Paladin of the Dead God - Chapter 419



Only Noblemtl

Episode 419. The Immortal Emperor (1)

The lighthouse keeper’s mere appearance and presence made the sky shake and the wind blow like crazy. His mere presence was enough to stop a fierce battle.

“Even the lighthouse keeper has descended… … .”

Even Tukhalin groaned and muttered.

He was one of the few who could barely stand, even though he was blocking the lighthouse keeper’s light with his hand. Those few were those who had the same omen as Lyanna and Reyna.

They could only stare at the lighthouse keeper with a mixture of fear and awe.

And so it was with Leonora. Isaac noticed that Leonora was the only one of the Golden Idols standing up and staring at the lighthouse keeper. Leonora’s eyes were golden and reflected the lighthouse keeper’s light.

The lighthouse keeper seemed to be adjusting his powers as he fully manifested, reducing the painful heat and light.

But that alone clearly showed its authority.

It is said that no angel can dare to compare with the lighthouse keeper.

The lighthouse keeper gazed upon the holy land of Lua.

It seemed as if he was now ready to start showing his strength.

However, despite the appearance of the lighthouse keeper, the immortal emperor did not reveal himself, and quietly expanded the shadow that enveloped the holy land of Lua. The shadow was growing larger and darker. It was as if the shadow had become stronger under the strong light of the lighthouse keeper.

Heart pounding.

At that moment, Isaac felt his heart pounding loudly. Something felt terribly wrong.

Isaac instinctively raised his head and looked up at the sky. The sky, which should have been brightened by the rising sun and the lighthouse keeper, was for some reason a pitch-black color.

It is too late to notice because of the lighthouse keeper’s light.

[Isaac.]

Suddenly, the voice of the Immortal Emperor was heard. Isaac turned his gaze to the Holy Land, to the ceiling of the dome. There stood a man. A man who had long ago abandoned life, but who did not lie down, but was a wandering priest and emperor.

“Immortal Emperor… … .”

“Immortal Emperor? Where? Has the Immortal Emperor appeared on that battlefield?”

Tukhalin asked urgently, but it seemed that he could not see it. However, Isaac, even without activating the Eye of Chaos, could see the figure of the Immortal Emperor from a very far away with strange clarity.

As if the Immortal Emperor himself were showing it to us.

Compared to the dazzlingly shining, gigantic lighthouse keeper, the god wrapped in tattered rags looked small and pitiful.

But he stood proudly on the dome, staring at the lighthouse keeper, the angel he had once served.

[Look carefully. How far a human being will go to defy the natural order of things.]

Isaac couldn’t figure out why the Immortal Emperor would say that to him, but instead of explaining further, the Immortal Emperor took off his hood.

Inside, there was nothing but pitch-black darkness. Only a thin stream of black smoke rose, and as the turban blew away in the wind, it also scattered.

The Immortal Emperor immediately sent all the clothes flying in the wind.

Click.

At the same time, two of the six lighthouses surrounding the lighthouse keeper flashed. The brilliant light instantly engulfed the immortal emperor. However, where the light disappeared, there was nothing.

Only the pitch-black ash that surrounded the holy land of Lua was scattered.

The black ash seemed to be blown by the wind, then rose up along the pillar of flame created by the burning maiden and was instantly scattered across the sky.

From the ground to the sky, the smoke stretched long like a sword and cut through the sky in an instant.

[The dead cannot be killed again.]

Suddenly, people who were looking up at the sky saw the sky and clouds being pushed to the sides.

As if there was a huge hole in the sky.

Darkness, the night sky that had returned, the man standing side by side with the apocalypse announced its end.

[This land is the land of the dead.]

Kkuduk, kudud, kududududuk.

A foul noise echoed from the sky, and the air began to tremble. It was a sound that could not be heard anywhere else in the world, the sound of heaven tearing apart and spilling its entrails and blood. When the roaring sound from the splitting sky finally stopped, countless ghosts and evil spirits that the immortal emperor had imprisoned poured out in a mixed manner.

Kkaaaaaaah!

Screams, sobs, howls, cries, lamentations, death cries.

Countless evil spirits poured down like a torrential downpour. They were souls who had died within the territory of the Immortal Church and could not go to heaven or hell.

The Immortal Emperor, unable to grant them all flesh, sealed Heaven shut, but now they were breaking free again.

The lighthouse keeper immediately started the lighthouse and burned away all the evil spirits that came his way. However, it was like swatting away the rainwater pouring down in a typhoon one by one.

Above all, this is the power of God.

God determines the very rules of the world. The immortal emperor has declared that this is already the land of the dead. No matter how powerful the lighthouse keeper is, he cannot deny the rules themselves.

“Ahhhhhh!”

The orcs and soldiers on the ground were instantly exposed to countless evil spirits. The evil spirits that tried to possess them while repeating the pain of death were a great mental shock in themselves. In particular, the Dawn Army had reduced the number of priests who could even cast simple exorcism spells on the soldiers.

At the same time, evil spirits possessing corpses arose from all over the place.

Their sole purpose was to create more corpses.

The warmth of the living, the skin of the living.

Just as farmers were obsessed with clearing and sowing more fields, they were obsessed with creating more corpses.

A new dimension of chaos unfolded like never before.

Sometimes, different evil spirits would mix in the upper and lower bodies, and even corpses with most of their bodies missing would crawl around, and sometimes, dozens of evil spirits would mix in a single body and twist into a grotesquely swollen and twisted form.

There was not a single person lying among them.

This is the land of the dead.

But no one could find peace here.

***

“No, already?”

Isaac knew what the Immortal Emperor was up to the moment he took off his hood.

When conquering the Holy Land Lua as the Dawn Army, it was the final phase that the Immortal Emperor showed after defeating even Carlsen. It was taken out as soon as it started.

Isaac gave urgent instructions to his commanders with a distorted expression.

“Use all the exorcism miracles you have! Quickly!”

“What? Oh, I see!”

Every religion has its own prayers and miracles to ward off evil spirits. Even the Immortal Church is no exception. Evil spirits do not give special treatment to the Immortal Church, but simply covet and try to take away the body.

The aftereffects of the underworld opened by the Immortal Emperor even affected the distant Isacrea Dawn Army.

Thanks to Isaac’s advance warning, they were able to prevent themselves from being swept away by the wave of evil spirits, but the weak soldiers complained of mental distress just from the sight of the evil spirits flying overhead and screaming.

“Get out of here, you ghosts!”

Tukhalin raised his hammer and struck the ground hard. The thunder rumbled through the earth, and the evil spirits scattered in panic, but they continued to hover at a distance. They will start to return after a while.

Tukhalin grumbled and stared at the holy land, Lua.

The countless evil spirits were pouring down, swirling like a snow storm. And in the midst of them, a huge shadow covered the entire Holy Land Lua. Even the lighthouse keeper’s light looked like a frail lighthouse in the face of that huge storm.

“What on earth is going on?”

“It’s the same thing that happened when the Immortal Cult was born.”

“Has something like this happened before?”

Isaac nodded.

Long ago, something similar happened in the Holy Land of Lua. It was the day Bishop Beshek became the Immortal Emperor.

He ceremonially split open the heavenly belly and drenched the earth with heavenly blood. He succeeded in bringing down a part of heaven and covering the earth, but he could not embrace all the dead.

The Immortal Emperor wanted the dead to act like the living and live like the living. To achieve this deception, he sewed up the hole in the sky again and sent back the souls that had no body. Only those who were worthy of being resurrected were saved.

And now, the Immortal Emperor has torn the belly of Heaven apart again.

At that time, special rituals and tools were required, but the power of the Immortal Emperor himself was enough to tear the already torn sky apart again.

Now the dead walked the earth, lusting after flesh as they pleased, without the Lord of the Grave to bestow their bodies, without the Pale to preserve and shape their forms, without the Dead Twelve to nurture and instruct their spirits.

A world of perfect indulgence, where there is no distinction between the living and the dead.

In effect, the Immortal Emperor has lifted all restrictions.

“What the hell. If it’s that dire, what can we do?”

“No. This state of affairs cannot continue. Even the Immortal Emperor cannot obtain faith in this madness.”

The reason why the Immortal Emperor respects ‘free will’ is because of the individual’s beliefs, but it is also because faith cannot be obtained from a slave who is mentally controlled. If he were to force people to believe in him through mental control, the Immortal Emperor would have been the strongest god long ago.

But that is obviously impossible.

“This state of madness is an act of devouring the flesh of the Immortal Emperor himself. If this continues, even his own divinity will be shaken. Perhaps he is trying to drive out the lighthouse keeper… … .”

“So how long do I have to last? An hour? Half a day?”

Isaac shook his head with a sheepish expression and held up three fingers.

“Three days? That’s crazy. If it’s that much… … .”

“It should last about 30 years. There are undead firmly established within the Holy Land of Lua who will support him. They won’t die even in isolation.”

These are not figures that Isaac roughly estimated, but figures that were actually confirmed in the game.

In fact, it is possible to maintain that state throughout the Dawn Army, but it is not easy to reattach the split heavens, and the average ‘quality’ of the undead also deteriorates considerably, so it was only a last resort.

Isaac looked at the lighthouse keeper.

The lighthouse keeper stood firm in these circumstances, opposing the power of the immortal emperor. The lighthouse did not collapse when a storm came. It simply stood firm in its position, sending light to ships to inform them of their location.

The sight of the lighthouse keeper seemed like a clear message to Isaac.

‘If I lose here, the Immortal Emperor will turn the whole world into this. Are you going to let that happen?’

Isaac had come to prevent that kind of situation from the beginning.

There will be no next dawn army. The Immortal Emperor will rule the world with time as his ally.

Isaac bit his lip. This was a coercion that threatened to use the world as bait. But at the same time… … .

‘This is also a perfect opportunity.’

***

Tukhalin stared at the battlefield with a serious expression, not knowing what Isaac was thinking.

“I thought it was already a mess, but it’s gotten even worse. I don’t think there’s anything we can do anymore… … .”

There is already one god and at least four angels present here.

If you count the angels who indirectly interfered, it would be impossible to estimate how many days it would take. If the Isacrea Dawn Army interferes, the angels who support the heroes will definitely intervene as well.

‘This is more of a battlefield for gods than a battlefield for humans.’

Is there anything humans can do in a battlefield like this? No, there might be something.

As a straw that supplies faith.

If the giants called gods and angels roll around on top of it, the role of humans will be nothing more than being trampled like ants.

Isaac didn’t like that.

“It would be no different from suicide to crawl into the middle of that mess.”

Isaac looked back at his commanders and said.

“But I didn’t come here to just watch. Tukhalin, take charge of the unit. If we leave it like this, the army of Olkan Discipline will completely destroy the Dawn Army. Please guard the rear of the Khan’s army.”

“What? The Yeomyeong Army didn’t even help you properly… … .”

“What does it matter? Most of them are just ordinary soldiers. There’s no need for them to die pointlessly in a place like this.”

Isaac does not do this favor purely out of a desire to save lives. He also understands the principles of Urbanus and the source of the angels’ power.

If all of those Dawn Army soldiers were to fall down dead, they would all become soldiers of the Undying Cult. For Isaac, that would be the worst possible situation.

“I don’t know why, but the soldiers of the Dawn Army are not receiving proper command right now. It doesn’t seem like the angels will be taking care of them individually, so lead the soldiers and have them join you.”

Tukhalin understood what was being said.

As Isaac had said, the Dawn Army was in a state of extreme chaos, being slaughtered by both the orc cavalry and the evil spirits.

The Isacrea Dawn Army had to lead them.