Chapter 274
‘What is that?’
Zeke felt a sinister aura from the black light enveloping the Apostle.
It felt completely different from ordinary demonic energy.
He quickly gripped his sword and unleashed the power of purification.
WOOOOONG!
A golden aura spread out, enveloping the sinister black light.
Zeke maintained the power of purification and slowly walked toward the altar.
However, the Apostle resisted the power of purification, continuously pushing Zeke back.
Despite the constant resistance, Zeke gritted his teeth and continued to advance.
Just then, he heard Arataso's voice.
[W-What? This doesn't make any sense.]
‘Arataso. What in the world is this energy?’
Arataso then spoke in a voice filled with disbelief.
[This is the aura of a high-ranking demon. But… it hasn't been summoned as a clone, like me. The true form has incarnated.]
At those words, Zeke gripped Bahamut, summoned the Soul Relic, 'Will of Steel', and enhanced his body.
RUMBLE!
He planned to eliminate the Apostle with the most powerful attack he could muster before the high-ranking demon could fully manifest.
“Haaaaaaaat!”
Zeke gripped his sword and drew up his power.
WOOOONG!
At Zeke's will, everything seemed to stop.
Unlike when he was a Red Knight, a formless power now dwelled within Zeke's sword.
That power stopped everything.
The atmosphere, the fluttering dust, and even time itself.
The power that proved his realm as a Black Knight.
The Astral Sword had manifested in Zeke's blade.
WOOOONG!
If an Aura Blade, created by condensing aura, was a power that destroyed what it touched, the Astral Sword was a power that annihilated .
Having activated the Astral Sword, Zeke aimed his sword at the altar.
Then, kicking off into the air, he unleashed his Infinite Sword Art at the altar, which was wreathed in black energy.
Infinite Sword Art Secret Technique
Third Form
Great Roc Emerges from Water
An immense wave erupted from Zeke's sword as if in an explosion.
SWOOOOOOSH!
Zeke's sword strike, like a giant bird spreading its wings in flight, collided with the black energy.
TSUTSUTSUTSU—
The formless energy raged, annihilating the black energy that was enveloping the Apostle's body.
As a result, black ash scattered in all directions.
The power was on a completely different level from the Great Roc Emerges from Water he had used as a Red Knight.
[KAAAAAAK!]
From within the swirling black energy, the Apostle's form was revealed.
The Apostle could no longer be considered human.
All of his skin had been peeled off, and his muscles were exposed.
He was bleeding blue blood from his eyes, ears, and mouth.
Zeke immediately rushed toward the Apostle.
“Haaaat!”
Bahamut, surging with the Blade of Purification, cleanly sliced off the Apostle's neck.
Thump-roll-roll-roll!
The severed head rolled across the altar floor.
The black energy that had enveloped the Apostle's body was offset by the golden aura and had already vanished, leaving only the hideous, decapitated body of the Apostle.
THUD!
The Apostle, who had tried to have a high-ranking demon incarnate directly into his own body, had his summoning interrupted by the power of purification before his body could even be reconstructed.
Zeke looked at the fallen Apostle and let out a sigh of relief.
“Whew, if a real high-ranking demon had appeared, it would have been a disaster.”
He approached the fallen Apostle and gripped the hilt of Roland, which was still stuck in its back.
As he was slowly pulling Roland out, it happened.
CRACK!
Zeke felt a crack form in Agamemnon's Mask, which he had kept in his pouch.
“W-What?”
[Durability of ???'s Mask has dropped below 20%.]
[Durability will decrease if you continue to use purification skills.]
[If durability reaches 0%, it cannot be restored.]
A message appeared, stating that the durability of Agamemnon's Mask had dropped.
Zeke quickly placed the mask in the repair window, but a warning window just popped up, stating that it was an unrepairable item.
‘Is my only option to restore it at the Fairy's Lake?’
He had never imagined there would be a limit to his use of the power of purification.
He looked at the fallen Apostle's body with a bitter expression.
“I had to kill him immediately when I heard he was a high-ranking demon… but it's a shame. There were so many things I could have found out about the bastards of the Abyss.”
There was a good deal of information he had obtained from interrogating the manager of this baptismal site, but an executive-level figure like the Apostle would surely have possessed much more.
It was all the more regrettable since Dragon's Sense and Shadow Dominion couldn't be used on the dead.
However, Zeke put his regrets aside and tried to absorb the dead Apostle with Gluttony.
TSUTSUTSU—
The shadow that rose began to absorb as usual, and then suddenly stopped.
‘What?’
Startled, Zeke quickly took out the Sacred Brazier and set the fallen Apostle's body on fire.
He had acted quickly because if Gluttony didn't work, it was possible the Apostle was still breathing.
FWOOOSH!
Watching the Apostle's body burn, Zeke gripped Bahamut.
‘These bastards of the Abyss, I really can't let my guard down for a second.’
He looked around to find the Apostle's severed head to burn it as well.
After finding the head on the floor, Zeke approached it and happened to look into the dead Apostle's unfocused eyes. At that moment, a light flashed within the Apostle's pupils.
‘What?’
ZIIIIING—
In that instant, Zeke felt a shock that seemed to shake his brain.
At the same time, he heard Arataso's voice, mixed with static.
[...ke! That bastard is blocking my voi...]
Arataso's voice cut off and became inaudible.
ZIIIIING—
His ears rang again, and he felt a wave of dizziness as the scenery around him began to shimmer.
He stepped back, but the sound echoing in his ears still hadn't disappeared.
The scene before his eyes completely distorted.
Just then, he felt a presence behind him. Snapping back to his senses, Zeke turned around. A completely unexpected person was standing there.
“Simon?”
Simon was looking down at Zeke with a cold expression.
Zeke looked at Simon and said, “Simon, why are you here…?”
SLAP!
Before Zeke could finish his sentence, Simon slapped him across the face.
Feeling the stinging sensation, Zeke stared at him blankly, then suddenly felt that something was wrong.
‘Huh?’
He could see a burning camp, scattered corpses, and members of a hostile cartel on their knees with their hands on their heads.
Simon looked down at Zeke and said,
“Zeke Murray, this is a battlefield. Snap out of it if you don't want to get your throat slit by an enemy's sword.”
The Simon before his eyes was indeed the Simon he knew.
However, it was Simon from his past life who had taught him the skills of a hitman.
‘How did this happen?’
In his past life, the nineteen-year-old Zeke had gone from being a slave in the south to an assassin, before being scouted by Don Juan and joining Simon's unit to begin his life as a hitman.
Simon had never taken care of him or kindly taught him any skills.
So Zeke had to learn by watching over their shoulders and using his wits, and to do that, he had to survive in a hellish battlefield every day.
One of the reasons Zeke avoided sleep as much as possible was because those days were constantly replayed in his nightmares.
The situation of reverting not to Zeke Draker, who had regressed to live a new life, but to the Zeke Murray of his past life would often be replayed in his dreams.
But this was not a dream.
‘What is this, what in the world happened?’
The Bahamut he had been holding just a moment ago, and the Annexie's Dagger he had in his pouch, were not in his hands.
He only had a few cheap daggers in his pouch, the ones he had been supplied with during his days as a hitman in the south.
Simon looked at Zeke and said,
“We're moving out immediately. If you don't keep your wits about you, you might be among those corpses in a few hours.”
Leaving behind those cynical words, Simon turned away.
Zeke stared blankly at Simon's back, then looked around.
What he was seeing, the smells he was taking in, and the sensations he felt were all too real.
Zeke steadied his breathing and tried to regain his composure.
‘Based on the circumstances, this is an illusion. An incredibly realistic illusion.’
Zeke focused his mind, trying to break free from the illusion.
He thought that with the mental defense and skills he possessed, he should be able to break the illusion.
But no matter how hard he focused, the illusion wouldn't break.
If anything, his senses only became clearer.
Just then, he saw Simon and the other unit members beginning to move out.
Zeke considered his options, then decided to move for now and followed Simon's unit.
‘I've heard that some illusions maximize the target's trauma to break their mind. Perhaps this situation is the trauma I fear the most.’
The way to break an illusion that magnifies one's trauma was to face the situation directly and overcome it.
Zeke quietly leaped onto a luggage cart.
Looking at the faces of the others sitting on the cart, old memories came flooding back.
‘Most of them died. And there were some I killed with my own hands.’
Zeke sat in the cart, gathering his thoughts once more.
‘Arataso definitely said that thing was interfering with his voice. What if the Apostle didn't fail the summoning, but had already succeeded? If that thing's abilities are mental-type, then this is entirely possible.’
He tried his best not to get drawn into the situation.
He had a feeling that the more he immersed himself in the circumstances of his past life, the more vivid the illusion would become and the more strongly the trauma would manifest.
‘I need a catalyst to break this.’
Zeke gripped his dagger, steadied his breath, and assessed his physical condition.
Just like in his past life, he had not awakened as a Healer, nor was his middle dantian open.
He tried to use Healing, drawing on the senses of his past life.
But it didn't activate properly.
‘I can do this. Let’s calm down and try again.’
While riding in the luggage cart, Zeke persistently attempted to use Healing and was eventually successful.
It didn't have the power of his Healing Factor, but what was important was to solve things one step at a time.
Recalling that the moment his sense of self wavered within the illusion, he would collapse uncontrollably, Zeke calmly waited for the right time.
After traveling by cart for several hours, Simon stopped somewhere and had the unit members dismount.
The unit members had no idea when, where, how, or who they were attacking.
Their mission was to attack without complaint when their unit commander gave the order.
In his past life, Zeke had also followed his commands like a loyal dog.
Simon placed a few pebbles on the ground and said to the unit members, “We’ll split into three groups. One goes this way, another this way, and the last one this way.”
Just then, a veteran hitman raised his hand and asked,
“What's the mission, Captain?”
At his question, Simon replied in a cold voice,
“Annihilate them all. Wipe them out without leaving even a single dog.”
All the unit members nodded at Simon's words.
And, as per Simon's command, the unit members split into three groups and moved in their respective directions.
Zeke, who was assigned to the unit led by Simon, realized what trauma the illusion was showing him.
‘…Of all the things.’
He still remembered it clearly.
This was the location of a hostile organization's Soma production factory.
The problem was that this organization's production factory was operating under the guise of an ordinary village, unrelated to Soma.
Don Juan had ordered the destruction of all production factories to deal a blow to the hostile organization.
And not only the production factory but the entire village where it was located had to be erased.
The memory was still vivid for Zeke.
The sight of children playing with a ball in front of the village being struck by arrows and dying, or being trapped in their homes with their parents and burning to death.
Just then, a huge explosion was heard.
KABOOM!
As the mana bomb set by Simon's unit exploded, members of the organization rushed out of the factory with crossbows.
The unit members, who were already waiting, moved swiftly and slit their throats.
Simon led his unit and calmly and quickly took care of all the organization members inside the factory.
He took out the enormous amount of Soma piled up in the factory and moved it to the luggage carts. In that moment, all the Soma became Don Juan's property.
Just then, Simon approached Zeke.
“Zeke Murray, I have a mission for you.”
“What kind of mission?”
He placed a crossbow in Zeke's hand.
“The boss's order is to erase this place itself.”
Zeke took the crossbow Simon handed him and asked,
“...Are you telling me to kill all the villagers?”
At that, Simon looked down at Zeke and said,
“There could be members of the organization mixed in with them.”
“There are still young children.”
Simon walked up to Zeke and slapped him across the face.
It was a slap strong enough to snap his head to the side.
Simon glared at Zeke and said,
“If your cheap sympathy saves them, the boss will throw you into the Shark Dragon cage. Do you think you'll be able to afford that precious sympathy of yours then?”
Zeke turned his head and looked at Simon.
Simon's frowning face.
It was exactly the same as that time.
Simon grabbed Zeke by the collar and dragged him away.
He then stood him in front of the trembling villagers.
A father was holding a small child in his arms, begging to be spared.
“Shoot.”
Simon's voice rang in Zeke's ears.