Chapter 5: The Impure (2)
Time passed quickly, and before I knew it, the night had fled and the morning sun had risen.
I wondered, how much time had I spent reading that Bible?
As I organized my scattered thoughts and blurred memories, I realized that I had already finished reading it in its entirety and had memorized all the necessary prayers.
"And also... I warned the orphanage director," I muttered.
Recalling the event was like trying to retrieve details from a fleeting dream.
After I finished reading the Bible, I had directed what amounted to a threat toward the terrified director, ordering him to take the children and flee. Naturally, he wasn't prepared to listen to a single word I said, especially given my suspicious appearance and the fact that I had the audacity to touch the Bible.
"Damn it..."
I whispered in frustration as my memories began to clarify and slowly come back into focus.
This was clear evidence that my mind was beginning to recover. Regardless of the mental fortitude "Ethnos" possessed, I had just faced terrifying monsters and received a miracle from an Outer God directly into my mind. Thus, it would have been strange if I hadn't suffered any mental issues.
In fact, considering them as side effects, they were quite mild and tolerable.
"It seems they’ve finally appeared," I said, watching the road.
A deep sigh escaped me at first. I still felt as if the whole thing was just a fantasy that had nothing to do with reality... but now I was about to fight fiercely for my life against a group of knights.
And it wasn't just about fighting; I had to kill them.
The truly terrifying part was that I didn’t feel a single shred of hesitation about it.
Meanwhile, a slight state of unrest prevailed inside the carriage heading toward me.
A mysterious man had suddenly appeared on the forest road leading to the orphanage. This person, who was clearly male, hid his face completely under a cloth hood attached to his clothes. To say the least, his appearance was suspicious and shrouded in doubt.
"I see no signs of a ritual being held..." one of those in the carriage said.
"And I don't smell any blood," another added.
At that moment, Alviga quietly drew his sword and spoke in a firm tone, "No matter how closely I look, that thing he holds in his hand... looks like the Bible."
The priest replied tensely, "Yes, it looks that way to my eyes too, Brother Alviga."
Cold sweat poured from the priest's forehead. Nothing like this had ever happened before. Perhaps the fanatics who serve the Outer God had managed to track them down and finally reclaimed the Bible. If that were indeed the case, it was all the more reason to feel endangered.
"I'm truly glad we brought you with us, Brother Alviga," the priest said, trying to reassure himself.
The priest wasn't flattering him with those words; he meant them from the bottom of his heart.
Alviga turned toward the apprentice knight and said firmly, "New recruit. Stay in the back so you don't stand in our way and hinder us."
After he finished speaking to the recruit, Alviga issued orders to the rest of the knights and then stepped down from the carriage.
The priest began to recite his prayer aloud, "Grant me the strength to punish evil with Your great light. <White Light of Annihilation>."
As soon as the priest finished his prayer, the knights' swords began to glow with a brilliant white light.
<White Light of Annihilation>.
The benefit of this prayer was not limited to making the sword strikes more lethal and bloody; it even prevented demonic monsters with high regenerative abilities from easily healing their wounds once they were cut by those swords.
"Your achievements are truly impressive for someone of such a young age," Alviga praised. "It is a middle-tier prayer, and that is no small feat."
The priest replied humbly, "I am nothing compared to you, Brother Alviga. Let us move now. I will support you from the rear."
With those glowing swords in their hands, the knights had nothing to fear at all. As was always the case, it would be a simple matter of killing a heretic.
They launched their rushing attack forward before the mysterious man could make any reaction.
"A... Al... Kai... Yagah."
Strange and terrifying sounds began to flow from the man's mouth. The voice sounded like an ancient, primitive language, or perhaps a cursed incantation. It even gave the impression of the voice of a monster or a lower being forcing itself to produce human sounds.
"He has started chanting a prayer! Stay on your guard!" one of the knights shouted a warning.
The mysterious man continued his recitation, "<Kilm Viskath>!"
The knights focused their eyes on what awaited them ahead. They sharpened their five senses and fully prepared to repel the expected enemy attack, but...
Drip! Patter!
All they heard was the sound of water striking their metal armor. The sound was exactly like falling rain.
Except that... it wasn't real rain.
"W-what is this thing...?" one of them muttered in horror.
The miracles used by the priests of the Outer Gods, at their best, were limited to transforming their bodies into hideous, monstrous forms. But what they were facing now was something entirely different.
This rain was not ordinary water; it was a strange, black-colored liquid.
And strangest of all, it wasn't falling from the sky; it was ascending and rising from beneath the ground.
"By the blessing of the Venerable Sleeper, all things of the earth shall transform and change. <Form Collapse>."
My defiled prayer had successfully summoned the miracle. Black rain rising from the earth.
This was a true disaster that caused the collapse of the form of anything it touched, completely destroying its external shape.
To describe the process of a being losing its original form and turning into a distorted, unrecognizable mass as a "blessing"... this in itself was conclusive evidence proving the danger and twisted nature of the Outer Gods, without the need for further explanation.
"It... really works," I whispered in awe as my mind went blank for a moment.
A massive wave of mental exhaustion washed over me. I checked the back of my hand quickly, but I didn't notice any visible change on it.
Either the damage from using the miracle wasn't severe, or this level of harm was simply an inevitable and inescapable consequence.
"AAAAHHH!"
"My- my flesh is melting...!" one of the knights screamed.
The rushing knights stopped in their tracks suddenly and began to scream in horrific pain.
The black rain that seeped through the gaps in their metal armor was mercilessly dissolving their skin and muscles, turning them a charred black color.
The priest accompanying them shouted desperately, "By the will of God, we are granted steadfastness and strength. <Divine Protection>!"
It seemed as though the priest had used some sort of protection miracle, but it was completely useless. It also appeared that he had used a fairly high-level miracle...
But unfortunately for them, my talent as a heretical priest was catastrophically and terrifyingly strong.
'This was a miracle that was supposed to consume a massive and unbearable amount of life force, but the <Sublimation> skill compensated for that deficiency. Of course, the power of the miracle was also enhanced by the <Messenger of the Malignant Star> skill, and it must have received the effects of the <Eclipse> skill as well,' I thought to myself.
A dry, faint laugh escaped me as I observed my strange mental state.
There were people literally screaming as they passed away, yet I stood here, calmly analyzing everything as if it were some sort of game.
'I am not... broken.'
It wasn't that my mind had snapped or lost its sanity; rather, I was doing all this analytical thinking precisely to prevent it from breaking.
I was desperately trying to protect my mental integrity by deceiving myself, pretending that this was all just a realistic game and that none of this annihilation was real at all.
"......Ah."
I whispered in a daze. The sky turned a pitch-black color, and the screams of the knights writhing in pain caused me to lose my focus and distracted my attention.
I am now standing in the middle of a terrifying, fictional nightmare, and I am the very person who turned this world into that horrific nightmare.
Perhaps... perhaps it would have been right to simply die.
"You bastard...!"
A voice filled with overwhelming rage reached me while I was immersed in those dark thoughts.
Unlike the rest of the knights, this knight's armor was more lavishly decorated. Seeing that faint glow emitting from his gold-trimmed armor, it seemed he possessed his own special protection magic or a miracle cast upon him individually, in addition to the <Divine Protection> miracle cast by the priest.
"Alviga," I said calmly.
"Do not let my name cross your lips, you filthy heretic," he replied in rage.
"Who are you calling filthy?" I asked coldly.
Alviga answered sternly, "I am talking about you—you who toyed with such evil and defiled power. I will grant you no chance for atonement."
A bitter laugh escaped me. Yes, that's right.
I didn't accept the Outer God's miracle just because I wanted to survive and stay alive.
Rather, I accepted it because I deeply hated people like these. I loathed those who used religion as a veil to justify their despicable actions.
"I've already seen everything," I told him.
The story concerning the apprentice knight and the priest, which I had witnessed in the darkness of that basement, had continued to unfold before my eyes.
When I had screamed in pain while learning that miracle, those shapeless Secondary Beings had shown the rest to me.
— "Priest, what if an emergency occurs and they don't actually touch the Bible... what will we do then?"
— "That is impossible. Nothing like that has ever happened. That Bible possesses the ability to lure and entice people."
It was an inescapable trap.
The priest had said with an arrogant smile, devoid of any shame:
— "And if the enticement fails... it simply means they are non-human entities and pose a great threat, and thus must be eliminated and annihilated."
"Disgusting bastards."
I wondered, how many innocent people had been sacrificed in this hideous manner so far?
They had offered sacrifices time and time again with the aim of obtaining gold from the Outer God dwelling in the basement, but their efforts were rejected every time.
So, they now decided to use the baptismal rite as the perfect bait to sacrifice people. All this brutality for the sake of mere gold.
And yet, why did they act with all this condescension and pride as if they were masters of morality?
"Past and present, whether in this world or that one, I truly cannot understand it," I said in a cryptic tone.
Alviga shouted in rage, "What are you talking about? You're spouting nonsense; you must have lost your mind. Die, heretic!"
Alviga kicked the ground hard and lunged toward me, pointing his sword at me.
His attack was extremely fast and devastating. Clearly, my physical strength and reflexes were no match for that experienced knight in any way.
But... I didn't have to face him myself.
"What is this thing...?!" Alviga shouted in surprise.
Suddenly, something resembling a black claw or a black tentacle burst from the ground and lashed out like a whip toward the knight.
The attack was so swift and sharp that Alviga himself was taken aback by it.
"Brother Alviga, dodge!" the priest shouted a warning.
"Tsk!" Alviga gasped.
The knight called Alviga, despite the ambush and the sudden attack, swung his sword and skillfully severed that tentacle.
"A monster? Where did it come from?" he muttered in shock.
Those things protruding from the ground were none other than the dissolved bodies of the other knights.
The three knights who had been standing on the front line were convulsing violently on the ground, and black liquid was seeping from the gaps in their armor and beginning to take physical form.
Surprisingly, the <Form Collapse> miracle was not an offensive miracle; rather, it was a buff-type miracle.
'It dissolves ally and enemy alike, but in return, it transforms them into extremely powerful beings.'
Those knights had turned into hideous, black, shapeless monsters, exactly like those Secondary Beings, and they were now protecting the priest who had caused the summoning of that evil miracle—namely, me.
"My sword is infused with <White Light of Annihilation>...!" Alviga shouted in bewilderment.
He had landed a clean, direct hit on that amorphous Secondary Being, but it seemed the creature had suffered no harm at all.
Even if he cut its shapeless body deeply.
And even if the wound he inflicted could not be cured or healed.
It was very easy for this being to simply change its entire shape and erase the wound itself from existence.
"Physical damage has no meaning or effect against this enemy," Alviga said sternly. "Priest, can you use any offensive miracles?"
The priest stammered, "I- I don't know any such miracles. The Hayat Sect doesn't possess such miracles..."
Well, they don't possess many of them, at least.
I knew this fact well myself. This was the first time I stood as an enemy against them, but in the past, I had recruited them as members of my party when I played other characters in the game.
"Then I suppose I must target the main body," Alviga decided.
Naturally, it was normal for him to reach this conclusion.
The two were speaking in low voices, but thanks to my strangely enhanced senses, I could hear every word they said clearly.
This wasn't a miracle or anything of the sort; rather, it seemed as if my senses had become extremely sharp in response to the intense tension and pressure.
"He's coming!"
Alviga tried to run toward me and lunge, but it wasn't that easy.
He was close enough to reach me in an instant, but the amorphous Secondary Being was stopping him and keeping him in check in a threatening manner.
Its liquid-like body would suddenly turn solid or become as sharp as blades, changing its shape with complete freedom to prove itself a truly deceptive and elusive opponent.
'But it moves completely independently of my will. It is entirely different from summoned creatures or minions controlled via magic.'
I felt as if I were beginning to understand and grasp the fundamental difference between miracles and magic.
In this first battle, I was realizing many important things.
I realized the strengths and weaknesses of my talents, their maximum limits, and the things I needed to train in to compensate for the shortcomings.
I realized what I would truly need to survive from now on.
"Deceptive. However..." Alviga hummed.
It seemed Alviga had realized from the start that my direct combat skills were weak or almost non-existent.
For that reason, he deliberately stayed at a safe distance, allowing the amorphous Secondary Being to attack him so he could study its movements, but it seemed that tactic wasn't enough to stop him...
"This alone is not enough to stop me," Alviga declared confidently.
Alviga wasn't called a genius or a miracle for nothing.
He swung his sword with lightning speed, cutting the amorphous being's body several times in succession, and cleverly exploited the opening that appeared while the scattered body was trying to reshape itself and reassemble its parts.
Then, he took a combat stance in preparation to use one of his special techniques.
'Is this... the <Wild Boar Rush> technique?'
I remembered the technique that "Dool" had explained to me several times in the past.
It is a stance where the sword is pointed forward, with complete readiness to kick the ground and launch with a force resembling the rush of a wild boar.
Seeing it now in reality, it was exactly as he had described it to me.
"Time for you to die!!" Alviga roared.
Alviga broke through the scattered black masses and stormed my defenses with terrifying speed.
Slice!
Within a fraction of a second, my neck was slit and severed by his sharp blade.
My vision spun madly and wildly, and with a muffled thud, my severed head rolled onto the ground.
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