Chapter 139: Men are Power (2)

Chapter 139: Men are Power (2)

...Flash!

Black and red strikes crossed each other.

Vikir felt a crackling pain in his wrist as he landed on the ground.

'That's a lot of weight, even for a rotten Graduator.'

Turning his head, he saw the creature crashing through the outer wall of the building beyond.

[grunt...]

He's carrying a large hammer, and the sticky aura that symbolizes the Graduator is completely coating the large surface area of the hammer.

Bubbling...

His aura is like boiling tar, or liquid asphalt.

I'd estimate it to be an advanced Graduator.

Vikir squinted at it.

"That's clearly a blunt technique of the Faithful Saint. Why would a demon use this technique?

The holy power of the Rune Religion was clearly the antithesis of the demons, and it was a great irony that the martial technique to draw out that holy power was unleashed by the hands of a demon.

'Does that mean the Quovadis have some sort of connection to the demons after all, because I'm sure they have their own rotten parts....'

Maybe, just maybe, he'd pick up a clue about the Face Hunters, the stealthy men in the Imperial City.

The traitors, renegades, and insiders he's hunted so far have all been dealing with the same demon, and they all have one thing in common: they lose their faces upon death.

And the creature in front of him seems to be a similar case, as he wears a black sack over his head.

Vikir loaded his sword with mana in earnest.

"First, I'll cut off your limbs. Now for the interrogation. All you need is a mouth."

An aura stretched out from Beelzebub.

Superior Graduator, solid and dense, the aura stretched out and drew a half-moon trajectory.

Thud.

A solid marble pillar was sliced diagonally.

The monster hastily raised his hammer to block the blow, but he was unable to avoid the crumbling debris behind him.

...Crunch!

With that, the creature burst through the rubble and dirt.

His black suit was torn to shreds, revealing muscular flesh, the words jaggedly etched into his chest like a knife.

'Ephebo'

"Ephebo, is that your name?"

Vikir asked, and the creature did not answer. Just.

...whoosh!

It only emitted an even more intense aura from its body.

But even then, it was only an Advanced Graduator, the level Vikir had been at when he first arrived in Balak's village and was settling in.

"That's good, I've been having a hard time picking up trash."

Vikir smiled, though only briefly.

He was a little sore from all the time he'd spent hunting down weaklings.

An opponent of advanced Graduator level should still be able to exert some strength, so it was time to stretch a bit.

...Flash!

Vikir also raised his aura.

The Seven Forms of Baskerville now manifested their terrifying trajectory.

First tooth transposition.

Second tooth central incisor.

Third tooth Lateral incisor.

Fourth tooth molars.

Fifth tooth wisdom tooth.

Sixth tooth premolar.

Seventh tooth molars.

Four in the upper jaw and three in the lower jaw. A total of seven teeth fell towards Ephebo, the demon with a black sack.

...Thud!

The first tooth bit into Ephebo's body.

The second tooth ripped open the wound the first had inflicted, pulling it apart and severing it.

The third tooth helps the second strike continue strong, connecting it to the fourth. Fôllôw new stories at novelhall.com

The fourth tooth crushed Ephebo's entire body, leaving it tattered beyond regeneration or repair.

The fifth tooth funneled all the recoil damage from the previous four strikes into one place and slammed into Ephebo's body again.

The sixth tooth was assisting the seventh, completely sealing off even the tiniest crack that Ephebo could have gotten through.

The seventh tooth was still so small and weak that it looked like a gap, but with the sixth tooth supporting it, it didn't matter.

On the contrary, if the trajectory in which the seventh tooth was located appeared to be empty, and it tried to escape through this gap, it would be oviposited by the sixth tooth cleverly hidden behind it and quickly become a rag.

Such was the case with Ephebo.

Quack, quack, quack, quack!

The trajectory of Vikir's sword, the sequence of teeth, and the fact that he had managed to find a gap in it, made Ephebo immediately realize that it was a trap.

The seventh tooth, relatively small and seemingly less intimidating, was actually optimized for killing more than any of the others.

It was a difficult escape for a living human to pull off.

"Well, at least you got a harvest."

Vikir peered into the vault that had been shattered by the self-destruct.

Much of the vault's contents had been preserved, thanks to the fact that Doxeller had fired the blast just before he detonated, minimizing the aftermath.

The vault contained a significant amount of gold bars, real estate documents, and jewelry.

Probably the proceeds of selling children with nowhere else to go as food for demons.

But Vikir didn't care about wealth.

What really caught his attention were the stacks of papers beyond.

A ledger.

They detailed the deposits of money, where children were taken from, and where they were sent.

"This will need to be analyzed."

Vikir crumpled the papers into his arms.

He would mail them to Sindiwendi immediately and have her investigate.

"Ugh! Stop working, please!

I could already hear her singing.

* * *

After Vikir's departure.

The guards were called to the midnight disturbance.

They looked at the ruined nursery and stuck out their tongues.

"Looks like some giant beasts have come and stirred things up."

"Wasn't this nursery under the control of the Quovadis family?"

"What kind of madman trespassed on the territory of the Faithful?"

The guards scoured the ruins.

But they found nothing.

What they did find was a large amount of wealth of unknown origin in abandoned vaults.

Why all this money was here, and where it came from, was a mystery.

And why would the supposedly frugal branch of the Quorvadis have all this black money?

The investigation was inevitably prolonged, and the guards soon made a shocking discovery in the basement of the nursery.

The bodies of children aged between 10 and 13 years old.

Dozens of bones and skeletons lay in the ground beneath the former nursery building.

The guards were all horrified.

And then. Some were more surprised than others.

"...!"

Saintess Dolores.

A direct descendant of the Quovadis family, student council president and newspaper editor of the Academy Colosseo.

She had rushed over at the news that an organization affiliated with her family had been attacked.

Students from the Academy's newspaper department were also there to cover the event.

Originally, the Academy's newspaper had rules.

First-year students only cover events inside the academy.

Second and third year students can cover events outside the academy.

First-year students are still too immature to go outside the academy, and they need time to adjust to the school, so their coverage is limited to the academy.

However, in the second and third year, they were allowed to go outside the academy.

Just like Dolores is doing now with other student journalists.

"... what in the world."

Dolores is speechless at the sight before her.

A ruined nursery school, with the remains of many children.

Who could have committed such a senseless act?

The guards were eager to be interviewed by student journalists.

"By the time we arrived, it had already happened...."

"Judging by the blood and flesh splattered everywhere, whoever attacked this place was strong and evil...."

"It appears to have been a one-man raid...."

"There is a terrifying villain in the city, and similar incidents are popping up all over the place...."

The students at the academy took the guards' statements seriously.

It was an outline of tomorrow's newspaper articles that would be distributed to the academy the next morning.

Then.

"...?"

Saintess Dolores, looking around in a panic, spotted something.

Avoiding everyone's gaze, she went back under the pile of rubble and picked up what had fallen to the ground.

"This is ...."

What Dolores picked up was a half-burnt mask.

It was a plague doctor's mask with a stork's beak attached.