Chương 191: The Hero

Apostle No. 8 felt extremely uncomfortable wielding a sword with his left hand. It took him quite a while to kill the last two Penal Corps soldiers, after which he intended to catch his breath. However, with a heavy BANG, he was shot in the back, staggering forward a few paces. Once he steadied his footing and turned around in rage, he saw Kanda kneeling on one knee, reloading a musket.

"You damned goblins! Endless numbers of you! No matter how many I kill, you just keep coming!!" Apostle No. 8 charged toward Kanda at a brisk pace. By now, Kanda was already a Level 5 unit; his speed was exceptional. Within seconds, he finished reloading the musket, raised it, and aimed directly at the eye-slits of Apostle No. 8's helmet. Whether due to an instinctual sensing of intent to kill or extensive combat experience, the moment Apostle No.

8 saw the goblin raise the firearm, he quickly covered the helmet's eye-slits with his armored gauntlet. Seeing this, Kanda was forced to abandon his target on the helmet, shifting his aim down to the enemy's leg joint before pulling the trigger. BANG! The lead ball struck Apostle No. 8's left knee joint with pinpoint accuracy. The bullet shattered against the mithril plate armor. Apostle No. 8 stumbled and nearly fell, but drawing on his vast battle experience, he rapidly adjusted his footwork and posture.

Shaking off the impact, he steadied himself and continued charging toward Kanda. By now, the distance between them was practically face-to-face. Rather than reloading the musket, Kanda gripped the barrel and swung the wooden stock with full force toward the intruder's head. Perhaps due to exhaustion from the intense fighting, Apostle No. 8 was slightly slow in dodging. The wooden stock slammed directly into his helmet. CRACK! With a loud crack, the stock exploded into wooden splinters.

The force of the blow flipped Apostle No. 8 to the ground, though Kanda also fell over from overextending his swing. However, Kanda recovered faster. Kneeling, he grabbed the shattered remains of the musket, detached the bayonet from the barrel, and lunged at Apostle No. 8. Straddling his belly, Kanda drove the bayonet toward the helmet's observation slit. Yet Apostle No. 8 possessed immense strength.

Abandoning the mithril longsword in his left hand, he reached up, caught the bayonet thrusting toward his face, and yanked it violently to the side. The weapon was ripped instantly from Kanda's grip. Immediately after, Apostle No. 8 clenched his hand into a fist and drove a brutal inch-punch into Kanda's lower ribs.

"AHH!!" Kanda let out a soul-shredding scream. He felt his ribs shatter from the impact, and all the strength was instantly drained from his body. Taking advantage of the moment, Apostle No. 8 bucked his hips upward, flipping Kanda off him. Rising with a fluid kip-up, he stepped over to the groaning goblin, grabbed him by the throat with his uninjured hand, and lifted him off the ground. Through the visor's slits, his bloodshot eyes glared at the creature.

"Why can't you creatures just die quietly? One after another, throwing away your lives... do you actually think you're heroes? You're making it look like I'm the villainous demon lord here!" Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on. Releasing his grip, he delivered a brutal kick to Kanda's stomach. Kanda flew through the air like a cannonball, slamming into the stone monument embedded with the Badge of the Hero.

He collapsed into a limp heap, an unknown number of bones broken.

"Cough, cough, cough!" Kanda coughed up a mouthful of blood as his vision began to blur.

"It... hurts so much... Am I... going to die...?" He watched Apostle No. 8, radiating pure malice, slowly approaching.

"Heh, look at you creatures. Building cities, building castles, even erecting such a massive statue... Do you truly believe that imitating humans makes you a nation? Hahahaha!!" Apostle No. 8 broke into wild laughter, filled with endless mockery.

"How shallow! A true nation is defined by dignity!!

"Regardless of how the world defines dignity, I walked right in here and did all this, yet you can do nothing to stop me. Your so-called nation has no dignity! Your country is nothing more than a whore that anyone can enter and leave as they please! Wahahahaha!!" By now, Kanda could no longer hear his taunts. Rapid blood loss was clouding his brain, and his life began to flash before his eyes. He saw his newborn self opening his eyes in the basement of the Governor's Mansion.

His confused, ignorant mind knew nothing before he was dissected by that obese man. That man seemed to be testing the limits of his life, cutting him into smaller and smaller pieces, over and over again. He wanted to die, but he simply couldn't. The fat man used specialized magic to heal him repeatedly, maintaining an endless cycle of torment. Under such hellish conditions, instead of losing his sanity, the constant pain made Kanda's mind clearer and clearer.

He began to ponder why he was subjected to such treatment. Once, when his spirit was on the verge of collapsing from torture and he was about to give up thinking and descend into complete chaos, the creature he called Mother embraced him. She gave him warmth—something beyond scalpels and dissection tables. The leopard-woman dancer's embrace was like a safe harbor: warm, soft, and sweet, allowing him to temporarily escape the agony.

The beastman folk songs she murmured carried his soul out of the cold, dark basement, allowing him to explore distant savannas, snow-capped mountains, deserts, and vast rivers. Now, he was going to die, but... A faint smile appeared on Kanda's blood-stained face.

"Mother... they will take good care of you." Apostle No. 8 drew his dagger, preparing to slit Kanda's throat. Kanda closed his eyes, accepting his fate. But the next instant, an anxious female voice reached their ears.

"Kanda! Mm-ah, Kanda! My Kanda! Where are you? My Kanda?!" The familiar voice made Kanda snap his eyes open. In the distance, the leopard-woman dancer was stumbling around, searching frantically for something. She looked as though she had lost a precious treasure. She checked everywhere, peering down every crack in the pavement, covering herself in dust and dirt in her desperate state. Apostle No. 8 paused his dagger. He looked at the leopard-woman dancer, then looked back at Kanda's horrified expression.

"Kanda... Mm, I recall that's the Beastman word for 'child.' Her child is..." Apostle No. 8 feigned a thoughtful expression. Looking at Kanda's panicked face, his mouth suddenly curled into a grin like a demon from hell.

"With that expression... her child couldn't possibly be you, could it?" The terror in Kanda's eyes magnified. He reached out with two limp, trembling hands, grabbing Apostle No. 8 by the throat. His face contorted, blood spewing from his mouth as he let out guttural gasps, his eyes locked dead on Apostle No. 8. Apostle No. 8 didn't even dodge, allowing those weak hands to hold his neck. Feeling the trembling and terror transmitted through the goblin's grip, the smile on his face grew even wider.

"Oh my, look at you! It really is you!

"Mmm~ Makes sense. Goblins, those half-breeds, can breed with any species. But looking at you now, do you actually have feelings for her? Do creatures like goblins even possess emotions?" With a casual flex of strength, Apostle No. 8 broke Kanda's grip and began walking straight toward the leopard-woman dancer.

"Hee-hee, ah, whatever. You're both fallen creatures anyway. I'll kill her first—I want to see what kind of expression you'll make then!

"Can a creature like a goblin actually feel grief over the death of a loved one? Hmm, interesting."

"Gah... gah... gah..." Blood vessels burst in Kanda's eyes. His hands reached uselessly toward the man's retreating back. He wanted to stand, but with so many broken bones, he couldn't even crawl off the stone monument. Apostle No. 8 grabbed the leopard-woman dancer by her hair, forcing her to face Kanda, and pressed his dagger against her throat. Forced to look at Kanda, the leopard-woman dancer froze for a second before her face filled with pure joy. She reached out her hand toward him.

"Kanda!"

"AHHHH!!!" Kanda wept tears of blood, letting out a primal howl as he spat a large mouthful of gore. Meanwhile, over in the Industrial Zone, Li Qinwu—who was swinging his greatsword in the inferno to demolish workshops and clear a firebreak—suddenly froze. A system notification popped up in his field of vision: Consume Badge of the Hero ×1 to promote Goblin Sniper ×1 to Goblin Hero ×1?