Chapter 223 : Kai's Growth (1)
On a forested ridge overlooking the battlefield, Maria, the Viscountess of Lust, hummed a lilting tune as she surveyed the chaos below.
“One down,” she murmured, a smile playing on her lips. “I wonder how far the other will run.”
She pursed her lips and blew a soft breath toward Ribam. A visible wisp of air, shimmering with faint power, drifted down from the ridge. It coiled into his nostrils, unnoticed.
“And that one’s finished,” Maria said with satisfaction. She began to hum again, her gaze sweeping across the field. “Now, I wonder how things are progressing elsewhere?”
Just then, a sharp voice cut through the air.
“Who goes there!”
A patrol of ducal guards emerged from the trees, their expressions hard. They were soldiers of the ducal army, but to Maria, that was a trivial detail.
“Oh, you’ve found me.” She offered them a dazzling smile and flicked a finger.
In that instant, one of the guards froze.
“…Huh?”
His expression went slack, then twisted into a look of pure, unholy ecstasy. A moment later, he plunged his own sword into his heart.
“Hah…” A blissful sigh escaped his lips as blood streamed from his eyes, nose, and mouth. He collapsed, a beatific smile etched on his face.
“Heheheh…”
The other guards glanced at one another, their faces contorting into grotesque grins before they, too, fell to the ground, their lives extinguished in a wave of unbearable pleasure.
“What a shame.” Maria knelt beside one of the corpses, her lips hovering near his ear. “If you had only endured it, I would have loved you so much more.”
With a soft, mocking laugh, she rose. Her business here was done.
But as she turned to leave, a sharp cry escaped her lips.
“Ah!”
She clutched her wrist, her brow furrowed in pain. Through a break in the clouds, a pillar of holy light descended upon the battlefield. Its radiant edge had brushed against her skin.
A soft hiss, like water on hot iron, rose from her flesh. Even in the shadows, the spot where the light had touched her was caught in a sickening cycle of decay and regeneration.
“I’ll have to be careful of that,” Maria muttered, gripping her wrist. Any other Demonkin would have healed instantly, but her demonic energy had always been pitifully weak.
“Louis Berg,” she whispered, her lips curling into a smile that held no warmth, only a deep, predatory lust. “What an irritating man you are.”
* * *
Roxen was claiming victory in his own battle, turning his attention to the remaining foes.
Elsewhere, Lancelot and Kai fought back-to-back, their bickering a constant rhythm beneath the clash of steel.
“Move it.”
“…You move, big man.”
A cannonball of pure Aura erupted from Lancelot’s spear, blasting a hole in the enemy line.
In the same breath, a thread of Kai’s Aura, fine and dark as a midnight spider’s silk, silently parted a knight’s throat.
Though they argued, they were the Special Taskforce’s most formidable duo.
“Shit…! How are we supposed to stop them?!”
“Fall back!”
The ducal army’s regular soldiers broke and fled, while the knights could do little more than raise their shields and try to buy time, bogging the pair down with sheer numbers.
But with every passing moment, the combined assault of Lancelot and Kai carved deeper into their ranks.
“Damn it, where are they?!” a battalion commander roared, desperation coloring his face.
He was clearly waiting for reinforcements. Specialists like the Veilwarden.
Kai’s face was impassive as he slipped behind the commander. With a sickening crunch, he drove a dagger into the man’s shoulder.
“Guaaaargh!”
Kai twisted the blade.
“Gyaaaaaaaaargh!”
The knight’s scream was shrill, but Kai ignored it.
“From now on,” he said, his voice flat, “you will only answer my questions.”
“Sh-shut up—Guaaaaaaaaaargh!”
The snap of bone was sharp and loud. Kai broke one of the knight’s fingers.
“I told you to only answer my questions. Did you not hear me?”
“Nnghhh!”
Another sharp crack echoed as a second finger broke.
“Guaaaaaaaaaargh!”
“Still no answer. Do you have trouble understanding words?”
“Nngh! Wh-what do you want to ask?!” the commander gasped.
“You have nerve,” Kai observed, his voice devoid of emotion. “To still look at me with defiance in your eyes.”
His gaze flickered to the side. His hand shot out, seizing the throat of another knight charging him.
Kai’s crimson pupils dilated as a palpable killing intent began to radiate from him.
“I don’t have time for this. I need to get back to protecting the young master. How many of them are there?”
“Kai,” Lancelot warned. “Right now, you’re—”
“You can afford to stay clean, Lancelot,” Kai cut in. “But don’t interfere. The dirtier my hands get, the safer the young master will be.”
He plunged his dagger into the other knight’s throat. The man died instantly. Kai let the body drop and turned back to the commander.
“Answer me, unless you want to be next.”
“Khahaha… You think the threat of death will make me betray my cause?!”
“Is that so?”
The dagger in the commander’s shoulder twisted again.
“Nngh—mmph!”
“You misunderstand,” Kai said calmly. “I have no intention of killing you. At Death Veil, I learned the most effective way to extract information isn’t to kill the target. Instead…”
An immense killing intent erupted from Kai, a palpable pressure that washed over the battlefield. It was a living thing, a coiling serpent of pure malice that slithered into the minds of all nearby.
It was the manifestation of his talent: the Slayer Incarnate.
The common soldiers fainted. The knights barely held on to consciousness, soiling themselves where they stood.
The commander, caught at the epicenter, gasped for breath, his body convulsing as his instincts screamed for an escape that would never come.
“Instead,” Kai continued, his voice a quiet whisper, “I make you wish for death. Now, speak. Tell me everything, and I’ll grant you that mercy.”
The commander, who had been so defiant moments before, opened his trembling lips.
“They… they are…”
A sudden, wet crack shattered the air. A war hammer, seemingly thrown from nowhere, had obliterated the commander’s head.
“Hmm. This is why you can’t just promote anyone to management.”
A woman with a high, blonde ponytail strolled into the clearing, scratching her head.
“Still, that’s impressive. You’re so young, yet you can produce killing intent of this magnitude. Are your parents Demonkin? Oh, or perhaps… you believe in the Demon God?!”
Her eyes sparkled with a manic glee.
She was the paladin of the Demon God. One of the Duke’s Chosen had arrived.
“I can’t believe it,” she whispered, her eyes welling with tears as she looked to the heavens. “Meeting another believer in a place like this… I must be the luckiest woman alive.”
Kai glanced at her, then shot an irritated glare at the commander’s headless corpse.
“…How annoying,” he muttered, his brow twitching.
The killing intent of the Slayer Incarnate intensified, surging outward in a violent wave.
Now, knight and soldier alike began to shriek and foam at the mouth as they collapsed.
The paladin, however, merely stared at Kai in admiration. “Wow… that’s truly incredible.”
She started toward him, weathering the oppressive Aura as if it were a spring breeze.
Lancelot stepped forward, planting his spear to block her path.
“That’s far enough. My little man here is a bit shy.” His grin was clearly forced.
“…You could die, big man.”
“Quiet. I know,” Lancelot sighed.
He knew. Even after awakening his Mindscape, he was still weaker than Kai.
It wasn’t about power levels or techniques. It was about something deeper. Could he see a human life as nothing more than an insect’s? Could he torture a man and desecrate his corpse to achieve a goal?
He couldn’t.
He had always walked a clean path, one guided by the noble cause of protecting the North. He had awakened his Mindscape with the resolve to die for that cause.
But Kai and this woman were different. They could sacrifice others without a second thought. For them, torture and deceit were not evils to be avoided, but tools to be used.
Kai’s tendencies had lessened over the years, but now…
Damn it, he’s reverting to his old self.
Lancelot remembered the day Kai first awakened his Aura.
The boy, who knew nothing of such things, had manifested it after a single strike from an assassin. He had killed the man and protected his captain with a speed Lancelot couldn’t even track.
No matter how hard Lancelot trained, Kai was always ten, twenty steps ahead.
Awakening his Mindscape had been a relief.
Finally, he had thought.
I can protect him. I can create a world where he doesn’t have to get his hands dirty to stay by the captain’s side.
It seemed that had been his own delusion.
“C’mon, Kai. You’re still just a kid. Stop trying to act so tough.”
“…Like you are now?”
“Tch. Not a single endearing bone in your body, is there?” Lancelot smirked and raised his spear.
The energy rolling off the woman wasn’t demonic. It was something thicker, deeper, like an abyss.
He recognized it. Myu, the Countess of Slaughter, had used a similar power once. The Red Moon, she’d called it. When she had, he’d felt a malevolent gaze from the sky.
This woman’s Aura felt the same.
“So you believe in the Demon God,” Lancelot muttered, forcing the corners of his mouth up. “I suppose that’s its energy, then.”
“Oh? Are you a believer, too?” the woman asked, tilting her head. “Hmm… but you seem far too clean for that.”
“Why would I believe in something so pathetic? What’s the point of worshipping trash the Goddess will eventually smash to bits?”
“Ah…?”
The paladin froze, her cheerful demeanor vanishing like a snuffed candle.
“…Hah.”
A blood-red mist began to pour from her body, an Aura as foul as Kai’s killing intent. Her eyes turned bloodshot as she glared at Lancelot.
“…You filthy unbeliever,” she hissed, her voice a venomous litany. “How dare you spout such blasphemy? I’ll kill you kill you kill you kill you kill you kill you kill you kill you.”
In a blur of motion, she closed the distance and swung her sword.
A spray of crimson erupted from Lancelot’s chest.