Chapter 723: War?

“Despair…”

A sunken cheek, straw-like messy hair, a tangled beard, and a body barely clad in rags.

Through a Zombie Puppet, Puppet muttered quietly, like a beggar.

As if savoring the word ‘despair’.

After a moment, Puppet replied.

“It’s hard. I’ve already felt enough of that emotion to grow tired of it.”

Bang!!

As soon as he answered, a rainbow-colored ripple burst widely behind Puppet, spreading across the sky.

Manipulating each particle of mana, the gravitational field expanded, covering the entirety of the Tower of Magic, exceeding the bounds of common sense.

But what was truly terrifying wasn’t the size.

Rumble…!!

The gravitational field, centered on the plaza of the Tower of Magic, started to rapidly shrink, and as it did, the power of the field increased exponentially.

As gravity intensified, the air grew heavy, like wet cotton, and the ground cracked under its own weight.

Even Oliver could feel it pressing against his skin.

Still, Oliver didn’t move, even as the shrinking gravitational field closed in on him.

That’s because countless black, sticky, bony hands were reaching out from beneath the flesh-covered ground, grabbing onto Oliver.

“Aaaaaah…”

The hands made eerie noises as they grabbed Oliver—they were the hands of sinners emerging to the surface through the medium of flesh.

The sinners of Hell.

Whether to escape Hell or not, as soon as they were shown a glimpse of the surface, they reached out desperately for anything to grab hold of.

Ensnared by a faint glimmer of hope.

Yet, most grasped at nothing, flailing hopelessly through the air, but some managed to seize Oliver.

Clutch!

Those who barely caught hold of him seemed unwilling to let go, displaying monstrous strength that defied their emaciated forms as they gripped Oliver tightly.

One by one, more hands grabbed onto the arms of those already holding Oliver, increasing the weight pulling him down.

It looked like a barnacle-covered surface—a layer of barnacles on top of other barnacles.

Countless hands grabbed onto each other, all centered on Oliver, and pulled him downward.

Rumble…!!

Meanwhile, the semi-translucent rainbow-colored gravitational field towered, distorting space as it fell along with Puppet.

At the moment when the gravitational field, compressing space itself, was about to descend onto Oliver’s head.

Oliver raised his palm and chanted.

[Rejection].

An unfamiliar power, different from magic, Dark Magic, or Druidic rituals.

When that power activated, an invisible wall spread from Oliver, pushing everything around him away.

Boom!!

The countless arms of the sinners, who had been grasping at hope, were crushed against the powerful wall.

The precisely constructed gravitational pillar crumbled like a tin can and shattered into pieces.

An indescribably horrifying scream echoed alongside the cacophony.

With that sound, the sinners’ hands retreated back into Hell beneath the flesh, and the broken gravitational field scattered into countless fragments across the void.

“Is that… Authority?”

Puppet, having distanced himself just before Rejection activated, muttered in admiration.

“Breaking a gravitational field without substance is one thing… But to send back the sinners seeking salvation from Hell… You truly are the Prince of Hell!”

With an unnecessarily loud voice, Puppet gathered Hell’s power around his hands and focused the mana, taking control of the gravitational field fragments scattered across the void.

Then he struck the void directly.

BANG!!

A thunderous sound rang out, and the countless fragments of the gravitational field resonated together, creating numerous cracks in the void.

Not just the walls, floors, or pillars—but in the intangible air itself. It appeared that space itself was on the verge of collapsing.

Clench!

Puppet twisted the cracks in the void, directing them toward Oliver.

Creeeak…!

As the eerie creaking sound echoed, the cracks closed in, surrounding Oliver.

The world around Oliver grew unsettlingly distorted by the cracks until they started fusing, creating a dangerously unstable space.

Space on the brink of collapse.

Pop!

At that exact moment, Oliver lightly tapped the air, shattering the cracks that surrounded him.

He destroyed the cracks by collapsing them.

It was absurd, but Oliver accomplished it, and the cracks that once threatened him were erased cleanly, as though wiped away with an eraser.

Yet Puppet wasn’t flustered by this.

Instead, he narrowed the distance in an instant, coating his arm in a gravitational field as he swung his fist at Oliver.

Whooooosh…!

As Puppet swung his arm coated in the rainbow-colored gravitational field, the void twisted, the ground trembled, and the space around him tightened. Then, Puppet-

“-Interesting, aren’t you?”

Smack!

Oliver swatted his hand as if batting away a fly, speaking casually.

With that light motion, Puppet’s arm—along with the gravitational field—exploded powerlessly, and Puppet gritted his teeth to suppress a scream.

He seemed well-accustomed to pain and despair.

“Did you really think that would work, or were you just desperate to land a blow?”

Oliver questioned, but Puppet deliberately ignored the question as tens of new arms sprouted from the area where the first had exploded.

The sight resembled a flail with numerous chains, and the arms moved independently, attempting to surround and capture Oliver.

Slash!

But all of them were torn apart when Oliver swiped his hand.

“…”

The excruciating pain of countless arms being ripped away caused Puppet to scream soundlessly as he tried to gain some distance.

But this time, he failed.

Just as Puppet tried to retreat, Oliver struck his quarterstaff hard against Puppet’s side.

A deep, resonating sound echoed as one side of Puppet’s torso caved in deeply, shooting him into the distance.

Puppet tumbled across the ground, narrowly avoiding crashing into a building when flesh from all sides rose up to catch him.

Collapsed against a wall, Puppet stayed down.

This time, the damage was severe. The spot hit by the quarterstaff remained deeply indented. And then.

“Graaahhhhh━━!!!”

“Kihihihihihihiii!!!”

“Mother, mother, mother, mother, mother.”

“Squeeeaaak━━!!”

“Screeeeaaaam━━━!!”

“Who am I? Who am I? Who am I?”

“Squeeeaaak━━━!!”

A bizarre phenomenon occurred.

From inside Puppet’s body, countless people screamed, pressing their hands and faces against Puppet’s skin from the inside, as if trying to break free.

It was a grotesque, otherworldly sight.

A familiar sight from the past.

Oliver had seen this before during his first encounter with Puppet.

Back then, people trapped inside the Zombie Puppet had also tried to escape.

What was happening now was no different.

The Zombie-Archives inside were also screaming to be let out.

It might sound strange.

The dead Zombie Puppets wanting to escape.

Yet, that was indeed the reality.

Because those Zombie Puppets had been brought back to some semblance of life.

“You implanted artificial souls, reviving the dead Archives, didn’t you?”

Oliver asked, as he stepped forward with his quarterstaff.

As he thrust the quarterstaff, Puppet hurriedly erected a wall of flesh and used space magic.

Smash!

A loud burst echoed as the flesh wall Puppet had created was shattered, forcing Puppet to retreat once more.

However, Oliver quickly closed the gap, swinging his arm.

“An interesting idea. Creating a new soul, overlaying it with memories, and then implanting it into a body to bring someone back to life.”

Puppet narrowly dodged Oliver’s blow.

He spread the gravitational field again, enveloping the surroundings and then flung it at Oliver like a tidal wave.

The rainbow-colored gravitational wave shimmered as it approached Oliver, but as soon as it touched him, it shattered like a wave crashing against a rock.

“But it’s more like making a replica of the person rather than truly reviving them.”

Puppet mixed pure, refined mana into the dismantled gravitational field, materializing it into a real force. He then crafted it into the shape of teeth, trying to bite Oliver from both sides.

Oliver responded by casually waving his quarterstaff, reducing the gravitational field to dust.

Cough!

The backlash caused Puppet to cough, faltering.

A gap appeared.

Puppet hastily manipulated space, attempting to flip the sky and the ground to block Oliver, but Oliver’s sweeping motion easily unraveled the spell.

With Puppet left vulnerable, Oliver lunged.

Puppet desperately pulled out two books from the Archive to deflect Oliver’s attack, but Oliver simply altered the trajectory of his arm, landing a direct hit on Puppet’s body.

Puppet’s upper body exploded, and the Archives trapped inside tried to escape all at once.

“Kweeeaaaah!!”

Puppet screamed, shoving the resurrected yet incomplete Archives back into his body.

The sight was eerily reminiscent of the damned trying to escape Hell.

He was full of vulnerabilities.

Oliver didn’t attack, watching quietly.

It didn’t make much difference whether Puppet was intact or falling apart, especially to Oliver.

“…So, is this how you planned to revive the Creator? By making a soul, engraving the Creator’s memories, and creating a substitute?”

“…”

“In the end, it’s just self-satisfaction.”

“…”

“Even the act of reviving… It’s ultimately about you.”

“…You’re no different.”

Puppet, who had remained silent, finally spoke.

“From what I see, you’re no different from me.”

“…”

“The only reason you went through all that trouble to save those Tower of Magic people was for your own peace of mind… Isn’t that why you avoided bloodying your hands before you met Kent?”

“Your words are sharp.”

“Of course they are… I hate beings like you!”

Fully healed, Puppet shouted as he stood up, summoning a new Zombie Puppet through the medium of flesh.

The way this new Zombie Puppet was controlled was unusual.

Rather than controlling it directly, Puppet manipulated it remotely through a Zombie-Archive, likely trying to avoid direct confrontation with Oliver.

It wasn’t a bad choice. This would allow him to avoid direct damage.

‘However, the problem is…’

It made little difference to Oliver either way.

With a single swipe of his arm, everything shattered once again.

“Kweeeaaaahhh━━!!!!”

Undeterred, Puppet immediately used flesh and Hell’s power to conjure an enormous Zombie Golem the size of a building, sending it charging toward Oliver.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Each step of the massive weight shook the ground.

Oliver responded with a simple thrust of his quarterstaff.

His quarterstaff pierced through the gigantic Zombie Golem, crushing it.

Through the gap in the dented Golem, Puppet leaped out, aiming a punch coated with a gravitational field and space magic at Oliver.

As mentioned earlier, this was somewhat unusual.

This type of reckless close-quarters combat wasn’t Puppet’s preferred style.

Having mastered countless combat styles over hundreds of years, thanks to his expertise in Manipulative Dark Magic, Puppet surely had preferences when it came to battle tactics.

Close combat, however, was out of his comfort zone.

Whatever the case, Puppet was primarily a manipulator of Dark Magic.

Yet, in this battle, he stubbornly engaged in close combat to an overly risky degree.

This behavior signified only one thing: Puppet was determined to land a blow on Oliver at any cost.

A burning resentment, accumulated over hundreds of years, could be felt.

Oliver’s evaluation of that emotion was simple.

“It’ll be difficult for you anyway, won’t it?”

Oliver accepted Puppet’s surprise attack head-on and spoke, saying what couldn’t be denied.

Sometimes, things just weren’t possible.

To prove his point, the Zombie Puppet, made of countless Archives, crumbled once again in vain.

At this point, who knows how many had been destroyed… But one thing was certain: at this rate, the endurance of Puppet’s Zombie Puppets would soon give out.

Puppet was aware of this too. He needed a variable.

“Are you so sure Kevin and the others in the Tower are safe?! Hahaha!! Do you think they’re really secure?!!”

Kahahahahahak!!

Crarrrgh━!!

Rooaaarrrggghhh!!!

Through flesh, Puppet summoned hundreds of zombie soldiers, surrounding Oliver as he spoke.

It was clear what this meant.

Puppet’s control wasn’t limited to the Tower of Magic but stretched across the entirety of Randa.

Beneath the sewers, he still had countless high-quality Zombie Puppets as well as an army of the deceased.

If Puppet wished, he could easily turn Randa back into a battlefield and take everyone hostage.

This was his attempt to bind Oliver’s actions, but Oliver calmly replied.

“Yes, I believe they are safe.”

A confident answer.

Immediately after, Oliver’s shadow stretched outward, sweeping away the hundreds of zombie soldiers like a tidal wave.

The shadow, possessing unnaturally clear eyes and perfectly aligned teeth, instantly tore through the zombies, even attempting to destroy Puppet.

And then.

Ding! Ding! Ding!

Ding! Ding! Ding!

Ding! Ding! Ding!

Ding! Ding! Ding!

Ding! Ding! Ding!

Ding! Ding! Ding!

Six overlapping eerie yet grand bell chimes echoed through the surroundings.

Even Oliver’s shadow faltered under the weight of the heavy chimes.

During the brief moment Oliver and Puppet were engaging, six Zombie Golem-Archives had been summoned, surrounding the plaza.

Every time the bell rang, black ripples spread out, merging into larger waves until they entirely engulfed the Tower of Magic.

Doooong━! Doooong━! Doooong━!

With the bells now perfectly synchronized, Oliver felt a significant pressure he couldn’t ignore.

The flesh surrounding the area and the six Zombie Golem-Archives had drawn out Hell’s power to its maximum.

Rumble!!

At the center of it all, the Zombie Puppet-Archive activated its core technique: a massive gravitational field, anchored by the ripples, crushing down the entire Tower of Magic.

Not just crushing it… but pushing it down below the ground, into Hell itself—this was a new kind of gravity.

The earth shook as the ground caved in. The buildings weren’t sinking into a basement but rather into Hell beneath the flesh.

Puppet focused that gravity, aiming to send Oliver where he could never return, deep below.

It wasn’t easy.

“Come forth now, my musicians.”

From within the gravity pushing toward Hell, Oliver called out.

At Oliver’s request, portions of the flesh controlled by Puppet broke off and fell into Oliver’s hands.

From these areas emerged violinists, piccolo players, flutists, violists, cellists, bassoonists, contra-bassoonists, clarinetists, harpists, pianists, tuba players, trombonists, timpanists, drummers, cymbalists—performers wielding every instrument known to humankind.

They once were human, yet they were no longer human. Though shaped like humans, their true nature was far from it.

Upon seeing these musicians emerge from the flesh, Puppet’s expression twisted for a moment.

The musicians, summoned from the flesh, began playing an awe-inspiring symphony beyond this world.

···········································

In an instant, the sounds of the world vanished.

The gravitational field that had been pressing the world down into Hell shattered effortlessly.

The flesh covering the ground suffered the same fate.

Not only that, the six Zombie Golem-Archives that had participated in the ritual fell as their heads and bodies burst apart.

As for Puppet, the Zombie Puppet-Archives he controlled knelt down, leaking bodily fluids from their eyes, ears, nose, and mouth.

On his knees, Puppet stared up at Oliver, while Oliver looked down at him, indifferent.

In that tableau, something snapped in Puppet, and he let out a monstrous cry unbefitting any living creature.

“Aaaaaaa-!”

At that moment, something caught Oliver’s eye.

From all the sewers across Randa, something was rising.

It was an endless army of the dead, the very force that had driven Randa to the brink of destruction—the army Puppet had meticulously gathered over hundreds of years.

This army emerged once more to invade, plunging the city into fear and chaos.

Not only civilians but also the Defense Force and even the Royal Army, which had previously fended off the undead.

For they hadn’t driven away the undead through their strength, but through Puppet’s will.

And now, that same Puppet ordered the undead to attack Randa again.

With countless numbers swarming the city from every corner.

It wasn’t a force one could stop simply by being strong.

No matter how powerful Oliver was, his body was still singular.

But Oliver didn’t panic. He calmly unwound the bandages wrapped around his right hand.

Beneath the loosening bandages, a burned hand was revealed.

Puppet’s gaze was drawn toward that hand, and Oliver brought his thumb and index finger together.

Snap!

And with that single, crisp snap, a blinding white light engulfed Randa.