Chapter 342. The Holy Grail of Revenge (4)
Gwalchavad had gotten destroyed so suddenly that I didn"t know how he had been beaten. There were only three possibilities if Gwalchavad, who had the Holy s.h.i.+eld, had been beaten without contacting me.
One was that the enemy was so strong, Gwalchavad couldn’t handle it.
Another was that he had accidentally gotten swept up in my grandfather and great-grandfather’s fight.
Finally, thought transmissions could have been blocked.
"It feels like it should be the last one,” I muttered in disbelief. Once again, I cut apart the horned snake that had half-regenerated the moment I stopped.
-Kieeeekk!
The other two scenarios didn’t make sense considering Gwalchavad"s skills. And above all, the aura I’d felt from the church was unusual. It was like divine power, but mixed with black mana. It was an unfamiliar feeling to see those opposing forces combined.
"Caradoc, what"s going on inside?" I asked.
-Is something wrong? Here, we’ve removed the black knights and have begun to destroy the altar. It’s going smoothly.
Could he not feel that aura from the inside? Well, the altar would be full of black mana, so it wouldn’t be strange for him to be unable to feel it unless he had very keen senses.
-If you feel something strange outside, I’ll a.s.sign troops to search.
"Okay. Start a search. I think the location is coming from the altar toward the center,” I began. “Hmm?" I exclaimed.
- What"s wrong?
The core containing Palamedes" soul had returned to my pocket s.p.a.ce. Palamedes hadn’t been alone. But there had been no communication, even though Palamedes had been attacked?
"Caradoc! Detonate the dragon tooth soldiers and finish it as soon as possible!" I commanded.
-Yes! Understood!
Sensing the unusual tone in my voice, Caradoc detonated the dragon tooth soldiers without hesitation and began to destroy the altar.
"Palamedes was taken out. Tristan, keep sending thought transmission signals and go inside to check!" I instructed.
-Yep! I understand.
Tristan was playful, but his mind was sharp, so he quickly grasped my intentions. Unknown enemies were interfering with thought transmissions, and thought transmission interference usually fixated on a certain area. Tristan kept sending signals to me constantly, and I also sent signals back in response. In the meantime, Lionel was taken out.
At some point, Tristan"s signal was cut, but then resumed.
"Did you confirm the presence of the enemy?” I asked.
-Middle... of… confirming...! …That side...!
Tristan"s thoughts had noise mixed in.
Then suddenly, I heard Percival"s thoughts clearly.
-Everyone, get ready for impact!
At the same time as Percival’s shout, a strong flash of light and an explosion erupted from the Demon King wors.h.i.+pping church. The barrier that had been guarding the church was completely destroyed by the explosion, and the golems that had been hitting the barrier were also completely destroyed.
"No! It took a lot of effort to fix them!" I cried. Ugh! The golems I had fixed in the workshop at the cost of delaying my mana recovery had turned into dust. Even at a glance, the main parts looked completely broken.
Do you feel better about destroying my dream?! Do you know how many years I’ll have to study to recreate Merlin"s golem technology?! There was data on parts, but there was no data on the manufacturing process!
"Heuk! No matter who it is, I"m not going to let them go!" I shed tears of blood as I threw the regenerated pterodactyl into the ground.
I quickly froze the horned snake in ten thousand year ice, and now only had to deal with the pterodactyl before I could avenge my golems.
From within the completely destroyed church, a woman in a black gothic dress walked out, waving away the smoke from the explosion of black mana. Within her hand was a small golden drinking gla.s.s.
I got a headache from seeing her and frowned. "This just got annoying."
The woman holding the gla.s.s was covering her face with a black veil, but she was clearly Hillis"s older sister. In other words, I had to unfortunately give up on revenge for the golems. My promise with Hillis was my first priority over the golems. It really made me want to cry.
Let"s just say that the price of the golems is the gla.s.s in that hand. I"m really broad-minded. I made my resolution. Just then, Tristan"s thought transmissions increased in strength amid the wreckage of the destroyed church.
-Master, where"s your conscience?
"Oh, were you okay? I thought you were done in by the explosion." Three cores had come in at once after the explosion, so I’d thought Tristan was included.
-Our stiff captain and I are fine. I avoided it because I was far away, but Bedivere took the hit for the captain.
-You should be ashamed, Master.
-As expected of Master, to a.s.sign the Holy Grail the same value as those barbaric stones! I respect his shamelessness!
I thought about the situation while ignoring Tristan"s joke. That meant the two on Caradoc’s side had been taken out.
-Gwalchmai and Caradoc were just taken out by the explosion, Hyung-nim.
I was surprised by Bors" answer. Caradoc was the only one who could handle the dragon tooth soldiers on a 10,000-unit basis. It seemed I would only be able to use a few of the dragon tooth soldiers for now. It didn"t matter, though, since the altar had already been destroyed anyway. I put the dragon tooth soldiers that were still fine after the explosion back into my pocket s.p.a.ce.
"But that"s weird,” I muttered. I knew Hillis’ older sister didn’t have such tremendous power. Of course, I was sure they had awakened her Holy tribe blood for the ceremony, but it far exceeded expectations.
Was it the power of the Holy Grail? No, even if it were the Holy Grail, it wouldn’t be possible to suddenly create such power. In addition, if it were the power of the Holy Grail, it would be strange that there wasn’t only divine power, but also black mana.
"Is it the power of the Demon King?!" I exclaimed. Suddenly, it made sense.
Originally, deciphering the Demon King summons had shown that the shaman was the vessel of the Demon King. But what if the Demon King’s old body had been sealed intact? It would be much shorter and more efficient to summon him in his original body without having to find a new body. However, the Demon King had one soul, while there were two vessels for it to be put into, so a conflict in the program would occur.
"Is that why the holy relics were needed? No wonder!" I remarked. The role of the Holy Grail wasn’t only to break the seal, but also to prevent a conflict by opening two channels in one body.
As a comparison, if the Demon King’s soul were a computer, the vessel that would become its body was a monitor that showed the world that the Demon King was now present. In other words, since there were two vessels, dual monitors would be used. The main monitor was still sealed, so the power of the Demon King was being channeled through the Holy Grail into Hillis’ sister.
"This is bad,” I muttered. Perhaps if the Demon King were complete, the connection would be cut off on its own to prevent a leakage of power, but until then, it was good enough to say that she was the Demon King…
…Although the output might be weaker compared to the real body. It would be like the difference between a 60hz monitor and a 144hz monitor.
Still, I hadn’t been planning to deal with the Demon King.
Then Hillis" sister slowly began to float in the air. I couldn"t see very well because she was far away, but she seemed to be crying.
"I hate you…! I curse you...!” Hillis"s older sister stared at me, giving off killing intent and black mana.
Ah! I figured it out. When I had been in the capital, I’d shaken her brainwas.h.i.+ng until it was almost released, so Libra seemed to have forcibly fixated her emotions on revenge. It was a rather unsophisticated method, but he probably couldn’t have helped it because I had messed up the brainwas.h.i.+ng so effectively.
Hillis"s older sister, who had gained strength thanks to that, must have escaped on her own… to kill me.
"Should I say this is a relief or a failure?" I muttered. It was probably closer to a failure.
Hillis" older sister used primitive and powerful black magic against me.
I moved quickly and avoided it by teleporting. The s.p.a.ce where I had been standing, and the mountain range behind it, was completely cut off.
"Oh, I"m screwed!" I exclaimed. Due to that attack just now, a crack appeared in the ten thousand year ice I had frozen the family members of the Demon King in. With that, I would have to cut them up and freeze them all over again.
The family members of the Demon King began to regenerate faster in response to the Demon King’s mana, too. This had just gotten annoying.
"If it’s like this, I’m going to have to go all out now." I let out a deep sigh and poured mana into the Holy Sword.
First of all, my priority was to steal the Holy Grail, the conduit connecting Hillis"s older sister and the Demon King.
“Now! This is payback for just now!" When I shoved the mana from the Miracle Crystal on my magic wand into the Holy Sword, its blade shot endlessly into the sky. I swung the Holy Sword as it was, aiming at Hillis"s older sister.
"I hate you…!" Hillis" older sister kept saying the same thing over and over again as she sent black mana against the Holy Sword.
"Heart Cut!" I cried, cutting the black mana apart by mixing the Holy Sword with the Heart Sword.
Then, as if the Demon King’s relatives recognized Hillis’ older sister as the Demon King, they threw themselves into the path of the Holy Sword to block it. After being burned by it, they began regenerating again.
Hillis" older sister hadn’t been consumed by the Demon King, so it was certain that she wouldn’ have the same regeneration ability as the Demon King. I had to handle this gently, so as to not hurt her as much as possible.
I teleported right behind Hillis"s sister to take away the Holy Grail before the regeneration process could finish.
"Enlightenment! Breaking a Mountain!" I hit her temple with all my might. I hit Hillis" older sister directly on the head, and she flew far away and rolled across the ground.
"Tch! Was it shallow?!" Clicking my tongue, I teleported right above her before she could regain her stance.
"Enlightenment! Splitting the Sea!" I raised my leg high and stabbed down toward her solar plexus.
Bang!
Hillis" older sister was deeply embedded in the ground, creating cracks. I jumped high into the air using the rebound of my kick and aimed my magic wand.
"Lightning that Races Across the Sky! Fire!” I shot hundreds of bolts of Lightning that Races Across the Sky at the center of the crack. Dust rose thickly into the air as I prepared for the next spell. I placed the chirps high in the sky and cut the ground with the Holy Sword.
"I… Curse you!" As the dust scattered due to the Holy Sword, despite being covered in dust, Hillis’ sister only had a few scratches.
Still, seeing as she had received injuries, there was proof that if I kept hitting her, the thick black mana protecting her body would weaken. The trick was to beat her like crazy, the same way I had defeated Arietta as she was about to lose her reason and become the Demon King.
Hillis"s older sister blew black mana at me again, and I confronted her by pouring mana into the Holy Sword at full power.
Boom!
A huge explosion occurred as black mana and divine power collided.
I held my magic wand high and activated the spell I had prepared. "Star in the sky, fall down! Meteor Strike!"
As mana was sucked out of my whole body, I could hear the sound of air being torn apart high in the sky. This meteor was bigger than a human body, and was several times larger than last time. The meteor flew directly at Hillis" sister, and just before it hit the ground, I ran away by teleporting.
As soon as the meteor hit the ground, a huge chunk of land flew up like a tsunami, and a mushroom cloud rose as if a hydrogen bomb had exploded.
"There’s a reason that there’s a hypothesis that dinosaurs went extinct due to a meteor,” I remarked.
Anyway, HIllis’s older sister would be safe, right? I was sure she’d be safe. She was basically the Demon King. She should have been able to stop the meteor that my grandfather had blocked, right? I was a little nervous, but it would be fine. Probably.
Toward the end of the disaster caused by the meteor, my magic wand suddenly began to vibrate. What? Did something happen to Arwen?
This vibration was a signal that the teleportation spell on Arwen"s wand had activated. Soon after, mana began to be pulled out of my magic wand, opening a s.p.a.ce in the air, and a person popped out.
"... Hillis?” Why are you coming out from there?