Chapter 14 (Patreon)

Boom!

The corpse-like demon with the nail embedded in its body exploded into fragments in the middle of the horde.

“…Hm? There’s still another barrier?”

Ragnar Kagenou lifted his gaze.

The blood moon still hung high in the sky.

“So it hasn’t been dispelled yet. That means I need to go all the way to the center.”

The moment he stepped into the second layer of the barrier, a cold, sinister sensation brushed against his skin.

The world around him shifted as well.

The red glow vanished, replaced by a pale cyan light that felt cold enough to seep into the marrow.

“…A church?”

Ragnar narrowed his eyes.

“What a tasteless setup.”

Creak.

He pushed open the iron gate, and the harsh sound of grinding metal scraped through the air.

Immediately, his expression darkened.

He hated that kind of noise the most.

It was like dragging something sharp across a blackboard.

The kind of sound that made your skull vibrate from the inside.

Once he stepped into the church, the air turned dark and clammy.

Only a faint light illuminated part of the space.

Everything else was drowned in a murky cyan-black haze.

Swish.

Hearing something, Ragnar turned his head at once.

A black shadow flashed past in an instant.

“…Nothing? No. It was just fast.”

And then—

The shadow appeared right behind him.

Yet Ragnar had felt absolutely nothing.

A pale female face emerged from the darkness beside his head, deathly cold and utterly bloodless.

Ragnar turned to look.

“…There’s nothing.”

Was it an illusion?

Without slowing down, he continued toward the deeper end of the church.

Ahead of him stood a small pulpit before a row of stained-glass windows.

Long wooden pews were lined neatly on either side.

And before them—

Rows upon rows of people knelt there, weeping soundlessly.

Ragnar did not approach.

He watched from a distance instead.

Every one of them wore the same stiff expression. The same face of grief. The same frozen sorrow.

Their empty eyes were filled with terror and despair.

Hundreds of people knelt inside the church, praying toward the figure of Jesus nailed upon the cross above the altar.

The scene was enough to make one’s hair stand on end.

A creeping chill crawled up the spine and settled inside the chest.

The fear here was silent.

And that only made it worse.

Gradually, faint sobbing began to drift through the air.

The crying was quiet—

yet in a place like this, that only made it more horrifying.

Those kneeling figures seemed to be infected by one another’s grief, and one by one, they began to cry.

Every time another voice joined in, Ragnar felt the surrounding air turn colder.

That chill sank deeper and deeper, slipping through skin and muscle and into bone.

This kind of invisible pressure was the most dangerous of all.

If an ordinary person wandered in here, they would lose their mind almost instantly.

At best, they’d suffer a breakdown.

“Atype of unseen enemy…”

The sobbing grew louder.

But it never became chaotic.

It all rose and fell in eerie unison, as though every voice shared the same rhythm.

Soft at first.

Then heavier.

Then louder.

Until it seemed to echo directly inside Ragnar’s mind.

At some point, a tear slid down from the corner of his eye.

“…Tears?”

Ragnar raised a hand and wiped it away.

Then his gaze sharpened.

At some unknown moment, the crowd that had been kneeling before the cross had turned.

Now they were kneeling toward him.

“The influence here has started affecting my body.”

Still, it wasn’t a serious problem.

The weeping reverberated through the hollow church.

It was shrill now. Miserable. Distorted.

As though something wicked was mourning the dead while trying to drag the living down with them.

This type of enemy really was the most troublesome.

While enduring the endless sobbing, Ragnar searched the church for the “nail.”

“If this is a church, then the nail would usually be placed…”

His eyes stopped on the figure of Jesus nailed to the cross.

A believer would never dare do something like this.

But for some reason—

whenever Ragnar looked at anything resembling a god these days, an inexplicable irritation welled up inside him.

And just as he prepared to smash the statue—

something cold gripped his shoulder.

In that instant, Ragnar seized the cross and swung it straight behind him.

“Ahhhhh!!!”

Only then did he see it clearly.

A ghostly nun.

The cross had pinned her to the ground, leaving her writhing and unable to escape.

Ragnar stared at her for a moment.

“Really? These cursed spirits are actually afraid of the cross?”

But soon he realized that was not the reason.

It wasn’t the symbol.

It was because the cross itself was the “nail.”

And then—

The church around him began to collapse.

“The second layer has been dispelled too.”

What emerged before his eyes was a massive ancient Roman coliseum.

The entire place was silent.

Then Ragnar’s eyes landed on the figure standing in the center of the arena.

White hair.

Tall frame.

Familiar presence.

“…Satoru Gojo?”

Gojo raised a hand casually.

“Yo, Ragnar. You finally made it.”

Ragnar walked toward him.

“What are you doing here?”

Then his eyes narrowed.

“The ones who destroyed the first two layers of barriers… that was you, wasn’t it?”

Gojo shrugged.

“Yeah. Though honestly, it felt a little too easy. Can barriers like that really stop anyone?”

Ragnar gave him a dry look.

“Maybe that’s just because we’re too strong.”

Gojo spread his hands with a grin.

“See? You get it.”

Ragnar let out a quiet sigh.

“Forget that. What’s the situation here?”

Gojo pointed downward.

“This is a tower. We need to get to the very top. The nail is there.”

Ragnar looked up at the open, draft-filled sky, then back at him.

“A tower? Are you sure?”

No matter how he looked at it, this place did not resemble a tower at all.

Gojo lightly tapped the ground with his foot.

“Underground.”

Ragnar paused.

“…It extends downward?”

“That’s right.”

And just as Gojo said—

the moment the two of them started moving, gravity itself shifted.

The direction of “down” changed abruptly.

Ragnar planted his foot and steadied himself.

“…What kind of cursed technique is this? I’ll admit, it’s interesting.”

He pressed his foot against the surface beneath him and tested the structure.

“It has a few tricks.”

Then he gave a faint snort.

“But not enough.”

Gojo smiled.

“Then how about we stop playing along?”

A red sphere formed in front of him.

Ragnar looked at it and immediately understood.

“You’re not thinking of just blasting through the whole thing, are you?”

Gojo’s smile widened.

“Exactly.”

Cursed Technique Reversal: Red.

Boom!

A wave of repulsive force tore through the architecture in a straight line, obliterating everything in its path.

Rumble!

Gojo’s Red pierced straight through the tower.

Then he casually started walking.

“Let’s go. Why bother clearing each layer one by one? We’ll just head straight for the goal.”

Ragnar almost laughed.

“That does sound like you.”

Since Gojo had already blown open the path above, there was now nothing obstructing Ragnar’s Gate of Babylon.

Only a straight corridor remained.

“Roar!!!”

Countless cursed spirits swarmed out from the walls and edges of the tower.

Bat-like wings spread from their backs, while twisted bodies opened into multiple blood-soaked mouths.

Gojo raised a hand.

Cursed Technique Lapse: Blue.

The tremendous pull of Blue dragged the cursed spirits into the center in an instant.

Gojo watched them gather and said lightly, “I do like this move.”

At the same time, Ragnar opened the Gate of Babylon.

Golden ripples bloomed around him.

Then the Noble Phantasms fired in a storm.

Splat! Splat! Splat!

Ragnar advanced without pause, mowing down everything in front of him.

Gojo controlled the field.

Ragnar annihilated whatever entered it.

The cursed spirits filling the tower were cleared away almost effortlessly under their combined assault.

The only disappointing part was that none of them had even reached Grade 2.

Ragnar glanced over the remains.

“So this is all their automated defense amounts to.”

At last, they arrived at the top of the tower.

Fresh blood seeped from a giant cross, while a red mist slowly spread through the air around it.

Ragnar narrowed his eyes.

“…Is that the nail?”

A skeleton had been nailed to the cross.

And the nail itself was embedded through the skeleton’s left rib.

Gojo observed it for a moment through the Six Eyes.

“Judging from the cursed energy reaction, yeah. That’s definitely it.”

Ragnar frowned slightly.

“You’re sure pulling it out won’t cause trouble? This looks more like a seal than anything else.”

Gojo answered calmly, “Maybe. But we can’t leave the barrier without taking the nail.”

“…Fair point.”

Without hesitating any longer, Ragnar reached out and forcibly tore the nail from the skeleton’s rib.

The moment he did—

the atmosphere changed.

Ragnar’s expression shifted.

“What now?”

Gojo’s gaze sharpened under the Six Eyes.

“This tower just came alive.”

Ragnar’s mouth twitched.

“…You’re not saying that metaphorically, are you?”

Gojo looked at him.

“No. I mean exactly that.”

Rumble!!!

The entire underground tower began to shake violently.

Ragnar clicked his tongue in irritation.

“Damn it. If I find out who used the barrier’s nail to seal a cursed spirit in here, I’m killing them.”

The ground that had once seemed flat split apart in an instant.

Then, with an earth-shaking roar, the bone-white tower burst upward from below like something drilling its way out of the earth.