Chapter 376: The Winged Man (1)
The trees and vines that wrapped around Oliver’s body sprouted mouths, letting out an indescribable screech.
Kiiiiiiiing━━!!
It wasn’t a sound made by a human, an animal, or even a living thing.
But that wasn’t all. Bulging growths began to form across the vines and trees, swelling like boils until they burst open, forming eyes.
These newly-formed eyes rolled around, observing the surroundings. Watching this spectacle, the Servant and the Holy Knight felt an instinctive sense of revulsion and unease.
It was life, yet somehow... not life.
Even Galahad, who had lived his entire life as a Holy Knight, was witnessing this for the first time.
“Stop with the nonsense...!”
Unable to contain his visceral disgust and sense of danger, the Holy Knight wielding a flail swung his weapon.
The ominous, revolting sight before him was so disturbing he wanted to eradicate it immediately.
Galahad, the leader of this operation, intended to intervene and prevent this rash act, knowing it would end poorly if approached like this, but fortunately, his fears did not come to pass.
Oliver easily dodged the Holy Knight’s strike and fled to the top of a building.
Oliver’s reflexes and physical abilities had improved beyond comparison from before, likely due to the plant armor now covering his body.
“Hmph!”
The Holy Knight with a spear scoffed and climbed up the building wall with both feet, thrusting his spear sharply at Oliver’s leg.
Knowing the true target of this mission, he aimed only to disable Oliver’s mobility. However, something unexpected happened.
A mouth appeared on Oliver’s plant armor and bit down on the spear’s tip, blocking it.
He had launched the attack quickly, giving Oliver little time to react.
The mystery was soon revealed.
His own eyes met the numerous eyeballs embedded across the armor.
Those eyes weren’t mere decoration; they were actual, living eyes, surveying the surroundings on his behalf and responding autonomously.
The armor moved like a living creature.
‘A sorcery I’ve never seen before… But even so, how did it block my spear, imbued with holy power?’
As the Holy Knight pondered, his confidence shaken by how his attack was stopped, the vines encasing Oliver suddenly moved and attacked him.
Thrown off balance by the blocked attack, the Holy Knight was slow to react. Just then, Galahad leaped up from below, rescuing his fellow knight.
Kyaahaaahahah!
The severed vines screeched in agony as Galahad shouted a warning to his comrade.
“Don’t let your guard down! He’s mixing the power of nature with black magic. We don’t know its full strength, so be cautious!”
Having swiftly assessed Oliver’s spell, Galahad invoked holy magic.
[Holy Light]
The gentle radiance illuminated Oliver, and his plant armor, bristling with mouths and eyes, screamed in agony.
Yet, instead of vanishing, it resisted the holy magic.
“...!”
Though he had suspected it, Galahad was still taken aback.
A black magician capable of resisting holy magic… Could it be due to the mingled power of nature?
He didn’t fully understand it, but he knew one thing for sure: this was an extremely rare case.
“Mason!”
Without losing his composure to his surprise, Galahad calmly moved on to the next part of the plan.
Responding to his command, the Holy Knight Mason, who had been waiting below, raised his flail, coating it with holy power, and struck the building.
Boom━!
The ground and building trembled, cracks formed, and the structure collapsed.
As a result, Oliver, who had been trying to distance himself from Galahad, lost his balance, missing the opportunity to escape.
Galahad seized the moment, gathering holy light on his blade and bringing it down toward Oliver’s head.
[Blade of Mercy]
[Rapid Growth]
As the building crumbled and the holy blade descended like a meteor, Oliver unleashed the natural power contained within the plants, causing massive trees and vines to grow around him like a green tidal wave.
The vines, thicker than a man’s arm, and the rough trees pushed back everything around them, but Galahad cut through it all with his holy-infused sword, drawing closer to Oliver.
Bababababam!
Just as the radiant sword was about to strike, Oliver and Galahad fell into the ruins of the building, disappearing in a cloud of dust.
Watching from a distance, a Servant muttered, “Did he get him?”
“Hey.”
“Oh, damn...”
When nearby comrades scolded him for saying something unlucky, the Servant defended himself, mumbling, “But, I mean, after all that, there’s no way he could have survived, right?”
Logically, he wasn’t wrong.
With the platform collapsing, preventing him from escaping, and a direct strike from Galahad—no matter how sturdy his defenses were, survival seemed impossible.
This should be the end. That was how things were supposed to go.
But, the problem was that not everything in the world goes as expected.
“What is that...?”
As the dust settled and visibility returned, someone spoke up.
A massive tangle of vines and tree roots had intertwined and compressed around Oliver’s quarterstaff, forming a complex shield that blocked Galahad’s attack.
It was precarious, but still, it had worked. It was impressive, to say the least.
“Amazing. For a false god, that is.”
“I am no god. But thank you for the compliment.”
As Oliver responded to Galahad, he manipulated the severed vines and tree roots around him.
Filled with emotion, life force, and natural energy, the vines squirmed like snakes in response to Oliver’s will, soon sprouting mouths that lunged at Galahad from all sides.
Shahaha!
The movement, momentum, and sound were all reminiscent of a serpent, but Galahad shoved Oliver aside and swung his sword with such speed that it appeared as though there were dozens of blades, instantly slicing through the vines and tree roots.
It was like a wood chipper.
Oliver tried to extract life force and natural power to regenerate the severed vines and roots, continuing to pressure Galahad, but he cut them all down again and again without showing any signs of exhaustion.
It made one question if he was even human.
But even he had his limits.
As the vines and roots multiplied endlessly and formed a dense mass like mud, Galahad’s sword began to slow.
If it continued like this, it seemed Oliver might overpower him, and sensing this himself, Galahad swung his sword widely, creating a brief opening. He then crossed his sword like a cross and invoked holy magic.
[Purify]
At Galahad’s command, his sword blazed with power, erupting outward.
The beautiful golden flames mercilessly incinerated everything in its path, and in alignment with Galahad’s sword, charged toward Oliver.
Seeing this, Oliver immediately increased the thickness and coverage of his armor in an attempt to defend himself, but the sacred yellow flames were potent and unyielding, burning half of his armor to charcoal.
As the heat and power of the flames threatened to overwhelm his senses, Mason, flail in hand, approached and struck him.
Kwang━!
Fortunately, the armor’s eyes had detected it in time to mitigate the impact, but the holy-enhanced armor shattered, sending Oliver flying as he tumbled across the ground, defenseless.
“This is the end.”
Seizing the opportunity, the spearman leaped, aiming for Oliver’s vulnerable point.
Exactly as Oliver had expected.
[Greedy Flame]
Despite anticipating the Holy Knight’s approach, Oliver didn’t defend himself. Instead, he combined the greed-driven emotion and mana he had prepared in his hand, creating black flames.
Kwahwahaha━━!!
“Guh!”
Surprised by the sudden counterattack and its intense heat, the Holy Knight stepped back, activating holy magic.
[Holy Light]
The sacred light, meant to nullify black magic, weakened the flames, causing them to scream and gradually diminish in size.
Despite being more potent than usual due to the blend of emotion and mana, it was still vulnerable to holy magic. However, for Oliver, this was more than sufficient.
After all, there was plenty of fuel for the flames nearby.
For instance, the severed vines and tree fragments still brimming with emotion, life force, and natural power.
Oliver manipulated the Greedy Flame to consume the cut vines and trees, using the emotion, life force, and natural energy within them as fuel, exponentially increasing its size.
Resisting the pressure from the holy magic...
It was more than worth a try.
“No way…”
The Holy Knight with the spear was stunned by the flame’s growing size, which resisted the holy power with overwhelming strength.
It was as if the failsafe they had counted on had turned to ash.
While the spear-wielding knight was shaken, the Greedy Flame, as if remembering its source of pain, narrowed the eyes across its surface and opened its giant maw, lunging at the knight.
Though he struck at the black flames with his holy-enchanted spear, causing some significant wounds, the Greedy Flame, now swollen with fuel, ignored him, devouring the Holy Knight whole like a monster from legend.
Its dozens of sharp teeth shattered the iron armor encasing him and burned through, filling him with shock, confusion, and terror as he screamed.
From the looks of it, he had rarely experienced such pain.
“Gyaah! It... it burns! It’s burning...!”
This relentless force felt capable of reducing him to nothing but ashes.
With this level of force, it seemed that the Greedy Flame could truly burn him down to the bone, leaving not even a trace behind.
And more than anything, Greedy Flame itself seemed to desire it.
“Aaah! Damn it, you...!”
Mason swung his flail with all his might, tearing apart the Greedy Flame to rescue his comrade.
His face twisted in rage at the sight of his suffering comrade, anger so palpable that even Oliver, who had a hard time reading expressions, could sense it.
However, even after being struck by the flail—powerful enough to crush buildings in one blow—the Greedy Flame, having absorbed enough fuel, reformed instantly and lunged again. Unfazed, Mason continued swinging his holy-enchanted flail, keeping the flame at bay.
The spiked flail, as massive as a boulder, created a powerful wind with each swing, stirring up a storm as he quickly battered the Greedy Flame, gradually tearing it apart.
Realizing its predicament, the Greedy Flame opened its monstrous maw, attempting to consume Mason as it had the other knight. But Mason detonated the holy magic surrounding his weapon, launching a fierce counterattack.
The attempt was successful.
The Greedy Flame let out an unearthly scream, its strength visibly weakened.
In that moment, Mason could see Oliver charging through the diminishing flames, aiming for an opening left by his previous attack.
“You fool!”
Mason scoffed at the audacity of Oliver’s approach, swinging his flail in a smooth arc to conserve momentum, striking Oliver directly.
Crunch━!
This time, it was real. Oliver couldn’t dodge or deflect the blow as he had earlier; Mason’s attack struck home with brutal accuracy.
Though the moment felt satisfying, it didn’t feel entirely right. After countless battles, Mason had learned to recognize the feel of flesh breaking, bones shattering, and organs bursting. But this… felt different.
It was less like breaking a person, more akin to crushing wood.
“Lucky for me, I thought Holy Knights were impossible to deceive, but maybe that’s not the case after all.”
A few paces away, Oliver appeared, stepping from the shadows, his voice calm. He had been hiding under the spell Shade Cloak, letting Mason hit a decoy fashioned from vines woven into a humanoid shape and disguised with magic.
As evidence, the illusion fell apart under the impact, revealing a figure made of intertwined vines.
[Parasite]
Oliver activated Parasite, binding the stunned Mason with the humanoid vine, which began to drain his life force.
The vine, acting as a conduit for Parasite, sapped Mason’s energy relentlessly.
Mason tried to activate holy magic to neutralize it, but the vine had taken root around his body, covering his limbs and mouth, preventing any further action. And each attempt to break free only weakened him further as Parasite drained his life force.
Just as Mason seemed about to succumb, Galahad slashed at the vine with his sword, enveloped in golden flame, freeing him.
Kahahahahahak!
The vine screamed in agony as it was severed from Mason, retreating due to the holy flames.
Although Oliver had nearly extracted the desired life force, he was not overly disappointed by the interruption.
He had already taken enough, so without hesitation, he channeled the remaining stolen energy into the Greedy Flame.
Infused with the abundant life force of a Holy Knight, the Greedy Flame swelled to an even greater size, its mass multiplying severalfold.
Holy Knights... they truly were excellent fuel.
“Assist the knights!”
The Servants, who had been surrounding them, monitoring the battle, felt an ominous shift in the situation and moved to help the knights.
Oliver, now wielding a massive Greedy Flame, directed it not only at the Holy Knights but also at the Servants, sweeping across the battlefield.
Kwaaahahaha!
A raging storm of black fire surged forth.
While the Holy Knights and Servants activated protective barriers using holy magic and items, the Greedy Flame, fed with emotions, life force, and the very essence of a Holy Knight, crushed their defenses with ease.
The Servants’ protective items shattered almost immediately, and Galahad could only shield his comrades, unable to counterattack.
Deeming it sufficient to have demonstrated the difference in their powers, Oliver pulled the Greedy Flame back, reining it in as though leashing a wild beast.
The flames, furious and beast-like, let out a deep, ominous rumble, but obeyed and returned to Oliver’s side.
The situation had turned in an instant.
Both the Servants and Galahad looked on, visibly shaken.
They had just witnessed someone overwhelm three Holy Knights simultaneously.
Only the Four Fingers of the Black Hand were known to possess such power—enemies of humanity, defying the natural order.
“What... exactly are you?”
Galahad, the sole knight still standing, asked. Despite the perilous situation, he maintained his composure, if not even seeming to welcome the challenge.
“Just Oliver, as I’ve told you several times already.”
“You sound sincere.”
“Because it’s the truth.”
Galahad looked at Oliver with an expression of wonder and curiosity, his hostility notably diminished from earlier.
“You’re not going to finish this?”
Taking it as provocation, the Greedy Flame glared at Galahad with its monstrous eyes, opening its massive maw and letting out a low, menacing growl.
It looked ready to attack at any moment.
But Oliver held it back.
“I think you’ve misunderstood, Sir Knight. I didn’t come here to harm you all. I only came to lend a hand to Mari.”
“You came here without the intent to harm us?”
Oliver glanced around at the fallen Servants and two downed Holy Knights.
“Well, you did try to kill me. I thought that might be understandable. But if I’ve angered you, I apologize.”
“You... really mean that, don’t you? Though it makes no sense.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes... But still, I thank you for it.”
Oliver tilted his head, puzzled by Galahad’s sudden remark.
“What do you mean?”
“Thanks to you, the perfect scenario has been set. Your sacrifice will mark the first step toward humanity’s salvation.”
Just as Oliver started to question him, a strange presence appeared in the sky.
The night sky seemed to glow, as though dawn was breaking. And amidst the light, something became visible.
A figure with wings.