The Cult Leader in the Clergy Academy

Chapter 323

Jun-Hyuk had killed his father. It had happened when he was very young, so much so that it was to the point where his memories were blurry. At that age, he could justify his actions by saying that he couldn’t remember anything.

His father couldn't be called a good person, but he couldn't be called a bad person either. He was just an ordinary, affectionate, and sometimes violent person.

One day, Jun-Hyuk had a nightmare. He was terrified, so he searched for his mother when he witnessed a shocking scene.

His father was grabbing his mother by her hair, and his mother was screaming in pain, and then, and then... due to unknown emotions, Jun-Hyuk lost consciousness.

When he finally came to his senses, his father was already dead, and his mother seemed to have fainted from shock.

His father's corpse remained in the house, and it let out a rotten smell. It was because his mother didn't report it. His mother stayed in the house as well and emitted a foul smell.

Jun-Hyuk saw that his mother was breathing, but to him, she seemed as good as dead.

"Someone like you should never have been born!"

His mother always spoke those words in the fleeting moments when she held onto her sanity by a thread Jun-Hyuk thought she said things she didn't mean because she hated him, and he believed his mother hated him because he had killed his father.

So he thought that if his father came back to life, his mother would regain her sanity and stop hating him.

Thus, he created a new father. It was the first taxidermied creature he had ever created. As his first creation, it was not perfect. The stitching was not done properly, so sawdust and cotton spilled out, the skin color was pale and lifeless, and it could not speak.

Jun-Hyuk's first taxidermied creature, which he had made from his father's body, could only say one thing.

‘I love you,’ was what the taxidermied creature repeated.

It was a phrase that his father often whispered to his mother, and it also expressed Jun-Hyuk's feelings toward his mother.

"The tower is so high, it feels like it will fall. Joint suicide is mutual murder. An air conditioner dripping water, a beauty with bees stuck to her will also be short-lived..."

"Yes... I don't know what you're trying to say, but it sounds philosophical. Maybe Mom should have been a philosopher."

Because of that, his mother went crazy. His mother's sanity, which had been gradually returning, was completely extinguished by that incident.

The original sin arose from arrogance, and the first murder arose from envy. His murder was no different. So, what was the first creation born from?

Jun-Hyuk thought it might be love. He had also created his father for the sake of love. However, his creation had been imperfect, so it had been far from love. He believed that he could only achieve the love he wanted to fulfill when he achieved the perfect creation.

He was chosen as the Container of Satan and lived a life befitting of it. Perhaps he had been chosen as the Container of Satan because he had lived a life befitting of the Container of Satan. It was impossible to know what came first and what came later.

Jun-Hyuk often imagined what if he hadn't been chosen as the Container of Satan. Would something have been different? What if he had grown up as a normal Romanican believer? Or what if he had been raised in a religious household under something as unfamiliar as the Voodoo Cult, Islam, or any other religion he couldn’t even name?

At the very least, if he hadn’t been a Satanist... No, maybe if he had never been born, as his mother used to say...

"Ah, damn it."

Jun-Hyuk knew that it was a meaningless thought. The reason he suddenly recalled the past and mulled over the meaningless imaginations he had in the past was because death was looming before him.

Shaaaah!

A red hand reached down from the sky, crushing Jun-Hyuk’s body and tearing it apart into pieces. Each time, the tentacles attached to Jun-Hyuk's body forcibly treated him.

Just like how he couldn't choose his birth, he also couldn't choose to die by his own will. Even as his body was being torn and shredded more than a hundred times, Jun-Hyuk imagined his own death. What if he died like this? Would he finally be able to rest like this?

What if he survived and didn't die here? Would he be able to be happy in a false kingdom composed of taxidermied creatures and followers?

He soon stopped questioning himself. He knew how meaningless that question was.

Krrk, crunch―!

A red hand crushed Jun-Hyuk's body. Tentacles sprang out, unfolding Jun-Hyuk's body, which had been compressed to the size of a basketball, and restored it to its original state.

The red hand grabbed and tore the tentacles protruding from Jun-Hyuk's body. However, dozens, no, hundreds of tentacles clung to Jun-Hyuk.

Jun-Hyuk struggled to survive, and in that process, he managed to inflict a few minor wounds on the red hand. Sun-Woo was devoured by Satan, who had emerged from the abyss in the sea.

Just like Jun-Hyuk, he too must be struggling to survive. They were sacrificing something of their own to kill each other. Or perhaps they were sacrificing each other to kill themselves.

When struggling became meaningless and he had to leave everything to fate, Jun-Hyuk briefly lost consciousness. After an unknown amount of time passed, the two woke up in the same place.

"... "

It was a beach, a nameless beach with no one around. There, Jun-Hyuk lay with his body torn apart and broken. Sun-Woo's body was not much different from Jun-Hyuk's.

The two forced themselves to stand up on their weak legs. They glared at each other with vicious gazes for a long while. A deep silence filled the air.

Jun-Hyuk broke the silence. "Hey, man... isn't this an unfair contract?"

He chuckled and continued, "I've sacrificed half of everything I have, and I can't even kill one person. Satan, that bastard... His reputation is all a farce."

Sun-Woo glanced at his right arm, which was so messed up that it was completely limp. "I feel the same. Damn it, I'm right-handed..."

They approached each other. The waves were calm. The wind was too. There was no thunder, and there was no lightning either. It was raining, but the drops were not heavy.

Sun-Woo still held the staff in his hand, but he was just leaning on it like a crutch. Due to exhausting his strength, he could no longer call upon his grand and clamorous powers.

Jun-Hyuk gasped for breath and said, "Earlier, I really thought... Huff, huff... I was going to die. I wondered what would happen... if I died like this. Oh, I can't even speak."

Sun-Woo chuckled. "Thanks to you... I've been to hell. It was a fucking terrible place, as you can tell."

"That rhymed just now. That was... pretty good."

"Is that so?"

The duo laughed.

Sun-Woo weakly clenched his left fist. The tentacles attached to Jun-Hyuk's body no longer healed him. Jun-Hyuk moved the tentacles and wrapped them around his weakened arm and legs. Only then could Jun-Hyuk barely move his arms and legs.

They moved toward each other.

The limp tentacles clinging to Jun-Hyuk's body moved. The tentacles were slow and weak, but Sun-Woo could not avoid them. The tentacles grazed Sun-Woo's side. Sun-Woo gritted his teeth and swung his staff.

Thunk!

The staff struck Jun-Hyuk's head. There was no chance to block. No, he had no strength to block. Jun-Hyuk extended his tentacles, and Sun-Woo swung his staff. Both the tentacles and the staff were slow, but they could neither avoid nor block. Every strike hit its target.

During that fierce battle, there were no spells, powers, black magic, or contracts. In the midst of the desperate fight, Sun-Woo lost his staff and Jun-Hyuk's tentacles seemed to have exhausted their power as they emitted black smoke and disappeared.

The two faced each other.

"Dam-balla," Sun-Woo said.

Crack!

The cane he dropped swelled up and transformed into the shape of a giant snake. Blood and vomit poured out of Sun-Woo's mouth. It almost seemed as if he had vomited out all his internal organs.

Jun-Hyuk borrowed the power of the tentacles and raised his hand. Then, he unleashed demonic energy and drew a pentagram.

Creak—!

With a creepy sound, a giant lump of flesh sprang out of the pentagram. It was a massive human centipede made up of souls from hell.

Summoning Damballa was Sun-Woo's final struggle. He no longer had the strength to use spells or powers.

Jun-Hyuk was in the same situation. Summoning the human centipede made up of souls from hell was his final struggle. He had no more power to use dark magic, and he could not make a contract with the devil because he had nothing left to sacrifice.

Damballa flicked her tongue and approached Jun-Hyuk. The human centipede made a creepy sound as it rushed toward Sun-Woo.

Crack.

A sinister sound echoed. Then, the movement of the human centipede approaching Sun-Woo stopped. It let out a strange cry and turned into black smoke, disappearing into the sky.

Damballa, who had attacked Jun-Hyuk, was biting and chewing on Jun-Hyuk's lower body. After swallowing Jun-Hyuk's lower body, Damballa soon transformed back into the form of a staff.

"Ah..."

In the final duel, Jun-Hyuk lost. The human centipede he had summoned was slow, while Sun-Woo's Damballa was slightly faster than the human centipede. That was the reason for his defeat.

Jun-Hyuk, with only his upper body remaining, collapsed on the beach. He looked up at the sky. The stars densely filled the skies.

Jun-Hyuk felt a sense of déjà vu. He had once looked at such a starry night sky with Sun-Woo. The sound of the waves gently reached his ears. He felt relieved to know that it was the waves.

"Hey, I may have lied to you a lot, but, you know..."

"..."

"Just know one thing. Just one thing..." Jun-Hyuk said in a dying voice.

In an extreme situation where he had been unable to eat anything or sleep for even a few seconds, the inquisitors had relentlessly tortured Jun-Hyuk. He had been unable to gather his thoughts even once.

The tentacles embedded in Jun-Hyuk's body never let him die. However, they didn’t eliminate the pain that he felt. In order to escape from the pain, he had to stop thinking. By emptying his mind, he could forget the pain, but at the same time, he had also forgotten other things.

Unimportant memories disappeared from his mind. Eventually, even memories that seemed quite important vanished.

"When I said let's go to the sea... That wasn’t... a lie. But still, coming to the sea..."

Even as his memories faded away, he tried not to forget the promise to go to the sea. Even as his memories disappeared, and his consciousness drifted away countless times, he barely managed to maintain his sanity to remember that promise.

Therefore, that promise was more truthful and important to him than anything else.

"What I said shouldn’t... shouldn’t have been a lie. But I..."

And Jun-Hyuk realized... that his mother's shrieking that he never should have been born... had been the truth. Those were words that weren’t born out of fleeting resentment but genuine hatred that she had held onto as her mind and sanity faded away.

"Ah..."

Jun-Hyuk realized that death had arrived in front of him. It was the death he had craved for so long.

"Still, it was fun," he said with a faint smile.

"It’s a bit regretful now that it's over..." Jun-Hyuk muttered to himself.

Sun-Woo nodded. It was a bitter feeling.

Jun-Hyuk's breath was completely cut off. He died. Discerning what his last words meant was now impossible—whether he was referring to Florence Academy, the recent battle, or the entirety of his life.

The waves were calm as usual. The wind did not blow, and the rain stopped at some point. Beyond the horizon, the light emitted by the rising sun faintly appeared. The sky tinged with pink, and the densely scattered stars in the sky vanished from view.

Sun-Woo stared blankly at the brightening sky.

***

And then Sun-Woo disappeared. No one could find him at Florence Academy or the Central Paladin Order. The Holy See issued a warrant. They ordered people to find and kill the leader of the Voodoo Cult who had revealed his identity to the world.

Rumors of an impending Second Holy War between the Romanican Church and the Voodoo Cult circulated among the people.