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Entalucia roared once again.
The sudden shockwave caused a commotion as the soldiers fell to the ground and the tents collapsed. When the tents collapsed and smoke started rising as if they had been caught on fire, the giant slaves that made up the walls also became agitated. The giant metallic wall shook like a wave as the giants who made up the walls grew more and more agitated.
Despite all this fuss, Dismas looked at the man who was wrapped in flames and approaching him while remaining silent.
The short dry grass started burning and smoke rose every time Juan took a step forward. However, he continued to approach Dismas slowly as if he didn’t care the slightest bit about the surroundings being destroyed.
Dismas had seen such a being before. His lips were trembling, but he was smiling.
“I’ve fought countless times against false beings like you.”
Dismas slowly pulled out the huge two-handed hammer he had been carrying on his back. The head of the battle hammer alone was as long as the length of his arm. Strangely enough, the head of the hammer was already dripping blood, even though the battle had not even begun yet.
“I chased and killed those who were expelled from the empire by my father, as well as those who fled beyond the boundary. I held a ritual with their blood and bones everyday—that was almost my daily routine. I’m used to delusions and lies.”
A red and bloody trajectory remained in the air when Dismas swung his hammer around. The speed at which it was swung was neither fast nor slow, but the appearance of the space being distorted in its wake gave off an ominous feeling—it gave off the feeling that recklessly approaching the hammer would get anyone killed.
Juan realized that the hammer that Dismas was holding was a weapon that Juan had made with his own hands. But it was strange. When Juan had made the hammer for Dismas, it was not a weapon that dripped blood on its own or caused such a strange delusion.
“You are the worst out of all those bastards!”
Dismas stormed toward Juan with a loud roar. At the same time, the heavy head of the hammer flew straight toward Juan.
Meanwhile, Juan grabbed at the hammer head with the intention of completely crushing it. However, he was momentarily lifted into the air by it.
Juan hastily jumped with surprised eyes, then quickly flipped over to land on the ground.
At the same time, Dismas was looking at Juan with surprised eyes.
“Who are you? It’s not possible to simply flip over like a feather and…”
“What the hell is that hammer? That…”
Juan had many questions he wanted to ask, but he chose to close his mouth.
The moment Juan grabbed Dismas’ hammer, he felt as if he had grabbed the entire mountain range. There was a huge amount of mass condensed in the hammer, to the extent that the surrounding space was being distorted by it.
Speed was no longer important when that kind of weight could be wielded.
The hammer was something that was smelted by Juan himself. But back then, the hammer had been simply a heavy and hard hammer, and it had no such ability.
Juan could only guess that a lot of black magic and sinister energy must have been absorbed by the hammer throughout Dismas’ life.
Dismas also seemed to be perplexed, since most of the enemies he encountered so far were helplessly smashed in the face of his hammer. But Juan actually grabbed the hammer and then threw himself into the air to dodge, thanks to the acceleration and shock provided by the hammer.
‘...This battle won’t be easy.’
Dismas was definitely strong; he had not even exerted half of his strength yet. The truly dangerous ability that Dismas possessed was Spirit Calling. Juan had never been too worried about Dismas having such an ability, since he believed in Dismas’ kind nature, but it would certainly prove to be a fatal ability if Dismas ever became his enemy.
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Juan took a glance in the direction where Anya and Hela were. The situation over there was turning dire. Yet Dismas was much too dangerous of an opponent to leave him unattended to go and help Hela.
Juan sighed.
“I had really hoped that we would be able to solve the issue through a conversation, son.”
Juan drew out Sutra from his waist. Sutra began to burn slowly but fiercely upon being touched by the sunlight.
“Yet I have no choice but to admit that sometimes it is necessary to punish my children and teach them a lesson.”
***
Hela clenched her teeth as she saw the chunks of meat sticking to Anya’s feet.
Meanwhile, Anya groaned painfully every time Hela used the sword to cut out a chunk of flesh that was getting stuck to her skin. But the speed of the flesh sticking to Anya exceeded the speed of Hela cutting them out, making it impossible to completely separate Anya from the pieces of flesh.
The pieces of flesh were even starting to stick to Hela as well.
“Damn it. What the hell are these stinky chunks of flesh?”
Hela didn’t know much about magic, but she could tell that these chunks of flesh were serving as a powerful medium for black magic.
The pieces of meat stuck to Anya dried up rapidly, and she slowly started emitting cold energy while seizing.
Then, Anya suddenly grabbed Hela by the neck.
“Keuk!” Hela groaned.
“Who dares to awaken death!”
“Shut up and go back to sleep, you asshole!”
Hela didn’t hesitate to slap Anya’s head with the handle of the sword.
Anya grabbed her head as if she was in pain, but roared at Hela once again. This time, Hela struck Anya’s head with her fist while wearing an iron glove. Only then did Anya become quiet, losing consciousness.
It became much easier to pull her out of the chunks of flesh when Anya had completely stopped moving. However, cutting out pieces of meat stuck to Anya with only one hand was still a very difficult task.
“Pavan! Come and help me!”
Meanwhile, Pavan was fighting against three of the knights from the Order of Surtr who had rushed toward them. Although Pavan was at the top of the empire in terms of his swordsmanship, the skills of the knights of Surtr were also quite formidable.
Pavan gritted his teeth; he was using a random butcher knife that was rolling around on the ground as his weapon instead of his own sword.
“Why didn’t you teach me a technique to beat three people at once in just an instant! Can you at least give me back my sword?”
“Hurry up! Cut off their necks and get your ass over here!”
Pavan let out quite a few curses in his mind upon hearing Hela’s outcry, but then he raised the butcher knife and charged toward the nearest knight from the Order of Surtr.
The knight tried to block with all his might, but Pavan’s attack easily penetrated his armor and his throat.
The knight grabbed his throat to stop the blood flowing out through the armor, but Pavan pushed him toward the other two knights. The remaining knights tried to fight back while dodging their colleague who was falling toward them, but Pavan was already gone by the time they pushed their falling colleague away.
Then a cracking sound came from under their chins—the knights never got the chance to understand why their headless bodies were collapsing to the ground.
Pavan exhaled a rough breath and fell to his knees. He hurriedly threw off his armor which had become too hot and cooled off his burned hands by rubbing them against the ground. Pavan was able to use Fleeting Moment, the fifth stage of the Baltic Sword, in the short moment he created when he killed the first enemy. But performing the fifth stage of the Baltic Sword even for just a short moment made him feel like he had almost died.
‘I thought I would never perform the fifth stage of the Baltic Sword in a real battle because I knew just how dangerous a skill it was.’
Pavan had also never thought that he would be fighting with a butcher knife due to Hela’s urging him on. The knights from the Order of Surtr were definitely powerful opponents, but there were only three of them. If Pavan had a proper weapon and some more time, he could have killed them all within a short time.
Pavan clicked his tongue in annoyance; he thought it was a waste to use Fleeting Moment against them.
“What are you doing? Hurry up and come over here if you’ve killed them all!”
“Ugh, damn it. Yes, master!”
Pavan staggered toward Hela with a pale expression.
‘I thought I had barely escaped from that witch when I left the East, but I’m once again in hell at this age.’
Pavan quickly ran over to Hela in order to examine Anya’s unusual condition. Hela had already left many wounds on Anya as she tried to remove the pieces of meat clinging to her skin. This was inevitable, since the meat did not simply stick to Anya’s skin but it dried up and completely melted into her skin, almost as if it was a part of her to begin with.
“What even is this?” Pavan asked.
“Do you think I told you to come over here to teach you what these things are? I’ll continue to cut out these pieces of meat, so you take care of Anya.”
Pavan obediently followed Hela’s orders.
‘We need to get out of this mess as soon as possible to make sure that she doesn’t do anything reckless like suicide.’
At the same time, Pavan vowed that he would refuse duties related to Hela as much as possible in the future, even if they were ordered by His Majesty.
Pavan handed Hela the butcher knife to make her work a little easier.
“Where did you get this from?” Hela asked.
“Do you think I brought it here to teach you where I got it from, master? Just do what you need to do as quickly as you can, please,” Pavan answered.
Hela looked at Pavan as she contemplated whether she should wield the butcher knife in her hand toward him.
Meanwhile, Pavan quietly lowered his head and looked away; he had a feeling that she might actually attack him if he didn’t shut up.
Anyway, the butcher knight brought by Pavan was a lot more suitable for removing the pieces of meat compared to Pavan’s sword. Hela quickly dismantled the pieces of meat and then she and Pavan began to drag Anya out.
As soon as Hela thought that she had finally gotten away from the pieces of meat, Anya stopped, almost as if hanging in the air. Then, she opened her eyes and started to undergo a seizure at the same time.
This time, Anya was screaming so loudly, it almost looked like she wanted to tear Hela and Pavan’s ears off.
Hela raised her hand, which was covered by an iron glove with surprised eyes, but Pavan hastily stopped her.
“Oh my goodness. What the hack are you doing, master!”
“She shut up when I punched her earlier.”
“You do realize that I was able to endure your punches because, well, I’m me. But she’s different. She has lost her special abilities now, right? Ordinary people can’t endure being smacked by your iron fist! You might actually end up killing her!”
“I know how hard I have to hit ordinary people to not kill them, idiot. But it certainly doesn’t seem to be a matter of making her faint.”
Pavan looked back at Anya and agreed with Hela’s words.
At the same time as Anya was convulsing, something that looked like black fog was flowing out of her eyes and nose.
Pavan stepped back without even realizing it; he could smell the cold scent of death.
On the other hand, Hela began to scrutinize Anya. There was a high possibility that there was something else other than the pieces of meat that were causing the black magic to continue affecting Anya.
Hela soon found a big wound on Anya’s back, with a few words painted in red. The red phrase was constantly increasing in size as more and more letters appeared even as Hela was looking at it.
Hela sensed that the letters had come from the pieces of meat she had been removing from Anya earlier.
“This is the problem.”
“What do we do, master? Should we just cut them out?”
Hela didn’t think the problem would be resolved by simply cutting out the painted phrase.
However, they didn’t have any time to think—Anya’s condition was rapidly deteriorating.
Hela gritted her teeth and cut out the flesh around the red phrase on Anya’s back.
Soon, a part of Anya’s skin fell off to the ground along with a wet sound. However, the letters began to be engraved in the air after the flesh fell off of Anya’s back. The letters then extended and stretched out toward Anya and continued to carve something on her skin.
“It doesn’t have a physical substance but has something to do with black magic…”
“Stop muttering nonsense to yourself and think of something!”
Hela grabbed the sliced off flesh and tried to take it far away from Anya, but it was useless.
At that moment, Hela felt a sudden tingling pain in her hand. A phrase was also starting to be engraved on Hela’s hand which was holding the piece of flesh.
“How about we try setting it on fire? We might have a chance with His Majesty’s fire,” Pavan suggested.
Hela took a glance at Juan and Dismas.
However, it seemed that Juan didn’t have any time to spare either.
***
Sparks sprang up every time Sutra met with Dismas’ hammer.
Juan frowned at the unease he felt every time he clashed with the hammer. The bleeding hammer was not only heavy, but was also filled with an enormous amount of curses and a deep-seated grudge.
To make it worse, it was no ordinary grudge—it was a grudge against the emperor.
“This is the first time my hammer has become so excited!” Dismas shouted as if he was having fun while wildly swinging his hammer.
Sutra’s flames gradually weakened and flickered little by little every time it was hit by the bleeding hammer.
“Dismas, just how many people have you killed in the name of the emperor with that hammer?” Juan growled.
“Why would I count such useless things? I chased and killed the gods that His Majesty could not kill, and I also punished the humble beings who weren’t worthy of repentance using this hammer. There is no prayer as sweet as their curses and screams.”
The Dragon Lord had created a magical armor with a grudge against Juan, but the bleeding hammer held by Dismas was simply a cursed weapon that was made naturally. It was not strange to say that it was a weapon made entirely with blood. And ironically, such a weapon exerted its greatest power against the emperor.
Juan felt increasingly compelled to take a bold course of action.
***
“His Majesty cannot afford to come and help us at the moment,” Hela said to Pavan.
The sudden appearance of the emperor was enough to surprise the Order of Surtr’s camp, but that did not mean the situation was settled. Horhell and Haild were struggling somewhere and were certainly outnumbered as well.
Meanwhile, Anya’s condition was getting worse and worse over time. While the simmering darkness and the force of death was crawling deep into her heart, Anya’s condition was rapidly deteriorating as well. It was unknown whether or not her body would be able to sustain such power.
Although Nigrato was the god of death, it was clear that he would also fail to revive if his host ended up dying. If Anya somehow managed to hold out and really ended up becoming a Cainheryar, that would also be a terrible ending.
It was not a matter of success or failure anymore. Someone had to stop this black magic right now.
Hela bit her lips as she stared at the red letters carved onto the back of her hand.
“Alright. So you need at least one sacrificial offering, huh?”
Hela muttered briefly and then threw Anya’s flesh into her own mouth.