Chapter 39

“Are you a doctor? A demon like you!”

The robed man screamed in terror. He aimed the bone staff in his hand at Rian. A dark red flash burst from the skull’s eye sockets at the tip of the staff.

“Die! Become a sacrifice for my great lord! Cursed Spear!”

It was a vicious curse magic that attacked a creature’s soul directly to rot it. A pitch-black spear ripped through space toward Rian’s heart. But Rian did not dodge. He simply reached his hand into the air.

Kwaduk.

The flying Cursed Spear stopped as if hitting an invisible wall in front of Rian’s palm. No, it wasn’t merely stopped. The evil magical particles that formed the spear were being forcibly dismantled by Rian’s mana.

“My Magic… how….”

The robed man doubted his eyes. His finishing spell was dissolving into dust at the gesture of a young boy.

“Your Magic is unbearably crude.”

Rian said coldly.

“The efficiency of energy conversion is abysmal, and the bonding between constituent particles is utterly sloppy. With such toy-like power, you dared to make trouble in my hunting ground.”

Rian lightly clenched his hand. In that moment, the cursed spear was completely disintegrated, and Rian’s blue mana slithered out like a serpent, coiling around the robed man’s whole body.

“Kraaah! Th-this…!”

He screamed. It wasn’t a simple mana restraint. Rian’s mana penetrated his nervous system directly, firing every conceivable pain signal into his brain. Phantom pains of flesh tearing, bones breaking, intestines burning consumed his mind.

“Speak.”

Rian moved close to his chin and whispered, staring at him with eyes as deep as an abyss.

“Who sent you? What is this so-called ‘great lord’ of yours?”

“Guh… ugh… Kill me! I am a faithful servant of the great Ashen Worm! To heretics like you we are nothing… Kraaah!”

Upon hearing his answer, Rian increased the intensity of the constricting mana around him. This time he changed the type of agony: the sensation of thousands of sharp needles burrowing under fingernails and toenails, the feeling of eyeballs melting from the inside. There were no physical wounds, but the pain was so vivid it shredded his mind.

“I’ll ask again. What is your goal? Why target dragons?”

“Guh… ugh… Ignis… the body of that great dragon is… the most perfect vessel… the great altar upon which our lord will descend….”

Fragmentary information spilled from his pain-broken mouth.

‘Ashen Worm cult. They intend to use a dragon as a sacrifice to summon their god.’

Rian frowned as he pieced the information together. They weren’t mere black magicians or lunatics. A fanatic group with a vast purpose. Far more dangerous and unpredictable than worldly foes like the Marquis of the Reinhardt family or Valois.

“Where is your cult’s base? How many more like you are there?”

“I… don’t know… I’m just… chosen… I only serve the great will… a mere forerunner….”

“So you know nothing more, huh.”

Rian judged that the man’s soul had been shredded by pain and that it would be difficult to extract more information.

“Then your final role is to become my test subject.”

Rian released the constricting mana. As the robed man briefly gasped in relief from the pain, Rian spread his palm toward his heart.

‘Resonance Collapse.’

Wiiiiiing-!

A far more intricate and slower wave seeped into his body than before. The robed man stared at his fingertips in horror as the tips began to crumble into black dust. There was no pain. It was the most terrible punishment of all: to remain lucid and witness your existence being erased from the world.

“Th-this… demon… you are the true evil….”

He spat his last curse and was reduced to a handful of black ash from head to toe. Only the tattered robe and the bone staff he left behind lay on the ground.

Silence returned to the clearing. Kael emerged from the darkness. His face was ashen with shock. He trembled all over at the overwhelming power his master had displayed, and at the even more terrifying cruelty and coldness.

Rian crushed the bone staff that lay on the ground beneath his foot.

“Kael, tell Argos. Investigate everything about the ‘Ashen Worm cult.’ Search the entire empire, no, the entire continent, and uncover their true nature.”

Rian gazed off into the distance at the vast mountain range where the dragon Ignis lay sleeping.

“And I… should go meet an old friend after a long time.”