Chapter 276: The Right Path (3)

Yuri had lived through many wars in his past life, but he had never witnessed a scene as atrocious as this.

The dead fighting against the dead.

In the world of the living, something like this should not exist.

The resurrected corpses did not stop even when their bodies were destroyed, and they continued wielding their weapons until they no longer had any functional part to move.

Seeing two soldiers without arms biting each other, Yuri spat a curse.

“Damn this world.”

Rage rose to his throat.

That was why, the moment he caught sight of the necromancer hidden in the rear of the imperial army, he hurled himself at him.

He tore through and killed everything that stood in his way. His charge had never been so fierce.

Nameless monsters created by the Empire lined up to block him.

They were human, but instead of arms they had thick tentacles tipped with sharp spikes that lashed toward him like the sting of a scorpion.

It wasn’t even worth feeling disgust. He cut them all down.

After driving his sword into an enemy’s face and raising it, the split brain scattered into the air.

He stepped on that body to crush it and spun, unleashing a whirlwind of cutting energy that repeated endlessly.

The enemies caught in the vortex were reduced to minced meat.

Within his range, nothing remained that kept its original form.

The dozens of beams of cutting energy divided everything into fragments so small that not a single body was left that could rise again.

Wherever Yuri passed, enormous craters remained.

“Don’t get in my way.”

The necromancer, realizing he was the target, turned and fled.

Yuri accelerated.

After blowing the head off a knight who blocked his path, he used the shoulder of a decapitated corpse as a foothold and leapt.

As he rose, he looked down at the battlefield from above. The humans fighting desperately looked like swarms of ants.

But they were not ants. They were humans like him. Each one was a unique being, with their own story.

He didn’t know from what height Cedric looked down on the world, but Yuri, who lived at the same level as these people, never intended to support his absurd ideals.

Their joys, angers, sorrows, and pleasures were among those people.

That was why, just like the necromancer fleeing before his eyes, Cedric too would end up dying by his hand.

He was willing to risk his life to make it happen.

“And if I don’t succeed, I’ll gladly die.”

Murmuring, Yuri dove like a hawk upon its prey.

The power of chaos he had awakened tangled the laws of the world and produced the result he desired.

His body hurtled toward the necromancer, propelled by an inexplicable physical force that launched him from the air like a projectile.

He was so fast that the enemy had no time to react.

“Kuek!”

With a repulsive sound, the necromancer was pierced through the back.

Yuri pulled Guilty free and drove it in again. He repeated this about five times, until the necromancer collapsed to the ground, spewing blood in torrents.

As was fitting for someone corrupted by black magic, he did not die immediately despite sustaining multiple mortal wounds.

“Wait, w–wait…”

The necromancer tried to speak, but Yuri had no intention of listening.

He crushed the man’s head under his foot until it burst, then stomped on the fragments of the skull until they were pulverized.

He spat, lifting his gaze again.

Now he was in the very heart of the imperial army.

Countless eyes focused on him. Dozens of imperial knights of commander rank, in black armor, were closing in.

Behind them, monsters five times larger than a man dragged their tentacles.

Further back came imperial knights with swords in hand, and behind them, soldiers armed with spears and knives, advancing toward him.

There were hundreds—perhaps thousands.

It was no surprise. To kill the necromancer, he had leapt a great distance, landing directly in the zone where the Empire’s elite were waiting.

Even though they were emotionless creatures created by black magic, their murderous intent was clear.

Yuri smiled.

“Hahaha…”

A shiver ran through his body.

For his enemies to return a hatred as pure as the one he bore them was magnificent.

If he had lost, they too would lose.

And he wouldn’t stop there—he would strip them of everything, until they couldn’t even keep their misery, and reduce them to dust, as if they had never existed.

The exhilaration of revenge flowed into Guilty’s blade, which hummed as it released a long wave of cutting force.

He didn’t think about operating his mana method or about invoking the Cut of the soul and the heart from his core.

Everything moved on its own.

He felt he could do anything. No—that wasn’t the right expression.

Lightly gripping Guilty, Yuri smiled.

His omnipotence was limited exclusively to the act of killing. So it wasn’t that he could do anything—it was that he could kill anyone.

If only Cedric were right in front of him.

“Cedric!”

He shouted his name with all his strength.

It didn’t matter if he heard it or not. The whole world heard his roar, and that was enough.

Now that Cedric had touched black magic, heaven and earth were his allies.

The only thing that could stand in his way was himself.

Yuri exhaled the air from his lungs.

“I will kill you without fail!”

The clouds scattered.

The earth trembled.

The blade cut the enemy.

Yuri struck and struck again at those who approached. Heads tilted, bodies bore their cuts.

The red blood splashed into his sight, but he did not close his eyes—he had too much to do.

He counted the enemies that entered his field of vision and calculated the fastest route to drive his sword into them, eliminating any unnecessary movement.

He held his breath.

One.

Two.

Three, four, five.

Six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven.

Twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen.

His muscles burned at their peak. The vessels in his eyes burst. His vision blurred, his body distorted, but he did not stop.

Even his consciousness went out.

His body became a biological machine dedicated solely to killing enemies, like an ancient hunter mechanically massacring orcs, stabbing again and again into the vital points of every living being around him.

At some point, his consciousness returned. Then he realized his lips were moving.

“Two hundred twenty-two… two hundred twenty-three… two hundred twenty-four…”

He didn’t know how much time had passed.

Realizing he had pushed his body to its limit, Yuri restarted his halted lungs.

As they filled with air, his body halted momentarily. Vapor like smoke escaped from his mouth.

Standing in place, Yuri murmured.

“Two hundred twenty-four.”

For a result achieved in so little time, it wasn’t bad. Now the enemies did not dare to approach within a certain distance.

If they hadn’t felt fear and had kept attacking, the number would have been much higher.

Yuri clicked his tongue and reassured the prey keeping their distance.

“Don’t be so afraid. This will be over soon. Stay there.”

It didn’t take long before he moved his body again.

The Cut of the soul and the heart was already part of him, and for that reason, the power of chaos flowed through his veins like blood.

Every time Yuri took a step, the laws of the world bent.

“Come on, good boy.”

He began counting again from where he had left off. The last number had been two hundred twenty-four.

So, from now on—

“Two hundred fifty-five.”

The fierce whirlwind Yuri unleashed destroyed thirty enemies in an instant. He was no longer a mere human.

He was a disaster.

“You’re insane.”

In the middle of the slaughter, he suddenly heard a deep voice. Turning, he saw a face that felt very familiar.

The man spoke.

“You… what happened to you?”

It was a knight in black armor. Although all imperials looked alike, the gaze showing through the helmet was familiar to him.

Yuri remembered his name.

“Two hundred fifty-five?”

“What?”

“Ah, my mistake. Long time no see, Wayne.”

They could be considered comrades who had fought together in the allied army. His rank was captain of the 3rd division of imperial knights, and he used a devastating fencing style.

It was the first time they had met since the alliance war ended. Seeing him, Yuri recalled Ragnar and Graham, who were no longer in this world.

Wayne spoke in bewilderment.

“What the hell happened for you to end up like this…?”

“Like what?”

“Turned into a monster.”

“Monster?”

Yuri let out a laugh.

“Well, monster? You’re not one to talk.”

He called him a monster, but Wayne himself no longer looked human, with his hardened skin and several tentacles sprouting from his back.

“Still, it’s different.”

“What’s different?”

“I…”

Among the imperial knights Yuri had seen, Wayne was one of the few who still retained some sanity, so they could converse.

“I got here thanks to the help of black magic, but you—how the hell did you get that strong? What did you do to become like this? You really are a true monster…”

“You’re an idiot.”

Yuri began walking toward him, and Wayne stepped back.

Meanwhile, several imperial soldiers rushed at Yuri. They didn’t even manage to get close before being caught by his sword aura and dying.

Shaking Guilty free of blood, Yuri said.

“Wayne, do you like hunting?”

“What?”

“Or do you know anything about ecology?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Let’s suppose that suddenly the wild boar population in the mountains increases because someone released them and gave them plenty of food to reproduce. Later, the food runs scarce, and they start coming down to the villages, destroying fields and causing havoc.”

“What are you talking about?”

“What happens next? Do the mountain and the fields just end up ruined, and that’s the end of it?”

Yuri stopped, calculating the distance between him and Wayne. With two strikes of Guilty, he could probably kill him.

“No.”

His figure blurred.

Once.

And twice.

Yuri cut Wayne across the waist.

His torso and legs spun in opposite directions as they fell from the sky.

His face showed disbelief.

“Then the predators that hunt wild boar increase. If there are more boars, then for the tigers that feed on them, good times also come. There’s prey in abundance, you understand?”

“No way…”

“You people are like those boars.”

Wayne did not die immediately.

From the wound, tentacles emerged and crawled along the ground until they rejoined his body.

It was a repulsive sight.

Yuri launched himself at him again and cut him. This time he split him into four pieces.

While the pieces—one torso with an arm, another with a leg—rolled along the ground, Yuri kicked them and said.

“Just as black magic spawns repulsive monsters like you, it also gives birth to monsters like me, who live by devouring them. Now do you understand why I became like this?”

Wayne still did not die.

Meanwhile, other knights with tentacles on their backs appeared. They all looked similar.

“What’s this? Your friends?”

Wayne’s body, in four pieces, stood up. From the wounds, tentacles sprouted, stretching out and beginning to join with the other knights.

They were fusing into one.

It was like watching Okua’s last desperate act on the prairie.

“Well now…”

At the end of that grotesque process, a strange, human-shaped monster was born.

Yuri looked at it and murmured.

“It’s a good time.”

***

Elaine took a deep breath.

“Huff…”

She lifted her gaze toward the sign engraved with “Murim Alliance.”

Below, a long staircase climbed up the mountain, disappearing into the clouds as if touching the sky.

At her side, Cheongun said,

“Let’s go.”

“Do I really have to go?”

“There’s no other choice.”