Rebirth: Necromancer's Ascenscion-Chapter 123: Holy Slaughter

There was no war cry.

No grand declaration of battle.

Just movement.

One moment Ian stood still—daggers in hand, unmoving, completely unreadable.

The next, he was gone.

A blur. A whisper of shadow and ash streaking across the space between him and the Sanctum squad.

The lead priest had just begun to raise his staff, glowing with sigils of absolution, mouth halfway through a sanctified verse—

And then...his head was gone.

Blood sprayed in a perfect arc, the staff clattering uselessly to the ground.

Ian didn’t pause.

He flowed into the next Sanctum zealot, a heavily armored heretic adventurer attempting to conjure a radiant shield.

Too slow.

Vowbreaker slashed once, twice, and the shield—along with the man’s forearm—fell away in chunks of meat and divine metal.

"No time to breathe," Ian whispered, his voice like wind through a crypt.

The Sanctum squad erupted into action.

Spells bloomed in every direction.

Searing javelins of light rained from above.

Walls of fire born from holy scriptures roared up between him and his targets. Chains of gold erupted from the floor, chasing his ankles with divine intent.

But Ian didn’t stop.

He didn’t even dodge.

He walked through them.

The chains latched to his legs—and shattered into smoke as his foot crushed forward.

The fire swallowed his cloak—and fizzled to a whimper, unable to touch the Void-tinged aura spilling from his skin.

The spears rained down—and missed, every single one, by less than a hair’s breadth.

Not because Ian moved. But it were almost as though the air bent for him.

"What... what is he?" a younger cleric whispered, fumbling a glowing wardstone.

Ian’s reply was a flick of the wrist.

Vowbreaker danced.

The wardstone split in two. So did the cleric.

From the sidelines, Caelen stood frozen, one blade half-drawn, mouth slightly open.

"I... was going to help," he muttered.

Lyra didn’t even reply.

Her usual smile was gone. Eyes wide, she stared as Ian moved—not like a fighter, not even like a mage—but like something that had outgrown the rules of flesh and spell.

He was faster than lightning, calmer than death, and more merciless than either.

A more renowned warrior of the Light, flanked by two holy heretics, unleashed a coordinated strike.

One drew an "anti-demon blade", the other began an incantation of divine exorcism.

The warrior herself cast a hex that was known to rip apart lesser evil—an obliteration prayer, blessed directly by the High Altar.

However, there seemed nothing "lesser" about Ian’s evil, it failed.

Ian broke into their triangle with a step.

The first knight never saw the blade that carved up beneath his chin. His body collapsed with a gurgle. The second, startled, shouted the final word of the exorcism spell—

—and Ian was already behind her.

"Too late."

The spell went off. It struck Ian’s chest.

And did nothing.

Her eyes widened in horror.

"resistance...?" she whispered.

"Not resistance," Ian said, stepping close. "Irrelevance. It’s weak."

He shoved both daggers into her heart, twisted once, and let her fall like a broken hymnbook.

More Sanctum dogs came.

Half a dozens of them.

Some brave, some desperate. A few of them even screamed his name, invoking curses and sacred rights, damning him to eternal fire.

Ian met them all with steel.

A man tried to cast a binding circle—his throat opened like a second mouth.

Another leapt from a high point with a blessed lance—Vowbreaker rose to meet him, split the lance, and then the man, from shoulder to hip.

Two others attempted a flanking assault—flames at the front, hammers from behind.

Ian spun once, low, cutting both at the knee.

They screamed, flailing, crawling away on stumps of leg.

He didn’t bother finishing them.

There were still more to kill.

And yet through it all—he never once used a skill or magic.

No aura flare. No signature techniques. Not a single invocation of his abilities. He didn’t need to.

The daggers—his hands—were enough.

They were all so slow.

Every strike they launched looked like it moved through water.

Every chant, every holy rite, was an invitation to die.

His perception moved like time had bent around him. Each Sanctum warrior—once relevant opponents—was nothing but meat in his path.

By the time Caelen finally stepped forward, hand twitching at his sword, the battlefield was already slick.

Blood ran in rivers down the cracked stone.

Bodies littered the ruins in heaps. Most of them didn’t even look whole anymore.

Lyra slowly walked to his side. "How many...?"

Caelen exhaled. "All of them. Except..."

They spotted them then.

Five figures still stood.

Barely.

These weren’t just zealots.

They wore silver-trimmed cloaks, enchanted plate forged in the inner Sanctum. Their movements were practiced, cold, methodical.

Church sanctified Subjugators.

Members of the Sanctum’s elite purging arm. Executioners of demons. Slayers of heretics.

Veterans of crusades.

And still—every single one of them was wounded.

One had a shredded arm hanging by threads.

Another was breathing hard through a ruined helm, the visor caved in like a crushed insect.

The one in front —tall with a double-bladed glaive—stood trembling, not from fear, but from pain.

Ian had stabbed clean through her thigh earlier in the chaos, and yet she still stood.

Out of pride? Or devotion?

It didn’t matter.

Ian slowly approached.

The five didn’t flinch.

"We... are not like the others," said the glaive-woman, voice steely. "We are the Subjugator Core. You will not—"

"Live?" Ian cut in. His gray eyes were cold, lifeless. "You won’t."

They didn’t run. That was the difference.

Sanctum dogs, perhaps. But trained. Disciplined.

Even if it was a fool’s pride, they would face him to the end.

"I’m not giving you a speech," Ian said. "You think your death will mean something."

He twirled Vowbreaker once—then blurred forward.

Five blades rose.

Only five.

Only five hearts still beat.

And by the time the scream started, only one of them was still drawing breath.

The glaive-woman.

Her comrades—dead. Carved open. One still spasming on the ground as his soul leaked out in tattered streams.

The woman stood, blood pouring from her thigh, shoulder, and side.

Ian stepped close, holding a dagger to her neck.

"Final words?" he asked.

She looked up, eyes blazing. "You’ll burn in hell."

Ian smiled. "Of course i will."

He drew his blade across her throat, slow.

Then dropped the body.

Around him, the battlefield was silent. No more cries. No more divine spells. Just blood. Carnage. And the two awestruck figures behind him.

Caelen finally spoke. "He didn’t even use a single spell..."

Lyra blinked, still stunned. "That... wasn’t even a fight."

Ian stood in the center of the wreckage.

Unscathed.