"…As long as we make them die here after we've gained the Supreme God's power, those lofty lords up above won't care about a trifling thing like that. I hear the First Servitor was nothing but the lowest kind of slave before. Once we have power, we can kill him and take the whole Church for ourselves — and then we'll be the gods of this place."
Viscount Brown coaxed, skating around the part that mattered. It had been only a few short years, and he already seemed to have forgotten that not long ago he himself had been nothing but a lowborn wretch, a single rung above a slave.
With the shallow understanding of most knights, the difference between a Mage and a mage apprentice was not at all clear to them — but it could not fool Grand Knight Kyle. "My lord Viscount, even mage apprentices, they came here from the legendary Mage Academy. Can you guarantee their deaths won't provoke those lords? I—"
Viscount Brown cut him off roughly. "That's enough, Kyle. Listen to me. My son, Quentin Brown, was a mage apprentice too — and he is dead, and the man who killed him was standing in front of me just now, without a scratch on him!"
Grand Knight Kyle drew a sharp breath. Now at last he understood why this upstart viscount had suddenly conceived such a mad idea as joining the Church of the Supreme God.
"Mages — they sit so high above us they don't care whether lowborn live or die, and an apprentice's life counts for no more than that! Otherwise, how would that damned lowborn bastard dare to be so arrogant?!" Viscount Brown roared, his clenched right fist swinging again and again, his nails digging into his own flesh without his caring in the least. He needed this to vent his fury; otherwise he felt he would go mad.
But Viscount Brown clearly did not realize that people differ from one another — not only in strength, but in station.
"My lords, do you not wish to change your own fates? Do you not wish to grasp transcendent power? In less than two years the Church of the Supreme God has taken the whole west. Those lowborn scum sacrificed to the Supreme God and gained power that even Duke Alfred could not withstand. Are you — knights and Grand Knights — worse than that rabble?"
The knights were tempted. Someone said hesitantly, "But wasn't that Servitor killed by Duke Alfred?"
Brown breathed a sigh of relief — tempted was good; what he had feared was indifference. He said hurriedly, "Knights, mark my words: those Servitors are nothing but lowborn. You saw the Duke's wounds, didn't you? Lowborn who receive the blessing can wield power that nearly killed the Duke. Think about it — what if it were you?"
"But there are still four of them..."
Viscount Brown whipped around. "How many years has the Duke been practicing a Mage's cultivation?"
How could the knight answer that? He stared at Brown blankly, not knowing what to say.
"I don't know either. But the south has been the Duke's territory for decades — which means the Duke may have been cultivating as a Mage for longer than the four of them have been alive put together. Think it through: even the Duke was wounded. How could those four youngsters possibly be a match for the Church of the Supreme God?!"
"Follow me and throw in with the Church of the Supreme God, and we will be the masters of the whole continent!" Viscount Brown said fanatically.
Perhaps it was the wisdom of years, or perhaps the instincts of countless battles, but Grand Knight Kyle felt this would not go as smoothly as Viscount Brown said. He even felt that a single misstep would mean death.
"I'm sorry. I don't think this is a good choice."
Viscount Brown's expression froze. He turned his head and fixed a venomous stare on Grand Knight Kyle. "You would betray me? My Knight Commander?"
Grand Knight Kyle tightened the reins, and his mount slowly backed away. "I never swore allegiance to you, so this is not betrayal." He gripped his lance with one hand and said coldly, "I am leaving. Do not try to stop me. I may be old, but I am still a Grand Knight."
Viscount Brown's eyes turned sinister. "Kill this old man, and then come west with me."
The knights looked at one another; no one was willing to strike first. Seeing this, Viscount Brown grew even more furious. He hauled on the reins and charged at Kyle, bellowing, "Kill him! For power! For riches and glory!"
The next morning, after breakfast, the four of them walked out of the Duke's mansion together. The academy's mission came first; this was no time to dawdle.
William's face was not a pretty sight — probably because last night's instruction in the Psychokinesis Meditation Method had not gone well. But he did not come to Adam to beg again, because he knew Adam would not change a thing on account of his pleading.
The Duke, by contrast, behaved quite normally, as though he were not worried about himself in the least.
"William, I've prepared mounts for you, and a hundred-strong knight company. They can set out with you at any time." The Duke patted William's shoulder and spoke gently.
A hundred-strong knight company was the greatest support he could give William. The south was vast and prosperous; if too many knights went out, the safety of the territory could not be guaranteed.
William looked at Adam.
"Not needed." Adam turned down the Duke's kindness.
After last night's private talk with William, the Duke no longer dared to address Adam as "child." It was simply too shocking that anyone could escape a full-fledged Mage head-on and then cut short his own Mage advancement besides — and last night he had taken William's measure, and found him already stronger than himself. Unbelievably, William called himself the weakest of the four.
"Mr. Adam..." The Duke paused, then went on. "Compared to a Mage's power, knights are nothing worth mentioning, but at least they could spare you some trouble. After all, there are only four of you."
The devil popped out, and — recklessly — took on Adam's appearance and, copying Adam's tone, said, "Clay chickens and mud dogs — can't withstand a single blow."
The Duke stared blankly at the two Adams. "What is this? A contract creature?"
The devil gave the Duke a clumsy aristocratic salute. "Hello, Duke Alfred. You may call me Archduke Garfield."
Adam raised a finger, and a bolt of extremely dense current shot from his fingertip, blasting the devil back into its chaotic form. Then, to the Duke — shaken by the power of that lightning — he said, "Rude as it is, that's the fact of it. A knight company is of no use to us, nothing but dead weight. Even mounts—" He glanced at the other three.
Cristel indicated that she did not need one.
Ophelia shook her head.
William explained to the Duke, "Father, mounts are too slow."
The Duke felt both gratified and a little bereft. "It seems you have far surpassed me, my child. Then — I wish you a triumphant return."
Adam was the first to rise into the air, flying straight for the west. Cristel and William followed close behind; Ophelia stamped hard against the ground and advanced in savage fashion, and whenever her momentum ran out and she dropped, she would use mana to condense the air and push off again. Compared with the other three, hers had a kind of brute beauty to it.
Not long after the four of them left, Grand Knight Kyle came bursting into Southern Seaport City, covered in wounds. By the time he reached the Duke's mansion, his mount had collapsed and died of exhaustion. He planted himself with difficulty before the Duke and said, "Viscount Brown has betrayed humanity. He's taken his knights west to join the Church of the Supreme God. He means to kill the apprentice masters!"
"You made a wise choice. Your news has little value, but I will still reward you. I think joining my knight company would be a decent job."
The Duke had men help Kyle up and spoke to him flatly.
Kyle could not believe the Duke would take it so lightly. Anxiously he said, "Your Grace, I mean—"
The Duke waved his single arm to cut him off. In his mind rang the devil's words: Clay chickens and mud dogs — can't withstand a single blow.
All four of them flew fast. Within a few hours they had left the south behind.
They found that the farther they went, the worse things on the ground became. Refugees were everywhere; they could not even form a column, but fled in scattered disorder, panicking at every rustle and shadow.
Adam did not descend. Their mission was to wipe out the cult and obtain the medium; rescuing refugees was not part of it.
The other three had no reaction either. They followed Adam in silent flight — until two hours later, when Adam stopped abruptly and raised an arm to signal a halt.
"Come out," Adam ordered.
The devil came out of Adam's mind with the greatest reluctance. Pointing at the ground not far ahead, it said loudly, "There's an evil energy aura down there — right over there." Then it muttered, "Call me when you want something, hit me when you don't. Some master..."
But no one paid the slightest attention to what it said. They descended toward the ground, and soon they saw the place the devil had spoken of.
"So it's true. Damn it!" William's eyes went wide, and he said furiously.
Before them lay a dead zone.
None of the houses had been burned down, but every wall and the ground itself was steeped red with blood, giving off a stench that turned the stomach. At the center of the town a great pit had been dug, likewise blood-red. Judging by the smell, the killing had happened not long ago, yet the pit was already heaped with bones — clearly the Church of the Supreme God had performed an evil sacrifice and offered up every townsman.
All the skeletons lay prostrate, facing the deepest part, and there Adam noticed a small hollow — some implement had obviously been enshrined there before.
"No mana aura, no negative energy aura. The smell of this energy is unheard of. Is this the power of an other-plane native?" Adam ignored his surroundings and compared the information he had gathered with the Magefoe, at last confirming that this was no Magefoe trick, but a true other-plane descent.
A light breeze blew past, dispersing the smell of blood. Cristel suddenly pointed at one spot. "There's someone there. No — not a person. A monster."
William could stand the environment no longer. He condensed a huge fireball and hurled it in the direction Cristel pointed. The fireball punched straight through the obstacles and only exploded far away; then they smelled roast meat.
Then they saw the monster.
It was a heap of writhing severed limbs — some torsos, some arms, some thighs, some heads. Not one of them was whole, yet they had eerily retained their vitality, and they carried an evil, devouring urge: even as they advanced they kept tearing at one another.
This time Cristel could not endure it. A tornado of countless tiny wind blades whipped up around her; she raised a finger, wanting to destroy the evil before her with magic outright.
"Wait."
Adam and Ophelia spoke at the same moment. This was highly important information; destroying it just like that would be too much of a waste.
The two exchanged no words. Adam first stepped back a pace, signaling for Ophelia to do as she pleased; he knew he was entirely ignorant on such matters, and that Ophelia was the expert.
Ophelia walked up to the monsters. Under the deterrence of her mana every one of them froze in place, not daring to move — just as yesterday. She picked up an arm and crushed it in her hand, then drew a bit of flesh from her robes. After comparing the two, she said, "Same root, same source."
"Meaning this is the result of sacrifices to the same other-plane being?" William asked.
"Mm. Only we don't know whether it's coincidence, or whether there's only one evil god trying to descend."
Holding the tornado up with one hand, Cristel asked, "Can I destroy them now?"
Adam stopped her once more, then said to Ophelia, "I need some energy samples. Can you extract the energy in their bodies?"
With her back to Adam, Ophelia nodded. She passed a finger along the edge of her greatsword, and a drop of blood welled from the cut it opened. The moment it landed, the drop showed crushing dominance and savage aggression: every monster the blood touched was devoured, and in moments that single drop had gathered all the monsters' flesh and blood into one squirming mass of meat, hovering before Ophelia.
Ophelia crossed two fingers and flicked the meatball lightly. With a dull thud it shattered — but there was no grisly spray of gore. Instead it withered and rotted like a plant drained of water, leaving behind only the drop of blood, wreathed in a thread of alien energy.
Setting aside who Ophelia was, the sight of it was more evil than any other-plane evil god's power.
"Miss Ophelia, you..." Cristel frowned and could not help speaking. She did not know why Ophelia would choose such a path; surely even a body-refining Mage did not need to make herself this evil.
"Hah." Ophelia gave a laugh whose meaning was not clear, then flicked the drop of blood toward Adam.
Adam did not mind in the least; on the contrary, he was interested in the ability Ophelia had displayed and the knowledge behind it. But this was no time for probing. He stopped the drop of blood with psychokinesis, grabbed the devil, and ordered it, "Swallow the energy."
The devil put on a disgusted expression. "My master, you can't do this to me. That energy is too low-level — just smell that revolting odor. I'll get indigestion."
"Low-level?"
"Exactly. I simply cannot imagine what kind of stupid world, in a void filled with ether, would use energy this low-level. It's made entirely of flesh and blood — even those idiots down in the abyss are better than that!"
"What do you mean, made of flesh and blood?"
Unexpectedly, it was Ophelia who answered. "Literally. This other-plane evil god digests living flesh and blood through some special means or organ, and converts that flesh into this low-grade energy. Its energy level is probably only a little higher than a knight's blood qi."
Adam's eyes lit up, then dimmed again. If it were done by some means, then it had no value; but if it were an organ, then this other-plane native was very much worth studying — only a pity that he did not yet have the ability to wage a planar campaign.
Adam recorded the information, then, ignoring the devil's struggles, hauled it over and forcibly ordered it to absorb the energy. The devil clearly had no way to disobey; it could only pinch its nose and swallow. Ophelia's blood drop shattered, and the devil, back in human form, knelt on the ground and kept dry-heaving.
Ignoring its theatrics, Adam said, "Take us to the source of this energy."
The devil habitually began to haggle — then heard Adam's cold voice: "No nonsense. I know you can."
Only then did the devil realize it had turned into Adam's likeness again. It did not dare say another word, and obediently flew up to lead the way.
As they were leaving, Cristel flung out the tornado. Adam pointed casually at it, and a bolt of current flew out and merged into it; the energy aura abruptly turned savage. A few seconds later came a tremendous boom, and when they looked back, the town had vanished completely, leaving only an enormous crater where it had stood.
The devil shuddered and trembled, wailing inwardly, This monster's gotten stronger again.
Adam tested how quickly his mana recovered and found that his efficiency in communicating with ether was far lower than on the Mage Continent. He took a great quantity of energy stones from his personal storage space and split them into three portions for the other three. He was not used to playing nursemaid, but since he was in charge, he would not forget his duty.
Once the three had taken them, they flew on for less than another hour before the devil shouted, "It's just up ahead — lots of that disgusting energy aura!"
"Kill these heretics who do not believe in the Supreme God, and repay the Supreme God's blessing with heretic flesh and blood!"
"Kill, kill! Kill every heretic! Build the altar of flesh and blood to point the way for the Supreme God and welcome His descent! The Supreme God will pour His gospel over this benighted world, and we shall all become His people, gaining eternal life and the power of a god!"
In the middle of the town, a young man in a pure white robe hovered in the air, shouting in a fanatical voice. Around him stood several others dressed the same way, and at their feet were "humans" with blood-red eyes and claws and fur like wild beasts. The white-robed Servitor's voice carried a beguiling power; every syllable made them more frenzied, and they used their hands, their teeth, to slaughter without hesitation any of their own kind who dared resist.
The young man was utterly satisfied. Not long ago he had been nothing but a lowly slave, but once he heard the Supreme God's gospel he felt he had grasped power close to a god's. That power intoxicated him; he would give everything for the Supreme God — so long as he could have power.
"Henry, there are some knights on your side of the city defying the god's will," another white-robed Servitor called from afar.
Henry turned his head and gave the knights who were resisting the slaughter a bloodthirsty smile. "Blasphemers. Heretics. All of them deserve death!" He raised his right hand and chanted a cryptic, meaningless incantation. Then his right arm began to lengthen and swell, and at last that deformed arm shot at extreme speed straight through a knight's body. (Picture K9999's super move in The King of Fighters.)