CH 327

Samigina was the great demon of the fifth rank from the Demon Empire. According to Philip, that was the identity of the old man. A creature born into the demon world was destined for only either of two fates: to conquer or to be conquered. A great demon was one who conquered. They were at the very top of the pecking order, yet this didn’t necessarily mean that they could maintain their position forever.

In the demon world, a great demon could be eaten and conquered at any point in time. In other words, even if a demon moved up to the ranks of the 66 great demons, their position wouldn’t be guaranteed forever. In this sense, Samigina was a very impressive great demon. He had risen to the top 66 ranks before Philip was even born and maintained a single-digit status—the peak even among the upper ranks—for hundreds of years. This was the reason for Philip’s warning. Though Chi-Woo had the upper hand against demons and demonic creatures, Samigina was a force with unimaginable experience and history.

Philip did hunt down demons daily during his time alive, but even he had never succeeded in defeating Samigina even once. And right now, Samigina was carefreely stroking his quill pen and moving his fingers. It was then the light around the room disappeared, and their surroundings turned dark. It didn’t make sense. Though the candle on Samigina’s desk wavered and danced, it failed to light up the darkness. This was the power of a great demon, who had special authority over their territory; and soon, the darkness gradually settled down and covered the stage. Simultaneously, the rescue team gasped.

They felt a fearsome pressure pushing them down from above. Their whole bodies felt incredibly heavy, and their ears began to ring, which messed up their minds. They endured it by tapping into their mana, but more energy seeped out of them than usual. The rescue team felt as if their vitality was being pulled out of them, and their faces darkened. Even though their minds had been clear for a second, their eyelids grew heavy. It felt as if they were hit by several high-level curses at once. Perhaps they should have expected this, as Samigina’s territory had been established on the basis of a godly territory. At this rate, they would be sucked dry before they even began fighting.

Chi-Woo opened his eyes wide and drew out his exorcism mana.

[La Bella’s Sanctuary]

Shaaa! Light burst out. In the pitch-black darkness, a brilliant cluster of lights circled around Chi-Woo.

“Hah! Huff!”

“Huff! Kuaah! Phew!” As the cluster of lights pushed away the darkness and surrounded them, the rescue team let out the breath they had been holding. Everyone looked around thinking that they were saved, but Chi-Woo’s forehead wrinkled.

‘It’s blocked?’ After spreading out, the light stopped advancing. They were battling to move further, but couldn’t. His exorcism mana was still very effective, but compared to the time he fought Zepar, its effectiveness seemed to have fallen to only one-tenth of its full power. And even though Chi-Woo succeeded in shielding his companions with it, he couldn’t do more than that.

This couldn’t be. He needed to secure more space. If Chi-Woo had known this was going to happen, he would’ve raised the ranks of La Bella’s Sanctuary a bit more. After lamenting about this fact, Chi-Woo raised his hand.

[La Bella’s Bible]

Shashashashasha! A shining book formed out of thin air and opened. It changed the nature of the cluster of light, and the lights began to move and push away the darkness again. The small illuminated space soon widened bit by bit until it covered half of the area. At that point, Samigina’s indifference broke, and he stopped moving his quill pen. He turned to Chi-Woo and his team with slight surprise.

This place wasn’t just a godly territory made by borrowing a god’s powers. Samigina had polluted a place where a god had directly descended and turned it into his own territory, thus making it very difficult for a mere human to survive inside. Of course, it wasn’t impossible, but the problem was how this human in front of him had gone about it. The group of humans didn’t muster up all their strength to endure the effects of this territory. Instead, one man resisted it simply and very easily as if he thought it was no big deal.

The territory into which Samigina had put so much care and effort was decreased by half in an instant. That was impossible to do unless his opponent’s power also came from a god. A look of curiosity appeared on Samigina’s wrinkled face.

‘Isn’t this power…?’ Samigina glanced at Chi-Woo, nodded, and smirked. It was as if he found this situation entertaining. Seeing Samigina’s reaction, Chi-Woo’s relief was quickly replaced by hesitance. Soon, the darkness became fainter, and Samigina’s territory gradually weakened. Accordingly, La Bella’s sanctuary also began to dwindle. Chi-Woo’s eyes narrowed.

‘How?’ The effects of La Bella’s Bible wasn’t a buff; it simply changed the nature of the ability he was using to ‘perfect neutral’. Thus, it always sought absolute balance, and its true effect was making the situation favorable to him and the other party in equal measure. In other words, he wouldn’t be seeing huge effects from this ability when his or his allies’ power was superior to the enemy. It seemed Samigina had made the exact deduction and lessened the power he was pouring into his territory. He knew that if Chi-Woo’s ability forced a perfectly balanced situation, Chi-Woo would have to match his side if he weakened his own territory.

Soon afterward, Chi-Woo’s book disappeared. After quickly canceling La Bella’s Bible, Chi-Woo glared at Samigina. Of course, Chi-Woo could pull out more exorcism mana again, but that would lead to a standstill since Samigina could pour more power into his territory to match. Though they had equally suffered losses, Chi-Woo didn’t feel pleased; because it felt as if he was pushed to act one way.

The two looked at one another for a bit. But eventually, Samigina raised his hand and flicked his fingers.

Woooo—A strange and eerie cry echoed all around them. Wiggle, wiggle—The meat clumps and bones on the ground gathered and rose, emerging as skeletons created out of a sloppy combination of bones and messily assembled clumps of meat. They formed a sloppy array of different figures, but none of them were in good shape. In a place where there should be a neck, a thigh was stuck on, and there were several faces attached to the torso, while arms and legs were hanging from their pelvis. They were grotesque, and they popped out all over the place and filled up the room.

They couldn’t be compared to zombies. Their intelligence and strength were incomparably better, making them a vicious demon army. And these creatures were beginning to rush and stomp their way toward Chi-Woo. Of course, they couldn’t easily trespass into Chi-Woo’s sanctuary and were bounced off or burned as soon as they approached, but replacement readily emerged as soon as one got destroyed.

“Uwaaaah! Waaaah!” Seeing the group of monsters stick to the outer layer of his sanctuary and push against it, Chi-Woo clicked his tongue. He could tell what Samigina’s intentions were. There was no need to worry even though there were more monsters than expected, though. The great demon wasn’t the only one with military might, and in the end, headcount wasn’t the sole factor in determining the outcome of the battle, but the combined power of the individuals.

Sha! Prune-colored trajectory drew a line across the air and sliced the monsters coming their way into two.

“Haaaaaaaa!” Yunael clenched their spear tightly and rushed toward their enemies. Then they kicked the ground hard. They readied their stance and pushed both their feet fiercely into a cluster of monsters. Boom! The floor shook widely at the center of their landing point. Then Yunael raised their spear and spun their body like a skater. The monsters staggered out of balance and died as soon as Yunael’s spear grazed them. And after successfully securing space for them to move, Yunael rushed forward.

With expert control of their spear, they sliced and pierced through monsters. They kicked and stomped down on new ones rising from the ground and rampaged all over the place. The way they thrust their spear around and let out their fury made them appear like an enraged lion. Yet there were too many monsters. Even while they fiercely poured out attacks and toppled over one, two more popped out from below. Their effort seemed futile.

Pip! Pip! It was then a chorus of shrill screams resounded, and two horrifying monsters that just popped out from the ground stopped. Yunael didn’t miss this chance to slice through their legs and looked back. They saw an archer with drill curls aiming her bow toward their direction. Yunael shook their head automatically. After working alone for so long, they naturally thought they should take care of things on their end no matter what. Thus, they shouted, “I’m fine, so why don’t you help out on the other side—!”

Yunael stopped when they turned to see what was happening.

“Hahaha!” There was a hearty laughter. “Yes! This is it! Yes! This is how it should be!” A man with top-knot hair shouted brightly and stretched out both arms. Jin-Cheon gave a cheer every time he flung out his fist and sent his target flying as if hit by a whirlwind. Aric followed after him while Abis shot from behind and supported the two.

The same was happening on the opposite side. Emmanuel was dealing with his enemies alone. He had his body half-turned, knee bent, and one leg out. Sparks flew out of Emmanuel’s eyes, and his eyes widened. Flash! In a blink of an eye, Emmanuel had pierced his fleuret into the monster. It was so fast that Yunael missed it, and even the lightning’s afterimage came a moment later than Emmanuel’s movement. Soon afterward, seven or eight monsters stopped howling in an instant because all their heads exploded. Even Yunael, who prided themselves a skilled fighter, was surprised. They didn’t dwell on it though, and they soon recovered and turned forward, back into their own battle.

“Hm?” Yunael scanned around and realized that something changed. The monsters that had rushed at them roughly were tottering all of a sudden. They were swaying from left to right like a group of drunkards. Some even toppled over on their own. What happened?

“—. —. —. —.”

It was then Yunael heard a voice. It sounded sacred, like a holy prayer recited by a saint.

[Choi Chi-Woo’s Original Exorcism Prayer]

It wasn’t only around them. All the monsters from the area became quiet.

‘I thought he was a warrior—’ Yunael thought in surprise. ‘But he’s a priest?’ It didn’t matter either way. As a hero, Yunael recognized the importance of taking advantage of the flow of battle. Thus, they lunged without hesitation. And while swinging their spear widely, Yunael felt something they had never felt before. How could they describe it? It used to be that they had to sprint and take matters into their own hands. But now, it felt as if they had several Aidas by their side.

It was very comfortable. Chi-Woo and the rest of the heroes made them more comfortable and allowed them to really brandish their entire repertoire of skills without worrying about their surroundings. Even if they made mistakes, it felt as if the rest of the team would take care of the aftermath. It was reassuring, and while Yunael focused only on their own battle and swung their spear, their eyes shone.

“…Hm.” On the other hand, Samigina realized that he could no longer simply watch the battle from the side. This was beyond his expectations. He thought he would be able to easily swallow up Chi-Woo’s team, but instead, his team was getting swallowed up.

‘This situation isn’t good for me…’ First of all, he could no longer rely on the effects of his territory. As long as Chi-Woo maintained his sanctuary, none of his curses would work on them. And though Samigina tried to wear down his opponent by summoning his immortal army, they were gradually being annihilated. It was still early to declare the winner, but Samigina was sure that maintaining the current situation any longer would be a waste of time and highly inefficient. Thus, he needed to change things up.

As someone who spent the longest years as a great demon, Samigina always had a couple of tricks to defeat his enemies at hand. Going over these methods, though, none of them were satisfactory to him. His instincts, which had been honed by long years of experience, rang in warning that all of them were lacking against the human male at the center of the sanctuary.

Thus, Samigina thought there was only one method left. Since Samigina usually preferred safe and stable methods, he was reluctant to do this; still, he needed to bring about change by pulling in other factors. Thus, Samigina got up from his seat.

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“Ha!” Yunael swung their spear boldly, but then their eyes widened. It was because they no longer felt like they were slicing through a rotten piece of log, but a lump of water. And soon, the monster they were fighting liquified and flowed down like a waterfall, seeping into the ground and leaving wet patches.

“Everyone, get back!” Chi-Woo shouted from behind.