Chapter 70
Chapter 70
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Translator: Ebonarch
Chapter: 26
Chapter Title: Hatching (2)
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The fiend had just entered Mirene Forest.
He gently stroked the hearts he had harvested today.
"Baby, wait just a little. Daddy's going to feed you something really delicious."
Hatching was not far off.
Repeating this process just a couple more times would secure all the necessary 'vitality'.
"This daddy is so curious what our baby will look like."
Not even his real child, yet the fiend acted as if he had birthed it himself.
"Once you're born, you'll fulfill my grandfather's long-cherished wish."
Fifty years ago, the [Demon] had fallen to the hand of the Bell Marquis.
Of course, it wasn't just the Bell Marquis alone.
Countless interests were entangled, and multiple factions had checked the [Demon].
The Bell Marquis had simply charged at the forefront in that carefully laid trap.
"Unforgivable."
The fiend's eyes gleamed fiercely.
What had become of his family?
Not even 'scattered to the winds' could describe it. His family had been massacred, and relatives beheaded without mercy.
He had survived purely by luck.
Those horrific memories were still vivid.
Apton. The Bell family. The Pyro Church.
He would destroy all three.
"The [Demon] will revive soon."
He was alone now, but once the child hatched, followers would gather again.
He could even sever that damned contract with the Zenith Church.
Still, he was somewhat grateful to them.
Annoying bunch though they were, he had made it this far thanks to their full support.
'Why they did it, I still don't know.'
Five years ago, they had approached him for the first time.
Back when he was vaguely plotting alone, he had jumped for joy at their offer of help.
He hadn't even questioned their motives.
Just being able to execute his vague plans had been enough.
'Truth be told, I still don't care much.'
They had served faithfully as tools, and they would continue to do so.
Sable was frightening, but they were intensely wary of their identities being exposed, so they wouldn't act against him directly.
Something about political complications if the Zenith Church was found out.
"Just wait a bit longer, baby~ Daddy's almost there~"
It was then, as the fiend hopped excitedly toward the egg's location.
The ground trembled violently!
Beyond the trees, a scene of light and darkness entangled unfolded.
The fiend stared blankly before calculating the location.
"Uh... uh..."
His eyes slowly widened.
The moment he realized what it was, the fiend madly dashed toward it.
"Baby!!"
There lay the demon egg on the verge of hatching.
The fiend ran.
If something happened to the egg, he would lose his mind.
'What kind of egg is that!'
Light and darkness relentlessly pushed against each other without yielding an inch.
The shockwaves shook the entire forest.
The fiend placed a hand on his chest. An evil power rose from his body.
It was 'demonic energy', something unique to demons.
He was a human contracted with a demon, his soul bound to the contracted demon.
In exchange, he could wield demonic energy, explosively boosting his physical abilities.
However, each use distorted his body into something more grotesque.
The fiend didn't care.
The changing flesh was the demonic form his grandfather had longed for generation after generation.
He was proud of his current appearance.
His thighs thickened, and his speed increased.
"I'm here!"
The fiend vaulted over the trees and leaped powerfully.
Someone cloaked in light streaked past him.
He glimpsed wild, fluttering blue hair.
She crashed through several trees before stopping, sweeping back her limp blue hair as she rose.
"Canna?"
"Huff. This bastard, why'd you block me!"
Canna snapped at the fiend while touching her wounded face.
"Ugh, my beautiful skin."
She pouted and looked ahead.
"Hey. Dodge."
"What."
"Dodge, you idiot!"
The fiend didn't understand, but he yelped and fell from the tree at the incoming black beam.
"Told you to dodge, idiot."
Canna clicked her tongue as she passed the fiend and advanced.
The fiend stared at her back in bewilderment.
Come to think of it, her attire was different from usual.
She normally wore a simple dress, but now she donned unfamiliar white armor.
Holy particles fluttered around her.
"Wh-what happened?"
"Can't you tell?"
Canna shot back irritably at his question and jerked her chin toward a spot.
Glowing eyes pierced through the thick mist.
The overwhelming pressure that chilled to the bone came as a bonus.
The fiend watched the figure emerge from the mist. Upon recognizing it, he was horrified.
"L-Li-lich?!"
A mere moving skeleton would be a skeleton, but skeletons lacked mana.
This was undoubtedly a fallen mage lich.
"Why is a lich here?"
"Ask the kid."
As Canna pointed upward, a boy shrouded in purple energy floated there.
The purple energy around the boy felt extremely familiar. The fiend, who had first gazed puzzled, urgently asked Canna.
"That... is it what I think it is?"
"As you see."
"What the hell did you do! If you're a guard dog, act like one and... Guk!"
The enraged fiend lashed out at Canna, but she grabbed his throat, unable to bear it.
"I'm pissed off right now too? So don't make me more irritated, and you do your best to kill the enemy. Got it?"
Kwak-
Her grip tightened, making the fiend sweat profusely.
She possessed pressure no less than Sable's.
As Canna released him, the fiend coughed and glared, but said no more. Any further words might direct that brutish mace his way.
"Done talking?"
At that moment, the boy's voice came from above.
Jamie descended to the ground while eyeing the new enemy.
Then, the relatively intact undead began gathering around their master.
"What are those?!"
Damaged undead emerged from various spots in the forest.
They were undead that couldn't withstand Canna's shift to 'holy knight mode'.
Among them, one that could pass for human appeared, cradling a pink-haired girl.
Azad quietly withdrew from the forest with Bena.
Raiza led the undead unit back to the gate of Defying Heaven.
As the enemy abruptly disbanded their forces, the fiend looked at Canna with unease.
"Why are they suddenly reducing their numbers?"
"Probably to concentrate their power more."
Canna replied indifferently and glared at Jamie.
She could feel his power growing as the undead vanished.
"Damn it. Do something! What if our baby gets damaged?!"
"Focus instead of whining. If you can't handle those guys, your disgusting egg might meet an unknown fate."
"N-no, absolutely not."
At Canna's warning, the fiend assumed a stance.
'A lich is one thing, but what is that kid?'
Could a child black sorcerer even exist?
Maybe a perverted old man who fancied a kid's form.
It didn't matter.
He couldn't let anything threatening his child live.
"Your heart will feed our baby too!"
The fiend charged.
Canna provided rear cover, sticking close behind.
Jamie ordered the lich.
The lich sprayed darkness toward the fiend and unleashed a barrage of sinister curses.
Jamie pulled Nevro back and eyed Canna. He had been slightly surprised when she called herself one of the Seven Knights.
He knew she was strong, but he hadn't imagined she was one of the Zenith Church's top forces.
'This woman must be captured alive.'
He needed to uncover why the Zenith Church was involved with the demon egg.
He had suspicions, but nothing was as certain as hearing the reason directly.
If he subdued her, he was confident he could make her spill everything.
Battle Sanctuary
Sacred light envelops the battlefield in a semicircle.
Canna slammed her mace into the ground.
Holy light swept over their foothold in a semicircle.
The sacred battlefield once used by Bishop Lincoln unfolded.
Canna charged Jamie, feeling her holy power strengthen. Her blue hair whipped wildly.
'On a whole different level from before.'
He could have easily shattered Bishop Lincoln's Battle Sanctuary.
But a Seven Knight changed the story.
Still, he couldn't just sit and take it.
Dark Dimension
Pitch-black darkness blankets the sacred field.
Pitch-black darkness overlaid the sacred battlefield.
Canna frowned as the light dimmed.
"Filthy thing! Be purified!"
Purifying light burst from her mace.
Yet Jamie's black mana persisted even within the light.
Canna muttered in disbelief.
"Why...?"
Black magic was supposed to kneel before powerful holy power.
Instead, the darkness began eroding the light.
Stunned by the incomprehensible sight, Canna faltered.
Jamie smiled and extended his hand.
Voracity
Darkness descends from above.
Darkness fell from above.
Canna dodged the darkness and swung her mace. Holy power clashed with it, but the darkness began devouring the holy energy.
Her eyes widened in shock.
This was a clash of extreme affinities—why was the opposite happening?!
"Now that I've reclaimed Leviathan, you have no chance."
Jamie stepped toward her.
His black mana writhed and slithered like it had a will of its own.
Canna swallowed dryly and glanced at the fiend.
He was resisting somehow, but the gap between them was clear.
"Why did everything go so wrong?"
No chance of victory.
Realistically, retreat was the answer.
Escaping this place was trivial if she set her mind to it. The problem was her mission.
'If this fails, it's all over.'
The leader of the Seven Knights wouldn't forgive her, first and foremost.
She knew better than anyone how terrifying he was.
'Breakthrough.'
Having decided, Canna shouted to the fiend.
"We're breaking through!"
The fiend turned to her.
He instantly grasped her intent.
He eyed the lich relentlessly hurling psychic waves. Dark walls closed in from all sides.
"Daddy's coming!"
Madness filled the fiend's eyes.
He drew out the maximum demonic energy he could muster to protect his body. It only made him uglier, but he ignored it.
The fiend charged.
Nevro clumped the darkness into a beam and fired.
He had been proficient in dark magic even in life.
But he couldn't catch the fiend's swift movements.
The fiend pierced the darkness. His skin melted, and excruciating pain throbbed in his brain, but he didn't stop running.
"Nevro! Don't let him escape!"
"You need to block me first?"
Jamie eyed the brutish mass of holy power charging head-on.
It was Canna, cloaked entirely in holy energy.
She had chosen to advance, even at the cost of her holy power.
A true spirit of severing flesh and breaking bones.
The problem was that she aimed to sever his bones, not the enemy's.
"Get out of the way!"
Jamie deployed a shield and devoured a massive amount of Canna's holy power with Voracity.
However, the vast holy energy replenished almost instantly.
Canna laughed and shoved him back with her arm.
The immense superhuman strength lifted his small body into the air.
Jamie flew upward and unleashed a Binding Curse, but it couldn't pierce the holy shroud around her.
Canna accelerated. At the same time, she hurled her mace somewhere—right at Nevro.
Nevro deflected the mace.
The reason for such a crude attack was simple.
"Damn."
To buy just a moment.
And with the fiend's speed, that brief time would create significant distance from Nevro.
Jamie calculated coordinates. In a forest, it wasn't easy.
Jamie appeared above the fiend's head, leaping through space.
Gravity crushed down on the fiend.
"Looks like you're the key here."
Jamie invoked the ruins' 'submaster' privileges.
"You won't escape."
The ground split open.
As the fiend's body began to fall in, something swiftly approached and leaped toward him.
It snatched the fiend just before he fell and hurled him in the opposite direction.
At the same time, she had to roll across the ground.
Canna sprang up and lunged at Jamie.
"What the hell kind of woman are you?!"
"What kind of guy keeps interfering like you?!"
Canna smashed down on the tree where Jamie had stood.
The tree split in two.
Jamie frowned at the ferocious strength but soon smiled.
"Nevro!"
Nevro, having caught up, unleashed every spell at the fiend who had started running again.
The lich's magic, at the peak of 6th class, was practically carpet bombing.
"Keuk!"
The fiend screamed amid the magical bombardment.
His side was torn open, joints shattered.
His right arm was now a tattered wreck.
But the fiend didn't stop running.
'My child. I must protect my child.'
The only being that would fulfill the long-cherished wish. More precious than his own life, if such a thing could be said.
Enduring the horrific pain, he soon reached the giant egg right before him.
The fiend halted in front of the egg and gazed in shock at its now even larger size.
The demon egg pulsed massively.
"Why has it grown?"
It was in a pre-hatching state.
To reach this size, it would need at least ten more hearts. Had someone procured human hearts and fed them?
'No way!'
The fiend glanced at the enemies pursuing him.
Vitality from their battle aftermath!
The egg had clearly been slowly absorbing it!
"Haha! Hahahahaha!"
To think such fortune would come.
The fiend laughed in satisfaction and opened his cloth pouches. The moment he pulled out all the hearts—
A dark beam pierces the fiend's back!
The fiend collapsed face-first. Several hearts rolled across the dirt.
"N-no...!"
He couldn't collapse at the final moment.
It was then.
Squirm-
The egg began writhing unusually.
This had never happened before.
The fiend looked up at the egg's state. Dozens of tentacles burst from it.
The tentacles began devouring the hearts on the ground.
The fiend's expression brightened at the sight.
"Y-yes. That's it, our baby. Eat up nice and tasty! For this daddy's wish!"
The egg absorbed the hearts.
Its volume steadily increased.
The fiend staggered to his feet.
And turned back with a laugh.
Jamie and Nevro stood there.
Canna was nowhere to be seen—she must have been defeated.
"Heh. What happened to her? No, doesn't matter. Whether she lives or dies is irrelevant now."
Blood streamed from the fiend as he spread his arms wide.
"You're all finished. All of you... Guhek!"
A tentacle pierced through the fiend's heart.
Jamie shook his head at the sight.
"Demons don't live up to anyone's expectations. Just like right now."
Horrific demonic energy erupted.
The demon had begun hatching.