Chapter 176 : The War Begins (6)
A choked groan escaped Pepia as he clutched the gash carved across his chest.
To think the toy he’d been planning to break had just changed. He almost couldn’t believe the man was human.
Can a mortal’s very nature shift so completely?
In all his centuries as a Demonkin, he had never witnessed such a thing.
It almost felt as if the roles had reversed, and he was the prey now.
“…Incredible,” Pepia breathed, the sound a dry, hollow laugh.
But the fear was quickly replaced by a predatory smile. The attack had startled him, yes, but the wound itself was shallow.
He hasn’t fully settled into this new power, he realized. A slow, sharp grin stretched his lips. And I almost missed the show.
The human, once burning with desperate rage, now wielded his sword with the grace of a master. No, something more. His blade sang with a newfound power, as if he’d become a god of the sword in a single heartbeat.
There was a rumor, wasn’t there? An exceptional swordsman among the mortals.
His name? Lin-something.
Irrelevant, he decided.
What mattered was the pair of glorious new toys before him.
His gaze flicked between Louis and Roxen.
One, a swordsman who had vaulted from the edge of Mastery to the realm of Grand Masters in a single, breathtaking moment.
The other, a little boy who now bore a Halo and the Stigmata of a goddess-blessed.
Weren’t they both talents of the century? To stand against such paragons…
Truly…
“This is the greatest day!”
His shout cracked into a discordant peal of laughter.
Madness.
The sickening energy of his madness bled through his demonic aura, palpable and foul.
Then, with a wet, tearing sound, Pepia plunged his hand into his own chest—right into the gash Roxen had carved.
He twisted his fingers, churning muscle and bone. A grotesque cascade of blood and mangled tissue spilled down his front.
“Phuhuhu—!”
A wet, gurgling laugh bubbled from his throat. His smile never wavered, a rictus of pure ecstasy as his fingers stirred inside his own torso.
Louis and the Taskforce could only watch, paralyzed by the sheer, horrifying spectacle.
After a long moment, he spoke.
“…Hah. There.”
With a final, wet squelch, Pepia ripped his hand free. His arm, slick with gore, painted his white suit a brilliant, terrible crimson. Spittle flecked his chin.
Louis’s brow tightened. “Have you gone insane?”
“Insane? I’ve never been more lucid in my entire life! Phuhuhu!”
“…You’ve lost your mind.” Louis shook his head.
He took a swift accounting of the battlefield.
Fewer than thirty Demonkin remained. Roxen had carved through their ranks, while he and the Divine Archer had eliminated the commanders.
The enemy’s chances of victory were functionally zero. Their only real threat was Pepia attempting to escape.
“Are you planning to run?” Louis asked.
Pepia’s laughter died.
He snapped his head toward Louis. “What? Run? Me? Why?”
His eyes began to bleed red at the edges.
“This is the most exhilarating day of my existence. Why would I run? Huh?!”
This truly was the greatest day. He hadn’t felt this thrill since facing the Demon Emperor himself.
He could escape, as the mortal suggested, but to flee from a performance this magnificent?
Unthinkable.
He would rather kill himself.
“Yes… killing myself,” he mused. “That doesn’t sound so bad, does it?”
“…What?”
“I offer you my respect. You are only the second mortal to ever excite me to this degree. Go and boast of it to your goddess.”
Pepia swept his blood-matted bangs from his forehead. Then, letting out a final, wild laugh toward the heavens, he activated a new power.
Demonic energy surged from him in full, his body merging with the Abyssal Bloom
A deafening roar, not of sound but of pure power, tore through the air.
Louis lunged, intending to cut Pepia down, but the storm of demonic energy threw him back.
“…Damn it. Too late,” Louis muttered.
The scene unfolding before them was nothing short of apocalyptic.
Pepia, the Count of Madness, had just wagered his life on a single, ultimate technique.
<Abyssal Realm: Ballroom of Madness>
A chorus of phantom shrieks clawed at their minds.
“Uh…?”
“W-wait—!”
The remaining Demonkin convulsed, their bodies twisting and collapsing into unrecognizable masses of flesh and bone.
Crunch!
The chunks of meat Pepia had torn from his own chest shot skyward, drawn to the new sacrifices. The grotesque mass swelled, pulsing with an overwhelming demonic energy.
“Puhahahahahaha!”
Pepia roared with laughter, his hands clamping around his own throat.
And then… a blade of pure demonic energy materialized.
With a soundless flash, it sliced Pepia’s head from his shoulders.
The Count of Madness had taken his own life.
“…What in the world?” Lancelot stared, his face a mask of disbelief.
Just then.
“Peek-a-boo!”
Pepia’s severed head rolled once on the ground. Its eyes snapped open, and it stuck out its tongue before shooting into the air on a final, manic laugh.
“Puhahaha! Let’s enjoy this to the very end!”
With that cry, the head plunged into the coalescing mass of flesh. His headless body crumpled into a similar meaty ball and followed.
Splorch.
With a wet, viscous sound, the mass continued to expand.
Finally.
BOOM!
SPLATTTTTTTTTTTTTTT!
The mass detonated. Not with a boom of fire, but with a wet, percussive sound that echoed across the battlefield. A torrent of blood and flesh began to rain down from the sky, coating the holy ground in filth.
Louis let out a hollow laugh.
Abyssal Realm. A technique predicated on the user’s self-annihilation, just like the one he’d faced before.
This was that technique, reborn at the hands of a madman.
* * *
“…He’s insane.”
I watched the unholy tableau Pepia had created.
His Abyssal Realm was on a completely different level from the Viscount of Sloth’s. Or rather, the method was different.
The Viscount’s technique had transformed a physical area into a demonic realm.
Pepia’s was something else entirely: an ultimate attack that used his own life as fuel.
It was a technique that granted its user the power to annihilate everything before them, but at a terrible cost: the forfeiture of their soul’s return to the Demon God.
As proof, the man was not yet dead.
“…This is the final exchange.”
I raised my aura to block the rain of flesh, my eyes fixed on the epicenter of the explosion.
A sickening, sloshing sound emanated from the piles of flesh.
At the same time, a figure rose from the piles.
Pepia.
The Count of Madness smiled, flexing a pair of newly formed wings woven from glistening entrails.
“After this moment, I will die. As you wish, one of the Twelve Nobles will be gone.”
“…”
“However, if you fail to stop me, I will gladly use this power to bring ruin to your precious Empire. So—” He chuckled. “Try to stop me. Let’s make this interesting… let’s dance!”
With a fleshy whoosh, he launched himself forward, wings beating.
He swung his dagger.
CLAAAAANG!
Roxen’s sword met the blow, but the resulting shockwave was immense, sending him staggering back.
KRAAAAAAAASH!
“You bastard!”
“…Die.”
Lancelot and Kai blurred into motion, charging Pepia from opposite sides.
However.
“I’m done with the small fry. You can play with these.”
A viscous fluid wept from Pepia’s wings, dripping onto the chunks of flesh below.
The fluid and meat coalesced, rising as new, horrifying shapes before Lancelot and Kai.
“Huoooooh…”
Undead. They took the form of the ‘Maggot Hosts’ from the legends of the Great Human-Demon War.
“Damn it, what are these things now?!”
“…Disgusting.”
Lancelot and Kai grimaced at the thirty shambling horrors.
Individually, a Maggot Host was said to be on par with an Aura Expert—manageable.
If this place weren’t saturated with demonic energy, that is.
The rain of flesh. That grotesque downpour was empowering them.
Each one had likely been elevated to Aura Master level. Even for Lancelot and Kai, this would be no easy fight.
To make matters worse.
“Ugh!”
“Seriously? A Saintess with such a weak stomach?”
“I’m a former Saintess! Ugh!”
Mihaila was doubled over, retching. It wasn’t just the gore; the sheer concentration of demonic energy was a poison to her divine senses.
I know the feeling.
I took a long, steadying breath and leveled my gaze at Pepia. He wore a vicious smile, daring me to make a move.
“What?” he taunted. “Ready to begin?”
“…I suppose we are.”
I nodded, and the halo above my head began to spin, casting a silver light.
Fresh blood welled from my Stigmata as my anti-Demonkin Aura surged, a clean fire against the encroaching filth.
I exhaled slowly and spoke to Roxen without looking away from our foe. “I will support you. Can you take his life?”
“Hah… Yes.”
Roxen, already back in position, nodded, his eyes gleaming with cold fire.
Even as a new Grand Master, he was still a step below a true veteran of that rank.
A seasoned Grand Master would struggle against one of the Twelve Nobles alone; it was no surprise Roxen had been thrown back.
But things are different now.
“Good. My master and I will provide support. You take the lead.”
“Understood.” Roxen nodded.
I shifted my gaze to my master. “And Master, proceed with the plan.”
“…Our initial plan has changed somewhat.”
“You’re mistaken.”
In truth, nearly everything had changed from what I had envisioned. But the outcome would be the same.
Today, here, we would kill the Count of Madness.
That much was certain.
“Everyone, prepare yourselves.”
I drew my bowstring, aiming squarely at Pepia, combining the power of my halo and Demonbane Shot: Rend.
An arrow of pure anti-Demonkin Aura blazed toward Pepia.
<Divine Beast Invocation>
My master’s four divine beasts erupted into a storm of tooth and claw, seeking to tear Pepia apart.
And finally.
<Lindal’s First Form: Wrath>
Roxen’s sword flew toward Pepia’s neck.