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Chapter 265 - Paying the Price (11)

Henry then grabbed his sword with both hands and frantically swung it at Grumpy’s torso and lower body with an explosive Aura, shredding it to tiny pieces.

Henry’s eyes were blazing with hate, his rage so great that it seemed like he could set everything on fire at any moment.

“AAAHH!” Henry screamed as he swung his sword faster and faster, releasing all the rage he had been holding in. His rage was also amplified by his hatred for Arthus and by his exhaustion.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

By the time the Reverse Gravity wore off, Henry was stomping on the ground again, and every time he did so in anger, it sounded like there was an earthquake. His furious stomping resulted in deep holes in the ground beneath his feet.

Pop-!

Just then, to stop his muscles from bursting, Henry fixed his grip on his sword with his two hands and swung it downward with lightning speed, releasing a great gust of wind, which generated such intense pressure that it sounded like a deafening explosion.

“Sigh... Sigh...”

Having finally concluded his sword dance, Henry found himself gasping for air, beads of sweat hanging on his jawline. He felt a bit better after releasing all the stress and rage that had been festering inside him.

“Wind.”

Swoosh-!

Henry removed the dust cloud that was blurring his sight with a temper. In front of him was Grumpy’s remains, a disgusting pile of gore.

“Ha...”

Even though Grumpy was already torn to shreds, Henry looked at him with a sense of disbelief, as if he weren’t sure that he had killed him. He stomped on the bloody remains, trying to release any leftover anger.

‘Tsk! Now is not the time for this...!’

As he trampled over Grumpy’s remains, Henry returned to his senses and quickly composed himself. He remembered why he had come here in the first place and the other urgent matters he had to deal with.

He finally realized that he couldn’t afford to waste time here.

“Damn it!”

Along with a curse, Henry cast Teleportation again.

***

However, by the time Henry arrived, it was already too late.

Enkelmann.

Amaris.

Shahatra.

The Sore Empire.

Zipan.

By the time Henry arrived in all of those regions, from where someone had desperately called him with the caller scrolls, they were either in ruins like the palace in Shahatra, or the people had been turned into zombies like the citizens of Enkelmann.

Distraught, Henry went back to Monsieur. He had told Lore that if there were any survivors in the regions where the caller scrolls had been activated, he was to rescue all of them and bring them to Monsieur.

Therefore, Monsieur’s hospital was packed with patients, groans of pain and cries of despair echoing throughout its hallways.

There were not enough beds, so some patients were lying on makeshift beds.

All of Monsieur’s doctors and nurses were called in, and even then there weren’t enough hands, so craftsmen from all kinds of shops were also called to help.

It was a terrible sight.

The hospital resonated with agony. Some patients were so distraught that it was almost impossible to tell if they had lost their minds or if they had turned into zombies.

The metallic scent of blood mixed with various kinds of medicine was pungent enough to make anyone dizzy.

Henry slowly closed his eyes.

This kind of situation wasn’t new to him. However, the awful groans and cries of the patients would send shivers down anyone’s spine. It sounded like Henry wasn’t in a hospital, but in hell, surrounded by agony and death.

Henry was one step away from losing it, but just then...

“Arghhhh!”

“Hold him! Hold him tight!”

A commotion broke out in another part of the hospital, accompanied by a bloody scream. Henry rushed toward the noise.

There was a man with red eyes, zombified, like the citizens of Enkelmann, struggling to bite the doctor who had tried to examine him.

“Tie him up! Tie him up tight!”

The patient was extremely strong.

Monsieur’s men were also very strong, yet it took several of them just to barely restrain the patient. They eventually managed to chain the man to the bed. The doctors and the other people who had helped were breathing heavily, all of them sweaty.

“What the hell was that?!” exclaimed the doctor who had tried to examine the patient. He looked panicked.

Seeing this, Henry asked, “What’s going on?”

“Ah! Archmage! This man is crazy! A moment ago he was on the verge of death, but then he suddenly turned into someone completely different, or no, he turned into a beast and tried to bite me. But I don’t know why.”

Clank! Clank!

Just like the doctor said, the man was drooling and writhing; his eyes were bloodshot and his mouth foaming. He was struggling tremendously, and he didn’t seem to care that the chains were tearing through his skin.

Henry had seen people like him not too long ago.

‘Here too?’

This man had the same symptoms as the citizens of Enkelmann. His behavior was exactly like that of zombies, a lower-level demonic beast, a type of undead.

At that moment, Henry suddenly realized something.

‘No way...’

A myriad of thoughts ran through Henry’s head, anxiety overwhelming him. And soon, Henry’s theory was confirmed as if someone up there was playing a cruel prank on him.

“Khaaa!”

“W-what the hell?!’

“Run!”

“Ahhhh!”

There were screams and crying coming from all directions, which confirmed to Henry that something was terribly wrong.

“Execute them! Do NOT hesitate, you hear me?!” Henry shouted desperately.

“Y-yes, sir!”

At Henry’s command, the Archmages and Monsieur craftsmen used their abilities to subdue the rampaging patients.

“Ughh!”

“H-help me!”

However, everything happened too fast, and they couldn’t quickly freeze the entire place, like Henry had done with Enkelmann, because there were also many people here who were fine, or at least who weren’t zombies.

“Sword on.”

Henry summoned his Colt Sword and joined the others in killing off the zombies. Everyone desperately slashed, kicked, tore, pierced, used magic—everyone fought with everything they had to protect themselves, but also the rest of the patients.

But despite their best intentions, it was impossible to deal with such a sudden outbreak without any collateral damage.

‘Shit!’

Henry shattered one of the windows and jumped out. He then summoned an iron wall to isolate the hospital in order to prevent any zombies from escaping and causing more damage.

“Iron Wall!”

Rumble!

A massive iron wall surrounded the hospital. Because of this, the inside of the hospital had suddenly gone dark, so Henry made light with a wide-range spell.

“Sigh... Cough!”

After a long, arduous massacre, Henry slumped on the floor, having decapitated the last zombie. He was completely exhausted.

As soon as he fell to the floor, Henry felt ashamed of himself for not being able to act smarter during this situation.

‘Damn it...’

Fortunately, those who had been bitten didn’t turn into zombies, so they only had to kill those who were already zombies.

Everything was a mess.

Henry wanted to vent his anger brought on by this disaster, but he had no one to take it out on, so all he could do was blame himself.

‘I... I ruined everything!’

Henry reproached himself for this terrible situation. He cursed his greed and arrogance.

There had been so many caller scrolls, desperate cries for salvation, but he was just one man. He had desperately needed help from people who could compare to his strength, like Lore, but his order to rescue the survivors in the other regions, just like he had done in Shahatra, had been catastrophically wrong.

‘Rescue all the survivors if there are any.’

It was Henry’s fault for not preparing for all contingencies, even though he had already experienced a similar situation in Enkelmann.

Lore, the Archmages, Vulcanus, the city craftsmen, all rushed to Henry, who was slumped on the floor.

“Henry, can you explain what just happened?”

Their faces were filled with a mixture of a little anger, disbelief, and bewilderment.

Henry had an embarrassed and apologetic expression. His emotions were so all over the place that he could only chuckle—how could he even explain this awful situation in a composed manner?

At that moment, new rings of light materialized before Henry, and a series of coordinates from caller scrolls appeared before Henry’s eyes—Vivaldi, Highlander, Faesiling.

***

“Greetings to the great and almighty Arthus.”

The eight apostles appeared before Arthus, who was still relishing in his blood bath.

Seeing his precious apostles, Arthus got up from the bathtub with a delighted expression. He slipped in the robe Dracan handed him and sat down on a nearby throne-like chair.

“Hmm, it looks like everyone has done a fantastic job with their tasks,” said Arthus.

“That’s right, Sir Arthus.”

“But why are there only eight of you guys? Shouldn’t there be nine?”

At Arthus’ question, the apostles looked around and only then did they realize that one of them was missing.

The missing apostle was Grumpy. However, his absence didn’t seem to have any effect on the other eight apostles. After all, it hadn’t been long since they had fought each other fiercely to survive.

In other words, even though all of them had been chosen by Arthus, there was no real bond between them.

Seeing this, Arthus laughed and said, “You guys really don’t care about each other, do you? Even though you’re all my apostles.”

“...We apologize, Sir Arthus.”

The apostles bowed and apologized. Of course, they didn’t even know why they needed to apologize in the first place. However, thanks to Absorption Through Predation, they had managed to acquire an elementary degree of empathy. As a result, they now knew what to say, when to apologize, even though they didn’t feel sorry, and overall act like humans.

“Hmm, this is a bit of a surprise. I thought it was going to be Palo, who was in charge of St. Hall, that was going to be our first casualty,” said Arthus.

At that, Palo stayed silent, but he wasn’t necessarily angry. He wouldn’t go against the opinion of his divine creator to whom he was devoted.

It would be ridiculous for apostles to be angry with the divine being who had bestowed upon them great powers and a new life.

“Is he different because he’s La’s son?”

Arthus concentrated for a moment and realized that his link to Grumpy had disappeared, causing him to marvel at Herarion’s power.

Palo and Grumpy had been sent to St. Hall and Shahatra respectively to convert the people there. However, those two states were the ones with the largest number of people with divine powers.

One couldn’t kill the apostles, who possessed part of Arthus’ divine power, merely with mana or Aura. They needed to use divine power as well. Because of that, Arthus had expected Palo to be the first casualty because Shahatra was weaker than the Church of Peace in terms of divine power.

However, contrary to Arthus’ expectations, the first link to disappear was Grumpy’s. He was a little bit surprised because he hadn’t expected that weakling, Herarion, to overpower his apostle. Of course, Arthus was mistaken about Grumpy’s death because he hadn’t witnessed the fight himself.

“Well, it doesn’t matter. What’s the point of bringing him back to life when he’s already dead, right? He’s probably going to die again anyway. But other than our late Grumpy, have the rest of you taken care of the tasks I’ve given you?”

“Yes, Sir Arthus,” all the apostles replied at the same time.

Arthus had ordered them to spread his teachings to the world, increasing the number of his believers. The more people believed in his status as a deity, the greater his divine powers would become. Therefore, Arthus needed a large number of believers.

Of course, that belief didn’t have to be pure faith. All he needed was for the mind of the living to believe that the man named Arthus was a god.

In order to fulfill Arthus’ wishes, Dracan granted the apostles the power to dissect human emotions and thoughts.

This was a very simple mechanism. The apostles would brainwash people into thinking that Arthus was literally a deity, and then they would remove everything else from their minds.

And since Arthus needed his believers to keep believing, Dracan made it so that the brainwashed people would have an appetite.

Those people were nothing but a source of faith; the only thing they knew was to have faith in Arthus and be hungry.

With a smile, Arthus said, “I’m glad. Thanks to all your hard work, the divine power flowing through my body has become even greater.”

“Congratulations, Sir Arthus.”

“Thanks. Anyway... Henry should’ve received my gift by now. Oh, how I’d love to see the look on his face, hehe.”

From the moment Arthus got his hands on the Chimera army and Janus’ power, Arthus no longer considered Henry his enemy.

By making a fool out of Henry in the imperial palace, Arthus proved that he was leagues above Henry.

“Haha, amuse me some more, Henry.”

Therefore, for Arthus, Henry was now merely someone to entertain him, a fun part of his ascension to divinity.