People who once stood far apart now spoke together in an absurd harmony. They warmly discussed the teachings of the eternally burning fire of decay and boasted about blessings that should never have grown on their bodies. Amid clinking cups, some even played music with mutated organs, a famous tune once heard in the streets, now mixed with philosophical truths of the Lord.
By any measure, this was clearly a villain's lair, a cult nest. Killing ten out of ten people here might still miss someone. The style was absurd, but everyone present, their minds branded by decaying fire, had abandoned old morals and sense without hesitation.
Instinct, profit, life and death all meant nothing. They were treated as seasoning mixed into nameless drinks and swallowed whole. They were believers of the great fire of decay, chosen ones blessed by a god, and pioneers of a coming new world.
They were also expendable materials for the true ritual of the Lord that would open the gate in the near future. Some of them knew this and accepted it willingly. Many were hidden agents across the city, gathering supplies and information, and preparing monster attacks and the final day.
Now they had been summoned to experience grace closer to the Lord than ever before. As a priest of the Lord, a shepherd's dog to the lambs, he should have cared for the flock. But circumstances forced him to kill one or two to fill his own stomach.
He passed through the crowd, like a drop of filth blending into dirty water, stepping into shadow unnoticed. Those he passed began to lose strength and life, collapsing from adulthood into old age in moments. Muscles shrank, skin sagged, bones weakened, and spots of age appeared before they died from spent lifespan.
Their bodies then dried rapidly like mummies and burst into flames from within, burning into ash. The scene spread like a disease until everyone was caught in it. The crowd became a sea of fire that still moved.
Yet no one seemed aware of pain. They chanted the fire of decay and laughed wildly until the end. He walked over the ashes that had been living people only moments before.
These believers were of higher quality than ordinary people. After consuming several hundred of them, his condition stabilized slightly. "Hey, rein in your fire," someone complained loudly. "Even if it is just practice work, you cannot burn it all."
Wearing a new small hat, Salva stepped out from a wall that opened like a mouth. He had a slight cold and held a cup of hot cocoa of unknown ingredients, pointing at the flames creeping greedily along bloodstains that never dried. As an artist, he often made things casually for inspiration, but even he disliked seeing his work burned by someone else.
"Heh, Salva, the plan has changed," the man said as he withdrew the flames. "The ritual cannot reach its maximum effect, so we have to abandon the pieces elsewhere." Salva narrowed his eyes in surprise, not expecting things to turn out like this even after clearing most of the city's pieces.
He did not care much about ordinary followers, since their minds were never stable to begin with. But abandoning such long preparation still gave him pause. "Oh, this body of yours," he said. "What did this to you, Kwenfield, my friend? Is this why you called me to take over the city of the Lord?"
As a creator of life, he could clearly sense how broken the other was. It gave him the urge to take the man apart and study every piece. "A dragon," Kwenfield replied flatly. "Next, we must at least ensure the gate welcoming the Lord is opened."
He continued, voice steady. "Guide all monster hordes and abandon all other ritual nodes. Gather everything at Proletto. At the same time, I will activate the ice demon spirit and sacrifice every soul, including Ice Spirit, to pry the gate open ahead of time."
Kwenfield's past was actually very ordinary. Before receiving the favor of the Lord and becoming the agent of His will on the mortal world, a bearer blessed by sacred fire, he was only the son of a minor noble somewhere in the Faris Empire. Because his family lands lay close to the border, his future was never bright, and it was easily crushed during a border clash between the Faris Empire and Demonkind, ground into mud beneath merciless iron hooves.
If not for that, he might have been holding a tall wineglass, swirling ruby-colored liquor, speaking in an elegant and empty noble tone while attending endless parties and salons. Instead, he hid in a farmer's pigsty, curling himself deep into mud mixed with animal filth. He did not dare step outside for three days and three nights.
Alone, he staggered across the border of the Faris Empire, blending into a line of refugees. At that time he was filthy and disheveled, no different from anyone else. That was the turning point of his life.
Kwenfield believed that everything before that was nothing more than a tiny trial arranged by the Lord. One day, while fighting others for food, he was beaten half to death without mercy and collapsed into the dirt like sludge. When his mind was fading and one foot had already crossed the threshold of death, he was thrown into a bonfire by the other man's lackeys, mixed together with other corpses.
The flames scorching his body were not harm, but an offering. In the darkness, there were eight bonfires burning corpses, and he himself lay in the center of them. It was under such circumstances that the will of the great the Lord seemed to notice someone as small as him.
At that moment he was close to tears, yet none could fall, because fire allows no tears. He decisively cut off his past, discarded his noble surname, and used the Great Fire of Decay to guide the awakening of dark Magic. He sacrificed all seven hundred and forty-two people whose faces he still remembered clearly to this day.
After that, he traveled north into the Rohn Empire, spreading the great gospel of fire. Over the course of years, he slowly infiltrated the entire the Northlands. From high nobles to common folk, His believers lay hidden everywhere, quietly burning flames of decay beneath the ice and snow that would never be extinguished.
Following the guidance of the Lord, he unearthed part of an Clone body of the Ice Spirit. Using its authority over ice and snow, he created a massive ritual that could cover the entire the Northlands. Under a higher authority, that wolfhound could not track his presence.
He also cooperated with Salva, a third-rate secondary creator, placing key ritual nodes across the cities of the the Northlands. Everything progressed smoothly. That was until the monster hordes meant to serve as a key ritual component were slaughtered by a gigantic dragon from nowhere.
At first he did not take it seriously. What did it matter if some monsters died, just a drop in the sea? With so many monsters, even a portion of the the Northlands was an absurd number, and surely no one could kill them all.
Even if they lined up to be cut down, it would exhaust a Gold Rank. They were monsters, not pigs, and many among them were quite strong. Then Kwenfield realized that the dragon really could do it.
The monster horde meant to crush forward in one push was forced to scatter under relentless slaughter and be picked off one point at a time. Carefully arranged ritual nodes were removed one after another, and worse still, the Ice Spirit somehow broke its seal and reappeared, making many old strongholds unsafe. He was forced to run around collecting fragments of the Ice Spirit's body while also trying to deal with that troublesome dragon.
He had already rated the opponent highly, yet still underestimated it. In a moment of carelessness, he was caught and blown apart with a single strike.
"You said that dragon is really that absurd?" Salva asked from a corner deep in the darkness.
He skillfully summoned a pool of pure black unknown substance that writhed and breathed as if alive, radiating an undisguised dark aura. Holes of various sizes flowed across its surface, like distorted human faces, with faint wails echoing from within.
This was Salva's unique specialty and one of the raw materials he created for the Lord. A portion like this required a few hundred well-meaning people to make a small contribution. Kwenfield plunged his clawed hand into it, and flames burned from the inside out, charring the black mass to ash.
Salva's face darkened visibly. It was like ruining a pristine canvas right in front of an art student. "If you do not know how to use my carefully crafted life material, you could at least stop abusing it. Why not let me help you revise it and make your creation more perfect?"