Chapter 97
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 97
Chapter Title: Necromancer King
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“Cult leader?”
“No way, the leader of the Death God Cult? Why’s he here of all places?”
“This is huge.”
The murmurs among the hunters grew louder.
It was like showing up to nab some street punks and stumbling upon the mafia boss.
“Fire! No need for arrests! Blast them all!”
Alex, the head of the Fixers, bellowed in fury.
The Fixers snapped to attention and unleashed their attacks in unison.
The Necromancer King’s veil billowed out in all directions.
“Young lambs. Call out. My name.”
The 1,500 cultists dropped to their knees as one.
“Father, you who have been called by Urben!”
“Incarnation of the god, Necromancer King! Protect us!”
Darkness poured from their bodies.
Like tiny streams converging into the sea, it was absorbed into the Necromancer King’s veil.
A voice emanated from the darkness within the hood.
“I shall not abandon you.”
[Skill activated! ‘Cradle of Repose and Silence (S++)’]
[Over 10,000 units of mana concentrated! Output at 4,446%!]
The hunters’ attacks struck the gossamer veil.
But they vanished harmlessly, like pebbles tossed into the ocean.
“Uh oh, this is bad.”
“Don’t chicken out! You bastards! Pour it on! Empty everything you’ve got!”
“It’s just a skill anyway! Keep hitting it, and it’ll break eventually!”
The squad leaders and Fixer captains urged on the panicking hunters.
They knew full well.
If they fell back here, it wouldn’t just be a total wipe—they’d be turned into paste.
Kuuoooo—
As nearly three thousand people summoned their avatars, a majestic roar echoed through the entire underground sector.
“Durydana! Activating final ability Dharma!”
“Aeolus.”
“Garuda Minga, become the firebird!”
“Tengu! Third ability....”
Each prepared to unleash their ultimate techniques.
The commander of the assembled hunters.
Martunis said curtly.
“Stand down.”
“Pardon?”
The 6th Squad leader, who had been buffing him from the side, blinked in confusion.
Martunis took a deep breath.
“Everyone—! Stand down—!”
His commanding voice boomed.
The hunters around him stared at Martunis in bewilderment.
The rest of the Fixers ignored him and fired off their skills regardless.
Wuuuung—
Thousands of skills collided with the veil and dissipated.
“What the hell? Why’d those guys stop mid-cast?”
“We need to coordinate our attacks, right?”
As the Fixers vented their frustration.
The 6th Squad leader beside him asked cautiously.
“Deputy Chief? Isn’t now the time to attack? Stopping like this....”
“No. It’s all pointless.”
Martunis pushed through the hunters and stepped forward.
He strode up onto the rubble.
Three thousand against one.
The deputy chief stepping out alone before the Necromancer King’s overwhelming presence.
The hunters looked on in confusion or alarm.
“Isn’t that dangerous?”
“What’s the deputy chief thinking?”
The path Martunis took.
The 1,500 cultists parted down the middle, opening a way.
The hunters sensed something off.
“Wait, why are the cultists...?”
“No way, Deputy Chief Martunis?”
Martunis stood before the Necromancer King without interference.
He knelt and pressed his lips to the Necromancer King’s foot.
“Apostle Isaac Jerolbine failed to protect you. I beg your forgiveness.”
“It is fine. Rather, it pains me that your achievements have been rendered futile.”
“No, as the Apostle assigned by the Company, I have no face to show before you, Lord.”
“D-Deputy Chief Martunis?”
The squad leaders were dumbfounded.
A blatant declaration of betrayal.
The commander of the Escort Division was a high-ranking cultist.
Fixer head Alex clutched his forehead.
“Ah. Fuck. Traitorous bastard.”
“No need for any of that! Hey! We’re taking control now! Wipe them all out!”
The hunters, enraged, resumed their battle stances.
Martunis rose slowly.
“Your resistance. It’s all in vain.”
He raised his right hand and slashed at the empty air.
Kwaaaaang—!
Sector 111-7.
The walls blocking every direction crumbled.
Beyond the collapsed walls.
Thousands of fully armed zealots stood ready.
“Black Iron Apostles Sergio Valentin and the Company Armed Knights pay their respects to the Lord.”
“Man-Eating Apostles under Emperor Pilate, the Voracious Guard, have come to you!”
“Engineering Apostle Yavon Dictor and Necro Scientia behold the Lord’s visage.”
“Bloodblade Apostles! Guyuk! The sharp fangs gather beneath you, Necromancer King!”
A force about twice the size of the Fixers.
The four apostles and their zealots surrounded the Fixers.
“This is bad.”
“Even being generous, we’re sandwiched.”
Their morale crushed, they scanned the situation.
Eyes darting to which side might offer a breakthrough.
“Traitorous sinner! Ju Gonghyeok, hear us!”
Sergio Valentin bellowed from the north.
“First Apostle, you who slew Isaac Jerolbine and persecuted thousands of innocent cultists!
If you admit your sins now, the Necromancer King shall forgive you!”
All eyes turned to Ju Gonghyeok.
Gonghyeok scratched his head.
“So you’ll let me live?”
Valentin nodded calmly.
“No. And then you die.”
The atmosphere turned icy in an instant.
Martunis, beside the Necromancer King, smiled meaningfully.
*Well, what will you do now?*
Officer Jeong beside him sighed.
“What now?”
“What do you think? What else?”
Ju Gonghyeok snapped his fingers lightly.
The faint snap echoed in the deathly silence.
“Like this.”
The cultists burst into laughter as one.
“Hahaha! Even you’re out of tricks!”
“Arrogant fool! You must’ve had a good run!”
“We’ll avenge the innocent martyrs! Ju Gonghyeok!”
In the festive mood.
A faint scream echoed from the rear of the cultists.
Telepathy poured into the Necromancer King’s ear.
[Incarnation! Blasphemers have appeared behind us!]
[Incarnation! Red Fangs here! Wolf Fortress! The Wolf Fortress bastards ambushed us!]
[Lord, these are warrior monks. Nirvana’s battle monks are tearing through our creations....]
[Long live the Emperor! Long live the Lord! Long live! Long live! Aaaagh!]
Martunis realized the sudden shift.
He shouted to the necromancer nearby.
“What the hell! Where’d they come from! Ambush? Or spatial portals?”
“Both, it seems! They’re pouring in nonstop!”
“Their. Numbers.”
The Necromancer King asked in a heavy voice.
The necromancer sweated as he frantically calculated.
“Estimated ten thousand—no, twelve thousand!”
“Twelve thousand?”
Martunis gaped.
Even gathering every cultist in the area barely hit ten thousand.
Yet these attackers numbered twelve thousand, and adding the Fixers pushed it past seventeen thousand easily.
If reinforcements arrived?
The outcome was obvious.
Martunis’s face twisted.
“No way. For just 1,500 regular cultists, they deploy 20,000 from every city? Impossible!”
Information had leaked somewhere.
Spatial portals had limits.
Jumping between cities cost a fortune in coins.
Which meant they hadn’t come from their cities.
They’d already infiltrated the Company ahead of time.
“Without me knowing, 15,000 infiltrated the Company?”
Someone leaked the location.
Someone blinded Martunis.
Only one possible collaborator.
“Jeong Hyun-do—!”
Blue flames ignited in Martunis’s eyes.
Officer Jeong covered his ears and turned away.
A sign he wouldn’t engage.
“Who’s really surrounded here?”
The encirclement reversed into a counter-encirclement into another encirclement.
No mere sandwich—a triple-decker one.
Ju Gonghyeok grinned slyly.
“Lord! Make your decision!”
“Necromancer King! Save us!”
The cultists wailed in terror.
The Necromancer King silently pointed to the ceiling.
A bone-white finger emerged.
“....It matters not.”
Bugrrr—
Bubbles rose from the ceiling, melting downward.
Street bricks and lampposts fell away.
Revealing the clear sky above.
The Necromancer King’s finger traced a circle.
A mass of yellowish dust erupted, kicking up a sandstorm in the sky.
And what was revealed was the Death God Cult’s headquarters.
Necropolis, the death city.
It had been cloaked in illusion magic.
“No matter. What you do. This city ends all. The same.”
The Company crawling on countless legs across the ground.
Everyone fell silent before the majesty of Necropolis floating above it.
Ju Gonghyeok snapped his fingers again.
“No matter what you do. It ends here all the same.”
Apostle Yavon Dictor, locked in fierce combat, cried out.
“Looord! A unique city Deus detected 330km west! Approaching at 670km/h!
Kuuuung!
A blue wave engulfed the entire Company.
A sign someone had arrived via the surrounding warp points.
Martunis shot into the air.
“My god......”
Wolf Fortress, a unique legion city, Nirvana, Borderless Sky Guild.
Deus too—five cities total marched on the Company.
“We’re done for.”
Those were Martunis’s last words.
Kwaduk.
A lion-headed hammer crashed onto his skull.
Martunis’s head crumpled like a smashed apple, his corpse plummeting like a puppet with cut strings.
The hammer quivered.
- Nice! Critical hit!
“Wow, feel that impact? Nathaniel’s having a blast.”
- Ahem. Even a temple acolyte gets good with a staff after three years.... No, I just hit him because he was annoying! Not fun or exciting at all!
Even as she said it, grinning.
[Progenitor Bird (SS----) first ability ‘Dark Veil’ activated]
A dark veil spread like a transparent fountain behind Gonghyeok.
His gaze shifted from Nathaniel to the Necromancer King.
“Necromancer King. Time to settle things between us?”
Holy light poured from above.
The face hidden in the hood revealed itself.
A bare skull gazed up at him.
“What are you? Why do you obstruct me so?”
“Didn’t you feel anything nostalgic when you entered this city?”
“Nostalgic?”
The Necromancer King tilted his head slightly, sensing something.
He was a lich dominated by the death god Urben’s remnant thoughts.
The lich’s own consciousness erased, Urben’s memories faint.
Yet something stirred in him toward Ju Gonghyeok.
“For example. Someone like this.”
[Avatar Ra-Djehuty (SS) manifests!]
Backed by the sun.
A muscular god with a human body and a gleaming blue bird’s head crossed his arms and appeared.
Ra-Djehuty looked down at Urben with an emotionless face.
“The sun? A god?”
Like struck by lightning.
The Necromancer King trembled as memories surfaced.
“Almighty one.”
Raaa— Djehuuuutyyy—!
Not a clumsy vocalization.
An intense thought-wave crashed over Ju Gonghyeok.
“Yeah. That’s more like it.”
In the past, a man endlessly cried out a god’s name.
In a hellish world, he lost his tribe, his comrades, his family, even himself.
Only curses remained.
He finally stood before the god he’d desperately sought.
Ra— Djehuty— please, us!
Please save us!
Do not abandon our tribe among the dead—
Do not let my comrades and young lambs graze among wicked wolves—
Do not lead us into temptation—
And, and—
My tribe to free
Gaaa— give us────!!
Mad, writhing darkness of curses.
Six high-level spells chanted simultaneously.
Ju Gonghyeok gripped Hontar, the hammer that crushes demons.
“Let’s end this here.”
The hammer flashed like lightning.
And smashed the Necromancer King’s skull.