Chapter 66: Divine Trial (4)

Polin Castle was hardly recognizable as a fortress anymore.

The walls were covered in patches of gray flesh wherever the eye landed, and blood vessels writhed just beneath the surface.

It looked almost like the inside of some gigantic living creature.

“Haah… ugh—”

Moritz’s expression turned pale.

The stench and demonic energy here were far worse than anywhere else.

He had an intuition.

He absolutely could not stay here long.

It wasn’t a matter of compromise with himself.

It was a limit no living being could overcome.

“Ugh…”

“Gyaaa—!”

Outside the fortress, hundreds of monsters roamed around.

Their shapes varied, but one thing was certain—

They were no undead.

“What the hell are those monsters?”

Moritz, who had just killed a skeletal figure, clenched his mouth tight.

His furious eyes reflected the beasts.

Some were as large as entire houses, while others were as black as shadows.

Among them were creatures with bat-like wings.

These were not undead born of death.

From birth, they were entities of ‘that side.’

Did Richard know what those things really were?

Given how much he seemed to know, it was possible.

Moritz took a closer look at the monsters to explain them to Richard later.

The terrifying nature of the creatures, and the sheer ferocity of hundreds of them swarming about, was even more intense than that of an elite high-ranking knight.

They were, quite literally, the elite among the elite.

“Ugh…”

His stomach churned violently.

He felt as if he might vomit at any moment.

His overwhelmed mind started spinning again.

No, this was not the time.

The mission was far from over.

Steeling himself, Moritz became even more silent and stealthy.

“Gyaaaah!”

The fortress was packed with monsters, leaving no gaps to sneak through.

So Moritz made a desperate decision.

He would cut through the monsters.

His stealth was so exceptional it seemed like a divine gift.

The beasts passing right before him didn’t notice his presence.

But it was agony for Moritz.

The immense stamina consumed, plus the crushing tension that one single mistake meant death, tightened his chest painfully.

By some miracle, he finally reached the front of the fortress.

Raising his head and looking up, it was as if the entire world’s demonic energy was swirling atop the castle walls.

‘Is that where the Liches Richard mentioned are?’

Moritz swallowed hard.

The demonic energy clustered there gave off an ominous atmosphere.

It was clear that something terrible was being prepared.

“First, I need to find the marble.”

He forced his gaze downward.

He knew he couldn’t handle this on his own.

Holding his breath, he searched everywhere.

But no matter how much he looked, the marble was nowhere to be found.

Neither outside the fortress nor in the even more horrifying interior.

In the worst case, it might be in the midst of the Liches.

Time passed, but no progress was made.

If he stayed here any longer, he felt he might truly go insane.

Eventually, he made a decision.

Rather than waste time searching for the invisible marble, he would destroy that monstrously dangerous ‘thing’ instead.

Moritz’s gaze fixed on a spot outside the fortress.

A massive gray mass of flesh.

At times, it twitched and throbbed, resembling the heart of a giant.

Creak—!

A grotesque sound echoed.

Soon, something emerged from the flesh and howled.

It was a monster covered in thick yellowish liquid, likely pus.

The long patches of flesh regenerated again and writhed repeatedly.

From what he observed, this mass of flesh birthed monsters.

And at an extremely fast pace.

It was easy to deduce that all those monsters filling the fortress were born from there.

Moritz forced down his nausea and fear and moved forward.

Reducing his presence to the utmost minimum.

He stopped even breathing deeply, and his footsteps were so light he seemed not to touch the ground.

Though he had never formally trained or practiced, Moritz’s stealth was superior to anyone else’s.

It was a talent bestowed by the heavens.

‘Stay calm, stay calm.’

He dug beneath the monster leaking pus.

A creature with blades for arms brushed past him.

“Kyaaa!”

One particularly perceptive beast suddenly screamed.

A blind arm struck violently at Moritz’s spine.

The flesh mass was only five steps away.

He moved as if walking on a knife’s edge.

One step.

Two steps.

Three steps.

Only two steps remained.

Once he reached it, he could immediately summon an aura and trample that mass to pieces.

Then swallow the Seed quickly and retreat.

A crude plan that wasted no breath.

But he did not consider failure.

He had to report to the Order with his own eyes what he had witnessed these past few days.

Fixing his expression grimly, he took the final steps.

“Ugh…?”

Suddenly, enormous eyeballs pressed in front of Moritz.

A monster covered with dozens of eyes all over its body.

It smiled.

Thud!

An arm thicker than an ogre’s slammed into Moritz.

“Gyaaaah!”

“Kiruk!”

Despite swallowing his screams, he had no chance to maintain stealth as he rolled on the ground several times.

In an instant, monsters gathered around him.

“Ung, argh!”

Relentless violence rained down.

“Ugh, gack…!”

His left arm trembled violently from the brutal blows.

His whole body screamed in agony as if every bone was about to shatter.

Surrounded like a sandstorm by the monsters, Moritz moved desperately.

He couldn’t die here.

He had to survive to tell everything.

He had to destroy that mad mass of flesh.

That his mission came before death itself—was that a sign of his mental growth?

Crack—

He chew the Seed he’d just put into his mouth.

Amid the overwhelming pain came a strange flavor.

It wasn’t sweet or bitter.

It was radiant, holy.

Paaah—!

Amid the pitch-black monsters, light flickered.

They shrank back as if burned by fire.

“Get lost, you damn monsters!”

At that moment, Moritz leapt forward.

‘My whole body is overflowing with energy!’

Bones broken, flesh and muscle shredded by sharp teeth—everything was regenerating.

The Seed he swallowed was the power of Adele, the embodiment of ‘Life.’

Along with the 200,000 Faith contained within, it gave him strength.

It was truly a lifeline that lived up to its name.

A bright light exploded from his sword.

It was the same radiance as Richard’s Mana Trait, Holy Power incarnate.

There was no time to wonder why the trait appeared all of a sudden.

Moritz wove Holy Power repeatedly and drew out a Holy Aura.

Though it consumed twice the usual amount of mana, it was fine.

Now he was full of strength.

“Argh!”

The monster’s claws slashed at his forearm.

Demonic energy swirled around the melee.

He dodged some attacks and blocked others with his sword.

For the rest, he took the blows with his body, rolling on the rough dirt multiple times.

“Get lost! I said get lost!”

Moritz leapt up and charged toward the disgusting mass of flesh.

Perhaps his indomitable will worked.

He finally reached his target.

Squelch—!

A soft, unpleasant sensation traveled up his sword.

Gritting his teeth, Moritz swung his sword again.

His specialty, the Quick Slash, was faster than ever.

How many times did he pierce the thick flesh?

He felt solid parts shatter beneath the blade’s tip.

Then the flesh bubbled and melted away.

“It’s over.”

Finally, finally, it was over.

Now he could proudly say he had completed his mission before Richard.

Moritz’s face brightened as he ran outside the castle walls.

He infused Holy Power into Nare’s fang with his hand.

“Ugh, uahaha! Disgusting monster bastards! You’re all dead later!”

***

“For Hor!”

Waaaah—!

The battle at Riot Castle raged on without pause.

Undead had been raiding irregularly for some time now.

Dead men were never exactly orderly, but lately something was different.

They were like wild horses running free.

“Well done.”

Richard muttered as he watched the knights hacking and slashing at corpses.

Moritz’s destruction of the marble had triggered this madness.

The final stage was beginning to take shape.

On his raised hand, two large Stars appeared.

Soon Richard raised his fingers and pointed to where the undead had gathered, and the two Stars shot forth.

Kwang! Kwang—!

Explosions boomed as lightning continued to burst.

Each time, the knights seemed energized and their morale soared.

“They’re just monsters anyway!”

“Hor is with us!”

“Don’t get too far ahead! Hold the line, you bastards!”

The commander’s shouts controlled the energized knights.

As if to uplift the battlefield’s despair, a beautiful hymn echoed through the air.

Lightning clustered in the knights’ weapons.

Riot Castle once again looked worthy of its old name, the Second Fortress.

With the faithful gathering one by one, the fortress itself seemed to channel lightning.

Victory was clearly leaning this way.

Richard stepped back from the wall, fixing his gaze in the distance.

A long moment passed.

“They’re coming.”

Richard, who had been still as if frozen, narrowed his eyes.

Having leapt over the castle wall a month ago, he now descended into the chaos of the battlefield riding the Stars.

The knights, swinging their swords with all their might, turned their attention to him.

They seemed to await an order.

Richard nodded and spoke.

“Moritz is returning. Let’s clear the way.”

“Yes, sir! We’ll make sure not a single monster remains!”

The knights pounded their chests in response.

The bodies clinging tenaciously were dispatched at an even faster pace.

Gooo—

Above Richard, the two Stars hovered high.

The twin swords of faith burned like twin suns.