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Chapter 233 ~ The Abyss of Magic

Emerging from the whirling darkness, the archmage of the empire found himself… outside. 

Nature. Bountiful nature of trees and grass and water surrounded him as the warm light of the sun shone upon his old, wrinkled skin, like a gentle, warm embrace he never knew. 

Wherever this was, this was not what he had expected to appear in. And certainly, he did not expect to see his former student or two little ones who might have been younger versions of herself laying on the grass and holding books over their focused faces. 

“...Arche?”

Fluder asked, his eyes full of surprised recognition, and his bright, promising student before the fall of house Furt smiled towards him. 

“Yes, teacher. It has been a while.” 

Arche replied. 

“Welcome to your new home.”

Having lived through battles, wars, and more decades than the average human, the old caster regained himself as he stroked the long white beard that hung down his chin to the tip of his belt, like a soothing gesture to calm himself. 

“I was told I might look into the abyss if I came here… H-Have you…?”

Arche shook her head, quickly ending the thought. 

“No, teacher. But I have come closer. The Gods of this place…”

She looked around and to the sky. 

“Teacher, where you are now, would you believe that we are underground?”

“What? But… the sky?”

“It is not real. Fly up and touch it. I have spoken with some of the beings who lived within this place. Even they do not fully understand how it happened, but they told me that 41 Gods once created this place. An act of true creation. This was their home, and now, four still lived with them. The Supreme Beings. Gods.”

Arche bowed her head when she uttered the reverential title. 

“They look after this paradise now, with the children of their friends. And I am… I was given a chance to serve them. I still don’t know why me… It was a chance I didn’t really deserve. However, He chose me, saved me, my sisters, and now here I am.”

Fluder did his best to absorb all that she said in silence, then finally asked. 

“What was I called for then?”

“I suggested you, teacher. I traded everything for the lives of my sisters. Perhaps, you may consider it absurd, but it was worth it to me, and my loyalty is rewarded. You… You have another purpose.”

A brief silence fell as Fluder waited on pins and needles at Archer’s next words. 

“Begin by acting as a teacher to my sisters, until one of the Supreme Beings comes for you. When they do, offer them everything.”

Arche said empathetically and went over to him, taking his old, wrinkling free hand in both of her young ones. 

“You called me your favorite and most gifted student. Please trust me now that I am telling you the truth and only the truth. The one who brought you here…”

She turned towards the withdrawing back of Narberal Gamma.”

“Is only a maid. A battlemaid, but a maid.”

An invisible impact seemed to hit Fluder right in his deepest of heart as he furrowed his brow. 

Had ne not seen the mythical eight tier from the woman and passed through the whirling hole within reality himself, it would’ve been impossible for him to believe the words of his former student. 

But now… after everything that happened, there was nothing else that would prove to him to be anything but the truth.

“What… am I to teach them?”

He finally asked. And to his surprise, he saw Arche’s eyes fixed on him with the intensity he only ever saw in his own eyes in a stray mirror when he spoke of the arcane.

“Teacher, their destiny is to serve the Gods who saved them from a fate too terrible to even begin to imagine. They may ask anything of them, so there is only one thing to teach them…”

“...Arche?”

“Everything, teacher. Everything.”

--------------------------------X--------------------------------

“I see. Good work. And thank you, CZ.”

[“...Mm. Is there anything else you need, master?”]

“No, there’s nothing else. Feel free to rest or play with your sisters.”

[“...Understood. I will be on standby.”]

Yuuji ended his telepathic communication with CZ and leaned back to the armed, luxurious chair at the head of the room. 

He was adorned in the white-gold armor of the leader of Providence as he posed as “Alexander”. To his sides, “Momon” and “Lilith” sat to his right and left respectively. 

While Lupu stood near the shivering and shaking blonde-haired woman in the corner of the room. 

The wrecked woman, Hilma, was hugging her belly with her lithe, malnourished arms as she buried her head in between her knees, trying to make herself as small as possible to hopefully be forgotten by those within the room of the “Old Estate”. 

But she could feel the glance the man in pure white armor gave her. 

“They’ll be here! I promise they’ll be here! I swear! D-Didn’t I bring Coco Doll here?! Please believe me! I told them it’s the safest place to be! And I’ve gotten notice that they’re coming!”

Sure enough, as she had said, she had brought Coco Doll, one of the heads of the Eight Fingers, to them as she was tasked. The man was on the other side of the room, hanging down from the ceiling by thorny vines around his throat. 

Jet-black briar roses bloomed within his mouth as more vines grew out of his every orifices, existing and new, and wrapped around his body, sucking every drop of blood as their nourishment, and leaving the floors and carpet clean off any filth. 

“...”

With her words, Yuuji extricated her from his glance, and only then did she finally shake a bit less. 

As she had said, the many undercover spies and Hanzos he had placed within the Re-Estize had reported about the Eight Finger leaderships’ arrival. They arrived early in the morning, and they’ve been heading straight to this very estate ever since. 

Just then, Lupu began to sniff the air a few times. 

“They’re here. Lots of them. And they’re angry. Bloody angry.”

Hilma shot a glance from her position at the impossibly beautiful red-haired woman she knew as Lupu. 

‘Superior senses…? Is it a talent…? Or is she not human at all? Only wearing the skin of one?’

Her idle thought was quickly replaced by the lancing pain in her guts, and her terror renewed once more.

‘It doesn’t matter… As long as I do what I’m told… I didn't lie… I’ll be fine… Just fine… Just tell the truth… Do anything they say… Be faithful and hope I don’t get punished…’

Her beautiful face, despite being healed, was quite gaunt from the frequent vomiting after meals. No food, no matter how appetizing, found it hard to stay within her guts before being forcefully pushed out after everything she had experienced. She was already losing the weight she didn’t have much of in the beginning. 

Yuuji, Aika, and Ainz similarly felt the numerous presences entering the estate, along with the sounds of footsteps drawing closer.

“Very well. You’ve proven your worth.”

Yuuji waved a hand, and a [Gate] opened  in front of her.

“Go and tell Demiurge you are to be rewarded.”

Yuuji did not see Hilma’s eyes hidden behind the portal that shone like the sun. 

“Thank you, master! Thank you very much!”

Hilma said and scurried on swift little steps on all fours from her keeled over position, using even her hands to boost her quicker into the portal, desperate for the sensation of bliss that became her reward for destroying her comrades.

Soon after, the doors slammed open. The first to enter was a monster of a man. His muscles were larger than Gazef Stronoff, with animal tattoos all over his body that even a novice caster would recognize to be of magical purposes, and a bald head. 

Behind him were the ones Yuuji recognized to be members of the security departments, and behind them were the rest of the department leaders and a few of their surviving subordinates. 

As the strongest and the one all of them relied upon the most in this times of danger, Zero was the one to lead the group of executives. 

A look of surprise, and perhaps a bit of interest and sadism, appeared on Zero’s expression when he saw these… adventurers daring to come to this place. 

But all of that immediately disappeared when he saw Coco Doll’s lifeless corpse hanging down from the ceiling, wrapped in vines and jet-black roses. 

“...Who are you lot?”

Zero said through clenched teeth as he crumpled his hands into fists. 

The other members of the security department tensed and readied themselves as well, placing a hand on their weapons, as their eyes locked onto the four figures inside the room before them. 

“Providence.”

The white gold paladin said, and all their eyes widened in recognition of the name. 

Sounds of swishing steel and clanging metals resounded as the security department drew their weapon, while the non-combatants moved to cower behind them. 

Zero held his confidence, his mouth turning into a wide, feral grin. 

“Huh? So you’re working with those whores too, huh? Well, you should’ve had them here too. But well, you can regret it in the afterlife. It’s over now. There’s only four of you, and a lot of us.”

Yuuji stayed still on his chair, relaxed, treating his threat as insignificant, and veins began to show on his bald head. 

“There’s no need for them. They’ve done their part. And any one of us would be more than enough.”

Rumbling anger met Yuuji as more thugs filtered into the room.

"You really think you can win?" 

Zero felt at least somewhat dumbfounded. 

Thug or not, he was intelligent enough to run the Eight Fingers organization that spanned from the far south of Re-Estize to Arwintar itself, and the confidence of the white-gold armored man and the rest of his companions did not make anysense. 

Just then, they heard a laugh that broke the silence from the dark-robed wizard sitting to the knight’s right, and all eyes turned towards him. 

“Ah, excuse me. I was simply reminiscing about a funny memory triggered by your words.”

The hooded magic caster continued. 

“Someone else asked me something similar once, not that long ago. They had us outnumbered, and they too, were wrong. They’re now all wishing they were dead. I’ll make you the same offer I made them.”

Momon held out an open hand towards Zero. 

“Go to your knees, offer your lives to me, and I will make your deaths quick and painless. Or resist, and you will beg for death before sunset."

Zero frowned. 

"How about I make you a different offer. Drop your swords, surrender, and we'll kill your women when we're done with them."

Yuuji and Momon heard the offer but… they weren’t sure they heard it properly. 

They looked at each other for a moment, before looking back at Zero.

“What… Did you just say? Can you repeat that?”

“I said. Drop your swords, surrender, and we’ll kill your women when we’re done with them.”

Zero repeated himself and began activating his shamanic tattoos. 

Depictions of a lion, a panther, a buffalo, a rhinoceros, and a falcon tattooed throughout his body began to alight in various light as Yuuji and Momon sat frozen, processing what he had truly said. 

Then, they lost all reason. 

Zero lost sight of the two men who sat at the far end of the long table. But before his facial expression could even register confusion, he was falling over and did not know why. 

'What happened…?' 

He wondered when he landed hard on his side and rolled onto his back. Out of the corner of one eye, he saw the white gold paladin sever the head of the undead king, Davarnoch, whose body began to dissolve and purify before he knew he was killed. 

Edstrom had enough time to raise her blades, but they were shattered before the holy blade that just purified the undead king suddenly fell onto her and bisected her in half before the first screams of horror could rise up. 

His lungs were just intaking breath to scream when Zero saw the hooded magic caster flash past him and grab Succulent and Peshurian’s heads and slam them into the floor, crushing them like rotten tomatoes. 

The instant felt like an eternity as he watched his surroundings unfolded into a whirlwind of death. Then, the pain hit him when he caught sight of the reason for his fall. Both of his legs had spun away from his body after being severed, and he toppled over onto the stone floor.

The smell of iron, fear, and fluids filled the room even more so than the dwindling screams. The rest of the executives and their subordinates could not even raise their voice to shout as they were frozen in sheer terror over what had happened in that span of an instant. 

Malmvist attempted a thrust, his red hair bounced and his mouth open to let out not a battle cry, but a childish cry of fear. The fear of one who knew it was futile.

He was right. The beautiful, gleaming holy greatsword of the holy warrior slashed through him at the waist and sent his upper body spinning off to one side, leaving his lungs intact to let him scream as he laid on the ground, waiting for inevitable death.

‘They’re dead… the rest aren’t even worth bringing.’

Zero understood the fact. Everyone within this room would be dead, sooner or later. So, rather than waiting for his meat shields to all die, he needed to go now. 

He began to try and pull himself over his severed legs. 

‘Just get to my legs. If I can push them against my body, I can mend myself and run…’

The smell of blood, burnt flesh, and electrocuted skin was all he could smell. The sound of his hands slapping into the bloodsoaked marbled floor was all he could hear clearly. The slaughter was carrying on out of view as one by one, screams began to dwindle and heavy plops became fewer. 

It felt so far away… 

Malmvist's screams were fading too, becoming groans that were becoming lesser themselves with every passing second.

Zero was counting the inches, 'So close… so close…'

His breathing became labored, the marbled floor didn't hurt the hardened body, but the blood and the bodies that now lay scattered about were obstacles in their own right. 

More than once he had to stop, grab a corpse, and use his strength for the low task of casting the lump of meat away to spare himself the time to climb over it. 

'Fuck! Go, all of you! Become a shield for me! Give up your lives so I can get my legs and run!'

He silently gave the command that not a single one of them would have obeyed if there were a chance of escape. Though he knew, as a warrior and a survivor, that they weren’t going anywhere but to the ground.

Then he reached it, and a broad, joyful smile that had not touched his face since childhood found its place when his hand clasped his left leg at last. His bloody fingers closed over the blue fabric at the calf, and he rolled himself onto his back and tried to sit up.

But before he could, he felt a violent kick to his back that sent him tumbling end over end across the stone floor, bashing his head and arms and the stumps of legs across the surface. He lost his grip on the leg, which tumbled away and fell with a wet plop into a puddle of red.

"You threatened to hurt my beloved… And you threatened Lupu… " 

Yuuji’s wrath was beyond measure, the sea of blood he had shed was not yet enough to slake his wrath.

Then, skeletal hands emerged from within the ground and clutched onto his bloodied body, and Zero’s scream of pain was renewed as the aura of death corroded his body, leaving parts touched by the skeletal hands blackened in a state of necrosis. 

“I will make sure you wish for death before sunset… As promised.”

Momonga said as deathly aura surrounded him. 

Meanwhile, Lilith watched silently from her chair with a relaxed smile, unbothered by the carnage around her. Like a lily in the midst of a sea of blood. 

She had frozen ever single entrance of the Estate with “Niflheim”, making it impossible for any one of the Eight Fingers to leave, and tasked the hidden Hanzos handle the few that didn’t enter. 

Lupusregina’s heart was aglow as she watched her master, her beautiful beloved master, walk through the sea of blood in all his glory, smashing limbs and bodies into paste as he stepped forward. 

But still, despite the warmth in her heart that she was eager to boast and share with her sisters, she couldn’t help but pout. n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

"Yuuji-sama, Momonga-sama, can I play with him, just a little, before we take his head?" 

She asked with a demure look down into the bloody floor. She shuffled her feet and kicked aside some stray intestines as she made her way to her masters. 

She didn’t have the chance to play much since her masters had annihilated the lot so quickly. So she wanted to have a bit of fun as well. 

Yuuji nodded at her and Momon stepped back. 

“He is yours, Lupu. Do what you want. But by sunset, take his head. We still need to present it, and the rest of the leader's corpses, to the King.”

“Yes~! Thank you very much~”

Lupu said and pranced over to the groaning lump of ruined muscle.

"You really screwed up, huh? Oh well. More fun for me, this one's on you!" 

She giggled, and took on her werewolf form under Zero's gurgled protests.

He was choking on his own blood and wishing for a death that was far too long in coming, and all he could do was wait while she ate him a little bit at a time. Until true to her word, there was nothing but a head with a face frozen in a final look of terror… right as the sun began to set over the horizon, and shine its orange red light on the carnage of cooling bodies that were strewn about the estate.