Chapter 119: The Chimes of Return

“Zak… Captain?”

Yuwen stared at his former captain, frozen in stunned disbelief.

The man who’d supposedly sacrificed himself was now standing before him—reborn as a demonized.

“Looks like your memory’s not as rusty as I thought, Yuwen. I figured you’d forgotten all about me by now,” Zak replied.

“How could I ever forget? Captain Zak, you saved my life… But why? Why fall to become one of the demonized?!”

Yuwen couldn’t wrap his head around it.

He’d come this far largely because of Zak’s influence.

Zak was his idol, plain and simple.

“Fallen? That’s how you see it?”

Zak glanced at his hands, steeped in abyssal aura. His smile twisted into something more complicated.

“Knight Captain!”

The other Holy Knights spotted Yuwen under attack and sprang into action, weapons raised as they charged at Zak.

“Fools begging for death.” Zak narrowed his eyes, his killing intent rolling off him unchecked.

“No—stop! Captain Zak!”

Yuwen sensed disaster brewing. He struggled to rise, desperate to halt Zak’s rampage.

But as he pushed up, agony lanced through his gut. The abyssal aura’s corrosion sapped his strength, sending him crashing back down.

Zak swung his curved blade—like Death itself reaping souls—carving a wide arc that rippled outward.

The dark crescent sliced through the onrushing Holy Knights. Their faces locked in rigid shock, movements frozen mid-stride.

Then their weapons clattered to the ground. Bodies arched back, throats gushing blood.

In a heartbeat, Zak had slaughtered nearly ten Holy Knights.

“Captain Zak, these are Holy Land Holy Knights—your own comrades! Why attack your brothers-in-arms?!” Yuwen bellowed.

“Comrades? What a joke.”

“What’s so funny about it? They’re fighting for sacred faith!”

“I used to think the same. For the faith the Pope preached, I offered everything to the gods. Battling beasts, I even let myself get tainted by the abyss.”

Zak traced the ruined half of his face.

Even now, the lightest touch brought back that day’s searing pain undiminished.

“But do you know how the Holy Land treated me and the rest of the squad?”

“What did the Holy Land do?”

Yuwen had to ask.

He needed to know what could turn a once-devout Holy Knight into… this.

“The others got infected with abyssal aura. The Holy Land branded them demonized. They fought to protect civilians, but got labeled heretics—executed by the Holy Land itself,” Zak recounted. “They’d lost part of themselves, couldn’t even speak. But they clung to a shred of reason, tears streaming as they begged for mercy, for a path forward. And in the end… heh.”

Yuwen went rigid.

This flew in the face of everything he’d heard. His comrades hadn’t battled the aura to their last breath, succumbing only to grievous wounds?

Executed by the Holy Land?

“As for me, I was different. Even infected, I kept my sense of self. The higher-ups took a keen interest. They wanted to see how much abyssal aura a human could take. So they… experimented on me.”

Zak bit his lip, nearly drawing blood.

“These scars? Souvenirs from their ‘tests’!”

“This…”

Yuwen fell silent, speechless.

“See? That’s the holy light you worship. The so-called sacred ground—it’s filthier than a garbage cart! Every cleric’s just a tool, pawns for the elite to chase their own agendas!”

Zak’s words echoed to every cleric present.

Many wavered, just like Yuwen.

“If Abyssal Eye hadn’t pulled me from those labs, they’d have squeezed me dry and executed me as a heretic too, once I outlived my usefulness.”

Zak spread his arms wide, his face alight with fanatic zeal.

“The abyss gave me a second life. Embracing the abyss—that’s the true path forward!!”

“So that’s why? You orchestrated all this? Using beasts to slaughter Kado City’s people, spreading abyssal aura…”

“Exactly! This is my revenge on the Holy Land. I’ll turn every cleric there into demonized like me!” Zak threw his head back in manic laughter.

“Urgh… ah…”

Yuwen’s vision blurred.

The abyssal aura’s erosion had ravaged his mind.

Whispers echoed in his ears—countless voices urging him to abandon reason, embrace the abyss, unleash his shackled instincts.

Right and wrong blurred together.

Even as he prayed for a miracle, all he saw was the catastrophe Zak had wrought.

“If the gods the Holy Land preaches about really exist, then pray to them! See if the deities you devote everything to will send down a miracle and save you from Kado City’s doom!” Zak jeered wildly.

“Gods… Lord…”

Yuwen reached out, groping toward the emptiness ahead.

No holy angels descended.

His awareness plummeted into the void.

But just before darkness claimed his sight entirely, his hazy eyes caught a strange vision.

A demonkin youth in a black cloak stood atop Kado City’s clock tower—like a sovereign on high, surveying the masses with arrogant poise.

“Th-that’s…?!”

Civilians and clerics alike recoiled in horror at the sight of the demonkin.

Everyone doubted their eyes, wondering if it was a hallucination.

An impossible scene, unfolding in Kado City.

…Who are you?!”

Zak roared at the demonkin.

For some reason, a flicker of panic stirred in his chest.

The abyssal aura radiating from the figure dwarfed even Abyssal Eye’s demonized—overwhelming, supreme.

“Heh.”

The demonkin youth raised a hand. The city’s flames silhouetted his form, etching his slender, lithe build into every onlooker’s gaze.

With a scornful chuckle, the clock tower’s hands aligned at twelve.

A resounding toll boomed out, striking every heart, sending souls into shudders.

The chimes weren’t merely marking the hour.

They rang like a proclamation to the world—

His return.

“World, call my name!”