Chapter 141
Chapter 141
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 141
Chapter Title: Apostle of Destruction
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Underground of the Transcendence Cult's Main Hall.
An untimely explosion sent plumes of smoke surging to the surface above, leaving the underground in utter ruins.
Debris from below crumbled into powder, scattering everywhere.
Amid it all, the shattered corpses of the grand priests lay strewn about.
They had desperately tried to regenerate using their innate recovery abilities.
But after repeated attempts at reconstruction, they finally collapsed for good.
Within that pitch-black smoke...
Drip... drip...
Purple blood rained down.
Viscous chunks of debris scattered and melted away here and there.
The debris was none other than the apostles themselves.
A single strike of the fusion magic, Abyss.
That one blow had reduced everything to ash.
Leyzon, the caster of that fusion magic, hovered in the air while maintaining his undead fusion with Syria.
Full power from the start.
A glass cannon build was all about ending things in one shot.
Yet even in this situation, Leyzon remained vigilant.
Leyzon raised his hand.
Blood-red orbs began gathering in his grasp.
"Attribute fusion, Fierce Poison Emanation."
Poison seeped once more into the blood-red orbs.
The Abyss that had devastated this place began forming anew.
Confirmation kills were always essential, no matter the target.
In that instant, Syria's voice rang out, warning of danger.
Leyzon immediately pulled a red shadow up from beneath his feet.
The moment the shadow spike pierced through the smoke...
Clang!
The sound of shadow clashing against blade echoed loudly.
'It's coming.'
The very moment Leyzon anticipated it, something burst through the smoke.
It took the form of a small human figure.
Jet-black hair.
A blank face with only a mouth.
Even blue-glowing skin.
A grotesque creature mimicking a human stood there.
The uncanny valley.
The more imperfectly it resembled a human, the stronger the revulsion it induced.
This being triggered the uncanny valley without fail.
At the same time, alarm bells rang in Leyzon's mind.
That's dangerous.
The thought flashed through his head.
Leyzon had identified the intruder piercing the smoke.
'That guy's one of the apostles from before.'
The apostle he had seen earlier, with its massive, grotesquely bloated body.
It had reappeared in a completely transformed state.
'That previous form was a chrysalis.'
Leyzon belatedly realized the prior shape had been an incomplete chrysalis.
The creature had been devouring other apostles to undergo metamorphosis.
Then it was struck by Leyzon's attack.
The explosion had enough power to obliterate the chrysalis along with everything else.
So the apostle faced a choice.
Get caught in the blast and die.
Or break free from its shell.
The apostle chose the latter.
Apostle of Destruction
The worst apostle born from the Transcendence Cult sacrificing their own lives.
In that instant, the Apostle of Destruction vanished from sight amid the smoke.
Leyzon's eyes flashed.
'It didn't disappear.'
Currently fused with Syria, Leyzon's detection abilities were extraordinarily heightened.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The Apostle of Destruction moved at speeds too fast for sound to catch up.
Fast.
This was on the level of a sword saint's lightning speed.
Syria shouted, and at the same moment, a red shadow orb swallowed Leyzon.
Boom!
The Apostle of Destruction's fist plunged deep into the shadow orb.
But the arm swinging at it was repelled by the shadow's elasticity.
However, that was of little consequence.
One failure meant trying twice, three times.
Failure was merely a step toward success.
Multiple arms sprouted from the apostle's side.
Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam!
It pummeled the shadow orb relentlessly without pause.
The air screamed from the sheer violence, producing sonic booms.
Each blow could shatter steel.
After thousands of such strikes, even the shadow orb frayed.
Shing!
A blade surged from the Apostle of Destruction's grasp.
Without hesitation, it thrust the blade into the tattered shadow orb.
Splurt!
The shadow orb tore in half.
The Apostle of Destruction immediately shoved its head inside.
Rrrrip—
Its forehead split open, revealing a single eye.
The apostle rolled its eyeball around, scanning the interior.
"Grk?"
Soon, the Apostle of Destruction voiced its doubt.
The inside of the shadow orb was empty.
The moment it sought Leyzon again...
Thud!
The torn shadows reformed, strangling the apostle's neck.
The Apostle of Destruction thrashed wildly as its throat was suddenly crushed.
At the same time, it sensed light behind its back.
Its back ripped open, sprouting another eye.
And in that eye, a man reflected.
A man with red and blue hair fluttering from the undead fusion with Syria.
Leyzon.
"Found me?"
While the Apostle of Destruction was destroying the shadow orb...
Leyzon had concealed himself with Landscape [C] and circled behind.
Before Leyzon, the fusion magic Abyss was now fully formed.
The Apostle of Destruction tried to sever its own head to escape the shadows.
But before it could, a gust carried Abyss forward.
Leyzon aimed his staff at the Apostle of Destruction.
"Fierce Poison Cataclysm."
Black light raced into the Abyss.
Kwaaaaaang!
Abyss engulfed the Apostle of Destruction and detonated.
With another thunderous explosion, the apostle plummeted downward.
The Apostle of Destruction flailed as it fell.
What kind of absurd durability was this? Even taking Abyss head-on left its limbs intact.
But damage had been dealt—its skin melted in patches.
Crunch!
Leathery wings sprouted from the Apostle of Destruction's back.
It spread them, steadying itself midair.
Its head regenerated to normal as well.
The moment it looked up toward Leyzon...
The eye on its forehead froze, staring at the sky.
"Ah."
The Apostle of Destruction opened its mouth and spoke.
The clear blue expanse of the high sky.
The sky it beheld for the first time in its life was breathtakingly beautiful.
The Apostle of Destruction was like a chick freshly hatched from its egg.
An incompletely formed life, born without full maturity.
Instinct dominated now, but gazing at the azure heavens stirred new emotions within it.
The tiny brain of the Apostle of Destruction began to change.
"Ah... rim... dap... da."
The Apostle of Destruction uttered words one by one.
During its chrysalis stage, it had devoured countless apostles.
Though apostle-fied, they were originally human.
By consuming them repeatedly, it inherited their wills, memories, and knowledge.
But awakening it all would take more time.
A newly born apostle couldn't fully comprehend its acquired knowledge yet.
Still, the Apostle of Destruction could surmise.
If it fully awakened everything surfacing now...
It would become a calamity to destroy the world, true to its name.
But that was merely wishful thinking.
Before its eyes loomed an unfamiliar despair.
The Apostle of Destruction could not freely spread its wings.
Someone in this battlefield would rip them all apart.
Above the exposed blue sky where the main hall's ceiling had been blasted away...
Hundreds of jet-black fierce poison blood orbs slowly revealed themselves.
Though the sun still shone, the fierce poison blood orbs gleamed in a line like stars.
Even the Apostle of Destruction gaped dumbly at the overwhelming sight.
"Well, well, it can even talk now."
Leyzon dramatically unfurled his crimson bat wings.
"Then you understand what's about to happen, right?"
Leyzon pointed his staff downward.
Vast Abysses began descending in unison.
The Apostle of Destruction's fine hairs stood on end.
It had already endured Abyss twice.
Taking them in rapid succession would shatter even its durable body.
"Dan... ger."
The Apostle of Destruction rocketed upward to escape.
The moment it fled with its innate high-speed movement...
Thump!
It slammed headfirst into something and halted.
A red wall stood there.
More precisely, a shadow, not a wall.
A colossal cylindrical space filled entirely with Syria's shadows.
From the moment the main hall was obliterated, Leyzon had been preparing.
This place was now a world utterly dominated by shadows.
The Apostle of Destruction was no different from a bird trapped in a cage.
Thud!
Then, shadows crashed down like waves over the apostle's head.
The Apostle of Destruction retreated hastily to avoid being swept away.
But that was a fatal mistake.
It needed to pierce through the shadows somehow.
And that blunder invited the worst possible scenario.
Above the ceiling of the shadow-walled space...
Abyss filled every gap in the shadows.
Gazing up at it, the Apostle of Destruction felt a chill.
Death tightened around its throat.
"No...!"
As it cried out, it deformed its body.
Jet-black darkness compressed in its grasp, forming dark projectiles.
The Apostle of Destruction fired them in rapid succession.
But Abyss merely paused upon impact.
It inexorably filled the space, pressing in.
The Apostle of Destruction thrashed madly.
It desperately fought back with every means at its disposal to halt the Abyss.
But soon the shadows sealed the ceiling, fully enclosing the apostle.
Leyzon aimed his staff downward from above.
Leyzon's eyes flashed an intense ashen gray for a moment.
If one wasn't enough, detonate several.
Leyzon declared to the apostle writhing within the shadows.
"Fierce Poison Cataclysm."
Death.
Multiple Abysses began glowing in unison.
The apostle's single eye filled with black light.
"Spa... re... me."
With its death cry, the Abysses exploded.
――――――――――――!
An unimaginable roar devoured even the shadows as it erupted.
Before the overwhelming explosion's fury, the main hall was utterly annihilated.
It was as if a chunk of the world had vanished.
After the blast's aftermath faded, Leyzon leisurely appeared in the sky above.
Firing off Abyss repeatedly like this was a first even for him.
Predictably, intense mana exhaustion weighed on him.
Even with Syria's undead fusion, it had been a taxing feat.
"Syria, any signs?"
[None. Seems like it's finally done for.]
"What a ridiculous monster."
It had endured Abyss twice—cast through undead fusion—with its bare body.
Astonishing that such a thing had just been created.
If it had accumulated more power here and grown stronger, it would've been unmanageable.
'Honestly, I only won because it was freshly born.'
Good judgment and luck.
The world wasn't all misfortune, after all.
Today was a lucky day.
Rumble—
Then, the Shadow Sanctuary Syria had erected began collapsing.
Even Shadow Sanctuary couldn't withstand the chain of Abyss explosions.
'Undead fusion won't last much longer.'
The moment he sensed the fusion nearing its end...
Whoosh!
Leyzon spotted something darting through a gap in the crumbling shadows.
It was a small, fluffball-like form.
Leyzon's eyes flashed as he hurriedly aimed his staff.
But someone moved before him.
Crackle!
With crimson lightning streaks, the Sword Saint arrived in an instant.
Slash!
He cleaved the black fluffball mercilessly in two.
The fluffball split and rolled across the ground.
The moment the Sword Saint stomped and sliced one...
Iden appeared on the other side, piercing the fluffball with darkness.
Both had been absent during Leyzon's fight but rushed in upon detecting the movement.
Fizzle—
The fluffballs crushed by Iden and the Sword Saint turned to ash and vanished.
In their place, a single black gem remained.
Leyzon, seeing it, finally relaxed his tense body.
Good thing the Sword Saint and Iden were there.
'Tough bastard.'
He hadn't expected it to mask its presence so well, even evading Syria's detection, and try to flee.
Probably used its main body for defense, leaving only this remnant.
If they'd missed it, it might've devoured more and grown again somewhere.
"The Transcendence Cult sure made something outrageous."
Even their final struggle was no joke.
Fortunate they came here as soon as possible.
"Iden, Sword Saint."
Leyzon called them as he slowly descended from the sky to the ground.
At the same time, his undead fusion released.
Syria flapped onto Leyzon's shoulder.
But Leyzon's eyes still gleamed with killing intent.
"There might still be cultists or apostles left. Search every nook and cranny."
Leyzon was the type to extinguish even the faintest embers.
"And..."
Despite exhausting all his mana, Leyzon bared his teeth in a bright grin.
"Grab all the good loot."
They'd earned it through their hard work, after all.