Records of the Weakest Emperor

"Damn it, that motherfucker escaped!"

Calvin violently cursed seeing the remaining quarter of the deformed man's soul escaping towards the horizon.

Anger filled his heart for he couldn't help but blame himself for being so weak.

If he had just been a Scribe, then there was no way that the bastard could've escaped!

If he had been more powerful before this encounter, then he would've managed to end everything the soonest as possible.

Sadly, there were no 'ifs' in this world.

It was an irrefutable fact that the deformed man had successfully escaped.

"Fuck!" Calvin cursed once more.

He was fuming.

But when he realized that Stephanie had taken a chunk of the deformed man's soul, he suddenly felt a little bit better.

At least that bastard didn't manage to escape without paying a heavy price.

Calvin estimated that it would at least take the Goddess of Pestilence and Famine about a year to reconstruct the physical body and another year to repair the soul of her precious disciple.

A smirk soon spread on Calvin's face.

He turned to look in Stephanie's direction and asked.

"Are you okay?"

Stephanie remained muted, she seemed to have all of her senses closed as she focused on digesting the energy from the deformed man.

Calvin turned his attention away from Stephanie towards the commotion that was happening at the village center.

The Queen of Plague had awakened and it was now being housed by the Sinister Heart.

A monster of such proportions wasn't something that the Mortician could hope to defeat.

But the Mortician remained steadfast in the face of its sinister presence. However, Calvin knew that what he was doing was incredibly dangerous.

The deformed man's plans included the fact that he wanted to sacrifice the entire village of monsters to boost the Queen of Plague's growth when she finally fused with the Sinister Heart.

Since the Mortician was also a Specter and in a way, he was also a monster.

He might be attacked by the Queen of Plague and consumed.

"Return!"

Calvin called out and the Mortician turned into a ray of navy-blue light that flew and sunk into his shadow.

"We've got to leave this place, pronto!"

He looked around and soon discovered the Bloodstone.

Taking it into his hands, he forced Stephanie to take shelter into it. Then, without even turning to look at the Queen of Plague that was already in the process of adjusting with the Sinister Heart in its body, Calvin made a mad dash towards the southern entrance.

He had predicted that the Queen of Plague would probably target the monsters inside the basement of the ancestral house first. Without the deformed man controlling the actions of the Queen of Plague, it would be impossible for her to recognize friends from foe.

And with the overwhelming desire for consumption washing over her desire for anything else, she would probably consume those monsters first.

Until then, Calvin had to escape.

But first, he needed to group up with Heisenberg and Ricardo.

"I hope those bastards are still alive."

Calvin leaped onto a nearby rooftop and scanned the part of the village where the three of them parted ways.

"They must still be alive. There's no way that they'll die against these small fries."

Calvin thought to himself.

Heisenberg might look like just an ordinary perverted old man to the eyes of an outsider, but he was actually a sufficiently capable Priest of the Church of All-Encompassing Light.

His knowledge and experience in battles against oddities must be enough for them to survive in this environment.

Bam!

An explosion rang out in the distance.

"Is that Heisenberg?" Calvin noticed a milky-white divine light coming from the same place where the explosion had occurred. Without wasting any more time, Calvin leaped on rooftops after rooftops as he approached the location where he saw the divine light.

Only a single explosion had occurred and the world had become quiet once more.

Calvin felt worried that Heisenberg and Ricardo might've fallen into danger that they couldn't solve by themselves.

Descending from the rooftop, Calvin found Heisenberg and Ricardo hiding inside a narrow alleyway as if they were scared that they might be discovered by something sinister.

"What the hell are you guys doing in there?"

Calvin asked as he casually approached the two with a smile.

"Shit! Ricardo!"

But Calvin didn't expect that the two would freak out by the sight of him. Heisenberg immediately issued an order and Ricardo took out his bow, placing an arrow on its strings, he didn't hesitate to attack.

Swoosh!

The arrow flew and Calvin was quick to jump to the side. He had avoided the arrow but an angry look was now on his face.

"What the fuck? It's me! Why are you attacking me?"

"Shut up, foul creature! You can't fool us by pretending to be Calvin! In fact, how dare you impersonate him!" Ricardo scowled and retorted.

He nocked another arrow on the strings of his bow, but before he could even send it flying towards Calvin.

The latter had disappeared from where he was standing and he reappeared beside the two.

"Guys. It's really me."

"Ah!" Heisenberg cried out loud. He reflexively sent a punch towards Calvin's face as Ricardo leaped backward and prepared to battle.

"You bald geezer and an immature bastard. It's really me! I'm not dead yet!"

"Save your words!" Heisenberg refused to believe.

His eyes shone in a faint azure light as his fists became covered with the divinity of the All-Encompassing Light.

Ricardo had also aimed an arrow at Calvin from behind.

With an attack from the front and from behind, Calvin was completely surrounded.

"Are you guys retarded or what? Can you at least let me expla—"

"Do it!" Heisenberg sounded the attack.

"Water Anchor Arrow!"

Swoosh!

Ricardo's arrow became infused with water as it made a beeline for Calvin.

Heisenberg slightly bent his knees before sending his punch. Both attacks were swift and decisive, they aimed to incapacitate not to kill. It seemed that these two were probably planning on making the monster who dared to imitate Calvin beg for its life.

"Tsssk. Tsssk. Tsssk." Calvin inwardly sighed when he noticed their ruthlessness.

If an outsider looked at the current situation, then they would conclude that it was impossible for Calvin to dodge this pincer attack. However, Calvin's trained eyes didn't fail to see the fatal flaws present in the attacks that the two had sent.

Sure, their attacks were fast but both of them were aimed at Calvin's upper body.

In short, if Calvin dropped flat onto the ground.

He could dodge these attacks—and that was what he did.

In an instant—before Heisenberg and Ricardo could even process what had happened—Calvin laid flat on the ground. This maneuver enabled him to dodge the punch that came from Heisenberg, while at the same time...

The Water Anchor Arrow from Ricardo sped past his figure, striking nothing but a wooden pallet at the end of the dark alleyway.

"What..."

"What the fuck?!" Heisenberg couldn't help but cry out in surprise.

He was quick to recover though as he raised his knee and was about to stomp on Calvin's head, but the latter was even faster.

Calvin immediately rolled to the side and dodged Heisenberg's stomp. Then, after rolling once more, he stood up behind Heisenberg and then patted his shoulder.

"It's really me, man. Come on. If you won't believe me, then fine. I'll tell you right now that I am the one who accompanied you here. We even made Old Zhong avenge his father by killing that Sigbin." Calvin let out a sigh.

The expression on his face looked so casual, yet he was already shitting himself inside as his back felt sticky with sweat.

'Fucking hell that was dangerous...' Calvin muttered to himself.

Heisenberg sucked a mouthful of cold air.

'W-W-We... We almost killed him!' He yelled out in his heart.

"C-C-Calvin?! Is that really you?" Ricardo stared at Calvin with wide eyes.

"Come on guys, didn't we already go through all of these already? There's a sense of deja vu to this whole situation." Calvin lightly chuckled.

"Yeah..." Indeed, they had already mistaken Calvin as dead once before the crystallized gem that they were holding that represented his life shattered. Furthermore, Corpse Eaters couldn't possibly disguise as another person with that person's memories. That was unless...

They were doppelgangers.

Nope...

Heisenberg shook his head.

Doppelgangers aren't Corpse Eaters.

A smile of relief spread on his lips.

"Damn it, so it's really you... Hahaha, how ironic. To think that you'd turn out to be alive now that we're about to die. Can you tell me? Why did this gem shatter when you're still alive?" Heisenberg presented a crystallized gem that had already lost its hue to Calvin.

"It's because that gem is connected to my medallion. If my medallion shattered, then that gem would lose its color. Usually, the shattering of one's medallion in the three Judiciaries meant that the person had encountered a danger greater than what they could defeat..."

"After all, the durability of one's medallion would always be stronger than their current strength as determined by the church." Calvin patiently explained.

But then a frown spread on his face as he asked, "Wait, what did you say? We're about to die? What are you talking about?"

Heisenberg and Ricardo stared at each other for a moment before they sighed.

"It's the monsters... We will not be able to escape from them anymore. The mana that we have remaining is only probably enough to save our lives twice or thrice."

"But escaping this place?"

"We have no idea if we can still do that anymore... Damn it, I don't really want to die. I still have a lot of things to do! Why? Why did a simple journey to Ashmelion turn into a nightmare that I would never forget in my life!" Ricardo lamented.

Heisenberg agreed, "Yeah... I will never forget what happened here even if I'm already dead."

Calvin let out a chuckle, "Are both of you sure that you aren't overreacting? I mean, come on... Really? Both of you are just going to give up like that?"

"What do you mean?" Ricardo raised his head to look at Calvin and he noticed that Calvin was staring at the horizon. Following his line of sight, Ricardo's pupils widened in surprise upon seeing what Calvin was looking at.

"What's wrong?" Heisenberg noticed the abnormality in their expressions and he couldn't help but look at where they were staring.

"That's..." Heisenberg hissed.

"A high-ranking official from the church!" Heisenberg was the last one to notice, yet he was the first one to scream.

"Yeah... They've finally arrived..." Calvin sighed in relief.

He had purposely used his medallion to block that attack earlier so that it would shatter which in turn would inform the church that there was something wrong about the mission order that they had issued.

To be honest, Calvin had only expected the arrival of his comrades, but he didn't expect that the Cathedral of Lumiere would actually send a legitimate punitive force after the one that had "killed" him.

"Damn, I didn't expect the church to be this generous." Calvin inwardly praised the church's actions in his heart. He made a decision to visit them more frequently in the future and also donate some of his salary for the church's cause.

But little did Calvin knew that his thoughts were wrong from the very beginning.

Yes, the church had indeed been generous for sending a punitive force after the one that had "killed" Calvin.

But...

This wasn't a choice that they voluntarily made.

All of this was the result of the Ashmelion's Branch of Cavalier's actions!

Calvin still had no idea about the upheaval that happened in Ashmelion as he stared at the horizon with a smile on his face.

As the punitive force from the church descended, the darkness of the horizon was slowly being forced away by the first rays of the sun.

Finally...

Daybreak has arrived.