Chapter 18
Drip, drip.
Drip.
Blood splattered all over the demon statue slowly fell to the ground.
In the suffocating silence, the two Apostles stared at each other, each trying to read the other first.
Anton Yates, the thirty-third Apostle of Naberius, tried to understand the mysterious abilities of his opponent.
…Strange.
He had been staring directly at Johan for this long, yet not a single word or thought surfaced.
The master of this body was Naberius, the Black Horse.
A master of dark magic and necromancy.
Even if Johan was an Apostle, he was still only human. Normally, Anton should have been able to read abilities and thoughts belonging to a mere human without much difficulty.
Of course, Anton had only recently become an Apostle and was still inexperienced.
Even taking that into account, however, this was far too strange.
Could he have resistance to mental attacks?
Even among the Great Old Ones, there were very few divinities capable of completely repelling the mental magic of a demon god.
More importantly, those gods normally did not grant that much power to their Apostles.
If Johan had been an Apostle of an Outer God—perhaps one of the angelic gods of Terrafos, or one of the guardian gods of the Golden Land—then immunity to this mind-reading ability would have made some sense.
But Johan was clearly neither.
Then why…?
Anton continued glaring at him in silence.
Johan, who had been calmly enduring his stare, was the first to break the silence.
“You seem to have a lot of questions about me.”
“……”
“But what a shame. Even if I told you everything, the result would still be the same.”
“…If you think such cheap provocation will shake me, you are mistaken, human. I am an Apostle of the great Naberius. There is no possibility that someone like you could defeat me in a place like this—”
Before Anton could finish speaking, Johan suddenly sat down.
Anton froze.
“…What is that supposed to mean?”
“Five minutes.”
Johan spread out his left hand and grinned.
“For the next five minutes, I’ll sit right here and do absolutely nothing.”
“…What?”
“I already told you. People like you can never kill me. But your kind never gives up until I prove it directly.”
That went beyond simple provocation.
It was mockery.
Johan’s smile deepened.
“So show me the power of that supposedly impressive god of yours, Naberius or whatever his name was.”
His eyes narrowed.
“Show me, mortal.”
BOOM!
BOOOOM!
Anton swung down a massive hammer nearly two meters in diameter.
His intention was simple.
Crush Johan until not even a single intact bone remained.
Anton’s right hand had transformed into an enormous iron hammer, and he smashed Johan again and again.
“Die! Dieee!”
He had transformed his arm into a weapon using divine authority.
An Apostle could instinctively feel roughly how much damage an attack was doing to an enemy.
According to Anton’s senses, Johan should already have been nothing more than a lump of meat, barely clinging to consciousness.
“You arrogant bastard! You thought you could endure the raw force of my attacks without using magic or Aura?!”
BOOOOM!
“What about now?! Do you still think I’m beneath you?! Do you?!”
More than Johan insulting his god, it was Johan’s complete disregard for Anton himself that enraged him.
BOOOOOM!
For more than a full minute, Anton mercilessly crushed Johan.
Finally, he withdrew the hammer and returned his right hand to normal.
He paused to catch his breath.
Blood and pieces of flesh were scattered everywhere around the place where Johan had been sitting.
Some of Johan’s flesh had even stuck to Anton’s hand.
Anton lightly licked it and laughed at his opponent.
“Ha… Hahaha… You arrogant fool. You brought this on yourself. You must have been desperate to die.”
However—
“Desperate, yes.”
A cold voice answered him.
A voice Anton should never have been able to hear.
“But you’re not enough, Anton Yates.”
“H-How…?!”
Crack.
Crack, crack.
The first sound was that of bones reconnecting.
It was far heavier and more horrifying than the simple sound of a dislocated shoulder being put back into place.
The sickening noises continued one after another for over ten seconds.
Next came the flesh and blood.
Pieces of meat that had been scattered so widely they no longer seemed capable of maintaining any recognizable form began moving.
They gathered once more toward their owner.
Toward Johan.
Color returned to lips that had gone cold and pale.
His skull, which had been crushed so badly that marrow and brain matter had spilled out, had already regenerated back into its original shape.
Anton Yates had served Naberius for nearly ten years.
During that time, he had witnessed countless grotesque scenes through visions and magic.
Yet even he could only stare in horror at what was happening before him.
Every bone, every drop of blood, every piece of flesh that made up the creature called Johan moved as though each possessed a will of its own.
As if they were all declaring that this was not where they belonged.
Within moments, Johan’s destroyed body was completely restored.
He tilted his head.
“Even if his rank is low, a god is still a god. Naberius’s authority shouldn’t be limited to something this pathetic…”
Johan looked at Anton.
“Then is the problem the Apostle who doesn’t know how to properly use that power?”
“You bastard…!”
A fierce light returned to Anton’s eyes.
He had no idea what trick Johan had used.
But it did not matter.
He now knew that Johan possessed some kind of regeneration ability.
That was enough.
“Then this time, I’ll make sure you can’t use that precious regeneration of yours!”
Both of Anton’s hands began transforming into hammers.
BOOM!
BOOM!
BOOM-BOOM-BOOOOM!
A sloppy dismemberment would not be enough.
He would crush Johan so thoroughly that his flesh, blood, and bones would no longer be able to retain their original forms.
If the blood itself possessed regenerative properties, then he could simply burn it.
First tear everything apart.
Then burn it.
And after that, freeze even the remaining ash and shatter it.
Anton assaulted Johan’s body at more than twice his previous speed.
Once Johan had been reduced to tiny scattered fragments, Anton used fire magic to burn every trace of him.
FWOOSH!
Flames hundreds of degrees hot swallowed not only Johan, but all the corpses in the surrounding area as well.
Still not satisfied, Anton released freezing cold over the remains.
The charred bone fragments and pieces of flesh that had almost disappeared completely were frozen solid.
CRACK!
CRACKLE!
Anton threw his head back and laughed wildly.
“KHAHAHAHA! I am Anton Yates! I am the one who will spread the greatness of Naberius throughout the Dark Land through fear!”
Spit flew from his mouth as he shouted.
“A nobody like you, who can’t even reveal his own name or the name of the god he serves, has no right to look down on me!”
Despite his shouting, cold sweat was already running down Anton’s neck.
He himself had not realized it yet.
But for the first time, doubt had appeared in the heart of a man who had always possessed absolute faith in both his strength and his god.
And Johan spoke at exactly the right moment to drive that doubt even deeper.
“You understand now, don’t you?”
