Chapter 92: Goetia Part 4

Naberius let out a thunderous roar and lunged forward.

The buffalo beastkin, Torso, took the three-headed hound’s charge without much difficulty.

“As tough as you look! It’s been a while since my arms felt this numb!”

As if refusing to lose in ferocity, Torso pushed Naberius back against the wall.

Naberius, unwilling to back down, shoved against him in return.

The victor of this clash of strength was Torso.

Among the beastkin, Torso was the strongest when it came to sheer charging power.

Even if Naberius was a powerful demon, there was no way he could win in a shoving contest against Torso.

Acknowledging his loss without hesitation, Naberius kicked his shield and used the recoil to retreat.

Then, the middle head—its mouth filled with blood—suddenly gleamed ominously.

“Urk!”

Immediately, Torso coughed up blood and dropped to his knees.

Faced with an unknown force, the party members were thrown into confusion.

But instead of trying to figure out what had happened, their priority was rescuing Torso.

Clang!

“Torso! Close your eyes!”

While Amon blocked Naberius’s claws, Torso tightly shut his eyes.

Torso had a condition that made him lose control when he saw blood.

Years of treatment, rehabilitation, and medication had lessened its effects, but he hadn’t been fully cured.

***

The Mute Sniper, as always, used optical camouflage technology to filter the sight of blood for him.

Meanwhile, the light mage dragged the fallen Torso away.

As Sonia treated him, the Mute Sniper signed with concern.

[What kind of attack was that?]

“I don’t know… It suddenly felt like my insides twisted, and then I just coughed up blood.”

Hearing the tank’s explanation, the party fell into deeper confusion.

They couldn’t figure out the nature of the ability—let alone even guess at it.

The only fact they knew was that Naberius had kicked his shield.

Keeping that in mind, Amon chose to dodge rather than block Naberius’s attacks, carefully observing his movements.

Just then, the sound of snorting came from a demon they had nearly forgotten about.

“Hmph—surely you haven’t forgotten about me?”

“Sonia, duck!”

At Cassie’s warning, Sonia lowered her head.

Following Cassie’s motion, a spear flew over Sonia’s head.

The spear struck at the horse demon, Orobas, who had been aiming for Sonia.

“What an interesting technique!”

Orobas deflected the spear with silver knuckles.

Cassie manipulated the deflected spear to target him again.

After blocking a few more strikes, Orobas suddenly began to move with light, rhythmic footwork.

“I wonder if you’ve seen this before?”

With those words, Orobas’s figure disappeared.

Cassie’s eyes shifted behind her.

The next moment, Orobas reappeared right at her back.

Leaving her flying spear alone, she pulled out her melee lance just in time to block his attack.

Defending against his kicks—so powerful they mimicked a horse’s strength—she let out a low murmur.

“No way… Shukuchi?”

“Oh? The fact that you reacted must mean you’ve seen it before.”

She had seen it plenty of times.

Amon frequently used the same footwork technique.

He had once explained it as a method of accelerating multiple times midair through rapid stepping, achieving movement nearly indistinguishable from teleportation.

Since Cassie had faced him in training countless times, she barely managed to react in time.

But she wasn’t about to share that information with Orobas.

“Did you really think I’d tell you?”

“Tch. What a stingy young lady.”

Returning his words back at him, she swung her lance.

Orobas dodged, but her teammates quickly joined in.

Thanks to Amon’s training, they had grown accustomed to facing shukuchi users.

As they attacked Orobas, they all shared the same thought.

‘He’s slower than Amon.’

Not only that, but unlike Amon, his movements were wide and predictable, making it easier to anticipate where he would reappear.

A manageable speed.

That was their collective assessment of Orobas.

Orobas, seeing them react to his technique, was visibly shaken.

‘How are they keeping up with me? In Goetia, my shukuchi is ranked among the best!’

Then he spotted Amon battling Naberius, also using shukuchi.

Amon was toying with the three-headed hound, moving at incredible speeds.

Watching this, Orobas was left speechless.

‘What the hell…’

Amon’s shukuchi was unnatural.

In terms of pure speed, he would rank at least second among Goetia’s demons, yet there was no visible stepping motion when he initiated his bursts of movement.

With the slightest twitch of his ankle, he would suddenly vanish.

To make matters worse, he could change directions mid-step—something completely insane.

Speed, stealth, unpredictability.

He had all three perfected.

‘How is this even possible?’

If applied to humans, Amon’s movement was like someone moonwalking at full sprint speed while freely changing directions.

It defied all logic.

“Graaagh!”

Even Naberius seemed to realize something was wrong, screaming in frustration as he failed to counter.

It was only now that they noticed—any wound inflicted by Amon’s blade wasn’t healing.

‘Is that his ability?’

Useless against humans, but devastating against demons who relied on their regeneration.

Realizing the situation, Orobas made a decision.

“Naberius! Release it!”

“Yeah, looks like we have no choice!”

At those words, overwhelming magical energy erupted from the two demons.

Despite the sheer intensity, Amon and Sonia remained unfazed.

They had faced other demons who, when cornered, resorted to transformations.

Amon warned his teammates, who couldn’t sense divine energy.

“They powered up. Stay alert.”

The moment his warning ended, Naberius roared.

It was as if a hammer had struck their eardrums—pain shot through their heads.

The agony worsened, inducing dizziness and nausea.

Gripping her throbbing head, Cassie shouted toward Amon.

***

“What kind of ability is that!?”

“I have no idea!”

“Isn’t it in the Bible?”

“The demon records are just Solomon’s diary! It’s not the Bible, so I don’t know!”

Even Amon didn’t have all 72 demons memorized.

He knew a few notable ones, but unfortunately, Naberius was an obscure demon.

So obscure, in fact, that despite being a high-ranking species, he was less famous than Cerberus.

With so little information available, Amon had no way of knowing Naberius’s abilities.

“Just think of something, anything!”

At Cassie’s urging, Amon forced himself to think through his splitting headache.

Then, he recalled Naberius kicking the buffalo tank’s shield.

Connecting that with the current situation, a scene from a game flashed through his mind.

“Pain! He’s controlling pain!”

Amon deduced Naberius’s power.

Among demons, there were those who had the authority to control pain and suffering.

Naberius was one of them.

And there was only one way to resist such an ability.

“Kill him first.”

Gritting their teeth and enduring it.

Technically, there was a protective spell that could block this kind of power, but it took too long to prepare and left the caster completely vulnerable in the process.

Protective magic had to be activated before the curse was applied.

It was already too late.

Feeling the frustration of lacking information, Amon adjusted his grip on his sword.

Holding it in a reverse grip, he locked eyes with Cassie and charged at Naberius.

[Amon, I’ll create an opening!]

Cassie combined foresight and telepathy to guide him.

Of course, if she saw the future, Naberius—who also had foresight—would see it too.

But that was exactly what she was aiming for.

[Go for his back!]

She had a trump card in her hand, and only a fool would hesitate to play it.

While demons could read Cassie’s future, they couldn’t see Amon’s.

Naberius reacted as expected, focusing entirely on Cassie.

With all his attention on her, Amon used shukuchi to instantly move behind him.

But what happened next was completely unexpected.

Thud!

“Urgh!”

“Amon!”

Naberius suddenly spun around, grabbed Amon, and slammed him into the ground.

It wasn’t a reaction—he had started turning before Amon had even moved behind him.

As if he had known the future.

Cassie, alarmed, checked the future again.

That was when one of the threads of fate changed color.

‘?!’

She realized she had been deceived.

‘He tricked the future itself?’

Naberius’s second authority—Lies.

From the start, she had been reading a false future, a deception Naberius had woven.

Biting her lower lip, she felt a wave of self-loathing wash over her.

‘How could I make such a mistake…’

That loathing deepened, turning into near hatred.

As she was on the verge of being consumed by her past traumas, something felt off.

‘Why is this escalating so much…?’

She slapped her own cheek to snap herself out of it.

Looking around, she saw her teammates trapped in their own pasts, drowning in self-loathing.

‘No way…’

Naberius’s third authority—Despair.

Cassie finally understood the meaning behind each of his three heads.

Pain, Lies, and Despair.

She quickly relayed this information through telepathy.

This helped her teammates snap out of their spiraling self-hatred.

But in doing so, she made one fatal mistake—she forgot that Naberius was still there.

“Did you really think I’d just watch?”

Naberius swung his claws.

Cassie barely managed to regain her focus in time to defend, but with the combined debuffs of pain, despair, and deception weighing on her, she was in no condition to properly counter.

She was disarmed almost instantly.

With Cassie completely vulnerable, Naberius’s claws slashed toward her.

At that moment, Amon blocked the attack.

“Ghhhk…!”

Amon gritted his teeth, suppressing the nausea from the overwhelming pain.

Seeing this, Naberius couldn’t help but be impressed.

“Why are you still fine?”

Amon didn’t answer.

There was nothing to say.

A mind that couldn’t be shaken by self-doubt or despair.

A willpower so firm that even deception had no hold over him.

With sheer grit and defiance, he stood his ground.

“Aaaa men!!!”

Letting out a war cry, Amon swung his sword.

His blade clashed against Naberius’s claws again and again.

But while he was holding his own, he wasn’t completely unaffected.

His attacks were growing weaker.

At this rate, his defeat was inevitable.

‘Damn it…’

But there was nothing he could do.

Even so, he kept swinging his sword, doing what little he could.

***

Amon wasn’t the only one facing imminent defeat.

“What the hell is this…?”

When Naberius entered his second phase and Sonia finally broke free from the triple debuffs of pain, despair, and false visions, she realized something.

Her teammates were nowhere to be seen.

Pressing against her still-throbbing head, she turned to face the one who had brought her here.

“Talk, horse-head.”

The moment she was away from Amon, her usual polite demeanor disappeared like a mask being ripped off.

Orobas snorted and replied.

“Such a rude young lady. Well, I suppose you deserve an answer.”

Despite ignoring Cassie’s questions earlier, Orobas answered Sonia’s with unusual enthusiasm.

In fact, he was almost too enthusiastic.

“Our objective was to distribute a rather special drug through appetite suppressants.”

“In short, it was meant to induce natural aggression and incite war.”

However, thanks to Amon and Sonia’s interference, the operation had failed.

And so, Orobas had decided to abandon Neville Pharmaceuticals.

“After all, once He arrives, money becomes meaningless.”

Like a true demon, he had no interest in wealth or power.

His goals lay elsewhere.

“But it would be a waste to discard a megacorp without getting something out of it.”

“?”

“Don’t you understand? Your ally isn’t the only one who can see the future. This entire chain of events was orchestrated to bring you here… and leave you alone with me.”

Although Amon’s interference had nearly derailed his plans, he had managed to push things into the second phase, securing his desired outcome.

Sonia, still skeptical, glared at him.

Orobas gave a formal bow.

“Welcome, Astaroth.”

Hearing that, Sonia let out a deep sigh.

“For the last time, I’m not her.”

“…What?”

Orobas adjusted his monocle in confusion.

Then, as if realizing something, his eyes widened.

“Ah, that explains why you seemed slightly different! But there still seems to be a connection between you and her location. I suppose I’ll just have to read your memories to find out!”

Sonia raised a single finger.

“Don’t associate me with that woman.”

With those words, she lunged into battle.