The Life of a Wise Cult Leader - Chapter 199

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 199

Behind that demon stood someone I had seen many times before.

“Widow…”

“Mother… Why are you with a demon…!”

The widow slowly revealed herself from behind the demon, sneering with red lips beneath a veil that only showed her lower face.

“Oh my. That wasn’t something you couldn’t have expected… was it?”

“You joined hands with demons? Really…?”

The widow showed a smile from beneath her veil.

“When you make that face like you feel betrayed, this mother’s heart aches too.”

For someone who said her heart ached, the corners of her mouth were quite upturned.

“If you were going to do this, why did you save the Ascetic back then? Wouldn’t it have been better if he had just died then?”

“Maybe I overestimated these guys more than I thought, or maybe my daughter was just dumber than I expected…”

She twirled her side hair with her finger from behind the demon. What caught my eye was not the dark reddish-black hair color, but light reddish hair.

“Hey, want to keep chatting?”

“No, Eris. I think we’re done talking. Spending time talking with corpses isn’t really my hobby.”

“But this will be the last time, so how about talking a bit more? Last times have quite a bit of meaning, don’t they?”

She looked quite displeased with mixing words. However, she played along with what might have been the demon’s mercy or mockery.

“Sigh… I raised the Ascetic to make him a savior merely as a tool to kill Lumensia. Since demons and Lumensia became unable to harm each other through mutual contract… I needed a different card.”

It was something I had vaguely expected.

“To think I’d have to explain even something like this in detail.”

Upon hearing the confirmation, Yelena’s face, which had been stupidly shocked, gradually returned to calm. Eris smiled throughout as if enjoying this situation.

I tried to buy some time, but I had taken too much damage fighting Lumensia.

I had anticipated demons would come and tried not to exhaust all my power, but if I had done that, we would have been completely annihilated by Lumensia instead.

I didn’t use my remaining ether for my own recovery but distributed it to those who were exhausted.

“Then widow, would you like to finish them off with your own hands?”

“…Not the other Brothers or Eris?”

While buying time with whatever means, I aimed for even the slightest recovery…

“Yeah. Weren’t they things you cherished? It hurts when others break them.”

“I didn’t cherish them. Though I did use them carefully as tools.”

“Yeah, yeah. That’s what I mean.”

“…There’s a reason to sharpen a chipped blade, but what reason is needed to throw it away? It’s just being discarded because it’s useless, so there’s no reason to put emotion into it. From the beginning… there were no emotions anyway.”

“Spider.”

“Yes, Eris.”

The two standing at a distance seemed to be having a battle of wills. The demon quietly examined Lumensia’s head, a massive energy mass that had devoured all possibilities, then held it out to the widow.

“Want to eat it?”

“I’ll pass. Eating spoiled food causes problems, doesn’t it?”

“I guess so.”

Eris shrugged and then divided it into three parts, feeding it to those he could call his brothers.

“To cross over to another world, wouldn’t it be better for you to kill those guys and… stack up more possibilities? It’s a suggestion for your sake…”

“I think it’s sufficient. I do.”

“To go to another world while maintaining that flesh will require enormous energy. Since you said you didn’t like that rotten one, you should kill and eat those living ones right away.”

Rumble-

What I saw was the ground collapsing greatly and white cracks appearing in the sky with its pitch-black universe.

The world where God had disappeared was beginning to collapse rapidly.

The only god left was a half-baked god of darkness… It seemed difficult for one god of darkness without authority or anything to sustain the world.

“Otherwise, what if the spider’s legs break off one by one, snap, snap during the crossing? My heart would ache so much I’d want to tell you to stay here…”

“…”

The demon was outright threatening the widow.

‘If Teacher is in a relationship where she’s being unilaterally threatened… I could somehow persuade her to lead toward dealing with the demons.’

If the widow became an ally, it wouldn’t just be reassuring but could also overturn this disadvantageous situation.

‘Rather than running away to another world… she would build this world together with me.’

If I could just properly cater to Teacher’s desires and needs, there might be a possibility to break through this situation.

‘One thing that bothers me is that I can’t tell where Young Lady, who went to persuade her, is.’

Even considering that I’m in such a pitiful state that I can’t detect anything, Young Lady’s presence had disappeared as if erased from the world.

Whether she heard Young Lady’s story and then rushed out when the demon called, or what. Anyway, it was clear that the situation was flowing quite chaotically.

It was natural since I couldn’t even unfold half of the plan I had prepared for some degree of twisting.

When I finished thinking about this and that and made a plan, their negotiation seemed to have ended in agreement.

“Should we run away?”

In the meantime, Celestia, who had recovered somewhat, suggested with a haggard face.

“We can’t go. We’re the ones who set up the barrier around here.”

With this number of people, we could aim for about a one-on-one victory against Teacher, but we couldn’t handle those three demons that would follow.

Certain defeat.

We’d be annihilated without killing a single one.

“When fighting that widow, wouldn’t it be worth trying if we ran away and then did group teleportation? If we fight now, we’ll lose. 100%.”

“I know that much too, miss.”

“We have no choice but to run away, recover, then plan again and fight.”

“Will those guys just watch? That teleportation thing, if you don’t concentrate, leaving behind arms and legs is commonplace. If we get interrupted in the middle, one person’s upper and lower body will separate-“

“It’s risky, but if Violin and Commander do it… Demon King, can you possibly move?”

The Demon King shook his head. Then he looked at me and opened his mouth.

“It seems difficult for all of us to survive.”

When I was an Ascetic, I just wanted to live so I robbed people left and right, and now guilt is stabbing my heart repeatedly.

Having boasted to the Demon King and thrown around empty promises about succeeding in this project, I had no face to show him.

In the end, we were pathetically about to have our final blow against Lumensia stolen and be killed by the widow before getting backstabbed by demons.

The Demon King spoke calmly.

“If there’s to be a sacrifice here, it should be me.”

He said that while drawing his great sword. Then Yelena grabbed and pulled down the gray hand drawing the great sword.

“If Demon King is missing, the power loss will be severe. I’m not appealing with cheap sentimentality for you not to die… If someone must sacrifice, you don’t need to be that sacrifice.”

My head seemed to turn white.

‘Yelena sacrificing herself? What is this about?’

I didn’t struggle all this time just to wish for her sacrifice in such a trivial situation.

I staggered up and grabbed Yelena to stop her.

I was too exhausted to even open my mouth, so I could only shake my head vigorously, but she already had determined eyes.

“I’m the only one who can draw Mother’s attention, hold her back, and buy time to safely evacuate everyone. And even if I’m missing, I’m the one who won’t cause major disruption to our fighting power.”

Yelena said this to everyone present, arguing why she should be the one to sacrifice among the people here. But I just didn’t want to hear it.

“It’s time to… see the end with Mother.”

Tears poured from Kalebrin’s red eyes. Yelena smiled as usual, as if this situation was nothing special.

“I knew this day would come.”

“…Then I’ll stay with you too.”

“Alderion, you don’t particularly need to follow…”

However, my merciless divine nature as ‘Fairness’ quite rationally pointed to her as the right person.

In a situation with no other sharp solutions, if one person’s life could help everyone escape crisis, it would be quite good.

I felt like vomiting. But if I got caught here, this game would end in defeat, so I couldn’t even say I’d sacrifice myself instead.

“If Alderion also leaves, there will be too much power vacuum. And that sword seems to work on demons, right? If the wounds it inflicts don’t regenerate, then Alderion who can wield that sword should escape.”

Kalebrin was about to have a tearful farewell but realized the situation and held back her sadness.

It was the same for me.

If I were still an Ascetic, I would have grabbed at trouser legs saying let’s find a way somehow, and escaped even if it meant throwing a few Harmony members as bait, but now I’d really die from guilt if I did that.

The divine body didn’t react at all to the painfully aching separation and sadness.

My heart was just beating as if it would burst, and with the remnant of humanity left, I was only crying, screaming that this wasn’t right, and running around like a madman.

While we took time to talk like this, they were concluding their own contract.

Eris brought two more of his brothers to where he alone had been.

Like measuring who would dissect the fish in an aquarium.

And they raised their swords. We formed our formation as we had discussed.

“Oh my, Yelena. I was planning to kill you last, but here you come forward.”

“Mother.”

“Don’t use that title when you don’t even think of me as your mother.”

Two women stepped out into the desolate clearing where dusty winds blew.

The Widow was gathering her hands as if playing cat’s cradle, while Yelena calmly spun her halberd three times. The wind from that motion cleared the dust around Yelena and snapped the thin threads.

The threads that would be invisible unless one had very good eyesight burned away in the air from Erendor’s flames.

“Are you going to interfere in a mother-daughter fight?”

“Yeah. Is there some reason I shouldn’t?”

“It’s a family matter. I’m just worried in advance that it might look bad for you, young man.”

“Then attacking those hunters after the fight ends and stealing the final blow doesn’t look bad?”

The Widow moved her hands again. Red thread lines appeared across Yelena’s body.

Yelena quickly escaped her position. Blood spurted from her body.

In that brief moment, a first-class knight had nearly been sliced to pieces like chopped vegetables.

“What are you doing not attacking as a group?”

The Widow sighed and began to move her fingers with clicking sounds again. Then, the Demon King spoke up.

“From what I can see, it seems you’ve made a contract with demons. If you’re unwilling, how about joining our side? I think there’s potential for negotiation if we hear your conditions.”

The Commander refused absolutely, and I didn’t even have the strength to speak right now.

“Negotiation, negotiation… You know what my conditions are before making this offer, right?”

“Of course. The basics of negotiation involve understanding the other party’s desires, don’t they?”

“Let me hear what defeated soldiers from a previous era have to say? I’m quite curious.”

Her hands stopped. She glanced back at those behind her and shrugged her shoulders.

“I won’t be able to talk long. Those disgusting three-headed things are glaring at me.”

“Then let me cut to the chase and get to the point. Widow, what you want is to cross over and live in the world, right? Then I’ll make it so you can live without having to cross worlds or cling to demons.”

“…Oh ho.”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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