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[Translator - Kiteretsu]
[Proofreader - Kyros]
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Chapter 119
Bang.
At the same time—
A wave of blood-red flame surged in from all directions toward Chris.
A desperate situation where neither dodging nor blocking was possible.
But Chris calmed his gaze.
‘An attack like this? You’re looking down on me.’
Chris raised his sword.
And he charged straight into the wave of blood, swinging his Aura Blade.
A secret technique of swordsmanship—Four Seas, One Slash.
A solemn ray of light cleaving the Dead Sea split the wave of sinister blood-red flames in two.
From the start, attacks of such wide range only looked powerful on the surface. Without concentrating the qi, they spread thin and exposed many weak points.
And Chris wasn’t the kind to miss even a fleeting blind spot.
‘His style is to toy with his opponent as he fights.’
Even in his past life as the master of the Blood Shadow Demonic Corps, Sherad rarely fought with his full power.
For Sherad, battle and slaughter were nothing more than amusement.
‘Either way, it’s my chance.’
Chris charged straight at Sherad.
Step by step.
The distance closed in an instant, and the smile on Sherad’s lips deepened.
As if he was growing excited.
“Good. Come on, then.”
“Shut up.”
Chris’s free hand formed a spell sign.
A manifestation of magic.
Crack!
Cold Volcano.
Ice surged from beneath his feet, erupting upward—a white magic of the ice attribute that instantly freezes the enemy. It burst up beneath Sherad.
For reference, Chris had achieved at least 4-star mastery in all branches of white magic, regardless of type.
As Sherad drew up his blood energy to dispel the cold—
This time, Chris switched the type of magic.
He raised his finger to his lips and bit down hard.
Flash.
A drop of blood scattered through the air, and as it disappeared, it transformed into faint particles.
When Chris clenched his fist tightly, the particles vibrated, and they resonated with the blood energy Sherad had drawn up.
“!!”
A flicker of confusion crossed Sherad’s face.
The resonance effect Chris triggered was weak.
Compared to Sherad’s full blood energy, it only affected a very small portion.
But the problem was—it disrupted the core flow of that blood energy.
A miracle brought about by Chris’s insane insight and mastery over demonic energy.
Of course, it couldn’t last long.
The moment Sherad became aware of the disruption, the resonance effect vanished.
However, in that brief instant—
A slight delay was unavoidable, and in the moment it took Sherad to push out the cold, his movement slowed.
Chris unleashed the spell he had prepared in advance.
Thunder Explosion.
A white magic that triggers a lightning explosion at a targeted coordinate.
The moment the spell activated, the explosion occurred instantly at the marked location without any delay, making it unavoidable.
Crackle!!
Lightning surged through the frozen cold on Sherad’s body.
The impact itself wasn’t significant.
The problem was the aftereffect of the spell restricting his bodily movement.
The frozen chill—
And the lightning coursing over that cold.
Sherad’s body momentarily seized in paralysis.
‘Now!’
Chris grit his teeth.
A chance barely seized thanks to Sherad’s carelessness.
The Aura Blade exploded forth.
A line of light came crashing down on Sherad’s head.
But—
Sherad slowly smiled.
A chilling smile.
“Too good.”
Sherad’s hand moved.
It trembled, likely due to the lingering cold and shock—but only for a moment. It soon moved at a tremendous speed.
Faster and more powerful than his original movements.
Chris realized what this phenomenon was.
Will.
Another power of a 6-star Master-class.
While those below used demonic energy to enhance their bodies, starting from 6-stars, one could use the power of will to temporarily surpass the limits of the physical body.
The situation reversed in an instant.
At this rate, Sherad’s hand would tear into Chris’s neck first.
But—
‘I expected this much.’
Chris revealed his hidden card.
Vwoom.
The ring on his finger—the Vampiric Ring—let out a low wail.
The demonic energy in Chris’s outer core was transmuted into light mana from his inner core, and for a brief moment, power surged through Chris’s body.
Chris released all his energy in a single burst.
The sword of light accelerated past its limit.
“!!”
Sherad’s eyes widened.
This kind of strike—he hadn’t expected at all.
For reference, Chris had never used the Vampiric Ring even once, enduring countless brushes with death over the past month just to avoid letting Sherad discover its existence.
Sherad hastily tilted his head back, but he couldn’t fully dodge.
The Aura Blade barely grazed Sherad’s face diagonally.
Thud-thud.
It only grazed him, but an Aura Blade was still an Aura Blade.
A deep wound opened from the left side of his forehead, across his philtrum, to his right cheek, and Sherad’s face was instantly drenched in blood.
This wound would no doubt leave a deep scar over time.
“……”
A brief silence followed.
Chris, having poured out all his strength in an instant, gasped for breath from the exhaustion, while Sherad stared coldly at him with his blood-covered face.
A suffocating tension filled the air.
Then—
Clap. Clap.
Sherad chuckled and started clapping.
“Wow. Impressive. You exceeded my expectations. That was seriously chilling just now. I nearly died. I can’t remember the last time I felt this kind of thrill.”
“……”
“What should I do? Now I really don’t want to kill you. You’re already this fascinating—how much more interesting will you be once you grow stronger?”
Sherad tilted his head, as if genuinely conflicted.
His pale, blood-drenched face—
Combined with that innocent expression, gave off a grotesque air.
“Let’s just end it here.”
“…What?”
“I’m not going to kill you.”
“……”
“If I kill you today, I feel like I’ll regret it later. Disobeying Father’s orders is scary, sure… but whatever, just run far away or something.”
In other words—
He was spouting absurd nonsense about killing Chris later, once he’d grown stronger.
Sherad grinned widely.
“How’s that? You’re okay with it too, right? No need to thank me. Just repay this favor by entertaining me before you die someday…”
“Shut up.”
“Huh?”
“Who said you get to decide when this ends?”
Sherad looked puzzled.
“If we keep fighting, you’ll die.”
“We’ll see?”
Chris smirked.
“Seems like the one who doesn’t understand the situation… is you.”
Chris reached out his hand.
And activated his prepared trump card.
Flaaash!
A faint red inverted cross began to appear on Sherad’s forehead.
It was a black magic curse that marked one as a target of an evil entity—the Sigil of Devouring.
Sherad made a baffled expression.
“What are you planning to do with such a low-grade curse? Something like this is nothing.”
Sherad summoned his blood energy.
He tried to forcibly dispel the curse—
“!!”
—but the sigil etched on his forehead didn’t budge. Instead, it darkened further.
“This is a modified version created by a genius—me. Even you won’t be able to dispel it in a short time.”
The original Sigil of Devouring was a 3-star level curse, nothing special, just something that made unintelligent beasts or evil spirits target the marked individual.
But Chris had refined the spell.
He engraved the sigil in a way that it would be tempting even to higher-level evil entities, making it alluring enough to provoke devouring intent.
He also embedded security magic to make it difficult to dismantle.
Most of all, Chris’s dark mana had 100% purity, so the curse’s power far exceeded that of ordinary practitioners.
Even for Sherad, breaking it would be no easy task.
“Hmm. I still don’t get it. What’s our interesting little brother up to? The magical beasts near this border are, at best, 5-star—surely you don’t think they can threaten me?”
“Of course not. The beasts here wouldn’t be able to harm you.”
“Hmm? Then?”
“However, if I send you not here, but to some far more terrifying place—then the story changes, doesn’t it?”
“…What?”
Chris pulled out another item, and for the first time, Sherad’s face hardened.
“That… don’t tell me?”
“You recognize it, huh? Lenin’s Shears. You know exactly what it’s used for, don’t you?”
It was the archmage’s artifact Chris had received from Ruina, capable of cutting through space.
It couldn’t lock onto precise coordinates, so its utility was limited—
‘But if I’m just sending someone else flying, I don’t need precision. I’ll launch him into Gehenna.’
Conveniently, this was the border region.
It was connected to a subspace that led to Gehenna’s lower zones, and Chris had spent the last month calculating the coordinates.
Even if he couldn’t pinpoint an exact location, he could still hurl Sherad toward Gehenna.
‘As long as he lands somewhere in Gehenna, no matter where it is, it’ll be hell. He’s as good as dead.’
But Sherad quickly relaxed his expression.
“Hmm. The idea’s impressive, but do you really think I’ll fall for something like that? If it’s Lenin’s Shears, I just have to dodge it.”
“You want to dodge—but you won’t be able to.”
Chris grinned.
He pulled out the final tool for his plan.
A curse doll.
“You know better than anyone what this is, right?”
“!!”
Chris smeared Sherad’s blood, which had stained the Holy Sword, onto the doll.
“Using blood-bonding magic, if you mark the doll with someone’s blood, the doll and the blood’s owner become one and the same.”
In other words—
If you stab the doll with a needle, the target feels the same pain. A curse that worked on a similar principle.
“If I throw this doll into the other side of space, you’ll be thrown along with it.”
Originally, this spell isn’t easy either.
You have to analyze all the subject’s complex characteristic patterns in order to equate them with the doll using blood as a medium.
It can only be analyzed when in close contact with the target, so the conditions are extremely strict.
‘But I’ve already analyzed all of his characteristic patterns.’
That happened during the three hours he spent recovering his strength earlier.
While replenishing his energy, Chris had also analyzed the traits of Sherad, who had been standing next to him.
With that, all preparations were complete.
“Kuhuhu. Impressive. Truly impressive.”
“No need to act like you’re still in control. You’re finished.”
Sure enough, the composure that always lingered on Sherad’s face slowly disappeared.
He realized he had walked straight into a perfect trap.
There was no way out.
“Yeah, I lost. I’ve lost. Kuhuhu. Brilliant. I never imagined this. From beginning to end, you showed me far more than I expected.”
Sherad stared straight at Chris with eyes swirling with eerie madness.
“You’re so fascinating, it gives me chills.”
“……”
Chris furrowed his brow.
Interpreted, that gaze meant he wanted to kill Chris with maddening desire.
“Stop spouting nonsense.”
Chris swung Lenin’s Shears.
The coordinates he had spent the past month calculating were set into the spatial rift, and crack—a path to Gehenna opened.
Chris hurled the curse doll into the rift.
Actions inflicted on the doll affect the owner of the blood in the same way.
The moment the doll vanished into the rift—
“Kuhuhuhu. Kuhahahahaha!!!”
Sherad was sucked into the rift as well.
Letting out a maniacal laugh as if it was the most exciting thing in the world.
At the final moment, Sherad’s blood-red pupils fixated eerily on Chris.
Flash.
Silence fell over everything.
It was over.
“Haa.”
Chris let out a deep sigh as the tension left him.
‘Is it really over?’
Sherad had been such a monstrous being that it still didn’t feel real that he had been dealt with so easily.
‘Even someone like him wouldn’t survive after falling into Gehenna.’
The lower region of Gehenna where he would fall was overrun by Devils, so he would die in excruciating agony.
And after death, even his soul would be trapped in Gehenna, suffering forever.
Chris shook his head and turned his gaze.
Far in the distance—
A bright light was shining down through an opening in the ashen sky.
After a month, the spot had opened again.
It was time to return.
“…I didn’t miss it, did I?”
He had been too caught up in his fight with Sherad to notice, but it looked like quite some time had passed since the spot opened.
Chris calculated the time.
‘Good. Doesn’t seem like I’m late. I’ll arrive right on time for the scheduled judgment duel.’
Chris launched himself toward the spot.
Next up was Ashid.
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[Translator - Kiteretsu]
[Proofreader - Kyros]
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