Paladin of the Dead God

The royalty of Wallachia, the three ducal houses, alternated as kings, but they all shared one commonality: they drank the blood of the Dancer. The Dancer was a child of Elil, and their blood flowed through the dukes, making it no exaggeration to say they carried Elil’s lineage.

Hastel sneered, preparing a final strike to finish off Cedric.

At that moment, the eerie wail she had been ignoring in the heat of the fight grew too loud to dismiss. She looked up with a frown to see the Reaper’s giant scythe, gliding closer to the ground, its blade gleaming in the moonlight.

“What in the world…? Stop that!”

Sensing the overwhelming threat, several human hunters wove a net of blood and hurled it at the scythe. The net was as tough as steel, but the scythe sliced through both the net and the hunters with terrifying ease.

Swish! As the scythe continued its path, Hastel snapped out of her shock and clawed her palm to draw blood. Her blood was mixed with the blood of the Dancer, making it as potent as a holy relic on its own.

She swung a sword made of blood at the Reaper’s scythe.

Crack! For a moment, it seemed as though the scythe hesitated, but then her vision spun.

Hastel belatedly realized that the blood sword had shattered, and at the same time, the scythe had cut through her waist.

“Duchess!”

The human hunters screamed and ran to her. But the scythe paid no attention to Hastel and flew off in another direction.

It was headed where Isaac had disappeared.

“I’m fine. It’s just a minor wound.”

Her words sounded like a joke coming from someone whose upper and lower halves were separated. But in truth, Hastel was already transforming her severed lower body into a mist of blood and reconnecting it to herself. It had been a terrifying moment. In her hundreds of years of life, she had never experienced such humiliation.

‘That was… an Immortal Order miracle?’

The scythe radiated the sanctity of an angelic weapon and the immense power of death. It had to be an Immortal Order miracle. Hastel’s blood, imbued with her own sanctity, couldn’t withstand the deathly aura.

For some reason, the miracle was targeting Isaac.

She had survived only because the miracle was entirely focused on Isaac. If she had been the target, she would have died instantly.

“Cedric… has already fled.”

While Hastel was cut by the Reaper’s scythe, Cedric had vanished as well. She no longer concerned herself with him. The important target was Isaac.

However, she hadn’t forgotten about Cedric completely.

“Cedric is not an ally; he is an enemy. He approached us from the start to monitor and counter us. Consider him an enemy if you encounter him.”

It was an obvious statement, but Hastel made it clear nonetheless.

Her head throbbed. She had thought she just needed to come to Odryf and hunt Isaac. But now she couldn’t grasp how many forces were targeting or protecting Isaac at the same time.

“Shall we continue pursuing Isaac?”

One of the human hunters asked. Hastel was about to respond affirmatively, but then she changed her mind.

Chasing him down and catching him honestly wasn’t efficient. It also wasn’t in line with the doctrine of the Red Chalice.

“Did you say Isaac has a grudge against Leonora Bessia?”

Hastel had an idea of where Isaac was heading.

Rather than chasing the prey, setting a trap and waiting was the way of the Red Chalice.

***

The majority of human hunters who hadn’t been caught up in the fight with Cedric continued to pursue Isaac. Isaac found it difficult to run straight toward the Bessia estate due to the complex alleys of Odryf, the Reaper’s pursuit, and the human hunters blocking his way.

Individually, they weren’t a problem. But when many small problems combined into one, they became a difficult knot to untangle.

Isaac was starting to get genuinely annoyed.

‘The Red Chalice… Didn’t they say they’d cooperate with me and sent Hesabel to assist? How the hell are these small fry still tagging along? What are they doing?’

At that moment, his surroundings suddenly brightened. He had emerged from the dark alleys of Odryf into a bustling main street. Despite the late hour, the city was still teeming with people.

A street vendor, startled by the sight of Isaac rushing out with a sword, stumbled backward in shock. Isaac tried to retreat back into another alley to avoid involving the citizens, but a human hunter on the roof fired a crossbow at him.

The arrow flew towards the vendor without any regard for who it might hit.

Before the arrow could pierce the vendor, Isaac blocked it with his left hand. The fury he had been holding back finally erupted from his eyes.

“You bastard.”

In an instant, Isaac propelled himself up onto the roof as if he had been shot out of a cannon. He had activated Kaldwin’s acceleration ability. While he was reluctant to use one of his three daily activations on these lackeys, he rarely had the chance to use all three in a day anyway.

Since he had never launched himself onto the rooftops before, the human hunters were taken aback and quickly aimed their crossbows. But Isaac cut them down with such blinding speed that they were torn apart faster than they could regenerate.

The human hunters, trying to avoid getting slashed, scattered in all directions like cockroaches. But Isaac still managed to catch another one, grabbing him by the back of the head. This time, instead of slicing him, he slammed the hunter’s head into the roof.

Crack. The roof shattered, and Isaac and the human hunter tumbled into the attic below. Isaac, holding down the struggling hunter, planted a Parasite from Beyond into his brain.

Crunch. The parasite burrowed through the skull and devoured the brainstem, making the hunter’s body convulse violently before going still. Isaac then activated his ‘Offspring of Chaos’ ability on the hunter.

Snap, crackle.

In an instant, the parasite devoured the hunter’s flesh, bones, and fluids, transforming him into something entirely different from before.

Rustle… Finally, tearing through a thin husk, Hesabel emerged. She straightened her hair with a slightly fatigued expression.

“This doesn’t feel particularly pleasant.”

Isaac had always wondered whether this ability to summon minions of Chaos would work on Hesabel. Unlike the other monstrous followers, Hesabel was still close to being human. But after several experiments, the conclusion was clear.

Regardless of their origin, what mattered was how much the subject was influenced by Chaos—Isaac’s choice.

A new player had entered the dreadful night in Odryf.