Berserk of Gluttony (LN) - Volume 2 - Chapter 20

Chapter 20:

Cleansing Light 

FINALLY, AT THE FAR END of the central gate, we found an entrance, door opened wide, welcoming us into the keep… Clearly an invitation. 

“Let’s go, Fate.” 

“But, Aaron…” 

I had a bad feeling, an uneasy pit in my stomach that I couldn’t fill, even with the promise of the meal awaiting my Gluttony. Was stepping into this obvious trap really the best way to proceed? 

Aaron put a hand on my shoulder. “You can feel it, can’t you? You know the lich lord is in there, watching us. Regardless of the path we take, regardless of which door we venture through, the evil that awaits us on the other side will not change.” 

“Yeah… Okay, let’s go.” 

Aaron was right. There was no way for us but forward. Although we both hoped we would arrive at the lich lord’s lair without further battles, I saw in Aaron’s face that he, too, knew better. The sweat dripping down his brow made evident that sordid memories of his last visit to this haunted place had revived within him. 

Aaron entered the keep, and I followed close behind. The entrance hall was nothing like the ruin we’d expected. 

“What…what is this?” I murmured. 

Inside, each and every room and doorway was brightly lit. At the end of the main hall, a swollen group of people had gathered, alive, all smiling and calling to us, waving in our direction. 

“This is impossible… It can’t be… All of them, they should be…” Aaron could barely form coherent sentences. His unsheathed sword dropped to his side. It took everything he had just to explain what was happening. 

This was not what had happened last time. 

The last time Aaron had come to Hausen, the lich lord had reanimated the citizens’ corpses, puppeteering them like macabre marionettes and forcing Aaron to retreat at the hands of his own people. 

This time, somehow, the lich lord had returned those citizens to life. From the center of that cheerful crowd, two people emerged. One was a very young boy, the other a young woman, richly dressed. They gazed at Aaron with heart-wrenching joy in their eyes. 

“Father?!” cried the boy. 

“Darling, you’re back,” said the young woman. “I’ve waited for you for so long.” 

Aaron’s expression froze. I tried speaking to him, but he didn’t—or couldn’t—respond. Instead, he stared in speechless disbelief at his smiling wife and son. His loving family. The dead, now living. 

How can this be possible? I thought. 

“This is bad, Fate,” said Greed. “This is the spell Hallucination. The lich lord’s using it to make the dead look like they’ve returned to life.” 

“In that case,” I said, slowly shifting the black sword in my hands into the black scythe, “we’ll sever the illusion with this blade.” 

“Fate, wait. What are you going to sever? Cutting down these meat-puppets won’t do anything. You have to find the spellcaster. Only by attacking the lich lord itself can you negate its Hallucination spell.” 

I transformed Greed back into the black sword and clenched the hilt tight in my fist. The black scythe’s power was useless against secondary effects like this large-scale Hallucination. Cutting down the people who stood before us would do nothing to disperse the spell if they hadn’t been created by it. 

And, even if they were long dead, I couldn’t bear to cut them down so recklessly. They weren’t monsters—they were the people Aaron had come to free from the grasp of the lich lord. That was why he had retreated at the end of every previous attempt. Killing his family, his citizens, to get to the lich lord would be antithetical to Aaron’s wishes. 

As I stared at the smiling people trapped under the lich lord’s spell, I asked Greed a question that had been bothering me since we entered the hall. 

“Greed, if I kill these people…if I cut them down…what happens to them?” 

“There are still human souls trapped in their sorry corpses, and Gluttony will feast upon them. Why? Is there a problem?” 

“But what happens after that? I want to know what takes place after a soul is consumed. If I killed them—if I ate them—would these people pass on to the afterlife?” 

Greed knew exactly what I was asking. He held the answer I needed—the answer I dreaded. 

“Normally, I’d just tell you there are some truths in this world that you’re better off not knowing, but…you really do need this one, don’t you? Well, I guess there’s no better time.” This awkward skirting around the issue was unusual for Greed, but after some muttering, he continued. “Any soul devoured by Gluttony is cursed to reside eternally within Gluttony. These damned souls swirl and fuse with one another in a boundless hell from which there is no escape and no salvation.” 

I’d felt that truth deep within, but all the same, I didn’t expect so chilling an answer. My heart ached. How would it have felt to hear these words if, at some point along my travels, I’d killed someone genuinely good? Not Hado, or thieves and kidnappers, but someone like Aaron or Lady Roxy. 

Was this what Greed and Myne meant when they spoke of how others would react to learning of my Skill of Mortal Sin? 

In any case, I could not kill the people of Hausen. They were being controlled by the lich lord and turned against Aaron as weapons of hate. I would not doom them to the hell of Gluttony. 

But where was that damn lich hiding? The scent of the crowned beast filled the grand hall, but I couldn’t zero in. Was the Hallucination spell confusing my senses as well? 

I clicked my tongue in frustration. What should I do? 

By my side, Aaron stood transfixed, spellbound by his family as they approached him step by step. More than anyone, he had to know they were merely an illusion. However, now that they stood right in front of him—the thing he wanted most—he couldn’t bring himself to deny them. 

I knew how he felt. I did. If the ones before me were my own father and mother, I would have reacted the same way. But I had to snap him out of it, and I had to do it now. 

“Aaron!” 

I needed to wake him from the spell. I reached out to grab his collar, but before I could seize the cloth, he quietly shook his head. Despite everything, part of him still resisted the spell. 

“I’m fine. I just fell back for a moment…into the past.” He scratched the back of his head as though he were merely embarrassed. “When you get to my age, Fate, you’ll find yourself getting too attached to all these old memories.” 

Then he brought his sword back up to guard and turned his attention back to his family. “I’m sorry I was away for so long,” he said to them. “But now I am here, and I will set you free.” 

As soon as this promise left his lips, the grandiose lights of the hall winked out into darkness. The once-beautiful walls of the castle eroded, paint peeling and stone cracking. The castle was returning to its true form. 

Around us, the smiling faces of the castle citizens decayed from life into twisted, snarling visages of hatred. Each person carried a hoe, hatchet, or axe. Aaron’s wife held a wand, while his son clutched the hilt of a holy sword. 

“How could you, father?” shouted the boy. “You abandoned us! You were always so busy with your duties that you didn’t raise a hand when the monsters fell upon us. Now, you come back to kill us?!” 

“Darling, please!” cried Aaron’s wife. “Please, you must reconsider. Look at us. We’re all still alive, my darling. Put your sword down. Join us. We’d be so much safer with a holy knight to watch over and protect us. Please, come to me.” 

Behind Aaron’s wife and son, the castle’s withered dead—once Aaron’s citizens—began berating him. Blaming him. Criticizing him. They called for him to help them, to save them. 

Even through this assault, Aaron would not lower his sword. “Sorry, Fate, but I need you to let me handle my family and people on my own.” 

That was a relief. I couldn’t fight them without damning them. “All right. I’ll find the lich lord. I can tell he’s around here somewhere.” 

“Then let’s get to it.” 

Aaron took a deep breath, then charged toward the shambling corpses of his wife and son. I transformed the black sword into the black bow and looked for a route around the snarling dead bodies, toward the back of the main hall. I needed to find the lich lord while Aaron kept the dead occupied. 

The clash of holy blade against holy blade rang through the hall, followed by Aaron’s voice. 

“I’m impressed!” he shouted. “You’ve gotten stronger since I’ve been away, son! I’m glad to see you’ve been practicing, just like I told you.” 

It was a hollow attempt at conversation, and no response echoed in the hall save for the empty clashing of blades. I needed to end this. I shoved a few corpses bodily out of the way and proceeded deeper into the dim hall. 

Suddenly, I felt Gluttony pulse in my red eye. I noticed the environment waver slightly, as if the castle air was folding in on itself. 

“Greed,” I said, “is that what I think it is?” 

“It very much looks like it. As your Gluttony calls you to your prey, so must you respond in kind. Feast! But do not lose yourself to the hunger!” 

I only wanted him to confirm my instinct, not tell me crap I already knew, but I didn’t have time to answer. I dodged through the roiling wave of oncoming corpses, launching myself into the air where they couldn’t reach me. Midair, I nocked my bow with a magic arrow and charged it with Sandstorm. 

“Defile this!” I shouted as I loosed the arrow toward my prey. 

The arrow disappeared into the strange, barely visible, shimmering patch of air. A scream pierced the castle as the arrow struck the lich. As the shrill cry echoed, an oversized, skeletal arm crashed to the floor, transformed entirely into stone. In the next instant, the lich lord revealed itself: a bony giant surrounded in swirling black mist, its scythe held high as though it were the avatar of Death itself. 

I immediately used Identify on the beast. 

The Genesis of Death 

Lich Lord, Lv 100 

Vitality: 3,640,000 

Strength: 2,560,000 

Magic: 4,565,000 

Spirit: 4,346,000 

Agility: 2,347,000 

Skills: Hallucination (Spell), Magic Boost (High), Spirit Boost (High) 

The lich lord’s Magic and Spirit stats were over four million each… What would it feel like when I ate it? I’d never consumed a monster with over one million stat points. Though I’d trained myself for weeks now to control Gluttony, would that be enough? I keenly remembered devouring my first crowned beast back at the Hart family estate. The taste of the kobold warrior’s soul had been so exquisite that Gluttony and I had descended into a fit of senseless ecstasy. 

But I didn’t have time to think it through. 

“We don’t have time for your wimpy little worries, Fate! I, the mighty Greed, hereby guarantee your well-being. Eat your fill, and you will be fine. I swear it. But, for now, put aside such petty concerns! It’s time for you to show me these fine new skills you’ve learned!” 

“Then prepare to be impressed.” 

Greed laughed. “That’s my boy! That’s the spirit I like! Anything less, and I might die from sheer boredom.” 

I was not in the mood for another round of the lich lord’s Hallucination spell. I unleashed my Agility stat to its maximum and leapt at the lich lord as it backed up toward the wall. 

I transformed Greed back into the black sword. It was time to test myself in real battle. The lich lord took a step forward, readying its scythe to strike. From its stance and how it balanced its weight, I could tell it was trying to bait me into the range of a counterattack. 

I decided to call its bluff. 

I maneuvered in, closing the gap between us. The lich lord was easily two-and-a-half times bigger than I was, so if I got past the space it needed to swing its scythe, I could take away its ability to defend against my blade. The lich lord knew its limitations as well, and it would aim to fight from a distance. As long as I fought up close and personal, though, it didn’t stand a chance. 

“You really have improved,” said Greed. 

“I can’t be a rookie my whole damned life.” 

“Fair point! Carry on.” 

I parried the lich lord’s weak opening slashes, then stepped in and, with a strong upward stroke, sent its scythe flying. I took the monster by surprise, yanking its remaining arm in the direction of its weapon, and pulling it off-balance as I continued to step into severing range. The lich lord’s right arm was now mine. 

The lich lord’s rattling shriek again rang through the halls, together with the clang of its scythe dropping to the floor. Even disarmed, though, the lich lord showed no intent to surrender. It lurched backward, seizing control of the corpses behind me, and using them to attack me instead. The sudden change in direction and movement, as if an invisible string had jerked them, caused limbs to fall from the rotting bodies. They were the puppets of the monster, lacking reason and logic. 

Even knowing this was their miserable existence, my hands were bound. I would not attack the corpses that lumbered toward me. If Gluttony consumed them, they were doomed to an eternity of suffering that I suspected was far worse than even this. 

The twisted, shriveled flesh of the lich lord formed a morbid smile around rotten teeth as it watched me avoid the corpses. Then, pulling itself to its true height, the crowned beast had the citizen’s corpses form a gruesome wall around it. 

“It knows I won’t attack the citizens,” I said. 

“Tough break,” said Greed. “So, what now, Fate? Fight through the corpses to devour the lich lord?” 

“I can’t. These people would all be sent to eternal hell, wouldn’t they?” 

“Indeed. But good intentions alone won’t get you through this battle.” 

Maybe Greed was right, but there was one thing he’d forgotten: for once, I was not alone. I felt a wave of relief at the sound of familiar footsteps approaching from behind. 

“Fate! Sorry I’m late.” That unwavering, valiant voice belonged to Aaron, who was now equipped with one gleaming holy sword in each hand. 

“Aaron,” I said. “Your family, your people…what happened?” 

“They won’t be joining us anytime soon. I severed the tendons in their arms and legs. They’re immobile.” 

To be capable of such deft precision work in the most heartbreakingly dire of circumstances… Aaron was truly unparalleled. Still, even he grimaced in disgust at the sight before him now: a writhing wall of dead bodies that had once belonged to his people protecting the lich lord. 

“And, again, it comes to this,” he muttered. “Always, in its desperation, the beast resorts to this…” 

With that, Aaron plunged one holy sword into the stone floor of the hall. The other, he began to charge with holy magic, readying the Grand Cross. 

“Aaron?!” I shouted. 

“Fear not, Fate,” he replied. “I should have done this a long time ago. If I had, we never would have been forced into this hellish fight.” 

Seeing the burning light emanating from Aaron’s sword, the lich lord scrambled for a counterattack. It used Hallucination to make the corpses cry out. They begged us for help, they pleaded with Lord Aaron to save them, but through the wailing, Aaron continued to channel the tech-art into his blade. 

When the sword he wielded was fully imbued, he unleashed Grand Cross onto the lich lord. Holy light filled the castle, pulsing up the walls. The citizens of Hausen melted into the blinding energy, their souls cleansed by the holy light. All that remained was the lich lord, whose immense Magic and Spirit stats had let it endure Aaron’s attack. 

Aaron grit his teeth and began charging the sword again, but his face was pallid. Blood leaked through his armor from a wound in his side. The work of disabling his beloved opponents rather than killing them had come with a heavy price. 

I stared at the holy sword plunged into the floor next to Aaron. 

“One time, and one time only. You use that sword to help Aaron, and that’s the last time you ever use another sword. Ever.” 

It was Greed’s voice at my side. The black sword, who openly detested the very idea of me wielding any weapon other than itself, was giving me this one chance. 

I took it. I wrenched the second holy sword from the floor and placed it against Aaron’s glimmering weapon, our blades crossing. 

Aaron glanced over at me, shocked. 

“Fate, what are you doing?!” 

“Let me help.” 

For the first time in my life, I began to charge the tech-art Grand Cross. I poured into it my magic and my resolve, and I watched as the holy blade began to shine white. 

“Fate, you have…” 

“I know. Now, let’s end this.” 

“Yes,” Aaron said. “Once and for all.” 

We poured all of our power into our shining blades. Our voices called out as one. 

“Grand Cross!” 

The castle was radiant with our combined light. In that instant, everything we could see was overtaken in burning, holy white.