Chapter 113: Apostles

A week passed after Nio’s death, and the dynamic among the apostles shifted dramatically. Yomo, as expected, stole Nio’s palace and drove out a considerable portion of the apostles.

And despite no one liking Yomo, no one dared challenge him, because Yomo is one of the strongest apostles and a fight with him would be far too risky. So most chose to simply leave. Some he allowed to stay even left of their own will, with only a minimal number of them remaining.

However, among those who left, they decided to form their own foundation. Vesta decided to go to the empire and make that her territory. She doesn’t want to rule the empire, but she decided to go to the emperor and make the situation clear.

She massacred a large portion of the emperor’s guards and subdued Aster, proposing to help Aster achieve Vesta’s goals in exchange for Vesta providing magical knowledge. Aster accepted upon realizing Vesta’s immense magical talent.

This forced Leon to accept Vesta’s help, though after hearing the situation, even with Vesta hiding a great deal, Leon still saw a good opportunity, because Vesta only wants one thing: to kill some of the other apostles she hates.

Leon then decided to provide Vesta with whatever support she wanted. In exchange, Vesta would help the emperor and prevent other apostles from attacking the empire, which seemed fair to Vesta, since she is far more peaceful than most of the other apostles.

Azalea, on the other hand, decided to follow in Nio’s footsteps. She decided to make the Theocracy her territory. She invaded the place and spoke with Stelaria, who, still under Nio’s mental control, decided to deliberately help Azalea, which surprised her.

This made their relationship quite peaceful and smooth, with Azalea deciding to gather forces for her goals. Since she has now marked the Theocracy’s territory as her own, the other apostles won’t try to attack the Theocracy.

Meanwhile, the Kingdom of Ortyr was the one that faced the most problems. With Nio’s fall, someone who should never have been freed gained her freedom. Melissa decided to make the Kingdom of Ortyr her starting point, her new hive.

In just three days, she exterminated a large portion of the National Ranks, despite some difficulty in two of the fights she had, and sealed off the entire Kingdom of Ortyr with a barrier. Her plan is simple: prevent any human from fleeing.

And turn all humans into food, material for producing her honey, and living incubators for her eggs. With so many humans, her hive has the potential for absurd growth. And despite her despicable attitude, she decided to take some people to be part of the command center of her new hive. Among these people, the princess is one of those who survived.

And she won’t be used only to bear children that will devour her body. She will be used for her intelligence to help Melissa with her goal.

As for the other apostles, they decided to do nearly the same. They found interesting kingdoms or places and marked them as their personal territory, regardless of the original inhabitants’ wishes.

Marking territory is important to them. It delimits an area that other apostles won’t enter to avoid a fight, while allowing them to grow slowly — a race to see who will dominate everything in the end.

Yomo, in the end, got the best place: Nio’s palace, full of riches and resources. He came out with the greatest advantage by "inheriting" everything without needing to build a base from scratch.

Yomo is so sure of himself because of his power and having Nio’s palace, and he’s already flying high, so he decided out of pure arrogance to move Nio’s palace above the artificial lake created by Nio’s fight with Typhon.

The palace was stationed right above the center of the lake, undeniably forming a beautiful view, but also a monument to Yomo’s greed, cruelty, and malice.

"Y-Yomo-sama, c-can I leave now?" a maid asks, frightened, as she stands in Nio’s room — now Yomo’s room, since he stole Nio’s original room for himself.

Unlike the apostles, with whom Yomo didn’t even try to pick a fight, since Yomo, though strong, knows there would be risks, the servants weren’t so lucky. All of Nio’s other "NPCs" had to stay in the palace to serve Yomo now.

"No, I still have things I need to put away..." Yomo murmurs as he looks at Nio’s wardrobe, now full of Yomo’s clothes. The maid looks down in fear, not having the courage to look at Yomo’s naked body.

"Hmmm... I think I’ll wear red and white today, I’m feeling quite lively," Yomo murmurs as the maid’s eyes roll to the side, toward the bed.

Where Nio’s decapitated body lies with her arms and legs bound, her body covered in a viscous white substance, while her head is positioned in the center with her eyes closed and her face dripping that viscous thing onto the sheets.

The maid fights the urge to vomit seeing how Yomo not only desecrates Nio’s body but doesn’t even try to do the bare minimum to keep it private.

’I feel sick...’ She knows that if she shows it, Yomo will kill her, as her ears droop low and her long, thin tail hides inside her maid skirt.

"I need you to tell the other maids to adjust Nio’s clothes. I liked her style, I want to wear those clothes, but Nio is short and has almost no tits, so they need to be made bigger."

"Also, I need them to prepare the bath with various beauty materials. After all, I need to keep Nio’s body very clean and well cared for. Oh, and make it clear to them that I will clean Nio’s body myself and they are not to touch it."

"Even though her body can’t rot because of the dragon species she is, it still accumulates dust and dirt from the environment, so I need to be careful and I want to be the only one to touch her," Yomo picks out an outfit that is a red dress with white frills and an elegant pair of black shoes.

"There, what do you think of this outfit?" Yomo asks, but when the maid looks up, she realizes Yomo is asking Nio’s severed head, which makes her immediately lower her eyes.

"You like it? Wonderful hahaha," Yomo laughs in a mocking tone as he gently places Nio’s head beside her body.

"Ah... yes, maid, I need you to call a proper healer. I stitched Nio’s belly, but I didn’t like the scar, so I want someone to fix it, since potions don’t work on a corpse."

"And make it clear to him that he is not to reconnect the head. If the healer does that, I’ll kill him. She has to stay the way she is. Just fix her belly to erase that ugly scar," Yomo gently covers Nio’s body with a sheet as he heads to the door.

"U-Understood, Yomo-sama..." As Yomo leaves, the maid drops to her knees, afraid of her future here. She always liked living in this place. Nio was a master who demanded nothing, who almost never asked for anything, and who only required that the place stay clean. But now that Yomo is in charge, his requests are absurd, grotesque, and filled with extreme malice.

"..." She doesn’t even have the courage to beg for Nio to come back, because Yomo forbade any act showing worship, respect, or submission to Nio. Trying to beg for Nio to return is a death sentence in the palace.

’Nio-sama... why did you have to die to someone as cowardly as Yomo-sama...’