Chapter 362
Chapter 362
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 362
Chapter Title: Hunters and Plunderers (7)
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Hellfire mana corruption, demonic ambushes, twisted trees, and wild beasts' assaults—none of it could stop them. Fabiano barreled down a mountain path that seemed carved straight from a chunk of hell itself, pulverizing everything that blocked his way.
"We're almost there!"
This road. The path connecting the Dragonspine Mountains to St. Bartholomew Monastery had been a familiar route he'd traveled back and forth since childhood. But in this moment, it twisted like a labyrinth. Even amid it all, Marco struggled to keep his bearings, guiding Fabiano onward.
He was right. The monastery's outer walls appeared, looking as if they'd crumbled under the weight of ages. The once-stout fortifications were overrun with ivy shriveled like tentacles, and tiny demons swarmed over fallen corpses, tearing into the flesh.
"Get—lost—now!!"
Rage surged in Fabiano's eyes. He shot forward like an arrow, roaring. Before the demons could even flinch, his massive fist smashed into their skulls.
With a shockwave like a cannon blast, a headless demon staggered and collapsed. Fabiano panted with fury-fueled breaths as he flipped over the fallen body.
"Victor!!!"
A familiar face peeked through the mangled flesh. It was one of the Demonica he'd trained with—a man left behind at the monastery to prepare for emergencies.
"I'm sorry....... I'm so sorry......!"
"It's not your fault, brother."
"Brother Marco. I ordered this brother to stay at the monastery......!"
In Zephys's absence, Fabiano had been commanding the Demonica. He'd told Victor they couldn't abandon the place entirely, so he should stay behind for training and rest.
The fact that Victor lay dead here spoke volumes. It meant a sudden assault so fierce that the Demonica had to deploy immediately. And since the attacker who felled him had pressed into the monastery, it implied a force capable of slaughtering Demonica was rampaging inside.
Thick tears streamed from Fabiano's eyes. He tore the rosary from Victor's corpse and quickly made the sign of the cross.
"We must go to the abbot...... To the abbot."
"Yes. Let's go."
"With the Great Seal Hall destroyed, they'll head for the grand cathedral."
"That makes sense. It's the only fortified spot inside the central keep."
St. Bartholomew Monastery wasn't built as a fortress for battle. From the start, it was a secret stronghold where internal combat was unthinkable.
Even so, they'd installed fortified zones within the monastery grounds. Call it paranoid obsession or the inquisitor's way—either fit.
The grand cathedral was one such sanctuary. A sealed holy place where hellfire mana would infiltrate last. They bolted straight for it.
Corpses everywhere. Comrades so close he could name them all, strewn about.
-KABOOM!!
A massive explosion erupted from within the monastery. Fabiano whipped his head around.
"From the grand cathedral!"
"Let's move!"
As expected, the final stand was at the grand cathedral. And resistance meant survivors.
When they reached the shattered iron gates of the grand cathedral, they saw a man thrust his spear through someone's gut.
"Abbot!!"
Beorn Shieldbane crumpled under the assailant's strike. Around him lay the bodies of brothers fallen before him. At Fabiano's cry, the attacker slowly turned.
A familiar face.
"Darian Shrike......!! Why would a knight of Shaild Cathedral...?!"
"Not anymore."
-CRUNCH!
Darian twisted the spear free with a low growl. Beorn spat blood-flecked coughs and collapsed. Fabiano bellowed at the sight.
"You bastard!! How many good souls have died by your hand?!"
"......Good souls?"
Fabiano froze mid-charge. What was it? A chill premonition gripped him—like a cold scythe at his throat.
The sense of death. His racing mind cleared in an instant as he stared at the man approaching slowly. No longer human, those eyes burned with the overwhelming savagery of an apex predator.
"I've killed eighty-seven of what you call 'good souls.' Not even a hundred. Good souls. Good souls......! You dare call yourselves that?!"
"You dare......!"
"Yes, I dare!! Up to this very moment! I've done my utmost! And the number of your priestly rabble whose necks I've personally wrung still falls short of a hundred! What have you done? How could you slaughter so many?!"
"What are you talking about?!"
"Don't pretend you don't know!! Hypocrites! If you're truly ignorant, fine—so be it, your stupidity! In that war you declared holy, the true good souls who died—the truly innocent—numbered nearly ten thousand!!"
-KABOOM!
Darian stomped the ground savagely. The earth groaned in response. Demons, dragons, angels—whatever it was, the aura of something beyond human rampaging engulfed the area. Even the hellfire mana that had set the entire forest ablaze faltered.
"Those who begged for mercy died. The innocent who proclaimed their purity died! Pious folk who sought confession—whose only sin was stealing a single slice of bread from a neighbor—all those good people!"
Children playing hide-and-seek while parents worked the fields were strung up on gibbets. Parents who screamed at the sight met the same fate. For one reason alone: their lord was the emperor's lackey, providing humans for his feasts.
If they hadn't provided? If they'd defied the lord? No one in that village would have survived. Darian knew. Those forced into minimal evil to avert greater tragedy.
People like himself.
In an era where someone's death meant everyone's survival, that was how it was. Everyone lived that way—had to. Amid an emperor and cronies spiraling into madness, Darian never rested, saving as many as he could.
And all his efforts burned under the crusaders' boots.
"Why didn't you spare them? Were they so hateful? No place for them in your hypocrites' world? Heaven too crowded? Then you should've killed yourselves and fallen to hell! If heaven truly exists! It should've been for those simple folk!!"
Fabiano watched Darian's rage erupt. Then he saw the burning monastery, the fallen bodies, demons perched like crows pecking at flesh.
And his own bloodied hands, his worn longsword. The rosaries clutched in his grip—torn from brothers' necks along the way.
Are we hunters of faith, or plunderers with faith?
Fabiano looked up at the raging madman. Darian awaited his answer.
"Righteous and faithful One, deliver us from evil."
"......What?"
"Minimal evil, you say, Darian Shrike? Justifying the least evil to avert greater tragedy? Look at what you've done. No—look at what you've always done. Uphold the emperor and temper him? Kill the few to save the many?"
Fabiano drew his longsword, aiming it steadily at Darian. Not a tremor in the blade.
"The empire burned and the imperial house fell because they abandoned that single evil. The Holy Pantheon fell silent and hell manifested for the same reason! Minimal evil? I've lived confronting the horrors that minimal evil has wrought!"
Miss one devil-worshiper, and a village turns to hell.
Abandon one village, and a barony falls.
One by one, like that! Fabiano ground his teeth. Those ones accumulated, dragging the world deeper into the mire. He knew it firsthand—as a Demonica charging into the worst atrocities.
"Even that minimal evil is too much, Darian Shrike. Civilian massacres, monastery arson and priest murders, sacrilege and devil worship, pacts with demons, looting and assassination. This court sentences you to death for all your crimes."
"You have no right to judge me! No one does! No right to judge others based on religion and faith!"
"Religious tribunal jurisdiction, summary execution of heretics, exorcism force deployment authority, church sacraments proxy rights. By the powers granted by the Holy Pantheon of Good Gods......"
Fabiano nodded to the battle-ready priests.
"We shall erect good against evil. Pray—to any god, any words. Fervently."
Fabiano and the inquisitors lunged at Darian the moment their brief prayer ended. The battle began.
* * *
"Did you kill him?"
"My skills fell short. He escaped."
"Escaped......?"
Zephys tilted his head as he listened. Darian versus the monks—one side had to die for it to end. No reason or intent to let the other live half-heartedly.
But Fabiano shook his head and continued.
* * *
-BOOM!!
The first priest to charge exploded at the chest. The spear struck true in that instant.
Not a pierce—an eruption. Such precise power, flawless timing and execution.
Once more, muscles and tendons writhed like serpents along Darian's arm. The spear tip rippled like waves, then surged like flames. Each time, a priest flew back, smashed into walls, crushed and scattered.
"Dariaaaan!!"
Fabiano roared as he charged. His brothers were dying. To that overwhelming, irrational might.
The Demonica's body wasn't human—it was forged to hunt demons. Sturdy and precise enough for foes larger, stronger, more horrific.
He'd never lost to a human before. Not because humans were weak, but because this body, built solely for holy war, was superior. He took no pride in it, but he never imagined defeat by something human-sized.
Yet those brothers fell. Demonica built of divinity, Heretica honed lifelong—gone, one by one. So straightforward it was almost honest.
"Lord! Here am I. Send me!!"
Fabiano bellowed through ragged breaths. His arm swung down like a guillotine toward Darian.
-KABOOM!
The clash of spear and sword boomed like artillery. They recoiled from the shock, glaring.
Two men's convictions, two furies—embodied in their weapons, clashing.
-KABOOM! CRASH!!
Demonica and Heretica, those who'd followed Fabiano to certain death—none fell in vain. Even in their final moments under Darian's blows, they inflicted wounds.
As a result, Darian was battered. Even the greatest human has limits. One hand can't beat ten. Victory through the gauntlet wouldn't leave him unscathed.
Wounds multiply. Blood flows, functions falter. It had to be. Yet Darian struck down the next with force fiercer than before, repelling them.
Fabiano's body began yielding ground. Arms numb, head spinning. Some profane power dwelled in that man.
But surrender was impossible.
'We are the beacon.'
He parried the spear tip, praying. Bible verses he'd recited thousands of times swirled in his mind. As natural as breathing.
Beitasser was the war god. God of soldiers. Armies existed to protect civilization.
In any civilized society, a soldier's symbol was the shield. Not bred for war, but prepared against it—to guard the people.
To shield civilization's tender flesh from enemies, heedless of their own scars—they stepped forward as shields.
That was Beitasser's teaching. The Inquisition's creed.
WHOOSH!
Flames erupted from Fabiano's body. Pure white fire coursed his muscles, infusing new strength.
The three elements of divine magic: origin, prayer, miracle. The divinity in a Demonica's flesh was miracle itself; his conviction the origin; his words the prayer—
-KABOOM!
Fabiano surged forward again. Exchanges tightened; Darian ground his teeth and roared.
"Hypocrites of the Holy Pantheon!! When your hands seized the innocent to kill them! When asked why!! You stood silent!! What reason now to reveal yourselves to me?!"
Darian's eyes blazed as he whipped the spear. Faster, now a blur. Fabiano, renewed, barely blocked.
That instant.
-SHRIEK!
A shrill tear through air. Fabiano jerked his head back, dodging an object aimed at his skull. It halted in Darian's outstretched hand.
In slowed time, their eyes locked on it. A crossbow. With a finger through the trigger guard.
"Carlo Mano Pavilossss!!"
"Haha, Sir Shrike! Dying here? If you want to save this wench, follow me!!"
Fabiano lunged at the words. No escape! But the sudden shift exposed him. Darian battered him aside and fled.
Surviving inquisitors leaped to block. Yet like a wolf through sheep, Darian slipped every attack and vanished. Fabiano could only kneel, gasping, staring at Darian's retreating back.