Chapter 14
Chapter 14
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 14
Chapter Title: Kin of the Fangs 5
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-CRUNCH!
With a single stomping blow from Azadin, the hobgoblin's shoulder twisted out of shape, and its body sank into the ground.
“Kyaaak!”
“K-Kill it!”
The goblins charged at Azadin all at once, who had boldly landed right in their midst.
Stone axes and rusted blades in the goblins' hands sliced through the air. But Azadin dodged them and seized the arm of a goblin swinging at him.
-CRACK!
Just from gripping it tightly, the fingers of the goblin holding the stone axe were crushed. Blood, chunks of flesh, and shattered bone fragments clung to the wooden shaft in a sticky mess, no different from tattered rags.
Azadin swung the stone axe and the goblin together. The axe instantly split open another goblin's skull, and the goblin's body, flung along with it, smashed into others.
“Grk!?”
Azadin horizontally swung the battered goblin's corpse.
It was no longer a goblin.
It was a shapeless lump of meat.
Azadin whipped that lump around, turning every enemy within reach into the same wretched state.
Swept up by the corpse—its bones pulverized yet its muscle fibers intact, transformed into a massive club bristling with bone spikes—the goblins were either sent flying or impaled on the spikes, becoming one with it as they were dragged into Azadin's frenzy.
Having thus annihilated the goblins around him, Azadin raised his hand to the sky.
Arrows rained down from above. Arrows pouring from the quiver he had kicked up earlier were sucked into his hand.
In his other hand was a bow.
-TWANG!
An arrow shot out with a crisp twang. Each time Azadin drew the bow, arrows flew with terrifying speed, piercing through goblins.
In an instant, he unleashed a barrage of arrows, felling goblins and hobgoblins alike, then nimbly scaled the gate barricade as if it were flat ground and stood atop it once more.
“Huh….”
“…Is that a Herald?”
The watching vigilantes were dumbfounded.
That horde had clearly been a menacing dark army threatening them. Yet this one man had effortlessly toppled the ogre and wiped out its minions in a single sweep.
The entire cleanup had taken but a fleeting moment.
“As expected of a God-King Slayer….”
No wonder he had slain the God-Kings.
Everyone nodded in understanding. But Azadin himself was far from convinced.
A sinister aura still lingered, a horrific presence hanging in the air.
“Everyone, stay alert. Something's coming.”
*********
The goblin clutching the bone wand had the misfortune of getting clipped by the blind ogre's swinging obsidian axe. It didn't die, but the glancing blow tore its flesh and snapped bones, leaving it gravely wounded.
As it tumbled across the ground, humans who had burst from the meat box charged at it.
“Hey! W-What do we do?”
“First, snatch that wand from the bastard!”
“Y-Yeah!”
They rushed the wounded, gasping goblin, immediately kicking and punching it.
“No weapons? Weapons?”
“Kill it!”
“Why won't this fucker let go?!”
They pummeled the goblin, desperately trying to wrest the bone wand from its grasp. Even to their untrained eyes, that bone wand was no ordinary item.
Having been maimed by Azadin, they needed to seize this chance to claim something for themselves.
But then….
“I-I am the King of Fangs….”
The goblin muttered as it clawed at its own body.
-KRUSH!
A sudden mutation erupted.
“Huh?”
The thugs who had just escaped the ogre's meat box couldn't believe their eyes. One of their comrades vanished from the torso down in an instant.
The dangling limbs stood briefly on the ground before collapsing in a heap. Before them loomed a monster whose entire arm had split open, revealing razor-sharp fangs within.
The goblin's entire arm had transformed into the maw of some beast.
“What?”
“What the hell is this?!”
“Gah!”
Bloody tendrils erupted from the goblin's body like ropes. Sharp fangs sprouted from those tendrils, tearing into everything they touched.
“Gaaak!”
“Aaak!”
The thugs who had lunged for the wand were slaughtered one by one. The goblin was no longer worthy of the name.
Its arms had become tentacle-like appendages bristling with countless fangs, its legs the same.
It devoured the flesh it consumed to swell its own body. It smashed and absorbed the ogre's meat box on the ground, then ensnared the blind, flailing ogre with fang-studded whips.
“Kraaa! N-No! I like eating, but I hate being eaten!”
The blind ogre thrashed, but the fangs tore into it alive, absorbing it in seconds.
*********
“Uwaaak!”
“W-What the hell is that?!”
The villagers recoiled in horror at the scene unfolding before them.
Crimson flesh tendrils suddenly wrapped around the ogre, shredding and devouring it with sharp fangs. Still not sated, it began gulping down the goblin corpses strewn about.
Azadin clicked his tongue at the grotesque sight.
“Kurt God Tribe. The King of Fangs.”
The Kurt God Tribe were the savage deities who had ruled this land before the Yaegas God Tribe arrived, served by hordes of beasts.
When the Yaegas drove them out, their followers fled to remote wilds beyond human reach, but their bloodline endured.
“This is turning into a huge loss for a job I took without even gold upfront!”
Though rattled, Azadin calmly assessed the monster.
It continued devouring nearby corpses, then thrust out a goblin head from within. The goblin clutched the wand, igniting an amber flame at its tip.
“Y-Yaegas slaves! Hand over the God-King Codex! Do so, and I'll kill you painlessly….”
-THUNK!
Before it could finish, Azadin's arrow blew off the goblin's head.
The first shot took the head, the second the arm. Azadin leaped from the barricade, dashing to retrieve the fallen wand impaled on his arrow.
‘These guys are after copies of the God-King Codex too? What are they thinking?’
Amazed, Azadin charged to recover the wand.
That was when it happened.
-TWIP!
A whip-like tendril lashed at Azadin.
A horrifying fleshy strand studded with razor fangs targeted him—contact would turn him to mincemeat in moments.
But Azadin's form blurred as he effortlessly evaded the whip. With a feint, he backstepped, luring the attack.
The whip struck the ground and rebounded toward him, but he scooped up a goblin's rusted sword and parried.
-SPLAT!
It sliced clean through the fanged gums in one stroke.
“For flesh like that, the fangs are oversized. Teeth without deep roots are always flimsy.”
The fangs sprouting from the tentacles were disproportionately huge compared to the tendril's girth and thickness. And without proper jawbone, they were mere protrusions in the meat.
Plenty to shred a human, of course—but against a proper steel sword, the fangs wouldn't last.
“Insolent fool! I am the King of Fangs!”
“No, you're just a worthless kin spawned by the King of Fangs.”
Azadin corrected the goblin.
“Kak!”
Infuriated, the goblin's whip-tendrils snatched the wand from the ground. Amber flames erupted from its tip.
“Keeek!? You have the God-King Codex….”
-THUNK!
Startled, Azadin hurled his dagger, shattering the goblin's skull. It knew he had the Codex?
‘How the hell does it know?’
Azadin calmly reviewed the situation.
‘The wand's flame was aimed at me? Don't tell me…’
He realized the wand held the power to detect copies of the God-King Codex.
“Kraaa! I'll kill you!”
Enraged, the goblin—no, the kin of the King of Fangs—explosively spawned whips, lashing at Azadin.
A storm of countless strikes and razor fangs sought to rend him.
“Hey!”
“Watch out!”
Was it his dire straits? The people of Hybris, who despised Heralds, and the gate village vigilantes screamed in his stead.
‘The attacks look chaotic and numerous, but….’
Azadin easily dodged the whipping tendrils.
‘To avoid tangling, whip attacks inevitably become predictable.’
Azadin's physical prowess reached superhuman heights. He lightly evaded the tentacles, parrying only those about to connect with the rusted iron sword.
Each clash yanked fangs out in clumps, scattering them on the ground. Azadin made it sound easy, but the whip strikes were blindingly fast and heavy—ordinary folk couldn't dream of blocking them.
Even a blind ogre had been devoured without resistance. Yet Azadin countered with delicate precision, like brushing feathers from a charging buffalo.
-SIZZLE.
Meanwhile, smoke rose from the sword in Azadin's grip. The King of Fangs' tentacles secreted potent digestive acids, corroding the blade.
“Tch.”
Glancing around for another weapon and finding none, he reluctantly drew the soldier's sword at his waist.
It was from the soldiers Kozel the Young Lord had brought—plate-armored warriors little different from knights.
A sleek steel straight sword of obvious fine quality, which he'd pocketed. But using it against this acid-spewing kin of the King of Fangs would surely ruin it here.
No room to spare valuables amid the savage fang-whips, though.
‘Pity, but better to use the sword here than hoard relics and lose my life. I've got plenty more blades stashed anyway.’
Azadin slashed at the fang-tentacles with the soldier's sword… but even fine steel began corroding upon contact with the acid.
“Huh….”
“T-That thing!”
“What do we do?”
The watching villagers panicked.
“Shoot arrows. Let's help that Herald however we can.”
The hunter leading the vigilantes shouted.
“B-But helping a Herald….”
If the King's Church learned they'd aided a Herald, it'd be branded heresy. They could face death.
A grave crime, yet the hunter scoffed.
The King's Church revered the God-Kings' bloodlines, the nobles. They had looted the village and fled.
Meanwhile, the godless blasphemers—the soulless irreverents called Heralds—fought for them now, without reason or demand.
In this moment, wasn't their duty clear?