Chapter 221: Gorgan (2)

༺ Gorgan (2) ༻

“Ugh…!”

Blood burst out of Vera’s mouth.

It was because at the moment he swung his sword at the chain, his stomach churned at the aura Gorgan had unleashed.

“Vera!”

Renee hit the ground with her cane, and a white wave spread, enveloping Vera’s body.

A recovery spell woven with divinity began to heal him.

In the meantime, the others drew their weapons.

The wind wrapped around Friede’s body.

Hegrion layered his sword with aura.

Rohan activated his authority, and Miller cast a spell.

All at once, their attacks rained down on Gorgan.

A wind-woven arrow aimed for its neck, and a silver aura shot towards Gorgan’s ankle.

An indigo divinity enveloped Vera and Abrecht as black arms sprang up from the ground and restrained Gorgan.

However, all of that vanished.

[Don’t mess with me.]

The moment Gorgan’s white arm swept through the air once, all of their power ceased.

Vera clicked his tongue.

‘Dispel.’

It was Gorgan’s unique authority.

That was the ability to return all powers to their natural state.

It wasn’t just that.

There was something else that had been tormenting him ever since he had gotten this close.

‘It’s a curse.’

That body, which was parasitized by Gorgan.

The curse that originated from the Karel’s fur was disturbing his movements.

These were tricky abilities, but it didn’t mean he didn’t prepare for them.

He had made a strategy in case of such a situation.

With the Holy Sword stuck to the ground, Vera took a deep breath.

Then, he declared.

“I declare.”

An ashen divinity enveloped them.

“From this moment, crawling on all fours is forbidden in this realm. Accordingly, all who run on two feet will be freed from the curse that binds them and their senses will be sharper.”

A golden regulation floated in the air.

At the sight of it, the others relaxed.

“However, those who do not follow this law will have their muscles torn and be unable to heal from the damage caused by abilities.”

“Grrr—!”

The Karel howled.

Accompanying it were horrifying explosive sounds.

“All these laws shall be enforced in the name of Lushan.”

Shing—!

The Sanctuary was gradually completing with a roar.

Vera spoke the last words.

“As creatures living in this land, you shall praise and follow this.”

“Grrr-!”

Right after the Sanctuary was completed, Vera frowned and raised the Holy Sword.

‘…The effect is inadequate.’

He had tried to make a breakthrough using the Karel’s body structure as a restriction, but he didn’t get the result he had hoped for.

The reason was obvious.

‘…Is it because he’s an ancient species?’

It must be because of that arm extending from the spine.

Gorgan’s power must have seeped into the Karel as well.

The Karel’s body crunched.

But it recovered at an even faster rate.

Vera dodged the forepaw that aimed at him and opened the realm of Intention again.

Buzz—

He stared at the black chains that showed up at the wave of the shortsword.

‘I must break those chains.’

He could immediately tell that Gorgan’s condition was strange.

And with a little thought, he could also tell the cause.

‘Alaysia…!’

Given the circumstances, Alaysia was the one who woke Gorgan up.

In that sense, Gorgan’s current condition must have been caused by Alaysia.

If it was the very ability that had deluded Hodrick in the Cradle of the Dead and clouded his cognition and thought, making him lose his reason, then it could explain this situation.

[What a bother…!]

Gorgan’s hand spread, forming a mouth in the center of the palm.

Then, it began to chant a spell.

[—–]

It spoke in an incomprehensible language.

However, it was easy to recognize its effect.

“It’s a curse!”

Vera shouted.

Even though they were under the protection of the Sanctuary, there was no guarantee that it would protect them from the curse of an ancient species.

Renee responded.

Zzzhhh—!

The pure white divinity intertwined and took the form of an electric current.

Renee pointed her forefinger forward, and the white current condensed there.

There was no need for fancy aiming.

The opponent was a beast with a size comparable to a fortress.

Even if she shot the spell with a rough guess, she’d be able to hit it anywhere on its body.

“Sir Miller!”

“Yes!”

Miller unclasped the necklace made of a bird skull.

Holding it in his hand, he chanted a spell.

The dark blue aura that flowed from the necklace fed into the lightning that Renee had made.

It was a plan they had come up with since the moment they heard that Gorgan used curses.

It was Miller’s unique spell, [Curse Hunter].

“Step aside!

The path between Gorgan and Renee cleared at Renee’s shout, and then the lightning shot forward.

Advanced Annihilation Spell [Thunder Call].

Crackle—!

The spell, which was stronger than the one used in the Cradle of the Dead, hit Gorgan’s wrist.

Gorgan groaned in response, possessing a doubt.

[Ugh—!]

Pain.

Something that shouldn’t have been felt from a mere human’s spell.

It was a situation that Gorgan hadn’t anticipated.

The fact that Miller used a curse to hunt a curse, and Renee damaged Gorgan’s absoluteness with her power.

There was also the fact that Vera used the artifact.

Vera reversed his grip on the shortsword.

The waves coming from it echoed more clearly.

It felt like controlling an authority.

As holding it alone etched the use of it into his mind, Vera concentrated harder.

‘The eyes.’

This was the eyes.

A medium that showed the unseen world, opening a world of Providence different from the realm of Intention.

The chains came into sharp focus.

It was wrapped around the Karel’s neck and chest, extending upward to wrap around Gorgan’s arm.

He just needed to reach it.

If he could do that and stab the shortsword into it, he could shatter it.

But that was the problem.

‘There’s no way to reach…!’

Even as Gorgan faltered, the Karel’s struggles intensified.

Albrecht was disturbing the flow, and Hegrion was distracting its attention, but that was all.

The creature wasn’t small enough to fall from a human blade, and the longer the battle went on, the more exhausted they became.

While he was pondering a solution, Rohan shouted.

“Vera! Go!”

Rohan launched the spell he had been preparing for a long time into the sky.

The things that were made by the indigo divinity that exploded in the air were stepping stones that floated and circled Gorgan.

Vera dashed forward.

Suddenly, he felt the wind pushing his back.

It was obvious who had done it.

Friede.

He had added a layer of mysticism to himself.

As Vera stepped onto one of the stepping stones circling Gorgan, Gorgan’s fur shot at him in the shape of a spike.

This time, Albrecht intervened.

Clang—!

With a loud sound, Gorgan’s fur bent in a strange direction, avoiding Vera.

“Go!”

Albrecht gasped.

It hadn’t been long since he stepped into the realm of Intention.

That one move had already driven him to his limits.

A forepaw aimed at him, and the one who blocked it was Hegrion.

Boom—!

A claymore blocked the paw.

Hegrion’s feet dug into the ground.

He stopped it by making up for what he lacked in skill, with his body and the pureness of his aura.

“Agh!”

There was a pressure that seemed to stop his breath.

Regardless, Hegrion held on with bloodshot eyes, his muscles bulging.

‘If…!’

If I can’t even lift this much weight, how will I face my grandfather?

With that thought in mind, Hegrion raised his aura to the limit.

Crack crack—!

The Karel’s forepaw was dislocated again.

The combined effects of Vera’s Sanctuary and Renee’s disruption of Gorgan’s absoluteness, along with Hegrion’s strength, finally caused Gorgan to suffer an injury beyond recovery speed for the first time.

“Ooooo—!”

Hegrion raised his sword upward.

The silver aura began to tear the Karel’s paw.

Being so used to lifting weights, Hegrion eventually succeeded in lifting the Karel’s paw and disturbing its center of gravity.

The colossal creature staggered as an earthquake shook the ground.

Vera, who had been watching the events unfold as he looked for an opening, leapt to his feet the moment the Karel staggered, charging at the black chains.

The seconds stretched to infinity.

As the distance closed, the white arm twitched.

It slowly pointed toward Vera.

‘There it is.’

Vera did not block the outstretched arm.

It was due to the black chains.

They were certainly wrapped around that hand.

The shortsword, held in reverse, reached out.

The arm wrapped in black chains came in contact with it.

Immediately, a horrifying scream crushed Vera’s mind.

— Arrgghhhh!!!

***

The world turned dark.

The only things Vera could sense were numbing coldness and eerie sounds.

Along with it, an ominous power suppressed his whole body.

“Gasp…!”

Vera clenched his teeth and swallowed the blood that threatened to burst out.

He wrapped his divinity around him as he did so.

It was a desperate effort to stop the power, resisting the chains that had begun to bind him.

Alas, it was far from enough.

It was a power unlike anything Vera had ever faced.

No; it was a power he was only beginning to understand.

‘It’s the relic…!’

This was the power of the relic.

This chain was coming from Ardain’s legacy.

A truth was revealed.

Something that had always remained a mystery.

The secret of ‘how Alaysia was able to interfere with the minds of others’ had been solved.

‘The legacy Alaysia has with her. It must be that.’

It must be what shook the enemies he had encountered so far, both Hodrick and the demigod before him.

Clench—!

Vera’s eyes snapped open.

His ashen eyes began to glint with a fighting aura that didn’t match his grim mood.

‘If it’s the legacy…!’

He also had them.

More than her.

‘The bracelet is a veil.’

Vera poured his divinity into the bracelet.

As though it should, as though he were certain of its use.

Buzz—

The bracelet cried.

The relic, which had never shown any response before, answered at Vera’s will.

A wave rippled over the golden divinity.

As the wave and chains met, the eerie sound thickened.

However, it no longer harmed Vera.

The newly unfolded veil surrounded him like a cradle.

“Huff…”

A sense of relief settled in.

Vera calmed his breathing and glared at the chains that were clearly visible despite the darkness.

‘The dagger is life.’

After sheathing the Holy Sword, he held the dagger in his empty hand.

The veil narrowed, hoping the chains would bind him again.

Fortunately, as it had no intelligence, the control immediately fell into Vera’s hand, and Vera stabbed the dagger through the gap in the chains.

— Gaarrhhh!!!

The eerie sound shrieked sharply.

It was similar to the scream of a dying man.

Vera shook it off and focused his attention on the last unused relic.

‘The ring.’

The ring he had gotten from Terdan resonated with the three activated legacies.

It was a ring he had never heard any explanation about.

However, Vera knew.

Like the day he first received his power and the moments he had activated the other relics…

The way to use the ring was burned into his mind.

Buzz—

The ring cried.

‘The ring is…’

The chains rattled.

Vera reached out toward them.

‘…a bond.’

He grabbed the chain.

Clench—!

Vera’s consciousness faded.

No, it would be more accurate to say that he was being sucked into the chains.

The regret and hatred that had held Gorgan captive the entire time violated Vera’s entire being.

Protecting himself from them, Vera fell into a realm of consciousness.

In that faint image, what awaited Vera was…

“…Gorgan.”

It was a small, scrawny boy crouched on the ground.

He was glaring at Vera with bloodshot eyes.