Chapter 188: 100. The Blackened Village -2 (Part Two)

**

At the same time, inside a monastery located on top of a hill outside the village of Rost.

The head of Goddess Gaia’s statue had been severed, while buckets of blood defiled the once-sacred interior of the monastery.

The zombies were staggering around on their feet, while other undead such as ghouls and dullahans were silently ‘guarding’ this monastery.

A monster wearing a priest’s garb was standing tall on top of the raised platform inside which was meant for one to preach the word of the gods.

This creature had thick arms and hands, while grey-coloured hide covered its entire maggot-like body. It did have a face, but its mouth resembled more like saw toothed wheels.

Even though the blood-creations of Vampires generally resembled humans outwardly, this rule didn’t apply to Progenitors and their exteriors.

The monstrous, bizarre exterior that had gone beyond the limitations of humanity – that was their true appearance.

This Progenitor Vampire was currently tearing into human flesh, greedily consuming it. The creature ripped open the victim’s abdomen to devour the internal organs found within, and once finished, it raised its head back up in satisfaction.

Baron Lava Labert. That was the name of this Progenitor Vampire, his peerage bestowed unto him by none other than the Vampire King.

“Aaah, so good.”

The creature’s blood-stained mouth curled into a snicker. He picked up the leg of the dead zombie and tossed it to a distant corner.

When the corpse went flying in the air, the lycans being reared by Baron Lava Labert leapt up to bite into it.

The noises of flesh being ripped apart and bones being crushed rang out. Baron Lava grinned deeply in satisfaction once more.

He then turned his head to look to the front.

The villagers had been turned into zombies that wielded farming and woodcutting tools, as well as hunting bows. However, these creatures looked too sloppy and disorganised to be called an army.

‘But that doesn’t really matter.’

Indeed, it didn’t matter. The number of undead Baron Lava could command was limited to begin with, anyway.

He had only one role to play here – slaughter the civilians and cultivate the army of undead. That was it.

For the successful invasion of the Theocratic Empire, Baron Lava Labert was tasked with making these sorts of preparations.

‘There’s no better place than a kingdom suffering from the chaos of war to create a sizeable combat force, now is there?’

Even though a village in the outskirts had vanished from the map, the kingdom of Lome didn’t seem to care. All he had to do now was to work together with the other Vampires and gradually take over this kingdom.

While he was thinking that, the monastery’s door opened and a lycan stepped inside before approaching him. The creature bowed its head and spoke up.

-M-my lord, Baron Lava. Intruders have appeared in the village!

Baron Lava’s eyes narrowed at the lycan’s report.

It was not that uncommon to see travellers or mercenaries stop by at the village. In fact, they were the perfect candidates for bolstering the number of the undead army, and also to serve as ‘feed’ for the undead as well.

However, such an occurrence wasn’t important enough to warrant a report every single time.

-M-monsters have shown up this time, my lord!

“Monsters?”

-It’s clerics. A group of clerics!

A group of clerics, was it?

The baron’s expression crumpled unsightly. Did those dirty and vulgar bastards really intrude upon his domain?

“How many are there?”

-Seven males, and a lone female, my lord.

Baron Lava narrowed his eyes again in contemplation.

Those were fresh meat. How delectable would their flesh taste like after he got his hands on them? More importantly, though, wasn’t the meat of a devout cleric renowned for its heaven-defying taste?

These types of clerics were often under the delusion that they were pure, uncorrupted beings. There were only a few things as entertaining as killing such idiots, defiling their souls and flesh before turning them into zombies.

Baron Lava grinned slyly.

Well, things were getting boring lately, anyways. Hunting down these clerics could prove to be an amusing distraction.

He asked the lycan, “Where are those humans right now?”

**

Barus had to doubt his own eyes.

When the musket was fired…

BOOM-!

…An explosion went off.

Along with the eye-searing light, the inn’s entrance exploded and the structure collapsed with a loud bang.

The intense winds slammed into the zombies everywhere and they collapsed powerlessly like some kind of spineless molluscs.

-Ku-ooooh!

The zombie warrior was the only one to withstand the impact force and remained standing on its feet. But just as its staggering body could take another step, its chest, abdominal region, and all four of its limbs simply exploded simultaneously.

The ear-ringing gunshot resounded out belatedly.

The upper and lower torsos of the zombie warrior turned into ashes and ceased to exist from this world. Only its head remained and rolled around on the ground, but it got crushed into nothingness by a merciless stomp of a foot.

“…What on earth is this?”

That zombie warrior’s huge figure had been vaporised as if it was nothing. But was that all? No, even the entrance of the inn had been blown apart!

‘What was that just now?! A musket? Did a musket really do that?!’

An item no better than some decorative ornament sought out by maniacal collectors was now unleashing the kind of power that should belong to a weapon of mass destruction.

Barus’s face hardened like rock as he stared into the dust cloud.

“Ah, hang on. ‘Amen’ is a word used back in my old place, isn’t it?”

Barus’s eyes could make out the silhouette of a single Priest within the fog of dust obscuring his vision.

The First Prince’s expression stiffened even further.

Amen?

He had never heard of such a word before. Even then, he instinctively understood that it was definitely not a word used to exalt Goddess Gaia within the Theocratic Empire.

“Well, I guess it doesn’t really matter in the end. Me being able to use divinity indicates that our goddess is quite happy with my word choice.”

The boy Priest began making a distorted grin at the horde of undead before him. From the way his eyes gleamed dangerously, or the way he snickered insidiously like that, Barus got the impression that he was staring at an actual devil.

“Uwaaahk?!”

Barus hurriedly turned his head. His escorting knights had been struck by the flying debris of the destroyed inn and were currently writhing around in pain.

That boy, he didn’t seem to have thought about the potential damage to his allies.

“Look here, you…!” Barus roused up his courage and cried out, “Just what are you even…!”

“Relax. I don’t have a hobby of killing people for fun, you know? However…”

The boy Priest raised the lengthy barrel of the musket. Hot steam expelled from the muzzle as he took aim at his next target.

“…It looks like I’ve developed a hobby of hunting down the undead, instead.”

Holy bullets indiscriminately exploded out from the muzzle. Along with a series of explosions, the bodies of the undead were penetrated clean through.

He began walking forward with purpose, and every time gunshots rang out, many walking corpses got vaporised out of existence.

The massacre was so one-sided that even Barus ended up thinking that the zombies flinched and froze up whenever the boy Priests raised his musket to take aim.

“Oh, Gaia…”

He offered another prayer containing his exaltation of the goddess.

“Grant this servant the holy bullets to pierce through the undead, and…”

[Skill, ‘Spread Shot’, has been granted.]

“…And the power to heal your faithful flock.”

[Skill, ‘Cure’ has been granted.]

The boy suddenly raised his musket and fired the weapon into the empty sky. The holy bullet flew high up into the heavens above.

The zombies, frozen stiff until then, began moving again from that point onwards. Their jaws dropped open and they staggered closer with their flailing arms.

From every direction, hundreds of zombies pounced on this one extremely powerful cleric.

Barus shouted out, “You’re in danger!”

The boy Priest was defenceless right now. Even Barus’s escort knights were immobilised at the moment. No one could protect the boy.

“Look, miss! Your master is in danger! Why are you standing around in a daze and doing nothing?!”

Barus shouted at Charlotte, but she simply stared back at him before looking up at the sky. He chased after her gaze and looked up as well.

In the meantime, the corners of the boy Priest’s lips curled up. “I pray that the goddess’s grace be with you all.”

In that very moment, holy bullets of light rained down from the sky.

The undead below were mercilessly pierced through.

Dozens, nay, hundreds of small but lethal bullets stormed the ground below and utterly massacred the undead. Their rotting flesh burned to ashes, while their defiled souls were purified away.

“Uwaaaahk?!”

The injured knights hurriedly shielded their heads. It was the same story for Barus as well. These projectiles were powerful enough to pierce through the undead, so if he tried to block them with his body, he too would end up like them as well.

It was right at that moment that a bullet pierced through him.

An explosion noise loudly resounded out, and a zombie nearby got vaporised into ashes and scattered away in the air.

The boy Priest slung the musket over his shoulder and leisurely walked forward.

“Uwaaaahk! I, I, I’m dying! I’m dying! It, it hit meeee!”

Barus cried out and hurriedly patted his body. However, he couldn’t find any wounds on him.

While panting laboriously, he quickly took a look at the knights around his vicinity. Even though they were still screaming, the pieces of wood stabbing them were being expelled out of their bodies, and their wounds were being healed at a visible rate without leaving behind a single scar.

Barus’s brows shot up high at this spectacle. “O-oh my god…”

He wasn’t a religious man and didn’t believe in the gods.

To be honest, he had always thought that the powers wielded by the clergymen were simply another way of utilising Mana found within mother nature, like how the knights wielded it.

But now, he had to revise his thoughts.

Gods did exist, and there were some people capable of carrying out their divine miracles.

One of them was…

“Barus Victoria.”

Barus raised his gaze and stared at the smiling boy.

“How about we have a relaxed and amiable discussion from now on?”

…The Priest right before his eyes.

< 100. The Blackened Village -2 (Part One and Two) > Fin.

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