Chapter 192

Every time the Empire knights saw Princess Ai-shan Gi-or, who was building a splendid reputation, they couldn’t help but wonder one thing:

“Why did such a person carry such a notorious reputation?”

Before she came to the Empire and earned the nickname “Beastman Devourer,” her infamy was only heard through rumors from Dane.

The whore of Ka`har.

Or-han’s mad dog, the slaughterer Hersela.

The human butcher.

In the days when even her proper name wasn’t known, the nicknames that hinted at her were filled with deep contempt and hatred.

However, the princess they actually faced was nothing like the rumors.

True, her methods were ruthlessly cruel, and the aura she occasionally revealed was as fierce as a beast.

But aside from that, the actual conduct she showed after coming to the Empire was nothing short of exemplary for a knight.

In the Capital, in Einfelt, and in countless contaminated zones, she fought tirelessly to save people.

Her achievements seemed blessed by the gods, and unlike other barbarians, she embraced the Empire’s culture without hesitation.

Contrary to the prejudice that she would be arrogant and rude, she showed impeccable manners to the royal family.

Even her foreign attire and appearance were seen as exotic beauty in their eyes.

So… they didn’t know.

Why did the people of Dane curse her name in terror?

Until this moment, when the princess herself gave them the answer.

The red beast tore through the knights.

—

The first knight to fall didn’t even realize what had happened to him.

Perhaps it was because he had faithfully donated to the priests, or maybe he was just lucky.

– Crunch!

The Black Iron Sword split the knight’s skull vertically.

His eyeballs popped out from the pressure, and his brain, turned to mush, flowed into his half-split torso.

Even his armor couldn’t withstand the impact, crumpling like paper.

– Crack!

Like a guillotine’s blade, the crimson sword that had been slicing through the knight’s spine stopped at his navel.

It wasn’t that she had run out of strength.

From the beginning, her goal had been to split him this far.

‘Nether Blade.’

The threads of Life Force entangled in the blade unraveled and swirled around.

It had already become a net made of blades.

The knight’s body was sliced into thousands of pieces.

Since every part was cleanly cut, the blood that filled his body didn’t splatter but poured out in a lump along with the flesh.

It was a scene like magic.

A crimson whirlwind flashed for a moment, and in its place, a stew of minced meat appeared.

“Kihihi.”

Ha-shal-leur bared her fangs and laughed brightly, venting all the anger and frustration she had built up at the stunned knights.

“Th-this…”

– Splat!

“-Gaaah…!”

An ice blade lodged itself into the mouth of a knight who was trying to say something.

Ha-shal-leur’s left hand, which had crushed the skull like a cookie, grabbed the contents and roughly pulled them out.

The knight’s face was peeled off like parchment, and everything inside spilled out.

At the tip of her hand was the inside of the knight’s face, now a lump of meat.

A half-crushed brain, an eyeball dangling from the optic nerve, and a tongue that had been ripped out by the root.

The knight collapsed, convulsing with his face hollowed out.

Blood gushed from his throat, filling the half-remaining skull.

Shattered facial bones and crushed flesh floated on top.

It looked like a watermelon hollowed out and filled with fruit salad.

An indescribably horrifying sight.

“AAAAH! KEEEEEN-!”

One knight let out a scream as if being torn apart and charged at Ha-shal-leur.

She was a rare female knight not under Leonor’s command.

Her pale face twisted in shock and grief. Eyes stained with hatred shed tears of blood.

She resembled the man whose face Ha-shal-leur had just ripped out—Kane. They were likely siblings.

‘Good for you.’

That was all Ha-shal-leur thought upon seeing her expression.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Ha-shal-leur threw the lump of flesh in her left hand at the knight’s face.

– Thud!

The knight, Abel, kissed her brother for the first time in fifteen years.

It wasn’t something she had wanted. This time, the lips met not his forehead but his crushed brain.

Abel, knocked down by the thrown flesh, reflexively spat out what filled her mouth.

A piece of the crushed brain flew out and scattered across her chest.

Abel’s pupils shook.

She realized the salty, metallic taste she had just felt was her brother’s brain.

“Ah, ah…!”

Her parted lips trembled.

The corners of her mouth were filled with bits of flesh and blood.

And as if that weren’t enough, the damp, sticky warmth she felt on the back of her neck.

Her trembling eyes looked to where a bright red tongue was stuck.

“AAAAH…!”

And then.

The brother’s eyeball, which had flown into the air when the optic nerve snapped from the impact, fell in front of her eyes.

Abel’s mind broke.

“AAAAAAAAAAH!”

The echoing, desperate scream lodged itself in the knights’ ears.

If Abel’s screams had continued, perhaps the knights would have been fueled by rage rather than fear.

In fact, some knights were already charging at Ha-shal-leur.

So, Ha-shal-leur grabbed Abel’s ankles.

It wasn’t out of malice, but necessity.

With a twisted smile, Ha-shal-leur lifted her ankles and—

—

The scream stopped.

The torn uniform fluttered down, revealing Abel’s beautiful, toned naked body… but no one could feel any lust.

Not even the knight who had secretly admired her.

From her left neck to her groin, the roughly torn cross-section spilled blood-soaked innards.

Abel. No, what was once Abel, revealed her most private parts without reservation.

Not just under her clothes, but under her skin as well.

A foul stench filled the palace garden.

Even a beauty’s innards reeked just the same.

“You devil—!”

One knight gritted his teeth and swung his sword at Ha-shal-leur.

Ha-shal-leur swung Abel.

Or rather, what was left of her—half of her.

– Splat!

Crushed flesh and shattered bones burst like a popped balloon.

The knight, now one with Abel’s lower half, collapsed convulsing on the ground, defecating as he went limp.

His head was already blown apart.

“Ugh, AAAH!”

One of the charging knights instinctively stopped in his tracks.

A monster.

In his left hand, Abel’s right half was swinging towards him.

His gaze turned to the wobbling head.

Half-popped eyes, empty pupils, and a stuck-out tongue.

The usual beauty was nowhere to be found, replaced by a horrifying face that approached—

*Crack!*

The nightmare-like scene reflected in his retina was the last thing he saw as two heads collided and crushed together.

The brains of the man and woman mixed like clay, squashed together.

The vitreous humor flowed out from the scattered eyeballs.

“Ahahahahaha—!”

Drenched in a rain of blood, swallowing the flesh and blood that touched her lips, Ha-shal-leur laughed like a madwoman.

With an expression of uncontrollable joy, she spread her arms and looked up at the sky.

The girl-like, pure laughter was, in fact, utterly terrifying.

The charging knights halted their steps.

The morale that had begun to revive was shattered by the sheer brutality of the scene.

This was exactly the reaction Ha-shal-leur had wanted.

The monster of Ka`har, having stopped laughing, charged towards the knights.

‘Just as I thought.’

Twenty seconds after plunging into the midst of the knights.

The Ghost Sword did not approach. Just as Or-han had predicted.

—-

“Ahhh!”

The knight, with Ice Blade’s nails embedded in him and his eyes gouged out, screamed as tears of blood streamed down.

The Black Iron Sword carved a hole in his abdomen.

A hole the size of a child’s head opened in the man’s stomach, and he collapsed.

With his spine cleanly severed, his legs couldn’t move properly, and he flailed his arms wildly, screaming.

Stepping on the head and slowly pressing down, Ha-shal-leur licked the two eyeballs skewered on her fingers like candy.

Her blood-stained tongue moistened the empty sockets.

Then, bite by bite, she tore out and swallowed the knight’s eyes as if plucking pieces of meat from a skewer.

For her, it wasn’t exactly a delicious meal…

But whether she wanted it or not, she had to present the most brutal and alien appearance possible.

Humans, paralyzed by fear, react slowly, and the swords of those whose will is broken lose their sharpness.

Make the enemy fear me.

There was no better way to deal with multiple enemies.

Indeed, even the Empire’s elite knights, who had been confident, turned pale and were helplessly torn apart by her slaughter.

Unlike the ‘Ha-shal-leur’ from moments ago, who had struggled and barely dodged, this was a completely one-sided massacre.

‘See? It’s this easy.’

Ha-shal-leur sneered once more at the inner usurper.

In a surrounded crisis, trying not to kill enemies who were pointing swords at her—what a joke.

No wonder she had been pushed this far despite having such power.

“Ahahahahaha!”

Pulling out the limbs of the captured man like insect legs, Ha-shal-leur burst into laughter again.

“This crazy witch!”

“Kyaha!”

Blocking the longsword swung down by a knight, she deliberately swung the Black Iron Sword shallowly, only slicing open the knight’s belly.

Let him scream while clutching his spilling intestines.

“For the Empire—”

The sword thrusting towards her emitted a familiar blue light.

Her mother’s sword. Ha-shal-leur’s eyes burned with a cold fire.

‘Finally…!’

Amidst the slaughter of dozens of knights, she finally faced her enemy.

Before the man could finish his words, the Ice Blade, like lightning, tore out his lower jaw along with his tongue.

“Ugh, gah…!”

Immediately after, she reclaimed Durandal from his right hand.

Piercing his wrist with the Black Iron Sword, she unleashed a net of blades at their smallest scale.

A small red thread rose and erased the knight’s hand like dust.

“Gyaaaah!”

The knight screamed, clutching his vanished wrist.

Ha-shal-leur, holding the Black Iron Sword in reverse, pierced from his knee to his instep, pinning him to the ground.

Grabbing Durandal with her empty right hand, she smiled at the man who now only had his upper jaw left.

A filthy bug who dared touch her mother’s legacy. She had no intention of letting him die easily.

Sheathing Durandal, she used only her two hands.

Ha-shal-leur disassembled the knight.

She plucked out his eyes, tore off his nose, ripped his ears, and peeled off his face.

She pulled out his collarbone, crushed his shoulder blades, and pried open his chest, spreading his ribs.

She yanked out his left arm, piercing his abdomen, and used the torn-off right arm to stab through his groin.

Finally, she grabbed the spilling intestines and stuffed them into the throat where his lower jaw had been ripped out.

In just two breaths, the knight, now in this state, was still alive.

A cruelty unimaginable as a human act.

No, even monsters wouldn’t commit such madness. Yet, Ha-shal-leur’s mind remained clear and unshaken.

Come to think of it, repeating routine actions brings psychological stability.

She too felt a sense of peace when tearing people apart.

Though she couldn’t remember when it had started.

Of course, she wasn’t doing this just for the sake of feeling stable.

‘As expected, you can’t approach, old man. Or-han was right.’

The Ghost Sword.

Even as her subordinates were brutally slaughtered, the sword with no presence did not come for her.

The reason the old man insisted on one-on-one, even with countless subordinates as shields.

Or-han’s guess about the Ghost Sword’s weakness was simple.

—It’s a bizarre technique, but… in the midst of chaos, it’s rarely used. Thinking about it, it makes sense.

The essence of the Ghost Sword is to erase presence, evade sight, and strike from ambush.

That’s right. It was a technique that couldn’t neutralize vision.

‘Why don’t you try using it? You’ll end up killing your own subordinates before me.’

Thinking of the old man, trembling in fear, Ha-shal-leur smiled coldly.

Without speed enough to disappear from Or-han and Ha-shal-leur’s sight, the Ghost Sword was useless.

And to achieve that speed, sufficient space was necessary.

Ha-shal-leur’s surroundings were filled with half-dead wounded and knights frozen in fear.

In such an environment, using the Ghost Sword would only result in colliding with his own knights, unable to move properly.

Knights colliding with a master moving at such speed would, of course, be shattered and killed.

—Fill the surroundings with his subordinates.

The first countermeasure Or-han had devised against the Ghost Sword.

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