by Road Warrior
This time it was not just the homunculi, but also the soldiers in the rear, but Minamoto could only hear the loud and annoying sound of the Homunculi cheering. He walked toward the Homunculi with heavy steps.
“We’re really grateful!”
“Admiral Minamoto is our hero!”
The Homunculi put on a grotesque smile as they praised him. Minamoto suddenly lifted one up before throwing it back toward the floor.
PIK!
The Homunculus was smashed onto the floor turning into a bloody mess.
“To receive praise from this half-made trash. I can’t bear it! I won’t let anyone who was watching live!”
Yodo Kamaitachi danced once again. The homunculi’s heads and limbs flew dizzyingly in the air as bright red blood splattered in every direction. No one could stop him who was dyed in madness. His blade that had soaked his immediate surroundings in blood swung violently in the air seeking its next opponent. Elijah Breggas became its next target as the closest being around.
“I received this humiliation because of this trash-like Devil.”
However, Elijah’s movements were strange. The High Devil, which had been gasping for breath after the mortal blow, was now stretching his hand in an attempt to reach something.
Minamoto’s eyes moved and soon discovered what he sought. There was a corpse of a young woman tied in metal chains in the direction of the High Devil’s outstretched hand.
“S…sophia…”
Minamoto’s face grew ugly. “Is the so-called High Devil playing with a human corpse like a doll? Not only are you weak and repulsive, you are also perverted.”
Yodo Kamaitachi’s tip was pointed toward Sophia’s corpse. “I will slice up this rotten corpse and feed it to the dogs!”
The blade exploded into a fog of blood and split the air. Just when the sword dyed in an evil aura was about to touch the corpse…
CLANK.
Something stopped the blade. Minamoto’s eyes grew wide. W-what is this?!
There weren’t many people who could stop him. The only ones he expected to be able to block his attack with such ease were the higher ranked Devil Lords, and those with the title of “Transcendent” within the human alliance. But the face that stood before him was someone he could have never expected.
K-kim Sungchul?!
He had not been told that Sungchul was here. His panic-stricken face turned toward the distant Martin Breggas. Martin, who was now kneeling over his son’s torn corpse with a distant expression on his face, was lost in many ways.
The man who had stopped the sword smirked while Minamoto still stood in shock.
“Yo, Taeksu Kim.”
“E-enemy of the World!”
The atmosphere of the entire battlefield shifted with the presence of a single person. The fleet of the Human Empire who had been carpet bombing, the Civil Militia of Trowyn who had been sweeping up the remnants of the enemy army, the main forces on the ground, and even the Order of the Iron Blood Knights who had been surrounded and waiting for death were wholly focused on the appearance of this one man.
Silence that couldn’t have been imagined moments ago fell onto the battlefield. Minamoto pulled his Yodo Kamaitachi away from Fal Garaz, which stood in its path, and retreated.
“It’s been a while.” Sungchul spoke with a bright smile. His smile picked away at a scar deep inside Minamoto… no, Taeksu’s mind. Fifteen years ago, on the plains of La Grange, the humiliation of the time when he had been helplessly tied up without being able to do anything despite being much stronger than Sungchul appeared in his mind.
It’s different now. My strength has grown since then, and I have techniques and experience that I didn’t possess back then.
Despite the fact that Sungchul’s infamy had swept across the world, Minamoto, with his sinister secret, believed that Sungchul’s reputation was nothing but hogwash.
I’ll kill you and place my name as the First Champion of the 13 Champions of the Continent. No, wouldn’t First Champion be too much? Since the one who gave me power is also on the list.
Minamoto smirked. He had become panicked momentarily, but courage stemming from self-confidence quickly sprang forth.
“Yodo Kamaitachi, Blood Fiend Technique! You’re a dead man!” Minamoto stood boldly before Sungchul and swung his katana. A fog of blood quickly began to spread from the blade’s body. It was the same blade that had cleaved through Elijah in a single slice.
However, Sungchul only looked at Minamoto with apathetic eyes.
Minamoto slowly began to move. It was at this moment that the voice of a young girl rang out from above Sungchul’s head.
“All done!” A single book was gliding straight toward Sungchul’s head from the sharp mountain slope. Sungchul collected the falling book.
“I told you to wait.”
“It was scary waiting by myself!”
He smiled bitterly as to say “it can’t be helped” and pulled out the single drawing held between the pages of the book. It contained the image of a beautiful woman.
Minamoto’s face grew red.
Why… that’s my ideal woman!
Sungchul pulled out the drawing, indifferent whether Minamoto looked or not, and placed it onto another portrait. The final drawing turned into fragments of light and disappeared leaving behind a single message in Sungchul’s eyes.
[How was it? It couldn’t be that you’ve fallen for me now, right? It doesn’t matter if you did. We can never be.]
Basic Reward:
1. Intuition +1
2. Portrait of Vestiare drawn on Jewel Papyrus
Sungchul immediately threw the portrait of Vestiare drawn on Jewel Papyrus onto the ground without hesitation. Minamoto ran over to the ground to pick up the portrait as quick as lightning.
“Oooh…! Sugoi!”
Sungchul checked his changed stats while Minamoto was preoccupied with the portrait.
Intuition – 500
A smile rose on Sungchul’s lips, then…
BAM!
A fearsome strike that couldn’t be seen struck Minamoto’s abdomen.
“Degayasu!” Minamoto let out an eerie scream and collapsed onto the floor.
Sungchul took a sweep at the gazes of the soldiers filled with awe and fear before heading off. Martin had become a shell of a man, and Minamoto was dead. There was no one left to stop his path.
While he was thinking so, Minamoto’s body, which lay on the ground, began to squirm. “Go… no further! Sungchul!”
Sungchul could now see it. The evil energy that surrounded Minamoto’s entire body. This thing that could be described as a black fog, or maybe mucus, was now popping Minamoto onto his feet.
“…”
He watched Minamoto who was now heading in his direction with a katana in hand with callous indifference.
***
It was a skill that Sungchul did not recognize. One thing that Sungchul could see was that the strength that had delayed Taeksu’s death and held him up was not one of his own but from an external source. Sungchul thought of a possibility.
Is it a Soul Contract?
A Soul Contract is, as the name indicates, a blessing created by a God or a Lesser God which is then etched into the user’s soul. The blessings were frequently difficult to obtain, but when obtained, it would grant the user a great power. The Eye of Truth and Soul Storage which were commonly used were also power granted by Soul Contracts.
Souls often possessed metaphysical properties which were known to be impossible to understand by humans, but at least in the realm of Soul Contracts, a difference in the size of souls existed. This was the number of contracts a person can hold.
Empty regions where a contract can be held in the soul were known as Slots. The average person would only have a single slot, if at all. The higher the stats and the higher the number of lives one has influence over, the more the number of slots become available. Those extraordinary ones commonly referred to as Superhuman held three slots
. The Transcendents were known to hold between four to five slots. However, Sungchul held six slots.
Every one of the Soul Contracts was a precious thing that was difficult to obtain and only found through the harshest of trials. Among them, these three were the most important:
First, Soul Harvester. A legend-tier Soul Contract that restores one’s vitality by the amount of damage inflicted. It was this ability which restored his strength after he killed his enemies that allowed him to become the immortal figure when standing against armies.
Second, Thunder Shield. Another legend-tier Soul Contract which had the fearsome effect of reducing all magical damage by half and also granted immunity to all mental attacks below legend rank. Seeing as the only beings capable of utilizing mental attacks above legend rank were god-level beings, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that there was no person in the world capable of harming Sungchul through a mental attack.
Third, Eye of Truth. It was the most commonly used legend-tier Soul Contract that negated all illusory magic below epic rank, and it also allowed him to inspect all items, cursed items, and skills. It couldn’t be more emphasized how necessary this skill was for Sungchul who had made the vast majority of the world his enemy.
It was to acquire these three Soul Contracts that Sungchul had traversed the world discreetly, having to pass trials with his life, and sometimes his soul, at stake. He had to overcome mortal risk many times and met face to face with horrendous pain and despair which cannot be fully put into words. It was only after such trials that he was able to gather the Soul Contracts known as the 3 Divine Skills and etch them into his own soul.
The change that was happening to Minamoto’s body seemed to be due to some form of a powerful Soul Contract, although it wasn’t at the level of Sungchul’s.
“Kekeke… Strong. For just a fucking highschool graduate piece of shit…”
CRRICK CRACK.
The sound of his broken spine assembling itself could be heard. Sungchul looked into Minamoto’s eyes. His body was being repaired, but his mind was wandering some otherworldly place. Minamoto was gasping for breath while uttering something akin to talking in his sleep.
“What? Enemy of the World? Some overhyped bitch… I know what you were before you came here. Some fucking uneducated laborer whose only accomplishment in life is being fourteen days late out of service because you were rotting in some prison? Not just you, but that Emperor William Quinton Marlboro. I even know that he’s some whore’s son.”
Minamoto began to snicker to himself as though it was something hilarious.
“For the son of some prostitute working the pole at some strip bar to be Emperor! Ehehehe! They say there’s nothing like the seed of royalty, but this isn’t proper, is it?”
“…”
Sungchul didn’t say anything to this. It was because Minamoto’s rant was not too far from the truth. He could still remember it. It was on some festive autumn night with a bright full moon. The Summoned who had been brought into Other World had a solemn moment by the crackling fireside where they talked about their previous lives. The man who became an Emperor, the man who became an assassin, and those who had been killed or had returned to their own world were looking off at some distant place with longing eyes as they told their stories. Taeksu might have been there, although Sungchul didn’t recall whether Taeksu had been there or not.
Taeksu had been an inconspicuous person at the time without the courage to speak nor the talent to stand out. However, Sungchul had a single question for Minamoto now that it had reached this point.
“Why did the Emperor bring you in?”
On the surface, it might be easy enough to say that Taeksu was another Summoned with powerful combat potential which had swayed the Emperor. Sungchul had also believed those words at the time. No, he just didn’t suspect them.
When he was the Emperor’s sword, it had never even occurred to him that it was possible to doubt the Emperor. But, he could now ask those questions.
“I’ll ask again. Why did the Emperor bring you in?”
“Don’t you already know?” Minamoto smirked as he put on a little dance. “I know something you don’t. A truth that that arrogant Emperor will never tell the likes of you.”
“Is that right?”
“Yep. Of course, I have no obligation to tell you anything. But since we’ve known each other for so long, I’ll let you in on something fun.” Minamoto put on a smug smile before whispering to Sungchul in his silence, “The Wandering King had the military power to beat you all in that fight.”
“The Wandering King did?”
“Yep. The proof is me. The Great Minamoto Daisuke who has been reborn through the Forbidden Technique. Kekeke!”
An evil aura poured out from Minamoto’s eyes. It was the same presence that had raised him from the dead.
Sungchul dug through his past experiences for something similar to this evil aura, but he found no such luck. The closest thing to this aura was the damp and sticky aura of the Ancient God.
“Yodo Kamaitachi!” Minamoto who was swallowed by the evil aura began to exude a blood-colored fog as he headed toward Sungchul with the appearance of the Demon Yasha.
“I am Unbreakable… Unbre…!”
However, the difference in strength between the two was clear. Minamoto’s figure scattered like dust as soon as Fal Garaz moved.
“Unbreeeee…!!!”
It was the result of putting some strength behind the swing. The Soul Contract or whatever it may be tried to grab on to Minamoto’s scattered flesh, but it eventually scattered with it.
I don’t care about your secret.
He was already sick of these dirty schemes. No matter what anyone had planned, it was enough to crush them with Fal Garaz. He had obtained this godly strength for this purpose.
“…”
Sungchul turned his head to one side and saw Elijah Breggas who was still gulping for breath as he lay on his side. Sungchul then turned toward the other side. Martin Breggas who looked to have been hollowed out was kneeling there. Sungchul picked up the female corpse that lay between the two, which was slightly closer to Elijah’s side.
A long time had passed since she had died, but Sophia Breggas’ appearance looked unchanged from when she lived. He went through the carefully placed magic on Sophia’s body with the Eye of Truth.
“W-where is this?” Elijah said. “I can’t see anything. It hurts… It’s cold…” His life was hanging by a thread. It was Minamoto’s handiwork. Minamoto had made it so that the Devil would die in pain and despair as slowly as possible.
Sungchul left Elijah and moved on. He could hear Elijah’s voice from behind him.
“Father… Where are you?” Elijah’s extended hand desperately sought out his father who no longer existed. Martin, who was the source of all this trouble, had lost his life at some point and was quickly growing cold. It was a senseless and pitiful end for the fortunate adventurer who had risen to the rank of the Sixth Champion of the Continent.
Sungchul abruptly walked forth with Sophia’s corpse in hand. There were thousands of soldiers on the battlefield, but no one could think of following him.
–
A stone grave was crudely made on top of a sunny hill. Bertelgia had brought a white flower from some place between her pages and offered it to the grave as she said, “To escape this cruel world into the embrace of a warm god!”
Sungchul read a book while leaning on a rock. It was the secret tome of Cosmomancy, Primordial Light, which he had obtained through incredible effort in Airfruit. An endless horizon and incomprehensible shapes and words opened up before his eyes when he opened the book, and all of it began to organize itself in some recognizable form.
Is this the Primordial Light? It truly possesses a difficult and incomprehensible nature that’s hard to describe.
Intuition of 500 was not something everyone could achieve. Even in the greatest of Magical Academies, there might be one or two people that
might ever reach this peak. It was a level where they would easily receive the title of Great Scholar. This Intuition that Sungchul had achieved was now whispering to him the story of this world’s secret, which a human mind could never hope to understand. After a long and seemingly boring story which he was strangely captivated by, Sungchul sensed; the origin of life before him was filled with unfathomably endless light.
Is this… Primordial Light?
In this blinding brilliance, Sungchul could feel some new strength budding inside his body.
[You have read through the Final Secret Tome of Cosmomancy “Primordial Light – Punishment”]
[You’re overflowing with the knowledge of the Skies and Cosmos.]
Reward: Magic “Star Light”
“What are you doing? Why aren’t you in silent prayer?” Bertelgia had approached Sungchul’s back and began to peck him with one of her corners. In the past, this was something Bertelgia would never have dared to do, but as she drew Vestiare’s portraits, she had gained a bit more confidence and a higher position in Sungchul’s eyes. Sungchul grabbed the persistent Bertelgia and stuffed her into his pocket before looking toward the northern skies. The thick dark storm cloud that had always loomed over the Demon Realm was projecting an eerie red lightning. Sungchul lifted his finger and pointed toward the northern sky. But then he instinctively sensed that his finger wouldn’t be enough.
It’s different than Glare.
He had felt it to be uncomfortable even as he cast Meteor, and this was Primordial Light, which was the greatest magic of Cosmomancy. Sungchul pulled a single staff from his Soul Storage. It was an oak staff that looked worn as it had been passed through many hands. Sungchul looked at the staff for a while after grabbing it.
To be using this old thing. His apathetic eyes were suddenly filled with nostalgia.
“Sniff sniff!” Bertelgia showed interest in this staff she had never seen before.