155 – go beyond – 1
“You’re asking why I came! You don’t even want to answer me, is this?!”
When Layla cursed, pieces of yellow and green flesh fell from her rotting face.
I could see maggots wriggling and eating flesh inside the festering flesh. Some of them tried to crawl out of their faces and roam the skin.
At first glance, it seemed like an ordinary insect clinging to a corpse to fill its stomach, but the reality was different. It just wriggled grossly on top of the skin and didn’t eat the rotten flesh.
The colorful facial muscles began to regenerate. The maggots were covered by the rotten flesh that filled up, and the slope of the unevenly curved skin softened a little.
It was to no avail. Lila was still venting her anger at Serena, and the muscle and flesh supporting the rotting corpse couldn’t withstand the shock.
Fragments of flabby skin left stains on the tattered dress.
But that doesn’t mean Lila has the ability to recover. Because the current Lyla is in this world in an intermediate form, neither living nor dying.
It was closer to the existence of so-called ghosts or ghosts.
“Did you come to mock me? Or just think of a way to fuck me up? Say it, say it! You’re not here to set me free!”
Teeth sparsely fell out, revealing bare gums between the black discolored lips, which showed no sign of closing at all. It was half-rotted, like the skin that covered it.
The teeth were also not the normal color and shape. Some were yellowed, some were painted black. Some were half broken. Not a single tooth had a normal color and a normal shape.
It seems that the clinging power has weakened because even the gums have rotted away, and the teeth fell to the floor as if they were free-falling from the gums simply by shouting and talking.
The fallen teeth immediately turned into a gray mist and disappeared, and new teeth sprouted from the gums. Even the newly sprouted teeth were discolored.
But that didn’t mean Layla had resilience. Because the current Layla could neither live nor die, and was only stepping into this world in an intermediate form.
It was something quite complex that would make you shake your head left and right if you asked if it was a ghost, even though it was closer to what is commonly referred to as a ghost or ghost.
The reason why Layla is stuck in a dilapidated mansion with her feet ambiguous between life and death with such a hideous appearance is because of the magic she used in the past.
Right before Serena cut her throat, the magic she used as a last resort to not want to die.
After the boy and Serena reappeared from within the defensive magic, Layla realized faster than anyone else that the babbling crowd gathered here could never defeat Serena.
The scroll used by the boy who ran away failed, and all the adventurers and servants who were a part of it were massacred.
And as soon as he intuited that there were only three beings left standing on his own two legs in the garden, he could not overcome his desire to live and cast the magic of immortality on himself.
To be precise, magic that is said to keep humans from dying.
Fortunately, it was the first magic developed in the Mage Tower where Layla was a member, and thanks to this, Layla not only witnessed its birth, but even engraved the magic circle into her head.
In dozens of experiments with insects and animals, immortality magic achieved a phenomenal success rate of 100%, so it was not unreasonable for the wizards to conclude that it was a success.
The problem was, it was far from magic that guaranteed complete resurrection.
In the end, because of the danger, it was not publicly announced and was disposed of.
Strictly speaking, insects and animals revived by immortality magic could not be said to have survived. Because I didn’t show a single life reaction.
Insects were seemingly fine, but the animals were the problem. With no blood flowing in his veins and no heart beating, it was impossible to say that he was fully alive.
Unfortunately, Layla ran away from the Mage’s Tower after only confirming the success of the immortality magic conducted on insects, so she was unable to confirm the results of experiments conducted on animals.
Because of that, he mistook immortality magic for perfect magic, and used it on himself right before his death.
“He! He knew! He knew! What kind of magic I used! It’s clear he knew everything and let it go! He couldn’t have looked at me like that otherwise! To make me look like this!”
Laila came closer to Serena step by step.
That immortality magic wasn’t meant to keep life from dying, it was magic that simply kept it in the body.
Rеаd at ոоbӏеmtӏ.соm
Judging only by the condition, it can be seen that it is most similar to the undead, a type of monster.
Layla, who had been decapitated by Serena and reattached it as the magic worked, felt something strange when she saw the boy giving a subtle glance at her with an arrogant smile saying that she had been revived.
The time when I realized that things were going wrong was right after I realized that my heart stopped beating, the blood stopped flowing in my veins, and the warmth of my skin gradually cooled.
The boy left the mansion with Serena and her mother, saying that it would be more terrible to leave Lila alone than to kill her now.
The space in the mansion was sealed by the scroll, and Leila, who was left there, thought that she couldn’t be left alone here, so she revived the adventurers and servants that Serena had slaughtered.
An undead creature just like himself.
In fact, the people Layla forcibly revived could be considered the true undead.
Unlike Layla, who was revived by using immortality magic before dying, it was because she was a being who was forcibly revived after she had already died, or because she had almost no self.
Although the master-servant relationship was still the same, he followed Laila’s orders, but he could not despair of his future fate. Covered in blood and with one part cut off, he just walks around slowly.
Layla let out a scream at the fact that they wouldn’t go through the same pain she did.
“This rotting skin! And the maggots infested inside! It’s all because of him!”
Once transformed into undead, the corpse does not rot. Because the undead itself has properties close to those of monsters.
However, there was no way that Lila’s misunderstood immortality magic would have been such an embalming treatment. Layla suffered from extreme anxiety as she watched her body decay in real time.
Of course, Ryla was a wizard talented enough to enter the Mage Tower in her own way, so she succeeded in treating her body so that it would not rot.
In return, he was transformed into something in between, neither undead, nor ghosts, nor ghosts, but it was good because he was a being that could not be called a human from the moment he was revived anyway.
And that was it.
His body changed into something ambiguous and he could no longer handle mana, and he was forced to lead his half-rotten body and lock himself in the mansion for the rest of his life.
That is, unless someone with divine power strong enough to purify the undead breaks through the space distortion magic that spreads around and comes to this mansion and kills Layla.
A few months later, the boy came to Layla alone and said, “I don’t understand why she struggles to live when she has the opportunity to die,” with an expression that she sincerely doesn’t understand.
Enraged, Layla ordered servants and adventurers to tear the boy’s body apart, but the boy left after tearing it apart for about three days, muttering that even this would not work.
Since then, Lila has been spending a regretful time shutting herself in the crumbling mansion.
Right now, until Serena comes along.
“What kind of nonsense are you talking to my lord?”
Serena opened her eyes fiercely. The momentum was so intense that Layla flinched for a moment.
The flinching soon turned into a giggling sneer.
“Your lord, my lord? Why should I respect the guy who made me look like this? Could have! But he ruined it all! He made me such an asshole!”
The wind shear swung.
There was no skill or cunning. It was a simple swing that came from Serena’s inability to overcome her anger. Its power is just incredible.
The slash created by a single swing cut Lila’s body in two neatly. The rotten body split open to the left and right, and the rotten organs fluttered between them.
It was a blow so fast that even the person himself, who had been cut in half, realized that his body had been severed only after his eyesight widened to both sides.
“It’s no use, no use! Do you think you can kill me with an attack like that?”
Each of the halved bodies mocked Serena with a sneer. Then it melted into the gray mist, and returned to its decaying form, right where it had been dismembered.
Beside them, rotting corpses, all cut off somewhere and covered in rags, slowly began to reveal themselves.
They were servants with the magic of immortality and A-class adventurers who had to live with Lila for the rest of their lives like this.
“know.”
Serena calmly scattered the blue mana wrapped around the wind shear blade. Just now, it was just a conditioned reflex attack because his master had been insulted.
I never thought I could kill Layla.
“Did you come here knowing that? Stupid!
With those words as a signal, the ghosts around them all rushed at Serena.
Contrary to Layla’s declaration that she would never let her go, Serena could tear open space with a slash and escape at any time she wanted.
Even the space distortion magic that was applied here in the first place was delayed because I was reminiscing about the old memories.
Serena was the swordsman who reached the concept of dimension cutting, a concept that no one other than Serena could even dare to imagine. The nearby spatial distortions were not even a problem.
However, the purpose of coming here today was not different.
‘You have to go beyond the limit.’
The master’s last words to go beyond. The key was here.
Because Serena said that the moment she cut the uncut, she would be able to break the mold of being human.
Undead, ghosts, or ghost-type enemies were unmatchable with normal magic or physical attacks, and could only be defeated with divine power.
Even if the slash Serena had fired earlier, even if the essence was a little different, didn’t Lila recover from it at once and conversely laugh at Serena?
That was the fundamental limitation of the sword.
Rеаd at ոоbӏеmtӏ.соm
Just as a human being could not make two heads or eight arms and legs no matter how many times he practiced, he could not cut something insubstantial as long as he was a swordsman.
At least, the dimensional cutting, which was made to fulfill the master’s wish, would be the closest technique to that concept. Even Lyla, who exists in such an ambiguous state, probably won’t be able to withstand the dimensional severing.
However, considering that Serena could not overcome her limits even after completing the dimensional cut, it was the same as saying that was the wrong answer.
So, I got rid of the mana that was wrapped around the wind shear.
Rather than relying on high-level skills that are manifested through mana, he can swing his sword normally to slash and kill these ambiguous beings around him.
To be able to cut what cannot be cut.
That was the task given to Serena, and it was also an order given by the lord.
Waves of ghosts of rotting corpses rushed over Serena. Serena aimed her wind shear at the wave of corpses.
