Boom!!
As dust and smoke scattered in all directions, Ileya finally turned her head slowly and saw clearly.
The thing that had ambushed her—what exactly was it?
It…was a wolf as well.
Its body wasn’t particularly large, but what set it apart from the other wolves was…half of its face and its left forepaw had already decayed into bare bone…
Countless black tentacles seemed to have replaced its veins and muscles, allowing it to move faster, more violently…and making it even harder to deal with!
“Awoo…”
The Vassal Wolf King growled, trying to wrench its tentacle free from Insmouth’s grasp.
Unfortunately, the black giant stood unmoving like a tower of iron, not budging an inch.
“What on earth is that thing?”
At this moment, Ileya was a little curious… Was this kind of special individual also a Divine Kin?
Reliel hesitated for a moment, just about to speak, but Amisa beat her to it.
“Actually, this kind of creature isn’t all that rare. It’s a type of Divine Kin too… This Vassal Wolf King probably ate the body of another Divine Kin, or got tainted by its blood, which is how it ended up like this.”
Listening to Amisa’s explanation, Ileya slowly nodded.
The next second, Insmouth gradually loosened his grip on the tentacle.
Gulp! The tentacle, like a loach being released into water, swished back to the Vassal Wolf King’s side in an instant.
Yet the Vassal Wolf King didn’t immediately launch a counterattack against Insmouth.
Its pair of seemingly rotted eyes stared intently at everyone present…
More, thicker tentacles sprouted from within its body, wrapping around the exposed skeletal forelimb.
“Doesn’t this thing realize the gap between our strength?”
Ileya slowly rose to her feet, dusted off the hem of her dress, and turned to face the twisted beast that could attack at any moment.
“Hm… This thing might be different from the Divine Kin the Young Lady knows. Corrupted beings like this usually don’t possess intelligence.”
Amisa explained.
“Normally, these creatures are completely mad.”
Oh?
Ileya touched her chin in curiosity.
“Then, after killing it, could we use its blood…or those tentacles to make a potion…to let a human become a Transcendent?”
“No.” Reliel, standing at the Young Lady’s side, shook her head decisively, answering in a crisp, clear manner.
“It would drive you mad.”
“Roar… awooo——!” Before Ileya could even ask why, the Wolf King charged!
Its twisted tentacles swung wildly as it leapt, like two enormous, irregular wings of flesh!
Utterly crazed, evil… On the half of its wolf face already turned to bone, its gaping maw opened wide, as if about to devour Ileya’s entire head in a single bite!
Whoosh——!
But what greeted its open jaws was Insmouth’s sudden, heavy punch!
Bang… Yet just as the fist was about to smash into its upper jaw, the Wolf King’s mouth snapped shut, clamping down hard on the black-armored giant’s fist!
Creak, creak… The enormous bite force made Insmouth’s black gauntlet emit a piercing metallic crunch!
But Insmouth, unfazed, reached out with his other hand and gripped the beast’s mouth tight! It couldn’t even let go and escape now…
“Awoo, awoo, awooo…”
“Roar…”
Gurgle!
At the same time, the mass of tentacles around it spread in all directions…trying to attack everyone else!
“One last question…”
Ileya dodged aside, evading the Wolf King’s tentacle. A crimson light flashed in her eyes! A surge of Soul Intimidation crashed toward it!
Buzz…
That sensation of the soul being yanked from the body made the Wolf King freeze in place.
Even its jaws loosened unconsciously, releasing Insmouth’s gauntlet…
“What’s its weakness?”
“The heart!” Reliel, leaping back to dodge a tentacle strike, answered decisively!
The next instant, Ileya—standing to the Wolf King’s side—transformed her right hand into a sharp claw!
Squelch!
She stabbed straight into the Wolf King’s body! With her bare hand, she ripped out a still faintly beating, dark purple heart.
The heart itself was grotesque…
Countless fleshy tendrils extended from all around it, and right in the center…there was even a…mouth?
That’s right, it was a mouth. And as the heart throbbed, the mouth kept “breathing.”
It seemed…because it had been torn out of the Wolf King, the mouth’s breath was now rapid and labored, like a fish stranded on land…
“Disgusting…”
Crack! Ileya’s razor-sharp claw squeezed hard!
Plop…
The Wolf King, only just having broken free of Soul Intimidation, went limp once more…collapsing bonelessly to the ground.
Truly…an incomprehensible anatomy.
Ileya flicked off the shreds of flesh and blood on her hand. Her sharp, black nails gradually returned to normal.
Clap, clap, clap…
Just then, a round of applause came from the direction of the carriage.
“You really are incredible now, Young Lady.” It was Amisa… She jumped down from the carriage and strolled over to the Wolf King’s body.
“This corrupted Wolf King was probably on the level of a Second-Tier Vassal. It’d take at least a White Silver Rank warrior to kill it so quickly.”
Ileya recalled the ranks she’d read about in the book Mother had prepared for her in the Marquis’s Castle’s underground.
First was humanity’s pure physical ranks…that is, Knight Rank.
These were: Brass Rank, Sub-Bronze Rank, White Silver Rank, Mithril Rank, Adamantine Rank, Orichalcum Rank.
The strongest humans maxed out at Orichalcum Rank.
Even the legendary Hero King, Gilgamesh, without finding a Shen or receiving a blessing…his highest peak was just Orichalcum Rank.
And there was a saying: “If a human is killed, they die.”
No matter how strong, even at Orichalcum Rank, a human is still human—cut their throat, stab their heart, chop off their head, split them in two…
Even Orichalcum Rank knights would die instantly from such wounds.
But… Transcendents are different.
Even a First-Tier Transcendent, if their power is unique enough, could survive being beheaded.
Most crucial of all…the human limit, Orichalcum Rank, only corresponds to a Transcendent’s Sixth Tier.
The strongest human Transcendent ever recorded was Twelfth Tier, but such beings could hardly be called human anymore.
So anyone above Tenth Tier was called “Middle Rank.”
Renowned as “beneath the Supreme Being.”
But…even Twelfth Tier is separated from the true Supreme Being by a chasm of terror.
In other words.
Twelfth Tier isn’t the Transcendents’ limit.
But for humans, Sixth Tier—Orichalcum Rank—is already the ceiling.
Because of this hopeless gap, so many people risk madness or death to seek transcendence.
To seek that power that surpasses human limits.
“Well~ it’s mostly thanks to having Insmouth up front…”
Faced with Amisa’s praise, Ileya only smiled and waved her hand.
“Insmouth is your Ceramic Puppet too, Young Lady~ There’s no need to be so modest~”
The two of them joked lightly in front.
But at that moment, Holly and Reliel both fell silent.
Holly felt that…she probably couldn’t even defeat an ordinary forest wolf.
Reliel, watching Ileya’s back, felt wave after wave of powerlessness…
Back in the Mercenary Company, facing such monsters required four squads of at least five—only then could they take it down…
She herself…was only one among twenty.
But now, just as Amisa said…Insmouth was Ileya’s puppet, so it was essentially just her alone, yet she’d instantly slain such a monster.
This was the gap…between mortals and Transcendents…
A gap far greater than she’d ever imagined…