HOT NOVEL UPDATES

Berserk of Gluttony (LN) - Volume 4 - Chapter 14




Hint: To Play after pausing the player, use this button

Chapter 14:

The Rising Undead

I FACED DOWN the holy knight-turned-nightwalker. He was even stronger than I could have imagined. Hado instantly pounced into range. Because I still had Memil over one shoulder, I couldn’t move freely. I could tell by the gleam in Hado’s eyes that he had noticed this setback. His knuckles scraped the floor before his punch flew through the air, catching me in the stomach.

My mind throbbed gray from the impact and my grip on Memil loosened. She fell limply to the ground. I was sent careening back through the air, breaking through the ceiling of the hidden room and the walls of a dozen rooms above. By the time my consciousness started to clarify, I’d just passed through the outer wall of the facility itself. I could barely comprehend his sheer strength.

“He’s in the Domain of E,” said Greed.

“That son of a bitch,” I muttered as I fell from the sky.

“Don’t act so shocked. I told you before, didn’t I? The Domain of E is a place beyond humanity, and you’re only standing at the entrance of it.”

I’d only made it to the entrance that Greed spoke of because of Gluttony, but it seemed there were other ways to get there. The two white knights who guarded the king of Seifort were also in the Domain of E. I could imagine how they’d made it there, but I couldn’t begin to understand how a nightwalker could do the same.

“Well, if this monstrosity’s in the Domain of E, then Hado’s become a sort of natural disaster—like the Divine Dragon. Anything not in the Domain of E can’t touch him. On top of that, anything he bites turns into another nightwalker. If this thing gets out into the city…”

“Then the capital of Seifort very quickly becomes a city of the dead.”

Damn it. And Memil is still trapped inside the facility. I looked behind to find I was fast approaching another facility. I swiftly repositioned myself to use its wall as a launch pad, then sprang back toward the Vlerick research facility, but—

“What?!”

Hado had followed me at such blistering speed that I couldn’t move in time to avoid him, and his head collided with mine.

“Fate!” he snarled.

The force of the blow sent us hurtling back again—through the walls, ceiling, and floors, and right out the other side of the facility. As we crashed through smooth wall after wall, I punched Hado in the stomach over and over, clearing just enough space between us to finish with a solid kick up into his jaw.

“Shut up shouting my name already,” I said through gritted teeth.

The kick gave me some freedom to move, so I swung the black sword up and brought it down toward Hado. The blade cut into and through him, and he fell silently through the air. I landed some distance away, and as I waited for sign of movement, a breeze caressed my face.

My black skull mask was gone.

I’d had it just moments ago, but now it was gone. At first, I thought I must have lost it when I crashed through the facility. Then I saw it trapped in Hado’s jaws. He crunched the mask between his teeth and roared. As he did so, the fatal wound I’d just delivered seemed to go backward in time, repairing itself until it might as well have never happened. I dropped into a battle stance, my blade pointed toward Hado.

That bastard just ate my mask. That was my trademark! Well, according to Myne.

Just as I prepared for Hado’s next attack, a group of guards and holy knights arrived on the scene, running toward us both. They had no doubt heard the commotion. They completely ignored me, instead heading straight for Hado.

“What’s going on?” one of them shouted.

“Lord Hado Vlerick, what happened here?” asked another.


Hado sniffed the air and swiveled toward the men, his eyes glinting like a hungry dog who had just received fresh meat.

No way…

I shouted a warning. “Get away! All of you, get away from him! Now!”

“What are you talking about?” One of the guards turned to face me. “Hold on—just who are you, anyway? I’ve never seen you before!”

My pleas fell on deaf ears. The guards and holy knights were suddenly much more interested in my identity than anything else. Suddenly, I also understood why: I’d been announced as heir to the Barbatos name while wearing my skull mask, which was now gone. On top of that, the holy knights here were all low-ranking; most of them hadn’t even been at my audience with the king. They had no idea who I was.

The only way to make them understand would be to show them. I had to get them to safety before Hado could make his move.

However, Hado was closer to them, and he was fast. He grabbed hold of one of the guards and threw the man straight at me. The guard hurtled forward at a speed that would kill him if I dodged and let him hit the wall. I bounded up to save him, but that bought Hado all the time he needed to make a feast of the others.

Spraying blood and screams of horror filled the air. Hado licked his bloodstained lips as he reached down and pulled holy swords from the belts of two of the fallen holy knights. The blades glowed with a pale blue light as he gripped their hilts. I realized then that Hado had charged them with the Grand Cross tech-art, boosting his attack power immensely.

“Fate!” he roared.

I threw the guard I had just caught to safety as Hado barreled toward me. I was just in time to parry the strikes of his two holy swords with my own black blade.

“Ugh…he’s heavy,” I muttered.

“Fate, Fate, Fate!” Hado growled over and over.

Hado’s movements were sharper now, and more powerful. Had the blood of the fallen holy knights boosted his abilities? To be fair, I’d given up half my stats to heal Lady Aisha just days ago, so my stats were lower than they had been recently, but could Hado have really grown strong enough to challenge me?

I gripped the black sword tighter and pushed Hado back. As he stumbled and regained his footing, the fallen holy knights and guards slowly rose to their feet behind him. They all staggered off in different directions.

This is not good. They’ll only make more nightwalkers if I let them out of sight! But stopping them would be no simple task. I had my hands full with Hado, and I couldn’t kill any of the nightwalkers myself. If my Gluttony tasted them again, I’d be poisoned by their damaged souls. I couldn’t handle these monsters on my own.

Just as I was losing hope, a figure swooped down and sliced the lumbering nightwalkers to pieces.

“Aaron! You’re here!” I cried.

“Sorry I’m late! It took longer than expected to get the king’s official permission to investigate. It’s far worse than we thought, isn’t it?”

Aaron the Blessed Blade brought his weapon down across Hado’s back, his holy sword glowing a familiar pale blue. Blood spurted into the air, and Hado’s oppressive aura weakened slightly. I ducked as the nightwalker knight swiped at me, using my momentum to slice him open across the stomach, then dove out of the way to regroup with Aaron.

Aaron, like me, had made it into the Domain of E. His limit break had begun when we fought side by side at Hausen. We’d formed a bond then—and at the very moment when I’d entered the Domain of E in my fight with the Divine Dragon, something had also changed in Aaron. He’d heard a metallic voice in his head say, “Recalibrating stat points,” and not long afterward, his stats had rocketed to levels unlike any he’d ever dreamed of.

When I’d met Aaron after the fight with the Divine Dragon, seeing him had been a real shock. He’d always been an energetic old man, but he’d grown even more powerful than I could have imagined. Basically, he was a turbo-charged grandpa.

“This reminds me of when we fought the Genesis of Death—and the souls it had trapped in the ruins of Hausen,” said Aaron. “You couldn’t kill them either. It’s because of your Gluttony, isn’t it?”

“Observant as always. These nightwalker souls are poison to Gluttony. At best, devouring them hurts me, and at worst…”

As far as I could tell, Hado’s soul was the most rotten of them all. Devouring it a second time might actually kill me.

“I see. In that case, I guess we’ll have to tag-team him! It’s been a while since we’ve fought like that, and I’m getting excited just thinking about it. Are you ready, Fate?”

“Let’s do it.”



Share This :


COMMENTS

No Comments Yet

Post a new comment

Register or Login