When Wes finally came to his senses from the storm of the Veil Mist, he found himself deep within a shadowed valley.
It resembled the innermost depths of the Jingri Mountains, where the towering cliffs sliced the sky into a narrow sliver.
The moon, which once hung visibly in the heavens, now seemed distant, leaving only a slender crescent stubbornly clinging on to prove that the sky still existed.
But aside from that faint gleam, the entire night was swallowed by thick, dense black fog.
Unspeakable wraiths occupied the sky, darting wildly through the mist while emitting silent, piercing shrieks.
An oppressive spiritual pressure pressed down heavily, sending waves of numbness through Wes’s joints.
Every nerve ending burned with a stinging pain, the body’s instincts sounding the most urgent alarm.
At that moment, a familiar howl echoed from the depths of the black fog.
——「「「——Haibardura！！！」」」
The Soul-Eating Deity.
Still here.
Wes’s pupils constricted sharply, but the next second, he sensed something was off.
Beneath the hoarse howl, what appeared before him was no longer just the fog shaped from countless twisted faces pressed together.
To be precise, it was more than that.
Above the original Soul-Eating Deity’s form, the half-body of a fully human knight now stood prominently at the center, as if a throne-born ruler emerging from that chaotic abyss of despair.
The once holy silver-white armor was now mottled and tainted by black energy.
Countless black veins crawled upward from where the armor connected with the black mist, like evil vines tightly entwining the sacred crest of the scriptures.
Beneath the pure white front hair, a pair of eyes still gleamed ocean-blue, but the pupils were turbid and clouded, radiating not the brilliance of humanity, but a terrifying calamity aura born from the same source as the Soul-Eating Deity.
Wes struggled to comprehend the twisted scene before him, his throat dry as each word felt squeezed painfully out.
“Norsen?”
The half-body knight moved slightly, then erupted into a hearty laugh that made the surrounding slowly flowing mist stall in place.
「It’s—It’s me. I am Norsen Higlivell!」
The terrifying howl belonging to the Soul-Eating Deity burst out again in accompaniment, as if the declaration had its own sinister soundtrack.
The voice answering indeed had Norsen’s tone, but beneath the true sound were countless other syllables layered together—sharp, low, mournful, moaning…
It was as if thousands of the dead’s collective wails had been forcibly bound into this chaotic voice, like a blasphemous chorus.
A chill swept through Wes.
The Holy Paladin, sworn to patrol the kingdom, repel the Calamity Tide, and eliminate the Calamity forms,
should have been the sword furthest from disaster, the shield against the world’s curse—
Yet here he was, fused with their most hated nemesis.
“Hey!”
Wes drew a cold breath, confirming his throat could still speak.
“Do you know what you look like right now?”
Norsen—or rather the Calamity form that had become the true body of the Soul-Eating Deity—responded calmly and with pleasure.
「Of course. I understand my state now more clearly than ever.」
His head lifted slightly, the motion filled with the arrogance of rebirth.
「At this moment, I am stronger than ever. I finally understand—I finally comprehend the true meaning of calamity!」
The black fog churned with the words of chaos, the flight paths of the wraiths becoming even more frenzied.
Norsen spread his armor-clad arms wide, as if embracing the entire world.
“Mr. Wes, do you know why humans fear calamity? It’s because humans cannot grasp powers far beyond their comprehension. Because of fear, they resist. Because of resistance, they become weak. The weaker they are, the further they stray from salvation…
That’s right. This isn’t calamity—it’s salvation. This is not a curse upon the world, but a blessing bestowed upon humanity by the world itself.”
The true form of the Soul-Eating Deity let out a resonant low roar, countless twisted faces revealing an eerie ecstasy.
Madness.
This man was infected by calamity, completely mad.
Wes could only reach that conclusion.
Though he had never seen it before, this scene might be humanity’s version of “Calamity-Forming.”
Animals, plants, and many other things influenced by the Calamity Breath degenerate into twisted, Calamity creatures.
But a living human becoming a Calamity Form was unprecedented.
Norsen was clearly the worst exception.
Not only had he merged with the Calamity Form, but he was a Lord-class Soul-Eating Deity—the source of the Calamity Tide at Jingri Town.
A terrifying power of a Lord-class Calamity Form, yet still retaining human intellect.
—How do you even fight that? This is overpowered, right?
Wes forced himself to suppress the primal fear ignited by the Soul-Eating Deity, compelling his mind to race for any possible countermeasure.
Run?
In this valley completely shrouded by the “Calamity Darkness,” facing an enemy fused with the Soul-Eating Deity, the odds of escape were near zero.
Fight?
With what? The opponent’s spiritual pressure alone made it difficult for Wes to even stand.
At that moment, a faint, trembling chattering sound came from beside him.
Instinctively, Wes turned toward the sound and was surprised to see Morfiana curled up on the ground not far away, trembling like a leaf in the wind.
Norsen only now noticed that insignificant figure as well.
“Oh my, Lady Morfiana?”
Amid countless mixed noises, his voice carried a trace of amusement and mockery.
“The ‘Calamity Darkness’ didn’t collect your fear as well? Although you’re useless and more trouble than help, your life is tougher than your sister’s.”
“…‘Calamity Darkness’?”
Wes whispered, but his voice was fully caught by Norsen.
“Fine, I’ll tell you. The Soul-Eating Deity’s ‘Calamity Darkness’—this endless black fog incites fear, instantly killing all the timid and harvesting their souls.
From this aspect, the fact that both of you survived—at least in terms of courage—as lower-class humans, I’ll grudgingly give some praise.”
The instant death and soul harvest of the fearful—Wes finally understood how those faces on the fog came to be.
Many familiar faces could still be seen among them, clearly members of the knight squad.
Including the slender knight deputy—no one survived under Norsen’s command.
(Not quite… Given the current situation, to put it bluntly, his subordinates have probably taken another form as his aid…)
Wes was grateful he hadn’t broken down from fear.
As for Morfiana,
It wasn’t that her mental fortitude was especially outstanding.
At the moment the “Calamity Darkness” spread its black fog, she too nearly succumbed to the boundless terror and had her soul pulled away by the calamity.
Perhaps because she endured to the very limit, her trembling hand finally lost its grip, and her knuckles slowly loosened.
A small plastic vial of medicine slipped from her palm and rolled to the ground.
(Ah, the blue oral solution I gave her earlier?)
Wes recognized the item immediately.
A mental resistance enhancer useless to himself and ineffective for the young female soldier,
yet unexpectedly, it saved the female knight’s life at the critical moment.