Stagnant Water of Apocalypse

Da-jeong was the queen of monsters. She dominated dozens of monsters and even mobilized a gryphon to do her biddings. However, compared to Seongho and Seokhyun’s fighting power, her power was nowhere near them.

But unlike them, her unique skill shone in many-to-many fights rather than few to few. After all, dozens of her monsters were much stronger than before, and they also faithfully followed her orders.

As Da-jeong’s monsters rushed into the ranks of the Walk of Atonement procession, something that could not be ignored happened. The grasshoppers and the werewolves who had infiltrated the ranks began to go wild.

There was bloody wind everywhere.

“Aghhhh!!!”

“Get your grip together! Get in line!”

Several zealots tried to regain their ranks, but it was not easy. After all, the impact of the anti-tank missiles and gunfire was too great.

Da-jeong flew away on the gryphon and tossed several of her grenades towards the ranks.

Boom-!!

A cloud of dust rose from the surface, and dozens of priests were swept away by the explosion. But even after that, Da-jeong and her gryphon never went down. They keep hovering above the ranks and continue her assault.

TATATATATATANG-!!

As Da-jeong poured the bullets, the already chaotic proceedings became even more disorganized. The Owlbears and tanks that arrived late began to trample on the priests.

Restoration of control now seemed impossible.

Meanwhile, Boldre, who had been crushed by the Abomination, stood up. His body looked bigger than before due to the manifestation of Giudecca’s protection. Taking advantage of the moment when his subordinates rushed at the Abomination, he stretched out his arm toward the griffon.

“Fear Giudecca’s wrath! Suffer under his overwhelming power!”

His clenched fists as if trying to strangle the gryphon. He shouted ‘Giudecca’s hand’ loudly in order to cast the skill.

However, Da-jeong, who had guessed the skill’s effect from the name, turned her gryphon’s head to the ranks. The gryphon dipped down and attacked the priests.

“It’s the gryphon again!”

“Avoid it!”

An uproar erupted when a gryphon as big as a house attacked the ranks. A few were crushed and killed instantly, and a couple were blown away by its wings.

Meanwhile, Boldre was once again getting beat and pushed by the Abomination who rushed at him again.

Bam-!! Bam-!!

The Abomination’s attack was so fast and heavy that it was impossible to properly counter it. He occasionally casts Giudecca’s Hand skill to it, but the Abomination casted a dimensional wall to block it after feeling something is coming.

When Seongho’s big fist was swung, Boldre’s huge body crushed towards the priests.

“Keukkkkk…”

However, the wounds all over Boldre’s body healed rapidly. He stood up once again and looked at the Abominations charging at him.

“How foolish… May your blood wash away that disgusting ignorance!”

Kuooookkk-!!

The Abomination, which had been moving like a gust of wind, stopped as the nearby priests vomited out a chorus of prayer. It was as if a huge hand held him tightly and wouldn’t let go.

Boldre finally smiled.

“Let’s talk about Giudecca’s love here for a moment, brother.”

“There is no need for that.”

Boom-!!

Thunderstorm descended from the sky and struck Margretha’s shield, which she redirected towards the priest. The priests who were struggling to block the Abomination fell to their knees after being hit directly by the magic.

“AAAHHHHHHHH.”

The priests also had resistance in their skill set, but it was not enough to completely block Tibris’ magic.

Seongho, who was released from the pressure, ran rapidly towards the place where Tibris’ marker magic directed him to.

Boldre’s relaxed attitude vanished for the first time at that moment. After all, he noticed that the target of the Abomination was the last wizard.

“No! Stop it!”

But he couldn’t go there himself. Margretha raised her shield and blocked his way before he could even move.

“Sir Pistel! Even if you die a hundred times, you won’t be able to atone for the sins you committed!” Boldre spat.

“I have no desire to atone!”

While the two fought fiercely, the battle priests blocked the Abomination with their bodies. However, it was nothing more than a child’s play in front of the power of Seongho. Giudecca’s strength wasn’t enough to restrain him.

Seongho, who smashed the priests at random, finally met the terrified wizard. He was trying to open the gate with a dimensional jewel on his own. It was because he thought that only priests of the church were not enough to fight the heretics.

However, his attempt was thwarted by the Abomination.

“Sp-spare me… Ugh!”

The Abomination ran into the wizard. Despite the shield, the wizard rolled across the floor as if he had been hit by a dump truck. Seongho continued to run and beat up the priests who were fighting with Da-jeong.

On the other hand, the war continued. Many priests died, but in return, Da-jeong lost most of the monsters. On top of it, Boldre was still alive and well. He still had an advantage over Margretha, who pulled out the Ether Blade and even held the Titan Shield. It was probably because there was too much difference in the basic specifications between them.

“You traitor! I will give you fate worse than death!”

Bam-!!

Margretha was blown away by Boldre’s fist and flew backwards. Her titan shield was dented and she rolled on her floor.

Seongho, who had just returned to her human form, picked her up.

“Are you okay?”

“Ah, um… Cough!”

“Just retreat for now.”

Seongho scanned his surroundings. Almost all of Da-jeong’s monsters were dead except for the tank. Margretha wasn’t fine either, and now all that was left for him was Tibris’s support.

But the other side was equally miserable. There’s only Boldre and the Seven Priests left. The rest were already dead. Heartbeat rang non-stop and even zombie raids happened, but no one cared.

Boldre looked around and became dejected.

“What kind of cruelty is this… Giudecca’s love is wasted on you people!”

“You called torture and murder a love?”

“Giudecca’s love has no end, but even if you’re immersed in the darkness where you can’t see right in front of you, you’ll deserve his love.”

“You don’t listen to people.”

Now Boldre and the seven priests knelt down and began praying.

“Let us pray, my brother and sisters! Until our little voices reach Giudecca in the sky.”

“Stay like that until you die.”

Seongho transformed into the Abomination again. And it was apparent that Boldre was amazed by his display. Although no one else knows, he knew quite a bit about the test subject. Transforming once was hard enough. But transforming continuously was close to impossible.

Boldre wrapped his arms around himself and assumed a posture to embrace the roaring Abomination from a distance.

“The purest ether! The toughness that can withstand Polymorph! You are surely born to be loved by Giudecca!”

Instead of words, the answer he got was an attack and a roar. While the two got tangled up, Margretha and Da-jeong dealt with the priests. Now that the bullets were exhausted, Da-jeong had to pick up the mithril blade herself. However, close combat was not her forte, so small and large wounds riddled her body overtime.

“Heuk.” Eventually, Da-jeong had to roll on the ground to avoid the attack. And the Abomination, who was fighting Boldre, witnessed it. It was only for a moment, but the collapsed panting figure remained clearly in his field of vision.

KUAAAAAHHHH-!!

The limit-breaking skill was activated by Seongho’s rising anger. He shouted and blocked Boldre’s fist. And he exerted tremendous force in his grasp.

“Heup!”

In an instant, a vein formed in Boldre’s temple. He was sure that the test subject would hit its limit soon. However, the test subject clearly exceeded his expectations.

“This… nonsense…”

Crack-!!

Finally, Boldre’s hand was crushed. He gritted his teeth and Seongho kicked him in the chest while holding his fist. An explosive sound was heard, then his wrist was separated from the rest of his arms.

“Kuaaahhhh!!”

Unable to contain the pain, Boldre grabbed his forearm and staggered. Seongho’s transformation ended at that moment, and Tibris, who was waiting in a nearby building, fired his magic. A large fireball flew like a shot and crashed into Boldre’s body.

“KUAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!”

His stiff body burned. It was Seongho who stopped his screams. He drew the Overmetal sword from the dimension slot and created an etheric blaze.

As he swung it, ether flame cut through Boldre’s throat. The flames burned everything around them and white light shot up from the cut. Right after that, Boldre’s huge body fell to the floor.

“Cough… Cough…”

Seongho breathed deeply and returned his sword into the dimensional slot. Seeing as the man gave him 50 points, it looked like he’s still human. But a surprising thing happened right after. Boldre’s fading body was wrapped in light and disappeared.

“Ressurection?”

But Margretha said there’s no resurrection scroll in Ezekium… It was the exclusive property of this side which had a system. But he knew that denying that no one else had the same unique skill as Seokhyun was foolish.

The priests were all dead, and Boldre will be resurrected and alive somewhere.

“There will be limits to what you can do alone…” Let’s be satisfied here.

Seongho pulled himself together and approached Da-jeong and Margretta. Tibris came running from far away, waving the hem of his robe.

.
.
.

“Boldre is resurrected?”

“Yes. His body was bathed in light and he disappeared.”

The group packed up and settled down in a nearby building. Everyone was exhausted except Tibris because they had fought a tough battle. In particular, Da-jeong was in a sad state because she had lost all the monsters except for the tank and a few werewolves.

Seongho said to Tibris.

“First, let’s leave Boldre’s matter as it is and get some rest.”

“That will be nice. It was a really great fight. To think that you can transform into a test subject twice…”

“My skill upset its side effect, so it’s not a big deal.” After Seongho answered like that, he went to Da-jeong, who was busy staring outside. She would have told me to tell her the reward normally, but she was just staring blankly outside.

“My gryphon is dead.”

“I know.”

“A lot of my monsters are also dead.”

“The priests were stronger than expected.”

The priests that came to Earth were just a glimpse of what they could do. However, there was still a guy who didn’t die after being hit by a bullet.

If the lowest combat priest was at that level, what would the higher end of spectrum be like?

In fact, Seongho knew. After all, he fought directly with Archbishop Boldre. Even after transforming into Abomination twice, he was still in perfect shape. If Tibris hadn’t helped him, it would have been difficult for him to guarantee victory.

But Seongho didn’t talk about these things. He just gently hugged her from behind.

“I’m sorry to make you sacrifice your monsters. You did a really good job. Without you, I would have had a really hard time.”

Her heart melted at every word he said. Da-jeong turned around and clung to his neck.

“Kiss me.”

“Everyone is watching.”

Seongho looked at the two otherworlder who desperately pretended not to hear her words.

Tibris smiled shyly.

“Haha… your relationship looks good. By the way, it seems to me that the Archbishop has the spell of resurrection imprinted on him.”

“I heard there was no such thing before, though?”

“I will explain that.” Margretha stepped out. “Resurrection was something very new to us as well. However, it is clear that the Church of Giudecca has developed a magic procedure that imprints a resurrection spell on the body. If you’re sure you saw it.”

The scene Seongho saw was clearly the same as Seokhyun’s resurrection.

“When did the Church of Giudecca appear in earnest?” He swallowed and asked.

“It wasn’t that long ago. At most, a few years… everyone was busy devoting their faith to miracles.”

“That miracle… What is it?”

“Ability to predict the future and heal diseases. Some members of the church seduced the nobles as if they were prophets. It’s embarrassing, but there was no one who didn’t fall for it.”

“At the time, there was no resurrection spell. That spell is just recently developed.”

“Since we didn’t know about it, it must have been performed on only a few people in the church.”

Seongho clicked his tongue.

“What a pain. You mean that monster roams around Seoul in peace…”

“Can you just kill him again? If we don’t do anything, he will soon attack again.”

Da-jeong’s words made sense, but Seongho thought a little differently.

“If it were me, I would wait for the main unit to arrive before attacking again. That Boldre… he looks crazy, but he is sharp.”

Margretha nodded his head.

“That’s the scary part. Ezekium’s main force hadn’t even come yet. What we fought was just the advance party of the Church.”

“Well, didn’t we win? I also took a lot of things.”

Apparently, Tibris wanted to see what Seongho had rooted. Seongho opened the dimensional warehouse and took out the items.

“There are so many ether stones…” The group’s eyes widened.

“There are quite a lot of scrolls. They seemed to have come with a purpose.”

“As for the crime pardon scroll, we used 3 and got 3.”

Margretha placed a scroll on the ground.

“This is the problem. It says Curse Removal Scrool… didn’t Gorgos say he was cursed?”

Seongho’s eyes returned.

“He did. But it’s not only the scarabs, the stag beetles were also cursed.”

“Aside from whether or not the curse can be lifted, the first step is to decide the order.”

Seongho called his group at the auction house and made Mikyung come. Meanwhile, Tibris rummaged through Seongho’s luggage to find what he needed.

“Dimensional jewel… Oh, unlike the usual, it has a very large capacity. I think we can use it at least 3 times. And this is an amulet that spreads ether force fields…”

Da-jeong picked up the amulet.

“So, if we have this, we won’t be affected by the shackle of the battlefield, right?”

“Sure. However, you need to replace the Ether Stone because it continuously consumes Ether.”

“I’ll have to give it to Seokhyun later.”

Seongho put the amulet in his pocket. If he gave it to Seokhyun and Geom-in who went to Tokyo, they would be able to move without any worry. The Japanese around him would also be affected, but it doesn’t matter. After all, their level was so low, it would not be enough to stop the two of them.

Anyway, the amount of items dropped by the priests of Giudecca was quite considerable. Seongho passed all the scrolls to Tibris and handed several items to Margretha and Dajeong.

“How about you?”

“I’ve got something before… Tibris, I’d like you to look at this.”

After entering the dimensional warehouse and taking out the scroll book and the unknown egg, Tibris’s eyes widened.

“I looted it in the magic tower, but I don’t know what egg it is. It seems to be a rather large animal.”

“This is…” Tibris stuttered. “…a dragon’s egg.”

“Sorry?”

Were there dragons in Lotus?

Seongho was taken aback, and Tibris put his hand on the egg. Then, his story began.