Chapter 138

Ch.138 Apostle of the Goddess of War

“Huh?”

Magwen flinched, her tongue, still impaled by the blade, twitching in astonishment.

Her eyeball twisted against the sword’s edge, distorting one side of her vision. The Sion before her looked like a monster.

And in reality, he was one.

‘He reacted to my speed?’

Magwen, who had once served the Goddess of War, was more confident in speed-based combat than anyone else.

How many ignorant fools, thinking she was just a brute because of her large build, had died without even being able to react?

In that sense, she had been sure this time too.

That young holy knight looked quite strong, but she could kill him in an instant.

She knew from experience that carelessness was the easiest means to kill an opponent stronger than oneself.

Keeeing.

The sound of the blade splitting her facial bone.

“Kk, ugh.”

Magwen couldn’t believe the situation she was in.

“Stay still.”

The young holy knight spoke. His voice was cold enough to frost over.

“Don’t move. If you so much as twitch a finger, I’ll burn your brain to a crisp with divine power.”

His words carried a murderous intent. It was the eeriness of a blade thrust into one’s spinal cord.

Magwen rolled her one remaining, half-ruined eyeball in reply. She signaled understanding.

Sion, with a leisurely motion, gripped his sword tighter and asked.

“First, have your subordinates kneel. Throw down your weapons and surrender.”

Magwen immediately gave a hand signal. Her subordinates, the pirate crew members mixed with humans and demons, began to discard their weapons.

Clang!

As they threw down their weapons, Rontel immediately began having the sailors bind the pirates.

The sailors trembled even as they did so. The act of tying up the demons, who had opened their eyes ferociously, was terrifying in itself.

They didn’t know when the demons might bite through their necks.

However, Magwen’s ‘Flame Tiger’ crew members were those who obeyed their captain very well.

She led the pirate crew with overwhelming charisma. Powerful command obedience was this pirate crew’s true strength.

Because their captain had been helplessly defeated, they had no other choice. They just watched, quietly allowing themselves to be bound.

‘This can’t be.’

Jien was astonished. Set was no different.

Sion had given the order to fight while protecting the people. But he ended the fight without even giving them a chance to do so.

‘Overwhelming power.’

With that power, he had made it so no one could move.

The ideal pursued by the Goddess of War was beginning to be realized on this land, bit by bit.

Gulp.

Set and Jien swallowed dryly. They were only amazed by the reality where the fight hadn’t even lasted a second.

As the battle ended so futilely, leaving everyone dazed, Sion turned his eyes back to Magwen after confirming they were completely disarmed.

“Now, speak properly.”

“Wh, what?”

“Why are you playing pirate here? Your skills are too good for this place.”

After Sion became a formal Apostle and completed his spiritual synchronization with the Goddess, he too had become an existence on a different level from before.

He was afraid of his own self, growing stronger day by day.

Even considering that, Magwen was strong.

It was just that Sion had now become too strong.

Magwen’s skills placed her in the upper ranks among the demons he had met.

Sluice.

Sion pulled out the blade and asked.

Magwen, true to a strong demon, quickly regenerated her wounds. She pushed her protruding eyeball back in and answered.

“Honestly. I just became a demon against my will.”

“……Hmm?”

“I envied humans. The humans who lived freely.”

Magwen began to recount her story in a tone mixed with self-pity.

“Even if you’re born a demon, it’s not like you unconditionally offer your life to the Evil God and drown in madness. Everyone has their own individuality.”

“I’m not interested in that.”

Sion spoke coldly. Magwen drew in a sharp breath. She even felt the illusion of a blade being drawn across her neck.

‘What is this?’

Magwen’s heart froze.

Could he create an invisible blade with words and cut her?

That was the kind of illusion Sion’s ominous atmosphere created.

Her legs trembled. In hundreds of years, she had never felt fear towards a human.

She hadn’t felt like this since the first time she met an Apostle of Corruption.

Pure terror.

The fear of death.

Even an intense impulse to kneel instinctively.

Everything paralyzed Magwen’s reason.

“As soon as we passed through this sea area, I felt a strange energy from the east. Is it related to you?”

Magwen’s eyes widened round.

“What?”

Sion stared at Magwen as if piercing through her eyes. A chill, as if it would cut through her soul beyond her eyes, touched the back of her neck.

“You know something, don’t you?”

“H, how do you know that? That’s something a human can’t sense—”

“Answer. If you want to live.”

Keeeing.

Sion’s blade once again pricked the area below Magwen’s jaw. Next time, there would be no mercy.

He was a human who had already caught the scent of a clue. Even without Magwen, he would gather information on his own and find the answer he wanted.

Magwen’s red pupils trembled incessantly.

“W, will you spare me if I talk?”

“If the value of the information you provide exceeds the price of your life.”

Sion negotiated like a ruthless merchant of the Abundance Cult. It was impossible to grasp his true intentions or meaning.

She only thought there was no way he would keep his word.

But now, Magwen had no choice. If she would die either way, it was better to gamble.

‘After all, I’m the lucky type.’

Just look at how she had freely done piracy, mingling with humans without properly fulfilling her role as a demon.

If there was a Goddess of Luck, she must have smiled upon her for hundreds of years.

“Ah, alright. I’ll talk.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes. Anyway, I’m someone who’s abandoned the Goddess I served. I don’t really care.”

“How peculiar.”

Sion tilted his head slightly and gestured with his chin. A gesture telling her to go on.

“In exchange for gaining freedom, I was cursed to guard this sea area.”

“Aren’t freedom and curse contradictory terms?”

Sion picked on her words and asked. Magwen tried to retort but, realizing she was the subordinate in this situation, closed her mouth.

“…….”

“Well, continue.”

Magwen nodded.

“In exchange for freely doing piracy, I had to catch and kill those who intrude into this zone.”

“Hmm.”

“You’re probably curious about what ‘this zone’ is, right? Since you seem to know something, you’ll probably find it strange even if I don’t say it.”

“Correct.”

“But how on earth did you know? Only demons can sense this place.”

Magwen couldn’t hold back and asked. He was a truly bizarre human.

Sion felt his sensory perception had developed further since recently completing his spiritual synchronization with Achille.

But simply that level was no different from ordinary Apostles.

Any Apostle would have noticed it long ago. Could it be that not a single Apostle had passed through this sea area all that time?

Something higher than that.

A power of a higher conceptual dimension was acting upon Sion.

It felt as if the energy of the universe was seeping in through the crown of Sion’s head, a sensation he had never felt before.

If he had to compare it…….

That’s right.

‘That feeling I had when I met Lady Naru.’

A sense of otherness, closer to a Goddess than a human, was being felt from himself.

When he accelerated his thoughts, the world slowed down.

His heightened hearing could even distinguish the flapping of a flying insect’s wings. His extremely sharpened five senses made Sion feel like an omniscient and omnipotent being.

The expansion and acceleration of his perception occurred anew every day. Even Sion himself found it frightening.

But only Sion could bear all of this. He was shouldering such a destiny.

The reason the Goddess of Light granted Sion the authority to close the heavenly gate, and the Goddess of War designated him as her strongest sword, was finally beginning to manifest.

“That’s not important. Tell me what this zone is.”

Sion prodded Magwen’s chin with the tip of his sword and asked. Magwen pursed her lips and said.

“It’s a type of magic circle.”

“A magic circle……?”

Sion muttered to himself as if it made sense. The moment he heard the word ‘magic circle’, he finished his deduction in an instant.

‘What the hell?’

Magwen was just flabbergasted. What kind of human is this?

No.

Was he even human?

Though she had only seen him for a few minutes, Sion couldn’t possibly be considered human. Magwen, at least, had noticed he was an otherworldly existence close to a Goddess.

“I get that it’s a barrier formed by a magic circle. Then what is it protecting?”

The most important question.

The moment he asked this, Magwen had to secure a promise once more.

“You’ll spare me, right?”

“Depending on your answer.”

Pity absolutely wouldn’t work.

The disgust towards demons was not just stinging her skin, but seemed to penetrate into her pores. Her cheeks stung.

“It’s a gate leading to another space.”

“Another space?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know where. I only know it’s a gate.”

“You’ve never been?”

“That was the condition.”

Sion said, propping his chin with his finger.

“Pretending to give freedom, but binding you as a guard.”

“You…!”

Magwen flared up. Sion didn’t even look at her.

To put it bluntly, he wasn’t even treating her as a person. He was viewing her as extremely ridiculous.

But the subject was a strong demon.

The pirate crew watching this conversation, the sailors, Set and Jien, all were at a loss for words.

“Then, that connected space is related to the energy I felt from the east?”

Sion, who had been lost in thought alone, lifted his head and asked. He had to look up to see the 2-meter tall Magwen.

Magwen nodded slightly.

“Correct.”

“Can you guide me there?”

“I can guide you. I don’t know how to pass through it myself.”

“That’s enough.”

Sion replied without even pondering. Magwen knew his words weren’t a bluff. Even if they seemed spoken without any thought, she knew this person would definitely find a way to pass through.

She could only stare blankly at Sion.

“……Th, then you’ll spare me, right?”

Magwen asked, trembling.

“Maybe.”

“What?”

“Well, I don’t even know if the information you provided is correct yet.”

“Th, that’s true.”

Sion leaned his upper body towards her.

And, with the most eerie atmosphere he had exuded so far, he asked.

“Did you kidnap someone recently? A man around his 50s. Not very tall, round build.”

“……!”

“Seems right.”

“It, it wasn’t me.”

“Then?”

Magwen said, trembling.

“It’s the doing of a presence I dare not even speak of. I, I have nothing to do with it!”

There were few beings a demon would dare not speak of. It would be an Apostle of the Evil God, or the Evil God itself.

“Anyway, it’s certain he went to that space you mentioned?”

“P, probably.”

“Guide me there immediately. Don’t even think of doing anything foolish.”

Magwen felt sweat running down her spine.

Somehow, this man, it doesn’t seem like he’ll spare me at all.

‘What should I do?’

Magwen agonized. If she risked her life here and attacked from behind, could she kill him?

Since she’ll die anyway, wouldn’t it be better to side with the demons?

Is it really right to take this dangerous holy knight to the ‘gate’?

“Hey.”

Suddenly, Sion called Magwen. His clear eyes were blazing.

“Didn’t I tell you not to think foolish thoughts?”

“……!!”

Magwen froze. Is he reading my thoughts now?

No, that’s not it.

It was that Magwen herself couldn’t manage her expression that well.

She hadn’t shown any composure. It was as if she had laid all her cards on the table and asked to be killed.

Sluice.

The strength left Magwen’s legs. She fell forward, prostrating before Sion.

“Spare me. For a moment, I unknowingly—”

But before Magwen could even finish her sentence, Sion was already gone. Yellow liquid dripped from under Magwen’s leather pants leg.

She was so crushed by fear that this humiliation meant nothing to her.

It was the first time she didn’t even dare to think of resisting.

Overwhelming power.

Overwhelming forcefulness.

The existence named ‘Sion’ was imprinted into Magwen’s very bones.

“Ha, haha.”

Magwen grabbed her chattering legs and stood up.

She stumbled once, fell again, then raised her body. Even though the large demon had shown such disgrace, no one in the pirate crew humiliated her.

It was thanks to Magwen that all their necks were still attached. Everyone knew this fact.

To them, Sion was no different from a messenger from hell.

“G, get up. Prepare to set sail.”

Magwen commanded in a trembling voice.

The pirate crew, having lost their weapons, had become helpless slaves.

The boundary of who was the pirate and who was the weak became blurred.

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