Paladin of the Dead God

Chapter 234:

Kururururu!

The Whispering Night twisted into a grotesque shape, making a sound like a night whisper suffering from a stomach ache. At first, it seemed like it had a bizarre form oscillating between liquid and gas, similar to the Apocalypse Handler. However, beneath the monk’s robe, its body was a jumbled mess of flesh and bone.

It was unclear what was a limb and what was a tongue-like appendage, but its head was distinctly identifiable.

A pallid face protruded starkly beneath the monk’s robe.

“There’s not a single part of you that’s not hideous from head to toe!”

Isaac leapt into the circle, making an unnecessary jab at its appearance. Whether the creature could understand his taunting words didn’t matter. What mattered was that it thrived on devouring fear and growing stronger.

Especially since the priests were cowering in terror, it was growing stronger by the moment.

The Whispering Night, seemingly displeased with Isaac’s mockery, lashed out at him with an appendage that looked like a pig’s head. A head the size of a human torso lunged at Isaac, aiming to crush him.

Isaac easily cleaved the pig’s head in two with the Luadin Key, but the Whispering Night’s attacks weren’t like those of a human, with swinging limbs.

As the pig’s head was severed, it let out a squeal, and through its teeth and throat, dismembered fingers and legs of a child could be seen writhing. It vomited these remains towards Isaac.

The heat of the Luadin Key incinerated the vomit, but in that moment, a butcher’s axe brutally struck Isaac’s shoulder.

Slick. Isaac’s shoulder fell off and landed on the butcher’s counter. On the counter, his limbs, including a smoked head, were neatly arranged.

[The Nameless Chaos is watching you.]

However, Isaac’s mind remained firmly grounded. If he hadn’t known it was an illusion, the scene would have been dizzying.

‘…Fortunately, it’s weaker than I feared.’

The Whispering Night’s attacks almost always accompanied nauseating hallucinations. This was the true nature of the serial murder cases in the cemetery without corpses.

The Whispering Night must not have been very strong initially.

But as the young priests frequently visited the cemetery, their imaginations fed the creature. Stories of a cult kidnapping people spread. The Whispering Night inflated and fabricated these rumors, gathering fear.

Whether the stories were true didn’t matter. Those attacked by the Whispering Night saw horrific visions and spread these tales further. Yet, no one likely died during these encounters. The more witnesses, the more fear it could consume.

There was no reason for the Whispering Night to consume people unless it had grown strong enough to ‘harvest’.

‘If it had reached that stage, I couldn’t handle it alone.’

If the Whispering Night had grown enough to ravage the old city, it would require the mobilization of the Paladin Order to subdue. Fortunately, the creature was confined within the circle due to Clare’s final ritual. Limiting its movement made it much easier to confront.

But facing the Whispering Night, constantly shifting between reality and hallucination, was no easy task.

“Isaac!”

Isolde signaled. Isaac narrowed his eyes and turned his head slightly.

With the sound of bracelets clashing, a brilliant flash burst forth.

Light weakened and subdued such tales and fears. Isaac had brought the Luadin Key specifically to utilize its heat and light.

With the heat of the Luadin Key and Isolde’s flash combined, the Whispering Night visibly shrank. Struggling to withstand the light’s heat, it lunged to block Isolde’s radiance.

Isaac stabbed its back with the Luadin Key, but it didn’t stop.

A horrid array of visions unfolded before Isolde. Yet, she defiantly glared at the oncoming Whispering Night. Being outside the circle, she couldn’t be directly attacked.

However, her eyes wavered at something within the emerging hallucinations.

This allowed the Whispering Night’s attack to take hold.

The midnight terror crept into Isolde’s mind. Without divine protection like Isaac’s, it was impossible to quickly counter the hallucinations.

She staggered within the illusion.

The Whispering Night, desperate to extract Isolde’s core fear before being fully dismembered by Isaac, made a last effort.

“Ugh…!”

Isolde gritted her teeth and swung a dagger into the air. Although it didn’t connect, the Whispering Night recoiled as if struck.

It seemed disoriented, as if it saw something strange in Isolde, floundering and unable to act.

Isaac seized this opportunity, driving the Luadin Key into its crown and impaling it into the ground.

“Isolde! Are you alright?”

“Ah, yes… I’m fine.”

Though the Whispering Night’s assault on Isolde was brief, it could have caused significant mental trauma.

Fortunately, Isolde seemed merely startled, not severely affected.

‘Should I be relieved that it worked…?’

One of the ‘safeguards’ Isaac had left on Isolde was a sort of brand marking her as his. An embarrassing notion, but he believed it would affect the Nameless Chaos’s minions. The brand was invisible and easily removable, which minimized issues. The creature had retreated from Isolde due to this mark.

***

The subdued Whispering Night began to writhe, hiding various tales within its monk’s robe. Recognizing that it was trying to evoke a different form of fear, Isaac drew Kaldwin, utilizing his sword energy to cut it down.

Kaldwin, a relic of much higher caliber than the Luadin Key, effortlessly sliced through the Whispering Night.

Isaac only managed to subdue the Whispering Night after almost severing it completely, leaving only its head intact. In truth, he hadn’t intended to subdue it but to kill it, yet it remained alive despite its condition.

‘How do you kill this thing again?’

In the game, physical damage was followed by priests performing a divine punishment ritual to exorcise it. Since it was confined within the circle, Clare and her group would likely need to perform a reverse summoning ritual.

Suddenly, the Whispering Night emitted a hissing sound through the monk’s mouth.

[Why attack ■ minions of ■, oh priest?]

Isaac froze. Despite the metallic undertones, the words were intelligible.

Just like the minions of the Nameless Chaos had previously spoken to Isaac, the same was happening now.

“Isaac? What is it saying?” Isolde asked in a bewildered tone. She couldn’t understand the words, but she recognized the creature was speaking in a structured language.

Isaac frowned and split the creature’s crown.

However, it seemed the creature wasn’t using its mouth to speak, as it continued hissing. It seemed capable of creating new mouths from anywhere on its body.

[In the paradise of the dead, your ■ minions await the ■ return of ■.]

“Shut up.”

Isaac reluctantly responded, irritated by its words. He immediately regretted speaking, as Isolde’s expression grew even more perplexed.

“Isaac, what language is that?”

When talking to the Nameless Chaos’s minions, it seemed one could hear the language they understood. Isaac pondered how to explain.

“It’s an ancient language. Even I can’t fully understand it, so I told it to shut up.”

“It understands ‘shut up’?”

“When you deal with creatures speaking ancient languages, you tend to learn the curses first.”

The term “ancient language” encompassed numerous dead languages. Only priests of the Salt Council, obsessed with historical research, could comprehend them all.

The Whispering Night continued mumbling as if it felt wronged.

[I am also ■ minion of ■ like her. I was merely waiting for ■ return of ■.]

By ‘her,’ it must have meant Isolde.

It seemed to think she was a minion of the Nameless Chaos due to the brand Isaac left on her. Despite its lower intelligence, it was conversing with surprising rationality, almost as if it were a monk of the Nameless Chaos.

It was even appealing to Isaac for sympathy.

‘This thing is smarter than expected. Isn’t it just a monster?’

Considering most minions of the Nameless Chaos were unintelligible monsters, this one seemed to possess the intelligence and manners of the top 1%. It felt wasteful to simply send it back. Isaac decided to interrogate it.

“How did you know I would resurrect?”

The Whispering Night seemed to regard itself as a significant entity of the Nameless Chaos, or something similar. Isaac decided to converse accordingly.

When Isaac responded, the creature seemed delighted.

[I never doubted that the deception of Bishop Beshek and the Lighthouse Keeper would not last.]

It was hard to understand, but it clearly referred to Bishop Beshek and the Lighthouse Keeper. It called him Bishop Beshek, not the Immortal Emperor, because when the Nameless Chaos killed its followers, Beshek was still a bishop of the Codex of Light, not yet a god.

“Why were you waiting for me?”

Many minions dreamed of the Nameless Chaos’s resurrection. But why?

Their ultimate goal was the apocalypse? That was not a dream Isaac could fulfill.

He had no desire to see a world overrun by swarms of tentacles.

The monk paused, its pale eyes flickering before fixating on Isaac.

It suddenly snarled.

[You deceived me, you deceitful creature.]

The Whispering Night’s body violently shook. Isaac swiftly cleaved its head again. But from the severed spot, something unexpected erupted.

A mass of tentacles.

Thick, giant tentacles, far too large to believe they came from the small head, burst out like a fountain. Isaac froze momentarily.

He couldn’t help but think of himself in the shattering monk’s form.

“Isaac!”

Isolde dashed into the circle, yanking Isaac away just in time to avoid the writhing tentacles.

It was only after hitting the ground hard that Isaac regained his senses.

“This damned creature…”

He realized it had keenly read his fears and manifested them. Or perhaps it merely exploited his old fear of the Nameless Chaos.

Now he understood why Isolde had frozen when confronted by the hallucination.

The monk’s form was now merely a husk, with the rest replaced by a mass of tentacles that solidified as they pierced the ceiling.

The crimson tentacles slowly bleached to a pallid white and withered away.

_____________

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