Chapter 53: The Holy Mother's Extended Family

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[An evolution material has been detected: Shattered False Dragon Soul (Gold). Absorb it?]

For a moment, Rien froze.

He whipped around. His Dragon Eyes activated automatically, and only then did he notice the ugly silhouette of a lesser dragon hovering over Cwerlduf’s corpse.

“Refuse? Why would I refuse?”

His body and soul yearned instinctively for evolution. Before he had time to give it a proper thought, Rien had already accepted.

The “dragon blood” on the blade in his hand was instantly drawn away, serving as a catalyst to link spirit and flesh.

The lesser dragon’s phantom lunged toward him of its own accord, and Rien’s body absorbed it.

[Creature Rank: Rawstone. Status: Strength 6 (13), Constitution 7 (11), Agility 5 (6), Spirit 6 (16)]

In an instant, his rank rose from Crude Stone to Rawstone.

The other numbers began to shift faintly as well, as though they were on the verge of increasing.

Rien could feel something stirring beneath his flesh, as if it were about to break through the earth.

[Find a safe area and enter dragon sleep as soon as possible to complete your evolution.]

But this was clearly no time to wait for evolution.

He took a deep breath and turned to face his opponent.

He couldn’t strengthen himself before the fight, but at least this was good news.

Even so, he had still underestimated the Heroic Spirit Codex.

[Evolution material: Shattered False Dragon Soul (Gold) has been decomposed. Materials identified: “Lesser Dragon” (Gold), “Flame” (Silver), and “Volcano” (Silver). These materials have been added to the material library.]

[Usable evolution material detected. “Flame” (Silver) automatically applied. Racial talent Dragonfire (Scorch the World) activated. Sub-ability “Mana Burst (Flame)” activated.]

Then, just as with Dragon Eyes and Dragon Claws, Rien instinctively raised his sword and swung.

A faint flame spilled from his palm and enveloped the blade. A sword of fire was born.

The flame was thin and pale, scarcely hotter than a campfire. It looked weak, but—

“What is that…?” Maria, who had been driven to the brink and yet remained composed, instinctively stepped back.

Looking at that fragile flame, she felt fear.

Rien was just as bewildered, but that didn’t stop him from applying pressure with his words.

“Given what you can do, you don’t actually think you’re immortal, do you?” He wasn’t bluffing. He believed dragonkind’s power naturally countered beasts.

“That would be a problem… Perhaps you could let me go? I’ll pretend I never saw anything, and I won’t commit any more crimes.”

The nun smiled faintly and tilted her head, seeming genuinely troubled.

“Heh. You expect me to trust an animal’s promise?”

A beast was nothing but instinct, mimicking human speech and even understanding what the words meant.

But to beasts, language was merely a tool. They didn’t care what they said.

They mimicked a baby’s cries to lure in delicious prey.

When faced with an avenger, they wailed, “It hurts! Spare me!” just to make their opponent lower their guard.

If a lie helped them survive or hunt, then every word they spoke would be a lie.

“An unfeeling beast… I don’t know why you still imitate humanity so well, but today will be your end.”

“Ah, I really don’t want to fight. Wouldn’t it be better if we simply left one another alone? I don’t eat that much. How about I give you this territory and move somewhere else?”

From the very beginning, the two of them had not been speaking on the same level.

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Rien spoke of crime, promises, and justice as concepts belonging to civilized society. But the monster called Maria was simply asking the intruder who had entered her territory why he had to stop her “hunting.”

I’m hungry. I want to eat. Isn’t that perfectly natural?

Even her earlier “revenge” had not been driven by anger, humiliation, or a desire for retribution. It had simply meant: You’ve trespassed on my hunting ground. I need to assert my claim, so my hunting won’t be disturbed again.

All this time, the monster had worn a human face and pretended to understand humanity. And no one had ever noticed…

“What a disgusting monster. And you dare lecture a knight on justice?”

Remembering how Larry had once been instructed by her on the subject—and had actually taken her words to heart—made Rien’s mood even worse.

Those thoughts did not belong to this “imitation.” They belonged to Sister Maria.

Perhaps Sister Maria had prayed all along for a champion of justice to save her and this filthy city.

Those thoughts might have circled in her mind countless times. Otherwise, the monster could not have spoken them so easily.

The monster merely recited those “words” at the right moment, like a machine responding to stimuli according to its programming.

Maria longed for justice, so the monster wearing Maria’s skin spoke of justice, drawing closer to champions of it.

And why would she draw close to people? Of course—for a beast’s instinct, to make hunting easier.

“Don’t bother waiting. It won’t work.” Once she had confirmed that a fight to the death was unavoidable, Maria smiled and exposed the reason Rien had been stalling.

Her gaze shifted to Talia behind him. The wooden sword in her hand was still smoldering.

The cave was now thick with incense. Rien had been buying time for this.

“If I already knew it was a weakness, why wouldn’t I overcome it? I sleep with this scent every night. After a while, you get used to it… Heh. I’m not like those impure little ones.”

The nun’s eyes swept toward the wooden carving that Tianba had become. A glimmer in its shining eyes seemed almost emotional, almost wistful.

Was it disdain for the weak? Pity for its kind? Or some finely crafted, false emotion?

No. Rien saw it clearly. It was joy—the joy of having one fewer rival to compete with for food.

“You say it won’t work, so it won’t?” Rien was at a loss. How could the weakness he had just discovered be useless after all?

But the incense had grown so thick that it made him sneeze, and she still hadn’t attacked. This time, it seemed she was telling the truth.

“So, we’ll have to settle this head-on after all.” Rien drew a deep breath, sounding weary and resigned.

But his Dragon Eyes caught that fleeting moment—the instant the nun blinked.

“Smite Evil.”

In the brief opening, Rien was already right beside her.

The combat experience granted by the Heroic Spirit Codex had given him a “trick” that made his ambush as effective as a midday strike.

And his Haste Boots had made it possible.

Clang!

His sword was blocked.

Unlike the casual slaughter earlier, Maria did not let the flames touch her flesh this time.

How had she stopped it? Was that black nun’s habit some kind of sacred artifact? Everyone was bewildered.

The sword’s edge pressed against the outside of her black robe, but Rien’s blade would not come down.

“Argh!” Gripping his sword with both hands, Rien poured all his strength into the blow, boosted by his mighty gauntlets, trying to cut the demon down.

But it was he who was forced back.

“Fire!”

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Gritting his teeth, he changed his downward chop into a diagonal cut: he pulled the sword back sharply, then slashed upward.

Clang!

Something blocked him again.

Unable to understand what had happened, Rien retreated to a safe distance.

The next moment, he saw what had stopped his sword.

He drew in a sharp breath. The reports had been accurate—but seeing it with his own eyes was even more horrifying than he had expected.

“Children, don’t wander off.” The nun’s voice was still gentle.

The flames and sword had failed to hurt her, but they had torn away part of her habit, exposing what lay beneath.

At her waist was the upper body of a tiny baby. Its little hand had just caught Rien’s sword.

And on her left shoulder was another—

“Kevin… No, it should be Brandy. Don’t put everything in your mouth.” Nun Maria stopped the head from stuffing a torn strip of cloth into its mouth.

“They’re insane. Completely insane, these human-shaped things!” Rien was consumed by fury.

Not only at the demon before him, but also at the cultists who had abandoned every boundary.

A horned thrall was created by fusing a “lesser beast” with a human.

Lesser beasts, in turn, were bred by taking “little horns”—harvested tails or horns, pure crystallizations of life—and placing them in a mother’s womb to be cultivated anew.

Most lesser beasts were canine only because female dogs were easy to acquire, and the resulting beasts were relatively docile and easy to control, with middling intelligence.

Normally, a horned thrall incorporated only one lesser beast. If it took in two, it would soon lose all sense of self and perish.

That was why Haik had hastily bitten off the “new head” back then. Otherwise, the beastification factor would have quickly driven him completely out of control.

Even among lesser beasts, different genes and instincts clashed with one another, leading to mutual destruction.

But what had Maria done?

“She turned her own children into little horns…”

That was the root of her corruption, the reason she had been persuaded to take part in the experiment.

“Eternal happiness with your children”—that was the cult’s lie to her.

And the grotesque truth was that not only had she believed it, she seemed to have made it real in some fashion.

“She gave birth to the little horns made from her children with her own body, then swallowed them and incorporated them into herself. Since they were all her own children, her body didn’t reject them very much… But how many of her children had she eaten?”

Now that Maria no longer bothered to hide it, she allowed the “children” on her body to move freely.

One by one, little hands and heads tore through her black habit. The writhing heads and arms beneath the fabric made the witnesses’ sanity plummet and their scalps prickle.

One, two… five. At that moment, no fewer than five “babies” had emerged, their pure eyes studying the world.

“Test Subject 113. Internal designation: ‘The Holy Mother’s Big Happy Family.’ They really had a sick sense of humor.”

Sometimes, humans—with all their humanity—could sink lower than beasts.

Rien tightened his grip on his sword, fury kindling in his heart.

This was bound to be a hard fight, and he was looking forward to it.

“Let me put an end to all of this.”