Chapter 77

The deepest armory of the ‘Shadow Forge’.

In that place where only the clash of cold steel echoed, Rian was putting on his final equipment. What wrapped his body was not a simple light armor. It was the masterpiece that combined Meister Gideon and the dwarves’ craftsmanship with Rian’s demonic knowledge: the ‘Abyssal Carapace’.

The pitch-black alloy was made of a substance that did not exist in this world. Made from dragon scale powder, shadow iron ore, and a special catalyst only Rian knew, this armor was a living defense that absorbed physical impacts and Magic attacks and converted them into power. Its surface bore no pattern, only perfect darkness that swallowed even light. The full-face helmet magically amplified vision while modulating the wearer’s voice into a cold, mechanical tone.

Kael strapped a pair of pistol-like devices to his waist, the modified ‘Aura Rifle’. On his back was fixed a compact power unit for the ‘mana blade’, which shapes compressed mana into a blade. From head to toe, he was no longer the frail second son of the Aster family. He was the nameless embodiment of death, a perfect killing machine born to dominate the battlefield.

“Master, all preparations are complete.”

Before him, fifty elite members of the ‘Shadow Blade’, all wearing the same Abyssal Carapace, knelt. A fanatical loyalty burned in their eyes.

“Gideon, the ‘Purifier’?”

When Rian asked in the emotionless mechanical voice emanating from his helmet, Meister Gideon, pale-faced, pointed to several large metal crates.

“Th-there they are, sir. As promised, the most merciful and yet most brutal cleaning tools in the world.”

The ‘Purifier’.

It was not a bomb. It was a kind of magitech virus Rian had engineered by analyzing the spore structure of the plague. When the Purifier was dispersed into the air, its nano-particles would parasitize only the plague spores and, using their reproductive capability against them, spread exponentially. Then, on Rian’s signal, all particles would emit high-frequency vibrations simultaneously, perfectly disintegrating themselves and their hosts down to the molecular level. It was the most perfect incineration: reducing all infected organic matter to a harmless handful of gray dust, without pain or scream.

“Depart.”

At Rian’s short command, he and the Shadow Blade operatives headed to the hangar hidden beneath the forge. There awaited them the final invention: the silent airship ‘Night Phantom’, driven by a mana engine.

The abandoned land near the front lines, the Ashen Paradise.

Malak, apostle of the plague, was in rapture as he looked upon his creation. Tens of thousands of refugees were no longer human. They had become living towers of plague, corrupting and contaminating everything around them and expanding the cult’s territory. The square was a hell of rotting flesh, writhing maggots, and black spores, but to Malak it looked like the most beautiful garden in the world.

“More! I need more offerings! I will expand my garden across the continent and dedicate this world to our glorious lord!”

He roared, possessed by madness.

From the night sky, a vast shadow descended without a sound. From the Night Phantom, which blot out the moonlight, dozens of black shapes jumped without parachutes. They landed lightly on the outskirts of the hellish square like cats.

“Wh-what are those things!”

The cult’s lower priests discovered the intruders and were horrified. They immediately ordered the surrounding ‘incubators’ to attack the intruders. Hundreds of rotting refugees screamed and charged at the black figures.

But the intruders did not fight. They moved in perfect, mechanical unison and began installing Gideon’s metal crates, the ‘Purifiers’, at key points in the square.

“Fools! To walk into your own hell!”

Malak mocked their actions and set his most powerful creation, a massive lump of pus formed from dozens of tangled corpses, loose to overwhelm them.

When all the Purifiers had been installed, the one at the head of the black figures finally spoke.
His voice, filtered through the helmet, became a cold, inhuman mechanical tone that echoed across the square.

“Begin the cleansing.”

When Rian pressed the device on his wrist, every installed Purifier activated at once.

Wheeeee-!

An ultrasonic frequency inaudible to human ears spread across the square. At that moment, the movement of every charging creature froze in unison. And an unbelievable sight unfolded.

Their bodies began to crumble into gray dust from their toes upward. There were no screams, no pain. It was a silent annihilation, the very existence of them being erased from the world. The hell that tens of thousands of refugees had formed turned into a vast heap of ash scattering in the wind in mere seconds.

“No… this cannot be… my garden… my beautiful children…!”

Malak screamed as if he could not believe the scene unfolding before his eyes. His life’s masterpiece was disappearing into dust in an instant.

His enraged gaze turned to the mastermind behind it all, the commander in black armor.

“You… who are you! Speak your name, who dares defile God’s garden!”

Rian walked toward him slowly. A blue mana blade silently formed in his hand.

“I am a nameless cleaner.”

The emotionless mechanical voice flowed from the helmet.

“And you… are the filthiest trash that must be cleaned today.”