novelraw Chapter 212 : Chapter 212
Chapter 212 : Chapter 212
Chapter 212: Subjugation Battle (12)
“……Maria?”
Maria.
Former Godok rank 30.
However, after being freed from the village, she had taken over the mafia in Crove Kingdom and was carving out her own life.
I still remembered. Though it was a short meeting, the impact Maria had given Harang was not small. The sight of her, who for the first time in her life had formed precious connections and was putting all her effort into protecting them... felt like looking at himself in a mirror, so it remained in his heart for quite a long time.
But now.
Maria, who had welcomed him with a bright smile completely different from the village, stood before him in a form utterly unlike before.
Wooooong……
The energy flowing from the sword blade was not aura. Her weapon, covered in something dark red like human blood, was as ugly and revolting as if pulled from filth.
That wasn’t the only strange thing.
Her eyes had no focus.
Her skin was deathly pale.
In her bizarre appearance, like a stuffed dead person, Harang stepped back half a step and called the opponent’s name again.
“Maria? How on earth are you here…….”
There was no answer.
Shweeeeeek-!
Maria quickly stepped forward two paces and swung her sword. An angry slash. In the diagonal slashing motion where humans instinctively exerted the greatest power, the form was utterly simple, but the might was considerable. Moreover, her skills had improved quite a bit; the strike, a level stronger than what he had seen before, targeted Harang’s upper body.
Of course, that much couldn’t harm Harang.
He retreated exactly one step, just the necessary distance, and reflexively extended his sword. The purple sword blade that cut through space aimed to pierce Maria’s neck fatally hot and chillingly sharp.
“……!”
However, he couldn’t do it.
In the past, he would have slashed the opponent without hesitation. The Harang from the village, who swung his sword day after day to survive without any hope or reward, would have collected a peer’s head as if it were nothing and left it rolling on the blood-caked ground.
But the current Harang was a completely different person from then.
Now, unlike in the village, Harang had found meaning in life.
He knew that just as his own life was precious, so were others’ lives.
Moreover, he recognized that Maria was in a situation no different from his own. Just as he had come here to protect his precious connections, the her he had met in the past was also doing everything she could to protect her family.
“Hmm!”
Baaang!
Thus, all he could do was kick the opponent away.
Kwa-kwa-kwa-kwa-boom-!
Maria, hit by a moderately powered front kick, scraped roughly across the ground and flew far away. She wouldn’t die, but it wasn’t an attack easy enough for her to get up right away.
She probably wouldn’t be able to exert any more strength in this battle.
Deliberately not looking toward Maria, Harang gripped his sword tightly with both hands again and shifted his steps toward the Village’s General Manager.
And shortly after.
Seeing another figure blocking his path, he couldn’t help but wear a dazed expression.
“……Werner.”
Former Godok rank 10, and the younger brother of rank 7 Cecilia.
Unlike Cecilia, he was a guy Harang had seen once at Viscount Kilkearn’s territory and never met again. Honestly, he wasn’t a type Harang particularly liked. Unlike himself, who had killed peers only when necessary, those two had killed Godoks like enjoying a sport. They had solidified their positions through that.
‘But... the them I saw at Viscount Kilkearn’s territory were prepared to transform into beings completely different from their village selves.’
Yes.
Unlike Maria, he honestly didn’t know exactly what future they had hoped and dreamed for. Perhaps their lives ahead would remain as trashy as before, unchanged.
However, the appearance of Werner standing before him now.
And the sight of Maria crawling on the ground after being kicked away....
It was nothing but a miserable form where the possibilities of their futures, which should have been rightfully theirs, were completely confiscated.
Yes.
He already knew.
He had already realized.
That they were in a state where they had lost their lives, that they had fallen victim to the Red Magician’s black magic sorcery and were moving like puppets without reason... he knew better than anyone from the moment their eyes met.
Kwaaaaaang!
Werner swung his sword.
No, Werner’s corpse swung the sword. It was a rough and powerfully explosive attack, just like in life. Harang moved his body reflexively again, and the sword that struck the ground was raised in a slash targeting Harang’s chin.
It was Reverse Lightning. But at the same time, it wasn’t Reverse Lightning. Unlike the village technique that killed presence to the extreme and struck suddenly, Werner’s sword now only conveyed the will to corrupt and destroy the opponent. Because it was an attack like a skeleton soldier manipulated by a demon’s whisper, Harang realized once more.
The opponent....
‘Isn’t Werner. Not my peer... anymore.’
Kwaang!
He slammed the downward slash with the opponent’s greatsword back into the ground.
Then, Werner’s corpse immediately released the sword and charged into close-quarters combat.
Seeing that, Harang retreated faster than his charging speed to create distance and swung his sword. No, precisely, he tried to swing but stopped.
He didn’t want to slash.
He wanted to somehow return the opponent to normal.
What if they weren’t dead?
What if it wasn’t death, but just temporary loss of reason due to brainwashing magic? Such thoughts complicated his mind.
Of course, that was an absurd notion.
Harang was more sensitive to the opponent’s energy than anyone, and there was no way he wouldn’t sense the aura of death.
No, leaving all that aside... just looking at the corrupted energy they were emitting from their swords, anyone could guess. What filled their bodies wasn’t pure aura solidly built through physical training, but merely death qi and demonic energy filthily gathered through wicked magic.
‘Damn it, damn it...!’
Slash-!
In the end.
Harang slashed Werner.
Avoiding, avoiding, and avoiding the opponent’s relentless charges... he inevitably raised his sword and slit the throat.
Whoosh, Werner’s head soared high into the sky, rolled far away de-gururur, and stopped with a thud at someone’s feet. Harang looked at him, and he looked back at Harang.
It was a peer.
Another peer.
Former Godok rank 21, Metz.
The moment he faced the opponent, who unlike the brief meeting at Viscount Kilkearn’s territory, was twisting his head side to side with pale skin and unfocused eyes... Harang felt his patience snap with a crack.
An enormous roar burst from his mouth.
“You fucking bastards!”
Booom!
Fwooooosh-!
Tzzzzzzzz……!
Intense energy erupted from Harang’s body.
It was hot like a volcano just beginning to erupt, and painfully cold like the blade wind at the peak of the northern mountains in midwinter.
That wasn’t all.
Though no one had noticed yet, the tremendous stress and anxiety blooming from deep in his heart were granting him another power, a third power.
Only the Village’s General Manager, guessing what was happening to Harang, showed a brilliantly bright smile.
“Uwaaaaaaaa!”
Harang’s nerves didn’t extend that far.
Though until just before he had been clashing swords with the Village’s General Manager in a life-and-death battle, now his gaze was on something far more important. It was granting rest to his peers scattered widely throughout the cavern.
Thud-!
He stomped hard and leaped high into the air. He quickly scanned the battlefield. His accelerated thoughts gripped the flowing time as if stopping it. Then, like a photograph ignited by magic, in the precise information, the peers wandering as corpses were inputted one by one into his mind.
As if diving toward the ground, Harang bent his upper body downward and concentrated aura at his feet.
Boooom-!
With the explosion of flame aura, he shot like an arrow from the sky at tremendous speed and slashed one peer’s neck.
Aratus.
Former Godok rank 9.
He too was a guy met at Viscount Kilkearn’s territory. A being who earned hatred from many with his cynical personality, but that didn’t mean he deserved this fate. At least, that’s what Harang thought.
Booom-!
Again, Harang burst flames at his feet and moved at incredible speed.
What appeared before him was another Godok corpse. Unlike the other peers who retained relatively intact forms, this one was impressively modified. Connected to monster corpses, with six arms extended, it swung the six arms in attack without recognizing Harang at all, and Harang looked at it with eyes stained in sorrow and rage.
Then, with all his might, he shattered the body with a powerful strike.
Kwa-kwa-kwa-kwa-boom-!
It wasn’t just a normal sword cut.
As if at the center of an explosion, the entire upper body burst and vanished like annihilation—the chimera Godok.
Harang still remembered his name was Benriak.
‘Hmm... This is dangerous.’
At that time.
The Red Magician, fighting against the Masters including Heitz and Gael, was showing discomfort while watching Harang’s rampage.
Since the Village’s General Manager was at a disadvantage, he had hastily pulled out the power he had been saving, but instead, it seemed to have stimulated Harang. Seeing him dominate the battlefield with far more tremendous power than before, respect and possessiveness arose, but at the same time, anxiety surpassing that welled up in his heart.
Of course, he didn’t think he would lose.
A magician prepared and readied until the very last.
He had prepared a magic circle composed of inverted pentagrams throughout the cavern in case he was pushed into such a disadvantage, and after the long battle, sacrifices had been steadily offered.
Soon, due to Harang’s rampage, and the subjugation team members’ corpses, the desired amount of blood, flesh, and souls would be gathered.
With that, he wouldn’t be able to be defeated as he grew stronger again.
Yes, it had to be that way.
But....
Whoosh-
Booom!
Shweeeeeek-!
Slash!
Kwa-kwa-kwa-kwa-boom!
“…….”
Something was off.
Precisely, the atmosphere emanating from Harang’s body, his presence, made the Red Magician ring alarm bells in his mind.
‘What is it?’
Dodging numerous attacks from the subjugation team members, counterattacking, and fighting back, the Red Magician furrowed his brow.
He had felt it before. He had definitely felt this emotion before.
To resolve the itch in his mind, he concentrated even more mental energy on that part than on the battle, and finally reached one conclusion.
However, it forced the Red Magician to recall an unbelievable fact.
Inevitably, the oppressive feeling emanating from Harang’s body now was like....
‘The one I felt only when I first witnessed a demon...!’
Crackle-!
It was at that moment.
Harang, who had finally destroyed all the peers’ corpses.
Yellow sparks began to burst from his body.
Crackle, crackle-!
In the darkest part of the cavern.
There, the black-haired assassin stood tall with his head bowed, as if exhausted, his sword held in one hand dangling toward the ground.
On his sword, yellow energy overlaid, beginning another evolution.