Chapter 1474.2

Gargantia was a necromancer and a great mage who had reached the 9th Circle, but he had never known of or even suspected the existence of such a place.

“Normally, your soul would’ve been destroyed before it even reached the River of Souls. You should consider yourself lucky.” The young man walked away, leaving Gargantia standing there blankly.

He tried to reach out a hand to attack the young man, but his hand merely passed through his figure.

The figure coldly told him, “Resistance is meaningless.”

Whoosh!

At the same time, the surrounding scenery completely twisted, revealing a different space. He swallowed hard as he looked at the river of fire and the horrifying screams echoing from every direction. If someone had told him he was in hell, he would've believed it.

From the moment his senses returned, every instinct screamed at him to run away immediately. Gargantia, unfamiliar with his own senses, reflexively tried to step back.

“There is no way back, but will this be acceptable for you? Your father, Nyx, is inside here.”

He stopped in his tracks.

The figure continued, “Follow me.”

In the past, he normally wouldn't have felt any emotion at those words. There would’ve been a slight flicker of pleasure and curiosity, but that would’ve been all. Yet suddenly, an unfamiliar sensation constantly felt like it was tightening around him. He began to wonder if it might be fear.

Stomp. Stomp.

As he walked, he was startled by a horrifying sensation wrapping around his ankle and turned his head.

Looking down, he saw a skeletal figure clung to his leg, desperately trying to say something. He looked at it, wondering whether it was telling him to run or begging him to save it. Regardless, a chill ran through him.

He shakily asked, “What is this place? Is it what people call hell?”

“It’s similar. It didn’t originally exist, but Goddess Freyja created it at one point to settle twisted karma.”

“Goddess? She has terrible taste.”

“You are free to say whatever you like, but can you handle the consequences?” The young man held out his hand. Where he pointed, there was a massive door. “Enter.”

Gargantia cautiously asked, “What happens to me if I go in there?”

“You’ll find out once you’re inside.”

Creeeak!!! Thud! Screeech!

Seeing the door open on its own, Gargantia fell silent.

“Remember this,” the figure advised him before continuing, “Only a handful of souls ever reach the deepest layers of this purgatory. Even the worst sinners fear this place. You only ended up here because of the countless lives you took away. This place exists because, if too many souls burdened with twisted karma were allowed to burn it away in the River of Souls, they would corrupt the entire river.”

“Whatever it is, a hell beyond your imagination will be inside. Also, keep in mind that the time inside there is different from the time you know.”

Gargantia approached the doorway with a tense face, only to see a man tied to a burning wall inside, screaming, “AAAARGH!!! GAAAH!!! AHHH!!!”

He was a murderer who had killed people for no good reason in Heins, using countless corpses as toys under the pretense of art, but Gargantia had no way of knowing that. What mattered was the horrifying fear that constantly stimulated his instincts and slowly began to consume him.

When Gargantia finally entered the deeper level, he soon saw the figure of someone familiar.

“You're...”

“You're late, aren't you?” the young man calmly remarked, then turned his head.

Gargantia was speechless.

The young man called out, “Hey Nyx, your adopted son is here!”

The massive lich tied to the wall slowly lifted his head.

[Gargantia!]

He urgently shouted and shook in pain.

[Run away! Don't think about facing this monster!!!]

Gargantia’s eyes went wide in shock at his father’s desperate cry. The father Nyx he knew wasn't the kind of being to say such a thing.

More than that, he had no resistance to the overwhelming fear that struck him the moment he faced Davey, so he instinctively turned to flee. Unfortunately for him, the door he'd entered through had already firmly shut behind him.

“Welcome. I told you I'd see you at the river, you bastard.”

“Brutal, indeed,” Gargantia replied. “What kind of grudge do you hold against me to do this?”

“Do you really not think about what you did?”

Gargantia merely shrugged. “What I did was just the natural way of things. Do you resent Earth when people die from natural disasters?”

Davey gave a sardonic smile at his logic. “And that’s exactly why you're here. By your logic, someone like you who's only just entered the 9th Circle will never understand what's about to happen, no matter how hard you try to figure it out. You must instead simply accept it.”

Once Davey finished, flames erupted from the ground and engulfed Gargantia’s entire body like the maw of a giant beast. It wasn't particularly hot, but he felt an unusually chilling and spooky feeling.

“You still don't see them?” Davey asked.

“What are you talking about?”

“The things around you.”

He looked around with a puzzled expression, only to see skulls holding strange tools in their hands gathering around him.

“All of them have been waiting for a single purpose.”

“For what?”

“What else? They’re the people you killed because you wanted a thrill,” Davey told him with a grin.

Their forms began to change, transforming into various living beings. There were humans, elves, dwarves, demons, and even monsters.

“Normally, I don't offer this kind of special treatment, but, considering what you did, I made an exception just for you.”

The dragon had threatened Illyna to become his partner. He’d even called Evangeline a half-breed and tried to kill her. The list went on.

In truth, Davey was already way past his breaking point. “The only reason I didn't kill you myself was that Perserque told me to not lay hands on you and steal the kill.”

However, now that he was dead and was no longer under her protection, nothing would change even if Davey laid hands on him.

“Ugh. Ahhh!! Get away! Get away!”

He didn't know why, but as the skulls struck his body and shattered, unfamiliar pain, emotions, and horrific memories flooded into his mind.

“The pain of everyone you killed and controlled as undead will be transferred directly to you. They won't torture you for long, of course. They'll simply pass on everything they experienced and leave. Once they’re all finished and gone, all your karma will have been settled. Your memories will be erased, and you'll return to the path of reincarnation.”

Yet, when Gargantia looked around, he spotted a clear problem.

“But just how many skulls... are here for you?”

His face turned pale at Davey’s cold laugh. The horrific pain, memories, and despair transferred by just one skull were agonizing enough. Now countless skulls were rushing toward him.

“You can't go crazy, and you can't die. Remember, you're only in this miserable state because you never took on even the minimum degree of karma for those you killed.” He had mocked them and continued to toy with them even after their deaths. “Think of it as paying the price for what you did.”

Gargantia desperately screamed, “What about you?! You're no different from me! Do you think only one or two people have suffered because of you?! Do you think you've only killed one or two people?!”

When Gargantia, who instinctively felt fear, screamed desperately, Davey closed his eyes. Then he slowly raised his head and said, “That's why I personally waited for you in this shithole.”

No response.

“I don't ignore the karma I've accumulated from the people I've killed or driven to despair.”

He knew that accepting it was the least respect he could show to those whose lives he'd taken or driven to despair.

“You managed to recruit some interesting underlings. Eva didn’t know what to do for a while because of them.”

She had faced those who suffered because of his decisions. It was those who had lost their path of revenge and depended on Gargantia, receiving his power. They, at least, hadn’t lost their purpose in life to Gargantia.

Gargantia had used them by giving them the power to achieve their goals.

“Did you ever feel any responsibility when you saw them?”

Despite hearing the question, Gargantia said nothing more. Instead, he let out a terrible scream. One by one, the skulls implanted their pain deep into his mind and disappeared.

Those who passed on all their pain calmly put down their burdens and returned to the River of Souls.

“Think about what you could’ve done differently while you're settling all that karma.”

Davey had restored his emotions and dragged him there specifically to make him face his karma.

That was practically the most horrific punishment for a being like Gargantia.

“Who knows. If you truly repent and face your karma, the period you spend enduring it might be shortened.”

* * *

After Gargantia's death on the battlefield, all the undead vanished, and those who had been empowered by his abilities surrendered. They felt a sense of emptiness and sadness that they couldn't achieve their goal, but they didn't resist capture.

The Ahm Kingdom was essentially destroyed, its entire capital having been turned into a necropolis by Gargantia.

However, a collateral branch of the royal family in the provinces ensured that the Ahm Kingdom's royal bloodline survived, though the kingdom would remain under the control of the International Federation for some time.

Many things happened during the cleanup.

In the Pallan Empire, Duke Vertas, the Imperial Mage Commander and a political rival of Sullivan’s, was executed. Normally, his treason would've brought down the entire duchy under the principle of collective punishment, but some sort of deal had been reached that spared the life of the young Rune Bertas.

The duchy was also demoted to a county, and she became the head of the count's family, maintaining its lineage under the pretext of loyalty to the imperial family.

More time passed.

Following that incident, Prince Khrones regularly sent letters to Evangeline from the Sparta Kingdom, but she didn't pay any attention and crossed over to Earth.

She insisted that she hadn't streamed enough recently.

And then.

“Hmm. Haaah.” Along with a chilling breath, Davey’s red eyes flashed. “Perserque. Where are you, you little rascal.”

Davey had lived only for that moment. If he didn't give her a good spanking and make her cry, his anger wouldn't subside.

Under his pursuit, Perserque shrank herself down, slipped into a closet, and kept her mouth shut.

Sure, he understood that she could steal some materials he had painstakingly collected as revenge. He had done the same after all, so it was only fair. However, when she realized those materials weren't enough to complete the Immortal Slayer Arrow, she’d gotten her hands on the special things he'd carefully hidden away.

She was experiencing the result of those actions.

‘This is bad. What’s he going to do if he catches me...’

He wouldn't physically strike or curse her, but she'd almost prefer that.

The two were quite competitive. For example, Davey was determined to make Perserque do something so embarrassing she couldn't stand it, and she him. Since they loved giving each other a hard time, if she were to be caught at that moment, their constant battle of pride would undoubtedly tip in his favor.

Just as she hid, trembling, a fist suddenly broke through the large closet door and then retracted back out. As she crouched at the bottom of the closet, shrunk to the size of a palm, her face turned pale.

When his ominous red eyes appeared from beyond the closet, Perserque gulped.

“There you are.”

She had even layered a concealment spell on herself so he wouldn't find her. She had no clue how he found her!

She began to wonder if it might be the ring.

It was then that Perserque remembered the only person who knew she was hiding there. She was certain that they must’ve betrayed her!

“Rinne!!!” Perserque screamed, then desperately launched herself to avoid his hand that was reaching for her.

It was then that Illyna opened the door to the room.

“What are you two doing? Quit messing around and just eat the pineapple Hyun-Ah sent... Uagh!”

Hearing her retching sound, Davey dropped the strange costume he had been holding.

Perserque, who had pulled out a crowbar and was about to smack his hand with it, also froze in her tracks.

“Really?!”