The Blood Temple.
In a dim corridor, the floor was webbed with vein-like blood vessels that slowly writhed like living vines. Embedded in the walls were egg-shaped objects that emitted a faint violet glow. Within each, hazy human silhouettes could be seen—ghostlike and incomplete.
These were eggs birthed through the Authority of the Mother of Beasts.
All the demonic beasts attacking the Babylonia front line had come from here.
And yet, inside this silent corridor, faint footsteps and the sound of dripping liquid could be heard from time to time.
—Drip.
—Drip.
Kingu staggered forward with one hand braced against the wall. Blood slid down from his ankles, and his clothes were already soaked through.
With every step, tearing pain surged from the wound in his abdomen.
If it had only been that injury, it wouldn't have been this bad. But he had forced himself to take Quetzalcoatl's kick head-on—one that had nearly carried all her strength—and the impact had worsened everything.
Then he'd fled like his life depended on it.
Now even walking was becoming a problem.
Even though this body had once belonged to the divine-made weapon Enkidu, it still couldn't withstand damage on this level.
"Damn it!"
Bang!
Kingu slammed his fist into the wall, but the pain shooting from his wound made cold sweat pour down his back.
Even now, he still couldn't figure out who that greatsword-wielding man—moving so strangely—really was.
The only thing Kingu could be sure of was this:
That man was absolutely not a human of this era.
And that bizarre outfit…
It looked vaguely similar to the one worn by the man who had claimed he wanted to cooperate with Mother—the one who called himself a reincarnator.
If that was truly another reincarnator…
Then Mother might be in danger right now.
"…No. I have to hurry. I have to reach her before that man does…"
He couldn't allow that bastard to succeed.
Of course, the Tarnished knew none of this.
If he did, he'd probably laugh so hard he'd turn into a pile of runes on the spot.
Teacher Morgott from the Lands Between falling for misunderstandings was one thing—he was used to that by now.
But even this guy was taking the bait?
Turns out he had a talent for stirring chaos after all.
With growing urgency, Kingu forced his legs to move faster, stumbling deeper into the Blood Temple—
Into a vast, open plaza.
The air was thick with the stench of blood, so heavy it was nearly fog.
For such an enormous temple to reek like this…
How many people had died here?
It was impossible to estimate.
And at the center of the plaza, a colossal figure lay curled on the ground.
The moment Kingu saw that sleeping form, he finally exhaled.
Good.
That reincarnator hadn't laid a hand on Mother yet.
But his arrival seemed to disturb her slumber. The huge figure slowly lifted her immense body from the ground.
"Mother… you're awake?"
Still clutching his wound, Kingu immediately offered his greeting.
"Mmm…"
The massive figure answered as if still thinking—or perhaps not fully awake.
It had to be said: she was enormous, yet breathtakingly beautiful.
A stunning, voluptuous figure.
Long violet hair flowing like silk.
A mature, alluring face that carried the charm of an older sister.
And those pink eyes—beautiful and luminous—so similar to Anna's that it felt like looking into a mirror.
Most striking of all was her overwhelming, dramatic fullness, a dark valley so deep it could swallow a person whole—enough on its own to make any weak-willed man drool.
And yet, for all that beauty…
She was not human.
Her lower body was a gigantic serpent tail nearly a hundred meters long. Golden wings spread from her back, and even the ends of her gorgeous purple hair were writhing snake heads.
She looked exactly like the Medusa of legend.
Because she was Medusa.
Or rather—Gorgon, the embodiment of Medusa's hatred toward humanity, condensed into a single being.
"My child… you are wounded?"
Gorgon seemed fully awake now, gazing down at the tiny Kingu below.
Her eyes were calm as still water.
Her voice held no emotion—like it was nothing more than a simple inquiry.
"It's nothing, Mother. Just a small injury."
"Mmm… then you've come here because something urgent has happened?"
It was a reasonable question.
Under normal circumstances, Kingu rarely stayed in the Blood Temple. He was either causing trouble—or on his way to cause trouble.
For him to appear here injured was unusual enough to raise suspicion.
"Yes. There is something I need to trouble you with, Mother."
Kingu bent slightly at the waist in respect.
"Do you know where that man who calls himself a reincarnator is?"
"What happened?"
"Yes."
Kingu nodded and continued.
"On the road, I encountered someone like him. This wound in my abdomen was left by that person."
As he spoke, he slowly removed his hand, revealing flesh torn open and stained red.
At the sight of the injury, Gorgon narrowed her eyes slightly.
The wound itself wasn't the issue.
It was the lingering aura clinging to it.
Even though it was faint, she felt a threatening presence there—something terrifying, like a natural enemy of the divine.
Even with her immortality, if she truly faced that force…
She likely wouldn't come away unharmed.
"Mother, I fear the reincarnator who claims he wants to cooperate with us has ulterior motives. Mother—tell me his location. Before he can act against us, we should kill him first!"
Seeing Gorgon fall silent, Kingu hurried to add that final push.
Gorgon nodded slowly, about to speak—
When a teasing voice echoed through the empty temple.
"Talking behind someone's back isn't something a child of the gods should do, you know. Heh."
From a shadowy corner on the far side of the plaza, a tall, thin man stepped out.
At a glance, he looked no different from an ordinary human.
But embedded into his arms were two crimson blades, folded down along his forearms like hidden fangs.
His legs were prosthetics, gleaming with black metallic sheen.
Each step on the stone floor rang out crisply, the sound echoing through the vast hall.
He walked up to Kingu with a faint, mocking smile.
"You say you met my companion? And my companion let you come back alive? Heh."
As he spoke, mechanical gears rotated slowly in the depths of his eyes.
"That's impossible. If you truly fell into their hands, you'd only have one outcome—death. Heh."
He was the last reincarnator to invade this world.
A member of the Demon Eyes Squad.
In the Main God's Space, the Demon Eyes Squad was an organized team that usually took missions together. Their identifying trait was obvious:
Every member possessed a unique kind of eye.
And the eye this man carried was a mechanical prosthetic—
One that could observe and calculate an opponent's movement path at terrifying speed, with a maximum computation interval reaching one two-thousandth of a second.
Not only that, most of his body consisted of cybernetic prosthetics—technology originating from a cyberpunk world and the world of Black Bullet.
Yet the way he spoke—so arrogant and so bizarre—made it seem as if someone had wired his brain wrong during installation.
And because of that…
Very few people were willing to team up with him.
Even the other two members who had joined this mission under the Demon Eyes Squad had chosen to abandon him—simply because they couldn't stand him anymore.
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