Chapter 275
As Zeke hesitated, Simon shouted again, louder.
“I said shoot! Now!”
Zeke’s hand, holding the crossbow, trembled violently.
At that, Simon kicked Zeke’s leg.
With a thud, Zeke collapsed.
Simon picked up the crossbow that had fallen to the ground and aimed it at Zeke.
“If you don't shoot, you die.”
Zeke slowly got up and took the crossbow back from Simon.
He then turned and aimed the crossbow at the man shielding the child.
He fired the crossbow at the man.
FWIP!
The crossbow bolt hit the ground next to the man, not the man himself. His shaking hands had caused his aim to go astray.
Zeke reloaded the crossbow.
His hands were trembling.
He tried to aim accurately at the man's head again.
It was then.
“P-Please, spare me…”
The child, nestled in the man’s arms, pleaded in a pitiful voice, shivering.
The child was innocent.
The Soma production factory just happened to be in this village.
An arrow was fired from the crossbow Zeke was holding.
THWACK!
“Kuaaak!”
The arrow lodged itself deep in the shoulder of the man who was shielding the child.
At that, the child wrapped his arms around the man and shouted,
“Don’t shoot! Please, let us live!”
Tears were now streaming from Zeke’s eyes.
A sight he never wanted to see again.
He gradually felt his sense of self wavering, his spirit breaking.
Then, Simon shouted.
“If you don't kill them, you die! Kill them quickly!”
Zeke aimed at the crying child, his hands trembling.
Whenever he had a nightmare, this scene always appeared.
In it, Zeke killed everyone to survive and burned the village to erase the traces.
He had faithfully carried out Don Juan’s orders, become his dog, and stained his hands with the blood of countless innocents.
He bit down hard on his molars, and blood trickled from his mouth.
Looking at the trembling child, Zeke slowly opened his mouth.
“…can… change it.”
Simon shouted again from behind.
“What are you talking about! Hurry up and shoot!”
In that instant, Zeke whirled around, aimed the crossbow at the shouting Simon, and yelled.
“I can change it again!”
Zeke fired the crossbow at Simon.
SH-SH-SH-SHUK!
A volley of arrows embedded themselves in Simon's body.
“Keuk.”
Simon staggered backward.
Zeke threw the crossbow aside and pulled daggers from his pouch.
He then approached the crying child.
Holding a dagger, Zeke shielded the child and said,
“This time, I will absolutely change things so that such a tragedy does not happen.”
Simon, struck by the arrows, stumbled and shouted to the unit members.
“Kill him!”
The unit members surrounded Zeke.
Each and every one of them was a key part of the McCain Cartel's fighting force.
Zeke held his dagger and said to the child,
“Stay close to me.”
The child cried and hugged Zeke.
“I-I want to live… I want to live.”
Zeke wrapped his arm around the child and said,
“Don’t worry. I will protect you.”
The unit members closed in on Zeke.
They raised their crossbows at him. Then, from all sides, they began to fire at Zeke.
SH-SH-SH-SHUK!
In an instant, Zeke shielded the child, blocking the arrows with his back.
THWACK-THWACK-THWACK!
Arrows dug into his back.
“Ugh!”
Zeke let out a groan and hugged the child even tighter.
The child cried out from within his arms.
“N-No. No!”
Zeke smiled faintly at the child.
“I-I'm okay.”
He held the child and quickly rolled to the side. Then, he began to run deeper into the forest, evading the unit members.
In a real situation, he would never have been able to escape, but perhaps because he had acted differently from his past life, he succeeded in getting away.
“Hweek, hweek!”
Zeke ran through the forest with the child in his arms, trying to escape.
The more he ran, the more the arrows lodged in his back pierced his lungs.
GACK!
Even as he coughed up red blood, Zeke ran, and ran again.
After running for a long time, when the McCain unit members were no longer in sight, Zeke set the child down and fell to his knees.
“…Go.”
The child cried, clinging to Zeke's arm.
“L-Let's go together!”
“I'm already too late. Hurry and go.”
Zeke patted the child's head with his blood-soaked hand.
The child looked at Zeke with a tear-streaked face.
Zeke coughed up a mouthful of blood again.
The child cried even harder and hugged Zeke.
Zeke moved slowly, intending to give the child one last hug.
But it was then.
STAB!
Zeke felt a terrible pain in his stomach.
“Keoheok…”
The child had taken the dagger from Zeke's pouch and stabbed him in the stomach.
Zeke looked at the child with an expression of disbelief.
“W-Why…”
The child, who had been crying so sorrowfully, glared at him resentfully and said,
“Why did you kill my dad! Why! Why! Why did you kill him!”
The child's sharp voice pierced Zeke's ears. Trembling, Zeke reached his hand out toward the child.
“I-I was trying… to cha… change…”
The child then slowly plunged the dagger into Zeke's heart and said,
“You can't change anything.”
In an instant, the child's expression changed completely.
Zeke's pupils quivered, and then his body went limp, his eyes losing their focus.
After confirming Zeke's last breath, the child shook the blood from his hands and stood up.
“A tenacious one. This is the first time I’ve seen a human with such strong mental power.”
Usually, when he drew humans into his illusion, they would get lost in the realistic fantasy and quickly forget who they were.
But this one named Zeke, his mental defenses were so strong that no matter how intensely he showed him the illusion, far from losing his sense of self, he resisted even more fiercely.
Because of that, he had to set the stage to amplify the trauma more quickly, worried that the illusion might break midway.
The demon, in the form of a child, looked at the fallen Zeke and grinned.
“Well, this worked out. A guy this strong, I can take his body and make good use of it. To be able to come out into the Physical Realm with my own body. Those Apostles discovered something quite interesting…”
STAB!
“Keoheok!”
At that moment, Annexie's Dagger plunged into the child's back.
Simultaneously, a chain connected to the dagger wrapped around the child's entire body.
SHLALALAK!
Black smoke rose from where the chain touched.
CHIIIIIIK!
“Kuaaaaargh!”
The demon, caught in the Soul Sealing Technique, reverted from the child's form to its original one.
It was impossible to tell if it was male or female, but it had an androgynous, beautiful face. A demon of beautiful features had revealed its true form.
“Kuaaaaargh!”
The demon, in agony, barely managed to lift its head and look forward.
Zeke, whom it had thought was completely dead, was slowly getting up, a dagger still embedded in his heart.
The demon, with a look of disbelief, looked at Zeke and said,
“H-How?”
Zeke nonchalantly pulled the dagger from his heart.
The cheap dagger he had been holding transformed into Bahamut.
He slowly approached the chained demon and said,
“You really messed with my head. A high-ranking Dream Demon, Pan.”
Pan was shocked that Zeke knew its name.
“How do you know my name…!”
Zeke, slowly approaching Pan, said,
“That’s none of your business. What’s important is.”
Zeke stabbed the tip of Bahamut, heated by the Sacred Brazier, into Pan's stomach.
CHIIIIIIK!
“Kuaaaaaaaargh!”
Pan screamed at the terrible pain. Even through the agony, it looked at Zeke with disbelief.
“Th-This is an illusion I created. Th-There’s no way you should feel pain…”
“You based it on my dream. So, strictly speaking, this is my domain.”
At Zeke's words, Pan's eyes widened in shock.
Dream Demons follow one of the Fallen Constellations,
'The One Who Dreams an Endless Dream'.
Among the countless Dream Demons, Pan was a direct subordinate of the Constellation, holding the rank of a high-ranking demon.
Even other high-ranking demons would often fail to escape Pan's illusions and lose their sense of self.
And yet, a mere human had broken through Pan's maze-like illusion and had, on the contrary, suppressed him within his own mind.
Zeke slowly infused the flame of the Sacred Brazier into Pan's body and asked, “What did those bastards discover that allowed a high-ranking demon like you to incarnate in the Physical Realm?”
Pan sneered at Zeke and said,
“Do you think I would tell you that! You, a mere human…”
Zeke looked at Pan and nodded.
“Right, it wouldn't be fun if you just said it easily. Not after what you did to me.”
In that instant, the sacred flame flared up around Pan's body.
Seeing the sacred flame, filled with the power of light, burn fiercely, Pan's face went pale.
“Y-You, what are you planning to do!”
Zeke put down Bahamut and took out Annexie's Dagger.
He then wrapped the chain around Pan's mouth, gagging him.
“Mmmph!”
Pan, his mouth now gagged, thrashed his body, trying somehow to escape, but it was useless.
Zeke, holding the dagger that had been well-heated in the sacred flame, looked at Pan.
“Don't worry, there's no risk of you dying. I will give you pain, slowly and meticulously.”
“Mmmph!”
***
Several hours had passed as Zeke stood blankly before the altar.
Richmond paced back and forth, looking at Zeke anxiously.
“Ugh, why is he just standing there with no reaction? Should I really take him out of here?”
Without an order from Zeke, Richmond was at a loss for what to do.
In that moment, a white light burst forth from Zeke's body.
“Huh?!”
Richmond, startled, drew back to avoid the light.
Zeke, who had been unresponsive the whole time, snapped his eyes open.
TSUTSUTSU—
Then, black smoke began to pour out from Zeke's body.
Simultaneously, Solomon's Ring on Zeke's finger began to glow with a golden light.
As Zeke regained his senses, a message appeared before his eyes.
[You have sealed the high-ranking Dream Demon ‘Pan’ in Solomon's Ring.]
[It is now possible to use the Dream Demon ‘Pan's’ unique ability, ‘Mirror of Illusions,’ once a day.]
After interrogating Pan in the mindscape, Zeke had sealed him inside Solomon's Ring.
From experimenting with Solomon's Ring, it seemed that it was possible to seal high-ranking demons and above.
As Zeke examined Solomon's Ring on his finger, he saw a small, unfamiliar character engraved on the surface of the ring.
[That is the insignia that symbolizes Pan.]
Arataso said to Zeke.
‘Do all high-ranking demons have an insignia like this?’
[Yes, most high-ranking demons are incarnations of the Constellations. They are granted these individual insignias because they can directly use the power of a Constellation.]
Zeke nodded at Arataso's words.
Just then, Richmond, who had been avoiding the light, rushed over to Zeke.
“Master!”
Richmond clung to Zeke with a tearful expression.
“What happened? I was so worried because you were just standing there for so long!”
“That Apostle bastard incarnated a high-ranking demon into the Physical Realm.”
Richmond was shocked at Zeke's words.
“A-A high-ranking demon's incarnation? I-Is that even possible?”
Zeke nodded at Richmond's words.
“Yes, it seems the bastards of the Abyss have found a way.”
He had managed to find out quite a few things while interrogating Pan.
From the fact that baptismal sites like this one existed all over the continent, to how they were able to make high-ranking demons incarnate into the Physical Realm.
“Richmond, have you ever heard of something called a Blood Tear Stone?”
At his words, Richmond's eyes widened.
“B-Blood Tear Stone, you say?”
“Yes. He said they used that Blood Tear Stone to find a way to make high-ranking demons incarnate.”
At Zeke's words, Richmond's eyes trembled.
He muttered, as if asking himself,
“Did the Blood Tear Stone have such a function?”
Zeke, noticing something in Richmond's reaction, asked,
“Do you know something about Blood Tear Stones?”
Richmond nodded.
“I-I do know of them, but… a Blood Tear Stone is something that forms naturally only under very specific conditions, so obtaining one is practically impossible.”
Richmond slowly continued his explanation.
“It's formed when the blood of those who have died with a deep grudge seeps into a Fairy Stone over a long period of time, turning it red like blood. That is what we call a Blood Tear Stone.”
“So it's a Fairy Stone imbued with a grudge.”
“Yes, Blood Tear Stones found in nature are mostly formed when injured monsters die where Fairy Stones are present, and their blood seeps in and transforms it. The probability of it being created is extremely low.”
“If that's the case, there shouldn't be enough of it to be used for summoning…”
At that, Richmond’s eyes darted around for a moment, and then he spoke quietly.
“W-Well, Master. Actually… there is a way to create Blood Tear Stones artificially.”
“You can create Blood Tear Stones? Is this a method all black magicians can use?”
At that, Richmond shook his head and said,
“O-Of course not! The method itself is so complicated that there's probably no one who can do it, and in the first place, the manufacturing method was never made public.”
Zeke tilted his head at his words.
“Then how do you know the method?”
Richmond scratched his cheek and said,
“Well, actually, I was the one who created that manufacturing method. Hehe.”