The Paladin in the Abyss

The blue giant's body was severed in half, and it rolled forward under the force of inertia.

But a shocking scene unfolded; despite appearing to be in great pain, the Demon that had been cut at the waist evidently had not died yet. Its upper body was struggling to crawl toward its legs as if trying to reattach them.

Lancelot quickly followed up, his sword glittering as he sliced off the Demon's arms as well.

"Ahhhhhh!"

The Demon let out another agonizing scream, now so high-pitched it resembled that of a woman. Yet it displayed a Troll-like vitality: flesh at the wounds wriggled rapidly, and countless buds of flesh began to cluster, forming new limbs; the limbs that had been severed from the body writhed on their own, desperately trying to rejoin the torso.

A stream of fire landed on the struggling body of the Demon, igniting it instantly. This was a A-level Spell: fireball released by Kalalin. Demons had high resistance to fire damage, and he had never used this spell before.

"Fire can stop its regeneration!" the Scholar yelled to Lancelot, who immediately caught on, sweeping his Longsword to gather all the severed limbs into the flames. Then he pinched a spell Technique, and several dark red Fireballs flew into the fire, causing the flames to leap up more than ten feet high and silencing the Demon's screams abruptly.

"Huff huff, looks like it's been taken care of, huh?"

It seemed as if a lot had happened, but in reality, only a few dozen seconds had passed. Delayed for a moment by the enemy's magic, Bruto had only just run up to Lancelot's side.

Lancelot looked at the Demon's body gradually turning to ash within the flames, yet his expression grew even more tense. His Spirit Perception was sounding an alarm, signaling the presence of something incredibly dangerous nearby, but he couldn't pinpoint its source.

Then, in his peripheral vision, he glimpsed something flash by, and, almost entirely on instinct, he grabbed Bruto and lunged to the side without thinking.

With a tremendous boom, an 'arm' made entirely of corpses smashed down where the two had just been standing.

Looking up along the arm, Lancelot saw the most terrifying creature he had ever witnessed in his life.

The creature's 'body' was the pile of corpses at the center of the cave. Some malevolent magic energy had fused this mountain of flesh, made up of hundreds of bodies, into a monstrosity the size of a small hill.

This monster had two arms like a human, made up of dozens of intertwined corpses, even ending in hands where each finger was the thigh or an arm of a corpse.

The arms slowly retracted while the monster's body began to move. It was only then that Lancelot noticed countless tentacle-like limbs protruding from the base of the monster, assisting in its movement like a centipede's legs. On closer inspection, those 'tentacles' were all legs and arms of individual corpses.

The monster turned around, facing Lancelot and Bruto, who had just scrambled up from the ground. At the very top of this living mountain of corpses was a flesh mound resembling a head, likewise made up of countless entwined bodies. The monster had no facial features on its face, but all over its body were numerous faces, each with eyes wide open, staring intently at the Human Knight.

Then all at once, the mouths on the multitude of heads opened and let out a horrific roar. The sound contained unimaginable agony, as if millions of Souls screamed in unison under torture.

This horrific sight had surpassed the limit of what a mere mortal's sanity could bear, even Lancelot felt on the verge of losing his mind. However, a warmth surged within him like sunlight, the effect of Koula's Courage Potion, and the True Qi in his body automatically circulated the Ice Heart Technique's Cultivation Technique, helping his consciousness to regain clarity.

But his companions were not faring as well.

The Dwarf trembled violently all over, his eyes frozen in their sockets, staring fixedly at the source of his fear; Kalalin and Koula, in the distance, had completely succumbed to a state of panic, falling on their butts on the ground, their limbs twitching as they tried to get as far away as possible, but their weakened limbs made them look like dehydrated fish.

Only Alamir managed to resist the terrifying form of the enemy. Years of priest training had made his will extremely firm, and the effect of the potion that Koula provided helped the Elf maintain his sanity as well.

What followed was his ignited rage. The creature before him was undoubtedly a great profanity against life, an existence his Goddess could never tolerate. The Priest was already calling upon his Goddess in his heart, determined to cleanse the monster before him today, even at the cost of his own life.

Of course, there was actually one individual who should have been unaffected, and that was Eckmond. Lancelot confirmed the situation through a mind link with the skeletal figure.

"Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," Eckmond's voice still sounded a bit panicked, "What the hell is this thing, it's so damn scary!"

"Didn't you always boast about how hard your skull is? Make sure you protect the people next to you."

"...Don't worry, boss, I've got this,"

Mind communication was extremely efficient, and this exchange was completed almost instantaneously. Lancelot took out his seven-foot Giant Sword Glacier from the Dimensional Bag, took a deep breath, and then charged out like an arrow released from its bow.

The monster seemed to react sluggishly, it's arm only slowly rising as Lancelot was already upon it.

Leveraging the momentum of his charge, Lancelot's overhead slash was immensely powerful, the blue-glowing blade cutting into the creature's huge body like a knife through butter, leaving a terrible wound from which several severed bodies fell out, turning to ash upon hitting the ground like burnt wood.

The myriad heads of the monster screamed in unison, almost drowning out the sound of rapidly approaching wind from behind.

Almost.

The Human Knight's figure flashed eerily once more, already rolling five steps away to avoid the monster's landslide-like fist.

The Great Sword in his hand followed the motion of his rising, severing three of the creature's fingers. If one looked closely, they would see that these were actually three human legs, the thickest one—the middle finger—clearly once belonged to some man, while the smallest one and the other finger were previously part of the same body.

But he did not have time to observe these details any further, because the other arm of the monster swung over overwhelmingly, and Lancelot had to roll back twice in a row to narrowly escape the creature's attack range.

Only once back in a safe area was the Human Knight free to survey the fruits of his efforts, yet all he saw caused his brow to furrow deeply.
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The body of the monster writhed non-stop, the wound he had inflicted earlier was now indistinguishable, and from the creature's palm where the 'fingers' had been severed, new toes slowly emerged, followed by ankles, knees, thighs...

Lancelot sighed. The enemy's body was indeed as soft as cake, but he himself was like a cockroach holding a toothpick, trying to dismantle a creation beyond his comprehension.