Chapter 72
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: penny
Chapter: 72
Chapter Title: Two Saintesses (4)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
"Monsters are coming!"
"Run! Hurry!"
In the end, the sturdy barrier crumbled, and the first to suffer were the townsfolk in the cities and villages just a short distance from the retreat path of the barrier's soldiers.
It would have been better if they'd retreated alongside the soldiers from the barrier, but being left behind like this meant they were directly attacked by the swarming ants.
This village was one such place.
By the time the news arrived that the barrier had fallen and the ants were approaching, urging everyone to evacuate immediately, the ant legion was already crawling right up to the village outskirts.
"Hurry and get as far away as you can. We'll hold them off."
Holy Knight Ivan, who happened to be dispatched to this village on business, had no choice but to pick up his sword to buy the villagers time to flee.
But with fewer than thirty of them, trying to block hundreds of oncoming ants was more reckless than an egg striking a rock.
"No! Come with us—flee while you still can!"
"I must fulfill the mission given by the Goddess. With villagers still unable to escape, I cannot retreat."
The terrified villagers tried to dissuade him, but Ivan shook his head with a resolute expression.
This is a true holy knight.
The people were moved by his noble sacrifice, but they couldn't afford to linger any longer.
As the villagers hurriedly prepared to evacuate amid the chaos, Ivan stood with sword in hand, silently gazing north, awaiting the ants' arrival.
They're coming...!
Finally, a fierce buzzing sound from the north revealed a writhing black wave surging forward.
Hornet ants streaked across the sky, assaulting the village, followed by countless ground troops that began sweeping through everything.
Gritting his teeth, Ivan drew upon his holy power.
"You won't pass until you kill me!"
He swung his sword, confronting the countless ants charging at him.
For the Goddess he believed in and trusted. For the people he sought to save.
He believed that staking everything like this would bring about a miracle.
[Asmora orders prey hunting]
Those who refused to surrender meekly and dared to stand against her—enemies blessed by the Goddess.
They were precisely the prey permitted to Asmora.
Asmora commanded the hunting of Ivan and all who dared oppose the hive.
"Gahk."
Ivan's body, attempting resistance, was pierced and torn by indiscriminate venom stings and jaws, swept away like a mere sandcastle before a massive wave.
Unlike his noble resolve for sacrifice, Ivan's reckless decision failed to buy even a minute. He became easy prey for the ants swarming from all sides.
No miracle occurred.
The Goddess who should grant miracles was, contrary to her subordinates' thoughts, weakening in real time.
"No way... the Holy Knight..."
Ivan's gruesome end was clearly visible to the fleeing villagers.
They hadn't even fully escaped the village vicinity yet.
The ants immediately turned toward these new prey.
[Asmora orders the merciless hunting of any prey touched by even the slightest holy power]
Those not merely affiliated but directly touched by Goddess Henes's power—true subordinates—were more numerous than expected.
Not just self-proclaimed priests or holy knights, but anyone who had fought for the Goddess once borrowed holy power from priests during battle.
"Aaaah!"
"No! Spare me!"
Ants leaped into the screaming evacuees, mercilessly biting and killing those who fit the criteria.
"Ugh..."
Ten-year-old Edd collapsed to the ground upon seeing a neighbor dragged away by a spider ant right before his eyes.
There were no adults left to protect him. They were all panicking, flailing helplessly, unable to save themselves, or already being slaughtered by ants.
"!!!"
In that moment, a blade ant appeared before Edd.
The blade ant, capable of slicing a human body in half with its sharp jaw blades, prodded Edd's body with its antennae.
Frozen as prey before the merciless predator, Edd couldn't move.
"...Huh?"
But in that instant, the blade ant turned away from Edd and passed by.
Instead, it pounced on a middle-aged adventurer fleeing nearby, severing his neck in one strike.
"You won't die."
"Who... are you?"
"Belzahard will no longer touch you all, but this land will become theirs. Head south with the survivors. And never trust the Goddess again. Then this hell will end someday. I promise."
Someone approached Edd.
A beautiful silver-haired woman whom even the passing ants ignored.
Her body, covered in an exoskeleton resembling the ants', looked dangerous even to Edd.
Yet she wept with an endlessly sorrowful expression.
[Asmora cannot comprehend Seira's emotions. It only knows this is the will of a great being]
How could it understand? I can barely grasp these emotions myself.
What Seira felt now couldn't simply be called sorrow.
Kim Jin-hyuk sighed with a grim face and shook his head.
[Asmora regrets wasting even the slightest nutrients it could harvest]
"It's still a loss. How can I make it up?"
Thanks to Jin-hyuk's intent—and Seira's ability to convey it—Asmora spared those untouched by the Goddess's power.
But sparing them was sparing them, and from Asmora's perspective, leaving behind free, neutralized meals while needing every bit of biomass was incomprehensible.
To Asmora, humans were mere food.
That had been the case so far, and it likely would continue.
As a deity, Jin-hyuk set aside other emotions for now and sought ways to placate it.
For now, I could toss more feed into the breeding pens. A single mealworm seems better than a human anyway. But... this is just a stopgap.
He pondered solutions.
In the end, it boiled down to finding new food sources or hunting more subordinates of deities that could serve as feed.
"Block the demons! This is the great fate decreed by the Goddess."
"If this defensive line breaks, we're done. Hold at all costs!"
For now, the second option was most viable.
Crushing Goddess Henes's final desperate resistance to avoid expulsion from Edellion—and harvesting massive food in the process.
"...Erianne."
Seira, who had descended alongside the ants, laying waste to everything in their path, was there too.
Right before the Holy Kingdom's capital, along the river: the final defensive line.
Among the faithful who once supported her, now branding her a demon's minion, witch, and outer god's harlot, Seira bit her lip while scouting the Holy Kingdom's saintess Erianne—adorned in ornate silver armor and tiara—through a sentry's eyes.
"You want to talk? Ridiculous."
"We have to at least try."
Erianne, confirming Seira's figure through her own telescope, smirked and uttered a shocking proposal.
To converse with Seira.
Can we win? But this time, I can't run. The Goddess commanded me directly...
Despite her composed facade, she was breaking into cold sweats inwardly.
Goddess Henes had issued a direct oracle: fight and win without fail.
But to Erianne, the ant legion charging without even a barrier seemed impossible to defeat.
"What if talking to me makes the corrupted Seira rethink her ways and self-destruct with the demons?"
Under mental strain, she blurted out whatever came to mind.
Even her aides eyed her suspiciously, but none dared object.
One wrong word, and the volatile Erianne might smash their heads with her mace before the ants did.
In the end, a herald bearing Erianne's will—and a flag signaling parley—rushed toward Seira. Or rather, the ants.
"Erianne, even as a saintess, you're still so naive."
But before the herald arrived, Seira let out a hollow laugh upon seeing it dismantled gruesomely by the ants.
Seira was merely a hive slave, parasitized by the ant stinger—through Asmora's fury, Jin-hyuk's aid, and her own will.
Unlike others' misconceptions, she held no authority from the start.
Everything followed Jin-hyuk's will.
And Queen Asmora manifested that will in her own way.
Erianne's naive belief that the ants—which had reigned as pure calamity—could now negotiate because of her own confidence was childish, even in the eyes of her peer Seira.
[Subordinates commence the assault]
"The ending is already set, Erianne. One of us—you or me—must die here."
The ants' sole purpose: exterminate and devour the assembled forces of the Goddess.
Seira pulled the forced mask over her face and raised her staff.
"They're charging!"
"Impossible. I barely see any that can run on water!"
Without roars, drums, or signals—moving as one—the ants surged toward the river-flanked enemy main force.
The Holy Kingdom soldiers panicked. Per their intel on variants, only salt ants—with water strider traits—could fight on the river surface.
Yet no salt ants were visible.
[Seira clears the path for the legion]
They never needed to in the first place.
Seira, grabbed by a hornet ant's legs from behind and launched skyward, soared over the madly charging ants, crossing the barrage to reach the vanguard in one go.
"Freezing magic... on this scale?!"
The Holy Kingdom's mages, unleashing spells, gasped in unison.
As Seira plummeted toward the riverbank, she unleashed another massive spell.
Her staff struck the water surface, activating freezing magic that iced the river solid in an instant.
The ants thundered across the frozen river, overwhelming the stunned Holy Kingdom soldiers.
They rammed shields at full speed, tore through barriers, and bulldozed everything with their immense mass.
This colossal wave, which even towering barriers couldn't halt, now bypassed the last hope of the river current. The Holy Kingdom lines crumbled rapidly.
Aaaargh! I'll kill that bastard for real!!!!
Goddess Henes's scream of anticipated defeat echoed through the Divine Community.
Pouting like that when your real base is elsewhere anyway.
Jin-hyuk clicked his tongue in disgust.
Henes's actions stemmed merely from desire to expand her forces.
Compared to Jin-hyuk—whose life and subordinates hung in the balance—or his own, it was far too trivial.
As the Holy Kingdom's phalanx, barely holding via urban warfare after retreating to the capital, fully collapsed, the true massacre was about to begin.
< 72- (4) > End