Chapter 258
Chapter 258
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 258
Chapter Title: The Method of Distinguishing Good and Evil (6)
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Under the ashen sky, the crumbling dawn faintly gleamed.
Fernandez Cerned took one step forward, glaring straight ahead.
He could feel the gaze. Sticky, brimming with killing intent.
There was no need for dramatic words like "come out." He wasn't just a swordsman with keen senses. He was a master of his school, practically an ancient predecessor to these foes.
When facing black mages, demon summoners, and heretics, it was only right to demonstrate something more.
Fernandez spun his sword once and sheathed it, then strode forward leisurely. Toward the direction their killing intent flowed. As if savoring the moment.
Whether they were hiding their presence with all their might, or had received some power from serving Urkasia, he couldn't tell.
Even to Fernandez's senses, the killing intent was so stealthy it evaded clear detection.
Urkasia's forces were always like this.
Offspring of the Vermin King. Vermin beneath the shadows. Like centipedes, cockroaches, or maggots. Hiding in dark corners without sound or form, waiting for their chance... Just like carnivorous plants.
Annoying, but not threatening. Hiding the body meant they lacked confidence to fight out in the open.
Fernandez twisted his body toward the direction where the killing intent grew ever thicker.
* * *
"He's moving from Street 12 to Street 18 in the Shild district."
"Fool. Walking right into the trap himself."
From the shadows, a man cackled. Another man watching Fernandez from afar couldn't hold back his glee either.
"Isn't he quite the talent? At finding his own grave, I mean."
"Bishop, what do you think that old man said to him?"
"He'd been quiet for a while, but looks like he snapped from bad medicine. At best, he's trying to send a messenger outside."
"I see. Probably."
They couldn't set foot directly in the Pantheon district.
The church buildings gathered ambient faith, radiating a certain level of divinity, and some even preserved holy relics.
Those who borrowed hell's power couldn't easily tread the halls of the pantheon. Unless they were exceptional daywalkers among vampires who could stroll under the sun.
The Shild parish had been holding only Sunday mass for the past few weeks, fiercely refusing all other entry and effectively sealing itself off.
There was no reason to assign elite personnel to monitor such a church, so the spies here were low-tier.
But even such scum retained their instincts. They avoided approaching Fernandez instinctively.
It was behavior preceding logic or reason, so they weren't even aware of it themselves.
Normally, they would have kidnapped him on the spot and hauled him to the "lab," but now they simply observed.
"He's heading to the Bern sector?"
"...An outsider?"
The man, backtracking Fernandez's path, tilted his head in thought.
The Bern sector was a quarantined zone overrun by plague.
No one who'd lived in Paltensoa even a week would go there.
And around that time, disappearances of vagrants and travelers spiked near the Bern sector. Rumors began swirling that plague victims were kidnapping people to eat as a cure.
Heading to such a zone screamed outsider...
"But he's going like he knows something?"
Fernandez's path was too straight. Walking the shortest route, as if to a clear destination.
"Damn it all. What the hell?"
"What do we do?"
"What do you mean? If he's walking to his death, we watch longer."
He was doomed anyway. Dying before they could extract info was unexpected, but with the emperor's kill order, His Majesty wouldn't complain. He was busy enough.
The man sneered.
* * *
-It's here.
Feizashi Wildcast said quietly.
This was the area the Archbishop of Shild had mentioned, plagued by disease.
As expected, it wasn't ordinary plague. The moment he crossed the boundary, thick hostility pressed in palpably.
Hot, humid air swirled, and a stench stabbed his nose.
The atmosphere was toxic enough to sting skin and eyes.
'A burrow, he said.'
The bishop had been kidnapped to some burrow, where he saw his subordinates subjected to vivisection and fell into despair. But that was impossible.
Outside Paltensoa, such a place might exist somewhere unspecified. But it was hard to believe the emperor would set up a workshop exposed to outsiders' eyes, nor that he'd drag the bishop across a day's journey.
Thus, the emperor's workshop was inside Paltensoa.
Obvious deduction.
But burrows or caves couldn't exist in this capital.
The city had endured over a millennium.
Every sector was meticulously planned and built, the ground paved with solid bricks everywhere, and it boasted sewers vast as the city itself.
If they'd operated in the underground waterways, no sane bishop would call it a "burrow." Paltensoa's sewers surpassed any civilized city.
So not underground if called a burrow. But not outside the city either.
Then...
'A recently quarantined zone where they forcibly carved out and concealed ground.'
In a densely populated city with heavy foot traffic, building a secret base unseen was impossible. Except one case.
-Plague. Ha. Perfect excuse.
'There was probably real plague too.'
Religiosa Demonica's divinity blocked external stimuli, and Botan's runeglyphs provided strict protection, leaving him unaffected. But this toxicity made plague rumors natural.
Ordinary folk would never come here.
With hostility so thick it deranged the mind just approaching, this was the city's most hidden spot.
-Clank.
The viscous poison spread like pale mist under flickering mana lamps.
Paltensoa's already dark night was blocked further by old mana lamps and thick fog.
Beyond that, from an alley mouth, came the sound of weapons dragging on the ground. Accompanied by the distinctive scrape of chainmail.
'Ordinary people can't approach this area.'
So they weren't ordinary. Fernandez quietly drew his greatsword.
From the moment he entered, enemies had noticed him. Even if not, tails were already attached.
-Clank, clank.
The sound drew closer. Faint outlines shimmered in the fog.
Approaching under the mana lamp was a soldier in pristine Imperial Capital Guard armor.
"This is a controlled zone. Disarm and submit to inspection."
"This is interesting."
"This is a controlled zone. Disarm and submit to inspection."
The jaw visible under the helmet was waxen blue. Pronunciation precise, movements normal. But no ordinary person could roam this poison in simple gear with open vents.
"This is a controlled zone. Disarm and submit to inspection."
-Clank.
Soldiers multiplied. Two, three. No, five by presence alone. All muttering the same words, approaching.
Contrary to inspection orders, they impassively drew swords.
Armor clean, but weapons filthy. Rusted blades caked in decayed blood and flesh.
-Whoosh!
They thrust swords almost simultaneously.
Fernandez sidestepped beyond blade range, ducking low. Blades scraped air loudly.
-Slash!
Kicking off the ground, he spun and swung the greatsword like lightning. The strike so sharp the soldier merely staggered. Soon, a diagonal gash wept blood.
"This is a controlled..."
-Clank!
One soldier crumpled. No time to pause.
Fernandez sensed a sword chopping at his back, twisted sideways, and swung the greatsword wide.
Greatswordplay fundamentally relied on rotation. The broad arc caught the rusted blade, flinging it outward, then slithered in like a serpent to sever the neck.
By the time the soldier's head spun in the air, Fernandez's sword was already striking another.
If seen, it was near-perfect technique. Attack and defense in one strike—a flawless counter.
Five soldiers fell after only four swings.
'They don't defend.'
-Expecting too much?
'No.'
Fernandez shook blood from his blade.
Even if reason stolen and puppeted, the blood reeked of the living—iron tang unique to it.
'Vampire bite puppets would be ghouls. Not vampires.'
-Rudimentary tricks like this are everywhere. Hard to pinpoint. Especially Urkasia-line demons.
'Feels like one we know?'
-Huh.
Fernandez stepped back, eyeing the fallen corpses. Blood oozing from them writhed like worms, returning to the bodies.
Greenish foam bubbled in the blood, toxicity seeping out.
Worm-like blood clumps slapped back onto corpses, soon a twisted arm gripped a rusted sword again.
"Grulk. Grulk. Krhk."
One corpse, head facing backward, staggered up. Crunching bone sounds echoed repeatedly.
Five corpses slowly rose.
No longer human shapes.
Arms reversed, faces fused to severed guts. Flesh lumps that would terrify any normal person to flight.
But familiar to Fernandez. In their mismatched deformities, a common malice pulsed.
Malicious mockery.
-The living's scent, huh. Good thing I have no nose.
'Enviable. And it's not the living's scent.'
Religiosa Demonica's acute hearing detected dull heartbeats from within. Pulses and blood flow clear.
They lived.
Depending on "living" criteria, views differed, but their organic traits persisted.
'Not living scent, but undying scent.'
-Duke of Flies Neharipiksi...
Urkasia's right arm. Archduke demon, foot in demigod realm.
A deed reeking of his signature cruelty.
In his past life, vanguard of Urkasia, Neharipiksi never killed or ate fortress prisoners.
He used them as hosts for maggots, demon cultivation, tore them alive, stuffed souls back, sewed bodies to move.
Not efficiency—pure amusement. He delighted in humans begging for death over life. A monster.
Obsessed with human functionality limits. If his doing, it fit.
[My God... I hope not, but it was... human.]
What the bishop saw was easy to imagine, hence more revolting.
Vivisecting human flesh... leagues beyond a mage's animal tests for need.
Experiments born of pure evil. Dissecting nerves for display, tuning vanishing senses slice by slice, all while cursing victims with spells to perceive everything sans madness—mere base entertainment for him.
Seeing that. His subordinates so treated. The bishop's madness merited pity.
Fernandez eyed the approaching soldiers.
Pus leaked from their dull eyes. He deemed it tears.
Tears from soldiers still rational in that state.
"Blessings of the Pantheon."
The greatsword rose skyward. Eyes closed in that pose. Like prayer.
"May they find rest."
-Krrrrunch!
Mana lamp reflected off the dark blade, tracing black arc.
A ferocious strike devouring space itself! Flesh in its path scattered as mere chunks—
-Fwoosh!
Right hand formed seal simultaneously. Before bits hit ground, engulfed in black flames, they crumbled.
Flames ringed him briefly, subsided, black ash scattering.
Perfect incineration, irreversible. Fernandez, black halo crowning his head, slammed blade into ground.
Gaze, hostility, killing intent—he felt them.
From deep alley shadows beyond fog. Directed at him.
"Religious tribunal jurisdiction, summary execution of heretics, exorcism troop transfer authority, diocesan sacraments proxy rights. By powers granted by the Pantheon, I enact heresy trial."
Mana knots from seals dispersed. Black halo crumbled like confetti. Releasing hilt, left hand formed new seals.
Not halo this time. Botan's runeglyph.
Seventy-three glyphs etched on his back—some ignited, peeling away.
Magic handled mysteries, authority from ancient history.
Before Sadarkelia became demon, mythic age needing war "prediction." God called mages' king. Botan's spells were potent wards, mighty exorcisms inherently.
One stroke: wing-and-frame glyph blazed on left forearm.
Böðing örn. Blood eagle. Rune of vengeance, punishment.
Bluntly, modern material terms: "guillotine."
"No chance for defendant's rebuttal. Pray."
Executing sentence. Fernandez whispered, drew sword. Stepped forward into fog-shrouded alley.
Rending laughter echoed from shadows like hallucination.
Of course, ordinary.
Chapter 260