I Became a Mythical Hunter After Killing the Golden Goblin - Chapter 113
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 113. Meanwhile, in the Holy Kingdom… (2)
Unique Ability: Blood Sorcery. The power behind this art—which drew its essence from blood itself—was formidable indeed.
The quality and potency of the ability fluctuated based on the purity and caliber of blood consumed, but what truly set it apart was its staggering versatility.
It was not magic. Not the kind of power that wielded mana to chant precise incantations and manifest miracles that defied natural law.
Sorcery was the art of channeling mystery itself—summoning into this world things that should not exist here.
Creatures born of blood rose to their feet. The rotting masses of flesh that had hung lifeless from the ceiling burst apart, then coalesced anew into terrible forms.
A Grade-4 Ma-in—a puppeteer of the blood-born. As befitted a Grade-4 Ma-in, this entity had forged a pact with one of the Demon Kings and an Apostle.
The birth of his puppets—orchestrated from the shadows like a hidden mastermind—was a sight of pure horror.
Flesh congealed. Bone intertwined. Blood spiraled. Organs fused.
What emerged was something that had transcended humanity entirely. A puppet—a weapon devoid of will, yet obedient to every command of its creator.
Ten such puppets materialized within the Warehouse. Constructed from the bodies of dozens of humans, they towered to a height rivaling that of Cardinal Batroy, who carried the blood of the giant-kin.
Nor were they weak in combat. A single puppet could easily overwhelm even the elite Heresy Inquisitors of the Holy Kingdom in one-on-one combat.
Moreover, the puppets wielded the creatures born of Blood Sorcery as extensions of themselves—as living weapons.
They summoned blood-devouring insects to their backs, warping them into tentacle-like appendages.
They absorbed spike-monsters that liquefied underground to ambush from below, housing them within their bodies and firing them forth like projectiles.
Having absorbed countless other creatures, their might was overwhelming. The Heresy Inquisitors, who had sought to overwhelm through sheer numbers, found themselves in disarray.
Crash! Screech!
As the barrier cracked further and Cardinal Batroy brought his blade down with murderous intent, he sensed the gravity of the situation. Destroying the barrier could wait—eliminating the puppeteer came first.
With that judgment made, he turned his body.
“Where do you think you’re going!”
Cardinal Aoira, however, was not one to stand idle. He immediately summoned a torrent of creatures through Blood Sorcery, barring Batroy’s path.
“Out of my way! Such parlor tricks cannot stop me!”
Batroy simply bulldozed through every trap with overwhelming force. Cardinal Aoira, recognizing that further obstruction would be wasteful, abandoned the attempt to block him. Instead, he poured his remaining strength into reinforcing the barrier while commanding his puppets to engage.
The battlefield descended into chaos. The balance that had teetered between puppet and Inquisitor shattered the moment Batroy entered the fray.
Casualties were inevitable. Capturing a heretic had never been simple, and the Inquisitors, facing a Cardinal, had fought with heightened caution and precision.
Yet they were left reeling by the revelation that Cardinal Aoira possessed such hidden strength.
Of the roughly eighty Inquisitors—excluding the twenty stationed outside for containment—more than twenty fell, and over thirty sustained grievous wounds before the ten puppets finally collapsed.
Only thirty Inquisitors remained capable of continuing the fight, along with Cardinal Batroy.
“Are you unharmed, Your Eminence?”
“No issues.”
To his loyal subordinate’s inquiry, Cardinal Batroy gazed indifferently at the wounds scattered across his body, then cast off his half-shattered armor.
The Warehouse had become a sea of blood. In this crimson hell, Aoira—despite the destruction of all his puppets—laughed.
“Magnificent. Truly magnificent. So the epithet ‘Holy Kingdom’s Greatest Holy Knight’ was no mere rumor. You are stronger than I imagined.”
Aoira applauded, watching as the Cardinal and Inquisitors closed in. The situation teetered on the brink of defeat, yet his eyes betrayed no despair, no surrender.
Instead, they gleamed with delight—the expression of one intoxicated by the thrill of battle.
“If you believe a mere barrier like this is enough to make you so confident…”
Whoosh! Boom!
The barrier cracked further. Though he had reinforced it, the loss of high-quality blood was unavoidable, and the barrier’s integrity weakened accordingly.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
The cracks spread. Widened. Expanded. And continued to grow.
Crash! Shatter!
The barrier protecting Cardinal Aoira crumbled at last. To any observer, this was the unmistakable moment of Cardinal Aoira’s defeat.
Yet he merely laughed. A smile that had once suited him so perfectly now looked grotesquely out of place.
“Stop your laughter and surrender gracefully.”
“Ah… how delightful. The Holy Kingdom’s greatest Heresy Inquisitor. Cardinal Bartroy. It’s a pity you’re not the Pope, but someone of your caliber will make a most satisfactory sacrifice to fulfill my purpose.”
“Nonsense! I’ll sever your limbs and force you to face reality!”
Cardinal Bartroy roared and raised his greatsword, moving to strike Cardinal Aoira down.
That was the moment.
“The entertainment ends here. Now it’s time to work.”
Aoira’s expression shifted rapidly to cold indifference, his gaze piercing past Cardinal Bartroy’s shoulder.
Thwack!
A holy blade materialized, piercing straight through the Cardinal’s heart as he moved to swing his sword.
“Ack! What… what is this?”
He stared down at his left chest in disbelief. A holy sword. A treasure of the Holy Kingdom bestowed only upon a select few of the chosen strong.
Particularly, he could not fail to recognize this blade. After all, wasn’t it the very sword he had entrusted to his most trusted subordinate?
For someone who obsessively collected weapons, passing his finest blade to another held profound significance.
Strength drained from Cardinal Bartroy’s hands as his massive sword clattered to the ground, rolling through pools of blood.
As he slowly turned his head, he saw the man who had pierced him through.
“Why?”
“Why do you ask? Since you’re dying anyway. Ha. Just thinking about all the trouble I went through protecting that old fool makes me want to tear your body to shreds. But our Cardinal Aoira requested that your corpse remain intact, so I’m sending you off peacefully. Now die.”
Squelch!
The blade was withdrawn. Simultaneously, some of the surviving Inquisitors suddenly turned traitor, beginning to slaughter their fellow Inquisitors.
Internal betrayal. The most devastating of oversights was unfolding.
Yet Bartroy could say nothing to them. His life drained away like water through a bottomless vessel. The scent of death that had lingered at his feet now crept up to his nostrils.
Death. That word came to greet him.
“Khahaha. You seem pleased with my trump card. Curious, are you? Why did the Inquisitor who slaughtered the most of our kind become my instrument?”
Aoira leaned in close, whispering softly.
“No matter how many of our brethren one slaughters, when one’s own wife and child fall into corruption and become Demons, even such a man crumbles. He who had hunted Demons his entire life could not punish his own family. He begged me instead. Please, he pleaded, accept my fallen wife and child. His family faced death through their forbidden pact with the Demons.”
Bartroy’s eyes trembled upon hearing these unbelievable words. Watching his reaction, Aoira drew even closer, whispering so only he could hear.
“But do you know? It was I who corrupted his wife and child.”
Rage consumed him. Despair overwhelmed him. Guilt crashed down upon him. How could he have failed to recognize such evil standing before his eyes?
Resentment. He lamented that he could only die like this.
Ah… God. Do you see this place?
〚Divine Seat: The Great Hero of Infinite Power watches with sorrowful eyes as his avatar meets his final moment.〛
〚Divine Seat: The Great Hero of Infinite Power laments his own powerlessness, unable to intervene at such a lowly stage.〛
You were watching. I apologize. Your humble servant reaches his end first. Though my soul may never reach toward you. I dare to make this request.
“Please… let that child see my final moment… see this evil…”
〚Divine Seat: The Great Hero of Infinite Power watches his avatar’s final moment with tears streaming down, pouring forth tremendous wrath!〛
Screeeeeech!!!!
A gaze was felt. An anger that even this insignificant creature could not withstand reverberated through the air. Yet Aoira could manage it well enough.
From the outset, this Warehouse existed as a domain beyond the reach of divine interference—a realm he had forged together with the Demon King he served.
Outside, space twisted and warped, mana screamed in agony, and nature crumbled to ruin. Yet this Warehouse alone remained sanctuary.
“Hah! What use are gods who cannot even meddle in this place? Your avatar’s flesh and soul shall be offered to my glorious master, becoming one pillar of the Grand Design!”
His gaze burned with fury as it slowly faded from sight. Until the very end, he could not tear his eyes from the avatar’s corpse, but at last he recognized the futility of his position and withdrew.
Thud.
Cardinal Batroy’s head fell completely severed. In that same moment, the remaining Heresy Inquisitors who had not turned traitor all met their deaths.
“Well done. Gather the rest and bring them here. We must ensure their souls cannot escape this place until the Festival begins and the true celebration commences.”
Cardinal Aoira moved his hand. The blood pooling across the floor surged skyward, and there—a colossal magical circle was revealed.
A summoning ritual inscribed across the entire Warehouse, no—across the very heart of the Mountain itself, designed for the offering of sacrifices.
A vast composite magical circle he had drawn throughout the Holy Kingdom long ages past, all for the sake of the Grand Design.
“Within this vile, glittering collection of refuse, I shall summon my god to render judgment!”
And thus my god shall claim a fragment of that great being dwelling in the deepest reaches of this colossal prison!
And be reborn as a great Demon!
The Grand Design had begun. None could stop it now. Not even that arrogant wretch who had allied with Bartroy and descended into the Underground Prison, constantly thwarting his schemes at every turn.
Cardinal Aoira spoke thus, activated the circle, and lifted the corpses, hanging them from hooks suspended from the ceiling.
After disposing of the remaining Heresy Inquisitors outside, he commanded the traitorous Inquisitors to guard this place in secret, then slipped away from the chamber.
“Ah! Cardinal, you’ve arrived. I trust the matter you needed to attend to was resolved satisfactorily?”
“Hahahaha. The blessing of holiness guided me, and all was settled most favorably. We have the afternoon meeting scheduled, yes?”
“Yes. If you depart now, the timing should be perfect.”
He resumed his performance as though nothing had transpired—no longer the puppet master of Ma-in bloodline, but rather one of the Holy Kingdom’s mere four, now three, cardinals.
Until the moment the Grand Design would commence, he maintained this façade in silence. All for the glory of the god he served and his own ascension.
“Now then! The Holy Spirit Festival is but two days away. Let us persevere to the very end.”
He smiled with his customary benevolence and gentleness.
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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