Chapter 1371: Variation (10)
Rumble!!!!
The Demonic Giant, summoned from the center of the Demonic Worship Ritual formation, slowly raised its body.
“Ah, it’s beautiful……”
Its entire upper body was stained with darkness as the black chains binding its left arm were unleashed.
The old man muttered as if enchanted by its majestic form, clad in wings made of darkness.
“So elegant… Is this truly the power of a true demon…!!!”
“……”
“Hahaha…!!! Excellent, this must be a revelation to punish those who have violated the laws of Hell!!”
“No, is it really okay for the situation to suddenly go this way?”
Ermont, who had been watching the old man release the Demonic Giant’s restraints and cackle maniacally, muttered blankly.
“Why is that guy suddenly only doing things that benefit you? Did you orchestrate this?”
“Is that even a question?”
Lennok replied to Ermont’s words with a look of pity.
“It seems the Demonic Worship Ritual formation faithfully performed its function.”
“What are you talking about? That’s the result of it faithfully performing its function?”
“Didn’t they say they were receiving a revelation from Hell and summoning a demon directly into this world?”
Lennok looked at the Demonic Giant standing on the ritual formation.
“So, it brought the demon that was closest to this place. I, too, had forgotten for a moment what kind of being that summon was.”
Though it’s simply called a Demonic Giant, that summon was an instrument of Hell that Myeong had directly enslaved a long time ago.
It’s highly probable that it’s not merely a demon-like being, but closer to a true demon or a Transcendent being of similar caliber.
In fact, it was virtually confirmed from the moment the Demonic Giant was summoned through the worship ritual.
“I don’t know what a demon truly is, but it seems clear that my summon is compatible with it.”
Lennok tilted his head.
“Ikanthara’s Relic, was it? The summon’s restraints were released by Ikanthara’s Key that the old man took out. There must be some kind of connection…”
“……That’s, something incredibly unfair.”
Ermont, who had been listening to Lennok’s explanation with his mouth agape, narrowed his eyes.
“Did you just take for free a ritual that these worshipers painstakingly prepared? Is it okay for the world to work this way?”
“Why are you complaining to me about that? I have no intention of taking advantage of such results. It doesn’t seem like something I caused in the first place.”
“Arghh!! You’re like a fiend, casually snatching what others acquired with blood and sweat!! I’m also of the Black Edict’s bloodline, so why do I have nothing at all?!”
“I don’t know why you’re suddenly empathizing with the demon worshipers.”
Lennok replied calmly, turning his gaze.
“Before that, shouldn’t we worry about dealing with those monsters?”
The blood-red formation glowed intensely, directing itself towards the kneeling worshipers.
“Haa, haa…!!!”
“Ugh, ughhh…!!”
The worshipers, who had been gasping for breath and praying, their eyes turned vacant, and their presence began to transform into something inhuman.
As the worship ritual in the engine room concluded, a presence suggested that all living beings inside the airship were affected.
[Black Wizard, comms-]
Shhhk-
Even the Admiral’s voice coming through Ermont’s satellite phone was cut off, and silence fell.
Simultaneously, the worshipers who had been prostrate on the ground began to rise one by one.
“Cr, creak…”
“Gurgle, gurgle…!”
Monsters transformed into grotesque masses of flesh without discernible features, with teeth and claws sprouting from their entire bodies.
They had mutated beyond human comprehension, treating everything other than themselves as alien.
Only then did Lennok vaguely understand what a demon truly was.
Reclusive beings who, instead of ascending to the Upper Heavens, embraced corruption and retreated into their own personal hells.
Beings who do not follow the laws of the Outer Universe, creating their own laws and deviating from the rules.
Therefore, are those who worship demons also metamorphosing into living beings who follow rules other than those of this world?
“Haa… nothing seems to go right from the start of this journey.”
Ermont, tucking the dead satellite phone into his waistband, sighed.
“You’re going to kill them all, right? Can I just stay out of the way?”
“Black Wizard, your mouth runs freely for someone who’s a Black Wizard.”
The old man leading the worshipers smiled and turned his gaze.
“The moment a demon has descended into this world, there is neither life nor death for you. It is your duty to be trapped in this man-made hell and serve the revelation forever.”
“……”
“The moment the Four Archangel Demonic Mirrors were breached, the central political landscape is in turmoil, and the time that had stopped is now moving.”
The staggering worshipers who had risen began to surround the engine room, centering on the old man.
The old man, standing in the center and slowly smiling, his eyes were also stained red.
“To coincide with the day the Ascendants arrive… we worshipers will also establish new laws upon this land.”
KWA-AAANG!!!!
Before he could finish speaking, dozens of red-eyed worshipers rushed towards Lennok and Ermont.
Monsters tearing through bulkheads, pipes, and components like paper, wildly swinging their limbs at incredible speeds.
CRASH!! THUDDDDD!!!!
Despite being bare-handed, scratches, as if from claws or teeth, were left on the walls.
Unlike what was visible, their movements and attacks resembled those of wild beasts, overflowing with bloodlust.
Ermont rapidly dodged the onslaught of worshipers rushing madly from all directions by jumping and moving swiftly.
“Damn it, I knew this would happen! You’re just going to watch again, aren’t you?!! I didn’t expect anything this time either!!!”
“You’re incredibly quick-witted in such matters.”
Perhaps because he had taken Deimus’s body, his movements were far more skillful and fluid than before.
Sliding across the blood-soaked engine room floor, he unleashed black magic, concealing himself in black smoke.
Hiding and reappearing in the shadows of the engine room, he led the worshipers rushing from all directions on a chase.
“Hahahahaha!!!! Black Wizard. Your movements are as nimble as your mouth!!!”
The old man chortled at the sight and walked towards Lennok.
“Good. Black magic, in a sense, is similar to us. I’ll keep you alive until the very end and offer you as a sacrifice.”
“……”
“Therefore, Demon. As proof of our contract, use your newly acquired power to kill this monster!!!!”
The old man raised his wrinkled hand, pointing at Lennok, and declared to the Demonic Giant.
“He is a high-level spellcaster of immense talent. Eat him, and you shall draw one step closer to Hell!!!”
[…]
The Demonic Giant summoned on the spell formation showed no reaction to those words.
It merely hung its dark-enshrouded left arm limply and silently tilted its head.
Only after the Demonic Giant and Lennok’s gazes met squarely in the air did the old man, sensing something amiss, sharply turn his head.
“What are you doing!!! I summoned you according to a legitimate contract, so why—”
“The power of a summon isn’t meant to be used that way in the first place.”
Lennok said to the old man.
“It’s not that its restraints were released, and it gained new abilities; it’s more like it reclaimed its sealed power. So, there’s no way it would understand such commands.”
“Wha, what?!”
“From my perspective, the relic you used, Ikanthara’s Key, seems to hold quite significant meaning. The Sensory Synchronization I feel with the summon is stronger than before.”
Kiiiiiiing-
Lennok, slowly drawing forth his mana, muttered.
“So, I can guess what it can do now that its restraints are released.”
“What in the world are you trying to—”
“Come.”
The old man’s words couldn’t be finished.
As Lennok raised his hand, the Demonic Giant, as if mimicking him, slowly extended its left hand.
And as it formed a hand seal with one hand, it began to gather the darkness that had spread all around.
Charrrrrr-rukk!!!!
From within the scattered darkness, the sound of black chains clashing could be heard.
A noise like something being caught by chains and dragged from beyond the darkness. An uncanny sensation, as if an immense power was rapidly rising from beneath the surface into reality.
Lennok, whose senses were synchronized to the extreme with the Demonic Giant, reached out his left hand as if grasping the empty air, and the moment he pulled it—
[Heavenly Abomination]
KWA-AAAAAH-!!!!
From the fingertips of the darkness-shrouded Demonic Giant, a house-sized greatsword of grotesque form was dragged forth and gripped in its hand.
Its ominous appearance, with sinister patterns etched across the entire blade. An eerie dread, as if a tombstone from Hell had been carved into a weapon.
An incomprehensible paradox where ugliness and beauty coexisted, a grotesque and beautiful contradiction that should not exist in this world.
“Whoa…!!”
“How, how could this—”
As the Demonic Giant gripped the greatsword, the overflowing darkness rotated, drawing a blackish halo.
Spacetime continuously warped without cease, as if it had long dominated the darkness of this world in this manner.
Even Ermont, who was fleeing, gaped, and the old man twitched with a pale complexion.
“It seems this summon used to have its own separate armament.”
Lennok looked up at the Demonic Giant and nodded.
“Shall we try swinging it once and then think about it?”
“No, wait!! You have to let me—!!”
Ermont’s scream, as he fled, couldn’t be finished.
The Demonic Giant, gripping the greatsword in its left hand, the moment it rotated its body and swung its arm—
A tsunami of darkness that engulfed the immigrant fleet erupted like an explosion and dyed the surrounding spacetime pitch black.
[Black Erosion]
KWA-AAAAAAH!!!!!!
Darkness overflowed across the ceiling and bulkheads of the engine room, and corpses of flesh scattered like ashes.
The old man, who had been standing on the spell formation, was crushed as his body was slammed into the crumbling engine room wall like a toy.
The heat of Hell engulfed the mundane world, and the darkness of the underworld crushed, pulverized, and burst the mutants.
An overwhelming slash erupted, as if formless darkness had been converted into physical force.
“Ah, ah… why, why…”
The old man, fallen and his entire body burned to ashes, let out a weak groan.
“Why… just as everything was about to be fulfilled, of all people… someone like you…”
With a single slash from the Demonic Giant, the worshipers’ miserable remains, trampled and massacred like insects.
But what tormented the old man was not the emptiness that the series of events had been resolved in a single strike.
The demon that the worshipers had summoned by sacrificing their lives and offerings had no intention of siding with them in the first place.
Just as the old man, realizing that fact, weakly scraped the floor, Lennok, having unsummoned the Demonic Giant, spoke.
“Even while using Ikanthara’s Relic, you couldn’t recognize the power of my summon.”
“……”
“You were demon worshipers, but not of the Ikanthara lineage, were you?”
In Torquepaz, The Clown had used a magic tool called the Blood Bath to recover his body.
Inside the bath was a forbidden art fusion that kept anyone immersed in it alive, no matter how much blood they lost.
He had noted Ikanthara after seeing that grotesque relic, but if he had to guess, these people seemed to belong to a different lineage.
Worshipers who didn’t even know what kind of demon they were summoning wouldn’t likely be such exceptional alchemists.
“I heard that the demon-worshiping cult of the Ikanthara lineage was comparable to the Guido Cult in forbidden arts.”
Lennok, meeting the old man’s gaze, asked.
“That Ikanthara’s Key you used on my summon. Where did you get it?”
“I, Ikanthara… Ikanthara…”
The gasping old man whispered in a fading voice.
“I… I didn’t want to go to Hell… like that…”
“……”
After those words, no further answer followed.
Had he given up everything as the ritual ended and the demon left the formation?
Lennok, confirming that the old man’s breath had ceased, walked towards Ermont.
“Can you get up?”
“Egu, egugugu…”
Ermont staggered and stood up, clutching his waist.
“M-my back feels broken… I think my spine is fractured…”
“A Legion Commander’s body couldn’t possibly be that weak. You’d do well to stop exaggerating.”
“Damn it, this isn’t just an ordinary Legion Commander’s body. This is the body you personally beat up during the subjugation campaign!”
Ermont grumbled, laboriously rubbing his waist.
“The assailant who beat him probably doesn’t remember, but this guy was rolled around miserably in this war. He even felt comfortable with death at the end, doesn’t that say it all?”
“……”
“So I promised to use this body as carefully as possible, respecting this guy’s devotion. Though I didn’t get his consent.”
“It’s a talent to choose only such disgusting things to babble about.”
Lennok shook his head and turned to walk out of the engine room.
Ermont shrugged his shoulders and walked behind Lennok.
“You know, seeing you up close, you’re definitely a bit different. If it were Victor in the first place, he wouldn’t have entertained this conversation for long.”
“……”
“I thought all high-level spellcasters would be similar, but it seems even mad spellcasters have their own unique personalities. Should I say you feel calmer than your reputation suggests?”
“……”
“Judging by how you make people explode like clapping, your methods seem far more violent. Is it just that you’re quietly insane, so it doesn’t show? The type who prefers action over words?”
“Then you must be the type to forget it like a goldfish, even after experiencing the same thing dozens of times.”
Kiiiii-yaaaaak!!!
Only after desperately begging, to the point of wearing out his hands and feet, was Ermont able to protect his temples from the Demonic Giant’s hand.
“Uh, anyway, have all the remaining problems been resolved? Can we really depart now?”
“The ritual has been terminated, so the situation is over. After dealing with the surviving revolutionaries and worshipers, we’ll move to the center.”
Lennok said, walking down the blood-soaked airship corridor.
“However, the hull is severely damaged, so it seems we’ll need to do some repairs on the immigrant fleet.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that. I’ll take care of it somehow.”
Ermont smiled, tapping his own head.
“This guy, in his lifetime, was a brilliant and knowledgeable soldier. Digging through his memories, I found he even knew how to repair airships!? Isn’t that amazing?”
“I have no intention of entrusting airship repairs to you, so you don’t need to be surprised.”
“No, listen! Knowledge is one thing, but this guy has over 200 certifications!? If I use this face, which strangely looks like it’s good at everything, I can get a free pass into any organization or corporation—”
KWA-AAAAANG!!!!
Before he could finish speaking, red flames filled Ermont’s vision.
Along with a powerful shockwave, the entire airship tilted sharply to one side.
“Whoa-aaah!!!”
Ermont, who had tumbled across the tilted floor, his eyes wide, gasped for breath.
“M-my back!! I just really heard a snap sound…!!!”
“The revolutionary you killed earlier wasn’t lying after all.”
Lennok, having climbed onto the wall of the tilted hull corridor, looked out through the broken window.
“It seems you greatly underestimated the revolutionary army’s full strength.”
Dudududududu!!!!!
Breaking through the storm clouds around the shaking airship, dozens of helicopters and fighter jets appeared.
A squadron of air force, forming an orderly formation hundreds of meters above, was encircling the immigrant fleet.
On the side of a helicopter with its guns pointed, a beret-wearing skull, symbolizing the revolutionary army, was painted.
[Hear this, Black Wizard Ermont of Pandemonium, and his minion, Admiral Cromwell Chieftain.]
[Your wicked schemes to satisfy your selfish desires by exploiting the noble values of the revolutionary army cannot be overlooked.]
[In response to our comrades’ urgent calls for support, the 8th Brigade of the Revolutionary Army has arrived to punish you.]
[Today, here, we shall crush the wicked schemes of the Demonic Conflux and restore justice.]
Pabubububung!!!!
Before the declaration was even finished, the helicopter’s machine guns spewed fire, and missiles flying towards the airship fell in quick succession.
With a roar, explosions erupted across the airship, and the hull shook relentlessly.
“The firepower is unusual. It seems the main forces of the revolutionary army moved after hearing news from this side.”
“What justice!!! Aren’t they just trying to seize a valuable, unaffiliated airship for themselves?!!”
Did the revolutionary soldiers who infiltrated the airship immediately call for backup from their main force, and the squadron arrived?
This means that the revolutionary army, too, had been coveting this airship to get their hands on it.
Kwa-gwa-gwang!!!
Blazing flames surged through the ship’s corridors, and intense shockwaves erupted as the ceiling and walls collapsed.
In real-time from beyond the cloudy sky, dozens of missiles were continuously falling.
Ermont, clutching his waist and tumbling across the floor, flailed about.
“S-should we run for now? These guys seem to be planning to crash the airship entirely?!!”
“……No.”
Dozens of bombers surrounded the immigrant fleet. A relentless barrage from the revolutionary army.
But Lennok, without even thinking of moving from his spot, looked up at the sky.
“Someone is coming. This is…”
Not the missiles falling towards the airship at this very moment, but the storm clouds beyond them.
From a distance so vast it was barely perceptible, the moment his ‘gaze’ met someone else’s.
Pale blue currents wrapped around Lennok’s fingertips and began to flicker.
Crack…!!
As the currents flowed through his fingers, thunder began to rumble from beyond the storm clouds.
The entire sky responded to the will of the lightning wizard, resonating in a magnificent display.
At the same time, the main force of the revolutionary army, sensing something amiss, drastically reduced their barrage.
Kwarurururung!!!
“W-what is this, suddenly?”
Ermont, who had been rolling around the ship’s corridor floor like a toy, startled, turned his gaze.
He knew what that wizard’s lightning meant, having participated in the subjugation campaign himself.
“Do you have some kind of grudge against the revolutionary army? Why are you using magic you didn’t even use against the demon worshipers—”
[Black Wizard, are you listening?!]
At that moment, Ermont’s satellite phone connected, and Cromwell Chieftain shouted urgently.
[An emergency has been declared across the entire Republican military!! All nearby communication networks and radars are going haywire!!]
“……Huh?”
[A Category 17 typhoon covering the entire southwestern airspace has completely changed direction. Someone is forcibly causing a weather change!!]
Cromwell Chieftain said in a stiff voice.
[An Ascendant is heading there right now. Get out of there immediately!!]