Apostle of the Goddess of War

Chapter 82

Ch.82 Apostle of the Goddess of War

“Have you ever heard of a Sword Master?”  

Fedebrenis paused briefly, then burst into laughter mixed with contempt and scorn.  

“Hah! Have you lost your mind? Why should I care about some measly standard created by insignificant humans? Within this sacred domain of decay, whether you’re a Sword Master or anything else, you’re equal—nothing more.”  

The Apostle of Decay was utterly confident in his absolute superiority.  

This space was saturated with the blessings granted by the Goddess of Decay. Within the Temple of Decay, he was immortal.  

“I don’t know exactly what that means.”  

But that was fine.  

Ignorance breeds carelessness.  

According to Garfenn, an ordinary apostle should possess at least the skill level of a Sword Master.  

There might be variations among them, but generally speaking, that was the standard.  

‘This demon too must be on the level of a Sword Master.’

Right now, he was underestimating Sion.  

He perceived him as threatening, but only that far.  

Merely a potential threat.  

Not an immediate one.  

Therefore.  

To suppress the power of Decay, Sion would need to manifest strength at that level.  

He had to instantly elevate his cultivation realm and finish this before the enemy could react.  

Sion didn’t reply any further. Slowly, he closed his eyes.  

In the middle of a fierce battle, closing one’s eyes with the enemy right in front of you was tantamount to suicide.  

“S-Sion!”  

Kegan shouted in alarm.  

Did he look like he had lost his will to fight and given up?  

‘Focus. There’s no time. Right now, I must borrow my master’s world.’

But Sion blocked out every distraction, diving endlessly into his inner self, into the deep, dark abyss.  

His concentration rose to its peak.  

Time stretched, elongated.  

He had to find it.  

That sensation he had accidentally brushed against during previous training.  

That fleeting moment when his will eroded reality, and the scenery in his mind unfolded before his eyes.  

The supreme domain where the mental landscape itself became his sword.  

“You foolish fool! You’re inviting death upon yourself!”  

Fedebrenis interpreted Sion’s strange behavior as arrogance-born carelessness.  

He wouldn’t let this opportunity slip.  

Gathering all remaining magical power, he prepared a final strike to etch the curse of Decay into this insolent knight forever.  

From his grip, dark, viscous destructive energy began to condense—as if sucking in all the surrounding swamps and corpses.  

Right at that moment,  

Something unexpected happened.  

Uuung.  

The space around Sion began to tremble faintly.  

The air rippled like a mirage, and invisible waves spread outward in concentric circles.  

The Temple of Decay, once filled with sticky marshes and clumps of rotting flesh, began transforming into a different landscape—like fresh paint layered over an old, filthy painting.  

The muddy swamp on the floor lost its moisture, cracked and dried into a parched, ashen wasteland.  

The chunks of flesh dripping viscous liquid from the ceiling lost their form, replaced by a dark sky where black iron clouds hung ominously.  

……And then.  

Countless swords appeared all around.  

Rusted and broken swords, swords abandoned after their owners perished, greatswords larger than a dragon’s bones.  

Like a massive graveyard where the history of countless wars lay dormant, swords stood like tombstones, forming an endless plain.  

―It was a battlefield.  

This was the mental realm of the Apostle of War, the Graveyard of Swords,  

Inheriting the will of the Goddess Achille.  

The remnants left behind after all wars, evil, and enemies were led to their end.  

The endless path walked by the Goddess of War and their apostles.  

Now, it overlaid the Temple of Decay and descended into reality.  

It wasn’t entirely Sion’s own creation.  

The mental realm he had observed wasn’t exactly like this.  

But now, time was too short. He had desperately tried to understand and recreate his master’s heart.  

It was a kind of copy.  

Since there wasn’t enough time to complete his own realm, Sion had recreated it by tracing the life and path of his master, which he had watched and guarded.  

Though imperfect, he had managed to reproduce it closely.  

Even Sion himself was amazed.  

[This is utterly ridiculous.]  

How much more so Achille?  

“What… what is this…!?”  

Fedebrenis couldn’t suppress his shock.  

The endless flow of infinite magical energy that had poured into his body suddenly stopped, as if a dam had been erected.  

The swamp he stood on vanished. Beneath his feet, he felt only the unfamiliar, dry texture of barren land.  

The ancient swords planted all around emitted a sharp, deadly aura merely by existing.  

The power of the Goddess of Decay, the very source of his strength, had completely disappeared. He was now trapped in a space intensely hostile to him.  

The cycle of decay and regeneration happening within his body visibly weakened.  

This unfamiliar space was no longer the domain ruled by the Goddess of Decay.  

On the other hand, the black sacred energy surrounding the War Knights flared up far more intensely and fiercely than before.  

This was their Goddess’s domain.  

The territory ruled by Achille, the Goddess of War, and her next apostle.  

They felt a comfort as if returning home, and an endless surge of power rising within them.  

Their fighting spirit caused the countless blades planted across the plain to faintly resonate and hum.  

The corrupted cultists, flailing in confusion, couldn’t handle this sudden change.  

They lost the power of Decay and fell to mere ordinary humans.  

At that moment, Sion slowly opened his eyes.  

His blue irises shone even deeper and colder than before, as if piercing through everything.  

He was no longer a weakling cast into this space.  

He had transformed the space itself into a domain of War.  

The tide of battle had turned.  

Whoosh.  

Sion infused a strand of black divine power into his sword.  

The eerie aura resonated with the power of the Goddess of War, beginning to draw out true strength.  

“In this place, neither your cycle nor your decay holds any power. Everything exists under the dominion of Goddess Achille.”  

No sooner had the words ended than Sion’s will stirred.  

Immediately, a massive greatsword planted beside him rose from the ground with a creaking sound.  

Whoosh—Uuung!  

Then, like a cannonball, it flew straight toward Fedebrenis.  

“Gahh!”  

Fedebrenis twisted his body barely in time to dodge, but the heavy blade grazed his shoulder, leaving a deep wound.  

Thick, moss-like, slimy blood dripped down.  

The wound no longer regenerated quickly as before. It neither decayed nor cycled.  

It simply faced annihilation.  

The nature of the battle had completely and utterly changed.  

Sion was no longer fighting alone. Hundreds, thousands of swords planted in the Graveyard of Swords awakened one by one, obeying his will.  

Psshut!  

Swords embedded in the ground shot into the sky.  

The blades flying into the air began raining down like a meteor shower.  

Papapapapap!  

Sion, like a maestro conducting a grand symphony, or a commander leading a vast army, simply stood and infused his will into the mental realm.  

Kegan, witnessing this unbelievable spectacle, trembled.  

A trembling voice escaped his lips.  

“This can’t be… I knew back then he wasn’t ordinary—”  

“C-commander, what is all this?”  

Jena asked, her eyes wide open.  

“A Sword Master. When an apostle of a Goddess reaches the supreme domain, they manifest a barrier.”  

“What?”  

“This scene we’re seeing right now—it’s the inside of that boy’s mind. He’s bringing that inner world into reality to fight.”  

Swords flew about freely, slaughtering even the priests of decay.  

The War Knights didn’t need to do anything more.  

More than relief at having survived, they were overwhelmed with shock at this utterly alien sight and at the genius of the knight named Sion.  

Kegan’s lips twisted.  

This was a realm he had spent his entire life striving to reach.  

The mental realm.  

Kegan had manifested it before.  

But never to this extent.  

His manifestation lasted mere seconds.  

The area he could project was extremely limited.  

‘But this…’

Even Kegan, who had briefly stepped into the domain of a Sword Master, had never even imagined a level like this.  

‘It’s impossible. That kid Sion is far more monstrous than I thought.’

His level of talent was so bizarre that calling him merely an apostle of a Goddess didn’t do justice.  

Beyond mere awe, it felt like witnessing a living myth—a sublime sensation.  

“Graaaaaah!”  

Fedebrenis desperately thrashed about.  

He squeezed out every last drop of magical power to create a shield of Decay, struggling to survive amid the storm of falling swords.  

But having lost his domain and trapped in the heart of the Graveyard of Swords, he was no match for Sion.  

Dozens, hundreds of swords pierced through his body.  

His flesh turned into ragged, tattered scraps.  

His once-immortal body now bore only pitiful wounds, completely losing its regenerative power.  

“Gah! Why… why is this happening!”  

His anguished scream echoed hollowly across the plain.  

Sion slowly approached him. All the swords that had pointed at the Apostle of Decay tilted to the sides, as if opening a path.  

Sion stood before Fedebrenis, who knelt, battered and broken.  

“It’s over.”  

Sion raised the sword in his hand. Without a shred of hesitation, he thrust it straight into Fedebrenis’s heart.  

Right at that moment.  

Kwadddrrr—!  

A thunderous roar sounded, as if the world itself were being torn apart.  

A massive crack appeared in the black sky Sion had created. It was as if someone outside were tearing the canvas of the sky with enormous fingernails.  

“…!?”  

Sion instinctively sensed danger and snapped his head upward.  

Beyond the torn sky, something appeared.  

A giant eye.  

An indescribable presence locked onto Sion.  

The moment he met that endless green eye, a primordial fear, as if freezing his very soul, overwhelmed him.  

It choked off his breath completely.  

“Mother—!”  

At that moment, Fedebrenis, on the verge of annihilation, reached his hands toward the sky.  

Kneeling, arms spread wide, he cried out with a voice like a hundred choirs.  

“Most merciful Goddess of mine! Mother of decay and cycle! Save this feeble lamb!”  

Kugugung.  

The dark sky began turning green. Sion’s glare pierced the Apostle of Decay.  

The unfolding situation was strange.  

‘Has the Goddess of Decay descended personally?’

His judgment was swift, his action without delay.  

Sion moved with sharper agility than ever before, swinging his sword in a semicircle.  

He intended to cut off the head before it could scream further.  

A dull thud mixed with the wind. The sword clashed with the corrupt magical energy.  

In the unstable space where the domains of Decay and War were chaotically mixed, red blood splattered.  

“Ugh, ugh.”  

It was Sion’s blood.  

The Goddess of Decay herself had descended, blocking Sion’s attack and striking him in defense of her apostle.  

No matter how strong Sion was, he couldn’t compare to an evil deity.  

…Or so it should have been.  

[…?]  

The Goddess of Decay silently looked down at her own hand. A wound had appeared on her forearm.  

A crack formed on her pale, porcelain-like skin, devoid of blood.  

It was merely a sword swung by a human.  

Yet that sword had damaged the body of an evil deity.  

The Evil Deity of Decay thought.  

The Apostle of War truly was disgusting, terrifying, and annoying.  

She had made a vow before many other evil deities: today, at this very place, she would eliminate this man named Sion.  

Thus, she had descended personally.  

Using the spiritual power of this temple and all the accumulated magical energy as an offering.  

[…I must rip out his heart.]  

The power of decay seeped into the wound on Sion’s chest. Sion rapidly lost consciousness. Even he couldn’t resist this magical energy.  

Squelch.  

The Goddess of Decay stepped lightly forward. Swamps formed wherever her feet touched, and new plants sprouted around her.  

Her delicate hand reached toward the suffering Sion.  

Right at that moment.  

[…?]  

The Goddess of Decay’s head slowly turned upward.  

She stared into the sky, unable to look away for a moment.  

Fedebrenis, unable to bear the silence, prostrated himself and asked.  

“My Goddess, is there a problem…?”  

The Goddess of Decay remained silent for a moment. Her unrealistically beautiful face was frozen.  

[It is coming.]  

“What?”  

[War is coming.]

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