Chapter 186

—Brain Sucker.

El-Cid’s voice dripped with disgust, and it was only natural.

The way brain matter, blood, and scraps of flesh squirmed together like molten clay was sickening enough to haunt dreams. Even Leon nearly retched at the sight.

That foul slime induced something primal—an instinctive revulsion that clawed at the very core of life.

—Among the summons that exolaw can call forth, it’s one of the vilest. You could call it a parasitic variant of that Abomination you fought before.

A... parasitic variant of that thing...?!

—Yes. By nature, it can’t exist independently in this world, so it latches onto a host to sustain itself. I didn’t think they’d twist that property into a tool for brainwashing, but it looks like they’ve picked up quite a few new tricks while I was gone.

At the word “brainwashing,” Leon’s eyes widened.

He had cut the knight down out of sheer revulsion, but the man’s mental state had already been strange. If it had truly been loyalty that drove him into this atrocity, he would have died without speaking so much as a word.

Instead, he had shouted for all to hear: Sacrifice for the Emperor. The rabble’s life is worth less than firewood.

It was as if it were scripted to stir hatred against the Emperor.

Then maybe the Mad Emperor isn’t the real mastermind at all.

The thought struck Leon like lightning. The Emperor of the Clyde Empire—long the prime suspect as the Evil Order’s collaborator—might himself be nothing more than a puppet. Perhaps the throne was simply a shield, meant to divert the wrath of the Holy Church and other outside powers.

It wasn’t proof, only intuition, but Leon felt certain he had brushed against the truth. Leon hesitated several seconds before asking the one question that weighed on him.

“El-Cid. Was there a way to save that man? If he did this because of the Brain Sucker, then couldn’t I have just removed it—”

Thankfully, El-Cid’s reply came instantly.

—Impossible. The Brain Sucker devours the brain and takes its place, only mimicking the host’s behavior. Even if you removed it without leaving a scratch, a human with no brain cannot recover. He might be able to move, but at this point, he’s no different from an undead.

“I see...”

—If you got to it before it burrowed into the brain, then yes. But once it’s settled in, not even I could save them. Don’t let yourself be shackled by useless guilt. Focus on what you have to do.

The words were curt, but the care behind them was clear. Leon let out a faint laugh, his expression lightening before hardening once more. He raised his sword.

The Brain Sucker had already crawled to his feet, writhing to find a new host before death claimed it. The Holy Sword drove down into its body.

Following a distasteful squelch, the thing shrieked and flailed before dissolving in seconds like a punctured slime, leaving only a small puddle of blood. Leon summoned Holy Flame to his blade, burning away the foul remains and the headless corpse alike, before advancing into the warehouse.

The shabby building was a façade, just as he had expected. A stairwell leading down had been hidden with magic.

Guided by the Stigma of the Observer, Leon smashed open the wall and descended without pause.

The steps went on—hundreds of them.

It was deeper than he thought. Dozens of meters below, he finally saw part of the massive magic circle meant to swallow Alger whole. And at its core, something floated, gazing back at him.

“Is that... a black crystal?”

A crystal, jet-black in color, hovered at the center. It was identical to the pure grade morian used by the black mage Andrei in Rubena. Even the way something writhed within it was the same.

Through the Stigma, Leon felt a shiver of rejection. This crystal was not natural.

El-Cid recognized it immediately and said, —That’s a Wraithstone.

“A Wraithstone?”

—It’s forged by extracting lingering regret, hatred, and malice from the dead, then sealing it within. Most likely, they plan to conduct the sacrifice and then trigger the Curse of Berserk with that.

It was a horrifyingly efficient design. It would harvest the dying screams of the sacrificed, draw in even more restless spirits, and unleash the curse to strip reason away and inflame violence.

The scale of venom born from tens of thousands of wrongful deaths—Leon could barely imagine it.

Even with every cardinal gathered, could they stop it? Funnily enough, it didn’t matter, as there was no need to go that far.

“I can just destroy it first.”

He tightened his grip on the Holy Sword and stepped toward the obsidian, wrapped in its ominous aura. An unactivated circle was still only a circle. One strike would suffice.

Then, a strange pulse erupted from the crystal. Not Aura. Not mana. An indefensible energy swept through Leon.

At the same instant, the Stigma of the Prayer flared with light. That was all.

“What was that...?”

Leon instinctively raised his sword, head cocking in confusion. He didn’t realize the malice had tried to engulf him, only to be burned away by the radiance of the Stigma. The Stigma of the Prayer was an invincible shield against mental assaults.

The Wraithstone quaked at the backlash, but it had no more fight left. Its nature was clear: a crystallization of black magic meant to attack the mind. Once that attack was nullified, it was helpless.

With a clang, Leon’s sword cleaved it in two, and the hatred sealed inside went up in golden fire. It was a hopeless mismatch. He broke the crystal, erased the circle, and even leveled the warehouse so nothing could be restored.

One arm of the Reverse Pentagram had fallen.

“I wonder if Elahan and Karen are doing all right.”

Given their strength, this level of work would be nothing to them. Even if the black mage himself rushed over, he wouldn’t stand a chance against any of the three.

Knowing that, Leon turned away, at ease.

***

With a loud crash, the knight was flung faster than an arrow and slammed into the wall. His lungs collapsed, leaving him choking without even a scream. Had he not been an Expert-level warrior, he would have died instantly. That was the sheer power of Elahan’s fist.

To those who could still repent, she spared a sliver of mercy. However, once they crossed the line, she granted not a shred. Elahan stared coldly at the knight thrashing before her.

“You are already beyond saving,” she said.

In matters of exolaw, her knowledge surpassed even Leon’s. She recognized the Brain Sucker, a parasite of the Evil Order that ate into a creature’s brain and mimicked its behavior.

She also knew that this knight was alive in appearance but was already long dead. She closed her eyes briefly, then struck. Her fist crushed his skull before the Brain Sucker could even emerge.

When the knight’s corpse slumped lifelessly against the wall, she offered a quiet prayer for the dead, then turned to look at the stairway below.

From beyond it, a surge of force pricked against her holy senses. A lure, perhaps—but it hardly mattered.

“

Haaap

!”

Elahan lifted her right fist high and drove it down into the ground. It was the Holy Fist, the art of the Holy Iron Inquisitor Angela.

Her immense Holy Power and Aura fused into a single torrent of light, blasting downward with force greater than a sixth-tier spell. The beam smashed through bedrock, tore into the magic circle centered on the black crystal, and erased it without a trace. The black mage who had drawn it could never have imagined someone attacking in such a way.

As the tremors faded, Elahan felt the malice seeping from the depths vanish.

“My job here is done.”

She wished she could destroy the remaining two circles, but if all were erased, the black mage might flee rather than reveal himself.

Her eyes flicked toward the distant lord’s manor. The one who had orchestrated this was surely there. That she could not strike him down immediately filled her with regret.

“I will let you live for now, since that’s what the Hero wishes.”

Her gaze, usually warm, gleamed with chill steel as she slipped back into the night. Behind her, the building crumbled, sending pale dust into the air.

All she needed was a single strike. With that, the earth collapsed, the hollow beneath the stairs caving in, burying the knight’s headless corpse under rubble.

“We will meet soon, heretic.”

No foresight was needed for the Saintess to declare it so.

***

Karen thought to herself,

So far, so good.

When she knocked out a few guards and piled them in an alley. When she infiltrated the building and subdued the Expert-level knight within.

If he were an Expert, likely a royal guard, surely a bit of torture would yield valuable information? That thought had been her greatest mistake.

“

Bleeegh

.”

After tumbling back to gain distance, Karen faked a retch.

𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖

The assassin’s training was meticulous. She had dived into sewers without hesitation and even trained to slit a corpse open and hide inside for a week.

This much would never make her vomit. In fact, it was precisely because she had endured such training that she did not.

“That’s fucking disgusting.”

It almost felt like it would haunt her dreams. And when it did, they would all be nightmares, enough to kill her appetite whenever she recalled the sight.

The creature writhing before her was too grotesque to put into words. Would a living human look like that if their insides were turned inside out?

No. That alone was not enough. It was far worse.

“If I’d known, I’d have killed you the instant I saw you.”

Karen spat a curse, eyes blazing. She could draw human anatomy blindfolded, but she couldn’t even begin to grasp this monster’s form. Did it even have vital points? Could it even be called alive?

When the crystal that shot up from underground latched onto the unconscious knight, she had never imagined it would turn into this.

Squelching, muscles and veins writhed over exposed bone, stomach acids and blood splattering like bugs on a hot pan. Boils swelled over its revolting skin, many shaped like human faces. In fact, they may have been real faces. It looked as though some were mouthing incomprehensible curses, others screaming in pain, and each in a different voice.

It looked like countless humans stuffed into one body, all struggling to claw their way out.

“Let’s see if you can die.”

Karen’s eyes cooled, and ten daggers flew from her fingers. They cut the air at lightning speed. Teal Aura Fire trailed ten arcs, striking so fast they outran sound itself and buried themselves into the creature.

Flesh burst and blood sprayed following her attacks: three aimed at the head, five at vital organs, and one each to the spine and neck. Every throw was aimed at a killing point. A human would die or be crippled from even one hit, but the monster took them all.

With another squelch, its body, collapsing like wet clay, instantly restored itself and stepped forward.

It had absolutely no effect. It was the same undying resilience she had seen in the undead.

Without Holy Power, Karen would need an overwhelming force to erase every trace of it. She could drag it into her shadows and cast it into void-space, but—

No. I shouldn’t do that.

Her instincts screamed to reject the option, and rightly so. Her shadow arts, shaped by her Aura Blade, were bound to her spirit. If she cast into them a monster writhing with thousands, tens of thousands of vengeful souls, even an Aura Master’s mind might not survive.

“

Ah

.”

Then, a wild idea flashed in her mind. She could call Elahan or Leon and end this quickly, but perhaps there was a better result to be had.

Leaping aside from the beast’s charge, she vaulted atop a building and glanced toward the direction she meant to lead it. Even in the dark of night, the target was plain.

There it was. The manor of the Lord of the Alger Fortress.