Chapter 368
‘That guy brought these monsters.’
From the memories he had read from the Abyss mages, Zeke had seen how the black portal was used to bring in monsters, while a red portal was created to escape before Nigel, the Hermit of the Forest, could arrive.
This time, I needed to catch him carefully before he could escape quickly and cause trouble again.
Zeke landed near the gate while being invisible.
Then he slowly headed towards the altar.
The Abyss Mage standing on the altar was continuously chanting eerie spells, and other mages around him were infusing power as if assisting.
Zeke asked Arataso.
‘Arataso, can you tell which Fallen Constellation is giving power to that guy?’
At his question, the sealed green sword caused a slight vibration and answered through telepathy like Zeke.
[Hmm, it’s confusing just by looking at this. Judging by the sticky and gloomy energy, it could be ‘The Irresistible Gaze’ or maybe ‘The Clinging Abyss of Darkness’.]
Neither constellation name gave a good feeling.
There was no choice but to confront it for now.
Zeke regulated his breathing and prepared to ambush the mage.
But then something suddenly appeared behind Zeke.
“Hmm, how interesting.”
Startled, Zeke turned around to see a figure wearing a strange clown mask floating in the air holding a large scythe.
‘This guy…’
Zeke instinctively realized this clown wasn’t human.
At that moment, the green sword vibrated strongly.
Arataso spoke in an urgent voice.
[T-this…! Hey, run away! Quickly!]
Hearing Arataso’s urgent voice, Zeke immediately launched his body backward.
CRACK!
The space where Zeke had been crumpled, and the surrounding trees twisted into strange shapes.
Zeke glared at the masked clown while being wary of his bizarre power.
‘Is this guy a high-ranking demon?’
[Damn it, I didn’t mean back away, I meant run away quickly! Of all things, to think that guy was summoned!]
Instead of answering, Zeke put the green sword in his inventory and took out Bahamut.
Then the space where Zeke was started to crumple again.
PAT!
Zeke rolled to the side to dodge his attack.
Simultaneously, he shot an Aura Blade towards the enemy.
BOOM! BOOM!
The Aura Blade Zeke shot exploded right in front of the clown.
The clown tilted his head and looked at Zeke.
“How interesting? I felt demon energy from the sword you were holding earlier. But now I feel dragon energy?”
His drawling way of speaking gave both a languid and strange feeling.
He straightened his posture holding the large scythe and landed on the ground.
Then he said while looking at Zeke.
“You look really fun. Want to play with me?”
At that moment, Arataso who had gone into the inventory shouted at Zeke.
[Don’t listen to him,That guy is Viper, a high-ranking demon who serves ‘The Endless Devourer’!]
‘Viper?’
[He’s known for his vicious pranks and lies! Nothing good will come from engaging with him!]
Zeke pondered after hearing Arataso’s words.
If he retreated now, he would lose the chance to catch the mage opening the gate.
After contemplating, he raised his sword towards Viper.
Viper spoke while looking at Zeke.
“Where did you come from, human? Did you come here alone without any fear?”
Zeke asked while looking at Viper.
“Did you guys bring these monsters?”
Viper laughed gleefully at Zeke’s words.
“Oho, so you can speak after all?”
At that moment.
The Abyss Mages who noticed Zeke’s infiltration came running with monsters.
“There’s an intruder over there!”
Since it would be difficult to approach the gate if he got surrounded, Zeke tried to withdraw.
But then, Viper swung his scythe toward the Mages.
SWOOSH!
As the scythe swept through the space, the monsters that were charging without any warning were cut in half and fell to the ground.
However, what was surprising was that the monsters with their waists cut did not die, but continued to move with their lower and upper bodies separated.
Viper jumped up and down excitedly watching this sight.
“HEHEHEHE! What are they? This is so funny!”
Zeke found it difficult to understand the behavior of this demon called Viper.
‘He seems quite different from the demons I’ve seen so far.’
The mages of the Abyss who were running toward where Zeke was finally noticed Viper’s presence and backed away with faces turned pale.
“L-Lord Viper. We-we’re sorry for interrupting your entertainment.”
Viper, who had been laughing heartily, suddenly stopped laughing at that moment.
Then he floated in the air and approached the mage who said those words.
“Sorry? Sorry?”
He thrust his masked face toward the mage and continued spewing words.
“Why did you do something to be sorry about? Why did you do it? You shouldn’t have done such a thing in the first place! Huh?”
The Mages of the Abyss trembled with a pale face while sweating cold sweat.
“L-Lord Viper. Pl-please for-forgive…”
“Forgiveness? What’s that?”
At that moment, Viper swiftly moved his scythe.
In an instant, the mage’s body was cut into pieces, with arms, legs, torso, and head scattered into dozens of pieces.
However, like the monster earlier, even though he was cut into pieces, he didn’t die but continued moving.
“HEE, HEEK!”
Though his body was in pieces, while his senses were gone, his consciousness remained intact, causing the mage to feel even greater terror.
Then Viper laughed and started grabbing the mage’s body parts and attaching them randomly.
“Now, this goes here. This goes like this.”
Arms on the buttocks, legs on the head, ears on the torso.
As the pieces were attached randomly, the mage couldn’t help but be assembled into a horrific form that wasn’t human.
Viper laughed heartily again while looking at the mage.
“HEHEHE! Perfect, perfect! This is much better, better!”
Viper nodded as if satisfied with the new shape he created.
Then he turned his head toward Zeke and said.
“How is it? How is it? Fun, right? I’ll make you like this too…”
Though he turned his head to where Zeke had been, Zeke had already disappeared.
Upon confirming this, Viper’s laughter stopped abruptly.
Viper snapped his fingers.
Then the monsters with separated bodies and the mage with randomly attached pieces suddenly writhed as if in pain.
“KEEEEK!”
Unlike before, the monsters with split bodies died bleeding, and the mage regained his senses while his body remained abnormally attached.
“KUHEEEEK!”
The mage twisted his bizarrely attached body and died right there while coughing blood.
Viper watched this and floated back into the air.
Then he spoke to the other frozen Mages.
“You all.”
The Mages responded nervously.
“Ye-yes!”
“Sp-speak, my lord!”
Viper said while spinning his scythe.
“Find him again from earlier. If you can’t find him, you’ll have to play with me. Very fun.”
At the words ‘have to play,’the blood drained from the Mages’ faces.
“L-let’s go! Quickly catch that intruder!”
The Mages moved in a hurry.
*********
While Viper was toying with the mage, Zeke approached the gate using the Spirit manifestation ability of his scabbard.
‘That guy from earlier. He wasn’t normal.’
At Zeke’s words, Arataso clicked his tongue and said.
‘Most of the subordinates of the Endless Devourer are like that. They’re the type who don’t know moderation and only react to their own interests.’
Although Viper was dangerous enough, the gate came first.
Zeke carefully approached the altar from the dimensional boundary.
Fortunately, whether the mage didn’t understand the situation or didn’t care, he was still on the altar.
‘Good. This should be enough.’
Zeke slowly prepared to deploy the magic sealing technique.
He also took out chains in advance in case the guy tried to escape using curses instead of magic.
‘Now, here I go!’
As soon as Zeke released his Spirit manifestation skill and revealed himself, he immediately deployed the magic sealing technique around the gate.
CRACKLE!
When the magic sealing technique was deployed, both the altar and the gate began showing abnormal reactions.
Zeke also deployed Strong Wave Resonance while striking the ground with Bahamut.
WOONG!
As the Strong Wave Resonance barrier spread in all directions, the Mages approaching to stop Zeke were pushed back.
They stretched out their hands to use magic, but their magic was distorted by the magic sealing technique.
“The mana……..it’s not responding!”
“What’s going on?!”
Zeke wouldn’t miss this opportunity.
He immediately drew his sword and swung Aura Blade at the Mages.
SLASH!
The Mages hit by Zeke’s sword had their necks cut without even screaming.
He raised the power of flames and burned all the dead Mages’ bodies.
Then he approached the black-robed mage standing on the altar.
The mage only continued chanting spells without reacting to Zeke’s movements.
‘What’s with this guy?’
The suspicious Zeke noticed something was off.
He immediately launched Aura Blade toward the mage.
BOOM!
An explosion occurred on the altar.
The robe the mage was wearing was torn away by the sword wind.
Zeke confirmed the identity of the mage hidden under the robe.
‘It’s a Nightgaunt made by those Jiemens bastards.’
A golem that could use the power of fallen constellations by containing the power of the Herald of Blood and Madness.
Zeke was able to somewhat grasp the identity of this golem when interrogating William Jimenes.
Jiemens had created weapons that could use constellation power by making artificial avatar bodies that could contain the power of fallen constellations.
Zeke took out the green sword and asked Arataso.
‘Can you sense the Endless Devourer’s power from that thing?’
The green sword was dyed in green light and started vibrating.
[Hmm, seems right… Why is the energy so messily mixed up? Anyway, seems correct.]
From Arataso’s reaction, the Endless Devourer was a dangerous constellation that even demons were reluctant to approach.
And there was no way the Abyss and Jiemens didn’t know this. They had simply pulled out their most dangerous card to overcome their desperate situation.
That’s when the eyes of the Nightgaunt wearing the black mask flashed.
The Nightgaunt took out a small sickle and started chanting spells.
Zeke realized it was using curses instead of magic.
He immediately launched Dragon’s Claw toward it.
SWOOSH!
When Dragon’s Claw struck, the Nightgaunt stepped back.
But even so, its chanting didn’t stop.
TSSS!
Soon black smoke poured out from the Nightgaunt’s body, gathered, and slowly started taking form.
Then something popped out from inside.
Zeke cautiously observed what had popped out.
‘That is?’
What popped out was none other than a colorful ball.
The ball rolled toward where Zeke was.
‘A bomb?’
Looking at it with suspicious eyes, Zeke launched a sword strike at the ball.
BANG!
The ball hit by the sword strike bounced away as if exploding.
But suddenly the ball turned into three and rolled back toward Zeke.
ROLL! ROLL!
Zeke swung his sword again to explode the balls, but once again the balls tripled in number.
After this situation repeated several times, Zeke felt like he was caught in a bad prank.
‘Is this also an illusion like the succubus court?’
Even if not, it seemed better to check directly with his body rather than repeating these meaningless actions.
That’s when the balls rushed toward Zeke, and this time instead of swinging his sword, he collided with them head-on.
BOOM! BOOM!
The balls that rushed into Zeke’s body caused real explosions, not illusions.
When the dust cloud cleared after the explosion, Zeke’s figure had completely vanished and the surroundings were totally devastated.
“Intruder elimination confirmed.”
After confirming Zeke’s disappearance, the Nightgaunt turned toward the gate.
Then it swung the sickle it was holding toward the magic sealing technique’s area that was interfering with the gate’s operation.
WHOOSH!
As the magic sealing technique’s area was torn by the sickle, the gate started operating again.
WOONG!
When the gate started operating normally again, the Nightgaunt chanted spells to summon the monster army again. But that’s when it happened.
RATTLE!
In an instant, chains wrapped around the Nightgaunt’s ankles and climbed up like living snakes to its hand holding the sickle.
When the Nightgaunt turned its head, there was Zeke wearing Hersion and holding Roland.
He pulled hard on the chains wrapped around the Nightgaunt.
WHOOSH!
The Nightgaunt’s body was pulled away from the gate toward Zeke.
And at some point, golden aura poured out from Zeke’s body.
Brilliant light blades enveloped Roland.
“HAAAH!”
Zeke immediately thrust Roland into the Nightgaunt’s body.
