"How is that possible?!"
Fisher looked like he'd just seen his entire worldview collapse.
Which was understandable. To him, the power came from his god—and this divine art had helped him easily kill a captain he once couldn't overcome. Now it had failed on Gauss. In Fisher's eyes, it was basically the sky falling.
"Trying to use monsters' resentment against me was a mistake from the start."
Gauss shook his head. Facing an enemy whose faith had shattered, he wore only a thin, mocking smile.
That move might work on ordinary people.
Curses—especially curses tied to some higher, unknown existence—were unsolvable for most.
And any adventurer with a bit of seniority had blood on their hands. The enemies they'd killed might have been weaker individually, but piled together, the curse backlash could still be lethal.
Best case: injuries. Worst case: death on the spot.
But Gauss was different. He was a monster's natural counter.
That wasn't self-flattery—it was truth, proven again and again by those titles that ranged from Hunter to Expert.
Every creature he'd slain, every species he'd ended, had become an inseparable part of his strength—one general's success built on ten thousand bones.
So the kind of cause-and-effect "resentment backlash" Fisher was banking on simply wouldn't stick.
Gauss felt the evil energy on Fisher weaken further after Beast's Punishment. The outcome was decided.
But before he killed him, Gauss wanted an answer to one thing:
When did Fisher first come into contact with that same-root energy—the kind the ratman priest had used?
Fisher swallowed.
Maybe because the "divine power" inside him was almost gone, his mind finally cooled. His reason reasserted itself.
And when he saw Gauss looking at him like a merchant appraising goods, a chill crawled up his spine.
Without that power, there was no way he could beat Gauss.
He was only a freshly promoted Level 9 caster. How could he fight the "legendary" Level 7 archmage from all the intelligence reports?
He glanced toward the Red Dragon Company.
With Luna's group joining them, and Red Dragon's core strength already being formidable, Red Dragon had actually gained the upper hand.
So… there might still be room to negotiate.
After all, he and Gauss weren't yet at the point of absolute mutual destruction, right?
In the adventurer world, conflict didn't always end in slaughter. Sometimes it ended in annexation, in absorbing rival elites, even in one leader "switching employers."
Maybe Gauss wanted him alive.
Maybe that was why Gauss hadn't killed him immediately after breaking the divine art—why he'd been watching, thinking.
Fisher had always been the type who could bend when needed. Otherwise he never would've survived years of lying low under Wolf.
To live, he could kneel.
Anything—so long as he lived.
His pale face twisted into an awkward smile.
"Lord Gauss… it was all a misunderstanding."
"I was bewitched by that evil god. Those crimes weren't my will."
"I was loyal to Captain Wolf—truly. I just couldn't resist the god's power."
"And I must thank you, Lord Gauss, for breaking that power and rescuing me from that nightmare."
"If you don't mind… Fisher is willing to serve you like a hound."
Gauss blinked.
He hadn't expected Fisher to fold so cleanly—kneel with zero shame. In a twisted way, it was a "special talent."
"Serve me?" Gauss's smile didn't reach his eyes.
His standards for people were high. Strength alone wasn't enough.
And Fisher failed every test.
With Wolf as proof, Gauss had no intention of inviting a venomous snake inside. Even if Proof of Leadership could slowly cultivate loyalty, Gauss instinctively loathed a traitorous coward like this.
Besides—Fisher crossed the line the moment he tried to hit Gauss's teammates.
Alia, still in Eagle form, shot Gauss one look. She already knew what he'd choose.
In Fisher's hopeful gaze, Gauss's answer was—
"Any Door."
Blue light flashed.
Gauss surged straight at Fisher.
He was too fast.
Without the "divine" boost, Fisher's body was even more exhausted than usual—another reason he'd begged so quickly.
By the time Fisher realized Gauss's decision, it was too late. Gauss had already blinked into close range.
"You—!"
Fisher tried to speak through rage and panic—
But Gauss answered by stuffing his mouth with magic missiles. Physically.
"Boom! Boom! Boom!"
Magic missiles hammered the hastily formed shield in front of Fisher, blooming with violent light.
Fisher's reflexive shielding was still sharp—level 9 fundamentals didn't vanish overnight.
But it lasted only moments.
Against Gauss's seamless barrage, the shield was paper-thin.
In a blink, it cracked.
Crack!
The crystal-like barrier shattered.
Then the missiles locked onto Fisher's whole body.
He tried to cast Fly and break away—yet an unavoidable sensation seized him, like he'd been locked on.
And then the missiles swallowed him.
Gauss's "Magic Missile" wasn't a mere Level 1 spell anymore. Anyone who underestimated it out of habit paid dearly.
When the light faded, Fisher was a wreck.
His robe—already perforated by holy-water arrows—was now shredded into rags like a vagrant's cloth.
He hastily stacked more shields onto himself, trembling.
He'd known Gauss was exceptional. He hadn't realized Gauss was this terrifying.
Just "Magic Missile" alone had pushed him into utter desperation.
Fisher looked at Gauss once, then chose to run.
And so began a chase—one pursuit, one flight, spells traded back and forth.
But Fisher was suppressed the whole way.
Gauss's attacks kept landing. Even when Fisher tried to dodge, the missiles tracked like they had eyes.
Fisher's own spells were mostly wasted mana.
Escape was even more hopeless.
No matter how fast he flew, Gauss held him at a constant distance—like a predator playing with prey.
After more than ten kilometers of this, Fisher felt his body and mind sag… and his mana tank bottom out.
Despair flooded in.
He'd imagined the worst-case scenario: if he died, he'd at least drag Gauss down with him—detonate his remaining "god-power" and cripple Gauss.
But Gauss stayed just far enough back, raining long-range spells, never giving Fisher the chance to self-destruct effectively.
Fisher felt utterly humiliated.
He couldn't win. He couldn't run. He couldn't even die usefully.
His eyelids grew heavy.
"Damn it—open, dead eyes!"
He forced himself awake.
And then, in the sliver of timing between shields breaking and another barrage, two spells slipped in.
"Confusion."
The Level 4 spell hit.
Normally, a Level 9 caster's mind wouldn't fold easily.
But Fisher had been ground down to the edge. The spell caught like a spark on tinder.
"Who am I…?"
"Where am I…?"
"I'm so sleepy… should I just sleep?"
"Ha—…"
Then a Level 2 Hypnosis spread through him.
Comboed together, Fisher fell into deep sleep mid-flight.
He lost control of Fly and began to drop.
Just before he became a smear on the ground, Gauss—annoyingly kind—threw Fly on him to keep him alive.
Fisher couldn't die yet.
Not until Gauss got answers.
Gauss guided him down, watched him sleep like a baby, then calmly began asking what he wanted.
Under hypnosis, Fisher answered everything.
…
Once Gauss had enough, he formed a web of razor-thin water threads.
"Control Water."
"Thousand-Thread Severing Domain."
The glowing filaments spun up.
"E-E-E—!"
It was like feeding flesh into a grinder.
Fisher became countless pieces in seconds—dead beyond dead.
The last trace of that evil god's power inside him was erased by the holy threads, dissolving into black smoke and vanishing.
A prompt appeared:
"Evil God's Servant Slain ×1"
"Gained: Divinity Favor 0.05%"
"Current Divinity Favor: 2.7%"
"Huh?"
Gauss's eyes lit up.
So Fisher had already been stripped of "human" status by the system—counted as a monster now.
And Gauss gained divinity again?
0.05% was small, but paired with Fisher's intel and the "evil god's servant" tag, Gauss felt he'd just found a repeatable route.
"Vespeteria…"
Even that name suddenly seemed… almost friendly.
"Oh—right. Albena's side."
He burned Fisher's remains to ash with Burning Hands, ensured nothing was left, then shot back toward the battlefield.
Fisher's remaining men carried the same corruption—weaker, but still worth harvesting.
When Gauss returned, Red Dragon was already winning.
Even with Luna injured and unstable, she was still the former Deputy Captain: a Level 9 warlock. Combined with her veteran loyalists and Red Dragon's core fighters, they held the advantage against the partially transformed captains.
Even if Gauss hadn't come back, they'd likely finish the job within minutes.
But—
"Leave them to me."
Gauss's voice dropped from above.
Albena and the others instantly relaxed. Gauss's presence was pure safety.
The enemy captains, on the other hand, went cold.
No. No, no—
Gauss's return meant Fisher had lost.
They'd already felt their power draining.
They hadn't expected Gauss to return so fast.
"Trying to run?"
Gauss raised a brow at one of them.
He shaped holy water into a blue-gold bow.
Thwip!
The arrow punched through the captain's chest—straight into the corruption knot—then detonated with holy force.
"No—!"
Flesh burst. A crater formed.
The rest broke into flight in different directions.
Thwip! Thwip! Thwip!
Each shot left a crater—each shot meant a death.
"Gained: Divinity Favor 0.02%"
"Current Divinity Favor: 2.72%"
Five of Fisher's men together yielded 0.02%.
Gauss closed his eyes. Somewhere deep inside, that mysterious power grew stronger—and his grasp over the world-rule fragment Precision deepened too.
These servants of the evil god?
They had to die.