Chapter 505

“How… how did you see through the Dark Conception?!”

Belcus, his initial composure completely gone, stared at me with a face full of shock and screamed. The expression of absolute confidence he once had was now utterly shattered.

Yes, he must have been absolutely certain of his own authority. He probably thought that if he could ambush me with his authority, he still had a chance to win.

Though his authority was bizarre, its activation speed and effect were so overwhelming that if you didn’t know about it beforehand, you’d have no choice but to fall victim to it.

“Dark Conception… indeed, it’s a terrifying authority. That’s why I peeked into the future to figure out how to counter it.”

I threw out a half-joking, half-serious provocation and charged at him, swinging my sword. It wasn’t a lie—I had experienced it in the game a few years later, after all.

“The future…?! The future?!”

Belcus reinforced his physical abilities with Magi to block my attack, but the shaky trajectory of his movements clearly revealed his confusion.

The sharp clang of metal. Each time his black longsword clashed with my silver Jin’s Silver Sword, his body shook violently, being pushed back.

“Impossible! How could something like that…!”

As expected, Belcus couldn’t regain his composure. His panic was palpable. His use of Magi became sloppy, and the trajectory of his longsword started to fall apart.

Did he actually believe my bluff about seeing the future? What an idiot.

If he had used even a fraction of his brain, he would’ve realized it was nonsense. But with his authority blocked, Belcus had lost his calm, and his intelligence seemed to have dropped to that of a monkey.

[You saw the future…? How?]

…Looks like there’s another monkey here.

“You actually believed that? You’re dumber than I thought.”

[……]

I smirked at both Hersela and Belcus, then swung my sword upward, catching Belcus’ longsword mid-air. His sword soared into the sky.

“Of course it was a joke. If I could see the future, I would’ve found you and chopped you into pieces long ago.”

Before you could even pull off this nonsense.

“Then how…!”

Belcus extended Magi tentacles to grab his longsword mid-air, and with his now-empty hands, he unleashed a barrage of black lightning, screaming.

I bent backward to dodge the first strike, then spun to the side, slipping out of Belcus’ line of attack.

Belcus tried to pierce my stomach with a black spike formed from his foot, but as I clenched my left hand and slammed it down, the concentrated Magi exploded. The magic of someone who had lost their composure was this weak.

“How? Just a hunch, I guess.”

With a nonchalant reply, I swung Durandal. Belcus grabbed his longsword with both hands, using the Magi tentacles as support, barely managing to block my strike.

A deafening clash. A deep crack formed on Belcus’ blade, twisting it. He struggled to maintain his stance, using Magi to endure the relentless strikes.

With each strike, the sound of his bones screaming in agony grew clearer.

Belcus occasionally mixed in irregular magic attacks using Magi, but no amount of tricks could bridge the fundamental gap in our abilities. With each clash of our swords, his body began to break down rapidly.

“That’s… impossible! There’s no way you could grasp the essence of my authority with just a hunch!”

“For you, it’s impossible.”

Well, it’s impossible for me too. To counter an authority’s effect with just a hunch? That’s not human.

Of course, there was no reason to tell him the truth. After all, we’re about to part ways soon.

– Clang!

Belcus’ blade finally shattered under the pressure. The broken blade grazed his cheek and flew off.

“Damn it…!”

“You should’ve used a better sword!”

A critical opening. I slashed through the writhing tentacles, kicked away the shadowy hands, and tore through the black barrier with an Ice Blade. Fragments of Magi scattered like smoke.

Belcus tried to defend himself by coating the broken blade with Magi, but it was a futile effort.

I took another step forward, raising Durandal high.

“Kyaaaah!”

The Reversed Heaven Sword. A strike even a hero would struggle to defend against, carrying the force to split even black iron, swung down like a blue lightning bolt aimed at the ground.

Belcus, startled, rolled to the side in an attempt to dodge Durandal, but this wasn’t an attack that could be avoided so easily.

– Crunch!

Durandal’s blade shattered his shoulder armor and cleaved through his shoulder, severing his left arm. The severed arm spun wildly, spraying blood filled with Magi everywhere.

“Kuhak…!”

Belcus screamed, losing his balance and collapsing to the ground. Like a decapitated chicken flailing in the air, blood soaked the ground.

“Save your screams. It’s not over yet!”

I pulled my right foot back and kicked his body like a ball.

Belcus, groaning in agony, desperately tried to form a Magi barrier to block my kick, but the moment my foot touched it, the barrier shattered, and my foot slammed into his chest.

The steel breastplate crumpled instantly, and I felt the sensation of several ribs shattering through my leg.

“Keuk…!”

Like squeezing toothpaste from an open tube, blood gushed out under the intense pressure. Belcus, now a blood-filled rocket, flew through the air and tumbled across the ground.

After asking Lacey to reapply the blessing that blocked curses, I leaped toward Belcus.

“Not yet, not yet…!”

Belcus staggered to his feet and unleashed a barrage of Magi slashes at me, but the Magi fragments shattered the moment they touched Durandal’s blade.

“I’ll carve you limb by limb. Just like when you were in your mother’s womb!”

I descended toward Belcus, scattering the black wind of blades. He glared at me, pointing his broken longsword at me. The darkness covering the blade swirled like a whirlwind, aiming for my vitals.

“No learning ability, huh? I told you, Magi is useless.”

I raised Durandal’s edge and sliced through his Magi vertically. The black whirlwind split in half and dissipated. As long as I had Durandal, a dark mage’s magic was nothing to me.

His desperate attempt to use Dark Conception was the same. The Elpinel womb tattoo on my lower abdomen purified and destroyed the curse seeping in.

It was worth asking Lacey to reapply the curse protection miracle.

Belcus’ desperate struggle had failed. All that remained was paying the price. I grabbed Belcus’ half-broken longsword with an Ice Blade and landed, stomping on his right shoulder.

– Thud!

With a heavy impact, his right arm was torn off.

“Kyaaaah!”

Blood gushed out like a fountain. Belcus screamed, trying to grab his right shoulder, but unfortunately, his left arm had already been severed.

With both arms gone, Belcus writhed on the ground like a worm. I stepped on his torso and thrust Durandal toward his lower body.

The anger I had built up since first encountering this city was fully concentrated in the blade.

“I told you, didn’t I? I’d carve you limb by limb.”

“Keuk…! Wait, wait! Don’t you want to save the city’s residents?!”

Belcus, cornered, shouted with a desperate face. Was he trying to negotiate? How dare he.

“That’s what I’m doing right now.”

“If you kill me! Salvation is impossible! Good memories fade into the distant past, but nightmares leave scars that never fade! Before falling asleep in the dark of night, while walking down the street, they’ll be forced to relive those nightmares! Like a corpse thrown into a river, bloated and resurfacing! The younger they are, the greater the trauma will be!”

“…And you’re saying that with your own mouth?”

This trash. What makes you think you have the right to say such things?

I raised my leg and stomped on one of his legs, crushing it.

“Kyaaaah!”

The sound of bones and flesh being flattened. Belcus, now missing his right leg, screamed as cold sweat dripped from him.

I gestured to Lacey, pointing at Belcus’ torso. If this continued, he might bleed out and die meaninglessly, so I wanted to keep him alive for now.

Understanding my gesture, Lacey approached me after applying a curse protection blessing to her lower abdomen, wary of his authority.

“Thank you, Sir Median.”

…For what?

As I looked at Lacey in confusion, she raised the cross spear she was holding—

– Crunch!

And began crushing Belcus’ last remaining limb.

Like sewing fabric with a sewing machine, from the tip of his foot to above his knee, she went mad. Belcus’ leg was turned into hamburger meat in an instant.

“Gyaaaah!”

Belcus screamed, twisting his back. I was too stunned to stop Lacey until her cross spear reached his thigh.

What was she thanking me for? Was it for giving her the chance to torture him…?!

“Wait, wait! Lacey! Not that! Keep him alive for now!”

“Huh…?”

After crushing Belcus’ leg, Lacey, who was about to raise her cross spear toward his groin, tilted her head and looked at me. Her expression seemed to ask why that was necessary.

“If this continues, he’ll die from excessive blood loss. We need to stop the bleeding first.”

I wasn’t planning to kill him yet. He still had one last authority left.

Belcus’ third authority, 『Unholy Legacy』, allowed him to transfer his soul to a fetus created through Dark Conception upon death.

The lifespan of a child born from Dark Conception was only about thirty minutes unless Belcus’ soul inhabited it, making it a tricky authority to use as a backup life.

In other words, we needed to keep him alive for about fifteen more minutes. Even if he had created a child just before facing us, it would have already died by now.

Of course, I couldn’t explain this to Lacey. It was an ability only Belcus knew about, and if she asked how I knew, I’d have no answer.

“……Now that I think about it, you’re right. His crimes are too grave to let him die so easily.”

Fortunately, Lacey seemed to interpret it as wanting to keep him alive for prolonged torture and nodded, stopping the bleeding in Belcus’ limbs. With holy fire.

Belcus’ screams echoed to the heavens. The smell of burning flesh vibrated in the air.