Chapter 78

“Trash? You dare, you dare call me the divine’s emissary!”

The last tether holding back the reason of the Apostle of the Plague, Malak, snapped. A dark-red plague aura burst from his body like a storm. The ashen dust scattered on the ground reacted to his power, writhing like living serpents as it gathered around him.

“I will eat the flesh beneath your arrogant shell, melt your bones, and make you fertilizer for my most beautiful garden!”

When Malak spread his arms, dozens of enormous bone tendrils like insect legs sprouted from his back. At the same time, the ash and rotting earth on the ground coalesced into dozens of massive mud giants, the ‘Golems of Decay’, and surged toward Rian and his Shadow Blade.

“Shadow Blade, spread out. Destroy those things’ cores and open the way for our lord.”

Kael, standing behind Rian, gave the cold command in Rian’s stead. Fifty shadows clad in pitch-black armor dispersed in perfect formation. They were no longer a human unit, one perfect organism moving under the command of Rian’s mind.

The Aura Rifles in their hands began to spit fire.

Tatatatat- bang!

Blue mana bolts cleaved through the pitch-black darkness. There were no gunshots, only the sharp ripping crack of compressed mana tearing the air. The mana shots pierced the hard earthen armor of the Golems of Decay like tofu and struck the ominous cores glowing at their centers, destroying them precisely. The golems, their cores gone, lost power and collapsed into heaps of dust.

Meanwhile, Rian moved solely toward Malak.

Mana erupted beneath his feet, firing his body like a projectile. It was the small mana thruster built into the Abyssal Shell. Watching Rian close at a speed no human eye could follow, Malak was aghast. Instinctively, he swung his bone tendrils to defend himself.

Kaka-kakang!

Rian drew an Aura Rifle from his hip. As he approached, with almost possessed marksmanship he intercepted every incoming tendril midair. Each time a mana round struck a bone tendril, flame and shards of bone scattered in all directions.

“You…!”

As Malak staggered back in panic, Rian was already at his nose. Rian sheathed the Aura Rifle and activated the small power unit on his back.

Ssshhh-!

From his right hand, compressed pure mana formed a one-meter-long blue blade, the Mana Blade.

“Disappear.”

With a mechanical voice through his helmet, the Mana Blade traced a pitch-black arc and sliced through Malak’s remaining tendrils. The cross-sections were clean as if cut by a laser, and the severed tendrils were consumed by Blue Flame and turned to ash before they hit the ground.

“Kraaah!”

Malak screamed and rolled on the ground. He could not comprehend what was happening before his eyes. This opponent was not a mage, nor a knight, unknown armor and weapons, and power beyond understanding. It was like a reaper come from the future.

“Die! Die! Die! Curse of Corruption!”

Cornered, Malak gathered all his power and cast the worst area curse, corrupting the very air around him. Centered on Rian, a radius of dozens of meters was shrouded in a dark-red plague mist. Rocks that touched the mist melted, the earth vomited black pus and rotted. Any living thing that touched it would have flesh and bone separated and dissolved, a zone of absolute death.

But Rian stood unmoved in place.

[External environment contamination level: danger threshold reached. Internal life-support systems and mana purification filters activating.]

A cold system voice rang inside the helmet. A faint blue membrane formed on the Abyssal Shell’s surface and decomposed the lethal cursed mist into harmless mana particles before it could touch the armor.

“Im… impossible… my curse…”

When even his last trump card failed, Malak lost the will to fight and, terrified, began to flee.

Rian did not pursue him. He simply aimed an Aura Rifle at Malak’s retreating back. The helmet’s targeting system marked both of Malak’s knee joints with red crosshairs.

Taang! Taang!

Two mana rounds pierced his knees with surgical precision.

“Kraaaaaak!”

Malak screamed and collapsed forward. His legs no longer held form, reduced to mangled masses of meat.

Rian approached him slowly. In his hand the blue Mana Blade still cast an eerie light.

“Now, shall we begin. It’s time to clean the filth hidden in that filthy head of yours.”

Rian connected a thin mana cable extended from his helmet to the head of the fallen, moaning Malak.

“K…ugh… what… aaaahhhhh!”

Malak’s screams tore the night sky. It was not mere pain. Rian’s cold will delved into the deepest recesses of his memory, knowledge, and soul, forcibly extracting information in a mental violation.

Names of the Apostles of the Plague, locations of their ‘farms’, and fragments about their ‘Great Lord’ poured into Rian’s mind.

When the extraction ended, Malak’s brain had been scorched, he was a drooling wreck.

Rian unceremoniously pulled out the mana cable. Then, as a final act of mercy, he pierced Malak’s heart with the Mana Blade.

“Cleaning complete.”

The emotionless mechanical voice echoed inside the helmet.

Rian looked over the plaza turned to ash and his Shadow Blade unit standing atop it. There was not a single casualty. A perfect victory, a perfect massacre.

He looked up at the night sky. In the distance, the flames of war still stained the night red.

“This is only the beginning.”