Chapter 121
Chapter 121
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 121
Chapter Title: Wendigo 7
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As Azadin began the consecration ritual, a terrifying chill suddenly poured forth from the corpse.
“Ugh!”
Antlers like those of a reindeer sprouted from the corpse’s head. The corpse transformed into a Wendigo in an instant and opened its mouth, unleashing a blast of frigid air toward Azadin.
Startled, Azadin blocked the cold with the hem of his cloak as the victim of the human sacrifice, now a Wendigo, charged at him with its antlers aimed to impale.
But…
-Thud!
Azadin lightly kicked upward with his foot, sending the Wendigo soaring into the air.
“You thought I’d be an easy mark.”
Reversing a sacrifice already offered to a Wendigo was akin to snatching meat from a beast’s jaws. Even a dog you’ve raised would bite if you tried to take food from its mouth—not to mention this foe, a being that even the Kurt God-tribe couldn’t destroy and had to seal away.
The sacrificial offering, transformed into a Wendigo, was flung by Azadin’s kick and ended up dangling from the icicles on the ceiling.
In that moment, other Wendigos swarmed toward Azadin. Wererats, apostles of Mezzeri, and spider-humans, apostles of Atra, had also mutated into Wendigos and blocked his path. The sacrifice used the opening created by the other Wendigos to flee.
“Running away?”
Azadin drew his bow and nocked an arrow. A spider-shaped Wendigo right in front of him tried to ensnare him with its spider legs, but Azadin dodged the attack while keeping the bow drawn and loosed an arrow through the gap.
With a sharp whistle cutting through the air, the arrow struck the fleeing sacrifice.
But Wendigos were undead. Unlike slashing with a sword or smashing with a hammer, a mere arrow wouldn’t inflict significant damage.
And Azadin knew this fact all too well.
-Kaboom!
Suddenly, a dazzling flash erupted from the arrow, followed by an explosion. Azadin had wrapped a copy of the Scriptures of the Divine Kings around the arrow before firing.
“What the—no way, that’s insane…”
Jibek groaned upon witnessing it.
Azadin had once shot an arrow wrapped in a copy of the Scriptures at Judge Zekt, but this was the first time Jibek had seen it with his own eyes.
As a holy knight, he nearly fainted at the sight of someone treating the King’s Church treasure—the sacred covenant of the Divine Kings—so recklessly.
“Kkieeek!”
“Grrraaah!”
The arrow wrapped in the Scriptures proved effective, as the Wendigos began shrieking in unison.
“Scott! Clear a path!”
“Got it, boss!”
The orc necromancer Scott formed hand seals, spread his legs, and assumed a stance.
Shadows extended from his feet, striking the Wendigos. Those felled by swords and blades rose again under his command and turned on their fellow Wendigos.
“What a total mess!”
Feeling his path as a holy knight twisting before him, Jibek swung his sword to cleave through Wendigos not under Scott’s control, lamenting all the while.
“‘As long as you act without shame toward your own conscience, even if stained by disgrace, you are a noble knight!’”
Sir Brand, the Bronze Knight, shouted enthusiastically as he smashed Wendigos with his axe-spear, joining Jibek in the assault.
“I wish I had no shame, but my conscience stings.”
Beside the lamenting Jibek, Ismail was inwardly flustered.
‘A holy knight, a necromancer, a senile old man, and a herald. How is this bizarre team functioning so well?’
Ismail slowed the Wendigos by embedding arrows in their knees, allowing Jibek and Sir Brand to sweep them aside in close combat and open a path.
Azadin slid through the path they created, recapturing the sacrifice. The Wendigo pierced by the arrow wrapped in a copy of the Scriptures struggled to pull it out, but each time, pure white light pulsed from the arrow—from the Scriptures—purifying it.
Azadin kicked the Wendigo’s legs, forcing it to its knees, then drew another copy of the Scriptures from his bosom and placed it on the creature’s forehead.
As the pages of the Scriptures glowed, the Wendigo’s antlers were severed.
“Nice!”
“Try the consecration again!”
At Ismail’s urging, Azadin resumed the ritual. But suddenly, a thunderous roar shook heaven and earth.
“Ooooh!”
It was the roar not of the small Wendigos here, but of the true Wendigo prowling between the mist and unreality outside.
In that instant, deer antlers sprouted anew from the sacrifice. The Scriptures’ light flashed brilliantly, struggling to repel the Wendigo’s evil power, but endless malevolence and overwhelming cold poured forth from the sacrifice at its center.
“Argh! What the hell!”
Despite his cold-weather gear, frost clung to Azadin’s body. He pulled out all his copies of the Scriptures, affixed them to the sacrifice, and consecrated it. Yet he could feel it too.
‘Even the Three Great Archangels’ power, and the Knights of Deliverance’s light, are weakening.’
Just as the King’s Church and the Yaegas God-tribe had fallen into corruption and lost their strength… the Knights of Deliverance, reduced to mere merchants, were losing their holy power as well. With the Age of Jupiter approaching, all sources of white magic were fading, and the Knights were no exception.
Azadin, who had read the Knights’ tomes and embraced angel faith since childhood, held them in high regard—but he wasn’t blind.
‘Not that there’s anything worth seeing in the garden to begin with.’
The Knights of Deliverance had corrupted, their reputation scraping the bottom, true devotion, virtue, and passion turned to laughingstocks… Azadin felt the waning power of angel faith firsthand.
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Among the angels served by the Knights of Deliverance, the Three Great Archangels were originally infinite beings of the heavens.
But witnessing humanity’s suffering at the hands of Nether Reapers and being treated as livestock by the Kurt God-tribe’s followers, they descended to this world as incarnations with material flesh. They temporarily allied with the Kurt God-tribe to drive out the Nether Reapers.
Yet the Kurt God-tribe conserved their strength, waiting for the Three Great Archangels to exhaust theirs.
Knowing this, the Archangels fought without sparing themselves until their power was spent. At last, in a fortress on the Hubris Peninsula, they sublimated themselves once more and made their declaration.
Those who uphold the virtues of wisdom, courage, and mercy shall be granted the power of white magic, no matter who they are. To those who truly seek good, we shall always respond.
Leaving that promise, the Three Great Archangels sublimated, their flesh turning to stone and sinking beneath the ruins of an ancient city on the Hubris Peninsula.
Those who gathered to guard that ancient city and fortress, to uphold the Three Great Archangels’ teachings and virtues, formed the Knights of Deliverance.
But now, the only ones among the Knights wielding white magic are those tied to the Yaegas God-tribe… and none uphold virtue to wield power.
Just as the Yaegas God-tribe’s descendants—the kings and nobles—betrayed the King’s Radiance and fell into corruption, so too did the Knights betray virtue and corrupt.
As a result, the Three Great Archangels lost their power, and prayers and pleas to them went unanswered.
But so what? How could one blame angels who fought for humanity to the very end, now unable to aid further?
To despair that voices go unanswered while begging salvation from the Three Great Archangels—who already saved mankind—is not the proper attitude.
The true posture of angel faith is…
“Three Great Archangels, hear my resolve.”
Azadin seized the sacrifice’s corpse once more as dark power boiled within it and called upon the angels.
“In my darkest, most painful times, your stories saved me. Having been saved, my faith cannot betray me. I fear only that I might betray it!”
Azadin looked up to the heavens.
“And so I vow! I shall surely…”
In that instant, the flickering light from the Scriptures blazed brilliantly…
And wings of pure white light enveloped Azadin.
The Wendigo’s roar turned abruptly to a scream, and the surrounding Wendigos collapsed one by one, reverting to ordinary corpses.
The deer antlers that had grown on the sacrifice Azadin held, the wire-like coarse hairs that tore through its skin—all vanished, leaving only the pitiful victim’s corpse.
“Th-the Wendigo’s gone?”
Jibek stared in bewilderment at the scene before him.
“A miracle!”
Brand voiced what Jibek felt.
No Knight of Deliverance had received an angel’s response in ages. Yet here, Azadin of the herald clan—called the Soulless Blasphemer—had astonishingly gained their favor.
“M-Miracle…?”
Jibek could scarcely believe his eyes.
No matter how you sliced it, this didn’t add up. Maybe the Scriptures had some synergistic effect? Azadin had already used quite a few to draw out white magic.
But…
‘No, that’s not it. Even as I claimed to accept him, I subtly looked down on him. I assumed a herald’s faith couldn’t match mine. But to think I’d witness a Soulless Blasphemer become a saint of miracles?!’
No one would believe it; they’d call him mad.
“My god, boss. What did you do?”
As his necromancy unraveled completely the moment the angel’s wings manifested before Azadin, Scott felt dismayed.
Such a holy, potent, higher-dimensional power. It was undoubtedly worthy of being called a miracle.
People would likely be enraptured. Proof that a great being who viewed them favorably truly existed.
But Scott remained detached.
“Promising something to angels is more dangerous than contracting with devils. Fools think angels are purely good and will gloss over the details, blind to the risks—but magic is always cruel. Magic and miracles are harsher collectors than any usurer.”
He sensed the miracle Azadin wrought came at the cost of an immense oath.
“Doesn’t matter. Blocking the Wendigo makes me happier right now.”
“Boss, what did you offer? What promise did you make?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. Anyway… hm.”
Shivering from the cold, Azadin removed his cloak and draped it over the victim’s corpse.
“Let’s head back to the surface.”
The miracle’s very protagonist, Azadin, casually retrieved his copies of the Scriptures and hoisted the Wendigo sacrifice over his shoulder.
“A miracle, huh. Astonishing. To think angel faith actually has substance. And from him, of all people…”
Ismail felt an indescribable sensation. Was the spectacle before him mere illusion from the Scriptures’ white magic, or a true miracle of angel faith?
If the latter, Azadin deserved recognition as a saint of the Knights of Deliverance.
But a herald of the Soulless Blasphemer—Azadin the Eyeless, cursed even among the Aragas—becoming a miracle’s witness and recipient?