Chapter 164
Chapter 164
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 164
Chapter Title: The Vassals' Rampage 1
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“And innocent my ass! Who held a knife to their throats and threatened them to rely on Nether power? They took the Nether drugs because they didn’t want to die, didn’t they?”
Seraph showed no sympathy for the people’s suffering either.
“Do you know how agonizing malaria is? They were desperate to live because of it. So what if they relied on Nether power? Even nobles and priests research Nether magic, don’t they?! They only borrowed Nether strength because the Yaegas God Tribe’s power wasn’t enough! And yet you drove them berserk! How could you do this?! You soulless monsters! You’re the real monsters!”
The Verdant Banner Sect’s Taoist concentrated his mind in rage. His vassals—former sect members—began to move.
“Kill them!”
The Taoist manipulated his vassals, issuing a kill order. But the male and female Heralds sneered.
“This bastard’s taking out his anger on the wrong people?”
“Dimia. Didn’t you get completely wrecked by Azadin? You back in fighting shape?”
“Yeah.”
“Then let’s see what you’ve got.”
Flower Dimia clicked her tongue and unfastened the whip sword at her waist. It was a blue-bladed chain sword infused with Awer steel. She nocked it to her bow and fired. A blue trail sliced through the air as the chain sword danced like a living serpent.
*Thwack!*
One of the oak demon vassals tried to block the incoming chain sword with branches. But it writhed like a living thing, slipping through the gap to sever the demon’s neck. It scattered blue sword light, felling vassals one after another.
“Gaaahk!”
“Kaaak!”
Heads and torsos severed, the oak demon vassals twisted and spewed brain matter as they crumbled.
Watching her casually shoot down vassals with her bow, the Taoist realized their power was overwhelming.
“Y-You demons!”
The Verdant Banner Sect Taoist screamed at the sight of his subordinates being slaughtered so easily and tried to cast a spell, but a shortsword—too large to call a dagger—pierced his arm.
“Argh!”
“Whoa there. Don’t move recklessly. I’ve still got a lot of questions for you.”
Bird Seraph had closed in unnoticed, pressing a blade to his throat.
“Don’t make me laugh! As if I’d submit to the likes of y—”
Branches erupted from beneath the Taoist’s feet, attacking Seraph. But in that instant, a black sword flash whipped through. The branches—and the Taoist’s legs—were sliced clean off.
“Oh dear… Looks like I inflicted a mortal wound. Surely a Nether vassal won’t die from losing a few legs?”
“Grk!”
Sure enough, the Taoist staunched the bleeding by sprouting branches from the stumps. Even so, it was clear he stood no chance against the Heralds.
“Already started?”
Just then, Arael appeared at the Verdant Banner Sect headquarters, Indim in tow. Fresh from her meeting with Azadin, she frowned.
“Lady Arael.”
“They dared lay hands on the Verdant Banner Sect?”
“Yes. I’m sorry, Lady Arael, but given Azadin’s temperament, there’s no way he’d hand over the drugs.”
Dimia’s younger sister, Jenis, spoke up, and Arael glared at her.
“You seem to know quite a bit about my brother.”
Arael extended her hand toward the fallen Taoist. His robes loosened, and a key flew out from within, sucked into her palm.
“So what do we do with this one?”
Seraph asked Arael, blade still at the Taoist’s throat.
“Drug him.”
Arael tossed Seraph the vial Azadin had refused. Seraph pried open the Taoist’s mouth with her blade and poured it in.
“Glurk?!”
The Taoist struggled, but the drug flooded his mouth mercilessly.
“There, choke it down and regret it, you idiot.”
Seraph sneered, forcing the drug on the Verdant Banner Sect Taoist before kicking him aside.
*********
Lightning tore the sky, slamming into the earth.
“My god. It’s the end of the world. We can’t stop it.”
Azadin despaired as bolts rained relentlessly on the camp.
Every time someone who’d taken the Verdant Banner Sect’s elixir turned vassal, lightning struck from the heavens.
Meaning, for every bolt, more vassals were emerging among the refugees right now.
With vassals spawning amid the refugees, walls and moats could no longer block their advance.
“It’s no good, Captain!”
Even Scott was overwhelmed by their numbers.
At first, Scott’s spirit arts made short work of the Nether vassals. But as if sharing intel among themselves, they began countering his techniques.
They prioritized destroying Scott’s undead, then swarmed him en masse.
“No end to them! Captain!”
“Yeah! Time for triage! To the Verdant Banner Sect headquarters!”
Azadin decided to stop fighting vassals here. Uncovering and addressing the root cause beat slaying them while rescuing people.
But that meant ignoring the dying—a bitter necessity.
No matter how hard Azadin, Zibek, and Scott fought, vassals kept spawning, killing people each time. Lingering here would just drag on until every dosed person died.
Azadin plotted the shortest route to the camp where the Verdant Banner Sect Taoist had been. He’d only clear vassals in the way.
Others would kill elsewhere, but Azadin was powerless to stop it.
‘Wasting time on unsolvable problems is foolish! This is the best we can do!’
Azadin cleaved obstructing vassals with his Awer steel longsword, heading for Baron Adiroph’s castle.
*********
Before the gates of Baron Adiroph’s castle. The Verdant Banner Sect Taoist lay collapsed in his own blood, while in the distance, Arael, the Four Seasons of Flowers and Birds—plus Jenis—approached the baron’s keep.
Too far.
Azadin gathered strength in his gut and bellowed Arael’s name at maximum volume.
“Arael!”
The vassal corpses strewn about began to twitch.
“Ugh?!”
“Careful, sir.”
Zibek warned, but Azadin watched calmly.
Then Arael’s voice came, via the artificial spirit she commanded, manifesting there.
[Ahh, Azadin. You’ll tear your throat shouting. Let’s talk like this. Then again, you can’t use proper magic yet?]
“What did you do?! Arael?”
[I got the key to the Verdant Banner Sect’s imperial treasury. Two keys. With these, the Emperor’s minting press is mine.]
“You… feel nothing? So many died because of what you did!”
[The Verdant Banner Sect idiots used Nether power stupidly. How’s that my fault?]
“You wouldn’t have flooded Koral Sahar in the first place! They wouldn’t be here dying! You teamed up with the nagas, slaughtered people in Koral Sahar—that’s why the flames spread here!”
[An interesting interpretation. Fine. I did stir things in Koral Sahar. But if I hadn’t, the Age of Jupiter would bring far greater sacrifices! I acted for the minimum sacrifice.]
“Unbelievable. If that was your ‘best’ for minimizing sacrifice, what would you have done to maximize it?”
[Sure. You could’ve done it with fewer deaths.]
“What?”
[So come to my side, Azadin. I need you to save people. I’ve no qualms using them as stepping stones—so protect them at my side.]
“…….”
Azadin was speechless. He hadn’t expected Arael to recruit him even now—under the banner of minimizing sacrifice?
‘Unreal. She kills them herself but wants me to hold her back? Right now?’
Arael’s pitch was so self-centered it stunned him.
[Of course, not right this instant.]
Suddenly, her voice boomed like an explosion.
“Ugh!”
“Captain!”
“Azadin!”
Scott and Zibek pointed to the fallen Verdant Banner Sect Taoist. As he rose, lightning cracked everywhere, vassals surging forth.
“Tch!”
Azadin drew his sword, tensing to charge and behead the Taoist in one stroke.
But the Taoist raised a hand.
“W-Wait! Calm down!”
“Huh?”
“I’m conscious! I’m fine!”
“…….”
Incredibly, the Verdant Banner Sect Taoist was fully aware. And more.
“First, I’ll control the vassals.”
He focused his mind, and the vassals flooding the baron’s front yard began to react.
Raw violence and feral beasts now showed organized movement and order. The Taoist was commanding them mentally.
He formed a small branch. Sleek like a crossbow bolt, its sharp tip could shred unarmored flesh easily.
The branch whistled through the air, striking a vassal’s thick bark. It fused like mistletoe on an ancient tree.
Then the miracle: the vassals regained reason.
“Uh. T-Taoist?”
“Eek, what’s this? My body?”
Humanity restored, their screams echoed.
Horrified, they’d forgotten—or couldn’t face—the atrocities they’d just committed, shocked by their transformed forms.
“E-Everyone! Have you seen a child I was with? Short-cropped hair, carrying this rag doll…”
The man speaking had a bloodied rag doll dangling pitifully from his branch. His child was likely gone from this world.
Azadin sheathed his sword and glared at the Taoist. The man had contained it, but if not for his elixirs, none of this would’ve happened.
Local diseases drove reliance on the drugs, so blame wasn’t solely theirs—but the blood-soaked doll seared into Azadin’s mind.
‘If I had eyes, I’d say it stuck to my retina.’
Azadin interrogated the Taoist.
“Composed now? Care to explain what happened—from your side, justify it as best you can. I’ll filter the bullshit. You know how many killed their families on my way here? How many I had to kill?”
Azadin’s voice trembled with fury.