The Victims Born to Become Sacrifices - 4

Lucretia answered Jason with a tone that seemed to question why he was even asking, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

"Would it be difficult?"

"But why do you submit to him? Did you perhaps fall under brainwashing?"

"No, I haven't fallen under brainwashing at all. I simply ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠chose to follow him."

Lucretia answered Jason's words with the same calm composure as before.

"Then why do you follow him at all! For atonement! You couldn't possibly be forgiven! Why would you follow such a wicked demon! You're a saint and yet you lack even the slightest sense of justice!"

Jason's question left Lucretia smiling coldly. Honestly, from her perspective, Jason's words about justice were beyond ridiculous.

"Frankly, isn't it laughable for us hypocrites to discuss justice with each other? If you truly love justice so much, you should have never betrayed the one who saved the world in the first place. You betrayed him for power, didn't you? Yet here you are, talking about justice?"

Upon being questioned, Jason fell silent for a moment. It was true that he had accepted Ferdinand's proposal and betrayed Jae-hyun.

Unlike Kyle and William, who had orchestrated a fallen guild to rise up, Jason was the third son of the Light Dukes, who held wealth and power, from birth in the Minoa Kingdom.

With two older brothers—one destined to inherit the ducal title and the other pursuing a knight's path—Jason had chosen the path of a mage, and his exceptional talent had allowed him to easily reach high realms.

But now he stood atop the Light Dukes as the current duke, having surpassed both his brothers.

Though his appearance was that of a middle-aged man in his forties, he was actually eighty-five years old, and his older brothers had long since passed away. In truth, even if they had lived, they would have been ninety and eighty-eight, too frail to continue their ways.

Moreover, both had died in accidents long before that; in fact, those accidents had been secretly orchestrated by him. By the time he reached eighty-five, he had already replaced his five wives, secretly disguising the elderly and ugly ones as having died of illness while quietly eliminating them.

In this way, he had managed to take the princess—daughter of the king of Minoa—as his new wife, now twenty-four years old.

The age difference between them was sixty-one years. He was the one who best displayed the unmistakable greed for power in every aspect, and it was precisely because of that that he had feared Jae-hyun during the Hero era, knowing that the mage who cherished power so intensely was this man.

Ultimately, it was Jason himself who had betrayed Jae-hyun out of a lust for power, and now, holding up a banner of justice, he was trying to persuade him. For Lucretia, it was only natural to laugh.

"Hmph! You're not the only one who betrayed him! You, the saint, also didn't betray him! You have no right at all to accuse me!"

"Indeed, you have no right to accuse. So neither do I. I am lending him my strength to atone for the sins I committed against him."

Jason, who had not even received a proper counter from Lucretia, stepped back.

"Then I suppose I have no choice but to fight."

"Yes. Are those four beautiful maidens all your wives?"

Nodding at Yu Ji-ho's words, Lucretia looked at Rachel, Ruina, Silvia, and Kim Da-gyeom and asked.

"Yes, they are my wives."

"I see. You have four pretty wives, but none of them can compare to your own beauty. I heard you wanted his body, and now I understand the reason."

Upon Lucretia's words, Rachel, Ruina, Silvia, and Kim Da-gyeom simultaneously felt unpleasant and glared at her.

"Your beauty is acknowledged, but your mouth is truly unpleasant."

Rachel frowned, glaring at her. As someone whose temperament had always been a bit quick-tempered, she was the first to show displeasure at Lucretia's remark.

Lucretia smiled and replied.

"Isn't that the truth? After all, your husband, the ancient hero, is a hypocrite as well. In the end, he intended to conquer this world, brutally abuse Irene and me, and finally take you all as his spoils of war, enjoying your bodies for eternity."

"From what I'm seeing, he's completely switched to the Demon King's side, challenging us and even provoking us to fight, so there's no point in talking to him."

Yu Ji-ho, feeling that further persuasion was impossible and that it would only harm his side, cut off Lucretia's words.

"You sound tense, wanting to cover it up quickly. Hah. Now that my body's become deliciously seasoned, I'm eager to taste it thoroughly, whether it's your front hole or your rear, without hiding anything. I don't care about front or back. If you dare to penetrate, I'll gladly sway my hips and suck with my mouth. I'm not picky; feel free to do as you please. As long as you can."

Upon hearing Saint Lucretia's vulgar words, the humans, the angels, and even the Dragon Lord, who had been watching in silence, all fell stunned.

Only a few months ago, she had been a dignified and noble saint, cold and cruel though she might be for betraying the hero.

But now she was casually spewing such depraved words from that beautiful mouth, like a lowest-class whore. Yet Lucretia, who had already borne the spawn of demons, could go even further, and her concept of keeping her chastity had long since been shattered.

She had already had sex with men numbering in the tens of thousands, and the thought of preserving purity was now utterly gone. From the moment her virginity, which she had guarded until thirty, was defiled, she had foreseen that she would fall into such lewd degradation.

Until she received forgiveness from Jae-hyun and became his woman, she would remain a saint and a whore at the same time.

"What... you're really provoking me!"

Yu Ji-ho spoke and reached for his sword toward Lucretia, but before him, gray-haired boy and girl children attacked.

These eleven boy and girl children, who had been forgotten because of Lucretia's presence, had been blessed by her and, since they were beings who had transformed their lives into power, leaving only one year remaining, as Yu Ji-ho, they wielded powers beyond what one would expect.

But even burning away their lives to this extent, producing such strength was no ordinary talent.

And these eleven were all individuals possessing genius martial talent that rivaled William's or Kyle's.

Geniuses of that caliber had burned both their talent and their lives to obtain the power they displayed now.

"You'd better not be careless. These eleven children were all born from William, the Gale Sword Emperor, and his great-granddaughter Sophia."

Upon Lucretia's words, Yu Ji-ho's group finally realized the true identities of the boy and girl children.

"Gale Sword Emperor? His sons and daughters?"

"And with his great-granddaughter Sophia?"

"William must have gotten a rough deal. Hehe..."

Griffith and Jason, who had been murmuring, finally understood part of the pain William was enduring.

"William's sons and daughters, eh."

Yu Ji-ho clicked his tongue. Though he had sensed their extraordinary talents, the fact that they all possessed genius-level martial talent was unsurprising. Yet at the same time he wondered.

'But what about their magical talent?'

He had no issue with talent for martial arts, but he wondered how a flame magic spell of such immense size had been unleashed moments ago. Instead of asking Lucretia, he raised the Grand Sword and moved to take down the eleven children who had surrounded him with hostile intent.

He had no intention of treating them lightly, so he would strike them down in an instant. This was a battle against geniuses of swordsmanship who had burned away all their talent and lives.

To defeat the seven boys and four girls who had received the saint's blessing and become even stronger, he would need to fight them properly.

'Still, they're no match for me.'

It was astonishing that the sword blessed by the saint had been strong enough to block his earlier light attack, but that was all.

"Powerful Time Stop!"

Yu Ji-ho, using one of the top-tier 10th-circle magic spells that controlled time, attempted to bind the eleven of them. If they had simply become overwhelmingly powerful in combat without reaching the Grand Sword Master realm through insight and thus being able to resist spatial and temporal forces, he had intended to freeze time and finish them in one blow.

But the eleven children raised their swords with fierce shouts.

"Kyaaah!!"

And from their weapons emerged enormous aura blades that erupted in unison. The powerful aura spewing from the blades began to perfectly dominate the surrounding space, and the combined strength of the eleven Grand Sword Masters seized control of the area, obstructing the 10th-circle magic Yu Ji-ho had used.

They had used the power of space domination to resist the attempt to stop time. With eleven of them acting simultaneously, the spatial dominance was even more formidable, and shortly after, Yu Ji-ho's Powerful Time Stop was blocked by the eleven children's spatial mastery.

In ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the normal course of events, the eleven would have lacked the strength, but with the saint's blessing they now possessed, it was possible.

"How is it possible to have such power..."

"Even if they are William's sons and daughters, this is going a bit too far."

Jason and Griffith, who knew William's level to some extent, said with obvious incomprehension.

They acknowledged William's greatness and his strength, but even so, the sudden appearance of his sons and daughters in their late-teens forms could simply have been forced magical growth. There was nothing astonishing about that. But even if their lives had been reduced to one year and converted entirely into power, and they had received the saint's blessing, the power these eleven were displaying now had transcended common sense.

If they possessed such strength, there was no reason they would have feared Laylana in the first place. They could have simply selected one hundred victims, converted all remaining life force into power, and created a suicide squad to handle it.

There must have been something else at work.

"You'd better not underestimate them. These eleven, each one, have absorbed the life forces of around ten thousand people."

Lucretia told them the true nature of the power the eleven possessed.

"Eleven thousand people sacrificed, huh. Hoo, what horrifying experimental subjects. The ones chosen as test subjects had only one year of life left anyway, so they were going to die after this battle... They've truly been made into perfect sacrificial lambs."

"Indeed."

Lucretia simply nodded lightly, and the light bird riding on her back soared higher into the sky. Lucretia looked down at Yu Ji-ho's group and said.

"I will watch from here. Please, by all means, break through those eleven. If you fail, the Jae-hyun waiting for you at the Demon King's Castle will feel pitiful."

"What a... provoking girl!"

Yu Ji-ho spoke and erupted his own momentum.

Cugugu-gung—

With the ancient hero, armed with sacred weapons, no longer treating it lightly but showing a serious fighting will, the eleven children also released their own momentum and met it head-on.

Though the eleven seemed as one, their auras merged into a single force that confronted Yu Ji-ho's momentum. Nevertheless, Yu Ji-ho's aura continued to overwhelm the eleven children.

"I alone am sufficient. Do not intervene."

Without looking back, Yu Ji-ho noticed the actions of Gabriel, Rachel, and Ruina, who were preparing to draw their swords behind him, and restrained them.