“To that forest over there.”
Beligan looked through narrowed eyes toward the west, where only a fingernail-thin remnant of the sunset remained.
“What do you wish to do? Shall we give chase immediately?”
Beligan did not answer Kasion’s question. Instead, he turned to the lord.
“Do you know why those bastards killed Kobei....? Ah, they call him Irnatol here, don’t they? Do you know why they killed that bastard?”
Only the Great Serpent and the close attendants who served the Great Serpent at close quarters knew of the Order’s Sacred Relic, the Beast King’s Heart.
Beligan wondered how those young bastards had learned that the Sacred Relic was here, killed Kobei, and taken it for themselves.
“They said they killed him for violating a taboo.”
The lord answered with an unpleasant expression.
“A taboo? What did Kobei do?”
The lord wet his lips and hesitated. Only when Beligan’s eyes widened fiercely did he finally speak.
“He cut up the bodies of monsters and transplanted them into people.”
“Ho.... So he succeeded with the Chimera Creation Art. Is the person who received the transplant still alive?”
When the lord hesitated to answer, Beligan sniffed at the air. He looked like a starving pig searching for food.
Displeased by Beligan’s revolting appearance and even more revolting behavior, the lord frowned without realizing it.
“There you are!”
Beligan lifted the lord’s wife’s long skirt and undergarments together. Her left leg, bulging with knotted muscles, was exposed before everyone.
“Eek!”
The lord’s wife shuddered and tried to pull her skirt down, but Beligan did not loosen his grip, leaving her unable to do as she wished.
“How dare you!”
At last, the lord exploded. As he tried to draw his sword, Kasion seized his hand and forcibly pressed it down.
“Calm down, my Lord.”
Despite his gentle tone, Kasion’s manner was forceful.
Overpowered by Kasion’s strength, the lord had no choice but to sheathe his sword again.
CLICK.
The moment the sword was fully back in its scabbard, the lord realized that there was nothing he could do against these insolent men.
“It was fused properly, and it seems to function normally. That bastard’s magic may have been crude, but his surgical skill was truly exceptional.”
After stealing the Sacred Relic, Kobei had not fled far away. Instead, he made use of his specialty to alter his face, joined a little-known Order, and became a priest named Irnatol.
If Kasion had not happened to hear while drinking that there was a priest in Talisa skilled in trauma surgery, he would never have realized that the bastard was hiding here.
“But that bastard did not know why we, who are superior to him, do not use the Chimera Creation Art.”
Beligan suddenly swung his arm and struck the lord’s wife.
The lord’s wife, struck without warning, flew as lightly as a scarecrow, struck her head against the temple wall, and fell to the ground.
“Marian!”
As the horrified lord tried to rush toward his wife, the priests stopped him.
“Strengthening the body with monster tissue only creates a new monster.”
Beligan reached a hand behind his shoulder. A priest standing behind him placed a staff fitted with a dreadful blade in his hand.
CRASH!
When Beligan planted the staff into the ground, a powerful gust of wind rose and startled the people.
“An impure mind dwells in an impure body. Destroy every corrupted body!”
The moment Beligan gave the order, the priests spread out in a large circle around him.
Kasion and the mercenaries watched the priests from within the circle.
Black energy surrounded the priests’ bodies, and a sinister red light glinted in their eyes.
“O creations of tainted wisdom! Perish!”
The priests thrust out their hands at once. The black energy spread like smoke and seeped into every corner of the city.
The guards and citizens in the streets, as well as those who had watched while holding their breath inside their homes, received the death curse and collapsed.
“What the hell are you doing?!”
As they tried to slaughter every one of his people, the lord drew his sword. But once again, his sword could not leave its sheath.
SHING!
Kasion drew his sword like lightning and easily cut off the lord’s head as though slicing a bundle of straw.
“Tsk, tsk. I told you to calm down, my Lord. You’ll get yourself killed that way.”
After shaking the lord’s blood from his sword, Kasion asked Beligan,
“As promised, are you giving me everything in the city?”
The lord’s wife had breathed in the Death Fog cast by the priests and died, as had their young heir, Kazar. Talisa no longer had an owner.
“That is right. You may have all of it. We have no desire for material wealth.”
Beligan answered in the plaza of the city where death reigned.
“Thank you, High Priest Beligan.”
Kasion smiled as the corners of his mouth lifted.
As Beligan turned away from the burning plaza, he thought of the little devils who had taken the Sacred Relic.
The Beast King’s Heart was the only key that could grant access to God’s Library. Mysterious knowledge was displayed there, and it was thanks to that knowledge that Kobei had been able to employ the Chimera Creation Art.
‘Those bastards knew of the dangers of the Chimera Creation Art before they even obtained the Beast King’s Heart. Who the hell are they?’
That was something he could learn in time. For now, the most urgent matter was recovering it before they opened the Beast King’s Heart and gained access to God’s Library.
Beligan selected some priests to form a pursuit team and ordered the priests remaining in the city to slaughter every resident of Talisa, including women and children.
***
Kazar and Ernolf rose before dawn, filled their stomachs, and headed for the cliff early.
The weather was terrible—exactly the kind of weather in which one could fall to one’s death while climbing a cliff barehanded.
The sky, packed with dark clouds, was so gloomy that it felt like night rather than morning, and the humid wind made it seem as though rain would soon fall.
“This had better not be nothing!”
Kazar grumbled as he climbed the cliff.
“It can’t be. This is undoubtedly an abandoned fortress.”
Ernolf was busy placating him.
“Does a fortress have gold or something?”
“Even if there is no gold, there should be weapons or armor.”
“What use is that kind of junk?”
“Even junk can be worth money if it is good junk.”
“How long would it take to get rich by selling junk?”
“True. You have a point too.”
In truth, Ernolf had no interest in money. He only wanted to see the Sarapi Imperial Army’s weapons warehouse.
“Damn it, I don’t know why I’m suffering through this again after letting that bastard lead me around by the tongue!”
Despite what he said, Kazar repeatedly checked to make sure Ernolf was climbing safely.
He could have used magic to climb easily, but Ernolf was scaling the cliff with nothing but brute strength—to build his stamina, analyze the pattern of the holes, torment Kazar, and accomplish everything at once.
Suddenly, the wind blew hard. When Kazar’s clothing flipped up and fully exposed his backside, Ernolf protested from below.
“I don’t want to see your ass first thing in the morning. Please cooperate, Kazar.”
“Mind your own eyes. I didn’t do it on purpose.”
Even as he said that, Kazar thought it had been a good idea to climb first. Ernolf might have been his one and only brother in the world, but Kazar still did not want to see his bare ass.
‘Huh?’
Kazar stopped climbing and looked toward the eastern sky. Ernolf followed Kazar’s gaze and turned his head as well.
They had not noticed it in the forest, but after climbing high up the cliff, they saw thick smoke filling the eastern sky.
“Isn’t Talisa over there?”
Kazar did not answer. He silently stared at Talisa, blanketed in smoke.
‘It is exactly the same as when I set it on fire eleven years later.’
After leaving Talisa, Kazar had thought that Tirad had changed the course of history. Yet now, that course had changed again.
‘Is there no way to stop the flow, no matter what?’
Far from saving Talisa, the city that was meant to be destroyed only eleven years later had fallen sooner than its appointed time.
He was seized by the frightening thought that if he forcibly changed history, the God of Fate would intervene somehow and set it back the way it had been.
‘Then, could it be Tiri too?’
This was not the time to hold on to careless hope. If fate was trailing his brother, he had to stop it by any means necessary.
“Should we go see what happened?”
“Did you already forget that we kidnapped the lord’s son and threatened him? Maybe the Barbarians invaded. Don’t concern yourself with it.”
Kazar spoke as though it did not matter, but he felt nothing of the sort. It felt as though the God of Fate were pursuing him.
“Watch out!”
At the sudden cry, Kazar snapped back to his senses.
Something flew at them, hit the Shield Ernolf had hastily deployed, and exploded right in front of them.
“Kazar, look down!”
People in black robes poured out of the forest and clustered densely at the base of the cliff.
Seeing those people leap lightly up the cliff, the two tensed.
There were seven of them in total.
Among them, a man as large as a giant had not yet begun climbing and was looking up at them.
‘That bastard will be dangerous.’
Kazar’s instincts screamed this at him.
“What are all these people?”
As Kazar reached out to pull Ernolf closer to him, the people climbing the cliff spewed black smoke from their hands.
Kazar grabbed a protruding rock and flung himself away, avoiding the black smoke.
The hoods of those climbing toward them bore faintly engraved snake faces. Seen from above, they looked like black snakes crawling up the cliff.
‘The Temple of the Wise Serpent!’
Seeing the symbol engraved on their hoods, Kazar recalled the dark magic group that had caused a great catastrophe in the north for a long time.
‘Why the fuck have those bastards already appeared and started causing trouble?’
Remembering how they had caused trouble for Pengril Kingdom as well, Kazar frowned.
‘It is not yet the time for those snake bastards to be running wild.’
He did not know why the Temple of the Wise Serpent was attacking him, and it was also strange that they were active when they should still have been struggling helplessly because they had not completed their Dark Magic.
‘Could this be because I saved Tiri too?’
Before he could resolve his questions, the attacks continued.
WHOOSH! WHOOSH!
The person who had come closest fired black smoke at Ernolf. Ernolf blocked it with a Shield, but the Shield was not strong enough.
Seeing black smoke slip through the Shield, which had quickly become tattered, Kazar swiftly grabbed Ernolf’s wrist.
“Ice!”
Ernolf cast a wide-ranging ice spell.
The priests all deployed barriers and blocked the ice magic.
“Hold on to this!”
Kazar shoved Ernolf’s hand into a crack in the rock, then flung himself down the cliff as though diving into water.