Bialom
Bialom
The Abyss Cult was the last dark-wizard organization remaining on the continent.
True to its name as a cult, the organization was centered around its leader.
Bialom, the leader of the Abyss Cult, was in a state of extreme irritation.
The task of taking bloody revenge on those who had scorned them and summoning the Demon God they served back into this world to plunge the continent into chaos was right before his eyes.
Yet the fools he called subordinates kept making excuses and dragging their feet on gathering sacrifices.
If he had his way, he would have drained every last drop of their blood and offered it to the Demon God—holding back had been an ordeal.
They were swine, but without even those swine, the great undertaking would be delayed even further, so he had no choice.
"Your Eminence! It appears intruders have entered the cult grounds."
Just as the cult leader was cooling his anger, a believer came rushing in to make a report.
"Intruders?"
"Yes! Their number appears to be no more than ten or so."
Ten? They were probably nobodies who had crawled in out of curiosity after seeing the entrance dug by the tunnel snake.
At best, adventurers or mercenaries.
Fools who crawled in thinking this was a dungeon holding something valuable, and who would graciously offer themselves up as sacrifices.
"Excellent. We were short on sacrifices as it was. Capture them and put them in the warehouse."
"W-Well, it seems several believers have already fallen to them."
"Pathetic fools!"
To be beaten by wretches like that—could they still call themselves members of the Abyss Cult that serves the Demon God?
Of course, it wasn't as if there were no mercenaries or adventurers with decent skills, so it wasn't entirely absurd, but it was pathetic all the same.
"I will handle this myself. Where are they?"
"I will guide you, Your Eminence!"
Bialom was irritated by the incompetence of subordinates who had forced him to step in personally.
Still, at the thought of tasting blood firsthand after so long, he felt a faint thrill as well.
There was a pleasure in it different from beating subordinates or commoners to death.
Adventurers and mercenaries were at least people who had learned to fight, so they put up a fair bit of resistance—but in the end, they were no different from insects.
This was not overconfidence in himself; it was simply the truth.
Only someone like Yustaf, called the continent's greatest wizard, could threaten him.
Or perhaps the imperial knight orders, where the Empire's superhumans gathered, would be worth facing.
Anyone else was nothing more than his plaything.
"Ha... Even I have to laugh at that."
Bialom let out a hollow laugh. Yustaf and the imperial knight orders, of all things.
Was it because he actually did want to face Yustaf at least once?
The man who bore the epithet Human Dragon had been called the continent's greatest wizard since Bialom was a brat—a living legend.
He might be outmatched in magic, but now that he had obtained the Demon God's power, Bialom had a certain confidence that he could perhaps win.
But all of this was nothing more than idle delusion.
There was no way Yustaf, who was now playing teacher at the Academy and was practically half-retired, would come to a place like this.
The imperial knight orders? That was even more absurd.
They had not even taken part in the last war. They were the imperial family's dogs, prioritizing nothing but the safety of the imperial household.
The only enemies who could threaten him were them, but they had no reason to come here. Bialom had no need to worry.
"Now then, I shall hear fresh screams for the first time in a while."
Bialom's steps were light as he followed the subordinate guiding him to where the intruders had appeared.
***
"Damn it, what the hell is going on?"
Venom was hiding in the underbrush, holding even his breath.
After receiving the cult leader's orders and going outside to procure sacrifices, Venom had come face-to-face with soldiers surrounding their base and immediately hidden in the brush to observe the situation.
The entrances to the tunnels dug by the tunnel snake, which the organization used as passageways, were already all under control.
Somehow they had gathered this many troops, and now his brothers-in-arms fleeing from inside were all being slaughtered.
'That guy over there looks like the leader of the group.'
A black-haired young man issuing orders to the troops.
Even at a glance, he appeared to be of high status, and he seemed to be the one controlling the forces.
If he killed that man, the scene would likely be thrown into chaos, and if he joined forces with his brothers fleeing in that opening, they could break through the encirclement.
Of course, with Venom's own skill, he could not break through those troops and the ones who looked like knights guarding the perimeter.
But he didn't necessarily need to break through with his own skill.
Venom took out a black stone the size of a fist from inside his clothes.
When he injected mana into it, it began to vibrate faintly, and a rumbling began to rise from far away.
"What is it? Is this rumbling an earthquake?"
The soldiers and knights on guard were all thrown into confusion by the sudden rumbling, and soon learned the source of it.
"Shrieeeek!!!"
A massive creature burst up from the ground as it collapsed.
Too huge to be a snake, yet too shabby in appearance to be a dragon.
"It's a tunnel snake!!!"
The creature's identity was a tunnel snake.
A hideous form, as if a giant earthworm had grown scales and a mouth full of huge, sharp teeth.
Its sheer size made it look like a small hill was moving, making it naturally imposing.
"Everyone fall back!!! Only our escort knight order is to follow me!"
The regular soldiers were frozen in place, overwhelmed by the tunnel snake's majesty; only the escort knights moved.
The first to charge out was the order's commander, Cross.
With just a few steps, he leaped up to the height of the tunnel snake's head and swung his sword, and his blade flashed as it drew a short arc through the air.
Shhk!
The astonishing sight of the tunnel snake's sharp scales—said to shred even the rough ore underground—being cleanly sliced through.
Unfortunately, Cross was not the only one capable of such superhuman feats.
There were only five of them here. Even so, the remaining knights each drew their weapons and charged at the tunnel snake.
The tunnel snake, which had seemed like an unapproachable monster, was starting to look pitiful.
'What the hell are those lunatics!!!'
Venom, watching the scene, was horrified inwardly.
He had thought they were ordinary knights, but they were anything but. Venom had never in his life seen knights move like that.
Of course, that wasn't to say knights were weak. Even a knight from an ordinary rural territory couldn't be so much as scratched by dozens of armed commoners rushing at them.
But what he had summoned was a tunnel snake.
Considering how many people had been ground up to control that tunnel snake, it should not have been subdued so easily.
'Are those bastards some kind of Royal Guard?!'
Faced with this unbelievable situation, Venom even entertained the thought that those men might be the Royal Guard, the emperor's direct knight order.
But he concluded it was a ridiculous delusion.
The man who appeared to be the leader did have black hair, but there were occasionally black-haired nobles in the Empire besides the imperial family.
And the emperor was already old, so a male member of the imperial family that age would have to be the Crown Prince or the Second Prince.
The ones called a mad dog and a lecher coming here in person to purge dark wizards?
What a joke.
'Now that it's come to this, I have no choice but to use my last insurance.'
Venom took out the black stone from his chest again.
'Chaos Crystal'
This black crystal, obtained by offering sacrifices to the Demon God, possessed the ability to control demonic beasts, the Demon God's creations.
Pathetic demonic beasts could be controlled with a Chaos Crystal the size of a finger joint, but to control a demonic beast on the level of a tunnel snake required a crystal the size of a fist.
Just to make one of these crystals, hundreds of humans had been offered as sacrifices.
It was an item treasured even within the cult.
Venom had been issued it because he was in charge of hunting sacrifices. In truth, it was a precious asset that he should only have had one of.
But Venom possessed two Chaos Crystals.
In truth, it was his precious hidden asset, secretly made by skimming off humans meant to be offered as sacrifices whenever he had the chance.
He had intended to keep it as a truly last resort, but to escape this encirclement, he seemed to have no choice but to use it.
The first tunnel snake was drawing the attention of those insane knights. Now was his chance to attack their poorly guarded leader.
That would surely throw everything into chaos, and he could use the opening to escape.
Originally, he had intended to help his cult comrades escape as well, but trying to save them would get him killed too.
Venom thought it was fine—the blood they spilled would be repaid by the Demon God later, so they would die grateful.
Venom fervently prayed to the Demon God for the power to crush those wicked bastards and infused mana into the second Chaos Crystal.
Soon, another rumbling rose from far away and rapidly drew closer.
"Don't tell me there's one more?"
The escort knights had driven back the tunnel snake that had appeared earlier, but they hadn't finished it off yet when they realized their mistake.
To think there was one more.
The tunnel snake moving underground approached with terrifying momentum that even a mounted knight could not outrun.
"Shrieeeek!!!"
Once again, a massive snake-shaped demonic beast burst through the ground.
"Your Highness the Crown Prince!!!"
That place happened to be exactly where the Crown Prince was.