Chapter 773

Chapter 773
Fragility takes many forms.
One person might boast immense physical power but crumble mentally. Another might possess a spirit of steel while trapped in a sickly frame.
However, the priest was certain of one reality:
There were no “weaklings” present on this battlefield.
The warrior he had just been engaged with was a terrifying adversary—capable in body, mind, and every other metric.
In fact, calling a superhuman “weak” seemed absurd—who wouldn’t appear frail when measured against such a standard?
Still clutching Ghislain’s forearm, the priest stammered,
“W-Who are you talking about? You must have the wrong person…”
Ghislain gestured with his chin toward the side and replied,
“That guy. The one who was just fighting you, the one barely breathing. His body is brittle and his mind is even worse. Back during training, he tried to fake being ill just to skip out more times than I can count.”
“……”
The priest was speechless. Based on that description, the man sounded like a pathetic coward.
Then who in the world had he been trading life-and-death blows with all this time?
But he didn’t have the luxury of contemplation. The individual currently standing before him radiated an aura far more lethal than the previous opponent.
The priest flared his internal energy. He told himself he had simply been caught off guard—he wasn’t actually the weaker of the two.
Rrrrrrrrk…
He tightened his grip on Ghislain’s arm, channeling every ounce of his power into a single point to snap the bone like a dry twig.
Ghislain let out a mocking snort.
“Oh? We’re resorting to a contest of strength, then?”
Ghislain was admittedly at his limit. His brutal confrontation with Rahmod had left his stamina depleted and his mana reserves nearly dry.
Yet, the priest was in no better state. He had endured the backlash of Deneb’s holy light and the impact of Kyle’s final desperate strike—he was already a hollow shell of himself.
Ghislain gathered his remaining vitality and tightened his fingers around the priest’s throat.
Crack—!
“Ghhhk!”
Instead of breaking Ghislain’s arm, the priest found himself being strangled by an overwhelming force.
In a strained, wheezing voice, he managed to choke out,
“Just… who are you…?”
“I’m the one looking after him. His guardian.”
“You’re—out of your mind…”
The priest was bewildered. The logic escaped him entirely.
What kind of person assigns a guardian to watch over a superhuman?
But Ghislain wasn’t joking.
Julien, Deneb, Kyle—even with their new awakenings, they hadn’t reached the heights he required.
To stand against the Demonic Realm and prevent the world’s end, they needed to reach far greater levels of power. Ghislain couldn’t afford to relax his oversight.
To his eyes, they were still like toddlers playing dangerously close to a deep river.
Kyle, having overheard the exchange, let out a weak laugh as he slumped to the earth.
“Dammit… I’m a superhuman now, you know.”
With that final protest, he fell face-first into the dirt.
He had been certain his life was over—but then Ghislain had arrived.
That presence alone brought him a profound sense of security. Ghislain was the type of person who provided absolute certainty just by standing there.
If the man wanted to call himself a guardian, Kyle wasn’t about to argue.
‘Even so… since I’m a superhuman now, that makes me stronger than Julien, right?’
Kyle closed his eyes, a smug smirk forming on his lips. He felt as though he had finally pulled ahead in their long-standing competition.
‘Maybe I’ll aim for the squad leader position next…’
A bold thought drifted through his fading consciousness.
Wrapped in that pleasant ambition, Kyle drifted into a deep sleep. His physical form was simply too spent to remain awake.
Ghislain looked over his shoulder, a faint smile touching his lips.
“You did well. Sleep now.”
Hearing those words, Kyle let go of his remaining tension and blacked out.
From this point forward, Ghislain would take care of the rest.
And that was more than enough.
The priest ground his teeth. He was infuriated by how casual and dismissive they were being while he stood right there.
Regardless, his foe seemed dangerous. He needed to create some distance and evaluate the man’s true capabilities.
Normal strength couldn’t have resisted his grip. The priest unleashed his power without restraint, aiming a concentrated blast directly at Ghislain’s face.
FWA-BOOM!
Ghislain shifted his head slightly, the attack grazing past.
In that split second of distraction, the priest wrenched himself free.
The two now stood at a distance, squaring off.
Ghislain ignored the blade at his waist and instead summoned a wooden staff from his pocket dimension.
Gramdir was a peerless weapon, but it was a tool meant for slaying true nightmares like Rahmod. For a lesser opponent like this priest, a heavy staff felt like a much more satisfying way to deliver a beating.
Having retreated, the priest didn’t hesitate—he threw another wave of destructive energy.
KWAHHHHH!
A torrent of dark force tore the soil asunder.
The surge of power erupted from his palms, rolling forward like a dark tsunami.
Stone turned to dust. The earth was uprooted. The ground split apart as if struck by a tectonic shift.
Yet, Ghislain danced through the carnage with impossible fluidity.
“Is that all? No wonder you prefer picking on the ‘weak.'”
With those words, Ghislain charged.
The priest hissed and swept his arms through the air.
FWOOOOSH!
A shroud of dark energy swirled into existence, creating a massive, opaque barrier of shadow.
Ghislain’s eyes sharpened. He was analyzing the flow of the mana within the curtain. Once he identified the structural weakness, he brought his staff down with full force.
Gripping it with both hands, he split the air. The sound of the impact was like a mountain collapsing.
KWA-BOOOOOM!
The staff sliced through the shadow veil, tearing it into ribbons and exposing the priest behind it.
“Th-That can’t be possible…”
The priest was rattled. He had channeled a massive amount of energy into that shield, only for it to be neutralized so casually.
Furthermore, it didn’t even look like his opponent had exerted himself.
He tried to gather his power once more—but Ghislain vanished.
“…!”
The priest spun around on pure instinct—
WHAM!
The staff whistled through the air and connected squarely with his jaw.
KWAANG!
“Gkk!”
Several teeth were ejected from his mouth as his body was sent into a violent spin, tumbling across the dirt.
“Urgh… you bastard…!”
He spat out a mouthful of blood and forced his shaking body upright.
Ghislain clicked his tongue, whispering to himself,
“I guess I really am running low.”
He hadn’t been able to put his full weight behind that strike—his own body was starting to protest the strain.
He had a bit of Willpower remaining, but even that resource wouldn’t sustain him through a prolonged fight.
The priest reached out, conjuring another storm of darkness.
Ghislain stepped into the gale, swinging his staff with practiced precision.
BOOM! BAM! BWOOOM!
With every rotation of the staff, the dark tempest was shattered into harmless fragments.
The priest retreated, his eyes wide with fear.
“Wh-What is this?! How is he doing that?!”
The man wasn’t overpowering the energy with brute strength.
Instead, he was dismantling the spells using the bare minimum amount of force required.
It was identical to the refined technique that unconscious boy had displayed… no, this was even more sophisticated.
And while the priest stood there in a trance—
Ghislain was suddenly occupying the space right in front of him.
Whoooosh!
Seeing the staff descending, the priest jerked his body to the side in a desperate dodge. The weapon buried itself in the ground where he had just been standing.
KWAANG!
“Huh?!”
The resulting shockwave sent the priest’s feet flying out from under him.
Before he could steady himself—
THWACK!
“Guhhhk!”
The staff slammed into his ribs.
Even as he was knocked backward, the priest—clinging to his superhuman pride—tried to fire off one more desperate burst of energy.
But such a frantic, uncoordinated attack never had a chance of hitting Ghislain.
Slipping past the strike, Ghislain drove the end of his staff deep into the priest’s stomach.
Puh-eok!
The priest doubled over in agony and went sailing through the air, rolling repeatedly across the battlefield.
“Keuhk…!”
Coughing up crimson, the priest struggled to stand, his complexion turning ghostly white.
‘No… I can’t win against this monster.’
Purely based on the pressure of his aura, the man seemed like an opponent he could handle. The priest could see clearly that this newcomer was just as exhausted as he was.
But in the heat of combat, he couldn’t even graze the man’s sleeve. Their levels of martial skill were worlds apart.
Even setting aside his strange powers, his combat technique was so perfect it was impenetrable.
‘What is he? Who is this person?’
The man looked like a wreck, his face pale as a corpse. He had obviously just come from a horrific battle… so how was he still capable of such movement?
‘Wait… if he just came from a fight, then…’
A cold realization washed over the priest.
He held out a trembling hand toward the advancing Ghislain and yelled.
“W-Wait!”
“What? I’m not in the business of accepting surrenders.”
“Who… just who are you?”
“Astion.”
“T-The Mad Mercenary Mage?!”
The priest’s throat went dry.
He was well aware of the Julien Mercenary Corps. They were the primary target to be purged once this mission concluded.
That group had been a thorn in their side for far too long.
And now, those same meddlers were ruining everything here as well!
The priest asked with a wavering voice,
“Who were you fighting just now…?”
The man was covered in the grime of a fierce battle—and he had arrived from the direction of the Vallscrum royal fortress.
Two Prophets had been stationed there. Fearing the worst, the priest waited for the answer.
Ghislain offered a cold, sharp grin.
“Rahmod.”
“……”
“And that Tagmah piece of trash, too.”
“W-What happened to them…?”
“They’re dead. Ended. They put up a hell of a fight, though.”
“……”
“They didn’t stand a chance once the Saintess’s divine power hit them. You felt it too, didn’t you?”
“L-Lies…”
The priest’s entire frame began to shake.
He fought against the truth with every fiber of his being.
But he couldn’t ignore the logic. If those two were still alive, there was no way someone like Astion could be standing here right now.
There was one more piece of evidence he couldn’t ignore.
‘Don’t tell me that holy light…’
The divine energy that had briefly washed over the region…
It had been fleeting, but the raw power was unmistakable. And it had radiated from the very center of Vallscrum.
If the two Prophets had been caught at the epicenter of that holy explosion… it was entirely plausible they had been erased.
Everything finally clicked for the priest.
The Prophets were gone. And this man—using nothing but a stick—had come to finish the job.
His face drained of all life, the priest turned on his heel.
He had to flee. If the Prophets were dead, the high priests and mages were likely already slaughtered.
But before he could flee a single step, Ghislain cut him off and swung.
WHAM!
“Kehek!”
With the sickening crunch of breaking bones, the priest was sent flying like a discarded doll.
“Running away? Now? If you were planning to bolt, you shouldn’t have been terrorizing someone weaker than you in the first place.”
Ghislain blurred across the distance, closing in on the priest.
The priest tried to scramble up, but the staff caught him squarely in the knee.
CRACK!
“Kuaaaagh!”
The joint shattered and twisted. As he collapsed, Ghislain brought the weapon down on the back of his hand.
BOOM!
“Uuurrgh!”
The hand was pulverized into a mess of bone and flesh. Ghislain showed no mercy, hammering the staff into the priest’s back next.
KWAANG!
His body was slammed into the dirt, kicking up a cloud of debris. The sheer agony robbed him of the ability to think.
‘I-I have to get away…’
The priest’s will to fight had evaporated. He was consumed by a primal terror, his only thought being escape.
He didn’t even have the mental clarity to attempt the self-destruction common among his order.
Ghislain loomed over the broken man, raising his staff high.
“Kyle almost died because of you. It’s time to pay the bill for picking on the weak.”
“W-Wait…”
BOOM!
“Gahhhh!”
Ghislain struck again without hesitation.
The blow was so forceful that the ground beneath the priest spider-webbed in every direction.
But Ghislain wasn’t finished.
“This is for Julien.”
BOOM!
“This is for Deneb.”
BOOM!
“This is for Dark, who was lost fighting on this field.”
BOOM!
“This is for Osvald… Lionel… Ereneth… Leo… Andrew… uh… who else…? Ah, right—Belinda… Gillian… Arel… Vanessa… Alfoy… Claude… Kaor… Jerome… Parniel… Elena… Piote… Wendy… Lumina… Lowell… Ascon… Galbaric… Rosalyn… Gordon… Lukas… Porisco… Kong-i… Amelia… Bastet… Cain… Kkokko…”
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Ghislain continued rattling off a list of every name he could recall, punctuating each one with a heavy strike.
The priest, of course, had no idea who these people were. He couldn’t comprehend why he was being beaten to death in the names of strangers.
He was fairly certain some of the names belonged to household pets.
“Keuhk! Guhhhk! Krrk!”
The priest’s screams echoed as the assault continued. His already fading energy leaked away with every bone-shattering hit.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
As the minutes passed, his body was flattened into the earth. His voice eventually failed him.
Only the sound of ragged, shallow breathing remained.
The strikes were powerful enough to fracture the bedrock. No matter how resilient a superhuman’s body might be, no one could survive hundreds of impacts of that magnitude.
Finally, Ghislain lowered his weapon and wiped the perspiration from his brow.
“Phew… this guy’s mental strength was worse than I thought. Couldn’t even handle a little basic discipline.”
He had been braced for the priest to blow himself up like the others.
But this one had been so thoroughly broken that he hadn’t even tried to resist.
Under normal circumstances, it wouldn’t have been this easy to dismantle him.
But the combination of the divine shockwave and Kyle’s final gambit had left him vulnerable.
That was why Ghislain, despite his own exhaustion, was able to dominate through pure skill.
‘People who only think of running… are never hard to catch.’
Strength is irrelevant if the will to use it has been extinguished.
Ghislain looked back.
Kyle was still lying there, unconscious and covered in his own blood.
He had been the weaker combatant. Yet, his spirit never wavered.
He refused to yield until the very end, fighting until his body literally gave out.
One man had the power but chose to flee.
The other fell, but never surrendered.
The true meaning of strength was written clearly across this battlefield.
A grin of genuine pride spread across Ghislain’s face.
‘He’s developed well. Better than I anticipated.’
To be honest, Ghislain had expected Kyle would need much more time to break through to the superhuman realm.
But in the crucible of this fight, after exhausting every resource, Kyle had finally leaped over the wall.
Ghislain knew—thanks to Dark—exactly what Kyle had been thinking during the struggle.
And it made him truly happy.
As he always suspected—the ones destined to save the world were simply forged from different metal.
Ghislain turned his attention back to the priest and lifted his staff one last time.
“Shall we wrap this up?”
“P-Please… have mercy…”
The priest pleaded, his voice a mere ghost of a sound.
Ghislain’s expression remained frozen and cold.
“There is no mercy for people like you.”
SPLAT!
With a final, decisive swing, Ghislain’s staff crushed the priest’s skull.
And with that, the last Salvation Order priest to set foot in Vallscrum was gone.
The remaining enemies fighting the dwarves were also largely neutralized.
“Time to go.”
Ghislain lifted the limp form of Kyle onto his shoulders and began the walk back to the fortress.
The immediate crisis was over.
They had repelled the invasion, slain the Prophets, and secured Grondal’s word regarding the Sacred Stone.
However, the work wasn’t finished.
The most important negotiation between Ghislain and Grondal was still to come.