Chapter 137: Fierce God Evil Slayer (1)

A vast desert made of finely powdered salt.

There was neither sun nor moon, yet the salt crystals glowed pure white.

Beyond the scattered brilliance, towering pillars rose into view.

Seven massive black pillars arranged in a circle.

Four of them were severely damaged.

A pillar with only its base remaining.  

A pillar split vertically.

A pillar sliced diagonally in the middle.  

A pillar melted down like a completely burned candle.

Only three pillars still maintained their original shape.

Even those were far from intact.  

Some were pitted in various places, some corroded brown, and some were covered in fine cracks all across their surface.

At the center of the pillars, a sharp red crystal jutted upward, radiating an unpleasant, sinister aura.

Soon.

Clatter clatter clatter— clatter—

The cart pulled by the High Priestess and her group arrived in front of the pillars.

The High Priestess began setting up an altar before the pillars.  

The Guard Captain and soldiers unloaded the items from the cart.  

Mushrooms, rat meat, jars filled with clear water, blue ores, daggers carved from transparent crystals, and more.

At that moment, one of the burlap sacks began to squirm.

[Squeal— squeeeal—]

A plump body covered in bluish moss.  

Colorful mushrooms sprouted all over its body.

What the soldiers pulled out of the sack was a creature that looked like a piglet.

Flutter—

<Mushroom Pig>  

– Danger Rank: F  

– Discovery Location: Morgue’s Magical 

Warehouse, Unrest Zone

A pig from whose back mushrooms grow.  

It has a gentle personality and is popular as livestock.

The Guard Captain and soldiers carried the Mushroom Pigs in their arms toward the intact pillars.

Soon, the High Priestess spoke.

“Thank you for accompanying us, Benefactor and Princess. This is a ruin where an ancient evil god is sealed.”

The High Priestess continued while gazing at the pillars.

“Five hundred years ago, our ancestors were cast into this demonic realm together with the ancient evil god. It was a god of flames that dyed the heavens and earth in crimson blaze and reduced all living things to ash.”

The ancient evil god the High Priestess spoke of.  

The one who had thrown this entire salt desert into the warehouse was most likely the Sorcerer Emperor “T.”

At that moment.

Uuuung— uuuung— uuuung— uuuung—

The High Priestess’s necklace began to vibrate.

“Could you please wait just a little longer? Once the ritual is complete, I will explain everything in detail.”

The High Priestess approached the altar.  

She lit candles on the altar and poured the water from the jar into a basin.

Rat meat and mushrooms were placed on both sides of the water-filled basin.

Then, the High Priestess began bowing in a reverent manner.

Once. Twice. Three times. Five times. Six times. Seven times.

After standing up, she spread both arms toward the sky.

“O Absolute One, I serve Your will. Please solidify Your will with the blood of a pure life.”

The moment the High Priestess finished speaking, the Guard Captain and soldiers slit the bellies of the piglets with crystal daggers.

Slice—!

[Kyaaaaek— Kyaaaaaaaek~!]

The piglets screamed and thrashed wildly.  

Bright red blood and entrails scattered everywhere.

The Guard Captain and soldiers then smeared the pigs’ blood across the surface of the intact pillars.

Sssssssss—

As the red blood flowed down, the rune characters engraved on the pillars began to fill in one by one.

By the time the task was finished, the Mushroom Pigs’ bodies had gone completely limp.

The Guard Captain and soldiers placed the corpses on the altar.

The High Priestess then bowed seven more times before the altar.

“I earnestly beseech the Seven Ancestors. Grant the lost descendants the power to suppress the great evil.”

The High Priestess transferred the pigs’ entrails into the basin.  

She then walked around the pillars, sprinkling the bloody water from the basin onto the center of each pillar.

Splash— splaaash— splash— splaaaaash—!

“The sacrifice to lull the ancient evil god to sleep. Holy water that solidifies the power of the Absolute One.”

After completing all the procedures, the High Priestess set the altar on fire.

Whoosh whoosh whoosh whoosh!

The wooden altar was engulfed in flames in an instant.  

The Mushroom Pig corpses, rat meat, and mushrooms burned, releasing a pungent, scorched smell.

I silently observed the entire process.

Soon after, Morgue Mu Featherback’s guidebook opened wide.

Flutter—

<Fierce God Evil Slayer>  

– Storage Number: MRG-293  

– Storage Rank: Terror

The page contained detailed information about the ancient evil god sealed by the Sorcerer Emperor.

However.  

Its storage rank is ‘Terror’?

The place I was currently in was the third layer of Morgue’s Magical Warehouse — the Unrest Zone.  

The Terror Zone should be one layer below that.

Terror: A rank where containment has been successful, but the phenomenon’s continued stability cannot be predicted.

Why would a Terror-rank entity exist in this place?

I decided to finish reading the journal entry.

But at that moment.

“We have kept you waiting. Benefactor, and Princess.”

The High Priestess and Guard Captain approached with exhausted faces.  

Their pure white garments were stained heavily with blood.  

Their complexions were pale, and their faces were covered in sweat.

Noticing my gaze, the High Priestess wiped the sweat from her forehead.

“I have been performing this ritual for twenty years since inheriting the position of High Priestess, but I can never let my guard down. If the ritual deviates even slightly, the evil god’s seal could break……”

The High Priestess took several deep breaths.

I looked at the burning altar.

“Will this allow you to maintain the evil god’s seal?”

“Yes. This ritual is the only way to maintain the evil god’s seal.”

“……How did you learn of this ritual?”

The High Priestess wiped the blood splattered on her face and answered.

“Our ancestors personally witnessed the ancient evil god being sealed here. The Absolute One pierced the evil god’s limbs with seven pillars and sealed it using this special ritual.”

For the past five hundred years, the High Priestesses of Hecate had protected the seal of the ruin by imitating the ritual performed by the Sorcerer Emperor.

“However, as time passed, the pillars suppressing the ancient evil god began to be destroyed one by one.”

The High Priestess looked at the broken pillars.

“……Every time a pillar was destroyed, a disaster occurred. When the first pillar was destroyed, all food and drinking water rotted. When the second pillar was destroyed, a rain of fire fell from the sky for two days. When the third pillar was destroyed, a horrific plague broke out and countless people died.”

Five hundred years ago, approximately 100,000 ancient Ravianglily people had been transferred into the warehouse.  

Due to successive disasters, less than 1,000 survivors remained today.

To prevent further disasters, the High Priestesses of Hecate had performed the sealing ritual every day, generation after generation.

“If the remaining pillars are all destroyed…… an irreversible great catastrophe will occur.”

A shadow fell over the High Priestess’s face.  

There was no telling when the remaining pillars would also be destroyed.

I looked at the High Priestess and said,

“From now on, you won’t need to perform the sealing ritual anymore. I’ll take care of it.”

“R-Really? But is there another way to seal the evil god……?”

The High Priestess and Guard Captain looked moved yet doubtful.

I gazed at the pillars rising from the salt desert.

Flutter—

<Fierce God Evil Slayer>  

– Storage Number: MRG-293  

– Storage Rank: Terror

‘Fierce God Evil Slayer,’ also known as ‘the Giant that Burns the Land.’

MRG-293, the Fierce God Evil Slayer, was a giant that had existed since the primordial era.  

It possessed enormous stature, a powerful physique, and incredible regenerative ability. 

The endless flames erupting from its entire body burned everything around it to ash.

In ancient times, the hero Karus defeated the Fierce God Evil Slayer and sealed it beneath the Eris Strait.  

The heat emitted by the Fierce God Evil Slayer evaporated all the seawater, and the area where the Eris Strait once existed became a desert of salt.

Tens of thousands of years later, a heretical group called the ‘Crimson Wings’ broke the sealing stone in an attempt to control the Fierce God Evil Slayer and use it as a weapon.  

Their plan failed completely, and the Fierce God Evil Slayer began burning the salt desert.

But fate was strange. 

At that very moment, the great Sorcerer Emperor happened to be passing by.

The Sorcerer Emperor stored both the Fierce God Evil Slayer and the entire salt desert into the warehouse.  

Afterward, he created stakes from its bones, chains from its tendons, and hooks from its claws and nails, using them to seal the Fierce God Evil Slayer deep within the salt desert.

Reading the journal entry cleared up many of my questions.

This explained how the ancient Ravianglily people had ended up inside the warehouse.  

They had been swept into it along with the desert during the process of storing the Fierce God Evil Slayer.

Furthermore, according to Morgue Mu Featherback’s journal, the Fierce God Evil Slayer was properly stored in the fourth layer — the Terror Zone.  

Because of its enormous size, the top of its head and the sealing apparatus extended up into the higher layer.

Now then.

Should I tell them the truth or not?

There was one piece of good news and one piece of bad news.

The good news was that they no longer needed to perform the ‘sealing ritual.’

And the bad news is……

I checked Morgue Mu Featherback’s journal again.

At the bottom of the page recording the Fierce God Evil Slayer was an attached note written in elegant handwriting.

[MRG-293 Observation Log] 

Author: Morgue Mu Featherback

While organizing the Unrest Zone, I discovered an interesting fact.  

Hundreds of years ago, the Sorcerer Emperor sealed the Fierce God Evil Slayer.  

I found humans wandering around its sealing stone.  

They appear to have been dragged into the warehouse along with it during the storage process.

The humans set up an altar and smeared the blood of sacrifices onto the sealing stone.  

I was curious what they were doing.  

After observing them for some time, it seemed they were performing a ritual to maintain the seal on the Fierce God Evil Slayer.

Well. There is no such thing as a ritual to maintain the Fierce God Evil Slayer’s seal.  

The Sorcerer Emperor’s seal is perfect.  

There is no need to reinforce it with such a trivial ritual.

However, I did not tell them this truth.  

It seemed to serve as a way for them to resolve their anxiety, fear, despair, and worry.

……Anyway. It looks like they are crudely imitating the ritual the Sorcerer Emperor performed.  

It is so clumsy that it is painful to watch.

The ritual performed by the Sorcerer Emperor was far more noble, beautiful, and sacred!

This won’t do. 

My eyes feel like they’re rotting.  

I should record the perfect ritual performed by the Sorcerer Emperor in detail to lift my mood.

Below that was a detailed description of the Sorcerer Emperor’s actual sealing ritual.

That’s right.

The sealing ritual of ancient Ravianglily that had been passed down for five hundred years had never existed in the first place.  

Their ritual had nothing to do with the actual seal.  

They had been repeating a meaningless ritual for over five hundred years without knowing the truth.

Moreover, the Sorcerer Emperor had sealed the Fierce God Evil Slayer using a magic circle infused with overwhelming mana.  

What they had done was nothing more than a crude imitation.

Well, whatever.

The reason I decided to resolve the Fierce God Evil Slayer issue was simple.

Ding!

<Morgue’s Magical Warehouse requests maintenance work for MRG-293! — Damage Rate: 21%>

It was a task that I, as the Warehouse Keeper, had to handle.

Soon, a new system window appeared.

Ding!

<The following materials are required for the maintenance of MRG-293.>

– 7 bones of the Fierce God Evil Slayer  

– 10 fingernails of the Fierce God Evil Slayer  

– 10 toenails of the Fierce God Evil Slayer  

– Tendons of the Fierce God Evil Slayer

“Hmm.”

The repair materials were all absurd.

In other words, to repair the seal, I first had to break the current seal, obtain the materials, and then reseal it again. 

What a headache.

However.

Well, it’s not like I can’t do it.

The steadily accumulated stats, the experience gained from crossing life and death, and having Jeanne and the Shadow Knights with me.

I had been curious just how far my current power would work against an S-rank magical beast.

I looked at the ruin where the Fierce God Evil Slayer was sealed.

……Shall we give it a try?

From now on, I would destroy the Sorcerer Emperor’s seal.  

To defeat the primordial giant.  

The S-rank magical beast, Fierce God Evil Slayer.