SSS-Class Revival Hunter

Chapter 114: The Holy War (3)

The wedding venue erupted into chaos.

“Aaaahhhh!”

“Dear Lord, what is that...”

The sunset sky cracked like a glass window, blood dripped from the gaps. I looked up at the sky, using my aura to enhance my eyes.

[The apostle of the Ruin-Harvesting Cow has appeared.]

There was a girl holding a giant hammer.

[The apostle of the Eternal Plains Warhorse has appeared.]

A general riding on a pegasus.

[The apostles of the Immortal Happiness Preacher have appeared.]

A group of children were doing an odd dance, hand in hand.

“O-oh my god...”

The wedding’s guests looked at them in terror. The cracked red sky was incomprehensible already, but then these mysterious beings came out of the cracks. The guests had every reason to panic.

“They’re here.”

Only Raviel, the Inquisitor, and I were prepared to fight. Raviel was in command.

“Assemble the special force to protect the guests! Let those who belong to the Divine Dragon Knights gather in one place too! My vassals, evacuate the guests!” Raviel shouted to the confused guests and, above all, to her vassals, as both my bride and the duke of Ivansia.

The people, though startled, were spurred into action.

Being called out by name had a strange power to awaken them from their confusion. It was even stronger if the person who wielded this strange power was the second highest-ranking noble in the empire.

“Blue Lion Knights, get into your lines.”

“Your Grace, what in the world are those—”

“Forget about your questions. Stay alert and pay attention to the enemy’s movements. You are the finest knights of this empire. If you plan on embarrassing yourselves, return your knighthood to the empire! Do you understand what you need to do?”

“U-understood!”

Raviel’s rapid-fire orders instantly established order in the wedding venue. Even soldiers and nobles whom she could not normally command obeyed her orders. They didn’t know why the sunset sky cracked or the unidentified apostles showed up, but they instinctively felt that the only way out of this chaos was to follow her.

“Can you find out their abilities?” she asked.

“Yes! Please wait a moment!” The Inquisitor made a hand seal; white light burst out from his hand. It rose into the sky like a beam of light and instantly swept across the apostles of the other worlds. “Analysis complete! First of all, that lady with the giant hammer over there is—”

The Inquisitor couldn’t finish his sentence. The beam of light he’d emitted had apparently been perceived as a provocation and the blond apostle holding the hammer jumped out of the sky, striking down with her huge metal hammer.

The ground literally turned upside down. People screamed, but the tornado that the hammer’s passage created tore their voices away. The red and white flowers, which had been brought from the southern part of the empire to decorate the wedding, were thrown chaotically into the air. The white flowers in full bloom flew everywhere, and the apostle’s eyes burned red.

—Raviel Ivansia!

Those eyes and that voice were familiar.

—I’m not letting you have anything!

Surprisingly, the apostle looked exactly like Lady Goldencup.

“L-Lady Goldencup...?” one of the guests stammered.

“Why does she look like that?”

Although not as famous as Raviel, Goldencup was also a celebrity, so many people recognized her. Appalled, some of them looked back and forth at the apostle and the Inquisitor.

“This isn’t good,” the Inquisitor muttered. “That’s probably Lady Goldencup’s real form.”

“Real form?”

“To put it simply, it’s like pawning your soul to the devil. In return for borrowing the Constellation’s power, she sacrificed all of her abilities, her appearance, and her memories! Ahhh... Perhaps that young lady really had a wish that she wanted to achieve even if she had to sacrifice everything. Interesting...”

The person the Inquisitor was so intrigued by was swinging her hammer with full power.

Her swing sent people flying left and right. The knights who knew martial arts gritted their teeth and managed to endure; they were still confused, but they realized at least that the apostle, who resembled Lady Goldencup to an unnerving degree, wasn’t friendly.

“S-stop her!”

“Protect the guests!”

“Move as instructed!”

Having a clear enemy rallied the knights. The knights here were elites, some of the best in the empire, and Raviel had invited them as guests for this moment. They rushed forward, swords at the ready. Their movements were refined.

—Yes, you only listen to Raviel Ivansia too, Goldencup scoffed.

Dozens of knights threw themselves at her all at once.

—I'll destroy everything rather than let that woman have them.

Dozens of swords loaded with aura struck her at the same time, but they bounced off without leaving even a scratch on Goldencup’s skin.

“What...?” the knights muttered, perplexed. Goldencup was unscathed.

There were some knights who recovered quickly and swung their swords again, but it was no use. Once again, none of the swords could get past Goldencup’s skin. Their aura only managed to burn Goldencup’s clothes.

—Lady Ruin-Harvesting Cow! Goldencup swung her hammer. Please grant me your blessing!

Her hammer crushed a knight like a watermelon, splattering his blood everywhere. Before the drops could hit the ground, Goldencup had swung her hammer once more.

“W-wait—”

Her hammer smashed another head. Explosions of blood erupted over and over in the ongoing massacre. The knights, despite the deaths of their comrades, desperately searched for Goldencup’s weakness, but none of their swords could wound her skin.

“Everyone, be careful!” the Inquisitor shouted. “That apostle is under one of Mutia’s blessings, the Unscathed Body! She can’t be injured. Haha, to be exact, it can reduce physical damage to her by 99.9 percent! Anything that isn’t at least strong enough to tear off the top of a mountain won’t inflict significant damage on her! Please try harder!”

—Raviel Ivansiaaa!

The knights were flustered.

The old gentleman who became my foster father for this day—the imperial chief steward and head of the Imperial Special Force, the strongest gentleman in the empire, stared at the Inquisitor in disbelief.

“Tear the top off a mountain? Who would be able to do that? That’s outrageous!” he protested.

“Yes, you’re right. It’s extremely difficult, but if you don’t do it, you die!” The Inquisitor smiled beautifully.

If I were to capture that smile in a photo, I felt like I could forget that people were being hammered into meat paste right now. Crazy psychopath.

“She’s a monster on her own.” Raviel sighed. “But another one is coming.”

She was right. It was unclear if that apostle was the soul or the real form of Goldencup, but she was just one of the enemies we had to fight. In fact, she might even be the easiest enemy to deal with.

—You pitiful people.

The general looked at Goldencup, then at the Inquisitor, and finally at me. It was impossible to see the general’s expression because he was wearing a helmet that covered most of his face.

—Warriors who follow the warhorse. The general raised his flag up high and a speck of the red sunset seeped into it. Awaken.

Translucent ghosts manifested around the general. Dozens, hundreds, thousands... There looked to be as many as ten thousand ghosts.

Everyone was at a loss for words. Even when people had gotten caught by Goldencup’s hammer and been flattened like pancakes, the guests had still held onto their wits and had resisted. However, a large army of ten thousand people appearing from the bright red sky was way beyond what they could cope with.

“Ru-run away...” someone croaked.

“Run away!” someone else echoed.

—Charge.

With just one word, the general silenced their voices.

A tidal wave of ghosts poured toward us. They were armored like soldiers from ancient times, but their spears weren’t rusty.

The wedding guests who were trying to escape were stabbed in the back.

“Pl-please don’t kill me!”

“Aaaaaaahhhhh!”

The massacre turned redder as the guests collapsed, bleeding. Their blood stained the white flowers red. This place was supposed to host the most luxurious wedding in the empire, but now it was hell on earth.

“... Mr. Inquisitor,” I said. I realized suddenly that I sounded very cold. “What are the abilities of that apostle?”

“I just completed my analysis. Hmm. One of Mahos’s blessings, Holy Battlefield, is active right now,” the Inquisitor answered as he made a hand seal.

Just as the character window was only visible to my eyes, the Inquisitor seemed to have something visible to only him.

“The Holy Battlefield affects a large area. It has the amazing power to allow summoned people to use their abilities like they could during their prime! Each and every one of those ghosts is an elite among elites and loyal to Mahos!”

“... We just don’t have enough.” Raviel lowered her fan. “We’re too outnumbered. Mutia’s apostle can’t lose in a one-on-one battle, and Mahos’s apostle is extremely effective in group battles. We’ve been backed up against a wall.”

—La.

—La, lala, la. La.

The last apostles began to move.

—La.

—Lala, la. Lala. La.

—Lalala. Lala. La. La.

The apostles in the form of children sang. Their song reached down to the ground as they danced in a circle; the faster they danced, the louder their song became. @@novelbin@@

—La.

—La, la. Lala.

The wedding guests—and not just one or two of them—who were running away from the ghosts suddenly fell over. They fell unconscious and flopped over like puppets whose strings had been cut.

“Oh.” The Inquisitor quickly made another hand seal. The light he emanated also enveloped Raviel and me. “Haha, this is really not good! Hmm. It’s a type of psychological attack. When you hear that song, you’re forcibly buried in your happiest memory. Unless your willpower is exceptionally strong, you can’t resist it!”

The apostle wielding a hammer was immune to physical attacks. The apostle on a flying warhorse specialized in large-scale warfare. The apostle of happiness violated the mind.

“... Seriously, this is all kinds of terrible,” I mumbled.

“Yes! If we only had the apostle who specializes in one-on-one fights, we could handle her. Even if we were forced into a large-scale battle, there are tactics we can use. When psychological attacks are the problem, we can form a small number of elites with strong willpower. But fighting all three kinds of battles at once is very difficult!” The Inquisitor smiled brightly. “Mr. Death King.”

“Yes.”

“Can I trust that you will win?”

The wedding venue was already drowning in the red sunset. The song’s notes fell relentlessly from the sky, and the dead massacred the living on the ground.

The captain of the special force fought until the end, but died. Goldencup stomped on the old gentleman’s head and glared fiercely at us, hammer in her hand.

—Raviel Ivansia! she screamed.

Raviel was wearing a black dress. At first glance, it looked like a dress for a funeral, not a wedding, but this was the empire’s custom. The person who was to be head of their family after marriage wore black clothes, and their spouse wore white clothes. So Raviel wore a black dress, and I was in a white tuxedo.

“Gong-Ja.” Raviel looked back at me. “I should have told you sooner.”

“Yes?”

“That tuxedo suits you very well.”

I smiled. The Constellations’s apostles had invaded the world, and all of the guests had been massacred. However, Raviel took this moment to compliment my wedding tuxedo, which meant that she didn’t accept this as her end.

That was right. We were never giving up on our marriage.

“Raviel, you’re the most beautiful person in the universe.” I held my bride’s hand, feeling the soft texture of her lace gloves.

I heard heavy footsteps. It was probably Goldencup, running toward us. Soon, her hammer would crush us. As the ground shook, I said, “I promised you that I would never kill myself without your permission, Raviel. Even if the moment comes and I have to die, I will accept death only after I have done my utmost.”

“Yes, you did.”

“Please allow me to die now.”

“I allow it.”

That one sentence from the person I loved made me invincible.

—Raviel Ivansiaaa!

The moment Goldencup swung her hammer, I took Raviel into my arms so that I would die even 0.1 seconds sooner than her. Raviel understood my motives and didn’t resist. The two of us locked our fingers together.

The huge hammer soon hit me.

[You have died.]

I died like always.

[Recreating your killer's trauma.]

I watched what I always witnessed.

[Rewinding twenty-four hours.]

But it wasn’t the same regression as always.

“Gong-Ja.”

When I opened my eyes, Raviel was there, holding my hand. As soon as our eyes met, we realized that we didn’t have to explain what we had been through; we shared the same time.

Just as we did right before we died, our fingers were still locked. She and I were no longer lonely regressors.

“Let’s plan our strategy.”

We were invincible because we were together.