Chapter 343
Chapter 343
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 343
Chapter Title: Immortals and Mortals (12)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
-Kwang! Thud!!
Staring at the firmly bolted door of the grand cathedral, Sirio shook his head. No more screams, shouts, or clashes of weapons reached them. Just the silent, relentless thud of an axe striking the door.
“They won’t hold out much longer. Brother, how is the Abbot faring?”
“Not well. He won’t last long, no matter what happens.”
Gathering up the vials and straightening his blood-soaked priestly robes, the elderly Enmagicka looked up. Before him lay Beorn, pale-faced and gasping for breath.
Cold sweat beaded beneath his closed eyes. With trembling hands, he pushed himself up from the floor.
“Abbot, you must rest, even if just for a moment.”
“There’s nowhere left to retreat.”
The Abbot’s eyes flashed sharply as he spoke. He glanced around. Five... five of them...
“Unbelievable.”
When the intruder first attacked, the monastery had over twenty Inquisitors and nearly forty attendants. Even the Torchmen were elite soldiers far surpassing civilians. Yet they had fallen one by one, hunted like prey.
When the bells rang wildly and even the dispatched Demonica went silent, Beorn had assumed the worst. The central headquarters was lost.
The path forward was clear. The headquarters held irreplaceable legacies that must be protected at all costs, even if every agent died.
Records on heretics and demons, training materials for new agents, relics sealing demons too powerful to destroy, and the Inquisition’s unique techniques accumulated through vast history.
Losing any would doom the Inquisition to never recover. Beorn immediately began securing the documents. He couldn’t save the entire grand archive, but the core ones were salvaged.
His long years as a Heretica screamed warnings. The thing outside couldn’t be stopped. No reason, no cause, no identity, no numbers known. But at this most vulnerable moment, the Inquisition was under attack.
He gathered the documents, bought time on the front lines, activated traps in every section to slow the enemy. He dispatched spirit messengers for aid and held out for five hours.
At the cost of five Inquisitors’ lives and preserving the headquarters’ core documents, Beorn now lay dying. From the piercing wound in his abdomen, crushed organs, and blood loss.
“Abbot. The Grand Sealing Chamber has fallen.”
One Enmagicka, meditating in the corner, lifted his head. Beorn clicked his tongue.
“If the sealing sanctum is fully destroyed, even the sealed demons will join them. Fairn will fall.”
Even in crisis, visions of the secular kingdoms’ futures unfolded clearly in his mind. Fairn crumbling, exposed as the Inquisition’s fault. Demons ravaging the eastern kingdoms like plague, but the secular houses would no longer trust the Beitasser Church.
The Holy Pantheon churches no longer united as before. The Shiled Church, based in the Empire, would expand aggressively. It would succeed. But in that time...
While secular houses and Pantheon sects clashed. The eastern kingdom alliance would collapse. Rotting from deep within, like a great tree slowly withering...
“My... kuh! Thinking was too shortsighted.”
“Abbot.”
“Step aside, brother. No one knows my remaining time better than I.”
Pushing away the vials, he rose. Excessive blood loss made his head spin, objects warping. Yet he calmly adjusted his sleeves and flexed his fingers.
-Thud!
The grand cathedral’s thick iron door rang out again. Beorn stepped forward, gripping his sword and shield.
“How much more time do you need, brothers?”
“An hour... no, thirty minutes more, Abbot.”
Time to conceal and seal these core documents. Those remaining chose death over flight, gathering here to protect these treasures while others sacrificed like straw.
“I’ll make it happen.”
“We stand with you, brother.”
Flying blades from the dark, sudden assailants in empty spaces, blades severing brothers’ necks silently. Even Beorn hadn’t seen the intruder’s face before his abdomen was pierced.
“What do you desire, Darian.”
Beorn murmured, recalling the empty chamber of the Thunder Thrower at his waist.
* * *
Darian said nothing, striking the cathedral door with near-mad obsession. His muscles surpassed mortal limits, yet moved with ever-new, greater power.
Each priest slain, each sanctum desecrated, power filled his body. Stronger, fiercer, stickier power enveloped him. Even Enmagicka spells couldn’t pierce the mana coiling around him.
-Thud!
The sanctum door buckled louder. His swings now rivaled siege weapons.
“What have you done to my body?”
He felt the final bolt shatter. A few more strikes, and the steel door would crumble. He sensed everything beyond without seeing. Senses beyond human limits.
“Speak. What have you done to my body?”
The Grand Sealing Chamber, one of the fiercest resistances. Killing its priests and seeing the relics within, Darian instinctively sensed demons. He left them sealed.
Yet even without action, they broke free after he left. Not his doing—someone else’s. And he knew who.
“Speak. Carlo Mano.”
“I’ve given you power, Sir Darian Shrike.”
Carl emerged from afar, smirking at Darian.
“Once this is over, I’ll slaughter you all, no matter what.”
“‘You all’—who do you mean?”
“You, the Fairn royals and your minions.”
“Aren’t there still many priests in the world you must kill, sir?”
“Don’t take me for your servant. Nor the demons lurking behind you. I overlooked you because...”
“I know. You want the church powers collapsed.”
Darian was the Emperor’s Eye. An assassin haunting the Empire’s shadows. He knew the demons’ and cultists’ evils and consequences well.
But now, great demons fallen, cultists powerless. The Holy Pantheon churches openly craved secular power more than ever.
The line between secular and church blurred. Churches greedily sought power. Just? Compared to cult rule, yes. But—
Churches sacrificed many for the few pure. Burning masses to purge one heretic seed. If a village fell to cultists, they’d torch the whole barony and demand more fuel.
To topple the church, shatter their unity first. Shiled, Beitasser. Prioritize these two. Shiled waning, so strike Beitasser first.
“But did you truly not foresee? Church collapse means our rise. Did you really not know, slaughtering all those priests yourself?”
Carl whispered, smirking. Power’s history has no vacuums. One falls, another rises. Church voids breed cultists.
Darian glared, head tilted at Carl’s laugh.
“I’ll topple and crush both church and your cultists.”
“Hahaha, no perfect victory in the church’s millennium. You overrate yourself, sir. Removing a few sects—will we truly be uprooted?”
“Probably not.”
Darian shook his head briefly. He stepped forward. Blood pooled at his feet.
No pain, but he knew it was grave. From piercing Beorn Shieldbane’s abdomen. A near-perfect ambush even he admired, yet the man reacted instantly, firing the Thunder Thrower into his gut.
First significant wound in the assault. Darian regretted it. That counter was honed human limits, human will incarnate.
A bit faster, before things spiraled, meeting him might have stopped it.
Meaningless now. Some flows can’t stop themselves. In that sense, Darian was a vortex. Shaking the whole world.
He approached the still-grinning Carl, growling.
“You’ll come to fear me.”
“Hahaha! We who worship fear, fearing a mere mortal?”
“Like fearing the sun at noon, the moon in deep night. Every breath, every cry to your masters, you’ll fear me. Worship fear? No, you don’t.”
Why worship demons? Not hell-mana corruption or self-fall—cultists crave power beyond effort, talent. Power, wealth, fame, mana, wisdom. Whatever cause, they crave transcendent might. Captivated by demons’ terror, overwhelmed—but not worshiping terror itself.
Darian’s eyes gleamed abyss-dark. He’d teach them. Become the fear that terrifies fear-beings. Inexplicable, irreversible, immortal terror. Exist as its symbol. Whisper his name in dark paths, shadows.
“If after all, you still claim to worship fear, then I’ll reject your worship. You’ll die alone. No immortals intervening in human independence anymore. After tearing apart demons, gods, all parasites craving human spirits one by one—”
I’ll remain a symbol and vanish. Forever.
Carl recoiled, paling at the horrific pressure. Recalling what he knew of Darian.
Young templar knight, undefeated. Active alias—
‘Empire’s Strongest.’
Master of all combat arts. Indeed, assaulting the Inquisition, he slaughtered priests without revealing himself once.
Carl freed the Grand Sealing Chamber demons separately. But these forest demons couldn’t match this man. Mortal or not.
‘That’s why.’
Carl fingered the hidden paper. From the Abbot’s cluttered desk reports. On the saint ‘Fernandez’ operation.
Location of the final great demon, unsealing method. All detailed. Fingering it, he thought quietly.
‘Darian after 30 is essential...’
Minimum condition for slaying the great demon: this man. He backed away slyly.
“Then farewell, sir. Next stage prepared to your satisfaction.”
“Begone, puppet. Before you find me, I’ll find you.”
“Puppet... puppet... haha! Preserve your flesh, sir. His Highness awaits.”
Carl retreated laughing, dashing downhill. Prince’s plan flawless. Starting with this thorn’s fall, taint Fairn, topple eastern kingdoms—
Then Le Bainter, the wilds, to Kirzhat.
Beyond past millennium, eternal empire for next millennium. Puppets of hundreds, millions worshiping one god.
Ruling eternally atop. As god’s radiant hounds.
Carl burst laughing, free of Darian’s presence. Laughter spilled like coughs as he leaped trails.
“...What?”
But suddenly, he couldn’t laugh or run. The forest burned. White flames advanced slowly toward the monastery.
“That... what...?”
Hell-mana shrouded forest parted like sea before flames. Like torches chasing fog. A giant man advanced boldly, wielding a brilliantly shining standard in one hand.
Many men followed up the mountain path.
-Ooo, oooo, oo.
-Ooo, oooo, oo.
Low, long humming amid wind.
-Holy Pantheon, bless us. Martyr of the Vicars departs this path.
-Angels guide you to paradise.
-Prophets welcome you.
-Gods’ hall awaits.
-Praise His holiness alone.
-Brother, our paths always one.
-Pray till we meet.
-You who shone brightest among us taken.
-To be the world’s star.
Chanting dirge, gathering dead priests’ bodies, subduing rampaging demons. Thus.
Thus, the priests marched.
“Damn it. His Highness mustn’t be late!”
Carl stared blankly, then bit his lip. Darian couldn’t die yet. He veered another path.
This risked his life... He clicked his tongue. No gambler, but couldn’t let Darian die. Needed bait. That fool to cover everything, chasing him.