Episode 22. The Plague God (4)
Jihillet flinched as she saw Isaac casually mention her True Name.
["Y-you... How do you know my name..."]
"What?"
["How... do you know that name?"]
'What is he talking about?'
When Isaac made a face as if he had no idea what she meant, Jihillet screamed, wriggling her massive belly.
["Don't play dumb! It's been over a century since my last believer died, yet you speak my True Name! Whose orders are you following?!"]
"I have no idea what kind of setting this is...."
Fwoosh!
As Jihillet let out a roar, her robe flapped violently. At the same time, Isaac felt the tentacles inside his body wriggling.
It wasn't out of fear or tension; the tentacles were feeling displeased.
A displeasure as if bugs were crawling across the palm of his hand.
'I just happened to know the name floating above her head?'
To be honest, Isaac didn't care. He had called her Rat-Pig far more often than Jihillet. And the reason he had visited the dungeon where she appeared so often was that, among enemies possessing Divinity, she was relatively the easiest to catch.
That was all.
["Still not revealing yourself? Then I'll tear your creation to shreds and make you come out!"]
When Isaac showed little reaction despite her roar, Jihillet took a deep breath. Then she unleashed a violent fit of bloody coughs.
Each glob of bloody phlegm turned into a sticky slime and rushed at Isaac.
They were a swarm of monsters called Blood Slimes.
Reflexively repulsed by the disgusting sight, Isaac drew out his tentacles. The tentacles instantly pierced and split apart the Blood Slimes in midair. Splorch. As two Blood Slimes burst, bodily fluids splattered onto Jihillet's fat body. The creature's tiny eyes widened.
["What is this... What god's authority are you borrowing...!"]
Only then did Jihillet seem to realize something, her body trembling violently.
["Nephilim! You're a Nephilim! A filthy race that steals heavenly blood! No, then what exactly are you, what race did your mother mix her body with!"]
"Suddenly throwing family insults? That's becoming less and less forgivable."
Isaac no longer wanted to bicker with Jihillet in this filthy environment. Just being in the same room as her felt like soaking his body in excrement.
It was only thanks to the plague resistance he had built up over the years that he remained unharmed; had it been monks, they might have already vomited blood and collapsed.
The tentacles pierced through the Blood Slimes one by one, targeting Jihillet. Jihillet squirmed and began birthing swarms of rats. Fitting of the name Mother Rat, she possessed the ability to summon countless swarms of rats.
The newly born rats charged at the tentacles even though their blood had yet to dry. Unlike the rats Isaac had faced before, these seemed special—larger and fiercer in momentum.
Crunch, chomp.
They ruthlessly sank their teeth into the tentacles.
["If you won't answer, I'll dissect you piece by piece and find out!"]
Isaac thought this might be harder than expected.
Since his opponent was who she was, Isaac used his tentacles without restraint.
However, up until now, the tentacles had only faced wild animals like boars, wolves, and bears—not real monsters.
Most beasts couldn't leave a single scratch on the tentacles, but the rats created by Mother Rat Jihillet were different. They surpassed the level of ordinary monsters and even faintly possessed the caliber of divine beasts.
Of course, every time the tentacles slammed them down with thuds, the Mother Rat's rats turned into bloody paste. Moreover, she kept devouring new rats to replenish her stamina. But if this fight dragged on, Isaac, being an ordinary human, would be at a disadvantage.
She might be lacking, but she was still a being who had been worshipped as a 'god.' It was impossible to kill her completely, and she wouldn't tire out.
Fortunately, Jihillet seemed wary of Isaac's tentacles and did not move rashly, only moving her summons to attack.
Isaac fixed his gaze on Jihillet.
["Foolish, so foolish! This is my sanctuary! Did you think you could invade another's sanctuary and defeat me! I am the Plague God who received a thousand years of worship! A mere wretch like you..."]
'That thing, going on about creations and whatnot, isn't paying any attention to me at all.'
Arrogance.
Isaac read Jihillet's emotions.
***
Jihillet thought so highly of herself as a god that she believed only a god could threaten her. This was evident in how she only prattled on about a 'being behind the scenes' even as Isaac approached right before her nose.
'I can't say there isn't a being behind the scenes, but coming here was entirely my own will.'
The Nameless Chaos was merely a tool used in the process. Whether the Nameless Chaos gave a reward or not, Isaac intended to destroy this sanctuary.
The tentacles were carrying out the main attack, but Isaac appeared frantic, dodging Jihillet's summons and disgusting phlegm—no, Blood Slimes. To be exact, he moved to make it look that way.
In the meantime, Isaac slowly gripped the Sword of Judgment and drew closer to Jihillet.
She relentlessly churned out Blood Slimes and rats, pressing the tentacles. Isaac slowly circled to Jihillet's left.
If he targeted the main body like this, there would be no need for a war of attrition.
At that moment, something rose beside Jihillet. It was a figure wearing worn and tattered robes. From the accessories and patterns on its body, it looked like a priest. But inside the robe, riddled with holes, pale white bones were exposed.
It was a skeleton that seemed to have rotted here for at least a hundred years.
Isaac tilted his head.
"Undead?"
But the skeleton priest only made clattering sounds instead of answering. Isaac realized that Jihillet had been preserved without being buried under the ruins thanks to this skeleton. The moment he saw the undead, Isaac sensed a mastermind behind the scenes.
"Could the Church of the Undead be behind this?"
Undeath was the authority of the Church of the Undead. No other faith came to mind. But he couldn't understand why a priest of the Church of the Undead would be serving another god.
But instead of answering, the skeleton priest raised a heavily rusted sword. Isaac realized that this skeleton was merely a watchman placed here to guard the place, as well as a priest.
'No trace of intelligence can be felt. It's merely a device placed here to wait upon Jihillet, to support her, and enable her to exist as a god.'
But since he had to face Jihillet with one hand, Isaac had to use the sword with only his remaining hand.
Naturally, his strength was insufficient. The skeleton priest twisted its joints abnormally and swung its sword at Isaac.
But Isaac still had the blessings of 'Weakness Tracking' and 'Monstrous Strength' active.
And at any rate, though he wasn't a paladin, he had learned paladin order swordsmanship.
Clang.
The moment the swords clashed, Isaac deflected the skeleton priest's sword with monstrous strength that made it impossible to believe he had swung with one hand. Fragments of the shattered blade pierced through the skeleton priest's face. However, true to its undead nature, it tried to attack Isaac without care.
Isaac didn't stop there and continued his slashing motion.
A slashing motion he had repeated countless times.
At that moment, something else settled into Isaac's body.
A single flow entered his mind. It was a surging wave of tentacles that burst forth explosively.
In a single breath, Isaac imagined the tentacles deflecting the skeleton's sword, digging in to shatter its body, splitting Jihillet's fat belly from bottom to top, then cutting diagonally to inflict a cross-shaped wound.
He had merely imagined it.
Fwaaash!
But in the next moment, it had become reality.
["Graaaagh!"]
Jihillet let out a tearing scream.
From the beginning, Isaac hadn't cared about the skeleton priest in the slightest. As he cut the skeleton, he simultaneously tore through Jihillet's torso from bottom to top.
Jihillet, now sporting a wound as large as Isaac's height, gagged and vomited bodily fluids.
Isaac absentmindedly realized he had used an advanced swordsmanship technique.
He had simply moved so fast over a short distance that he couldn't even perceive it himself, cutting through everything in between, yet it was effective to an incomprehensible degree.
Above all, the pain and injuries were far less than when he used the Avalanche advanced swordsmanship. It wasn't that there was no pain. But his stamina recovery speed was much faster than that.
Instead, Isaac felt a strange sense of hunger.
'Is this... consuming the meat in my flesh storage instead of stamina?'
It seemed so. The wolves he had eaten a few days ago had all been digested in an instant. There hadn't been much left, but the amount digested was enormous.
As if it had taken 'satiety' as the price instead of stamina.
No, more accurately, it was more correct to say that while he did sustain injuries, he recovered so quickly that he couldn't even recognize them.
'I don't know why there wasn't this effect when using Avalanche swordsmanship... Perhaps it's related to the form of the swordsmanship.'
Isaac looked back. Following the trajectory he had moved, eight spiral traces had inflicted gruesome wounds on the ground and Jihillet.
The massive wound, as if torn apart by eight tentacles, was fatal even to Jihillet, who possessed Divinity.
[The conditions for advancing Low-rank Paladin Swordsmanship have been fulfilled.]
[Advanced Paladin Swordsmanship Proficiency (Lv 1)]
[Please name the combined advanced swordsmanship.]
Messages rose one after another, but Isaac had no time to check them all.
["Gyaaaaaack!"]
Jihillet roared and twisted her body. Isaac's tentacles had exploited an opening and pierced her belly. At the same time, something came pouring out from the wound Isaac had inflicted. They instantly swarmed the skeleton's skull and crushed it.
Crunch.
With a sound like an acorn cracking, the skeleton crumbled.
Squeak, skree, skriiiiiik!
What had burst out of Jihillet's belly was none other than infant rats. From those that hadn't even fully formed to those that looked like they had just been conceived.
Isaac grimaced at the filthy and repulsive sight.
["Why! Why! How can you!"]
Jihillet cried out with a blood-boiling shout. She seemed to be trying to heal her wounds, but it didn't look easy. Because of the 'power to burn the unclean' dwelling in the Sword of Judgment, they wouldn't heal.
That wasn't all. After the skeleton priest was shattered, Jihillet seemed to be rapidly finding it difficult to maintain her form. Her flesh, which had regenerated from even severe wounds instantly, now crumbled more the more she tried to restore it, like building a sandcastle. It seemed the skeleton priest had been an important catalyst in maintaining her form.
'She was a temporary, yet sole believer and sole priest. Is it because that disappeared?'
["You too... must be a god like me! I can clearly feel Divinity from you! Even belonging to the same dark and chaotic domain as me... So why!"]
Well, it was the Nameless Chaos, so of course.
Isaac found it amusing that he had finally found something he agreed with Jihillet on. Come to think of it, he didn't know why the Nameless Chaos despised Jihillet. But the Nameless Chaos seemed no longer interested and didn't even send a message.
["Spare me! Do you not know what it means for a being with Divinity to die like this! In that nameless realm, forever..."]
At that moment, Jihillet mumbled something with a gurgling sound and gasped. She seemed to have realized something from her own words.
["You! You! Could it be that blood which must not be mixed into this world has flowed in!"]
"That's not something I'd like to hear from a filthy Rat-Pig..."
Isaac muttered distastefully, but Jihillet was already no longer listening.
["Die!"]
As Jihillet shrieked in a final desperate struggle, rats began to swarm and be born from the afterbirth she spewed out.
The sight of rats being born, boiling and tearing through membranes, was grotesque, but the rats born without proper forms either died immediately or crawled about limply on the floor.
It wasn't an attack to survive.
It was simply the sight of a mouse driven by fear, pouncing before a cat.
Now Jihillet had fallen to the level of a mere beast even in that dignity.
["Beasts of plague, those who suffer and writhe in pain! Kill him!"]
Skitter skitter.
Isaac heard chaotic crawling sounds along the surrounding walls. The rat swarms scattered throughout the monastery and the entire mountain were beginning to gather.
Isaac realized Jihillet had called all the rats of the mountain. She intended not to attack Isaac but to crush him to death entirely.
No matter how capable Isaac was, it would be difficult to face all those rats. But he didn't tense up even as he heard the eerie scratching sounds beyond the walls.
Because he already heard other voices.
[Rats, devour, absorb.]
[Nutrients, devour.]
[Head, torso, tail, all.]
Soon, Jihillet seemed to notice something strange and closed her mouth.
Thud, splat.
Soon, something began pouring out of the walls as if bouncing off them. It was the rat swarm Jihillet had been waiting for.
But they hadn't come to save Jihillet; they had come to beg for salvation, to request protection.
Behind the rat swarms, the spawn of Chaos swarmed in pursuit.
Thanks to having already absorbed and devoured countless rat swarms, they were plump with flesh.
Amidst Jihillet's shock, Isaac loosely wriggled his tentacles.
"The hygiene score is zero, but it's been a while since we had a buffet."
***
Crunch, crunch, chomp, gnaw.
Isaac watched as the tentacles feasted on the Mother Rat over a long time. He hadn't been able to properly devour the giant bear, but he let them eat the Mother Rat to their hearts' content since there was no one to mind. The other spawn of Chaos enjoyed the meal together.
It wasn't a particularly appetizing sight, so Isaac looked around elsewhere.
This temple was certainly an old place. A place many would have visited just a few centuries ago. Perhaps Jihillet had been a god worshipped by many people. Then one day, the faith collapsed, and the Codex of Light came in.
'Since a monastery was plopped right on top of that temple, it's only natural the grudge runs deep.'
But now it was just prey for nameless tentacles.
Wild animals had tried to harm a person, so it was a natural result to subjugate them.
Isaac examined the altar where Jihillet had sat. On the long table that seemed to be used for offerings, a relief depicted the Mother Rat giving birth to countless rats.
Isaac slowly ran his hand over the carving.
At that moment, a message came to him.
[You can purify the contaminated sanctuary.]
[Will you offer this sanctuary to the 'Nameless Chaos'?]