Chapter 68: Is There Salvation Even for a Murderous Girl? (1)
Caron finally realized his folly.
Make the Black Fangs understand that there are certain foes in this world that
one must never provoke?
It was him who needed to learn that lesson.
No matter how much it was the only way to maintain the power and fame he had
built up over the years.
He should never have meddled.
Once he recognized the disparity between them, he should have given up on
everything and fought just to survive.
But...
“Ah...”
Regret always comes too late, only when mistakes can no longer be undone.
‘It’ greedily devoured the divine power that swirled around Caron.
The immense power he had prepared for the showdown with the Black Fangs was
being absorbed in an instant.
If ‘It’ consumed all of his divine power, the next target was obvious.
So Caron struggled.
The exit was still far away.
A terrible pain coursed through his entire body, contorting Caron’s face in
agony.
Yet, Caron did not stop moving forward.
Nothing else mattered now.
Honor, wealth, authority.
All of it lost its value in the face of the one thing that truly
mattered—survival.
Power? Who cared about that?
He just wanted to live.
But... as if denying even that, ‘It’ clung to Caron.
His head spun.
Just being near it was eroding his sanity.
Yet still, Caron gritted his teeth.
And then... he looked at his left arm.
He had realized.
Why ‘It’ was dragging him down.
It was power.
‘It’ was greedily consuming only his divine power.
So, to survive... he had to give up everything.
The Holy Marks implanted from the talented children.
The marks, proof of divine favor, which allowed him to perform miracles.
It had taken the sacrifice of hundreds to barely acquire these marks, due to
the issues arising during the implantation process.
But now was not the time to worry about such things.
The Holy Marks embedded in his spirit were slowly fading. Caron forcibly
separated the marks from himself.
He desperately hoped that this would satisfy ‘It’ and make it release him.
But...
“Is it... still not enough...?”
He had offered up his most powerful asset.
Even if he returned to reality, the power of the vanished Holy Marks would not
return.
Despite such a sacrifice, ‘It’ still refused to let Caron go.
A compulsion surged within him.
The urge to throw everything away and sing a hymn of praise to ‘It.’
For now, Caron was barely protecting his mind with his remaining divine power,
but that too was reaching its limit.
But he couldn’t allow it. He couldn’t die here.
He had to survive.
No matter the cost.
To do so... he had no choice but to discard everything.
The only way to survive was to relinquish all the power ‘It’ desired and flee.
Caron clenched his teeth once more and relinquished all the divine power he
held.
All the strength he had accumulated to rise to the rank of Cardinal, he
sacrificed to that monster.
The force holding him began to weaken.
But still...
‘Why...?’
‘It’ would not release Caron.
It was not enough.
Just a little more… if he could just reach out a bit further, he could touch
the exit.
The exit out of this hell was right in front of him.
But he was one step short.
Caron’s face was painted with despair.
...He realized.
Why he was one step short.
He had already given up all his divine power.
Now, Caron was nothing more than an ordinary human.
But even so, if there was still something left, what could it be?
His life.
Even his last remaining shred of life was being devoured by that monster.
“Ah… ■■, I renounce my life as a heretic and offer everything to you.”
His mouth moved on its own, uttering such words.
For some reason, an overwhelming sense of happiness washed over him.
The happiness of submitting to ‘It.’
A smile crept onto his face.
A maniacal grin that threatened to tear his lips apart.
Even though that being wasn’t even paying attention to him, just being near it
was driving Caron mad.
This would be his last rational thought.
Soon, Caron’s mind would completely shatter, and he would willingly choose to
become one with ‘It.’
In the end… there was only one decision left for him to make.
He let go.
Forty years of his life.
With that, Caron’s hand finally touched the door.
…His vision shifted rapidly.
Caron managed to escape from that hellish place.
But…
There was no face filled with the joy of survival.
Only an old, decrepit man, so aged and worn that he was unrecognizable from
his former self, stood there, shedding tears alone.
*****
I sat on the bed, propping my chin up, deeply contemplating a certain problem.
‘When you possess someone, which sexual preference do you follow?’
...I know it’s a stupid question.
It’s even more pointless than debating whether a sword or a spear is stronger.
But even so, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Considering my current
situation, it was only natural.
I’m sure of it.
If you dreamt of devouring a middle-aged man in his thirties, anyone would end
up pondering something like this.
Especially if the detailed scenario of the dream involved the man crying alone
while singing a hymn, only to transform into an old man at the end. Even more
so.
SM.
BL.
Cannibalism.
Grandpas.
A hybrid.
The abyss of the abyss.
To be fair, the cannibalism part mostly involved sucking some sort of liquid?
out of the old man, which makes it a bit ambiguous.
But that just makes it more horrifying.
If it had just been a regular guy, I could have just brushed it off, thinking,
“Well, I guess this body has some peculiar tastes.”
But what kind of twisted preference involves enjoying the taste of liquid
coming from an old man so much that I couldn’t stop licking it?
I come from a time when the idea that all preferences should be respected was
prevalent, and I considered myself to have an open mind.
But there’s a limit, no matter what.
If this is the sexual preference of the body I’ve possessed...
And if my mind, as it becomes more and more in sync with this body, ends up
being tainted by such bizarre, perverted tastes...
‘This is driving me crazy.’
Just imagining it is horrifying.
This is why, when I woke up from that dream with a strange sense of pleasure,
I was plunged into deep anguish.
Thinking about how to verify my purity, and the fact that I’m even worried
about something so bizarre, is giving me a serious reality check.
As I was sighing deeply, trapped in that cycle of thoughts, it happened.
“......?”
Suddenly, a familiar sound reached my ears.
Before I knew it, a message window had popped up in front of me.
Conditions have been met, initiating first transformation.
Due to the vast amount of absorbed divine power, the transformation process
will take some time.
You have obtained the Holy Mark of the God of Light (Apostle Level).
The rank is too high, initiating rank degradation.
...Rank degradation has not occurred.
The obtained Holy Mark has undergone modifications, optimized for
implantation.
The Holy Mark will be implanted in tandem with bodily transformations.
Follow the predetermined destiny. It is impossible to save everyone.
As always, dozens of messages flashed before my eyes in less than 0.01
seconds, only to vanish with a strange noise.
So, no information was left for me to digest.
‘Well, I didn’t expect anything different.’
At this point, it wasn’t surprising.
This wasn’t the first time something like this had happened.
If anything, it would’ve been stranger if the status window had worked
perfectly.
‘Looks like I’m not getting any sleep tonight.’
Though that strange issue about preferences had already been erased from my
mind.
Now, I had something else to think about.
Why did this pop up now? Was it somehow related to that dream? There were so
many things I needed to figure out.
It seemed that tonight wouldn’t be a restful one. The world itself was
conspiring to keep me awake.
I finally got up from the bed and turned on the light.
Where should I even begin investigating this?
No matter how much I thought about it, I couldn’t grasp anything, but I
couldn’t just leave it unattended.
After some deliberation, I reopened the status window.
It was the only thing I could investigate right now.
‘As expected, it’s still the same.’
I had hoped it would’ve recovered a bit by now, but the status window was
still broken.
Maybe it would fix itself at some critical moment.
That was my gut feeling, but for now, it was just taking up space.
I was about to dismiss the status window from my view when...
I noticed it.
Something clearly out of place.
Amidst the jumble of broken text, there was one part that was relatively
intact.
I carefully tapped on it.
And then, at that moment… a familiar yet unfamiliar traits window appeared.
The qualification to stand above everyone else in this world.
...Was this the original description?
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