Became the Patron of Villains Novel MTL - Chapter 229

Chapter 229

 

Clam, a mercenary with a decade of service in the Lumber Mercenary Corps, was completely unable to process the events unfolding right in front of him.

“S-Someone help me~!!”

Crunch!

A moment ago, his comrade had been sharing laughs and jokes with him; now, the same man was suspended in the air, his inner organs spilling out.

It was utterly bizarre.

Bizarre and profoundly unsettling.

Clam could perceive nothing.

Only the sight of his friend’s body floating strangely.

And yet.

Despite the emptiness of the scene.

“Aaaaah-!! No, no, no!”

Snap!

From the vacant space, his companion’s head vanished.

It was as if some invisible entity had taken a large bite out of it.

Splat!

Blood cascaded from the ragged, absent upper torso, drenching Clam’s head.

The hot, heavy sensation of the blood trickling through his hair wrenched Clam back to the terrifying reality.

“Ah.”

Instantly, an incomprehensible dread swelled in Clam’s gaze.

Ten years.

A full decade as a mercenary had instilled in him the discipline to remain calm and collected in any emergency.

But in this instant, those years counted for nothing.

Composure and clear thought were born from experience, from the ability to anticipate outcomes based on previous clashes.

Thud—

The spectacle he was witnessing was an unfamiliar horror, utterly unprecedented in his career.

“Uwaaah—”

A sound steeped in raw terror tore from Clam’s throat. He lowered his gaze, his eyes trembling uncontrollably.

His friend, the man who had just been joking with him, was now nothing more than a mangled lump of flesh, crushed upon the earth.

And then.

Splash!

Upon the pool of crimson blood shed by his fallen comrade, strange tracks began to appear—footprints belonging neither to a man nor to a monster.

Step by step, they advanced directly toward Clam.

Realizing his imminent demise, Clam squeezed his eyes shut.

Crack!

The sound he heard was—

“?”

..?

It was meant to be the final sound he ever heard.

Yet, Clam cautiously raised a hand and felt his head; it was still whole.

He had clearly heard something explode, but he was completely unscathed.

Slowly, he opened his eyes.

And what met his sight was—

“……!”

A circlet of gold.

Lit by the overhead desert sun, it shone with a brilliance surpassing anything else nearby.

It was hovering directly above his skull.

And that wasn’t all.

“What…?”

Clam gazed around blankly.

The area, moments before a scene of gruesome carnage, had become utterly still.

The people who had been thrashing on the ground and screaming were now stunned into silence by the sudden cessation of movement.

Those who had been hanging midair, being consumed by the invisible force, plummeted to the ground.

And in that moment, Clam saw it.

Dozens of golden circlets cutting through the atmosphere.

Saaaa—

As they intertwined with one another, they began to construct a massive golden apparatus.

A mechanical noise sounded from beyond the structure, prompting Clam to cautiously turn his head.

There stood a young woman with blue hair.

Penia Crysinne, the Vice Tower Master of the Blue Magic Tower.

Clutching a staff tipped with a shimmering blue jewel, she muttered something quietly.

Then, she forcefully brought the staff down.

With a sharp clang, a pure sound resonated throughout the air.

And the world commenced its transformation.

The blazing, sun-drenched world turned a uniform ash-gray.

The brilliant golden sands lost all of their radiance.

The shining golden crowns dimmed, their bright luster fading.

And then, they became visible.

The creatures that had been impaled by the golden circlets.

“Urgh~!”

Clam gagged involuntarily.

Despite his ten years as a mercenary, having witnessed all forms of depravity and violence—

The sight before him was enough to violently turn his stomach.

He was unable to find any words to adequately describe them.

Too much like insects to be called human.

Too much like beasts to be called insects.

Too monstrous to be simple animals.

No, they resembled mere slabs of flesh too much to be classified as monsters.

Some had their entrails hanging out.

Some had gnawed through their own bodies using their teeth.

Some had their limbs twisted into grotesque shapes.

They were—

---

---

---

Apparitions one would only expect to find in the hell depicted by religious figures.

They shrieked unnaturally as they were skewered by the golden crowns.

And at the farthest end of that appalling scene—

“Hah. Intriguing.”

A man was standing.

A man with a human face sunken into his chest cavity like a beating heart.

He was firmly grasping the golden crowns that had pierced the others.

---

“M-M-Marquis? W-We executed your plan. S-So what happens now? Th-This is not a simple situation…!!!”

Penia’s voice was shaky with panic.

Alon expelled a deep breath.

Even he could not fully grasp why Agu, one of the Four Great Powers, had materialized suddenly in this desert location.

If it were going to make a move, it should have appeared near the border where the Jujor was situated.

“Marquis, should we retreat? Should we escape? Let’s just run! Running seems like the best course of action right now!”

Alon cast a glance at her.

From her appearance, he could tell Penia was not thinking clearly—yet, he completely empathized with her reaction.

In the original narrative, whenever the Four Great Powers made an entrance, their sheer presence was overwhelming.

Allied characters would pass out.

Companions of the protagonist would struggle intensely beneath their suffocating aura.

Some players had even criticized the game for using such redundant descriptions for the Four Great Powers.

…but now he understood perfectly.

At this very moment, Alon realized why those characterizations had been so relentlessly consistent.

Alon had just barely achieved the Fifth Rank of magic.

Yet, even for him, the Agu before them was oppressive, sending sharp tremors down his spine just by looking at it.

This meant Penia, whose magical rank surpassed his own, was undoubtedly feeling an even more crushing sense of hopelessness.

And to make the situation worse—

“Huff… Huff~”

Even Rine, who had successfully impaled the Agu with golden crowns, was breathing laboriously under the immense pressure.

‘Revealing the hidden Agu using Penia’s spell was a smart move, but…’

Just as Alon began to worry about the escalating crisis—

Something began to slither out from within Agu’s shadow.

A monstrous entity, its gaze flickering across the gathered people.

Then, its eyes fixated on Alon.

And it twisted its mouth into a smile.

“Let’s strike a bargain.”

“…What?”

“Surrender the girl. Then I shall withdraw.”

Before Alon had a chance to even process the turn of events, the words were uttered.

---

“Surrender the girl. Then I shall withdraw.”

A sentence that cut sharply through the silence.

Rine, beads of cold sweat forming on her brow, relentlessly analyzed the state of affairs.

This was her first direct confrontation with Agu.

However, drawing upon the knowledge in her mind, she could immediately identify its true nature and origin.

More critically, she knew with absolute certainty—there was no feasible way for them to achieve victory against it right now.

“……”

Rine lifted her eyes toward the sky.

The golden crowns, impaling numerous Agu and twisting in the atmosphere.

They were intended to form Pluto’s summoning gate.

But they were failing.

The reason was obvious—the dozens of Agu skewered between the circlets were actively fighting the death they should have already succumbed to.

Instead, their bodies were swelling unnaturally, utterly disrupting the circuit formation of the golden crowns.

This meant—her primary offensive power was essentially nullified.

If that had been her only predicament, Rine might still have seen a slim chance for triumph.

Regardless of the severity of the situation, she had devised a final countermeasure after the last attack from Greed.

But now, even that secret weapon was utterly useless.

‘How… How does he possess Greed’s power…?’

The man who so brazenly demanded her capitulation—

In a way she couldn’t understand, he wielded Greed’s specific abilities.

She couldn’t theorize how he had gained them, but she clearly understood his ultimate purpose.

‘He intends to devour me and seize the Library.’

Rine bit down on her lip, calculating every potential sequence of events.

But in mere seconds, her incisive mind arrived at one inescapable conclusion.

There was—

Nothing she could do to win.

Which left only one path remaining.

The surest method to guarantee the Great Moon’s safe escape from this location—

Was to place her own existence on the negotiating table.

She had no regrets about this.

She had already been rescued twice.

Her life should have been over long ago without the intervention of the Great Moon.

She would have perished under Greed’s complete dominance.

Therefore, this was the appropriate decision.

Rine manipulated a golden crown, directing its tip toward her own head.

She imbued it with a spell, setting it to pierce her skull the moment her consciousness wavered.

Agu’s expression visibly hardened as it watched her self-destructive preparations.

And then—

Just as Rine was about to voice her offer—

“I decline.”

—She was abruptly interrupted.

Agu shifted its focus to the Great Moon.

Rine, too, turned to stare at Alon.

One hand was held in a forming seal, his expression completely blank.

“Heh, if you’re concerned I won’t adhere to my word, don’t be. Believe it or not, I generally uphold my promises.”

Agu spoke with a light, almost teasing demeanor.

But—

“Do not compel me to repeat myself.”

Alon—

“I decline.”

He reiterated, this time with a noticeably more severe expression.

At that—

“Hah. I offered my generosity because I thought things would become difficult if I exerted too much pressure.”

Agu’s eyebrows furrowed slightly in mild annoyance.

And then—

“In that case, you die.”

In a flicker, Agu materialized directly in front of Alon.

It was so fast that no one had time to react.

Without a second of hesitation, Agu plunged its fist toward Alon’s heart.

“Ah—!”

A cry burst from Rine’s lips before she could complete her thought.

In that precise moment—

A small, dark figure descended upon Alon’s shoulder.

And—

Alon’s chest was forcefully penetrated.

BOOOOM—!!!

Everything erupted violently.

Faded sand burst outwards in all directions, kicking up dense clouds of dust.

Carriages positioned behind them were utterly demolished.

Bodies of the deceased were hurled into the air.

And within the obscuring dust—

“A—”

Rine, whose hand was reaching out toward Alon, stared vacantly into the air.

The gray dust transformed into pure white, falling like snow.

Her outstretched hand looked minuscule, like that of a child.

The metallic scent of blood permeated her senses.

And what eventually filled her entire field of vision—

Were corpses.

Her—

Parents—

Her younger sister—

The outcome of her profound powerlessness—

Her—

…Guilt.

Thump-thump-thump-thump-thump-thump-thump~!!!

Her heart hammered wildly against her ribs.

Her mind, remembering every detail, hauled the past to the surface.

The lacerated lips.

The shame of that long-ago day.

The transgression of that day.

The shattered fragments of her family memories, strewn like shards of glass.

[It is because you rejected the embrace of Greed.]

A voice reverberated within Rine’s mind.

[Take me into yourself.]

A voice that was horribly repulsive—

As if it were scraping at the very core of her soul—

Yet, simultaneously, so powerfully alluring.

[A power that will guarantee you lose absolutely nothing.]

As if hypnotized, Rine extended her hand—

“-”

A sudden sound pierced the moment.

It was Agu’s voice, but unlike before, it carried an unmistakable note of shock.

Rine’s perception shifted once more.

The dark figure that had been reaching for her was now gone from sight.

The fragmented images of her family disappeared.

And—

Finally, she saw—

“….”

Alon—his heart impaled by Agu’s clenched fist.

Yet, something was deeply wrong.

CRACKLE—!!

“Kh…!”

Agu, the one who had driven its fist through Alon’s chest, winced visibly in pain.

BAM—!

With a brutal twist, Agu swung its arm and struck Alon’s head.

For a brief second, Alon’s head seemed to dissolve like smoke.

But—

“….”

Almost immediately, it reformed as though nothing had occurred.

Agu’s eyes widened in profound surprise.

“Huu~”

The dark figure on Alon’s shoulder, now emitting a brilliant radiance, appeared to fuse into his being.

Two curved horns began to emerge from his forehead.

And—

Alon, exerting control over the transformation happening within his body, uttered the final word.

“Integration.”

Initially, it had been a chance occurrence.

During his joint research on divine power with Penia, they had stumbled upon an unexpected revelation.

That Blackie’s form could readily absorb not just magical energy, but divine power itself.

And furthermore—

During his combat with Kylrus, Alon had engineered a method to temporarily absorb the Shadow Dragon’s inherent power into his own body.

That was the crucial foundation of this integration—

The symbiotic relationship between magical and divine energies.

By layering divine power onto Blackie, merging with it, and wearing the divinity of Kalannon—

While simultaneously using Thunder God’s Form to modify his magic-based structure—

CRACKLE—!!!!!

His entire composition was converted into pure divine energy, thereby eliminating the drain of excessive magical expenditure.

And—

Rebuilding his complete self using divinity as the core material.

Metamorphosis.

Divine Thunder.

Thus—

CRACKLE!!!

Amidst the landscape of ash-gray—

A pair of crackling blue eyes stared down intently at Agu.

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