Chapter 161

The beast, pierced by the sword that froze everything, howled.

The wound that penetrated the canine-like form with three heads and seven eyes would not be easily repaired.

As it collapsed and fell below, shadow beasts that had multiplied in its wake rushed in relentlessly.

It was incredibly annoying.

His body, which had been dashing along the steep and narrow path of ice he had created, kicked off from the ice and leaped into the void.

Simultaneously, the path of ice disappeared like spring snow melting, and the beasts rushing toward him lost their target and tried to evade by seeping into the shadow pillars.

But the icy shards that struck their heads like daggers came first.

Leandros, falling along with the sharp natural daggers pouring down like rain from the sky, narrowly avoided the shadow tentacle surging toward him.

While reducing his falling speed by embedding his ice sword into the elongated body, he whispered.

One.

The ice sword, which had been repeatedly collapsing and restoring itself with an inaudible sound, stopped.

Two.

From where the blade was embedded, an unbearable coldness flowed out, trapping the shadow that flowed like liquid.

Three.

With a thunderous sound like glass shattering, transparent ice like a large crystal surged, tearing the shadow apart.

As soon as Leandros felt the tentacle completely freeze and come under his control, he applied strength to the hand gripping the hilt.

A faint tearing sound was heard, and under Leandros's ferocious touch, the frozen part of the tentacle broke and was bisected.

He broke, cut, and tore.

The pure magical power circulating throughout his body, like an obedient slave, had completed all preparations even before he desired it.

He was the ice, and the ice was him.

Creating ice was easier than blinking. It almost felt like an illusion that he had known this since birth.

The snowdrift that received him as he continued to fall solidified and became a firm ground.

He raised his head and looked up at the sky.

A woman standing on tentacles made of black shadow, holding a golden cup of impurity with a noble appearance.

One who had received Shub-Niggurath's blessing and taken form.

The Great Whore of Babylon.

The female believer who was the true form of the Great Whore had her own goal,

And he, who had become an apostle of the Lord of the Extreme Realm, had his own purpose.

Neither of them could yield.

Then one of them must maintain eternal silence.

The woman who had taken the form of the Great Whore of Babylon smiled from behind her veil.

Leandros gripped a new sword that had emerged from the ground and rose to his feet.

The cries of newly emerged unholy beasts were eerie.

* * *

A massive ice precipice surging from the wall.

Unholy beasts in the shadows, fiercely lashing out in all directions, and the black apostle on white ice, nimbly flying between them.

Unlike when he had given his body to Aphoom-Zhah, now watching the fight with a clear mind gave him a feeling of weakness in his knees.

"...The pressure is incredible."

Simple modifiers like "amazing" or "impressive" were insufficient.

Slicing the beasts that charged forward even while sliding on ice,

And simultaneously using abilities almost indistinguishable from the powers possessed by Aphoom-Zhah, facing the avatar of Shub-Niggurath as an equal on his own.

It was like watching a scene from a forgotten myth, impossible to tear his eyes away from.

Even while feeling a tingling throughout his body and a heavy pressure that made his legs stiffen, he had no desire to leave that place.

The snowman clung to his leg and whined.

"Worshipper, everyone dies? Stay a little longer? We get icicles stuck in us. We become skewers. Dislike. Refuse!"

"Ah."

That's right. They shouldn't be here.

Even Leandros couldn't fight while keeping an eye on them.

He barely managed to support the limp Amelia and stood up.

Good, with his cracked leg he should somehow be able to move this much.

Thinking this, as he raised his head, he saw a blond man who, like Amelia, had lost consciousness and collapsed.

Oh, right!

"A-Aphoom-Zhah. Could you perhaps inflate yourself or something right now?"

"Worshipper, asks too much. No ice. Take ice from there now. Grind and give to me. Body grows bigger. But now? Grind ice? Have time? We die."

"How can I support two people alone!"

"Such a small deity. Makes labor? Worshipper. Impudent."

He was injured! He was an injured person!

If Leandros had been there, this wouldn't have been a problem, but unfortunately, Leandros was busy dealing with that avatar over there.

Damn it all.

Dragging his feet, enduring the terrible pain from his cracked ribs and leg that had been broken and was in the process of healing, he barely managed to pick up Russel.

"Worshipper, take all humans?"

"Who are you talking ab..."

As soon as he turned his head, gasping for breath, a corner of his heart grew cold.

He saw people trapped in ice.

The heretics who had been confronting Leandros until just now were trapped in ice, only able to roll their eyes as they desperately looked at him.

Good heavens. Could those people possibly.

"They're st-still alive."

They weren't even unconscious.

Left like this, these people might die while caught up in that fight, fully conscious.

As something black kept surging from the basement floor of the mansion, breaking the ground,

If they got caught wrong, it would be instant death inside the ice.

And what about those ice spears Leandros was throwing?

If one went astray and flew this way, breaking the ice?

They would see the sight of their own bodies being severed while wide awake.

When he didn't move from his spot, the snowman whined.

"Worshipper. What doing? Thinking something else. Leave. Leave quickly."

Shit. Shit shit.

He hadn't expected it to go this far.

"...Aphoom-Zhah, can you do what you did before again?"

"Did before? What?"

"D-descending into my body."

"For what purpose? Human knight. Fighting well. Ate my worshipper's blood. Flying around. More than necessary?"

"Not because of Leandros. Because of these people."

"Eh?"

The snowman looked over the humans turned to ice blocks and tilted its two-headed figure.

"Great me. Possible. My worshipper. Wants this? Move humans? Outside?"

"Right now I don't have any abilities, so it's hard for me to move all these people. Safely escort them outside and release them from those ice blocks."

"My worshipper. Idiot? Humans attack worshipper. Not think? Inferior creatures?"

"No, we'll think about what comes after later. For now, just move them!"

Though the snowman couldn't understand and tilted its head, it eventually extended its hand to him.

"Grimoire. Worshipper, open."

The red grimoire opened once more.

The passages in the book that responded to his magic power flashed. With the familiar feeling of his consciousness being sucked somewhere, he briefly lost consciousness.

...When he next opened his eyes, black eyes like obsidian were blinking right in front of him.

"Aaaaargh!"

"Please calm down, Your Grace. It's me."

"Huh? What? Why?"

"Are you curious about the reason, or are you asking why the fight is over now?"

"It's over? Already?"

How much time had passed?

As he turned his head, he saw a mansion with unidentifiable smoke rising from it in the distance.

Behind the half-destroyed mansion, the sky turning pink due to the sunset was visible.

"It ended quite a while ago. Thanks to the deity who borrowed Your Grace's body and provided cover."

"Ah. Really?"

He hadn't asked for that much. It seemed Aphoom-Zhah wanted to quickly finish this and end the situation.

The moment he tried to hurriedly get up, a scream involuntarily escaped due to the pain in his body.

How on earth had his body been used?

Next to him, the snowman was sprawled out.

Leandros looked at him for a moment and added an explanation.

"That deity must have known Your Grace's body was not intact, yet he ran around quite well while providing cover."

"Ran around? Is he crazy?"

Seeing how his body was returned in tatters each time it was borrowed, Aphoom-Zhah clearly had a poor understanding of the human body.

It seemed his leg, which had been healing well, had cracked again.

Like a ninety-year-old man, he got up with Leandros's extremely careful support,

And around him, not just himself, but people who had lost consciousness were scattered.

Among them, only Amelia was neatly laid down, covered with a black cloak. Leandros must have taken care of her.

But there was another person he needed to find. Resting his heavy head on Leandros's shoulder, he barely opened his mouth.

"Verde, in the mansion... ...couldn't find him?"

Most of the city's people had been found in the basement of the mansion.

So he had thought Verde and Amelia would have been there too, but only Amelia had been found.

If Verde was not there, not only would there be no one to check his condition, but also no one to observe his body if he died.

He asked with a thread of hope. But Leandros seemed somehow hesitant.

"No, I found him."

"If you really couldn't find him, we should search this area- Huh? You found him?"

"I found him. Strictly speaking, I discovered him outside the mansion."

"Outside? Nothing bad happened to him, right?"

Words fitting this hardcore world flashed through his mind. Words like torture, slaughter, dismemberment, death.

Leandros stared at him, whose face had completely drained of blood, and answered.

"There were no signs of physical harm inflicted. But as Your Grace knows, the way 'these things' seduce their victims is quite base."

"Oh."

"I found him in a corner of the garden. He was unconscious among the bushes."

"And?"

"Without a single thread of clothing."

For a moment, neither he nor Leandros spoke.

Ah. Yes, so that meant he was led by seduction and ended up like that in this garden.

While someone was looking for him and almost lost their life coming all the way here.

The person in question was being faithful to bodily pleasures, rolling around with heretical believers in the middle of the vast, beautiful garden.

This bastard.

"...Wake him up somehow."

"Yes."

Leandros properly sat him down and headed somewhere across the garden.

He jumped over bushes where white flowers bloomed like spots, and disappeared,

Shortly after, a 'whack!' sound was heard from afar, followed by a death-like scream.

"Aargh! Who are you, don't do this... Sir Leandros? What is this? Why am I here? Where did that woman go? Did you get rid of all my clothes? You wanted to see another man's body that badly, no, why the fist? Me? Here? I'll tell His Grace! How could you do this to a defenseless civilian like thiaaaaargh!"

Against the backdrop of the setting sun, a pitiful wail echoed.

He looked at the destroyed mansion, savoring for a long time the sense of relief that the Valentine episode was nearly over.