Chapter 150 Immolate (Illustration)
Chapter 150 Immolate
They turned toward the direction of the screams.
No demons followed anymore… yet the sound of a distant struggle still echoed faintly from somewhere ahead.
Their faces hardened.
They soon arrived before a massive door.
They didn’t dare smash through it with Rhogan.
Alessandra stepped forward—
her mace blazing with charged Leben.
Reika and Yumi moved at her sides, magic swirling at their fingertips, Yumi already with an arrow nocked.
Agnes slipped silently just behind them.
Christina swallowed hard, her eyes filled with worry—and anger.
Together, they pushed the heavy doors open.
They weren’t locked.
A dense wave of heat rolled out, carrying the stench of burned meat.
They froze—just as another scream tore through the air.
“WAAARGGGHHHHHH—!”
Deep.
Horrific.
Chilling to the bone.
Inside lay a vast chamber.
On the floor rested a body—completely charred and unmoving. Skeletal. Barely more than blackened bone.
They knew at once it wasn’t him.
It was too small.
Their gazes lifted.
The screams had stopped.
Beyond the corpse, upon a raised altar, a sphere of dark fire pulsed in midair, hovering above a stone platform.
Six vulture shamans surrounded it, staffs raised high, magic pouring relentlessly into the flames.
Within the fire, a figure twitched—
burning.
Crackling.
Muscles exposed. No hair. No skin. No eyes.
A body barely recognizable as human.
No clothes. No armor.
A skull-like face opened its jaw wide—
but no sound came.
His vocal cords and lungs were gone, burned and melted away.
The shamans continued channeling—three feeding the fire, three forcing healing into the prisoner.
The burning body began to regenerate—only to burn again.
Skin formed, then blistered away.
Eyes reformed, then melted.
Tongue and vocal cords rebuilt—
—and suddenly, sound returned.
“WARGHHHHHHH!”
“AAAAAARGHHHHHH!”
The cycle repeated endlessly.
Burning overtook healing.
Healing clawed back through fire.
Iryoku.
He was alive.
Suffering.
Trapped in a loop of unending pain and forced regeneration.
“WHAHAHAHA—AAAHHH—WARGHHHHHH—!”
His screams tore into the girls, ripping them apart from the inside.
He writhed helplessly, his body contorting in impossible agony.
They snapped.
All at once—
every shred of rage they had been holding detonated outward.
Magic surged.
Steel flashed.
Lightning screamed.
They struck the shamans with everything they had.
CRACK—!
A single, overwhelming impact—
The six shamans were obliterated instantly.
The girls rushed toward Iryoku.
With the ritual broken, the fire vanished—
and Iryoku’s body dropped.
Alessandra caught him before he struck the floor, lowering him gently onto the cold stone.
The sight of him made all of them tremble.
His body was still recovering. Burn marks lingered across his skin, raw and uneven.
They noticed his white rope, wrapped around his arm—completely undamaged.
He didn’t scream anymore.
He didn’t respond.
Didn’t move.
He had passed out.
Yumi collapsed to her knees.
“Iryoku… Iryoku…” she cried, her voice breaking apart.
Agnes moved instantly.
Tears streamed down her face as her body dissolved into water—revealing her true form.
She was Aqua.
Her liquid body surged forward, expanding and flowing over Iryoku. She enveloped him completely, forming a shimmering armor of water around his broken form.
The glow intensified as her shape molded gently to him, accelerating the healing process.
Steam hissed upward as her water met his still-scorching skin.
Reika’s hands shook violently as she raised them. She began casting healing magic as well—her voice faltering through the spell, tears dripping from her chin onto the stone.
Christina knelt beside him, her hands trembling as she touched his arm.
“Please… please…” she whispered, her voice unsteady.
“Great God Iryoku… you are the strongest. Your power is the greatest… you will not lose. You always win.”
Light gathered in her palms, spreading over him.
“My god… you are the strongest… you are the protector of the weak… our protector…” she repeated, the words breaking into a prayer.
Yumi and Alessandra forced their own energy into him as well.
They surrounded him—sobbing, praying, pouring everything they had into his shattered body.
Suddenly, Aqua’s watery face shifted again.
Agnes’s face formed once more.
Her newly formed mouth moved.
Agnes’s voice came through, sharp and urgent:
“Get out of here. Now. We don’t have much time.”
The girls reacted instantly.
As Aqua moved—still encasing Iryoku within her healing water form—they rushed him back toward the carriage.
Alessandra slammed the door shut and leapt into the driver’s seat.
“Rhogan—run!”
The armored rhino roared and turned, charging back the way they came.
The halls trembled as they passed piles of demon corpses—more and more the farther they went.
They found no living monsters.
Only eerie calm.
Only death.
Until they reached the place where Katherine had stayed behind.
The entire chamber was destroyed.
The ceiling was gone—torn open all the way to the castle roof above.
Light rained down from the sky.
There, the bodies of the three demon generals lay nearly unrecognizable—the goblin, the orc, and the ogre—
obliterated masses of flesh, stone, and dark magic.
Craters scarred the ground.
Many vulture shamans lay dead around them as well.
Even Crag, the Stand-in King, lay destroyed—lifeless amid the ruin.
Katherine was there, hunched over, leaning heavily on her rapier for support.
Her ears drooped.
Her tail hung limp.
Her breathing was ragged.
Her clothes were torn, skin scorched in places, dried blood marking her arms.
She kept looking outward, eyes focused to the limit—still searching for threats.
“Katherine!” Alessandra leaped down and grabbed her, helping her upright.
“I’m… fine,” Katherine whispered with a tired face.
“Tell me… is he okay…?”
Her face showed deep worry.
Alessandra nodded—but her expression betrayed her.
“We have to leave. Now.”
Katherine allowed Alessandra to guide her into the carriage.
Rhogan thundered forward again—
back through the ruins of monsters, broken stone, shattered barriers.
The castle halls were nearly empty now,
almost every demon reduced to scraps—by the girls, by Joro, or by Katherine’s lonely stand.
They rushed on, desperate, fleeing the heart of the fortress with Iryoku in their arms.
Just outside, they found Joro still on the ground—unmoving.
His massive rock body was pulverized, arms and legs separated.
Then his body dissolved into motes of light—dismissed.
At the same moment, Agnes appeared in front of them, trembling, her entire body glowing with green light.
Veins bulged.
The green stone at her neck blazed with power.
She climbed into the carriage, breath ragged, visibly exhausted and overexerted.
They thundered out of the valley.
“They’re about to meet!” Agnes shouted, gasping for air.
Then her expression twisted.
“Take the escape route—before he discovers it!”
Rhogan veered west, racing between the mountains of the valley.
“We’ll go straight there like we planned!” Agnes shouted between breaths.
“Cross into dwarven territory and hide!”
“Oh no…” Agnes muttered.
A sudden, massive roar rose from very far away.
The whole valley trembled, shaking violently.
“Let’s go!” Alessandra shouted, urging Rhogan to keep advancing—worry etched across her face.
Then a quick movement passed across the sky—
a shadow moving at incredible speed.
CRASH—
An explosion slammed down in front of them, halting their advance.
The shockwave tore through the air, forcing Rhogan to dig his hooves into the dirt. The carriage roof shattered completely, disintegrating under the force.
The girls gasped as the immense pressure crashed over them.
When the dust finally cleared, the Demon King Joka’latrex stood before them.
His noble attire was gone.
His hat—gone.
What remained was his true form.
A towering body of obsidian-black scales, gleaming like living armor.
Claws extended—long, razor-thin.
Fangs bared.
His red eyes burned with pure, murderous hatred. His long, metallic horns quivered as he gathered himself to strike.
Behind him, a long armored tail lashed against the ground. Two massive bat-like wings—black, plated, horrific—unfurled wide, casting the group into shadow.
Demonic magic crackled violently around him.
Joka’latrex roared.
“How DARE you make a fool of me?!”