Chapter 260
Chapter 260
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 260
Chapter Title: Method of Distinguishing Good and Evil (8)
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The tunnel narrowed gradually, and the heat and humidity grew so thick it was nearly impossible to breathe. Fernandez grimaced as he pressed forward.
The only light came from sporadic flickers of mana flow. Even that faint illumination was enough for his night vision.
Soon, a door appeared. It was embossed with carvings of insects like spiders and centipedes biting each other's tails. Above them, the language of Hell was scrawled in rough strokes.
[We are the end of all things]
[And the seed of creation.]
At the center of the circular chain of insects was a small sigil depicting a tumor and spores. Fernandez clenched his gauntleted fist and smashed it down with all his might.
Boom! The carving shattered, activating the magic circle embedded within. With a click, mana engaged like gears.
The images carved into the stone door began to shift form. Spiders devoured centipedes, centipedes chewed cockroaches, twisting into complex knots. The inscription above warped.
[All things rush toward us]
[And we reach out to all things.]
[Call our name.]
It was a puzzle typical of a dungeon crafted by a high-ranking devil. Sealed with verbose riddles and metaphors. Solving it with magic would take too long, and brute force would fare no better.
-I suppose I should play along.
He knew the phrase itself, but he had no desire to utter the activation word to open the door. Fernandez clicked his tongue and spoke.
"Corruption."
-Clank!
From the shattered carving where his fist had struck, concentric ripples spread out, reducing the stone door to powder that scattered in the air. A blast of hot air rushed in. And almost simultaneously, sensation began to fade from the extremities of his limbs.
A simple yet cunning trap. To unseal the door, one had to answer the riddle, and those who did were hit with a word-curse.
Simple and cunning, but pathetic. Fernandez smirked faintly and stepped forward. Beyond the narrowing passage lay a vast cavern.
A cavern so large the air currents could be felt, its high ceiling thick with glowing mushrooms. Right beneath them huddled a single mound of dark red flesh.
With his senses numbed, balancing was no easy task. Fernandez drew the sword slung over his shoulder to his side and glared ahead. Beyond the flesh mound, red eyes gleamed.
[Welcome to my garden, mortal.]
The devil whispered in a guttural growl. Though spoken from a considerable distance, the sound echoed right in his ear.
[Are you bewildered? Or gripped by terror, mortal? Is this your first encounter with a god?]
Hiss. A sound like snakes slithering echoed from all directions. Beneath the faintly glowing mushrooms, a massive silhouette writhed.
It was vermin. An amalgamation of countless insects, rats, and snakes moved as one. Splats, splats—its appendages scattered along the walls only to reconverge.
Crimson eyes glowed on every wall of the cavern. The flapping of insect wings and clacking mandibles formed a bizarre discord that shaped its voice.
[Your priests devote their lives dreaming of receiving a god. How touching. The god and cause you beseech offer no aid before true power. You've lived your life chasing an illusion.]
"At least that's true."
Fernandez rolled his stiffening neck with a crack. The intensely layered curse demanded his full effort just to twitch a finger.
"I've devoted my life to an illusion."
But even if reborn a thousand times, he'd do it again. Fernandez raised his blade.
"Am I afraid?"
[What?]
"Pathetic tricks and petty traps. You're the one who's afraid, Neharipiksi."
The silhouette in the darkness froze for a moment. He couldn't read its expression or voice, but the emotion it felt was obvious. Bewilderment. It was bewildered now.
[You know my name...?]
"Of course. Neharipiksi, lord of vermin. The Defiler. The Untrustworthy. The Yellow-Green Calamity. Apostle of Corruption. The Formless. Did you think I knew only your name?"
[Who are you?]
"Wrong. The question you should have asked wasn't 'who' but 'why' and 'how.' Devil. And haven't I already told you?"
Its word-curse wasn't physical. The curse sealing the chamber lacked the refinement for direct physical influence.
Its curse was like what a frog experiences facing a snake. Not direct on flesh or soul. It was a curse of perception.
One effect: paralysis. Add the atmosphere... The simplest trick devils use to intimidate and corrupt mortals. 'Presence.' Overwhelm with terrifying form, mix in clever words. Especially when paralyzed and helpless to do anything but watch...
Who could stand tall before it? The devil's trap was clever, but utterly vulgar. If Feizashi saw this spectacle firsthand, he'd grimace and mutter one thing.
-Lacking elegance.
Curses should have elegance. No, magic. Traps. They ought to be refined. To overwhelm foes psychologically without direct strikes demands commensurate nobility.
But this was base. This devil's trap... ploy... Its massive form? No different from a terrified pufferfish inflating itself.
"My name is your bane."
The conditions for holy spells—prayer, invocation, miracle. Fernandez's body already bore invocation and miracle; only prayer was needed. As he spoke, his stiffening heart pulsed once more.
-Thump.
The devil's curse mixed into his bloodstream, along with toxins from Urcasia-line devils permeating the air, clumped, dispersed, spreading through his body. Hell's plague, not easily purified.
But vulgar.
-Thump!
His heart pounded fiercely again. Holy-infused blood surged like a tidal wave, shattering the curse, scattering the fragments through skin and veins.
[Foolish antics...!]
The devil burst into mocking laughter. As the caster, it knew exactly what Fernandez was doing. Fragmenting the curse and spreading it? That only accelerated it.
Plague and toxins spread, red blotches and black necrotic tumors appearing on his skin. Beneath his armor, his flesh twisted horrifically.
Wrinkles crawling like an old man's skin, putrid fluids oozing beneath.
[You're rushing to your death. Yes, try it. Your struggles make me smile!]
"Keep laughing from there."
His voice cracked, twisted like an old man's.
-Thump!
Strength drained from his body, on the verge of collapse, but his heart still beat strongly. Shred the curse finer, more meticulously!
Visualize the sand-grain fragments in his mind, pulverize them even smaller—
-A curse is.
Feizashi laughed.
'Magic is.'
In an old man's voice, skin, gaze. Through wrinkled, diseased eyes. Still fixed on the devil, his gloomy blue eyes gleaming like jewels.
-Merely phenomena tuned from mana flow.
'Fragmented curses are wedges interfering with the body.'
Mana wedges disrupt the target's mana flow, guiding it to unintended results. Basic in spell battles, requiring exquisite precision.
The plague from the curse could be seen as interference disrupting the body's mechanisms, forcing unintended errors.
But no one did it for one reason: everyone has but one body. Failure meant suicide.
Yet for some, the body is mere expendable for the goal.
Trembling fingers, wrinkled and bleeding beneath the gauntlet, extended toward the devil's glowing eyes. Limp, feeble gestures. Struggling...
[What are you doing...?]
"Pray."
The fragments riding his blood settled fully. He'd completed its curse himself. The plague spread completely. Each breath brought rotten blood coughing from his nose.
[What nonsense. You're dying now. The curse is complete! Thanks to your own thrashing. Ha! How long do you have? Minutes? Seconds?]
"To any god, any words, fervently."
-Swish.
His fingers loosely gripped the air, limp and shaking. The devil's eyes began to laugh at the sight. Its mad voice filled the cavern, booming.
The fragmented curse fully embedded. His body rapidly decayed. The holiness in his blood faded, everything but his heart ceasing function.
Holiness repels mana. Thus.
A body without holiness can contain mana.
The plague curse is a wedge intervening in body functions via mana.
The counter-technique for mana wedges is.
-My specialty.
Snap—Fernandez's hand clenched the air.
Simultaneously, his skin split, black blood misting out around him.
* * *
The devil smirked at the blood mist erupting from the small human. Linked to all its minions' eyes, it saw every inch of him without blind spots.
In its final throes, he'd expelled his rotten blood. If done minutes earlier, maybe, but now it was suicide.
With the curse permeating fully, draining plague-ridden blood meant death by exsanguination at minimum. Even otherwise, without flaying skin and bones entirely, he couldn't escape its grasp.
Yet beneath the thick blood mist, cobalt eyes flashed.
-Swish.
Limp, a hand extended from the fog, waving through the air. Frail, but recognizable. Mudras. His last move, futile death throes.
[Construct]. The beginning of all magic.
-Gurgle.
The scattering blood clumped anew. Not its doing. The devil watched with interest. What was this human attempting?
[Coalesce]. Scattered mana gathered at his gesture. Each droplet held congealed curse—mana. Dots connected into lines, lines weaving complex patterns in the air—
[A magic... circle?]
Typical mages draw circles on surfaces for simplicity. True mana circuits are three-dimensional.
His hand clenched the air again. [Bind]. [Chains].
-Slither.
Another hand extended to supplement the mudra, then another for more. Six hands total.
[Six... hands?]
Simultaneously, burning eyes multiplied beneath the blood haze. Six as well. The devil no longer saw a human beneath the mist. A monster with six hands and three heads...!
The final mudra gripped the air. All six hands at once. [Compass]. And—
The coalescing blood haze focused to a point, taking spear form.
Before it could register the shape as a spearhead—
"Fernandez's... Crimson Spear."
A flash pierced the devil's head.
* * *
'Since I improved on yours, I can call it my signature spell.'
-You copied mine, so name it after me. It's a copy of my Crimson Spear anyway.
'Want to call it self-plagiarism? You're me.'
-Haha, touché.
Feizashi chuckled. Fernandez smiled in satisfaction and stepped forward. Dizzy from blood loss, limbs trembling, but the devil's control over his veins gone, his Religiosa Demonica body reignited.
Grievous wounds needing days of rest, but irrelevant. He strode toward the center.
-Patter...
Dust scattered everywhere. Fragments of dead insects—wings, legs, mandibles—dissipated like ash.
The curse that infested his body. Its control meant its power linked to him.
Follow that chain to its source. A compass for that purpose. A blade tracing enemy coordinates to destroy only the true body.
"Pathetic form."
[Grrr...!!]
At the cavern's heart, a massive hole gaped in the rotten flesh mound. Fallout from the Crimson Spear. Deepest within, in a small burrow formed by the mound, a crushed maggot twitched.
Its true body. Neharipiksi, maggot king. Infesting hosts, commanding bred vermin to spread influence.
Strip away the bloated flesh mound, and the core was insignificant. Fernandez smirked, raising his blade.
"Holy Pantheon, grant your blessing."
[Who are you!! How, how did you—!]
"The penalty for the accused is death."
-Crush!
The blade severed the maggot's head and embedded in the floor.
The emperor's breeding pen destroyed, the king-class devil manipulating it slain. Only the emperor remained.
The end was in sight. The end of this viscous war.