The Shadowed Legacy of the Soulless Messenger [EN]: Chapter 13

#14. The Fangs’ Minions 5

-Crack!

With a single stomp, Azadin crushed the hobgoblin’s shoulder, its body collapsing beneath his foot.

“Kyahhh!”

“Ki, kill him!”

The goblins surged toward Azadin, who had landed amidst them with such audacity.

Stone axes and rusty swords whistled through the air, but Azadin moved with impossible speed, evading their clumsy attacks. He seized the hand of a goblin mid-swing.

-Crunch!

His grip alone was enough to shatter the goblin’s fingers, the bones and flesh turning into a gruesome pulp that dangled from the axe handle like some viscous substance.

Azadin snatched the stone axe, the goblin still attached, and swung them both. The axe cleaved through another goblin’s skull, the goblin’s body, now a grotesque flail, sent flying.

“Krrk!?”

Azadin swung the goblin’s corpse horizontally.

It was no longer a goblin.

It was a shapeless mass of gore.

Azadin used the mangled remains as a makeshift club, turning those within its reach into the same gruesome mess.

The goblins, their bones crushed but their muscle fibers still intact, were swept away by the corpse, which had become like a giant club with bone spikes. They were either sent flying or impaled on the bone spikes, becoming one with Azadin’s whirlwind of destruction.

Having cleared the immediate area, Azadin raised his hand to the sky. Arrows rained down, the ones he had kicked up earlier now drawn to his hand as if by magic.

In his other hand, a bow materialized.

-Thwack!

The arrows flew with a crisp sound. Each time Azadin drew his bow, the arrows pierced through the goblins with terrifying force.

Azadin unleashed a rapid volley, taking down goblins and hobgoblins alike. Then, as if it were flat ground, he stepped onto the gate’s rampart and stood there once more.

“Uh…”

“…Is he a member of the Messenger Clan?”

The watching vigilantes were dumbfounded.

This was the dark army that threatened them, yet this man had single-handedly taken down an ogre with ease and then wiped out its subordinates in a matter of moments.

“Indeed, the King Slayer…”

With such power, it was no wonder he had been able to execute the Divine Kings.

Everyone was convinced. But Azadin himself was not.

There was still an evil aura, a terrible atmosphere, lingering here.

“Everyone be careful. Something’s coming.”

*********

The goblin with the bone wand was unlucky enough to be grazed by the blind ogre’s obsidian axe. It wasn’t a fatal blow, but it tore its skin and broke bones, leaving it severely injured.

It tumbled to the ground, and the humans who had jumped out of the meat box rushed at it.

“Hey! Uh, what do we do?”

“First, let’s take that wand from that bastard!”

“Y-yeah!”

They swarmed the injured, panting goblin, kicking and punching it.

“Any weapons? Weapons?”

“Kill him!”

“Why won’t this bastard let go?”

They beat the goblin, trying to pry the bone wand from its grasp. Even to their untrained eyes, this bone wand was no ordinary object.

Having been mutilated by Azadin, they had to seize this opportunity.

But then…

“I, I am the King of Fangs…”

The goblin said, scratching its own body.

-Crack!

Suddenly, a change occurred.

“Huh?”

The thugs who had just escaped from the ogre’s meat box couldn’t believe their eyes. Right before them, one of their companions had his torso disappear in an instant.

The dangling limbs stood on the ground for a moment before falling with a thud. In front of them was a monster with its entire arm splayed open, revealing sharp teeth inside.

The goblin’s entire arm had transformed into the mouth of some demonic beast.

“What?”

“What is this?!”

“Ah!”

Bloody flesh burst out of the goblin’s body like ropes. Sharp teeth sprouted from the flesh, tearing apart anything they touched.

“Kyak!”

“Agh!”

The thugs who had rushed to take the wand from the goblin were killed one by one. The goblin was no longer a goblin. It had become something else entirely.

Its arms had turned into tentacles with countless teeth, and its legs were the same.

It used the flesh it devoured to increase its size. It smashed and absorbed the ogre’s meat box that was lying on the ground, and it also wrapped the blind, floundering ogre with its fanged whips.

“Kuaaa! No, I don’t want to be eaten! Eating is good, but being eaten is not!”

The blind ogre struggled, but the teeth devoured it alive, absorbing it in an instant.

*********

“Uwaaah!”

“Wh-what is that?!”

The villagers were horrified by the scene unfolding before them.

Suddenly, a mass of crimson flesh had wrapped around the ogre, tearing it apart with sharp teeth. Then, not satisfied, it began to devour the goblin corpses scattered on the ground.

Azadin clicked his tongue at the bizarre sight.

“The Kurt race, the King of Fangs, I see.”

The Kurt race were a barbaric people who ruled this land before the Yaegas race arrived. Many monsters served them.

When the Yaegas race drove out the Kurt race, their followers fled to remote areas untouched by humans, where they still maintained their lineage.

“This is becoming too much of a loss to do without getting paid!”

Azadin was flustered but calmly began to observe the monster.

The monster continued to devour the corpses nearby, and then a goblin’s head emerged from within. The goblin held a wand in its hand, and an amber flame flickered at its tip.

“Now, you Yaegas’ servants! Hand over the Divine King’s Scripture! If you do, I will kill you without pain…”

-Thud!

Before it could finish speaking, Azadin’s arrow blew off the goblin’s head.

The first shot took off its head, and the second shot took off its arm. Azadin quickly jumped down from the rampart and ran to pick up the wand that had fallen from his arrow.

‘They’re looking for a copy of the Divine King’s Scripture too? What are they thinking?’

Azadin was curious and rushed to retrieve the wand.

That’s when it happened.

-Thwack!

A whip-like mass of flesh lashed out at Azadin.

The terrifying mass of flesh with sharp teeth was aimed at Azadin, and if he were hit, he would be covered in blood in an instant.

But Azadin’s body blurred, and he easily evaded the whip’s attack. It was a feint, and he had retreated, luring the whip’s attack.

The whip that hit the ground bounced back up, aiming for Azadin again, but he picked up a rusty sword from the ground and parried it.

-Clang!

He sliced through the gums where the teeth had sprouted in one go.

“The teeth are too big for the flesh. Teeth without deep roots are weak.”

The teeth that sprouted from the tentacles were too large compared to the width and thickness of the tentacles. Moreover, since these tentacles didn’t have alveolar bone [the bone that holds teeth], these teeth were just protrusions from the flesh.

Of course, that was enough to tear people apart, but if you had a proper steel sword, the teeth would be the ones in trouble.

“Insolent! I am the King of Fangs!”

“No, you’re just a worthless minion created by the King of Fangs.”

Azadin corrected the goblin.

“Kaaak!”

The goblin became agitated, and whip-like tentacles wrapped around the wand on the ground. Then, an amber flame rose from the tip of the wand.

“Kiek!? You have the Divine King’s Scripture…”

-Thud!

At that moment, Azadin was so surprised that he threw a dagger and blew off the goblin’s head. It knew he had the Divine King’s Scripture?

‘How did it know?’

Azadin calmly reviewed the situation.

‘The flame from that wand is pointing at me? Could it be?’

Azadin realized that the wand had the power to find copies of the Divine King’s Scripture.

“Kuaaa! I’ll kill you!”

The enraged goblin, or rather, the minion of the King of Fangs, explosively created whips and lashed them at Azadin.

Numerous attacks and sharp teeth swirled to tear Azadin apart.

“Hey!”

“Be careful!”

Perhaps because he looked too desperate? The people of Hybris, who couldn’t tolerate the Messenger Clan, the vigilantes of the gate village, screamed instead of Azadin.

‘The attacks look chaotic and numerous, but…’

Azadin easily evaded the whip attacks aimed at him.

‘To keep the whip attacks from tangling, they have to be simple.’

Azadin’s physical abilities had reached a realm beyond human imagination. He easily evaded the tentacles’ attacks, parrying only the ones that seemed like they would hit him with his rusty iron sword.

Each time, chunks of teeth were torn off and fell to the ground. Azadin made it sound easy, but these whip attacks were incredibly fast and heavy, and ordinary people wouldn’t dare to face them.

It was such a powerful attack that even the ogre, though blind, was eaten without much resistance. Azadin was dealing with it by cutting it down with delicate movements, like brushing feathers off a charging bison.

-Hiss.

Meanwhile, smoke began to rise from the sword Azadin was holding. The King of Fangs’ tentacles were secreting a powerful digestive fluid, and the sword couldn’t withstand it.

“Tch.”

He looked around for another weapon but realized there were none, so he had no choice but to draw the soldier’s sword he had been carrying on his waist.

It was the equipment of the soldiers who had followed Prince Kozel, the soldiers who wore plate armor and were practically knights.

It was a sleek, high-quality steel straight sword that he had kept because it looked good, but if he used it to fight the King of Fangs’ minion, which was spewing digestive fluid, it would surely become scrap metal.

However, in the face of the menacing fanged whip attacks, there was no room to save items.

‘It’s a shame, but it’s better to use the sword here than to ruin my body by saving a non-divine object. Well, I have plenty of swords anyway.’

Azadin used the soldier’s sword to cut down the fanged tentacles, but… even though it was a good sword, it began to corrode as soon as it came into contact with the digestive fluid.

“Uh…”

“Th-that, that!”

“What should we do?”

The villagers who were watching were flustered.

“Let’s shoot arrows. Let’s help that Messenger Clan member somehow.”

The hunter, the leader of the vigilantes, shouted.

“B-but helping the Messenger Clan…”

If the people of the King’s Church found out that they had helped the Messenger Clan, they would be treated as heretics. They could even be killed.

It was a serious crime, but the hunter scoffed.

The Divine King’s bloodline, the nobles, whom the King’s Church revered, had plundered the village and left.

On the other hand, the impious ones who killed the king, the Messenger Clan members called the soulless blasphemers, were now fighting in front of them to help them for no particular reason.

In this situation, wasn’t it clear what they had to do?