screech!!
Screech!!
Grotesque screams buried within swollen flesh. Distorted human faces that hadn’t yet lost their form within the masses of flesh.
The passengers who had been on the same train just moments ago were now rushing through the undersea tunnel, their entire bodies swollen like balloons.
Thump, thump, thump!!!
“Ah, seriously…!!!”
The speed at which the masses of flesh charged was unbelievably fast.
From the moment they appeared, it took a mere three seconds to traverse dozens of meters of tunnel.
The woman swiftly spun around and ran toward the train door, shouting at a crew member.
“Close the door! What are you doing?!”
“Y-yes? But—”
Before she could utter another word, a mass of flesh, having surged through the gate, enveloped the crew member.
Crunch!!
Crack, crack, crack!!!
In the blink of an eye, it covered the train’s passageway and surface, frantically tearing at the screaming crew member’s neck and face.
“Aargh!! Aaargh—!!”
“Oh, seriously…!!!”
While the woman sealed the door behind the screaming crew member, Lennok, who had reached the engine room door, channeled his mana.
Bang!!
With a mere gesture, he tore through the protective barrier and shattered the lock, flinging open the engine room door.
Beyond the door, normally tightly sealed in case of a terrorist threat, stood the conductor in a blood-soaked shirt, his head grotesquely swollen, devouring the engineer’s intestines.
Crunch, crunch.
“Kueeh…”
“…Gulp!”
The monster let out satisfied groans with each bite of the intestines, while the engineer gasped out agonizing screams.
Boom!!!
Lennok flicked his finger, sending the conductor flying sideways, and simultaneously checked on the engineer.
A truly gruesome sight: nearly half of his abdominal organs had been devoured and ripped out by the conductor.
He was beyond hope. Lennok thought this, yet he applied pressure to the engineer’s wound with one hand and asked,
“Can you speak? What happened?”
“Don’t… know…”
The engineer panted, retching.
“The conductor… was eating lunch… when suddenly…”
“……”
Were even the people who hadn’t left the train mutating? Lennok, who had been silent, spoke again.
“The train is currently stopped at the undersea terminal, being refueled. Does the supply need to be completely stopped for it to depart?”
Even if the conductor or engineer couldn’t move, operating the train wasn’t impossible for Lennok, given he had Davi.
What Lennok needed to know wasn’t how to operate the train, but how to get the currently refueling train back on track.
The engineer seemed to understand Lennok’s meaning, and with a gulp of blood, he painfully replied,
“Engine… each car… fuel tank… all must be closed… Ah.”
“…I see.”
Instead of a single fuel tank operating the entire train, did each car have its own fuel tank? It must be because mana needed to be rotated in each train car to levitate the metallic body as it sped across the Sea of Understanding.
If each train car had a separate fuel tank, and all those fuel ports had to be individually closed to stop the resupply…
At this point, a normal escape was virtually impossible.
As Lennok closed the eyes of the deceased engineer and stood up, the woman, who was blocking the first-class car door, shouted.
“Hey! I’ll hold the door, so you just get out…!!”
CRAAAASH!!!
Before she could finish, the glass windows on the train wall shattered, and masses of flesh poured in.
The monsters clinging to the surface of the maritime train had smashed through the thick glass and surged inside.
A wave of flesh swept through the interior before Lennok and the woman, who were blocking the engine room and the door, could even move.
The masses of flesh that had instantly covered the train car swiftly overwhelmed the woman blocking the door.
CRUNCH!
“Gah…!!!”
With the force of hundreds of people’s weight concentrated all at once, the woman was momentarily unable to bear it and was pushed backward.
Even if she forcibly channeled mana to resist here, the number of mutated beings pouring in from behind would only increase.
Making a snap decision, she spun to face Lennok and gestured with her eyes towards a tablet placed on the seat she had been sitting in.
“Can you grab the tablet—!!!”
Whoosh!
Before she could finish, Lennok used the Compassion of the Archangel to grab the tablet and throw it to her.
Just as she narrowly caught the tablet, her figure was engulfed by the masses of flesh and disappeared to the other side of the passageway.
CRAAAASH!!!
“Grrrugh…!!”
“H-hek…”
In an instant, Lennok was left alone in the train car, which had become a scene of hell, teeming with mutated beings.
But Lennok ignored the drooling monsters lunging at him and immediately turned around.
Most of the passengers and crew inside and outside the maritime train were either dead or fully mutated into masses of flesh.
If the first-class car Lennok was in was this bad, then the other train cars, as well as the terminal main building, would likely be no different.
Therefore, once escape became impossible, the task wasn’t to somehow try to fix the train.
It was to confront the entity behind the malevolent forbidden art that was currently mutating people into masses of flesh and making them devour humans.
The one who had reached the apex of human sacrifice, transforming humans into man-eating monsters while retaining traces of their human presence and life—
“The Guido Cult.”
Grab!!
He snatched the face of a mass of flesh lunging from behind and slammed it against the wall.
He ducked under the attack of a mutated being with outstretched arms, then spun his body.
He accelerated through the mutated beings crammed into the first-class car, heading towards a tightly shut door.
CRAAAASH!!!
As Lennok channeled his mana, he spun around, and the tightly shut steel door of the train car shattered and flew off.
As the masses of flesh clinging to the surface were flung away, Lennok climbed onto the train car and surveyed his surroundings.
‘Where is it?’
The surroundings were a vast passage where thousands of meters of undersea tunnels branched out in all directions.
Only wide, expansive tunnels stretched as far as the eye can see, even when driving at full speed.
Escaping the battlefield here without being detected by each other’s senses was virtually impossible.
Lennok and his opponent were both definitely still here.
Then, it must be—
WHOOSH!!!
As he deployed the Jeongryun Barrier, he accelerated. He sprinted through the masses of flesh at invisible speeds.
He sped low, skimming the undersea tunnel, past the train cars filled with monsters, and broke through towards the terminal main building.
Lennok’s figure shattered the transparent glass wall and dropped onto the gate entrance.
CRASH, BANG, CRASH!!
The moment he landed on the floor amidst scattering glass shards, he felt a soft, squishy sensation.
The entire ceiling and walls of the sprawling terminal main building were covered in sticky masses of flesh.
It was a grotesque spectacle: the entire interior was covered in a wall of writhing flesh, molded from humans.
It had been a long time since he had seen such a grotesque hell, not since infiltrating the Conjunction Spell Master’s Life Domain.
CHING!!!
As an azure sword light sliced through the glass wall, someone landed beside Lennok.
“Ugh, seriously, this is disgusting…”
The woman, irritably sweeping back her blue, curly hair, walked into the terminal lobby.
Holding an intricately shaped gunblade in one hand, she glared at her surroundings with a sharp gaze.
“I don’t know why the Guido Cult always does such repulsive things. Is it because they’re like their master?”
“…Was the tablet for that armament?”
“That’s right. I stuffed it in my luggage so I wouldn’t get caught during departure procedures.”
The woman, pulling out new sunglasses from her luggage and putting them on, replied.
“I had it sealed to avoid detection, and to break that seal, I needed to update the random password key with the tablet.”
So, it took time because she had to retrieve the equipment from her luggage after receiving the tablet from Lennok. Given that she escaped unharmed amidst the masses of flesh and even retrieved her equipment, she was no ordinary combatant.
However, Lennok was still intently observing the gunblade she held.
‘It has a trigger mechanism, but no cartridge… Is she using it without loading bullets?’
A gunblade is a weapon with a gun barrel built into the blade, fired by loading bullets near the hilt. It can be used as both a gun and a sword, capable of close and long-range combat, but it’s delicate and difficult to wield, making this Lennok’s first time seeing someone use one.
But the gunblade the woman held, despite its intricate form, showed no cartridge for loading bullets.
Perhaps it didn’t use bullets at all, or it used a substance other than bullets as ammunition.
However, it seemed Lennok wasn’t the only one with a similar impression.
“I thought you’d be skilled, but you’re even better than I expected.”
Click!!
With one hand, the woman deftly slid the trigger mechanism mounted near the hilt, activating it, and replied.
“To pierce through all those mutated beings and arrive at the terminal first in that chaos… you’re a physical superhuman, right? Your movements are clearly extraordinary.”
“……”
Had she been watching Lennok’s moments of fighting the mutated beings in the train car?
The woman, ignoring Lennok’s reaction, turned around, still clutching the blade.
“I’m Aileen from The Agency. As I said earlier, I’m a former Ranger.”
“……”
“I won’t ask you to help me find Cheonbeon, but please cooperate until we deal with the Guido Cult. You don’t want to be buried alive under the undersea terminal, do you?”
“What happened in the Demonic Realm that you’re searching for Cheonbeon, even scouring near the 2nd Command?”
“The situation changed recently, as a major Great Upheaval occurred within the Four Archangel Demonic Mirrors.”
Rumble, rumble, rumble…!!
The woman, who introduced herself as Aileen, looked back at the shaking undersea terminal as she replied.
“There was a Great Upheaval where the existing environment and terrain were completely overturned, and the Order Alliance, sensing the anomaly, began to intervene.”
“……”
“It’s difficult to explain in detail to an outsider, but the continental power dynamics are greatly shifting. Major factions are moving, and war is imminent.”
Aileen’s face held a faint unease as she spoke.
“Even if Cheonbeon doesn’t join, we need to at least contact him and confirm his intentions beforehand. Especially since the Guido Cult and the Order Alliance will be very sensitive about his name.”
“……”
The Guido Cult and the Order Alliance are on the move, and the Order Alliance is intervening in the Demonic Realm.
At this moment, when the major factions dominating the Central Front are moving as if on cue.
Was it truly a coincidence that this was happening now, just as Lennok was heading to the Four Archangel Demonic Mirrors?
Perhaps the cause of the Great Upheaval in the Demonic Realm was related to Lennok himself.
While he was lost in thought, Aileen took the first step.
“Let’s move, it’s a meaningless conversation as long as he’s absent. From my experience, a human sacrifice of this scale is the result of a cardinal-level powerful individual’s involvement. First, let’s split up and search the terminal’s main building and annex—”
“No, there’s no need for that.”
“Huh?”
Ignoring Aileen, who glanced back, Lennok looked around.
“The opponent mutated hundreds of humans without using any special spellcraft or authority. That’s only possible because this entire terminal facility has already become the Guido Cult’s territory.”
“……”
“The core of the leyline that can declare this entire vast undersea terminal as the Guido Cult’s territory. The most central place in the facility is probably…”
“The terminal main building’s basement.”
Aileen replied instantly.
“It must be near the engine room, which supplies power to this entire massive terminal.”
Ding!
They descended the escalator toward the underground shopping area.
It was a vast area that once contained all sorts of shops selling local specialties and medicinal herbs near the undersea terminal.
In its center, a gigantic flesh egg had bloomed and was slowly writhing.
Cough, fuuuu—
Bulge, bulge, bulge…
“Ugh, ugh…”
“Huaaaaa…”
Every time the egg slowly moved, hundreds of humans clinging to its surface collectively groaned.
A hideous sight: a condensed tumor made of humans, seemingly sucking their lives away. As soon as Aileen saw the fusion of forbidden arts, she channeled her mana.
A thin mana light shimmered on her gunblade, and Aileen’s figure accelerated sharply. She sliced at the undulating flesh egg at an incredible speed.
Ka-ga-ga-gack!!!
“Ugh, ugh…”
“Kreugh…!!”
Leaving behind the grotesquely screaming eggshells, Aileen coldly pressed forward.
Masses of flesh lunged with gaping mouths, but she elegantly dodged them all, plunging her blade in repeatedly.
Swish!!
The moment the blade plunged in, the flesh egg’s form abruptly stopped moving.
Without even looking, Aileen unhesitatingly channeled mana and activated the trigger mechanism.
Kiiiing—
Click!!
Aileen’s mana, acting as a bullet, accelerated through the gun barrel embedded in the blade.
The sharply rotating compressed mass surged past supersonic speeds along the blade and burst into the flesh egg.
The gigantic flesh egg exploded from within, scattering into countless pieces in all directions.
BOOOOOOM!!!
A shockwave so powerful it momentarily shook the entire transparent glass building.
Blood and bodily fluids mixed, raining down, causing violent vibrations throughout the underground cavern. The screams and will-thoughts of the mutated beings swirled like a storm, covering everything in a thick mist.
But even after detonating the flesh egg, Aileen did not relax her guard, gazing at the epicenter with a grim expression.
Even after eliminating the target, the aftershock seemed to linger in one spot for an unusually long time.
This wasn’t death; it was meant to deceive the opponent’s senses—
CRAAAASH!!!
Instinctively raising her blade, the woman’s figure was sent flying backward.
Aileen was slammed through several layers of thick walls, sliding to a stop.
A murky voice echoed from within the dust.
[Good senses, aren’t they?]
Whoosh—!
Walking out from within the egg, cutting through the thick mist, was a man with a thick, muscular physique.
His head wasn’t human but took the form of a dull, metallic object, like a torn-off wing.
The opponent, casually dusting off his hands, spoke with a resonance that wasn’t a human voice.
[I was going to blow your head off with one shot, but you reacted fast. Or should I say, you have a lot of experience?]
“…It’s no special talent. I just thought it wouldn’t be this easy if a Cult Bishop or Cardinal were involved.”
The woman, leaning on her blade to stand up, glared at the man with a cold gaze and said,
“I never imagined an Apostle would be rampaging in a place like this.”
She knew the terminal incident was the Guido Cult’s doing, but given the nature of the spellcraft that mutated humans, she had assumed it was the work of a high-ranking priest or cardinal.
However, the presence emanating from the opponent was neither that of a human consumed by fanaticism nor a religious person who had embraced faith.
It was an incarnation of doom, whose origin differed from any demon beast or monster in this world.
An Apostle had settled in the heart of the undersea terminal, sucking its energy dry.
‘An Apostle far more powerful than I imagined… Why is such a monster here?’
The stigmata etched on her wrist intensely throbbed the moment she saw the Apostle, and faint memories flowed in.
Proof that Seina Naydree, the Priestess of the Guido Cult who had given Lennok the stigmata, had once encountered this monster.
In the flickering memories, various numbers swayed back and forth before settling clearly.
An incarnation of doom, now fallen from its rank. The former 9th Apostle of the Guido Cult.
As Lennok, who had realized the Apostle’s origin through the stigmata, raised his gaze, in that instant.
[Hahahaha, that’s what I’d like to say. You unlucky woman.]
The muscular Apostle, hands on his hips, let out a low laugh.
[I thought it was just the Legion’s rabble flailing about, but it was a noble disrupting the game. I intended to make the entire terminal my altar, but this is an unfortunate turn of events.]
Vwooom!!
As the Apostle took a step, a rotational hum like an engine turning on echoed.
The Apostle growled, rotating the fiercely glowing engine within his chest.
[Thanks to you, the ritual I was supposed to offer to the Pantheon has been delayed. How will you compensate for this?]
‘His power…’
Perhaps because he had been performing the sacrifice ritual until just recently, the power emanating from him was unbelievably immense.
The reason Aileen was pushed back even after reading his preemptive strike was because of the sheer output the Apostle wielded.
That was undoubtedly due to the miniature nuclear reactor still embedded and rotating in the Apostle’s chest even at this moment.
The Apostle seemed to sense Aileen’s gaze and tapped the engine embedded in his chest.
[It’s a miniature nuclear reactor that supplies power to this entire undersea terminal facility, isn’t it?]
“……”
[It’s an Imperial relic that the Legion excavated while exploring the Sixfold Demonic Mirror of Return, hidden here disguised as the undersea terminal’s power source.]
The Apostle chuckled and said,
[It was a treasure no one would have found, but after Cheonbeon turned the 2nd Command upside down at the Legion Parade, a lot of information on this side was released. I should thank him.]
“So, as soon as you found it, you ripped it out and embedded it in your own heart?”
[That’s right. Many Apostles are rushing their preparations before the final battle with the Order Alliance. The Third Apostle’s descent on the Eastern Front was also part of that.]
The Apostle, slowly taking steps while rotating the engine in his chest, replied.
[It was just as the Priestess instructed. Many of the Legion generals died in the Subjugation Operation, leaving this jurisdiction empty, and Cheonbeon, who had just received the command, foolishly ran away, creating a power vacuum.]
“……”
[With no commander, it’s not hard to ignore the Legion’s system and steal treasures. They have so many treasures piled up, despite being so stiff-necked, that their management is lax.]
Woooooong…!!
That fact was evident just by looking at the engine rotating, embedded in the Apostle’s chest.
This monster, having settled in the undersea terminal and swallowed the nuclear reactor, had gained immense power.
It might even be that the Apostle’s abilities were perfectly compatible with that reactor.
[I was synchronizing with the entire terminal facility to fuse this reactor with my body, but in the process, I needed thousands of lives of unbelievers…]
She shouldn’t confront him head-on; she had to lure him outside and whittle him down.
As Aileen, having made her decision in an instant, turned to Lennok to share her countermeasure, in that very moment.
The Apostle, abruptly twisting his body in place, accelerated explosively towards Lennok.
CRAAAASH!!!
[I think this vermin needs to be sacrificed for the ritual to be completed properly. Hahahahahahahaha!!!!]
“……!!”
His elaborate explanation was just a feint; he was targeting the momentary information gap, a chink in her awareness.
An explosive acceleration that caused even Aileen, a former Ranger, to momentarily lose sight of his movements.
If he intended to complete the ritual, which Aileen’s intervention had interrupted, by sacrificing Lennok’s life—
“Look out!!”
Kwooogwagagagaga!!!!
The Apostle’s figure, crushing the air at tremendous speed, shot towards Lennok like a bullet.
Lennok merely looked up at the Apostle with bare hands, without any protective barrier or spellcraft.
‘The timing…!’
The Apostle’s speed was too great, and Aileen was agonizingly late.
Even as she thought this, she brought her blade to her wrist and channeled her will-thought.
In front of her eyes, a red light flashed, and something was flung backward, violently tumbling behind Aileen.
Bang!! Crash, crash, crash!!!
It slammed against the floor and ceiling alternately, then crashed into the escalator, emitting acrid smoke.
The figure, completely charred black and billowing smoke, was not Lennok.
[Wh-what…?!]
The Apostle, his right upper body partially crushed, lay sprawled, groaning blankly, unable to comprehend reality.
The moment the woman realized this and sharply turned her gaze.
Lennok, who had walked past her, spoke.
“The final battle between the Guido Cult and the Order Alliance… an interesting story.”
Click!!
The thick exhaust vents vibrated violently, spewing out scorching heat.
Red flames swirled through the intake device mounted on his forearm, emitting a fiery glow.
Thump!! Chiiiiik!!!
Lennok brought a cigar to the exhaust port to light it, then put it in his mouth and looked down at the Apostle.
“I came out here to hear that, so you’d better give me a clear answer.”
The wizard shimmered like an incarnation, enveloped in swirling flames.
The mark of a Transcendent who manipulates flames with pure will-thought, without using spellcraft or magic.
And above all, the characteristic way he overwhelmingly crushed his opponent with sheer power, almost without any warm-up—
Aileen’s sunglasses melted from the heat and fell with a clink.
“…Cheonbeon?”