Chapter 64
Chapter 64
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: uly
Chapter: 64
Chapter Title: The Heretics
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Gil had no choice but to quietly lower the two hands he was holding up. The ones standing before his eyes right now were fundamentally the same as those who had been filled with pus and couldn't even die.
"Are you Demons?"
They had drawn the mark of the Demons on their faces, after all.
Human, yet not human. Human, yet having abandoned their humanity. Corrupted by sin. Gil's large hands were trembling.
What was this trembling? Hesitation? Or some kind of pain? No, perhaps it was helplessness.
"What in the world..."
What exactly were Demons? Were these people Demons? Or humans? If humans, then why?
He stared at the blind murderous intent slowly approaching him.
Once again, helplessness overwhelmed his sense of justice. Even though he had the power, he lacked the justification to judge them-and he knew he could only pity them, unable to turn them back.
One among those filled with murderous intent, who seemed to be their leader, raised his hand. And then, those with blood-red, watery eyes charged at Gil and Bison.
"Kill those who follow the Goddess!"
"To the second floor!"
Kwachik!
Bison grabbed the dazed Gil's hand and pulled him along. As the table shattered in that instant, Gil was lost in thought once more. Can I kill the one trying to kill me right now?
In that moment, the sword of a heretic who did not follow Miflas flew toward the staggering Gil's neck.
"What are you standing there for?!"
Fortunately, Bison knocked it away with his horn. But Gil still hadn't stopped hesitating. He hadn't ceased his deliberations. He simply stood firm at the stairs to the second floor, taking every slash from those charging at him with swords drawn, blocking the way with his massive frame weighed down by doubt.
"Go up and grab your sword, Bison."
"Are you... alright?"
Bison glanced back at Gil's broad back as he ascended slightly.
"No."
The heretics' swords could only leave scratches; they couldn't pierce the body of Senior Knight Gil of the Sonain Empire's 2nd Knight Order, now even stronger after inheriting and manifesting the sword's legacy. Instead, they only made his doubts heavier.
"Then I'll hurry and grab my sword and armor!"
"Who are you? No, what are you?"
Gil asked, gazing heavily at those trying to kill him with lowered eyes.
"I, Senior Knight Gil of the Sonain Empire's 2nd Knight Order, will ask again. Why have you abandoned your humanity? Why do you not follow the Goddess? Why do you try to kill us without hesitation?"
Even as he crushed the collarbone of one twisting his unyielding sword this way and that with all his might and asked again, they gave no answer. They merely screamed in agony.
"Kraaaah!"
Unable to overcome his sorrow, Gil gripped the man's shoulder as if squeezing it and hurled him toward the group.
Kwang!
"Who gave you the authority to do this?"
He himself was hesitating so much to kill them, claiming they were still human. Even though these people were blindly trying to kill him, he was doing his utmost to uphold the justice he believed in.
And at that moment, the one who seemed to be the heretics' leader drew a long curved sword.
"Are you afraid of me too?"
As Gil's eyes flashed, the leader sliced cleanly toward the cheekbone of a trembling subordinate beside him. Even as the head split perfectly in two and fell, those red, diseased eyes were frantically spinning, trying to comprehend the situation.
"No."
From amid the scattering heretic blood, the one with the reddest, most distorted pupils spoke. Gil could immediately tell from the feat he'd just witnessed that this one was clearly different from the others.
"Then you can answer me. Why did you draw the Demons' mark on your faces?"
"Demons' mark?"
The heretics' leader twisted his expression as if sneering. But it felt less like a sneer and more like despair-and the pained look of someone suffering from illness. Gil realized the man wasn't feeling any emotion; he was just acting.
Gil felt as if the man had discarded all other emotions in his life, living solely to kill him.
"The Empire defined this as the Demons' mark, but the one who created it predates the Empire. We call it the brand of those abandoned by the gods, knight of the Empire."
"Then why are you trying to kill me?"
"Just you? We are always the starving hunters who prey on you all, the guardians of Godell's borders for the Empire."
The one who spat words like poison licked the blade that had slain his subordinate. As if some curse had taken hold, his skin festered and burst, turning even blacker.
"So that's how it is."
Gil considered those who had charged at him mere regular knights at best-far too lacking to face him.
"They were just your tools."
But from the spell the heretic leader had just used on his subordinate, he realized the truth. He didn't know the full details, but these people were blocking knights from the Empire. If the weak ones were killed by underlings, and if the underlings couldn't handle them, they sacrificed their lives to empower the leader and kill somehow.
Hunters of Godell who preyed on the Empire's knights. But why?
"For now, I won't kill you. We need to talk. You might know the answers to my questions."
"Arrogant. You mean to fight me without even drawing your sword?"
"No."
Gil approached step by step, not even adopting a stance, let alone drawing a sword.
"It's justice."
Kwang!
Then, with invisible speed, he swung that massive fist. The heretics' leader flew in an instant, crashing through the inn's wall into the stable connected outside. As the dirt wall crumbled and dust flew, Gil entered the stable and spoke.
"I know that much won't kill you."
Blood flowed from his large hand.
He had clearly intended to block with his sword and counter. Strong and fast. A reaction he couldn't have managed without resolve to die.
Then what was this twisted one waiting for? Gil turned his eyes to the heretic leader he had sent flying.
From Gil's merciless punch, the shoulder bones were pulverized to powder, bursting flesh outward. Arms, legs, even the neck twisted and broken from the impact, yet he still wore that expression. And he hadn't dropped his sword.
"The heretics' spell?"
As if answering Gil's question, the twisted one rose from the pooled blood. Bones cracked as he dangled his grotesquely turned neck, lifting his glaring red eyes to scan around. Then he charged-not at Gil, but at the trembling horses.
Kwang!
Moreover, the wall of the room where Bison and Gil had stayed collapsed, their swords, shields, and armor tumbling down along with three more black-skinned ones toward the stable.
"Knight! There were more in the room!"
Even as Bison shouted from upstairs, they all refused to let go of their swords, lunging at the horses. The horses neighed wildly and reared, but tripped over their chains. Despite shaking their massive bodies, the twisted ones clung on and "fed." They tore skin with blades and drank blood.
"Kyaa!"
Eyes devoid of reason. Rather than stop them immediately, Gil first grabbed his sword.
"I wanted to ask why."
He spoke heavily as he raised it. Can I kill them? The answer to that question had just been proven by their actions.
"One... my justice does not permit it..."
Gil slowly raised his sword toward the enemy. The Demons' mark was no longer the issue. Whether they were human or Demon no longer mattered. They had no right to breathe. Not a single one was just.
If not just, then the only answer was to cut them down.
"Die!"
Gil charged at those drinking the horses' blood, unarmored. He swung wide with the flames of his justice, and the four who seemed to be heretic leaders gladly met the blaze, swinging swords as they leaped at him.
Their movements were sinuous like filthy swamp snakes, but with broken bones, their sword paths were chaotic, obscuring Gil's vision wildly.
"Kraaak!"
But Gil, swinging his blade back without a hint of recoil, was faster. The heretic leader screamed and exploded the instant he touched the flames.
Blood and brains splattered, and the other heretic leaders devoured and drank it, morphing into even more horrific forms. Black aura rose from them, shaking their mangled pupils further. They vomited black blood. It'splashed toward Gil too, but was blocked by his flames, and he aimed his sword again.
"You are the hypocrites! We will block you from reaching Godell! Empire!"
Then, one of the twisted ones raised his sword and plunged it into his own neck.
"Trying to get stronger?"
The one covered even in the black blood of the freshly dead trembled as he spoke.
"Justice? Don't make me laugh... You probably never learned the history where we were cast out as heretics for not believing in the gods. We are human. We are the humans. Only we are human!"
He began to swell. Clearly building to explode like pus. A life-sacrificing attack-better to flee than block. Gil thought so and moved to escape.
But in that brief moment, his eyes met those of the innkeeper's family hiding in the stable.
"Damn it...!"
The one whose skin tore, continuously vomiting black blood and expanding, burst an eyeball and cracked his skull. Cannot block. But cannot flee.
Gil hurled his body toward the innkeeper's family and raised his sword.
And then.
Swipe.
Space tore, slicing the heretic leader. Quite literally, his body was sucked into the rift as if severed from space itself. And Gil remembered that technique.
"D-Demon King?"
The one who had just used it slowly walked into the stable, clad in black rags.