Please Stop The Pope

Chapter 83

3.

The reason why those with demonic energy always target children is simple.

A pure soul, suitable to serve as a sacrificial offering.

It is said that corrupting a pure soul produces more demonic energy than tainting one already sullied.

I had learned this four years ago after crossing over to Eden, from a black sorcerer whose entire body I personally crushed. It’s likely accurate.

“Could it really be…could this deaconess truly be…?”

Pastor Seo, who had fainted earlier, ran his trembling hands over his chest, where the tendrils had struck him.

Judging by his violently shaking hands, the shock he suffered was severe.

“She wasn’t the person you knew, Pastor. She was just wearing that person’s skin.”

Those lower demons, also called plague demons, didn’t have shape-shifting abilities like doppelgangers or mimics.

However, they could wear the skin of those who had fallen victim to the plague.

“Then what happened to the real deaconess?”

“Plague demons can only wear the skins of the dead. She’s likely already passed.”

“It’s all my fault. If I had tried harder, I could have saved more people…”

Pastor Seo didn’t blame anyone else. Instead, he wept, berating himself.

Some might call those tears the tears of a saint, but to me, they were nothing of the sort.

It seemed Luna felt the same way.

Holding the grotesquely distorted head of the plague demon in her right hand, Luna strode toward Pastor Seo.

She shoved the demon’s head in front of him and spoke.

“An adult like you should know when it’s okay to cry and when it’s not. If you want to cry, do it after this is over. Do you think you’re safe just because we took out one lousy plague demon?”

“This must be Pastor Seo’s first time in such a situation.”

“First time or not, do you think these creatures will go easy on you because of that? They’ve got you sitting pretty on a throne of naivety.”

With her flail slung over her shoulder, she looked less like a paladin and more like a neighborhood thug.

Still, she wasn’t wrong, so I couldn’t say much to her.

“So, what’s the plan, Your Holiness? Are you going, or should I? We just killed one plague demon, but more demons and infected people will swarm here soon. Someone has to stay.”

“What do you want to do?”

Saying this, Luna tossed the plague demon’s head to me. I caught it and focused my divine energy on it.

Hissssss—

The distorted head melted away, compressing into a small black stone the size of a pebble.

Even at this size, it was enough to trace the demonic energy back to its source.

I pocketed the stone and turned to Luna with a knowing look.

“Be honest. You’re staying because you want to smash the heads of the ones swarming here, aren’t you?”

“Oh, come on, who’d think I’m obsessed with bashing heads in?”

“You’re not?”

“Halfway there, maybe.”

Screeeeeech!

Groaaaaaaar.

While Luna and I exchanged jokes, ominous cries began to echo from outside.

Sensing the impending danger, the creatures were instinctively converging on this location.

“Honestly, this is for the best. It’s better they come here than target others. Fewer casualties that way, right?”

“Agreed. Plus, you’ll enjoy the fight.”

“You can do what you want with the plague demons, but remember about the infected. They’re still people suffering from the disease. If it’s too hard to heal them in battle, just knock them out. We can treat them all at once later. Got it?”

“Such generosity. Fine, I’ll clear a path first. Take your time coming out.”

Luna gave me a casual wave and walked briskly outside.

I watched her retreating figure with a smirk before turning to Pastor Seo.

“Don’t take Luna’s words to heart. She’s rough around the edges, but she’s soft on the inside.”

“No…She wasn’t wrong.”

“Hmm?”

“Luna didn’t say anything incorrect. Regretting things while it’s still ongoing…I must have lost my mind.”

Buzz—!

At that moment, the divine power within Pastor Seo began to resonate powerfully.

He didn’t seem to notice, but I felt it clearly.

Divine power grows stronger within firm convictions. Pastor Seo must have had some kind of revelation.

The only regret was that his conviction wasn’t directed toward Limen.

“You’re looking much better now, Pastor Seo.”

I nodded in satisfaction as I met the light returning to his eyes.

“I’ll be back in 30 minutes at the latest.”

“Thirty minutes…”

“Luna will hold down the fort outside. Please take good care of the children here. Heemin, help the pastor, all right?”

“Yes!”

I had a lot to say about divine power.

Although we followed different faiths, I could see that Pastor Seo was a good man.

After bidding the two a brief farewell, I quietly stepped outside the church.

The source of the plague demon’s power wasn’t far.

The fiends and demons were swarming in from all sides, but Luna, who had gone out before me, had already cleaned up most of them in that short time.

Thanks to her, I could easily begin my tracking.

Since the area was heavily infested by the plague demons, malice was emanating from everywhere. However, using the stone compressed from the demon’s remnants as a compass, I quickly moved forward.

The mechanism to track the origin of the plague was simple.

The demon Luna smashed earlier only served as a collector of malice. It roamed around engraving the curse-like Mark of Gluttony, which was precisely why.

Plague demons are essentially harvesters.

This means there is a higher-level being that collects malice from them.

“Here we are.”

The place where the demon was sending its collected malice wasn’t far from the church.

I furrowed my brow as I looked at a relatively large clearing.

It seemed I had found the right spot.

Thump-thump-!

At the center of the clearing, a black mass squirmed ominously.

The mass resembled a tumor.

Every time it pulsed irregularly, black veins spread out from its core.

Some nearby buildings were already engulfed by the black veins extending from the mass, and with every blink of my eyes, the infestation continued to spread.

This phenomenon was familiar from my time in Eden.

When the number of victims exposed to the plague increased, it led to this result: a secondary source of infection created by malice seeping into the earth from those infected by the plague.

“A spore colony.”

A kind of organ made entirely of malice, designed to spread spores further through the wind.

The organ could only appear when a large amount of malice had accumulated to sustain it, but to think it would form into a spore colony in just four days.

This indicated that the plague in this area had progressed to an extremely severe level.

The only relief was that the spore colony wasn’t yet fully formed.

The plague was deadly to ordinary people because it spread in such diverse ways.

Once a spore colony is complete, there’s no point in containment anymore.

It’s impossible to block spores carried by the wind.

Whoosh-!

As I gazed at the grotesquely writhing mass of tumors, I ignited divine flames on my fingertips.

Anything revolting could simply be burned away.

While Earth’s containment systems couldn’t stop the plague, divine flames could incinerate it without leaving a trace.

Crack. Crack.

Sensing the divine flames emanating from my hand, the tumor mass immediately began to transform.

After a grotesque sound of bones twisting, enormous monsters covered in black mucus emerged from within the mass.

On their bodies were the anguished faces of the victims who had died in agony, embedded all over.

That alone was enough to tell what the monsters were made of.

Screeeeech!

Raaaaaah!

Horrific screams erupted from the faces embedded in the monsters.

The sound of malice-laden screams resonated, battering me from all sides, as the grotesque figures charged at me.

Blackness consumed everything around.

The enormous, grotesque masses duplicated endlessly from the tumor and surged toward me in waves of hatred and screams.

Looking at the black wave surging toward me, I quietly sighed.

And then, I snapped my fingers.

[Active Skill activated.]

The divine flames spreading from my fingertips formed a massive ring and swept through the black wave.

The moment the sacred fire pierced through the oncoming wave, the once-relentless surge was cleanly severed.

Whoooosh!

From the severed surface of the wave, the white blaze of divine fire flared up fiercely.

“The front door’s already on fire; let’s see how long you stay curled up inside.”

The spore colony, made of tumors, was merely an organ.

Its main body lay hidden beneath the colony.

The origin of the plague, hiding underground, was seething with hatred directed at me. For such a creature, I had only one response: the scorching taste of divine flames.

Just as smoke is used to flush out a raccoon from its burrow, this method works wonders for those unwilling to come out.

I smirked and snapped my fingers again.

The divine flames burning above ground rapidly spread down through the tumor mass, consuming it as they descended.

This time, the reaction was immediate.

Rumble-rumble-rumble!

The ground, consumed by the tumor, writhed as if it were a living creature in agony.

And shortly after—

【How dare you defile my colony!】

A massive monster, oozing pus and vile fluids, emerged from the ground. It was the size of a small building.

Eight arms.

Eight legs.

And a long, sinewy tail dripping with fluid, just like its body.

The stench of decay pierced my nose, making me grimace.

“So, you’re just another lackey of Gluttony? Or not even that?”

It was hard to even call it a demon.

At its core, it wasn’t much different from the plague demon I had just dealt with, except that it possessed a much greater amount of malice than the others.

【Are you the one who destroyed Drano’s altar? After defeating a mere lich that led the undead, you dare flaunt your might? My plague will devour you! Your corpse will be offered to Him, and I will be granted a glorious name!】

A demon not yet granted a name.

That alone indicated its low status among its kind.

I slowly approached the pus-leaking creature.

“So, the lich I took care of last time was named Drano? That’s funny. Honestly, compared to you, that lich seems like it was far more competent.”

【Do not compare me to that skeleton!】

Whoosh!

The creature lashed out its enormous tail, as large as a shipping container, aiming to crush me.

For a moment, it seemed overwhelming, but I easily stopped its tail, wrapped in demonic energy.

I raised the corners of my mouth and asked,

“Here’s a question. If I yank this tail hard enough, will it rip off just the tail, or will it take your whole backside with it? What do you think? Curious?”