Chapter 64
Chapter 64
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 64
Chapter Title: Explode, Crush, and Plunder
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Our Hearts Church was a fairly well-known cult in the neighborhood. And like all such cult groups, it was a place that had sucked all the money from its believers, making it extremely wealthy. Furthermore, all such wealthy churches tend to be large.
A building large enough to easily accommodate several hundred people, with a high wall as if to block the gaze of outsiders. On top of that, it had a basement and hidden rooms whose purpose was hard to guess.
In a world that had become a zombie apocalypse, it was a building with very advantageous conditions.
⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙
[The church is an advantageous location for defense and resource gathering.] [High walls and a basement provide security against zombies.]
"Alright! Everyone! Open your scriptures! Now, let us begin the morning service led by our leader, Mun Geun-oh!!"
At the young man's shout, the people gathered in the auditorium opened the scriptures published by the Our Hearts sect and looked at the podium with expectant expressions.
"Ah, ah. Everyone. Greetings. A new morning has greeted us once again."
The young believer who had whipped up the atmosphere stepped back, and a middle-aged man with a thick goatee stood in front of a podium inscribed with the phrase 'New Commandment.'
He was Mun Geun-oh, a religious expert from the Central Council, which was a fusion of the Hometown Association, the Comrades Association, and the Fellowship Association, and also its leader.
Originally the secretary of the Hometown Association, he had Awakened as a Demagogue and, in the process, had somehow become the leader of the Demon Cult.
"Everyone! The world has crumbled so meaninglessly! It has been three weeks since Jesus abandoned us! Yet we still live!"
The leader's voice was powerful. It had charisma. It had a bewitching charm that deluded people, drew them in, and captivated them.
It was all thanks to skills related to incitement and crowd control. Those who did not possess proper Magic Power stats were inevitably captivated by his words.
And of course, the people gathered here did not know that. Before they could even notice, they had already fallen for the leader Mun Geun-oh's skills and had become fools who only cheered for his words.
They were becoming puppets who would cry and laugh at his single word, die if he told them to die, and live if he told them to live.
"Now, everyone! Before we begin our story, let us all shout together!!! Long live!!! The savior and savior of the new world who grants us!!! faith and! love and! hope and! wisdom!!! Saint Daniel Park!!!"
Mun Geun-oh, while heightening the emotions of the crowd, deified Daniel Park, the new saint and sage deity of the Demon Cult.
About a hundred people, charmed by his voice stained with a kind of hypnosis, let out cheers of ecstasy at Mun Geun-oh's words.
"Long live!!! Long live!!!"
"Long live Saint Daniel!! Long live Leader Mun!!!"
"Bless us!!!"
The shouts of the crowd, lost in fanaticism, echoed as if to burst the auditorium.
Of course, since the soundproofing was solid, their shouts would not leak outside. It only made the sound echo inside the auditorium, creating an even more fanatical atmosphere.
"Everyone, look! In this apocalyptic era where everyone else is screaming in agony! The reason we can live such abundant and satisfying lives is all thanks to our new master and lord!!! The one who grants mighty power and authority through the powerless!!! Saint Daniel Park!!!!"
"That's right!!"
"That's right!!!"
The leader lowered the excitement of the crowd slightly and continued speaking.
"However, everyone. For us who desire peace, stability, and future security, there have appeared shameless ruffians who dare to!!! brandish their filthy blades and!!! threaten us!!!! and try to plunder us!!!"
At Mun Geun-oh's shout, the crowd stirred for a moment, and the gathered believers fell into confusion.
The leader quickly continued before their wavering minds could spread and turn into pure fear.
"That is why!!! We have!!! decided to recruit an army of saints to fight against the enemies!!! We desperately need your help!! Those with the courage to strike down those brutal, wicked scoundrels!! Please raise your hands now!!! We need your voluntary participation!! To protect our territory! Our domain! This peace and prosperity!! Are there any who will bravely step forward?!"
"I, I will!! I want to help!!!"
"For our sect!! I want to fight together!!!"
As one or two plants began to raise their hands, the people around them followed suit in succession.
After most of the people in the auditorium had raised their hands, leader Mun Geun-oh smiled faintly.
"Excellent!! I!! Mun Geun-oh, leader of the Our Hearts sect!! am deeply impressed by your enthusiasm!! and courage!!!"
When the leader tapped the podium, the young believer who had stepped back, along with the executives of the Central Council, dragged in a cart carrying a jar filled with a red liquid.
"Now, everyone. Before we drive away the approaching enemies!! The Saint has prepared this!! Let us each take a sip of his sacred blood!!! For a righteous future!! and a bright tomorrow!!! Those who wish to receive this grace, those who wish to open the future with us, step forward and take a sip of this sacred blood!!!"
Soon, the people in the auditorium lined up and each took a small paper cup filled with the red, unknown liquid from the jar.
"Now, once you drink this!! We will consider it as 'agreeing' to walk the same path with us forever!! Now!! Everyone, for our hopeful lives!!!"
"For our lives!!!"
"Long live!!! Long live!!!"
Thus, Mun Geun-oh obtained the 'consent' of everyone who received the so-called sacred blood.
The people who received the sacred blood let out cries of joy and began to drink the contents of their paper cups. Meanwhile, the leader on the podium hurriedly left the auditorium.
"Phew. Damn. I'm getting used to this."
"You worked hard, Leader."
"It's nothing. What's a neighborhood block captain doing playing leader? Let's hurry. We've done what we were told, so I should rest for a bit. My throat is killing me."
"Shall we prepare a drinking session?"
"Good. Call all the executives. Let's eat and drink until we die today. Once we have all those people in the auditorium possessed by demons, we'll have nothing to fear. Right?"
"Hehe. That's right. It's been a while since we had a company dinner."
Imagining this with pleasure, Mun Geun-oh and his closest aides hurriedly left the auditorium.
The people currently gathered in the auditorium were all Non-Awakened. They couldn't turn Awakened into demonic vessels.
In fact, the Non-Awakened who were deemed useful had been separately notified and kept aside the day before.
"But this... isn't it a bit bitter?"
"I don't know? I'm not sure. But... it's a bit hot..."
The people who drank the red liquid, whatever it was, gradually became more and more excited.
Soon, heated moans echoed inside the auditorium, and some began to vomit blood.
"Um, are you okay... You don't look so good..."
"Th, that's... my stomach feels a bit... Cough! Cough! Cough-ha-ack...!"
"Ughhh!!!! Why are you suddenly like this!!!"
"You!! Why are you suddenly vomiting blood!! Hey... Uh, uhhh!!"
"Kyaaaaaa!!!!"
Only then did the people left in the auditorium realize something was wrong.
The leader had disappeared at some point, and the liquid they had just received smelled fishy.
Moreover, the auditorium door wouldn't open.
"W, wait a moment!!! Gwaaaah!!!!"
Soon, someone's scream erupted, and red blood splattered everywhere.
One of the people who had drunk the liquid, with his eyes turned red, had bitten the neck of the man next to him.
The auditorium was split between those who had collapsed, vomiting blood, and those who had gone wild.
In the midst of this, those who hadn't drunk the liquid or hadn't received any yet were being killed by the rampaging humans.
"Y, you son of a bitch!!! Get away!!!"
"Kyaaaaaa!!! Stop!!! It hurts!!!"
"M, Mommy!!!"
The auditorium was instantly dyed with blood.
The Awakened blocking the entrance to the auditorium pretended not to hear the screams coming from inside.
They were the sacrificial lambs.
It was the fault of those who had naively 'agreed' in the first place.
No, it was the fault of the cowards who didn't 'agree' in the first place.
This tragedy was entirely the fault of the sinners who were trying to attack this place.
Those blocking the entrance to the auditorium repeated this to themselves, believing they had done nothing wrong.
This was because they were already half mentally dominated by the Demagogue's rhetoric.
No, even if they weren't dominated, they were the kind of people who would abandon their own parents if it meant securing their own survival.
And after some time had passed, no screams remained in the auditorium.
The souls of the dead would be collected by Yang Ji-sang, the Wisp Warlock and Evil Spirit Sorcerer, and the 'Corrupted' who were still alive would have demons attached to them by Daniel Park and be 'saved.'
At that moment, in the church's basement, the Gospel Room.
This was the place where the former leader of Our Hearts Church, the original owner of this building, used to bring female believers to conduct his affairs.
In the center of the room sat a man in a lotus position, his face so pale it was almost white, with not a single hair on his entire body, including his head, and strange patterns carved into his skin as if he had self-harmed.
Furthermore, on either side of him, four demonic vessels who had completed their demonic transformation and discarded their frail human bodies were chewing on what were clearly once living humans.
"Saint..."
A man approached Daniel Park, who was meditating, and spoke.
He was the young man who had been distributing the red liquid, the so-called 'Corruption Fluid,' as if it were sacred blood in the auditorium.
Daniel Park naturally asked him a question.
"So it's over."
The fact that this errand boy had come meant that new candidates for demonic vessels had been born in the auditorium by now.
"Yes, most of the people 'agreed' of their own free will and drank the sacred blood."
Those who drank the sacred blood, the Corruption Fluid, had a fifty-fifty chance of becoming Corrupted or dying while vomiting blood. And those who became Corrupted would face a demon using the Demonomancer's skill, sell their soul, and become a demonic vessel.
"What about Yang Ji-sang?"
"He is currently collecting the overflowing specters. He said that if we continue like this, he'll soon be able to control the captured named specters."
"Good, I understand. I will be up soon too."
"Yes!"
The young believer bowed his head and left the Gospel Room.
"Haah... I'm tired."
For about three days, Daniel Park had been having the same dream.
A nightmare where a monster covered in wriggling tentacles and undulating darkness comes to get him.
In that nightmare, his army would turn to a handful of ash, and he would die in excruciating pain.
After having the same dream for several days, he realized this was not a simple dream.
This was a kind of precognitive dream. A warning signaling the approaching end.
Even yesterday, something had happened.
A demonic vessel that had gone out to scout for survivors had not returned.
He had quickly sent three more demonic vessels, but they too did not return.
The Evil Spirit Sorcerer Yang Ji-sang had said that even the zombies he had possessed with his evil spirits had all died.
Daniel Park sensed that something strange was in the neighboring area.
Ultimately, to alleviate his anxiety, he abandoned his original plan of gradually increasing the number of demonic vessels and recklessly made many more people into demonic vessels.
So he could counter whatever was coming.
"I should go now. Everyone, behave."
The moment he stepped out of the Gospel Room to turn the Corrupted who had survived drinking the sacred blood into demonic vessels...
Kugung!!!
With the sound of something exploding, the building shook.
"Could it be...?!"
Kwakwang!!!
Kugugugung!!!
Only after two more explosions rang out in succession did Daniel Park realize that this place was being attacked.
Something had invaded from the inside. And it was using bombs.
'They said modern firearms were obsolete... So is that a skill?'
Daniel hurriedly ran up the remaining stairs.
An indescribably ominous feeling washed over him.
The ominous, unsettling, and somewhat fearful feeling that the one he had seen in his nightmare, the one who wielded foul tentacles and darkness, might have come.
'What on earth is this?'
Of course, the area around the church building was patrolled by Awakened from the Central Council, demonic vessels, and zombies possessed by Yang Ji-sang's evil spirits.
So if someone had approached, Yang Ji-sang would have noticed it faster than anyone else.
"Over there...!"
Smoke was rising from the executive meeting room where the Awakened were gathered.
And the windows on the 4th floor of the main building where Yang Ji-sang was holed up had all been shattered.
"Hey!"
"Ah!! Saint!!!"
Daniel Park grabbed an Awakened from the Central Council who was running towards the place where the fire was raging.
"What the hell! What is going on?!"
"I don't know!! The executive room suddenly exploded... I don't see any signs of an intrusion... According to the check at the entrance, the ones who entered were all Awakened from the Central Council...!"
"Damn it... Crazy. Then what on earth is the reason..."
Daniel tried to hurry back down to the Gospel Room. It was dangerous to be alone without knowing what was attacking them. Besides, Mun Geun-oh and Yang Ji-sang might already be dead.
If that were the case, he needed to bring his highest fighting force, the ones who had contracts with high-ranking demons and followed his orders only, and go back up.
He judged that the four demonic vessels who were consuming human flesh in the Gospel Room would be able to easily kill even a 15-level Awakened.
"Saint!!!"
As he was about to hurry down the stairs, someone ran towards him.
It was one of the executives of the Central Council whose name he didn't know but whose face he recognized.
Daniel, thinking he had something to report, stopped for a moment.
However, the executive who was running towards him was holding a firework in his hand.
A lit firework.
"Hey! What's that in your hand—"
Tuwaaaaaang!!!!
The man who was running towards him exploded in an instant, and Daniel was caught in the blast.
Due to the impact, a crack ran through the building, and the Demonomancer was sent flying, half his face burned, and a steel bar from the shattered stair railing pierced his back and came out through his stomach.
"Gwaaaah!!!!"
He let out a scream of agony. It was a terrifying pain he had never felt before. The pain of his burning body was an indescribable agony.
"Ugh!! Ughhhh!!! Damn it!!!"
Daniel had no choice.
He never intended to call a demon into his own body, but if he stayed like this, he would die.
"You bastards... Lord Fornaus... Give me... give me strength..!!!"
Soon, a demon dwelled in his body.
The skin that had been burned by fire was covered in blue scales, and his pupils turned into those of a reptile.
A long tail grew, and he could sense something. It was a being with an alien aura. Realizing that this was the intruder, Daniel pulled out the steel bar embedded in his stomach and threw it away. Then, he summoned the four vessels in the Gospel Room to kill the intruders.
And around that time, about a dozen men and women slipped into the noisy church.
They took advantage of the commotion and quickly entered the underground parking lot.
Of course, the ones who slipped in were Jang Jo-jun and his party.
"These bastards were living so peacefully. It was too easy to get in."
"Some of us were struggling to death because of the zombie waves... It seems like this place has never been attacked. There aren't many guards..."
As they had expected, this place had not yet been properly attacked by a zombie horde.
It was just that an unusually large number of zombies had been drawn to where Jo-jun was.
And thanks to Mun Geun-oh, who had let his guard down because he knew many demonic vessels would be created, summoning his executives for a drinking session, things were resolved even more easily.
"By the way, I didn't know the fireworks were this powerful."
"Right. I thought you just wanted to cause a commotion?"
At Kang Hee-seon's question, Jo-jun nodded.
"That's right... But at this level, they might all be dead."
They had searched the streets and barely managed to capture all the Awakened from the Central Council and turn them into slaves.
In the process, they hadn't killed the zombies the Awakened were controlling. If they had, the Awakened controlling the zombies might have noticed.
Anyway, Jo-jun had given the captured Awakened from the Central Council the fireworks he had acquired after wiping out the Zhan Clan in the underworld he had stumbled into while searching for an escape route from the black market.
Since he had already used the fireworks containing the Dragon's Breath, the remaining four were naturally for suicide attacks.
Jo-jun ordered the slaves who received the fireworks.
Each of them was to go to the executive room, the leader's room, the Evil Spirit Sorcerer's room, and the Demonomancer's room and set them off.
He hadn't been able to gauge how powerful the fireworks would be, so he had only intended to cause a commotion to make the infiltration easier, but it had turned into a full-blown suicide bombing.
Thanks to that, things worked out even more easily. The first to explode was where Yang Ji-sang was, and since Mun Geun-oh was drinking in the executive room, two fireworks exploded there in succession, killing most of the people inside.
"Then shall we go in and take care of the rest?"
"Yes!"
The moment Jang Jo-jun and his party were about to go up from the underground parking lot...
Kwakwakwang!!!!
The entrance to the stairs leading to the ground floor exploded, and five monsters walked down.
"You bastards... So it was you..."
It was Demonomancer Daniel Park and four demonic vessels who had already completed their demonic transformation.