Paladin of the Dead God
chapter-22

Zihilrat was taken aback, seeing Isaac calmly mention its true name.

[How do you know my name…?]

“What’s the big deal?”

[How do you know that name…?]

Isaac, puzzled, shrugged. Zihilrat writhed angrily.

[Stop pretending! It’s been over a hundred years since my last follower perished. How do you dare speak my true name? Who commands you?]

“I’m not sure what you’re talking about…”

As Zihilrat roared, Isaac’s robe fluttered wildly. Simultaneously, he felt the tentacles within him stir – not in fear or tension, but in annoyance.

‘Why does it matter if I know the name hovering over your head?’

To Isaac, this was trivial. He more frequently referred to Zihilrat as ‘Rat Pig’, and he often visited its dungeon because it was the easiest among the ‘holy’ enemies to defeat.

[Still refusing to reveal yourself? Then I shall tear your creation to shreds!]

Despite its fury, Zihilrat grew more puzzled as Isaac remained nonchalant. It took a deep breath, followed by a violent coughing fit.

Slimy, blood-like slimes shot towards Isaac.

They were Blood Slimes, a type of monster swarm.

Instinctively, Isaac summoned his tentacles. In a swift motion, they pierced through the slimes. Pop! Two Blood Slimes exploded, splattering fluids on Zihilrat. Its tiny eyes widened.

[What power is this…? What divine might are you using…!]

Finally, Zihilrat seemed to have a revelation, trembling violently.

[Nephilim! You must be Nephilim, those filthy beings who stole heavenly blood! But, what lineage would your mother be from!]

“Suddenly bringing up my parentage? You’re just making it harder to forgive you.”

Isaac had no desire to argue with Zihilrat any longer. Simply being in the same room was revolting enough, like being submerged in filth.

Despite his resistance to the plague, anyone else might have succumbed to its effects by now.

The tentacles targeted Zihilrat as it writhed and gave birth to more rats. True to its name, Zihilrat could summon numerous rat swarms.

The newly born rats, still wet with blood, charged at the tentacles. Unlike the others he’d faced, these rats were larger and more ferocious.

Crunch, snap.

They mercilessly bit into the tentacles.

[If you won’t speak, I’ll dissect you to learn the truth!]

Isaac sensed this battle might be more challenging than expected.

He unleashed his tentacles without restraint, an approach he hadn’t needed with mere wild animals. This time, he faced real monsters, not just boars, wolves, or bears. The rats spawned by Zihilrat were almost divine beasts in their own right.

Each tentacle strike squashed several rats, continually replenishing his strength. However, a prolonged battle would disadvantage the all-too-human Isaac.

Zihilrat, even if deficient as a god, wouldn’t tire or perish easily.

Fortunately, Zihilrat was wary of the tentacles and didn’t move rashly, relying on its summoned minions for attack.

Isaac eyed Zihilrat.

[Foolish! This is my sanctuary! How dare you invade another’s sanctuary and think to defeat me! I am a plague deity, worshipped for a thousand years! A mere creature like you…]

Isaac read Zihilrat’s arrogance.

***

Zihilrat, so consumed by its own grandeur, believed only a god could threaten it. It ignored Isaac’s presence, focusing on an unknown mastermind instead.

‘There may be someone behind me, but I’m here on my own will.’

The Nameless Chaos was just a tool in this process. Isaac was determined to destroy this sanctuary, rewards or not.

He dodged Zihilrat’s minions and repulsive spit, or Blood Slimes, seemingly overwhelmed. Meanwhile, he slowly gripped the Sword of Judgment, moving closer to Zihilrat.

Zihilrat tirelessly produced Blood Slimes and rats, constantly attacking the tentacles. Isaac circled to Zihilrat’s left.

He planned to strike at the source, bypassing the need for a war of attrition.

Suddenly, something stood up beside Zihilrat – a skeletal figure in a tattered robe, resembling a priest. However, the hollow robe revealed white bones, decaying for perhaps over a century.

“An undead?”

“But the skeleton priest only made clattering noises instead of responding. Isaac realized that it was thanks to this skeleton that Zihilrat had been preserved and not buried under the ruins. As soon as he saw the undead, Isaac had a hunch about who was behind this.

‘Could it be the Immortal Order?’

The undead are the power of the Immortal Order. He couldn’t think of any other faith. But why a priest of the Immortal Order was serving another god was a mystery.

However, the skeleton priest raised a heavily rusted sword instead of answering. Isaac realized that this skeleton was not just a priest, but also a sentinel placed to guard this place.

‘It shows no signs of intelligence. It’s just a device placed to serve Zihilrat and exist as a god.’

But since he had to deal with Zihilrat with one hand, Isaac had to use his sword with the other hand only.

Naturally, he couldn’t be as strong. The skeleton priest twisted its joints unnaturally and swung its sword at Isaac.

But Isaac still had the blessings of ‘Weakness Tracking’ and ‘Herculean Strength.’

And anyway, he wasn’t a Paladin, but he had learned Paladin swordsmanship.

Cling.

At the moment when the swords clashed, Isaac repelled the skeleton priest’s sword with a strength unbelievable for one hand. Fragments of the broken sword pierced through the skeleton priest’s face. However, as expected of an undead, it didn’t care and continued to attack Isaac.

Isaac didn’t stop there and continued his slashing motion.

A cutting motion he had repeated countless times.

At that moment, something different entered Isaac’s body.

A flow entered his mind. It was like a wave of tentacles surging and bursting out.

In a single breath, Isaac imagined the tentacles repelling the skeleton’s sword, piercing through its body, slashing Zihilrat’s fat belly from bottom to top, and then crossing diagonally to inflict a cross-shaped wound.

It was just imagination.

Boom!

But in the next moment, it became reality.

[Agghhh!]

Zihilrat screamed in agony.

Isaac never considered this skeleton priest important from the start. He sliced through the skeleton and ripped Zihilrat’s torso from bottom to top.

Zihilrat vomited bodily fluids from the massive wound as big as Isaac’s height.

Isaac unwittingly realized that he had used advanced swordsmanship.

It was just a short movement, too fast to be conscious of, but inexplicably effective.

Above all, there was much less pain and injury than when using Avalanche advanced swordsmanship. It wasn’t painless, but his stamina recovery was much faster.

Instead, Isaac felt a strange hunger.

‘Is this… instead of stamina, did it consume the meat in my storage?’

It seemed so. The wolves he had eaten a few days ago were all digested in an instant. There wasn’t much left, but it was an immense amount digested.

It was as if he traded ‘satiety’ instead of stamina.

No, more precisely, he did get injured but recovered so fast that it was almost unnoticeable.

‘I don’t know why there wasn’t such an effect with Avalanche swordsmanship… Maybe it has something to do with the form of the swordsmanship.’

Isaac looked back. Following the trajectory he moved, there were eight spiral traces inflicting gruesome wounds on the ground and Zihilrat.

It looked like giant wounds torn by eight tentacles, even fatal for the divine Zihilrat.

[Low-rank Paladin swordsmanship upgrade condition has been met.]

[Advanced Paladin Swordsmanship Proficiency (Lv 1)]

[Please name the combined advanced swordsmanship.]

Messages appeared one after another, but Isaac had no time to check them all.

[Gyaaaah!]

Zihilrat roared, twisting its body. Isaac’s tentacles had pierced through Zihilrat’s belly. At the same time, something poured out from the wound inflicted by Isaac. They were none other than young rats. From those not properly formed, even those that seemed to have just started implanting.

Isaac frowned at the dirty and disgusting sight.

[Damn it! Why! How could you!]

Zihilrat shouted in boiling rage. It seemed difficult to heal the wounds, probably due to the power of the Judgement Sword that burns the unholy.

It wasn’t just that. After the skeleton priest was destroyed, Zihilrat’s ability to maintain its form seemed to rapidly deteriorate. A body that once quickly regenerated even from severe wounds was now crumbling apart like a sandcastle being rebuilt only to collapse more. The skeleton priest must have been a crucial catalyst in maintaining its form.

‘A temporary, yet sole follower and priest. Is that why it’s gone?’

[You too are a god like me! I can definitely feel divinity in you! Even belonging to the same dark, chaotic realm as me… But why!]

That’s because it’s the Nameless Chaos.

Isaac was surprised to find a common ground with Zihilrat. He couldn’t understand why the Nameless Chaos despised Zihilrat, but it seemed that the Nameless Chaos was no longer interested, not even sending messages.

“Save me! Don’t you know what it means for a being with divinity to die like this? Forever in that unnamed realm…”

Zihilrat, gasping for breath, seemed to have a realization as he mumbled something in a gurgling voice.

“You! You! Did you bring blood into this world that shouldn’t have mixed?”

“To listen to such words from a filthy rat-pig is somewhat…”

Isaac mumbled half-heartedly, but Zihilrat was no longer listening.

“Die!”

As Zihilrat screamed in a last desperate effort, rats began swarming out of the sac it had released.

The rats, born tearing through the sac in a boiling surge, looked grotesque. The poorly formed rats died as soon as they appeared or just wriggled and crawled on the ground.

It wasn’t an attack for survival.

It was like a mouse terrified by a cat, charging in fear.

Now Zihilrat had fallen to the level of a mere beast.

“Beasts of the plague, suffering ones! Kill him!”

Sssssss.

Isaac heard the sound of confusion as something crawled along the walls around him. The rats scattered around the monastery and the whole mountain were starting to gather.

Isaac realized that Zihilrat had summoned all the rats from the mountain, not just to attack him but to suffocate and kill him.

Even for Isaac, dealing with all those rats was difficult. However, he didn’t tense up, as he heard different voices.

“Rat, devour, absorb.”

“Nutrition, consumption.”

“Head, body, tail, all of it.”

Soon, Zihilrat seemed to notice something strange and fell silent.

Thump, thud.

Something began to burst out of the walls. It was the rat swarm Zihilrat had been waiting for.

But they had not come to save Zihilrat. They came seeking salvation, asking for protection.

The descendants of chaos, plumped up from absorbing and devouring many rats, followed the swarm.

In Zihilrat’s astonishment, Isaac loosely wriggled his tentacles.

“Zero for hygiene, but a buffet at last.”

***

Crunch, crack, snap, crunch.

Isaac watched for a long time as his tentacles devoured the rat mother. The giant bear hadn’t been fully devoured, but he let the rat mother be freely consumed. The other descendants of chaos also enjoyed the meal.

Since it wasn’t an appetizing scene, Isaac looked elsewhere.

The temple was indeed ancient. A place many people would have visited until a few hundred years ago. Perhaps Zihilrat was once a god worshiped by many. Then one day, the faith declined, and the Codex of light came.

‘The monastery squashed it under its buttocks, so of course, the grudge would be deep.’

But now, it’s just prey for the Nameless Tentacles.

It was a natural consequence to save the situation when a wild animal tried to harm a person.

Isaac examined the altar where Zihilrat had been sitting. On the long table, used for sacrifices, there was a carving of the rat queen giving birth to numerous rats.

Isaac slowly stroked the carving.

At that moment, a message came to him.

[“You can purify this contaminated sanctuary.”]

[“Would you like to dedicate this sanctuary to the ‘Nameless Chaos’?”]