The Priest of Corruption

SECOND POWER.

The mirror was too opaque to see someone’s face in it. I tried changing the angle here and there, but nothing was reflected. I heard that the sword in the demon’s head was used to slay evil, so this mirror must be the holy relic that revealed a demon’s identity. But the mirror’s ability didn’t matter to me at all.

‘Kill!’

“I am trying to absorb it faster, Mother.”

As I looked in the mirror and silently offered my prayers to the Mother of Corruption, a dark green light slowly emanated from the mirror, seeping into my body and Mother’s hand. When the energy emanating from the mirror stopped, I closed my eyes.

[Divinity: 11723]

As expected, a sealed holy relic had roughly 10,000 divinity, making it worth one ability. I brought my attention back to reality and carefully lifted Mother’s hand out of the pocket.

“Mother, another seal has been released. Could you tell me what changed?”

‘Kill!’

I was patiently waiting for her to tell me what had changed. Anyway, my legs were crushed after the fall, so there was nothing I could do other than wait for them to regenerate. After a short wait, she finally said:

‘Kill!’

“What? Is that true?”

‘Kill!’

Mother’s hand, which fell out of my grasp, crawled and put some distance between us. It then collapsed, looking tired, and sent me her will.

‘Kill!’

I crawled after her, took up the hand, and put it back into my pocket.

“It is certainly a good thing that you can send your will from a little further away than before, but…isn’t that too poor a result for breaking the seal of a holy relic? No, it’s definitely poor. This is disappointing, and this is the only thing that-…”

“K. I. L. L!”

I laughed as Mother screamed.

“You seem to be able to speak a little better. It’s an unbelievable development. You can now speak one letter at a time. This son is in tears at his Mother’s growth.”

‘Kill!’

Mother’s hand struggled violently, telling me not to make fun of her.

“Okay. Given the situation, it would be better to stop making fun of you now.”

I closed my eyes and prayed quietly.

“Dear Mother of Corruption. I will offer you ten thousand divinity, so please grant me a new ability.”

The divine level within was rapidly dropping, and a new power was forming in its place. At the same time, as I gained the new ability, information about what effect it had was engraved in my mind.

‘Kill…?’

“Hmm. It’s not a bad ability, Mother, and it’s useful even in the current situation.”

The newly acquired power was the Corruption Arts. The effect of this power was simple but powerful. It further amplified my physical abilities beyond the scope of a human. However, dark green mystical tattoos appeared across my body when I activated the power.

However, unlike the Giant of Corruption, this power wasn’t only beneficial to me. The cost of the Corruption Arts was the same as its ability. While using it to amplify my physical abilities, I was slowly rotting from the inside out. By the time the corruption reached the outer parts of my body, I’d be practically incapable of combat.

I smiled brightly.

“Once I use this, I’ll be in a lot of pain until my intestines regenerate, Mother.”

‘Kill…’

I patted Mother’s hand.

“Mother, you don’t have to feel sorry for me. Wasn’t that power what I wanted in the first place? Besides, it’s always good to have more things I can use.”

My crushed legs had finished regenerating.

“Gaaaaaahhh!”

I slowly stood and looked at the demon still raging in the distance.

“Now that I think about it, it’s very strange.”

‘Kill?’

It was very strange that the demon was raging like a beast even now after all the priests who angered him were dead. A demon wasn’t a beast that left everything to instinct. So far, the situation was so urgent that I couldn’t afford to think about it. Still, the brief respite allowed me to analyze the current situation.

Eventually, I reached a likely conclusion.

“Mother.”

‘Kill?’

“It may be a little shaky. Hold on tight.”

‘Kill?!’

A man in a pure white priest’s robe ran over the ruined buildings. The divinity of corruption flowed from the dark green tattoos that covered his skin. Every time Marnak kicked off the earth with his legs, he flew, narrowing the distance between him and the demon in seconds.

“Gaaaaaahhh!”

The black giant realized that something was coming his way. The demon rolled his big eyes around and found the cause of this ominous feeling lingering in the air. A small creature was running toward him.

The demon responded in a very simple way. He swung at the unpleasant creature with his large tail at full force. The formidable whip broke down everything in its path and made its way to snuff that little life.

The muscles in Marnak’s legs burst to the limit as if they had been waiting. He soared into the air, passing a hair’s breadth over the tail. As it swung below, he stretched out and grabbed on, then used it to run up the demon’s body.

As the demon tried to tear at the creature running on its back with its claws, it realized one fatal fact. He couldn’t reach his back.

Faced with the limitations of his body structure, the demon eventually chose a different method. Once again, he decided to roll on the ground. That swift creature would be crushed to death by his body, like the lump of metal that hurt him before. At least he thought so.

The black body Marnak was running on started to tilt. But this was also expected. Marnak jumped from the creature’s back and landed on the ground. The shock settled in his knees, but his amplified body endured.

“Cough.”

Rotten intestinal fragments popped out of his mouth with that cough.

“This is faster than I expected. It’s hard to use for a long time, Mother.”

There was no time to stop now, however. A dark shadow covered the earth. Marnak sprinted through the rubble again, avoiding the demon’s massive body rolling behind him. The demon collapsed the streets of Guise with its ponderous weight.

Marnak kept running. And then, after having fun rolling around, the demon rose again. Marnak leaped to the demon’s feet and clasped on, ascending like a monkey climbing a tree.

“Gaaaaaahhh!”

The demon roared, but no matter how hard he tried to shake the small creature off, it refused to fall. The screaming demon dropped his giant body again. If once wasn’t enough, he would repeatedly roll until it stopped climbing.

Its body started tilting again. However, Marnak didn’t jump down like earlier. Having already reached the demon’s neck, his eyes sparkled with the reflection of the white sword stuck in the top of his head.

“Jump!”

The Priest of Corruption glided across the slanting body below, then leaped into the air again with his hand stretched out. Marnak’s hand nearly failed to catch the white sword. If he pushed it just one more inch, the demon would be dragged to the other world.

But Marnak didn’t push the sword in. Instead, he yanked the sword free.

“Wake up!”

“Gaaaaaaa!!”

The giant demon collapsed. The dark flesh that fell below Marnak became a soft cushion, absorbing the shock. Marnak stood up again and dug up a piece of flesh. Then he smiled as he finally found the demon’s gaze.

“Have you lost your mind?”

The demon slightly frowned with his remaining eye, then laughed.

“Looks like meeting the priest was a real blessing for me!”

The demon loved negotiating and enjoyed talking in general. No matter why he was angry, it was strange to go wild without saying a word. After examining the condition of the demon, I came to one conclusion.

Something was forcibly suppressing his intellect.

The only thing that didn’t belong in that giant body was the white sword stuck in the top of his head. Then the story was simple. That white sword was the shackle suppressing his intellect. So instead of pushing the white sword deeper, I freed his mind by pulling it out.

The demon, who lost one eye, two legs, and his left arm, lamented.

“Too much. That’s really too much. Guise is the city I’ve cherished for the past 40 years. I can’t believe I destroyed it.”

I sat down next to the demon. In the aftermath of the Corruption Arts, my stomach was turned upside down, and it was difficult to stand.

“What’s broken can be rebuilt. How nice would it be to rebuild the city to be even better than before? In addition, if you look closely, the outer buildings are still intact.”

The demon chuckled.

“The priest is absolutely right. It is also a very exciting, making my heart pound like this! Hahahaha! By the way, can I ask you a question?”

“You may ask.”

An eyeball and a hole containing only bloody flesh turned toward me.

“Why did you help me?”

“Didn’t you give me two gold coins? If a person receives something, they have to repay it.”

I smiled brightly.

“What do you think of my two gold coins’ worth of help.”

The demon grinned too.

“It was plenty.”