Demon Bible

Chapter 163: Martyr

'There must be a discrepancy between his actual position and the source of the noise.'

'And right now, I only have enough strength for a single close-range strike...' the Black Masked Priest thought to himself as he muffled his footsteps and slowly closed the distance.

'That's right, just a little closer, and then...' Actively channeling his Mental Power at such a high intensity for the excavation work caused the black aura around Fass's body to tremble violently. Once he finished preparations, that black energy seeped directly into the steel orbs.

He waited in the shadows, ready to deliver a fatal blow!

The Black Masked Priest on the other side shared the exact same intention.

For the sake of their grand cause, he had to ensure that Fass died—completely and utterly!

Their breathing and heartbeats slowed to a crawl in that tense moment.

Neither dared to make a sound, terrified that the slightest noise would lead to their downfall.

Under this crushing pressure, time seemed to drag on agonizingly slowly.

The sound of the Black Masked Priest's footsteps vanished shortly after. Hiding down in the trench, Fass had no idea where his enemy was lurking.However, in the very next second, Fass heard a sudden shift.

The battle erupted in a flash.

A massive cluster of steel orbs tore through the soil, erupting upward like aggressive sprouts breaking through the earth.

They punctured through the surface, shooting toward the Black Masked Priest's body one after another in a lethal swarm.

In that exact instant, the Black Masked Priest pinpointed Fass's location.

A dull, lightless shield suddenly materialized around him, completely enveloping his body.

As the steel orbs slammed into the barrier, they were instantly deflected and sent ricocheting away.

The Black Masked Priest, meanwhile, sensed the violent fluctuations of Mental Power and the rustling sounds of a humanoid lifeform moving.

He struck back decisively. Multiple orbs of light floating around him flared up with blinding intensity.

One beam of light fired from a single orb, looking no different from a standard energy attack.

The second beam, however, was combined from several orbs. It took the jagged shape of lightning and pulsed with an ominous, purplish-red hue.

This purplish-red lightning moved incredibly fast, but its mass deteriorated just as rapidly.

By the time it reached its target, the beam had shrunk from the thickness of a fist to the width of a single finger.

The two radiant beams streaked through the air and converged at a single point over a specific section of the trench.

The close-range collision of these two similar attacks triggered a terrifying burst of kinetic energy.

A massive shockwave erupted from the point of impact. The surrounding soil was ruthlessly compressed and blasted away, as if crushed by an invisible giant hand.

"This specialized attack method I chose sacrifices the ability to harm inanimate objects in exchange for unmatched speed and raw power."

"But that does not mean I lack other ways to eliminate you," the Black Masked Priest murmured, standing a short distance away. Looking at the crater filled with blood-soaked mud, he was fairly certain that Fass had been pulverized into a fleshy pulp by the explosive shockwave.

"You are the eighth—no, the ninth person I have killed in this manner. I will remember you." As the Black Masked Priest spoke, Al's face drifted into his mind, prompting him to slightly amend his tally.

Yet, the very moment those words left his lips, an instinctive sense of dread washed over him.

"Is that all the people you've killed?" Sure enough, the sudden mocking question startled the Black Masked Priest, but it was already too late for him to react.

Massive amounts of black aura slithered outward, solidifying into thick chains that tightly bound the priest.

A relatively unscathed Fass stepped out from the shadows nearby.

Realizing something, the Black Masked Priest quickly scanned his surroundings. Al's corpse was completely gone.

It became sickeningly obvious that the bloody pulp crushed into the mud by the shockwave was none other than Al.

From the very beginning, Fass's decision to extend the crater into a trench served a dual purpose. Beyond simply concealing his position and increasing his margin of error, he wanted to secure Al to use as a body double. By excavating the earth and tossing the dirt to the sides, he had buried Al's corpse under a heavy layer of soil before quietly dragging it away.

Afterward, he infused the black energy into Al's lifeless body, manipulating the corpse to emit fluctuations of Mental Power and mimic the rustling sounds of a living, breathing person.

Through this gruesome deception, Fass successfully fooled the Black Masked Priest and executed his perfect counterattack.

"Oh God, please forgive me," the Black Masked Priest whispered his repentance almost immediately.

"Heh, what a devout monk," Fass sneered mockingly. While remaining highly alert for any retaliatory Spells, he reached out and ripped off the priest's black mask.

A strange, fleshy texture and the sickening sound of tearing tissue made Fass freeze.

He then realized that the priest's actual face was entirely fused to the mask.

The flesh and blood were interwoven with the dark material; his true visage had long been permanently replaced by the disguise.

By now, Fass had learned quite a bit about the inner workings of the Precept Church.

Only an Ascetic who strictly adhered to the doctrines of the God of Precepts would ever subject themselves to something so horrifying.

It was just that Ascetic Priests were incredibly rare. Order, Energy Conservation, Restraint, Laws, and Limit—among the current Priests and Holy Knights of the Precept Church, those who could uphold even a single one of these virtues were few and far between.

Let alone a fanatic, an Ascetic, a Martyr who completely adhered to all of the doctrines and forged them into his own personal Precepts!

Destroying his face and hiding his name so he no longer possessed any other worldly identity—this was Order.

Forsaking all material desires and physical pleasures, wearing simple white robes, and rejecting all luxury—this was Energy Conservation.

Choosing a power that caused minimal environmental destruction, utilizing specialized light beams that only clashed with the Supernatural—this was Restraint.

Immediately offering a prayer of repentance to his deity the moment he realized he made a mistake—this was Laws.

Fass couldn't help but stare in sheer disbelief. He never expected his opponent to be a genuine Ascetic Priest.

Then, he noticed the priest's Mental Power beginning to spike wildly, followed by a terrifying surge of energy radiating from deep within the man's body.

Fass's black aura surged forward to suppress him, but he found that the priest's spirit had essentially taken root, locking itself immovably into the surrounding space.

"Run, Fass," Nemus's voice echoed in his mind right at that moment.

"This is a specialized Spell of the Church. It will obliterate his own body along with every trace in the surrounding area. The moment it activates, it is already too late for you to stop it."

"Restricting the spread of knowledge and technique—this is Limit."

Without hesitation, Fass released the Black Masked Priest and sprinted madly into the distance.

The Black Masked Priest was embracing martyrdom through death. He wasn't trying to drag Fass down with him; rather, guided by his shifting ideology, this was the optimal solution he had found.

By invoking the Limit Spell, he was declaring his unyielding faith through death while simultaneously erasing all environmental traces of the battle.

If Fass didn't want to die, his only option was to flee.

When Isabella eventually arrived to investigate the scene, she might still harbor suspicions, but her primary focus would be on hunting down Fass.

After all, something like the Limit Spell was deeply tied to the Church. It was a final act of Self-Sacrifice designed to ensure a believer's soul wouldn't fall into the hands of a Demon under extreme circumstances.

Even the soul itself would be broken down into the most basic Ether and Elements by the Limit Spell.

Faced with such a grim scene, no matter how much Isabella doubted the events, she would be forced to pay her respects. Not even she necessarily possessed the raw courage required to perform such an act.

With this final move, the Black Masked Priest had managed to salvage a pyrrhic victory of sorts from an impossible situation.

Having escaped to a safe distance, Fass glanced back at the battlefield that was instantly leveled to the ground, watching as the Black Masked Priest dissolved into nature without leaving a single trace behind.

The thrill of defeating an Iron Rank opponent seemed to fade away right along with him.