"Hurry! We must escape before they catch our scent!"
"Damn that prince...!"
"Lord Ganagl! This way!"
With a faint vibration, men in black robes hurriedly burst out from a crack in the rocky hill - the entrance to a hiding place that had been concealed by some kind of magic.
The robes, illuminated by lantern light, were covered in incomprehensible dark red patterns, and the masks they wore had long strips of cloth hanging below the chin, perhaps meant to resemble octopi.
The Deep Sea Church cultists. Their appearance matched exactly as described in the original novel.
'...They keep coming endlessly, are they a goblin horde?'
True to being a cult group that mindlessly expanded their numbers, the procession of cultists crawling out seemed endless.
At least forty at minimum.
Most were mere rabble, but... some cultists carried an aura that seemed significant even at first glance.
Though still below kingdom knight level.
'So... where's Ganagl?'
I quietly drew out the spear strapped to my back while carefully observing the cultists below the hill.
When the number of cultists who had emerged exceeded fifty and approached sixty.
"Grrrr... hero, came again...?"
With a grotesquely sluggish voice, a middle-aged man with a build nearly twice that of the others waddled out from the hole in the rocks.
That's him.
Though he tried to hide his identity by covering his face with a hood and mask like the other cultists, it was immediately obvious at a glance.
How could anyone fail to recognize him when such nauseating and ominous magical power wrapped around his body like a curtain?
The third finger of the Exorcism Reversal Society, Ganagl Peytan.
I quietly stood up on the hill, pulling back the spear I gripped behind my shoulder to aim at him.
Crack.
Ice Heart, Iron Arm, karma manifestation.
Blue afterglow gathered in my wide-open eyes, and the bitter cold released by Ice Heart spread through my blood vessels.
Concentration of power beyond muscular limits. The spearhead of Eisenstein, strengthened further through karma manifestation, targeted the defenseless Abyss Priest's head.
Eisenstein's combat weapon, the Valkyria's secret spear technique.
Spear of the Cutting Wind.
The whirling steel spear pierced the air with a thunderous roar.
Boooom!
Unlike when I pierced the bandit's head with my fist, this was a thrown spear with Iron Arm's power unleashed to its limit.
Before the explosive sound could even echo, the Spear of the Cutting Wind shot out like a beam of light and struck directly into the center of the enemy formation.
The earth flipped over spewing dirt clouds, and shattered steel fragments swept everywhere like a storm.
Blood and flesh spreading out like waves. The thunderous sound like a giant's rage striking down erased the cultists' screams and wails.
The power was beyond imagination.
"...Could it be over with one strike?"
Even Edgar and Veinum, who had drawn their blackened weapons and were about to descend the hill, turned to look at me with surprised eyes.
Of course, I didn't care whether they were surprised or not.
This wasn't the time to worry about such things. This was the moment that would determine whether this fight would be an easy win or not.
Crack, crackle...!
I activated the recovery formula in my pauldron to heal my shoulder twisted from the spear's recoil while looking down at the carnage below the hill.
Would Ganagl be alive or dead? I hoped he'd died from this first strike...
"Uwooooooo!"
...Of course not. My life can't be that easy.
Most regrettably, my thrown spear seemed to have failed to end Ganagl's life.
Though hard to see clearly through the thick dust, just from that loud roar full of rage, I could tell he was still alive and well.
"Lord Ganagl! Are you alright!"
"Bishop Willem is down!"
"Enemy raid! Enemy raid! Protect the Church Leader!"
About half of the Deep Sea Church cultists seemed to have survived too. In other words, the other half had all crossed the river to the afterlife from one spear throw.
Anyway, with the initial surprise attack half-failed, there was only one option left.
"Let's go, Friede!"
"Yes!"
I jumped down the hill together with Friede. Stepping on and grabbing protruding rocks here and there on the hill's surface to slow our descent.
Unlike us who confronted them head-on, Edgar and Veinum hid in the darkness in their own ways to ambush the cultists.
Edgar, a pure assassin, crawled to a good sniping position and drew a small crossbow, while Veinum, from his church background, raised shadows to wrap around himself.
「Shadow Curtain」
A holy miracle classified as 'Shadow Art' within the Goddess Church, its effect was to wrap shadows around the body to blend into darkness.
You could call it a lower version of the invisibility formula carved into the Valkyries' helmets.
It could only be activated in darkness, and like the Valkyrie helmet, the invisibility would be canceled the moment you attacked, making it useless after the first ambush.
In other words, when facing multiple enemies like now, you'd have to kill one then face the rest head-on...
'Well, he'll handle it himself.'
Since Veinum would know the Shadow Curtain's weaknesses better than me, there was no reason for me to worry about that.
"There! Those ones just used that magic...!"
"Cursed prince's dogs!"
...Didn't seem like I'd have the leisure to worry anyway.
In the quickly settling dust cloud, as if someone had waved a large arm.
Against the background of torn and dismembered bodies scattered about, thirty-eight cultists were glaring at us in combat stance.
Thirty ordinary cultists, seven who were called bishops or whatever, and.
"Grooooar! You, what areee-!"
The large middle-aged man with one arm blown to pieces, Abyss Priest Ganagl Peytan.
Instead of answering, I drew my sword. The silver-gray longsword with faint holy power, the consecrated sword Edelmut, flashed with a chilling light.
○
The clouds covering the night sky flowed away with the wind, and the pouring moonlight clearly illuminated my enemy's form.
'Ugh...!'
Disgustingly creepy. I frowned and inwardly groaned.
Ganagl's true appearance revealed from behind the mask and robe was more terrible and hideous than I had expected.
A plump body with a completely hairless head.
His skin was bluish like a fish, and his protruding eyes were grotesquely large. The pupils were half-crushed like kicked egg yolks.
However, if that was all there was to it, he wouldn't have been called a monster. At most he would have been mocked as looking like a hanged fish.
The crushed eyeballs were nothing. Compared to other parts, that much could be considered just a quirk.
"He-Heid's not here? Then, you, I'll eat...!"
He glared at us while his smooth head gleamed. No, rather than smooth, should I say spiky head?
The top of Ganagl's forehead was spiky like wearing a crown. Because of his skull that was wide open like a water droplet hitting the surface.
Thanks to that, even his blackened brain was clearly visible. To the point where it seemed like it might spill out if he bowed his head.
And that wasn't all.
His nose was relatively normal, but from above his upper lip was split all the way down to his neck, and instead of teeth or esophagus, thick tentacles hung down like a beard inside.
The abyss tentacles that gave him the epithet "Brain Devourer."
Their appearance, writhing like octopus legs and dripping slimy fluid, was enough to make one shudder with physiological revulsion just looking at them.
With his head in that state, how could his body be normal?
Between the fancy ceremonial robes he wore as if playing at being a church leader, his exposed chest and abdomen were strangely translucent, and inside instead of organs were filled with black fluid and numerous brains.
In the setting, that was probably storing the brains of victims he had devoured?
It was literally brains in a tank. Except for the minor difference of using magical stimulation instead of electrical stimulation.
'...Ah, I want to go home.'
Having to focus on looking at such a monstrosity was already making me miss the Esther family mansion.
What kind of wealth and glory was I seeking to be having a brawl with such a monster in a place like this?
Of course, that was just how I felt inside - my eyes glaring at him were already gleaming with blue inner light.
"Come, heeere!"
The next moment, Ganagl let out a childlike roar and stretched his remaining arm toward us.
Whoosh!
His arm stretched like rubber and lashed out like a whip, splitting into over ten tentacles.
Ganagl's limbs weren't human limbs but bundles of thick tentacles bundled together to resemble human arms and legs.
Thanks to that they could stretch several meters and regenerate when cut, but...
If you know they stretch, it's nothing special.
I threw my body sideways while swinging my sword to half-sever his arm. Since it was an expected attack, the response was easy.
Of course, that didn't mean I could let my guard down.
"Groooo..."
Far from letting my guard down, from now on I couldn't relax my vigilance for even a moment.
His weapons weren't just stretchy rubber limbs, but magic gained from accepting the power of the abyss.