Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
Some strange diseases began to appear in Istan City. When many people were working, resting or walking on the road, they would drop on the ground all of a sudden, as if they had lost all their strength. For them, it was even strenuous to stretch a finger straight.
“It’s as though the body was sapped of energy and life!” A patient told the doctor, his lips trembled as if even speaking had exhausted all his strength.
The strangest thing was that after every single day, those patients would grow old at a crazy speed; every day was akin to a year for them.
From youth to adult and in a short period of more than a month, they leaped over from middle-aged into senility, from the youthful faces to ashy hair and wrinkled skin. The doctors in the city and even priests with divine incantation had no solution to such a strange disease.
Everyone was gradually aging in agony and pain, they had no way to resist or stop their decline into a dry corpse, and then ushered into their ugly death. It was such a terrible situation that even the doctors were terrified. Eventually, rumors began to spread in the city.
Even if all the patients were quarantined, new patients were still emerging and fear was brewing in Istan City.
“This isn’t a disease, this is a curse!” A tall and strong old man, with gray hairs which was trimmed to half an inch, he looked particularly fierce and forceful. As soon as he entered the hospital, he saw some ordinary patients and immediately affirmed them.
Miles was a retired high-ranking clergyman, a Level Three top-notch professional, more than 190 years old, regardless of physical or mental activeness, it had begun to go downhill; there was no chance of him to advance to the Level Four. Even if he wanted to achieve his breakthrough forcefully, the possibility of advance was minimal; Miles then returned to his hometown for his retirement.
The city’s managerial staff and the Holy Temple of the Sun had no choice but to invite him, they hoped that the knowledgeable man could solve the crisis in Istan City.
“Curse! How could it be, even the priests’ divine incantation had no effect on it!” said the captain of the knights from the Holy Temple of the Sun at one side.
Miles looked up and said, “There’re some special curses against the soul that aren’t easily identified by ordinary divine incantation, especially the higher level curses from Ghost Wizard and Demon Warlock!”
“This situation is beyond the scope of supernatural power, so it can only be a curse; are there any more serious patients!”
In another three-storey building of the hospital, Miles saw the patients who were quarantined; each of them was like an evil ghost, their eye sockets were up to the chin and their energy and spirit were exhausted. There seemed to be no fats or muscle on their bodies, there was only a skin plastered onto the bones. The scenes were horrible and none could utter a word.
Miles held the Saint Ornament in his hand and prayed silently with the goddess’s holy name in his mouth. The Saint Ornament shined brightly; it dispelled the gloomy cold presence of tens of meters around him. He pushed up an eyelid of a patient. As the use of his divine incantation got vigorous, everyone saw the glittering green flames and ugly abyss’s worm in the pupil of the patient.
“Devil! It’s the devil!” Doctors around him repeatedly retreated one after another and even the Holy Knights were spooked by it. Devils from the abyss were the most difficult to handle. It was more demanding and terrifying than Demon Warlocks and Ghost Wizards, because the presence of each demon represented the opening of a door to the abyss around them.
“No! Not an ordinary demon!”
Miles held the Saint Ornament high up, grabbed the patient’s head with the other hand, and the patient immediately struggled violently.
“Ga-ga-ga! Squeak-squeak-squeak! Ha!”
The patient sounded like a scary shriek akin to when an old wooden door closing. It was totally unlike what could be made by a human throat. Miles’s strong arms firmly restrained the other and he grabbed a fiery red peculiar insect out from the patient’s head.
“Bartosz’s evil worm, this is Bartosz’s evil worm, from the eighty-second floor of the abyss, the monster of the deepest abyss!”
“Someone is summoning the abyss and offering sacrifices to Bartosz, the Devil Lord of the abyss! That person is attempting to summon for the arrival of the abyss!”
At that moment, even Miles’s throat was somewhat deformed. In his nearly 200 years of life, he had never encountered such a thing. Someone who could open the door of the abyss was at least a Level Four Demon Warlock. Moreover, he had already opened the door of the abyss and had offered sacrifices to the abyss; that Demon Warlock was in the process of degeneration.
Even the strongest members of the Faith of the Sun hadn’t had the chance to encounter such incidents. It wasn’t something they could handle. Even Miles couldn’t solve such a crisis.
“Search the city, there must be a Demon Warlock’s inauguration. We must find the gate of the abyss, the Talos Door!”
“There’re 43 demons above Level Four on the list of Arbitration Knights, we don’t know which one has escaped to Istan City.”
Miles and the others had searched all over Istan City, and finally in an underground ice chest, they saw the place of blood sacrifice, and a half-meter tall black diamond. It was constantly squirming and the space was continually broken and condensed. The will of the world was repelling it from entering their world, but the power from the abyss kept it in constant motion; it had expanded and enhanced.
“It’s already so big, it’s too late, and we’ve no power to close the door of this already opened abyss!” After many attempts, Miles was in despair, they had no power to close the door. They were fighting with the forces of the abyss and against the Devil Lord, Bartosz.
Miles then tried to contact the outside world through magic transceiver, but he found that the only way to contact the outside world in Istan City had been destroyed. The next Steam Train wouldn’t return until half a month later, but they didn’t know that the train track had been wrecked too, even if they made urgent repair, the train wouldn’t reach Istan City in a short time.
They felt that a hand had long been manipulating everything; it was a foggy shadow, which was looking down at them greedily and viciously, he was eager to sell the souls of everyone to the devil in exchange for a ticket to the abyss.
“We can’t resign ourselves to death. We’ll send someone out to seek help right away!” The captain of the Holy Knights was burning in rage.
Miles took a deep breath and he, who already looked hoary and old, stood straight, “It’s too late. It takes at least a month to and fro, and the doors of the abyss will open in half a month at its latest. When that happened…everything’s late!”
“And do you think that the people we sent out can deliver the letter alive? That’s a Demon Warlock who is at least a Level Four. He’s hiding in the dark, spying on all our actions.”
“Maybe we can get out of here and take everyone out of Amos Icefield!”
“Under the frigidity of Amos Icefield, if there’s no heating from an alchemical boiler, most will be killed. But if you take 20,000 people across the Amos Icefield, most of them will die half way through the journey, with the exception of those professionals!”
The priest of the Divine Hall looked at Miles, “What should we do then?”
Miles’s eyes were blazing with fire, as if he had once again found the passion he experienced in his youth, “We’ll find him and fight him to death! As long as the one whom casted the spell is killed, the doors of the abyss will naturally close!”
“There’re only 20,000 people in Amos Icefield. Every outsider who appeared will surely leave a trace. We’ll surely find him!”
“At night, we’ll meet in the temple and have a discussion on our imminent battle!”
Miles returned to his wooden house, from under his bedplate, he found and took out the sword that had accompanied him for 150 years; he relied on it all the way to the peak of his Level Three professional career. He counted on it to become the leader of the Arbitration Knight Team.
The first generation of Holy Knight was the one who served under the great Lion King, Will, in the creation of the Holy Seville Empire; he was the Holy Knight, Ibu. He had left behind a Divine Sword, even in the Faith of the Sun, it was enough to be referred as a relic!
Ibu was an orc who lived on Amos Icefield’s original tribe. He fought together with Lion King, Will, from the North, to build the Holy Seville Empire. At last, his sword was left on Amos Icefield and was acquired by young Miles; only then did Miles establish an admirable life.