Chapter 60: Detoxification (2)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 60: Detoxification (2)
If asked to describe Randall Dreyfus Aslan in a single phrase, most people would choose ‘Iron and Blood.’ The moniker had stuck, a testament to his habit of handling every matter with stoic professionalism in service of the public good.
Anyone familiar with that reputation would have been shocked to see his current state.
“Drive faster!”
At his frost-cold shout, the driver flinched and slammed his foot on the accelerator. As the iron carriage shrieked while tearing down the unpaved road, Grand Duke Aslan anxiously rubbed his trembling hands together. For a man of his standing, it was a display of weakness that would have left any observer bewildered.
As Aiden had long since deduced, Grand Duke Aslan was a man who cared deeply for his family.
And right now, he had every reason to be anxious.
“—”
Suppressing the urge to yell at the driver again, the Grand Duke squeezed his eyes shut.
…Liza.
Just moments earlier, he had set out after inspecting a series of photographs delivered to him. The package was from an unknown sender, but the subject of the pictures was horrifyingly clear: a figure injecting Liza Aslan with some unknown drug.
While he had asked Aiden to knock some sense into her, the Grand Duke knew Aiden was not the type of person to commit such an act. Nor would he have had the time to take such photos and send them. This was undoubtedly the work of a ‘third party’ who had reached Liza before Aiden’s group even arrived.
He didn’t know their objective or what had happened since, but one thing was certain.
Something terrible had happened to his family.
So when a deafening roar echoed as they neared the territory, the Grand Duke didn’t hesitate. He threw the carriage door open with enough force to nearly rip it from its hinges and burst outside.
…!
Whatever was happening, it was grave.
With that single thought consuming him, the Grand Duke bolted forward. Though he had retired from the front lines, his instincts for wielding Supernatural Abilities remained sharp, and it didn’t take long for him to reach the source of the noise.
The scene that confronted him was more than enough to make his entire body freeze.
Aiden’s party was facing something amidst an atmosphere thick with a mixture of Qi and Divine Power. And there, in the center of the battle-scarred clearing, stood a Demonic Beast that retained only the faintest traces of Liza’s form.
“…”
Forcing down a wave of dizziness, Grand Duke Aslan stared at the creature. As if sensing his gaze, its eyes turned toward him.
The face was Liza’s. But—
That thing was not the daughter he knew. Its eyes burned with a killing intent so raw that the truth hit him like a physical blow.
Demonic Beast Transformation.
His long experience with Demonic Beast subjugations allowed him to recognize the phenomenon instantly, and a chill ran down his spine. It was a mutation that occurred in a minuscule fraction of veteran soldiers who had weathered the Night of the Hunt for decades, a physical change as if their very species was shifting from human to Demonic Beast. Those who fell to it lost their sanity completely, rampaging until they died.
Which meant…
“…”
His daughter had to die.
Her death was a certainty.
Just as vertigo threatened to overwhelm him at that terrible truth…
Lionheart moved.
“I agree we shouldn’t kill her, but who orders someone to charge that thing bare-handed?!” Noel complained, her eyes half-filled with tears as she sprinted toward the Grand Duke’s daughter.
…Shouldn’t kill her?
Grand Duke Aslan stared dumbly at Lionheart for uttering such words. Then, his head snapped toward the young man who had clearly given the order.
“It can’t be helped,” Aiden Kellermain said, flashing a wry smile at the complaining Noel. “If we kill her, we can’t cure her.”
—Cure Demonic Beast Transformation?
As the Grand Duke froze at the absurd statement, Noel let out a scream-like cry as she closed the distance to his daughter.
“I swear, I’m not going to live to a ripe old age at this rate!”
The Demonic Beast’s gaze instantly locked onto Noel. Eight bladed legs swung out in a seamless, sweeping assault, covering so much space that evasion was impossible. It was an attack with enough force to tear through even exceptionally sturdy armor like cardboard.
Yet against it, Aiden’s Supernatural Ability deployed instantly. A bright aura enveloped the surroundings, blended with a haze of Pure White Qi. As the Qi merged into the condensed Dharmic Power Core, the orb of light began to shine even whiter. A radiant brilliance, so dazzling it was hard to keep one’s eyes open, coalesced into a barrier in front of Noel.
Shaping a Supernatural Ability was already an arduous task. For Aiden, who had not yet mastered this particular power, the form he created was crude. That only made the result all the more absurd.
—!!!!
Sparks flew as every single one of the Demonic Beast’s blades was repelled, leaving Grand Duke Aslan’s mouth agape.
He blocked it?
Despite wielding his Supernatural Ability so crudely, all eight of the Demonic Beast’s attacking legs had been deflected.
Every member of the Aslan Grand Ducal House who hunted Demonic Beasts knew one fundamental truth: the most basic principle when dealing with them was ‘evasive combat utilizing mobility.’ The reason was simple. The base physical stats of a Demonic Beast far surpassed even humans capable of wielding Supernatural Abilities. A human wielding a Supernatural Ability engaging a Demonic Beast in close combat was like a puppy trying to fight a tiger.
Considering that even the weakest Demonic Beast could effortlessly slaughter several apprentice knights, a creature like the one Liza had become was something even a monster like Lionheart should avoid facing head-on.
And yet.
An attack delivered with the full physical power of such a Demonic Beast had been deflected by such a crudely formed Supernatural Ability.
And it didn’t even end there.
Seeing that parts of the Demonic Beast’s blade-legs had shattered on impact, Grand Duke Aslan forgot the gravity of the situation and let out a hollow laugh. He would have sworn those blades could cut through diamond. And now, they looked as if they had collided with something overwhelmingly harder.
…Just how hard is it…?!
He already knew that the man named Aiden Kellermain possessed extraordinary talent with Supernatural Abilities. Rumors that he had blended Qi and Divine Power were already circulating among those with keen insight, and hadn’t it been recorded that he had even used a technique left by the Knight of Dawn?
However, he hadn’t expected him to be hiding something beyond that.
Just how many secret tricks did this man have up his sleeve?
—!!!
As the Demonic Beast roared after losing its primary weapons, Qi burst from Noel’s body as she entered striking range. Channeling her explosively enhanced strength, she seized Liza’s body and pinned it firmly to the ground.
“Hold her right there!”
Next, Divine Power poured from Katya, flowing toward the Grand Duke’s daughter. Suppressing its heat, the Divine Power wrapped around the Demonic Beast’s legs, binding them like a lasso.
Finally, Aiden sprinted toward the pinned creature. Gathered at his fingertips was yet another Supernatural Ability.
“Wait, young man—!”
Jolted back to his senses, the Grand Duke opened his mouth to stop Aiden. While the skill they displayed in subduing the Demonic Beast so cleanly was worthy of praise, he had cried out involuntarily, seeing what looked to all the world like lethal intent.
“Grand Duke,” Aiden replied, his voice accompanied by a dry laugh. “I’m not so crazy as to make a father watch his daughter die right before his eyes.”
The scene that followed was proof of his words.
A Supernatural Ability created by fusing Divine Power and Dharmic Power.
Its name was ‘Purifier.’
* * *
Absurd things happened in the world all the time. Witnessing them firsthand, however, was exceptionally rare.
In that respect, Rad was currently wondering if he should buy a lottery ticket. He was spectating a sight he had never expected to see in his entire life.
Liza, who had been thrashing and resisting on the ground, began to settle as she was exposed to the Supernatural Ability radiating from Aiden’s fingertips.
It wasn’t just that her resistance was subsiding.
The grotesque signs of Demonic Beast Transformation were not just receding—they were being cured. The blade-legs sprouting from her back contracted. They shrank and went limp, retracting back into the body of the Grand Duke’s daughter—the host they had been feeding on—before vanishing completely.
A human in the late stages of Demonic Beast Transformation, for whom death was the only cure, was being restored to normal by a simple touch.
Noel, holding the girl’s body down; Katya, who had bound her legs; and Grand Duke Aslan, who watched the scene in silence—all wore the same expression.
Astonishment.
“…I don’t think even a High Priest specializing in healing from the Holy Kingdom could pull this off,” Katya muttered, her voice a groan.
Rad agreed wholeheartedly, though he felt a bit of pity for her. Her standard of comparison was far too low.
Cure, you say?
No, ‘cure’ was too mundane a word for this. Supernatural Abilities were the Divine Authority of gods granted to humans, and Demonic Energy—though belonging to the sealed god Wonil—was of the exact same nature. A human exposed to Demonic Energy undergoing Demonic Beast Transformation was a phenomenon under Wonil’s Divine Authority. The fact that it never ceased until death was, like objects falling from high to low, one of the fundamental laws governing the world. It was so natural that even questioning it was bizarre.
This meant that man—setting aside the insane feat of arbitrarily mixing Supernatural Abilities—had just reversed a God’s Divine Authority.
“…”
It was an alien event, one that could only be described as a miracle.
It made no sense.
Yet what he was looking at was undeniable reality.
…No.
Rad let out a hollow laugh and wiped a hand down his face.
Just what kind of monster is that guy?
Earlier, when the Imperial Prince had ordered him to re-investigate Aiden from scratch, Rad hadn’t paid it much mind. In his view, Aiden was a threatening ‘variable,’ but not one that warranted such deep concern.
The moment he saw this, however, his mind changed completely.
That guy was just an ordinary civilian until recently, wasn’t he?
He trusted his own judgment, and he had been certain. Whether looking at documents, his track record, or even his face, Rad had been convinced that Aiden was just an ordinary human who had gotten lucky. That before long, all his tricks would be exposed.
Yet what on earth was this? In the few months since his days as an empty-shelled commoner, just how many absurd capabilities had he acquired? His growth rate was unbelievable.
…I really need to dig into him. Thoroughly.
What was this man hiding? What was he connected to that allowed him to grow at such a monstrous speed? He would have to investigate him inside and out.
With that thought, Rad concealed himself within the veil of darkness he had woven using Demonic Energy.
What his background is, how he manipulates Supernatural Abilities, and…
Once he resolved to do something, he was the type to see it through to the end. As he quietly closed his eyes, he was already planning how to extract information the man himself might not even know he possessed. Fortunately, the black magic he could cast with Demonic Energy allowed him to easily execute spell formulas for long-distance movement, even amidst this chaos.
…Though I failed to achieve my intended result.
He would have to scrap his pre-arranged schemes, but at least he was leaving with a clear knowledge of what had to be done. At the very least, he had made up his mind to cut off this terrible wild card in advance.
Or so he thought.
“Hey there, Administrative Minister. Where are you off to in such a rush?”
“…?”
A voice spoke, unexpectedly, right beside him.
With those words, a hand pierced through the veil of darkness, seized him by the collar, and violently dragged him out.
“…!”
Rad’s face contorted as he looked up to see—
“Or should I call you the Puppeteer?”
Aiden Kellermain was holding him, an icy smile on his face.