"Good heavens."
Basilio let out an exclamation of admiration without realizing it as he watched the scene unfolding before his eyes.
He knew he was strong. He also knew he was peculiar. But as Osian began to show his true earnestness in full, he realized it wasn't just at that level.
The beauty created by the transcendent swordsmanship that Osian displayed ignited a spark in his chest.
Light dances. Blue lines draw dance moves to complete beautiful figures, and clusters of white light meticulously refine and confine them, tuning them into an even more perfect form.
The clusters of blue and white light danced sometimes lightly, sometimes swiftly, soon drawing a giant regular polyhedron. The lines were so dense that it looked like a single sphere. Yes. That was truly a crystal sphere. A crystal sphere crafted and carved to the utmost limit with a sword.
Everything within the sphere's range turned to powder. The fallen beings, ground finer than any mixer in the world, couldn't even regenerate and were annihilated.
That crystal sphere was, in another sense, a furnace. Even more so in that it eliminated whatever was contained within, regardless of reason.
When the technique ended and the light disappeared. Osian gazed quietly at one side with a serene look.
"Krrgh!"There was Phillis, roughly coughing up blood. He had somehow survived without dying even within Osian's attack.
However, his condition was far from good. Beyond his torn robes, all kinds of wounds were visible.
Considering an archbishop's regenerative power, such wounds wouldn't even count as injuries, but Phillis couldn't regenerate his wounds because faint traces of starlight and moonlight remained in the wounds carved into his body.
They prevented regeneration while periodically inflicting pain on Phillis.
"Uaaaah!"
Phillis let out a roar of rage. He was an archbishop of the Eternal Church. He had transcended humanity and become a supreme powerhouse who could look down even on superhumans in order to survive and to be liberated from this damnable pain.
But what was this pain? It was twice as painful as when he was human and suffered from minor ailments. Even if his wounds were finely sliced, salt sprinkled on them, and seared with fire, it wouldn't hurt this much.
It wasn't just his body. It felt as if sword marks had been carved into the foundation that constituted his very being. With each breath, his life force repeatedly surged and ebbed.
"Khup!"
Phillis exerted his power and tensed his body. Muscle fibers grew over his skin and an exoskeleton was overlaid. His face twisted and changed into the form of deer bones, and tentacle-like wings burst through his flesh from behind.
Seeing the demonic form embodied in flesh, Basilio tensed. If Phillis seriously exerted his full power, the situation might change.
"Cough!"
But Phillis roughly spat out red blood from within his bones. His flesh, which had been repeatedly transforming, quickly crumbled and returned to its original human form of Phillis.
"The transformation..."
Phillis looked down at the wounds carved into his body. The more he tried to gather his strength, the more the power of starlight and moonlight carved into his body continued to interfere.
"Honestly, I was surprised."
Osian said toward Phillis.
"Who would have thought that at that moment, you would tear off your own head and throw it far outside."
The method by which Phillis survived Osian's technique was simple yet ingenious. At the moment of crisis, he separated his head from his body and threw it far away.
Phillis' body was sliced apart by the Star-Moon Dance without leaving a trace, but his head narrowly escaped the range.
Phillis' severed head, as soon as it touched the flesh wall, absorbed the surrounding flesh to form his body. It was the same technique that Zaxilos had shown.
But that didn't mean he had completely avoided it.
Phillis again tore off his head and threw it toward the wall. The head that touched the wall absorbed the surrounding flesh and once again formed his body.
Though Phillis had thus changed to a new body, he realized he couldn't escape from the pain.
This was because the wounds made of starlight and moonlight remained intact even on his newly constructed flesh.
"How is this even possible? This doesn't make sense!"
Even after changing bodies, the wounds followed him. This was something that utterly transcended common sense.
"You followers of the outer gods impose your own laws on the world to proceed with erosion."
Osian said, raising his starlight sword.
"But my sword does the opposite, returning such twisted laws to their original state. The moment a wound is carved into your body, that wound will never disappear unless it heals normally like a real person's."
If the power of outer gods is the world's virus, then the power of knights is the world's vaccine. And Osian possessed the most effective method of suppressing viruses among them.
"Even if you're a knight, I've never heard of such a thing...!"
"Of course you haven't heard of it. This is a method I created."
"What?"
At Osian's calm voice, Phillis felt as if cold water had been poured over his head.
Belatedly, he realized that the wounds carved into his body were Osian's intention.
'Don't tell me this bastard.'
He deliberately didn't kill him even though he could have? Why? Don't tell me it was to leave wounds so he would suffer pain?
However, this wasn't just Phillis' problem. Even if any veteran were brought here, they would all show the same reaction against Osian.
Phillis realized that no matter what he did, he couldn't defeat Osian.
"Bishop Fedilac!"
Phillis called that name again. If before it was a tone of giving resolute commands, this time it was an urgent tone filled with desperation.
Naturally, Fedilac couldn't refuse the call of Archbishop Phillis.
Fedilac, who had been pursuing the dogs of Tirna's city government, sent part of his forces to where Phillis was. The ground shook greatly, and the land Osian was standing on split open with a crack.
Below was filled with pitch-black darkness, and shadows glimpsed within that darkness writhed. Looking closely, the entire passage made of this darkness was filled with fallen beings.
-Kyaaaaaak!
Bizarrely twisted creatures bared their teeth and rushed at Osian.
Some fallen beings flapped their membranes and shot mental waves at Osian. Some fallen beings tore flesh from their bodies and shot out sharply honed bones. There were monsters that spat acidic liquid, and some that stretched their bodies like tentacles to stab like spears.
It was a horrific sight that brought to mind a scene from hell. And within it, Osian grasped the hem of his cloak and greatly curved his body.
As soon as he wrapped his body like a closed flower bud, countless attacks flew at him. Osian endured those attacks while being affected by gravity and repeatedly falling downward.
If it were his usual self, he would have driven his blade into the wall to reduce speed and tried to climb back up. But he didn't do so now. Because he knew that the one who made this trap was down below.
'This bastard.'
Bishop Fedilac, who had been summoned by Archbishop Phillis, realized that Osian had recognized his existence. Otherwise, there was no reason he would enter deep into this hellish pit while enduring attacks from fallen beings.
'Foolish bastard. I understand what you're aiming for, but you've made the wrong choice.'
Everyone knows that an antlion lives at the bottom of an antlion pit. But that doesn't mean ants jump into antlion pits. This follows the same principle. The deeper you go, the more the danger increases exponentially because it's a trap made solely to kill the opponent.
Rather, if he attacked from a distance outside without falling into the trap, it might be different. But jumping in with just his body, even if armored, was essentially suicide. Bishop Fedilac gladly decided to punish this arrogant knight.
'I knew he was strong since he drove the archbishop into a corner and was sufficiently tense, but how presumptuous. To voluntarily stick his neck into a trap I painstakingly created. That arrogance will strangle your breath.'
Fedilac released all his experimental subjects and pressured Osian. In this endless abyss-like darkness, waiting for that ray of light to collapse helplessly.
Phillis stared at the pit where Osian had disappeared. Even the knight who held the light of heaven became invisible once he fell below that pit.
Unlike other bishops, Bishop Fedilac’s body was fused and fixed with Trinity Tower.
However, his usefulness was incomparable to other bishops. The flesh barrier guarding the building entrance was also his creation, and he was the one who modified all sorts of strange yet ingenious fallen beings.
In this area, even Archbishop Mirak would concede to Bishop Fedilac, so it wasn't for nothing that Cardinal Zaxilos valued and employed him highly.
"Finally, the hindrance has disappeared."
Phillis smiled while looking at Basilio, frowning due to the pain of his wounds. Though it was regrettable that he couldn't kill Osian with his own hands, considering what he originally had to do, this was right.
As Phillis stood up and tried to approach, Basilio adjusted his mask and took a stance. He didn't think he could win by fighting. But he had no intention of giving up and just letting himself be beaten.
At the very least, he had to give that bastard who hurt Plimene a punch to the face.
It was at that moment of thinking so.
-Thud! Thoom! Thoom-thoom-thoom!
Continuous roars echoed from below the giant abyss. Something was being crushed and smashed, and monsters' screams were mixed in like paint.
Those collisions continued and then seemed to gradually subside.
And then
─────!!!!
As if a massive explosion had been detonated underwater, a tremendous impact resonated from below and the surroundings shook greatly once.
An eerily quiet silence arrived.
There were no more explosion sounds and no more shrieks from fallen beings. The fight was over. Could it be that Osian had died?
Basilio and Phillis each gazed at the giant pit with expectant eyes.
Then a pure white shadow suddenly shot up from the pit. It was an armored knight covered with all kinds of monster flesh, blood, and entrails.
Osian, who had leaped high, landed on the ground and casually threw down a giant lump of flesh he was holding in one hand.
"Kiiiiik!"
It was something that looked like a human face had been transplanted onto a human leather pouch. Phillis immediately recognized what it was.
"Fe, Bishop Fedilac?"
Bishop Fedilac. His loyal subordinate who had made great contributions to creating fallen beings through all sorts of various experiments.
His main body was protected by countless spawning grounds that resembled a maze, and the core of his body, which was united with the building, was hidden in the deepest part of flesh that took the form of a giant brain.
Therefore, even if his location was identified, he couldn't be killed easily. That should have been the case.
But Bishop Fedilac’s main body, with only his face remaining, had been dragged here by Osian's hand like some piece of luggage.
"Do you know this bastard?"
Osian asked, looking at Basilio and Basilio looked at Bishop Fedilac.
That was the one. The priest of the Eternal Church who had led that hellish ritual that day. At the same time, one of the enemies he most wanted to kill.
"How did you manage this bastard..."
"Originally, since he was such an annoyingly troublesome bastard, I considered killing him with a single stroke, but doing so seemed too merciful for this bastard."
So Osian had taken some trouble to mercilessly tear out Bishop Fedilac’s main body and bring it directly through that terrible army of fallen beings in order to entrust Basilio with the power of life and death over this bastard.
"Ha. Living to see this day, even at my age I get to receive a gift from Santa."
The Santa in stories has a white beard, red clothes, and holds a large bundle. In contrast, Osian had white armor stained with the red blood of fallen beings, and brought the bishop's head that looked like a bundle.
Similar yet fundamentally different in essence. Yes. If there was any commonality, it would be that he had received the best gift.
"Instead, I'll handle that bastard myself."
Osian said, looking back at Phillis, who was watching this way with fear-filled eyes.