Chapter 354: The Lost World (9)

A gremlin without a head reached forward with its arm. Then it picked up its severed head and pressed it back onto its neck.

"What the—?"

Black smoke rose from the cleanly sliced edge. The severed head claimed its rightful place as if nothing were wrong, jaw clicking into motion. Its long ears twitched left and right. The reattached gremlin then grabbed the pick lying on the ground.

"Back!" Gilaut shouted.

His blade cleaved the gremlin rushing at me. The sword tore a deep line across its back, but no blood spilled. The corpse jolted forward.

I retreated one step and swept my sword upward from below. The strike split the risen corpse clean in half, and instead of blood, black smoke leaked out. The smoke writhed, crawling along the corpses. It spread instantly, sinking into corpse after corpse, and the moment it touched them, they rose.

There was a corpse with a gaping hole in its chest, a corpse with its head severed, and a corpse with its entrails leaking. There were corpses with missing limbs. Other corpses crushed atop one another on the cave floor twitched and untangled themselves.

Every gremlin that had fallen moments ago rose simultaneously in front of us, behind us, to our left and right, each grabbing whatever weapon had once belonged to them.

Vwoom!

My sword cut through the air with a sharp whistle as I moved in beside Gilaut, cutting down corpses without stopping. Even if they stood again, they were still just gremlins whose cores I couldn't absorb at all with Essence Absorption.

I sliced their heads off again, pierced their chests, and severed their arms. Yet, despite their headlessness, they kept coming. There was no clean way to deal with them.

"Hack them all you want... these things don't have a weak point!" Gilaut shouted.

I had started to realize the same thing. The more I cut, the more their forms simply grew distorted. They soon rose again, grabbed their picks, and charged. If they lost their arms, they writhed across the ground and lunged with their jaws, trying to bite at our ankles, or they flung themselves at us to pin us down.

I stomped, dodged, blocked, and cut again, but the enemy's overall fighting strength didn't drop. It felt like fighting a fog made of flesh.

Shrrrip!

Sensing danger, a tentacle shot out from my elbow. Two corpses swinging picks at my back were skewered at once.

If not for that... I'd be dead.

[Skill: Bone Tendril Control Lv. 3 activated.]

The auto-triggered skill covered my blind spots. I slipped past a shovel thrusting in at a bizarre angle, grabbed the wrist, smashed its stomach with my hilt, then used the recoil to thrust through another corpse lunging from the opposite side.

Each strike landed cleanly, but there was no end. Since the kills didn't "count" as finished, I did not gain any experience even when I shredded them.

"These things won't stop unless we turn them into pulp!"

Crunch!

Bone-breaking sounds echoed. Gilaut practically reduced one corpse to mush as he shouted. The crushed corpse stayed glued to the floor, unable to rise.

He's the only one who can hit that hard...

However, there was no way he could do it to every one of them.

Shrrk!

My sword still cut well, but there were no answers. The gremlins were tougher in death than in life. The already-ruined skeleton soldiers were clearly struggling.

Snap! Crack-crack!

One of them was caught, its bones torn apart and scattered in pieces. The five soldiers Gith-Za-Rai had given me were now down to four.

To think... just from gremlins...

However, the things charging us were hardly gremlins anymore. The severed portions of flesh, which no longer bled, fused together at random. Masses of meat twice the size of a gremlin wedged into the gaps of our defensive line, surrounding us.

A longer arm snagged 1007, a troll skeleton that had misstepped for an instant. The spear in 1007's hands snapped and spun through the air. The skeleton, swallowed into the swarm of corpses, was trampled and crushed, its form lost entirely in moments.

Moments ago, 1021 had been fighting beside me with raising Affection messages, but now it was completely gone.

So this is... a Demon King's authority...

Baal of Dominion. Aamon of Flame. Leraje of the Hunt. Each Demon King was defined by their own power. Murmur's authority was possession. With only a fragment of that power, just a sliver that leaked in from the Demon Realm, he could raise corpses and keep them moving until they were mashed into pulp. If his true body's power were here, he would have simply possessed us directly and turned us into slaves.

"Why... won't these things... break?!"

Crack!

Gilaut's Shadow Blade tore through the corpses with such force that it sent a shiver down my spine.

We can't go on like this.

A lump of flesh made from three corpses mashed together grabbed 1007 with six hands. Another corpse crouched behind and used yet another as a foothold, leaping up to smash a blow down on 1007's skull. Already damaged all over, 1007's head cracked, and it collapsed.

A total wipeout?

The circle of corpses around us tightened. For every single step we fought to gain inside the ring, the outer mass of corpses moved five, ten steps as they pleased. Even the ones we had just crushed into mush rose again and rejoined the encirclement from the outside. We could shift our position slightly, but we could not escape the encirclement.

A total wipeout...

Clatter, clatter.

My foot struck the remains of 1002, which had been freshly shattered. Gith-Za-Rai's soldiers. No... they were also connected to my mana. They might as well have been my soldiers. They were linked... by mana...

A forgotten question suddenly popped back into my mind.

How are Murmur and these gremlins connected?

Beyond mere possession, he was animating countless corpses. There had to be some conduit through which that power was supplied.

"Gilaut, look around. Is there some kind of altar?"

"An altar?"

Crunch!

The Dullahan crushed through a corpse's arm along with its pick as he answered. He could last a bit longer.

"Yes, an altar! Look for a hidden idol or some kind of pattern!"

No matter how powerful a Demon King was, this was still only a region in the midst of encroachment. Of course, there would be some kind of channel feeding mana through.

We have to shut it down.

"Maybe... that?"

Gilaut stomped on a lunging corpse, pinned it, and pointed beyond a pillar toward a huge boulder. Maybe it was a difference in perception range, but it still hadn't fully resolved in my vision.

"What does it look like?"

"It's dark, so it's blurry, but I see multiple circles layered over each other! Ten... twelve... fifteen... and it's divided into sixteen angles? Looks like some complicated symbol!"

Clatter.

Startled by what he said, I drove my sword too deeply into the corpse charging at me.

"Kyaaaah!"

I kicked away the corpse trying to bite me and yanked the blade free.

A celestial chart.

I understood immediately from Gilaut's description.

"Good. We're heading there."

"Stick close behind me! We'll break through somehow!"

Gilaut forged ahead like a man diving through a school of flesh-eating fish. He didn't even bother dodging the strikes aimed at his shins. He took them on his ankles, braced, then kicked them away one after another.

The pick edges couldn't pierce the Dullahan's greaves, and instead flew backward, splitting open the heads of the corpses behind. At the same time, he swung his sword without looking back, batting away attacks from the rear. His blade deflected the blows effortlessly and continued its path, smashing two more corpses rushing up behind him.

Thud!

The body struck by the blade hit the ground with a dull crash. The crushed remains couldn't rise again, and even when they did, it took a long time. But each time he unleashed a blow like that, the dark shadow clinging to Gilaut's body grew a little fainter. By the time we were halfway to the massive boulder, I could finally see the celestial chart clearly.

Perfect.

The celestial chart had sixteen directions, each corresponding to a Demon King's mark. As we drew closer, I could feel it even at a glance: the dangerous structure of the barrier, the clear flow of power running through the rock. For every five steps we took, ten corpses fell.

[Skill Experience for Swordsmanship is increasing rapidly...]

[Recovering Swordsmanship Lv. 3!]

We couldn't gain any kill experience from these things, but the constant work of cutting through that "flesh fog" steadily built up my skill experience.

"Here."

We reached the boulder carved with the celestial chart. Gilaut's armor was dented deeply in several places from the journey here.

I'm sorry...

He had cut the path open from the front, then held the rear whenever attacks concentrated on me. Nothing had been able to block his advance, and nothing had gotten past him to bring me down. However, after swinging his blade endlessly, one of his shoulder joints looked like it might fall off at any moment.

[Health has fallen below 30%!]

The number of enemies hadn't decreased at all. No matter how many layers we sliced through, stabbed, crushed, or stomped down, the mounds of flesh kept crawling in. There was no hint of breaking out of the siege.

This is the only way.

I switched my sword to my other hand and aimed at the boulder.

Suddenly, grotesque laughter rippled from the corpses. "Kr... krk-krrr..."

They were mocking us. They stepped back, half a pace, leaving just enough room to watch.

"What are these things thinking? They're just watching!" Gilaut muttered.

I understood.

They think... I don't know.

The celestial chart. From Baal to Murmur, sixteen Demon King sigils etched in a ring. Destroy the wrong one, and the result could be catastrophic.

"It's like they're daring you to try," Gilaut said.

He wasn't wrong.

As I faced the celestial chart, conversations with Isaac resurfaced.

Alright, surely you understand this, right? I'm not angry. I'm just... baffled.

The celestial chart was a barrier system, a contract-like array where the Demon Kings' sigils replaced and restrained one another. My skills had been extracted from my body, yes. But the memory of my rituals remained.

This place belongs to Murmur. If I strike a sigil belonging to a Demon King who restrains Murmur, then Murmur's power will weaken.

A one-in-sixteen chance. No, less than that.

The celestial chart was composed of the corners, the center heavens, and all sixteen sigils. Most people wouldn't even think to strike the sigils instead of the wide central area or corners.

The gremlins didn't break the other sigils because of the constraints between the Demon Kings.

However, I was not bound by that law. I didn't serve Demon Kings. Even if Malphas' sigil was etched into my circuits, whatever consequences followed were none of my concern.

This world has no Isaac anyway.

As for Murmur's sigil, I knew it perfectly. I knew all sixteen Demon King sigils without exception. After all, I had lived in a world swept by Demon Kings. I had served in a Demon King's army for ten full years. Of course, I knew.

[Recovering Barrier Knowledge Lv. 1!]

[You understand the following concepts: Ascension, Decline, Mid-heaven, and Deep-heaven. Four Directions, Celestial Sphere, Ecliptic, Horizon...]

I glanced at the emerging messages.

Flash!

I raised my sword high.

Farewell.

Clang!

I struck one of the sixteen sigils dead-on.

Fssssshhhhhh!

Instantly, the black smoke pouring from the celestial chart burst outward and scattered. All the charging corpses, attacking from every angle, froze in place, trembling violently. They writhed as if in pain.

"It's working!" Gilaut shouted, voice trembling.

But that was all.

Clang!

I struck Murmur's sigil again with full force, but the corpses did not completely collapse.

"Kya... aa... aa... aah..."

The corpses that had been mocking us moments ago staggered, then surged toward me with renewed fury.

We're doomed.

They were wary now. They would no longer leave openings. They would kill us with absolute fanaticism. Was this the end? I couldn't accept that.

It was the third strike to the sigil.

Clang!

The third blow cracked the boulder's surface slightly, and Murmur's sigil exhaled a cloud of black smoke, layering over itself in thick coils.

No good! Should I ask Gilaut to destroy it?

But his condition was worsening too.

Shffff...

The black smoke started repairing the damaged sigil.

BOOM!

A burst of green smoke erupted from a sigil on the opposite side of the celestial chart.