Chapter 123
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 123
Chapter Title: The First Warrior (1)
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He fights with a sword.
In fact, it was a very awkward and unfamiliar concept for the ants.
They didn't need tools. Tools were merely something created by those lacking physical prowess to overcome their shortcomings.
Jin-hyuk's ants, evolving into tools for the colony and living bioweapons, were born equipped from the moment of their emergence with perfect weapons like razor-sharp jaws, thorns, or venom stings.
Bellona was no different.
She was accustomed to battling with the organs attached to her body, but wielding a tool felt as clumsy and alien as a crawling infant taking its first wobbly steps.
'But.'
Even so, Bellona refused to abandon the sword.
She twisted her body somehow, swinging the blade in her grip to knock aside the enemy's sword.
The realm she yearned for was one reachable only through the use of a weapon.
Moreover, it was another evolution—one she could achieve only by embracing this unfamiliarity and shedding her ingrained familiarity.
Bellona stared mutely down at the sword still clutched in her hand.
It remained awkward. Honestly, it had been less swordsmanship and more brute force shoving.
Still, if she endured and persevered, familiarity would surely come in time.
"Cuk!?"
Meanwhile, Nagar staggered backward from the sheer force.
In truth, that first strike had carried little power—a mere probing attack.
No matter his rage, Nagar was an elite warrior.
He wasn't some foolish novice who would commit full strength to the opening blow against an unknown foe.
'Her power is immense, despite appearances.'
Biting his lip, Nagar instinctively realized that Bellona's pure muscle strength surpassed his own, even though her frame was smaller.
Asmodra, fixated on the exterior form, had stuffed the interior to its limit in her own way with irreplaceable contents.
Part of that included synthetic muscles blending genes from myriad creatures, yielding far superior efficiency and destructive power to human flesh.
[Asmodra's eyes sparkle at the new possibility]
What started as a stopgap had gradually shifted the mindsets of both Asmodra and Bellona.
The two queens had assumed human exteriors out of necessity, but did their innards need to match humans exactly?
Jin-hyuk already doted on Asmodra, and now Bellona could swing a sword.
Objectively, human physical capabilities were mediocre at best. No claws or fangs for real power, muscle strength so feeble it yielded to far smaller beasts.
"Will you be all right?"
"Don't interfere. Her strength is impressive, but she's nothing more than a clumsy imitation of our warriors."
Yet Nagar felt no intimidation from Bellona's superior physique.
True to his veteran status, he had assessed that her skills remained woeful despite her bodily gifts.
"Wielding a sword doesn't make one a warrior."
Nagar drew a deep breath, channeling his demonic power.
He was preparing to unleash the orcish martial arts honed over a decade under his master.
This was the very 'technique' Bellona craved so desperately.
Her eyes gleamed behind the mask as she began committing every detail to memory in that instant.
Simultaneously operating dual brains wasn't Asmodra's exclusive domain.
Leveraging the colony consciousness, she first archived the data in the primordial nest's storage brain—then swiftly retrieved only the essentials back to her own, the process unfolding at blinding speed.
'Take this.'
Blissfully ignorant of all this, Nagar exploded forward as if Bellona were merely standing idle, unleashing his sword in a single breath.
In that heartbeat, the crimson demonic power cloaking his blade was poised to cleave her body in two.
Swift Cleave—a technique reserved for orc warriors of proven caliber, the grassland orcs' traditional art of felling foes with one lightning slash.
"No...!"
But Bellona, having dissected his motions in that fleeting interval, stood firm and parried flawlessly.
It was akin to Asmodra devouring and memorizing the Lukadia Empire's vast arcane lore in mere moments.
With iron will and every prerequisite fulfilled, Bellona surged forward even now, devouring the deluge into the colony consciousness, evolving at breakneck pace.
"This is impossible...! To learn it after just one glimpse..."
Reeling back, Nagar gaped sword-ready at the onrushing Bellona.
As Nagar had summoned demonic power for his technique, so too did dark blue force erupt from Bellona's demonic heart, enshrouding her blade.
From her sword tip burst Swift Cleave—the deadly art that severed enemies in a single swift stroke.
"Lord Nagar!"
Had he braced himself, the fight might have continued—but too stunned, he failed to defend properly.
Before his subordinates' aghast eyes, blood erupted as Nagar's body halved, lifeless gaze fixed, crumpling to the dirt with a dull thud.
[Bellona is delighted]
Spilled blood, slaughter, screams, and the terror etched on faces beholding her.
This hand-feel—distinct from crushing jaws or venom stings—sent shivers of profound pleasure through Bellona.
"Hiiik!?"
The surviving orc warriors and slave soldiers recoiled in horror as Bellona turned toward them.
The true massacre began now.
And those heaped corpses and gore would one day culminate in vengeance fulfilled.
'Colony, seek more foes.'
Perched grinning atop the uniformly mangled, sprawled cadavers, Bellona commanded the nomadic horde.
More warriors, more battles—these were the prey she hungered for, and the raw material to forge her stronger.
Thus dawned the Sword Devil on the western front, where the reorganized horde had been routing the enemy unilaterally.
'...One thing's certain: I can't meddle in how they mutate and evolve.'
The ants' learning capacity was astounding. And blisteringly swift.
Unlike me, shackled by human paradigms, they occasionally devised absurd evolutions to crack dilemmas.
Watching Asmodra and Bellona—finally transfigured after devouring human morsels—that conviction deepened.
[New subordinates awaken]
"Huh."
These freshly stirring troops were living proof.
Emerging one by one from their cocoons, their forms elicited involuntary awe—Arkalon, novel combat strains birthed by evolved Asmodra, beyond my wildest imaginings.
They represented yet another leap from the Tyrants, who had transcended limits via implanted demonic hearts into variant frames.
For the variants amalgamated devoured lifeforms—and now laced with human genes.
'Cr, creepy.'
My brow furrowed at the screen-filling monstrosities.
Askalon Arachnid: bloated spider trunk crammed with a demonic heart, human torso grafted atop.
Scorpient: scorpion chassis with claws and stinger, human upper body affixed.
Human traits lingered in parts of their anatomy, yet Asmodra had honed these solely for function.
With a touch more effort, she could've rendered them less grotesque.
[Asmodra is satisfied with the great being's reaction]
"..."
The motive was plain as day.
Only she needed beauty enough to captivate my gaze.
Barring a peer like sister-queen Bellona, Asmodra would never bestow comeliness on other colony denizens.
"The elves likely fortified magical defenses after the cordyceps mages' last assault. But... they couldn't have foreseen this."
Seira stared blankly at the new soldiers marching forth in grand array, murmuring absently.
As Seira noted, Askalon hybrids arose from human genes to let Asmodra wield stolen techniques and spells unbound.
The ants—already formidable—now brimmed with fresh armaments.
War teetered on a new threshold.
"Proxy-nim, Team Leader Ji Ye-eun reports the capture."
Moreover, progress stirred on this front too.
Back when I'd met Ji Ye-eun for blood destined to Asmodra.
Word of her stalker—once mentioned—now in custody.
"Appears he has backing."
President Baek Jin-seong's voice phone trembled with urgency.
A subordinate privy to Divine Net and deities, his 'backing' dismissed chaebols or agencies as trivial.
"Handle as instructed."
Loath to expose myself, I directed remotely.
Not arduous, with Divine Net screens revealing all.
'Pushover or not.'
I mulled the screen's quaking youth, warehouse-bound.
Divine Community had already mapped Earth's power blocs.
Korea's paramount deity commanded chaebols, hunters galore, even legislators and officials aplenty—like hounds on leash.
Korea alone? Nay. The world danced in deities' thrall.
News headlines? Scripts puppeteered by divine whims from shadows.
We lacked strength yet for such clashes.
Conversely, small-scale deity ops like ours dotted the globe.
Unlinked to giants? No quarter given. Devour if feasible; excise otherwise.
"Th-this is criminal. Just call the police..."
"Don't play dumb when you know better."
His police plea drew Ji Ye-eun's steely sword-point, face as stone.
Her expression coaxed an involuntary smirk from me.
She'd thrived as mundane hunter hitherto. Deity turf wars rang true in mind, yet unreal in gut.
Unaccustomed still to deity thralls transcending civilian norms.
"Verify direct divine blessing. If blessed, absent the patron's waiver, conversion's impossible."
"And if blessed? Patron balks?"
"Irredeemable. Dispose."
"...!"
My casual decree blanched Ji Ye-eun's features taut.
'I've gone full psycho.'
Deity's thrall? Kill.
That ant-wrought mindset, bone-deep now, commandeered my psyche effortlessly.
Her fluster evoked my own errant past—bitter smile.
「Wait, let's talk」
Fortune smiled: a message arrived pre-execution.
I replied. No cause here to feign Outer God.