Magic Caster of Destroy

Even after taking 70'000 lives?! Granted, the battlefield is a place of death. The weak losing theirlives is only a matter of course. But even so, shouldn’t he feel something in his heart after killing somany people?!!

Regret or guilt would be the natural response. If he felt joy or excitement, that might even be understandable, twisted as such a reaction might be.

However —

Is this indifference some sort of defensive ability to protect his conscience? No, for a monster likethis, it must be familiar scenery! Whether it’s the pity humans feel for trampling ants underfoot, orsome sadistic joy, none of these emotions are present!! What… what is this?!!! Why is thishappening? Why does someone like this exist in the world?!!!!

“—What’s the matter?”

“Aieee!”

His body felt like it was encased in cold steel. In response to the sudden question, Nimble responded with a panicked squeal.

“No-nothing’s wrong. That, that spell just now, it was magnificent.”

Nimble gave silent thanks that he was still able to speak. More than that — the fact that he could praise Ainz under such circumstances was nothing short of laudable.

“Ha ha ha—”

And what Nimble got in return was nothing more than quiet laughter.

“Have, have I given offense?”

“No, none at all. You said that spell just now was magnificent, right?”

“Y-yes.”

Was that what he was laughing at? The sweat flowed down Nimble’s forehead like a river. After seeing the dreadful consequences of angering this person, he had no intention of incurring his ire.

“Please, be at ease. Although I must say, my spell is not complete yet. Now is when the real show begins. After all, when one makes an offering to the Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young, she will reciprocate with a gift of her offspring. Those cute, adorable children…”

That was right.

And just as ripened fruit would fall to the earth in the fullness of time —

♦ ♦ ♦

The Imperial knights were the first to see it.

It was expected that the knights, watching from a safe distance, would see it first. Because they felt safe, they dared to peer outside from the narrow slits in their helmets.

After the storm of death had claimed the lives of the Kingdom’s soldiers, something appeared in the sky, a jet-black sphere that sent chills down the spine of all who saw it. It seemed to pollute the world with its very presence.

Then, who on the Kingdom’s side saw it? It was most likely the troops of the right wing, who had no direct line of sight to what had happened on the other side. Perhaps they sensed something abnormal was going on, but they did not know the details of what had transpired, and as they looked around to find out what was going on, they saw it.

As though their eyes were being guided there, the soldiers of both sides, and the soldiers beside them noticed it. In this way, everyone on the Kattse Plains, who had gathered to wage war, ended up staring silently at the sphere floating in the sky.

The sphere —which resembled nothing so much as a hole in the heavens— was like an opened spiderweb; once one caught sight of it, one could not pull away.

The black sphere slowly grew larger.

Be it fighting or fleeing, no human could engage in any meaningful thought or activity. All they could do was stare dumbly.

And soon — the ripened fruit fell.

Like the laws of the universe, the falling sphere broke apart when it touched the earth.

It burst like a water balloon striking the ground, or perhaps like an overripe fruit doing the same.

It was full of something that spread out from the point of impact. It was something like asphalt. It absorbed the light, like a wave of hungry darkness, and it was sticky and fluid and it swallowed the corpses of the dead Kingdom soldiers.

Informed by some unknown instinct, nobody thought it would end there.

Perhaps it had only begun.

This was the beginning of their despair.

Suddenly, a vast tree grew from the black tar that covered the earth.

No, that was nothing as pleasant as a tree.

At first, there was only a single trunk, but then it multiplied. Two, three, five, ten… they waved in a wind that was not there. What was growing there... were tentacles.

“MEEEEEEHHHH!!”

Suddenly, they heard the adorable bleating of a goat. And it wasn’t just one goat. The sound of a herd of goats seemed to have come from nowhere.

As though drawn by the sound, the asphalt writhed up, and it gave birth to something.