Chapter 349: Bread and Dagger (47)
Chapter 349: Bread and Dagger (47)
The charge began, and dozens of light bombs had already formed in the sky.
Then, a rain of stars came pouring down.
Crushing, shattering, and bursting into sprays of blood.
There was no way the spheres of mana battering his body didn't hurt. Now that his berserk state had ended, the Snow Leopard Fiend must have been feeling more than double the pain he had been suppressing until now.
Even so, the Snow Leopard’s sprint never faltered.
I held my breath, waiting for the moment he would slam into me like a battering ram.
And just before that full-throttle charge could collide with me—
Spin.
My body rotated. Like a sphere standing on frictionless ice.
Following the trajectory of the Snow Leopard’s charge, my body naturally took his rear.
The technique I had learned from Guildford, and the one I had used to kill him.
Secret Ritual Technique: Diffraction.
That was the end of it.
Thuck.
My sword pierced through the Snow Leopard’s neck.
It was only then that his seemingly unstoppable charge came to a halt. Perhaps he had sensed his impending death and chosen to stop there.
His ragged breath scattered into white mist.
With a voice thick with the sound of boiling blood, the Snow Leopard Fiend burst into laughter.
“Heh, heh… cough, ack! W-wonderful… To grant me such a grand end, far better than I deserve… Therefore, I shall give you the bread.”
I glared at the Fiend with a bewildered look.
With bloodshot eyes, he looked over his shoulder, a wide smile spreading across his face.
It wasn't an expression of genuine gratitude toward me.
Rather, it was the face of someone delighted to land one final blow against the humanity he so utterly loathed.
He opened his mouth wide.
There, a hideous eye was nestled. It was the terminal of that ‘blessing’—the one that triggered magic of terrifying power by sacrificing the user's own life.
Zzzzt.
A translucent circle began to spread into the surroundings.
The Fiend could no longer hold back his laughter.
“What do you think… my wish is?”
Dammit. I cursed inwardly as I hurriedly pulled out my sword. The Fiend was a dead man anyway, even if I left him alone.
I attempted to escape the hemisphere surrounding us as quickly as possible.
“Kh… ugh…!”
If only I hadn't heard that suppressed groan.
My eyes frantically darted toward the source of the sound. There, Senior Neris was still pinned by shadows, struggling on the ground.
The hemispherical circle was gradually staining into a darker hue.
The moment its brightness hit rock bottom, this magic would be complete.
I dashed toward Senior Neris. On the way, I found the hand axe I had dropped on the ground and began hacking at the shadows like a madman.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
Sparks flew as if I were striking metal. Watching this, the Snow Leopard Fiend broke into a manic laugh.
“Mmph, mmph!”
Senior Neris also seemed to have realized that the situation had turned dire.
The only saving grace was that as I kept hacking away, the shadows eventually began to snap. It was a relief to know they could be destroyed with Aura.
First, I severed the one around her neck.
“Gasp, mmph? Ugh?!”
Next were the ones across her shoulders and waist, then her mouth, leaving only her ankles.
Senior Neris’s physical condition was a mess.
The pressure must have been beyond imagination, as her arms and legs were already broken. If I had left her a moment longer, even her ribs might have been crushed.
Senior Neris’s choice to protect only her vital organs with mana had been the right one.
Immediately after I managed to shatter the last remaining shadow—
The hemispherical field had already turned incredibly dark. I hoisted Senior Neris onto my back and sprinted with all my might, but time was far too short.
With every step, the surroundings grew darker.
With another step, even the faint rays of light penetrating the membrane were flickering out. No matter how hard I ran, escape seemed impossible.
If so, there was only one answer.
I took a stance to throw Senior Neris. She was the one who panicked instead.
“I-Ian! What are you…!”
“Shall we both die then?”
My heart was already racing with urgency. A blunt tone leaked out of my mouth involuntarily.
At that, Senior Neris faltered, unable to offer an answer.
It didn't matter. I had no intention of listening to her opinion anyway.
With all my strength, I hurled Senior Neris outside the hemispherical curtain.
At the same time, I sprinted again with everything I had, but the result was as expected.
Right after Senior Neris’s body narrowly cleared the boundary—
Thud.
My body slammed into the curtain and I collapsed. I gritted my teeth and struck the curtain again with my hand axe, but it didn't budge.
“……It’s useless.”
My fierce gaze turned toward the Snow Leopard Fiend.
He lay collapsed, his life hanging by a thread of faint breath.
Feeling a surge of irritation, I strode toward him.
“This barrier seals anyone trying to go from the inside to the outside. You’ve seen its power for yourself by now, haven't you?”
“What the hell… did you do?!”
Despite my growling tone, the Fiend only wore a faint smirk.
He spoke in a fading voice.
“I can feel them… sensing the anomaly and rushing to save you. How many of them will you take with you to the afterlife?”
Hearing those words, I snapped to my senses.
Now that he mentioned it, I could feel people approaching this place. Among them were familiar presences.
This barrier blocked things from going from the inside to the outside.
In other words, it did not stop things from entering from the outside.
A frantic shout burst from my lips.
“Don’t come in!”
The presences outside the curtain froze instantly.
What if I told them I might die like this?
The faces of the women who would rush in without a second thought flickered before my eyes. So, I had no choice but to shout a clumsy excuse.
“I still… I still have things left to do! Don’t worry and just wait there!”
“Heh, heh, heh…….”
The Fiend let out a hollow laugh at my weak excuse.
He seemed to find it more amusing than I could have imagined.
“What a sight. We were like that too… leaning on each other, sacrificing each other, living with the feeling of gnawing on our own skin. How does it feel, volunteering for sacrifice?”
“It feels like absolute shit.”
The Fiend’s laughter grew deeper.
The curtain was beginning to tremble. It was clear that the end was approaching.
I had already sat down, resigned to whatever was coming. I shouted a few more times, fearing the group outside might enter.
The Snow Leopard Fiend murmured like a final testament.
“Thinking back, we didn't want to accept the blessing either.”
“……Then you shouldn't have taken it.”
“Life was just that much harsher. To be honest, I didn't want to die… I was just afraid of living any longer. A life more terrifying than death—I couldn't leave that cruel fate to my kin.”
I started to scoff but then stopped.
He was about to die anyway.
Listening to a dying man’s ramblings wasn't that difficult. It was a ridiculous situation, but I decided to humored the Fiend’s last words.
“And does that make life any better for the kin you left behind?”
“I don't know. But we had nowhere left to fall. So, out of sheer spite, we tried to do anything, and that’s how we ended up here…….”
I let out a heavy sigh.
I could sense a faint regret in the Fiend’s voice. Come to think of it, was Beneta like this too?
Pushed and pushed to the brink.
I didn't actually know well what that expression truly meant.
“How are the Elves these days? I heard that an Evil Cult is spreading.”
“An Evil Cult, you say?”
“Hmm,” the Fiend hummed thoughtfully.
“That might be true. But we had no choice…….”
“Even now?”
“Now, even more so.”
His ragged gasps signaled that his end was imminent.
The faint trembling of the curtain became more frequent. It was noisy outside, but it looked like this magic would trigger first.
The Fiend gave one last cry.
“Oh, my poor young compatriots! To think they would be the first to swallow that hideous flesh—how agonizing!”
Worrying about his own kind until the very end.
And yet, he had been throwing his own kin at me left and right? I was about to scoff, but my senses detected an anomaly first.
Someone was jumping into the curtain.
Startled, I raised my voice again.
“Stop! I told you not to come in! How many times do I have to—!”
But the person who broke into the curtain was so unexpected that I was left speechless.
A small Elf girl.
It was Avian.
She screamed in a frantic tone.
“Young compatriots?! Then, then what about my sibling?! Did my sibling have to swallow that goddamn flesh too?!”
Judging by her bloodshot eyes, Avian was already out of her mind.
Now that I thought about it, I had heard this during a previous interrogation.
Avian had said she wanted to protect her younger sibling from the Evil Cult. Was that why she had been hiding in human society, sending funds every month?
Of course, the young Elf’s voice was too faint to stimulate the eardrums of the dying Fiend.
His eyes clouded over as he left me his final words.
“Thank you for listening to my lamentations, human youth… As a reward, I shall tell you my wish.”
The vibration of the curtain intensified.
The ground shattered with a roar, and debris began to float into the sky. My body, too, defied gravity and began to rise.
Only then did Avian seem to snap out of it, looking around with a look of utter panic.
But it was already too late.
The sound of people belatedly pounding on the curtain could be heard from outside, but the magic had already finished casting.
My five senses were cut off one by one.
Sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch.
Before I knew it, I was left alone in total darkness. The only thing that remained in my mind was the dead Elf’s final words.
“I wish to return to the embrace of my kin. Even at this very moment.”
Soon, my consciousness was stained pure white.