Chapter 59: Kingdom of Bers (36)

Surabar’s condition was pitiful.

His left arm was completely torn off, and his right arm was so ragged that it was a miracle it still hung on. Bones hidden beneath muscle and blood vessels were fully exposed.

Places where white bone showed were not just one or two. His clothes had long vanished in the aftermath of the fight, leaving only the thoroughly ruined war hammer barely clutched in his right hand.

To protect Jasmine, to shield his lover, Surabar had fought with his life on the line.

He had even become a swordmaster.

I didn’t know if my advice had helped. Clenching my fists until nails dug into flesh, I tried to feel even a thousandth—no, a ten-thousandth—of the pain the captain had endured.

It was meaningless.

Captain.

I carefully laid the unconscious Surabar on a building rooftop.

“Kraaa! Kraaaagh!!”

「Hoot! Hoo-oo-oooot!!」

The silver owl was thrashing in agony, its crown split by my sword.

If it had been human or a real owl, it would have spilled its brains and died instantly, never moving again. But the opponent was a god.

A god.

I didn’t sense the same overwhelming power or divinity as the Elon who had trapped me in the “Elon Garden,” but the essence was the same.

Something like that—a mere split head—wouldn’t kill it.

Spewing what looked like stars, galaxies, blood, or souls from the cleaved skull like fireworks in all directions, “it” was reverting to the uninjured form of the original silver owl.

I closed the captain’s eyes one last time and stood.

Whether the captain lived or died by the end of this fight, my resolve was set.

I would kill it.

I would cut down a god, sever immortality. I knew it was arrogant for the weakling who had struggled against one-eyed Cedmos to say such things. But it didn’t feel impossible.

What I saw while crashing to earth wasn’t just Surabar. The wounded, dying person wasn’t only the Black Tail mercenary captain I respected beyond measure…

I.

Would.

Kill it.

Hoot. Hoot hoot. Hoot hoot hoot hoot hoot… So annoyingly loud. Gazing down at the half-baked god that couldn’t even control its own body properly, I ended up laughing.

I hadn’t wanted to, but the laughter came unbidden.

Whether I had possessed a game character I enjoyed, or my belief in possession was wrong, or some unknown scheme was at play… None of that mattered now.

Hokhma. Red Stone. That thing fused from both had dared touch those I held dear.

Because of King Red Stone’s schemes in Bers, all the beastmen I cherished in Mosul were captured—including Jasmine, carrying the captain’s child.

And that wasn’t all. The mercenary captain I respected, my eternal “captain” Surabar—who bowed to no one in pride and noble soul—willingly risked wounds to that pride by entering the colosseum as a slave gladiator.

Even that wasn’t enough; the captain was dying moment by moment from wounds that would have killed an ordinary person a hundred times over. Likely, once this battle ended, the captain would breathe his last.

With some bleeding, the split head reattached. Hokhma glared down at me, frowning with its ugly face as if furious.

Daring.

As if the wounds, death, and sorrow it inflicted meant nothing.

“Let’s change locations.”

「Hoot?」

It righted its posture and charged at me, eyes blazing like the sun.

No chance.

I thrust my hand into its stupid eyeball and seized the flames burning within.

It seemed untouchable, ghostly, but it couldn’t escape my grip now.

It thrashed and screamed disgustingly, but I held its eyeball as if to rip it out and moved far away—as distant as possible from the carriage carrying the captain and Jasmine.

In an instant, we left the capital.

Rumble… How many buildings collapsed, how much of the city was ruined—it didn’t matter.

The Kingdom of Bers. This place was a kingdom filled with sin, an altar to an evil god that drove those I loved and cherished to the edge of a cliff.

Even if it crumbled to sand, I would feel no guilt.

「Hoo-oo-oo-oot!」

The “sun”-like blazing eyeball tried to devour my aura-cloaked hand.

This awkward half-human, half-owl thing that couldn’t even control its body properly was trying to burn me to death with flames from its eye.

No chance. I raised the aura stolen from Cedmos and spewed lava.

The thick, tangible lava aura swallowed the flames in reverse, inflicting greater pain on it.

“It’ll hurt.”

「Hoo-oo-oo-oo-oot!」

Crack! With my hand cloaked in sticky lava aura, I gouged out its left eye spewing intense heat. Not simply pulling—it was forcing, overwhelming with brute violence to take what it didn’t want to give.

This. Enjoying hurting someone, inflicting pain… That wasn’t what I wanted.

But.

This time, a genuine smile formed.

I wondered how I looked in its remaining right eye.

Right now, I was crushing its eyeball, causing pain. At the same time, I wanted to dissect its head—see what emotions it felt, what thoughts it had.

Was it afraid? Terrified? Realizing it couldn’t resist as I boldly charged the one who dared swallow “divine” power and now live-ripped its eye?

It didn’t matter.

Its hoot-hoot screams sounded pleasant.

This bastard—I’d kill it, chew it alive and it still wouldn’t be enough. Very painfully. Even if it begged for quick death with its crooked beak, even if it wept and pleaded for mercy, I wouldn’t forgive.

It touched what it should never have touched.

Surabar was dying. Even if Elon descended right now, he couldn’t save him.

Jasmine had been kid—

Dear Branch Leader Maximilian’s eyes were gouged out, and Priest Moriah died too. Because of that thing.

With the sword in my right hand, I slashed the flapping, noisy wing. Stars and galaxies spread like blood as its left wing fell away.

It tried to reattach the sticky, flowing divinity of the severed wing to its body, but I kept interfering. For some reason, it wasn’t hard.

Easy and simple—like snapping a child’s finger.

I cut the remaining wing too, then severed the thrashing talons in one stroke.

The silver owl, now just a head and torso like a roly-poly toy, hooted grotesquely, but I felt no pity.

Panting, it somehow lifted its head, inhaled deeply, and spewed the most obvious attack.

I didn’t dodge. Divine blood, fragments of torn divinity soaked me.

“Hoo…t?”

Countless stars—the power of its incomplete half-divinity—tried to swallow me like a tidal wave.

Behind me, Bers Kingdom’s buildings, roads, city districts, and fleeing people turned to ash without a sound.

Still, I stood unharmed, looking at it.

I had escaped the Elon Garden too.

Did it think I’d fall to the breath of an incomplete half-baked beast barely worth calling a god?

Dare to hope what you dare, you lowly, disgusting thing…!

“Hoo, hoot…”

Having exhaled the starry breath, the silver owl couldn’t maintain the massive form I’d witnessed right after returning from the Elon Garden.

Compared to first sight, it had shrunk considerably. Now the size of a crumbling three-story building, it trembled.

Was an immortal god facing death? If so, I might be remembered as the first mortal to sever divine immortality.

But such “first” honors or glory offered no comfort.

“…I saw them while descending to earth. The captain, and Jasmine. I said I’d do anything, pay any price, if it meant saving just those two. Yet… just because of a worthless thing like you…!”

“Hoo, hoo… oot!!”

Blood sprayed.

Mixed blood of the mortal Red Stone and Hokhma’s divinity—white and red liquid splattered everywhere.

Judging by the clearly “human” red blood, the fused thing was separating again.

With cold eyes, I repeatedly slashed its roly-poly body.

Slashing, stabbing, manifesting aura at the sword tip plunged in and spinning like a blender to pulverize everything, or stirring its insides directly with my aura-cloaked hand.

It screamed desperately in horrific pain, but it offered me no solace.

Futile. Futile… Surabar and Jasmine would die soon.

Irreversible. Falling from the Elon Garden, I had seen them.

The people I loved.

I had sworn to protect them, no matter what.

To never let the threat called fate touch those I cherished and revered.

But I had broken that oath.

Even without Moriah’s lengthy explanation of why I was confined in the “Elon Garden,” I understood.

Elon—perhaps the heavenly gods—wanted to prevent my corruption or despair.

If a swordmaster who felled Cedmos and cut incomplete divinity rampaged, this fragile world would collapse like a sandcastle.

But there was hope.

Always.

“Hoo-oo-oot! It hurts. Hurts. Hurts. Stop, stop… Please stooop…!!”

Unable to bear the pain, it now begged for mercy, for pity-born mercy. I swung the sword again.

Its screams offered me slight comfort. Solace.

“Stop, stooop—!!”

The severed legs and both wings now moved separately, threatening and clawing fiercely at me. Mere pathetic resistance.

I swung the sword.

Not a single feather remained. Sliced so finely it became fine dust carried by the wind—the wings lost form, power, divinity, and vanished.

The legs were no different.

I caught the talons lunging to claw my face—precisely my eyes—and bit them alive.

Crunch, cruuunch…! Even severed from the body, sensations shared? It never stopped screaming in agony.

That pleased me “a little.”

Its despairing screams, its inability to resist, miserably rolling on the ground in pain defeated by a mere mortal—that was joy to me.

“Hoo-oo-oo-oo-oot!”

Even as severed legs were finely chopped by my sword and chewed by my teeth, pain transmitted fully.

Good. Even detached limbs—if divinity remained—nerves weren’t severed?

Laughter rose watching it thrash before me. A god, a descended god—how comical…

For this thing? You committed all these acts? Daring? For merely harming those I loved and cherished!

“Hoot, hoot…! Please, please… S-spare… Forgive…”

“I’ll neither kill you nor let you live.”

Its once-vigorous legs were crunched and swallowed into my stomach.

Disgusting taste, stomach churning from horrific energy—but seeing “fear” in its eyes watching me, a cry of joy burst out.

Ah, your wails are my joy… Thinking of your sins, this pain is nothing in comparison!

Other heavenly gods. I… won’t despair or corrupt as you and Elon feared in agreeing to his plan…

Hee, heehee. Kyaa. Hoo, hoot! Now unable to even properly hoot, the utterly mutilated silver owl lay before me, belly exposed.

Its building-sized bulk had shrunk to below my waist.

A pitiful scrap no longer callable god or human.

Some might pity this small, panting thing.

But I looked down with utterly cold eyes.

I grabbed its head by the hair, forcing eye contact.

I left the right eye intact to show it my face now—my rage.

Mind changed.

I’d let it live. It wouldn’t die. Eternally by my side, suffering, singing opera for me… I wouldn’t release or forgive this.

It would live. As long as Surabar should have lived. Longer, as long as Jasmine should have. And every day, every moment, it would remember. The horrific atrocities it committed and their price.

I swear. I, Paramir, proud member of the Black Tail Mercenaries, guardian knight of respected Captain Surabar and Jasmine.

I will eternally be the watcher of a god.

“I am your despair.”

“Hoo…t…!”

It weakly nodded. I laughed, and its once-sunlike sparkling right eye darkened with despair.