Chapter 430: Sorting Waste (2)

Thud!

The last dark knight guarding the outside of the temple collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut.

“

Hm

.”

Over a hundred corpses had already piled up around the area.

After thoroughly ravaging the enemies, the four spears returned and hovered modestly behind Kai’s back.

“Something still feels off...” Kai muttered as he stared at the temple, which continued to exude a wicked aura.

But there was no turning back after coming this far. As long as he didn’t let his guard down, there would be no real danger.

The moment he stepped into the temple, the Transcendent senses activated.

423. That’s quite a lot.

He could feel the presence of life evenly spread throughout the temple.

“First, the lower level...”

Kai jumped into a massive hole that came into view as soon as he entered the temple. It was the same hole he had blasted through to the underground with the four-stacked Solar Photon Cannon last time.

So the Hellgate was the goal after all.

The Muldine followers were inspecting the gate wrapped in chains. Even before Kai landed, the four spears following him shot ahead. As if a fighter jet was flying low, a deafening roar echoed through the air and screams came from all directions.

Kai didn’t bother listening to their cries, and calmly stepped toward the gate.

“Let’s destroy it first.”

It didn’t sit well with him that the Church of Muldine possessed a portal to the Demon Realm. Moreover, Marco and Dr. Jim had specifically asked him to handle it. They were clearly reluctant to see the Demon Realm unveiled too early.

This should clear a debt.

A streak of light shot from Kai’s index finger. The Hellgate, along with the pillars and rear wall behind it, were completely obliterated. Then Kai looked back up at the hole above.

Last time, I came straight down without exploring the rest.

However, this temple was built in a structure where the underground and the surface coexisted. And according to his Transcendent senses, the number of life was much greater on the surface than below.

That so-called Great High Priest is probably upstairs too.

Organizing his thoughts, Kai shot upward. He instantly emerged from the hole and began walking through the temple’s corridor in search of stairs.

“There he is! This way!”

“Kill him so he can’t go up!”

Followers of Muldine surged forward to block him, but their attacks failed to even graze Kai’s clothes.

While roaming the upper floor of the temple, Kai furrowed his brow. “

Hm?

”

This door doesn’t feel right.

Its nature was slightly different from the Hellgate that led to the Demon Realm. If that gate emanated pure evil, this one gave off a sticky and unpleasant aura.

Kai’s eyes widened as he opened the door and stepped inside. A vast space stretched before him, filled with hundreds of test tubes. Each tube was filled with an unknown liquid and housed various life forms.

“Gnolls, orcs, goblins, griffins... wait, even ogres?”

Even as Kai walked farther in, the researchers of the Church of Muldine standing before the test tubes continued their work without paying him any attention.

“Beginning cell fusion experiment between B4 and E12.”

“Begin data recording.”

At their unnervingly calm behavior, Kai released his energy.

“Everyone stop.”

At that command, the researchers momentarily paused and looked his way, but only for a moment. They soon just returned to their tasks.

“Wait, can’t you hear me...?”

Kai grabbed a nearby researcher by the shoulder and gasped. Every living being should have a spark of life, but this researcher’s eyes had none.

“Cell synthesis... troll blood and orc muscle...”

The researcher muttered like a machine, and when Kai’s grip loosened, resumed their work.

Church of Muldine... just how far have you gone...

Kai clenched his teeth. These people were alive, yet not living. Their reason had been stripped away, leaving them as puppets responding only to orders.

And they’re probably creating monsters from these tubes.

Beings like Aosa, Zatan, and Harley, formidable hybrid creatures. It was the moment the source of the synthetic beasts the Church of Muldine boasted of was finally revealed.

Kai stared at them in silence, then made his decision.

There’s no other way. I’ll have to kill them all...

They may have lost their reason, but they were still working for the Church of Muldine. Naturally, they must have committed countless evil deeds by now.

The moment Kai tightly grasped his Holy Sword, one of the researchers suddenly turned their head.

“Are you going to kill them all?”

Kai scowled at the sudden question. “What?”

“All the people here are under my control. They are ordinary civilians unrelated to the Church of Muldine. Are you still going to kill them?”

“So you're the one behind all this.”

The technique of borrowing another’s body, Kai had experienced it once before.

“You still refuse to show yourself directly and cowardly use others, Atroc.”

“

Hah

, call it what you like. I prefer to think of it as being cautious.”

Atroc, Cardinal of the Church of Muldine. Their second encounter came in a most unexpected moment.

“No matter how much they’re under your control, these people have done things no human should ever do,” Kai muttered as he looked somewhere else.

“Experiment failed. Dispose of the specimen.”

As an experiment failed, the liquid inside the test tube drained away, and the monster inside was dumped into the trash like a piece of junk.

“Acts one must never commit, and those one may. Who decides that?”

“Well...”

That wasn't for anyone to decide. In society, laws served as a framework to some degree, but beyond that, a person had to think for themselves, to discern whether their actions were humane or inhumane.

“The god I serve, Muldine, permits it. I belong to no human nation. I follow no set of laws. To me, this is just and right. So what grounds or authority do you have to judge me?”

“If you can’t see that for yourself, then I’ve got nothing to say to you.”

Kai’s Holy Sword cut straight through the researcher’s neck, but a voice spoke up again from behind him.

“

Hm

, colder than I expected. You really went through with it.” Atroc continued speaking through another researcher’s body, “The Supreme God made both light and dark. Neither is right nor wrong. They’re just different. For someone as good as you, there’s someone as wicked as me.”

“I don’t care if you’re wicked. Who am I to say otherwise? However... if that’s how you choose to live, you shouldn’t have harmed others.”

Kai scanned the test tubes once more.

“Society isn’t a place where you live alone. If you want to be part of it, you have to care for others and make compromises, whether you like it or not.”

“

Hm,

but isn’t that just your standard? Why do you keep trying to force your standards onto us?” Atroc waved his hand lazily. “Well, it doesn't matter. I didn’t come here to bicker with you.”

“Then get lost.”

A beam of light burst from Kai’s fingertip, erasing the researcher without a trace.

But just as expected, another researcher calmly walked up and said, “Kai, our investigation into you was thorough from start to finish.”

“So what?”

“We know everything about you, but you know very little about us.” Atroc’s voice carried pride. “That gap will be what breaks you.”

“Actions speak louder than a hundred words.”

Once again, a researcher’s neck was slashed.

“Haven’t you wondered? We usually don’t like leaving traces, so why would we reactivate this place?”

Kai hesitated at Atroc’s remark. That part was something he had been questioning all along.

“You’ve been waiting for me...”

“That’s right. We dug the trap just for you and waited patiently,” the researcher curled his lips into a grin.

There was no emotion in his eyes, so it felt like a corpse was smiling, sending a chill down Kai’s spine.

“You may have sensed it already, but it’s too late for you to escape.”

Hearing that, Kai calmly focused his senses.

Of course.

He detected strange currents of dark magical energy flowing around. They were similar to the teleportation barriers from his past war with the Church of Muldine.

“No magic or divine spell will let you leave the temple.”

“You really set all this up just to hold me here for a few minutes?”

“Of course not. According to our intel, once an adventurer dies, they can’t return to this world for three days.”

Twenty-four hours in reality, seventy-two hours in-game. That was the forced logout penalty for a player who died.

“That should be more than enough time for Muldine to secure Helik’s vessel, don’t you think?”

“What...?”

That lazy Muldine was going to get on the move himself, and do it while he was gone?

Kai scowled and growled, “Try it, if you think you can.”

“You’re overflowing with confidence.”

“Because I’m sure I won’t die no matter what happens.”

“

Oh...?

” Atroc let out an unknown laugh and said, "Then three days from now, let’s meet in a world that’s been turned upside down."

"That’s not going to hap—"

Just as Kai was about to finish speaking, a thunderous explosion erupted from below. Kai narrowed his eyes and looked down at the floor.

Atroc explained, "This operation was personally led by Muldine. Even a Dragon Lord, the strongest being in the Middle Realm, wouldn’t survive this attack."

Kai ignored Atroc’s words and cast a skill right away.

"Ethereal Body."

Fwoooosh!

In that instant, Kai’s body turned translucent. He entered the Ethereal Body, which granted complete immunity to physical damage but doubled all magic damage taken.

Right now, I’m practically invincible.

That was because Kai’s current magic resistance had exceeded 100%. If the incoming damage had already been zero, then even doubling it still meant zero.

"Pointless. All you’ve done is waste what little strength the Church of Muldine has left."

“

Tsk tsk

, and I thought we knew everything about you..."

"You’ll see if that’s true soon enough."

The temple exploded from below, and as the floor crumbled, Kai’s body floated into the air. Even as the surging dark holy power devoured the test tubes and researchers, not a single trace of damage reached Kai.

“

Hm?

”

At that moment, Kai sensed something strange with his Transcendent senses and turned around. What came into his vision was a researcher engulfed in flames, still smiling.

“Dispel.”

What?

With no time to react, Kai’s translucent body began returning to normal.

Ethereal Body has a five-minute cooldown...

That meant he couldn’t use it again right away.

"

Ahahahaha!

"

Kai’s expression twisted as he heard Atroc’s maniacal laughter ring in his ears.

"

Argh!

"

The dark holy power that clung to his entire body drained his strength and brought pain. Though not overwhelming, his health dropped rapidly with every passing second.

Sunlight’s Warmth, Sunlight’s Warmth, Sunlight’s...

The incoming damage far outpaced his healing.

“Sunlight’s Warm—!”

Just before the skill could complete, the dark holy power exploded once more and blew apart the temple. The shattered debris of the temple shot into the sky, then plummeted back to the ground, and Kai realized he was falling. The moment his back struck the fifth basement floor where the Hellgate was, an annoying sound followed as his health dropped to zero.

Beeeeeep.

With the sound that played upon a character's death, a message appeared before him.

[You have died.]

Dead...? Me?

Kai watched his body scatter into polygons from a third-person perspective. When a player’s character died, they were able to objectively observe their own death like this. If there happened to be a cleric nearby who could resurrect him, he could resume playing, but otherwise, a forced logout would soon follow.

The one thing fair to everyone is life.

Whether strong or weak, each person only had one life. However, Kai possessed one more chance, something others did not. It was a chance unknown to any player or monster, except for the developers of Pegasus. No amount of investigation would ever uncover it. A skill that could truly be called Kai’s final trump card.

The scattered polygon fragments of Kai’s body began to reassemble. Then, a dark crimson aura started to seep out from the reformed humanoid shape.

[Undying Will activated. You have resisted death.]

[Regain 1% of total health as part of Undying Will’s effect.]

[Invulnerable status activated for 5 seconds as part of Undying Will’s effect. All abilities gain a 10% bonus while in this state.]

Kai, who had been buried under the rubble of the collapsed temple, opened his eyes.

Rumble!

He waved his hand and created enough space to lift his body, then muttered, "Interesting..."

Kai let out a low chuckle as he recalled Muldine’s plan of excluding him like this and striking Helik directly instead.