WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

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Chapter 124: Malevolent Site - 8

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By the time we cleared every wave, we were exhausted enough to collapse.

"God, I'm dying!"

Near the end, all our guns had melted, so we fought hand-to-hand.

Still, the consecrated lead rounds had been incredible.

The guns melted after one use, but there were so many of us that we could pour out thousands of rounds.

Was I the type who got stronger the more allies I had around me?

"Anyway, all ten stone walls have opened. What comes next?"

"Don't tell me another swarm is coming. If that happens, I'm seriously dead."

We were worrying and feeling relieved at the same time when it happened.

"Everyone, get back!"

The stone floor split, cracks spreading in every direction.

Crrrack!

Chunks of cracked floor began to fall away.

There was an empty space below, and the broken stones crashed down in a noisy avalanche.

"It's empty underneath!"

"We were standing on top of this?"

If it had collapsed during the battle... That would've been horrifying.

"There's a staircase. Should we go down?"

"Can we?"

The path down was a single narrow route.

The perfect place to be ambushed.

I shone a light down there, but I couldn't see anything unusual...

"The smell of rot is overpowering."

Something was beyond there.

There would be demons, and wizards too.

More than anything, the smell was horrible.

It was as intense as standing face-to-face with a demon.

"I don't think we should just go down there."

"Right? There's definitely an ambush below. I guarantee it."

For all I knew, the dragon node would only appear if we went down there.

But those wizard bastards had probably set up every kind of trap on the way to it.

Just like the trial we had passed through.

"What do we do? There's only one path."

"Hmm."

Then I looked at Gari.

I had been wondering what would happen if we used Gari to force our way through, but Gari was plucking things from Legion's pile of corpses and swallowing them one by one.

"Hey, Gari. How can you chew up demons like snacks?"

Clack?

Gari clicked their teeth as if asking what the problem was.

Then I got a good idea.

"Stop! Gari, stop!!"

Claaack?

* * *

The fifth point of the Ghost Veins forming a pentagram.

Devil followers, including wizards and spellcasters, held their breath before the Ghost Vein.

"I can't believe they made it through all ten stone walls... What kind of monsters are they...?"

They had never expected anyone to get through that head-on.

Legion's demons might have been the lowest class, but their numbers had been overwhelming.

"What do we do? That Pastor Park is with them, and they're all monsters."

"There's nothing to worry about. The terrain gives us an overwhelming advantage. We planted plenty of explosives. If we bury them, we've already won."

The underground route leading to the dragon node was narrow and limited.

They acknowledged those people's individual strength, but even that had limits.

They were tired and worn down from the trials.

Most of their firearms appeared to have been destroyed in the last battle too.

The transformation into a Malevolent Site might be delayed, but it didn't matter if they succeeded elsewhere...

Patter!

"Master? Something's falling over there."

"What? Uh..."

Something fell from above.

Splat!

The chunk of flesh that crashed down from such a height burst into a bloody mess.

"What is that?"

"What the..."

Before they had time to look closely, things kept falling from above.

Corpses.

Demon corpses.

They were throwing demon corpses down from above.

"What? What are they doing?"

"What a waste of effort. They're only tiring themselves out."

The devil followers laughed, thinking they were doing something pointless.

Were they planning to build a tower out of demon corpses?

But when the number passed one hundred, two hundred... five hundred... then a thousand, a chill ran down their spines.

"What the hell are those lunatics doing?"

"S-shouldn't we go up there? We need to know what they're planning..."

"Idiot! You want to leave this advantageous position? Why not send them an envoy to surrender while we're at it?"

The wizard steadied their breathing as they watched demon corpses continue to fall.

Nothing had changed.

They were just corpses.

Just an awful lot of corpses.

It was good for us if those people wore themselves out.

They had to be exhausted from throwing down all those bodies.

They would be even more exhausted by the time they came down.

Then, when we fought, victory would be certain...

"Gari! Pour it all out!"

Then a young man's voice came from above.

At the same time, something came pouring down.

Gush gush gush gush!!

A lot of it.

Every so often came the crash of shattering glass, as though bottles were pouring down with it too.

Water?

No, it smelled different...

"Oil?"

Oil?

At a time like this, oil?

A bad feeling flashed through them.

A mountain of corpses.

Oil pouring down over it.

What came next?

"The outcry against those cities is great, and their sin is exceedingly grave, so He has said He will destroy this place."

A voice.

A voice flowed down, sounding excited or perhaps enraged.

"Before He destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, He sent angels to Abraham and told him to take his nephew Lot and his family and leave!"

"But Abraham pleaded, saying, 'Will You forgive the entire region if there are fifty righteous men?!'"

Then the LORD said that even if He found only fifty righteous men, He would not destroy that city.

"Then Abraham asked again, 'What if five are lacking from those fifty righteous men? Will You destroy it because of those five?!'"

Then the LORD said that if He found forty-five, He would not destroy it.

"Abraham spoke again, saying, 'What if there are forty there! Thirty! Twenty! Lord, do not be angry! Let me speak just once more! Ten! What if You find ten righteous men?!'"

He said:

Even for the sake of only ten righteous men, He would not destroy it.

"But there were not ten righteous men in that city."

The voice stopped.

From the distant ceiling, a young man walked slowly.

Click. Click.

It looked as though a boy was walking through empty air.

But some saw something different.

"...A monster."

Riding a massive maw, the young man looked down at them from the air.

Then he passed judgment.

"The LORD rained sulfur and fire from heaven."

A small flame bloomed on the young man's fingertip.

Magic?

It was clearly on another level from the magic used by wizards, who gained spells by offering tribute to demons.

The original.

Magic at its source.

It ignited at the exorcist's fingertips.

"He overthrew the whole plain, every inhabitant of the cities, and everything that grew from the ground."

The ball of fire fell.

That tiny fireball touched the mountain of evil corpses.

Whoosh!

The flames spread.

Following the streams of oil, the blaze swallowed the mountain of corpses in an instant.

"F-fire!"

"It's fire!!"

"Y-you idiots! Get a grip! Corpses won't burst into flames just because someone poured oil on them! Do you think this is a movie?!"

That was true.

Corpses contained a considerable amount of moisture, so it took an extremely powerful fire to burn them.

They did not combust as easily as firewood. And the main ingredient in Yohan's holy oil was olive oil, a vegetable oil.

It could catch fire, but it was nowhere near as potent as gasoline, and it would go out quickly once the oil evaporated.

That was if it was merely oil and corpses.

Boom!

"W-what was that?!"

"T-the corpses exploded!"

"You moron! Corpses aren't explosives. How could they possibly explode...!"

Yohan's oil was holy oil.

And very powerful holy oil at that.

Once holy oil was set alight, it became holy fire, fire specialized in burning evil.

And demons were evil itself.

A demon corpse caught in holy fire was not like gasoline.

It was like igniting a pile of explosives.

Whoooosh!!

The flames surged upward.

The wizards fled in terror from the violently rising holy fire.

The Legion demons on standby and the wizards tried desperately to stop the fire from spreading.

Some chanted spells. Others splashed the water they had been drinking.

But it was nowhere near enough to stop the flames burning fiercely with thousands of demon corpses as fuel.

Instead...

"Aaagh! F-fire! Sparks hit me!"

"P-put it out! Please! Aaagh! Why?! Why won't it go out when I poured water on it?!"

It was holy fire that destroyed evil.

Even splashing water on it could not extinguish it when embers soaked in holy oil touched them.

There was only one way.

They had to cut off the affected flesh entirely before the flames spread.

"Aaagh! Aah! Aaaaaaagh!!"

"Save me! Save me, please!!"

The fire spread.

Using the finest fuel as kindling, the flames of the Holy Spirit burned higher.

"M-master! The smoke! Cough, cough!"

Fire was not the only problem.

The enormous amount of smoke produced by flames spreading through thousands of corpses could cause severe carbon monoxide poisoning.

At this rate, they would either burn to death or suffocate in the smoke.

"G-go up!"

"We have to go up!"

The devil followers began climbing the stairs.

The one and only staircase.

"Where do you think you're going?"

"Gasp! P-Pastor Park!"

Pastor Park and Holy Temple Church's exorcists blocked the only staircase.

The teacher of mad Pastor Kim, the Collector.

A monster among monsters, one of the strongest exorcists in terms of pure combat power.

A giant who had practically protected the Korean Peninsula throughout the twentieth century.

"Move, old man!"

"Listen to this little punk talking."

Thud!

A hole opened in the chest of the wizard who had been about to chant a spell when Pastor Park swung his fist.

The wizard, with a huge hole through their body, fell limply below.

The old monster who had punched a hole through a person's torso shook the blood from his fist.

"Pastor Go, every one of these sons of Satan dies here."

"Yes!"

The slaughter began.

It was a one-sided, merciless extermination with not a speck of compassion.

Yohan watched from atop Gari.

He had handed out several treasured swords and spears, so blocking the passage would be easy enough.

It would have been even easier if Yohan had joined the fight, but the small fry were not what he was concerned about right now.

"Whoa... Gari, can you feel it too?"

Claaack!

Something was crouching.

At the center of the dragon node, an enormous presence writhed after swallowing it whole.

The source of this terrible stench.

It had to be a demon.

"It was summoned only halfway?"

Apparently, it could only descend completely once three Ghost Veins formed an inverted triangle.

Right now, with only two Ghost Veins, it seemed to be halfway summoned, devouring the earth's veins inside the dragon node.

But it looked like it was going to come out before it burned to death in the holy fire.

"I can't let that happen. Let's go!"

Clack!

Yohan rode Gari, transformed into a chariot, and plunged straight down.

The flames burning everywhere could not harm Yohan.

Holy flames did not affect those protected by God.

Yohan drove the chariot's force, strengthened by the speed of its fall, straight into the ground.

The moment he reached the ground, Yohan took out a hammer and a nail.

He drove Helena's Holy Nail into the center of the dragon node.

Baaang!

A pillar of light pierced the cavern ceiling and shot toward the sky.

The Holy Cavity was complete.

"All right!"

He had stopped the completion of the inverted-triangle Ill-Omened Site, their original goal.

That meant their scheme had been stopped...

Rumble────!!

"...?!"

"...!!"

The flames shook.

The fire of the Holy Spirit, which had been burning fiercely until just now, visibly bent to one side.

Not because of any wind in this place, but because something was pressing down on the air itself.

"What was that?"

"Something just..."

Pastor Park and the others, who had been blocking the wizards and demons, noticed it too.

It was no ordinary presence.

Beyond the ceiling pierced by the Holy Cavity's pillar of light, Yohan saw a black pillar rising.

"That direction is...?"

Was it where the Templar Order had gone?

That was the only place where a new black pillar could rise.

"...!"

He could feel a gaze.

Below.

One of the kings that had been about to descend upon the completion of the Ghost Vein.

No, that one had just been destroyed.

It had been halfway summoned when it took the Holy Cavity's pillar of light head-on, so its body could not have survived.

In fact, a new demon eye had been added to Gari's ring.

But farther below.

Deeper underground than even the dragon node.

"..."

It felt like their eyes met.

That was physically impossible.

The floor was only blackened by demon corpses and flames.

But it was there.

Rumble...!

The ground groaned low.

Stones fell around his feet.

No, the whole space was shaking.

Down there.

It was watching us.

Claaack────

■■■■────

Three kings.

A King of Kings.

A fallen king.

It was the Great King.

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