457. Return (2)
First, Isaac's hand reassembled itself in the void.
Following his hand, dreamlike colors flowed out. Wherever the colors spread, Isaac's arm and body began to form. Only then could Isaac feel a solid sensation at his fingertips.
'Kaldwin'. Isaac felt completely returned to the world only at the moment he grasped it, now feeling like one with him.
10 meters above the ground.
The materialized Isaac's body began to fall, but he didn't panic. Not wanting to start his return with a bloodbath, Isaac targeted the carriages of the humans pursuing Isolde and her group.
Thump! As he fell, he struck the connection between the carriage and the horses with Kaldwin, and the carriage overturned and soared into the air.
Everyone stared at the suddenly appearing Isaac with surprised eyes, but no one could identify him because of the thick cloud of dust that rose.
'I don't know who they are, but judging from how they call Isolde a sign of the devil, they aren't ordinary.'
Isaac first swung his sword at the one riding a horse and floundering around. The distance was too far for the sword to reach, but the 'Touch of the Drowned', which activated as naturally as breathing, instantly knocked about four pursuers riding horses around him to the ground.
"It's magic! This bastard uses demonic magic!"
To an ordinary person, there was no difference between a miracle and advanced swordsmanship, especially to someone as skilled as Isaac. However, the expression 'demonic magic' was something Isaac was hearing for the first time in his life.
"What..."
"Die, you cultist of the devil!"
Finally, several men relentlessly thrust their spears at Isaac. Isaac, not wanting to see blood, cut the spears in half in an instant. But the thugs didn't back down at all and tried to stab Isaac with the severed spear tips.
'Do these guys have two lives? .... Ah, it's infinite now, isn't it?'
It was a difficult fact to get used to, but now immortality was guaranteed in this world.
In any case, it was too slow of an attack for Isaac to bother swinging his sword to kill them. Isaac waited for the attacks to come, then slowly dodged and successively struck the jaws of three men. He had intended to knock them unconscious, but the sound of necks breaking rang out. The men staggered strangely, walked a few steps, then bumped into each other or collapsed on the spot.
"Ah, devil..."
People watching the scene murmured in horror. Isaac's appearance, having dispatched three men without even using a weapon, seemed truly bizarre.
In fact, Isaac was also bewildered.
He moved too naturally, and even he thought the movements were inhuman. It was as if his entire body was tentacles, and he felt no limitations on his joints or nervous system at all.
"Ah, devil! It's the devil. The devil has returned..."
'So, the Demon King was resurrected in the Holy Land Lua…'
He didn't know how much time had passed since he left, but he seemed to have gained some strange nicknames in the meantime. He had twisted his body and worked hard in the Dawn Army, thinking he was saving the world, but hearing these nicknames made him feel beyond hollow; it was almost laughable.
It was then.
"As expected, commoners are useless! To talk about the resurrection of the devil just by looking at something like that?"
Just as Isaac was about to grab one of the remaining thugs and ask him a question, he suddenly felt a hot heat from one side. The carriage that Isaac had overturned at the beginning. A man was sitting on it.
An abnormally dark complexion, looking more like colored ink than skin. Glassy eyes that flashed and spat out glints of light here and there. It was a Scorched One.
"When I was in the Dawn Army, that level was nothing! Angels burning the heavens and monsters swallowing the world were rampaging. Anyway, that's why commoners remain commoners for life!"
Isaac felt a mixture of freshness and amusement at the mention of a Dawn Army veteran. A Dawn Army veteran was robbing people?
"Are you the boss of this gang of thieves?"
At that, instead of the Scorched One, a nearby thug shouted in anger.
"Thieves...? You bastard! We are the Millennium Brotherhood! A solid organization building the walls of the new Millennium Kingdom according to the will of the Lighthouse Keeper who built the Millennium Kingdom! Insulting us is the same as insulting the Lighthouse Keeper's hands and feet!"
"Ah... a low-level mercenary group."
From the name alone, it reeked of a low-level criminal organization. It seemed that various new organizations and classes had emerged while he was gone. That meant Isaac hadn't returned in just 48 days like before.
Isaac had muttered the words without thinking, but they enraged the Scorched One.
"To dare to despise the Millennium Brotherhood, I must teach you that even the Lighthouse Keeper's benevolent hand can be fearsome when it becomes a fist."
The Scorched One began to approach Isaac. He certainly felt a stronger momentum than before. Isaac lightly shook Kaldwin, wondering if it was time to use his sword.
Then, the wind blew. As the dust cloud cleared, Isaac's figure was fully revealed.
The gang of thieves gasped loudly at that moment.
Amidst a silence that was difficult to describe, someone stuttered and shouted
"... Unnecessarily pretty face for a man. But since you stood up to the brother, that pretty face will be crushed... Brother?"
When the Brotherhood members turned around at the panicked voice, the Scorched One was already running away without looking back. Only then did Isaac believe that the Scorched One was a 'Dawn Army veteran'.
"Ah, it's the devil! It's the Demon King! The Demon King has returned! The Paladin of the Dead God has returned!"
The Scorched One screamed only after getting quite far away. The Brotherhood members alternately looked at Isaac and the Scorched One with expressions mixed with emptiness and bewilderment. Isaac watched as their faces gradually filled with fear.
Isaac gestured with his chin.
"Aren't you guys running away?"
The moment those words fell, the reaction was divided into two. Most ran away immediately, while a few charged forward shouting. He highly valued the bravery of the latter, but the moment he saw their momentum, Isaac changed his mind.
'Paladins?'
The thugs charging with desperate expressions were using high-level swordsmanship that felt unique to the Paladin Order. They were using the most powerful techniques they could use.
Isaac drew Kaldwin for the first time and countered.
Clang, clang clang clang! Of course, Isaac was able to deflect all of their attacks while standing still, without taking a single step.
Despair quickly filled the faces of the Paladins.
Isaac couldn't understand why Paladins had joined a gang of thieves looking like beggars. But it seemed difficult to get an answer while in the middle of a sword fight.
The moment Isaac's sword moved exceptionally quickly, the Paladins felt as if Isaac's body had stretched out. When Isaac stopped, the Paladins were all lying down with their legs cut off, like a harvested wheat field.
Groans and sobs flowed from here and there, but there were no screams. This disciplined appearance was also Paladin-like. They were probably members of a Paladin Order that was considered elite.
"Isaac."
Someone called Isaac. A familiar voice, a voice he had been waiting for.
Isolde lowered her turban and approached with a bewildered face. All sorts of complex emotions were swirling in her eyes.
Isaac had a lot to say, but he didn't know how to start.
Fortunately, Isolde spoke first. "We can't leave any witnesses. Let's track them all down and capture them."
"...Let's do that!"
It wasn't a very romantic thing to say, but it was efficient advice.
Even before Isaac finished speaking, the undead soldiers, the Death Knights, were already pursuing and capturing the fleeing Millennium Brotherhood. They were the ones being attacked and chased originally, but capturing people who had lost their morale and were running away was easy.
Finally, Isaac personally captured the Scorched One who had fled the furthest, and the Millennium Brotherhood was captured without exception.
The Paladins regenerated much later than expected. Some even fainted from excessive bleeding. But as time passed, tentacles crawled out from the severed sections of their legs and began to find and reattach the severed legs. The tentacles sucked up as much of the spilled blood as possible with their suckers and restored the Paladins' severed legs.
The Millennium Brotherhood was terrified, but whether they believed in their immortality or because they couldn't do anything other than resist, they shouted while tied up.
"Do you think you can harm us who are protected by the Lighthouse Keeper's grace!"
"If you harm us, the Lighthouse Keeper's wrath will be poured out on you!"
It was a threat that was not worth listening to, but Isaac thought that he should deal with the leader, the Scorched One, first, so he looked at him.
The next moment, the Scorched One slammed his head on the ground and shouted.
"Please save me! Please save me, Holy Grail Knight!"
The Millennium Brotherhood looked at their 'brother' with blank expressions. In particular, the former Paladins looked like they wanted to chew up and eat the Scorched One.
Isaac thought it would be better to talk to the Paladins, so he asked.
"Why did a guy like this become a Scorched One? I thought Scorched Ones were properly crazy fanatics."
"Those kinds of people have already either molted or ascended. Can't you tell by looking at him, a Dawn Army veteran who is still punching people in a low-level organization like this?"
A Paladin answered with a hollow look.
'Molting' and 'Ascension', what are those?
It seemed to be a new class system, and many things had changed after the Millennium Kingdom descended. From here on, it was a path Isaac had never been on, so he had no choice but to learn by directly confronting it.
"You."
Isaac pointed at the Scorched One and said.
"You're not going to die anyway, so why are you begging for your life?"
"Because I recognized you. Only the priests of the Issacrea Dawn Prayer Meeting can grant people a 'temporary' state of death."
It wasn't the Scorched One who answered Isaac's words, but Isolde.
She looked somewhat tired, but she was freely involved in the interrogation scene. In fact, interrogation was her specialty, so it would be more accurate to say that she had returned to her original field.
Isaac felt something strange in those words.
"..…Issacrea Dawn Prayer Meeting?"
The Issacrea Dawn Prayer Meeting that Isaac knew was a group that greeted people well, ate their vegetables, and loved animals. But why would such a terrible perk be attached to them?
"Yes. After the Millennium Kingdom descended, everyone became immortal, but only the priests of the Issacrea Dawn Prayer Meeting... these days they just call it the Prayer Meeting, so I'll shorten it. Anyway, only the Prayer Meeting priests could stop that state of immortality."
"Why?"
At those words, Isolde looked at Isaac as if he were ridiculous.
"I thought Isaac would explain it."
There was no way Isaac could explain it. But he could guess, at least roughly.
The current Millennium Kingdom is a kingdom of immortality ruled by the Mother of All Gods. And Isaac is another Chaos.
The clash of faiths is a clash of concepts.
Just as the White Owl called the Outer Boundary a 'unrecovered area teeming with rebels,' the area occupied by Nameless Chaos is governed by Isaac's rules.
In other words, only Nameless Chaos infringes upon the power of immortality.