Chapter 133
Chapter 133
A swirling chaos, a screeching of souls in an incomprehensible mix, and the despair buried within it.
Lumps made of crimson flesh and blood were screaming without rest. It was the work of the lich who had introduced herself as Parhel.
“You didn't just collect souls with grudges, did you.”
As Parhel snapped her fingers, sharp bone fragments that popped out from the air flew toward me along with a ghostly wail.
I didn't even need to move my spear myself. The blue trajectories floating around me struck down every flying bone fragment without exception. In the meantime, I leaped toward the opponent floating in the air.
“Oh dear, the order just got switched around, didn't it? Don't be so petty.”
Collecting souls, torturing them, and turning them into vengeful spirits. That was how the corpse before my eyes had increased its power.
“You seem to have no idea how big of a difference the order makes. Have you heard of marriage by abduction?”
Falling in love and then getting married is a normal procedure, but trying to get married first and then forcing love is a crime, you psycho.
“I don't know.”
Flesh erupted from behind Parhel's back and transformed into a thick, massive mouth before pouncing on me.
“Yum, yum.”
Parhel made such a sound while giggling. I swung my spear inside the dark mouth and activated the blue trajectories. Along with an explosion, the meat lump that had swallowed me was shattered.
Flesh wrapped in black flames fell to the floor in clumps.
“Yum, yum my ass.”
I already told you several times that I'm not something you can eat. Wrapped in flickering black flames, I glared at Parhel.
She was pretending to be relaxed, but the Paradoxical Flame currently burning this room was clearly and intensely gnawing away at Parhel's power by the second.
Parhel probably knew that fact as well. The reason she could still be leisurely was simple.
“It seems you can't even fight properly here anyway.”
“Yes, the space is a bit cramped.”
I could roughly guess what would happen if I succeeded in catching this lich here and smashed the corrupted idol.
If this lich were given a situation where she could exert her full power, she would definitely be stronger than Choi Yeoreum. However, inside this space, while under the influence of the crown, she was clearly weaker than Choi Yeoreum.
“If so.”
It meant I could definitely win here. My heart raced, and mana ran wild through my veins.
I predicted the movements I had to make and the opponent's reactions. Then I considered the choices I should take depending on those reactions.
I felt as if a starting signal had sounded in my head with a bang. Simultaneously, my body accelerated with an explosive sound.
“Oh, please don't be like this.”
Parhel chased my movements with her eyes as best she could. Tentacles protruding from the ceiling, walls, and floor reached out, aiming for me.
She was already struggling just to track my movements, so there was no way she could perform a precision strike. Instead of aiming for me accurately, the tentacles tried to batter the entire space where I was sprinting.
“A little more.”
My body re-accelerated once more. Perhaps trying to hinder my movements at any cost, forms resembling human hands suddenly rose from the walls of meat that filled every direction.
However, they couldn't withstand my leg strength. The protruding hands were trampled by my feet and instantly turned into pieces of meat.
“Oh, how pretty. It's just like roses!”
Even in that situation, Parhel muttered while looking at the hands crushed under my feet. As if the crisis she was currently facing was nothing.
Flesh was torn from the walls and gathered around Parhel, turning into rectangular plates. Their glossy appearance made them look like horrific engravings carved from rubies.
There were six rectangular plates hovering around Parhel, protecting her.
“....”
My swung spear struck that glossy wall. With a clang, the plate that received the impact vibrated lowly, and fine cracks appeared where it collided with the spear.
It had succeeded in enduring my attack.
“Aren’t you weaker than I thought?”
“Talk like that after you've endured the next attack too.”
Stepping on the hard plate and bouncing backward, I kicked off the ceiling and shot toward Parhel again like an arrow.
At the same time, the hundreds of blue trajectories surrounding me trembled all at once. The vibrations of the trajectories spread out while resonating with the mana in the air.
The plates protecting Parhel also resonated with this vibration, making a strange sound. It was like the sound of cracks forming on a thinly frozen lake.
Parhel's expression, which had been watching with a fairly relaxed look, stiffened slightly.
“You, where on earth did you....”
“Where did I learn this technique? Why would I bother telling you that.”
The spear swung at the plate once more produced a different result than before. The red plate protecting Parhel was sliced into dozens of pieces. And the figure of Parhel sitting beyond it was captured.
It wasn't just about weakening the opponent by resonating the mana in the air. The blade of the spear in my hand was also trembling with an incredible frequency.
This maximized the cutting force like an ultrasonic cutter. The magic circles Parhel had floated were also repeatedly collapsing and recovering their forms due to the mana vibrations in the air.
“It turns out this is total poison for those who think they're good at using magic, if this succeeds.”
“...To fight in this way, you would have to succeed in analyzing the characteristics of my mana?”
I smirked and extended the spear, bringing it to one of the magic circles Parhel had floated. As the trembling of the spear was directly transmitted, the magic circle instantly collapsed and shattered.
“It's not like your skill is anything special. Did you really think I wouldn't be able to analyze the mana of a lich like you?”
In fact, it wasn't exactly to the level of calling it 'like you'. If the analysis had finished earlier, I could have won in an instant. The reason the time dragged on was that analyzing the mana of the lich before my eyes was that difficult.
But I didn't need the truth for words meant to make her angry anyway, right?
“Oh, really?”
It seemed she was very angry. Anyone would lose their lid if the effort they built up over their entire life was utterly ignored.
Crack, a fissure appeared on Parhel's face. It seemed something hidden under that face wanted to burst out.
“Ah.”
But Parhel soon regained her composure and stroked the crack on her face with her finger. The crack on her face was joined back together following the movement of her finger.
“Not here, not now.”
It meant there was a next time. As I rushed at her again, Parhel smiled and then deactivated everything that was protecting her.
Thud, my spear pierced through her stomach.
“Nuh uh, not there.”
Parhel, looking at the spear that pierced her stomach, met my eyes and pointed to the center of her chest with her hand.
“It's here, stab it quickly. And you can enjoy it for a moment. You can feel a sense of satisfaction.”
Black liquid flowed down from her eyes like tears. And as her smile grew deeper, the corners of her mouth, torn to a grotesque degree, reached her ears.
She had the appearance of a pretty girl until a moment ago, but her face now was literal horror itself.
Pulling the spear out, I thrust it into her chest once more. And I replied while looking into Parhel's eyes, which were shedding black, sticky liquid like tears.
“As you wish.”
With the sounds of crunch, crunch, Parhel's body crumpled and shriveled like a tin can stepped on by a foot, then emitted a trail of black smoke and vanished without a trace.
“This was probably just the prelude.”
That bastard didn't die. She had abandoned this room as well as the body she had been using and fled somewhere.
“Because I can't burn souls yet.”
If it had been possible right now, I could have ended it with that strike just now. It seemed I had to prepare for the next time. The opponent hadn't committed suicide, she had let herself be defeated on purpose.
I spoke to Jung Oh-hoon and Han Sang-ah through the in-ear.
“Blow it up.”
Now was the time to destroy all the secured teleportation jamming devices and hand over the troops to Ramin.
When Han Sang-ah and Jung Oh-hoon destroyed all the devices, I would destroy the last remaining idol.
Then this gimmick would be over. And the next gimmick would be waiting for us.
I bet I'll encounter that lich named Parhel again in the next gimmick.
— It's finished over here.
Han Sang-ah finished the task first. Before long, contact came from Jung Oh-hoon as well.
— I've finished too. I've also completed the troop replenishment through the crystal you handed over.
Then now, I swung my fist toward the statue standing before me. The statue was completely shattered and collapsed.
This was the end. My vision darkened. It seemed I was being moved somewhere again.
“A battlefield?”
I heard the sound of weapons clashing and saw castle walls collapsed in places.
I saw soaring flames and rolling corpses that were sliced and crushed.
I smelled the scent of burning flesh, the smell of rotting corpses, and the scent of blood.
It was a mire where the dead and the living were tangled together, fighting.
Han Sang-ah, Jung Oh-hoon, and I were teleported to the same location. We stared at the battlefield in silence.
“So, what are we supposed to do here?”
Han Sang-ah's question was the same thought we all had in our heads. What am I supposed to do? Does it end if we join this battlefield and sweep away all those corpses?
“It is an honor to meet you in person. I am Ramin.”
Then, a man wearing broken and scorched armor approached me, greeted me, and introduced himself as Ramin.
“Thanks to you, we are able to take a counteroffensive. The troops have also been reinforced enormously. We will win. It's all thanks to you that we—”
The moment Ramin tried to continue his words, an earthquake occurred. The ground split, and the fighting soldiers and corpses fell into the split ground as if being eaten.
The castle walls that were still maintaining their form completely collapsed. I thought we just had to fight and win.
I smiled bitterly as I saw something taking shape in the distance.
“Ha, it couldn't be that easy.”
Something the size of a massive mountain was slowly completing its form. I was already familiar with the crimson, squirming lumps.
Parhel.
“This is why she died on purpose.”
And it seemed that was the means necessary for that lich to exert her full strength.
“What is that, is it an organ or something?”
Jung Oh-hoon muttered so as he looked at the structure being completed while squirming in the distance.
It was a massive organ that looked like it would be hundreds of meters in height. It was a grotesque organ where massive pipes carved from huge bones were lined up.
“The frame of that organ is the obelisk we removed outside. It was gathered and woven together with things like tendons and lumps of flesh.”
Jung Oh-hoon, who had the best vision among us, swallowed his saliva and muttered so.
“Agh, my head hurts.”
I tried to guess the effects by following the mana flow of that organ, but then I closed my eyes tightly. It was damn complicated. It was so complicated that just looking at it made my head spin.
That wasn't something people like me could analyze. Real mages would have to jump in and invest at least several months.
“It's playing.”
Starting with the first note, which was like a foghorn, the organ began to play.
It wasn't music that affected us. And it wasn't a performance that sounded like it belonged in this world.
Between the scales, a performance with a strange tone that didn't even seem to exist continued heavily and slowly.
“A funeral march.”
A funeral march isn't music that is distinguished by form like a concerto or a symphony. But if one heard the tone being played through that unimaginably massive pipe organ, anyone would be forced to think of a funeral march.
And the corpses that were fighting Ramin's troops began to react to that funeral march.