Chapter 122
Chapter 122
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 122
Chapter Title: The Seal (2)
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If it was Dawood Campbell getting hurt, Elnor had actually seen it quite often.
It was only natural, since she had faced death multiple times with him shortly after they met.
Of course, even so.
This sight, right now.
“...Dawood?”
It took some time to comprehend and accept the situation.
Recognizing that lump of meat as someone, in her right mind, was simply impossible.
“...Da, wood?”
A voice of disbelief leaked from her lips.
Her consciousness flickered white. Her heart raced wildly.
“Apostle. Is this your doing?”
From across the way, those words reached her fading awareness.
A chilling killing intent, like bugs crawling under her skin, emanated from the masked woman.
As if this man’s state infuriated her.
“No. I left three ancient gods behind, but the chance of him sustaining these injuries from them—”
“Impossible. Yeah, I know that. Then why is this guy in this state?”
“...”
“You couldn’t handle one simple task? Does that make sense, Tatiana?”
“...I’m sorry.”
And listening to that exchange, Elnor instinctively realized.
The reason this man ended up like this was because he got involved with those over there.
-...
-...
--...!!!!
A sinister energy stirred in her heart.
Everything around her slowed down. Not just her personal perception, but an actual phenomenon.
A sensation she had felt once before.
The world centered on her slowed, and complete ‘control’ over the space was granted to her.
She panted roughly, fiercely rotating that energy.
She vividly remembered using this power before to even ‘rewind time.’
Of course.
She was aware of the risk: it could engulf the entire area nearby.
As a great noble from the Empire, inflicting massive damage on a key facility in another country would make her a public enemy across the continent.
“...”
But even so.
Honestly, she didn’t care.
No matter who else died. No matter how many people nearby got swept up.
Right now, she had to save that man.
Even if she had to bear the full consequences alone!
-Seek and I pray.
It was then that a voice drummed in her eardrums.
Clinging to her reason on the brink, she turned her head, and there stood the man she had been watching, holding an object in his hand, uttering those words.
He had picked up one of the many ornaments adorning his body.
A small bell. At a glance, it was clearly an eerie artifact brimming with spiritual power.
But the power emanating from it in response to his words.
Was nothing ordinary.
-Seek and I pray.
And then.
Those words echoed, and faint waves spread from the bell.
【Simply purify it】
All the demonic energy pouring from Elnor’s body vanished in an instant.
And it didn’t end there.
The energy always emanating from her heart was simply ‘gone.’
As if it had never been there to begin with.
“...!”
Her eyes widened in shock.
She didn’t know exactly what resided within her, but it didn’t feel like something others could easily ‘interfere’ with.
Yet.
She clearly recognized that the energy she had just tried to unleash had been annihilated by that man’s words.
“...”
No.
To be precise, what happened to her wasn’t quite that.
It wasn’t as if the energy was suppressed or interfered with externally.
It was as if the very act of the energy flowing from her body had been ‘erased’ entirely.
“No can do, miss.”
Those words fell upon Elnor, frozen in shock.
“Pulling out something that dangerous? I get you want to save that guy. But if you unleash something you can’t even control, everyone here dies?”
At the mocking voice, Elnor turned her trembling eyes toward him.
Word Spirit.
A technique where words themselves are imbued with supernatural power to manifest phenomena.
She had heard that beyond the extreme eastern frozen lands, in the oriental realms, there were eccentrics wielding all sorts of mystical powers unlike the mana or divine power common on the continent.
Shamanism, Taoism, the Night Parade of a Hundred Demons, and the Onmyoji who command them.
This man must be from one such sect.
Shamans who invoke myriad wondrous phenomena with their own language. Known as Word Spirit users.
Elnor knew of such things, but the ability she had just witnessed.
“...True Word?”
Elnor murmured it like a groan.
She had heard the tales.
One of the most powerful spells recorded in the Empire’s ancient chronicles of battles against the Dragon Gate Kingdom beyond the frozen lands.
Those who had reached the realm of communing with the ‘laws of the world’ through their words.
In simple terms.
Beings capable of limited reality manipulation.
If the conditions of uttering the phrase were met, they could control the entire surrounding ‘world’ according to their will.
“...”
And if that was truly the case.
This man was one of the strongest humans on the continent.
A monster among monsters, straight out of legends.
Though his flippant whistle and response in reply to her murmur didn’t make him seem so.
“You know a lot. Because you’re a noble lady?”
“...”
“Then it’s even harder to understand. It’s not even a completed vessel yet—just two pieces—and you try to wield it freely? Isn’t that too greedy, miss? That thing’s a king of hell in its own right.”
Laughter followed in quick succession.
Pieces. Vessel. King of hell.
Words she couldn’t comprehend poured in one after another.
“But the Tristan Ducal House is still a pretty ancient vessel lineage. It’s ridiculous that you couldn’t resist at all. Didn’t your mother teach you how to use it?”
The next words were impossible to ignore.
“You bastard, what did you just—!”
Elnor’s face twisted as she lunged forward.
“-...!”
But blood soon sprayed from her mouth.
The green light from Tatiana’s wand pierced her abdomen directly.
An attack she would normally dodge effortlessly. Slow and weak.
But now, she was ‘weaker’ than that.
Her body felt sluggish.
Frail to a horrific degree.
Weaker than even her childhood before she had properly trained or held a sword.
“A vessel with its pieces sealed is barely above a normal person.”
Tatiana said that and kicked her in the stomach.
Her breath caught. Elnor tumbled across the floor, respiration blocked.
Green beams struck her body several more times. Arms, legs, chest.
The piercing curses riddled her entire form. In an instant, her body was a wreck.
“The Forerunner told you from the start. Resistance is meaningless.”
“...”
They had deliberately forced her to draw out this power, all for this.
As if waiting for it. The moment she tried to use it, they ‘erased’ it entirely.
“...Keep yapping to a minimum, Toker.”
“Hey now. You’re the one who called a busy guy here and dragged him into this childish play. I had high hopes since it was the Gray Devil’s vessel, but it’s nothing like last time.”
Beyond the pain racking her entire body, she heard them conversing leisurely.
“That’s why... enough. What did I expect from a loudmouth like you.”
“That’s harsh. She’s gonna die soon anyway, right?”
“...Shut up.”
The Forerunner sighed and turned to Tatiana, who had subdued Elnor and bowed her head.
“Kill her and recover the pieces appropriately. We need to combine them with the last piece in the Holy Kingdom.”
“Understood.”
With that response.
High Priestess Tatiana stood before her.
“No personal grudge, Tristan Duchess.”
The curse-emitting wand aimed precisely at her head.
“You consider being born into a cursed bloodline a sin. A target because of your ancestors’ karma.”
“What do you plan to do with Dawood.”
“...Worried about that man to the very end.”
Tatiana said in exasperation.
“Can’t say I admire it. I don’t fancy pathetic struggles.”
Another curse gathered on the wand.
A death sentence. Intent on taking her life right there.
She could do nothing.
In her blurring vision, Elnor saw the Forerunner hoisting Dawood over his shoulder.
“What’s that corpse for? Isn’t he already dead?”
“We’ll find a way to revive him.”
“Bad taste. Planning to implant restrictions while resurrecting the lion? Make him a slave?”
“...Considering it.”
Such words reached her.
What they planned to do to Dawood.
Right before her eyes.
Stealing away her most precious thing.
“...Dawood.”
On the verge of death, seeing Dawood dangling limply over the Forerunner’s shoulder, Elnor uttered a frail voice.
“...Da, wood.”
She couldn’t let that happen.
She couldn’t leave him to be toyed with so casually, as they said.
But her body wouldn’t obey. Pinned against the wall, she couldn’t even twitch a finger.
As despair enveloped her.
“...Hold on. Boss.”
“What.”
“That guy’s acting weird.”
Something engraved on Dawood’s chest.
Began to pulse.
Containing something ‘black.’
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“Forerunner!”
Tatiana sensed the crisis first.
She, who had aimed her wand at Elnor, hastily conjured a curse toward it.
A turquoise barrier arose between the Forerunner and Dawood just as their bodies were flung in opposite directions.
In that moment.
The black energy bursting from his chest spread thickly in an instant.
“Forerunner, are you alright!”
“...”
Tatiana cried out.
But the Forerunner’s gaze was blankly fixed on Dawood.
As if.
What he was seeing was utterly unbelievable.
“...The Seal of the Other Heavens?”
The Forerunner muttered blankly.
As if.
Witnessing something that ‘absolutely should not happen.’
“...No, why, why would you do that.”
Almost.
“Why go that far for those damned women—!”
His voice carried even despair.
“...Damn it. Get away from that guy!”
Then.
Toker screamed at the Forerunner in a voice brimming with tension, devoid of his prior flippancy.
He simultaneously removed several of the ornaments adorning his body.
In stark contrast to using just one against Elnor.
-Seek and I pray.
-Seek and I pray.
【Simply purify—】
But before the phrase could complete.
A massive ‘gust’ slammed into Toker.
Caused solely by a ‘punch’ thrown in place by Dawood, who knelt on the ground.
Without any supernatural power or energy.
Purely through physical prowess.
“What, this...!”
Toker, failing to finish the incantation, staggered back several steps.
Meanwhile, the black energies he hadn’t dispelled fully gathered onto Dawood’s body.
“...You’re kidding.”
Toker let out a hollow laugh as he watched.
One ‘truth’ he recalled flashed through his mind.
An unchanging law throughout the long eons he had lived.
There are six demons in total.
White, blue, red, brown, purple, and finally gray.
So.
What was he seeing now?
“...”
One could call it grotesque.
His entire body enveloped in pitch-black energy, like donning black armor all over.
A meld of eeriness, dread, disgust, crushed and stirred together.
That was, without doubt.
“...A ‘Black Devil’? Never heard of such a thing.”
The form of a demon.
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