Esper Harem in the Apocalypse

Chapter 1182: Tears of the Traitor, Creating a Masterpiece Monument

Rudy walked past the chattering crowd. The musicians ceased playing as his dark suit cut through the vibrant colors of the dancing couples. He stopped directly in front of the three laughing aristocrats.

The nobles paused their mocking laughter to stare at the human intruder with pure disdain. Vesier stood just behind them, wearing his opulent crimson velvet coat.

Rudy raised his right hand and snapped his fingers.

The three nobles instantly floated three feet off the ground. Their mocking laughter turned into gurgling shrieks. Their limbs began to twist backward. Bones cracked loudly over the silent banquet hall.

Their torsos shrank inward, compressing their internal organs until blood sprayed from their mouths. The spatial pressure condensed their bodies into perfectly square, dripping blocks of meat. The cubes dropped onto the floor with wet thuds.

“You should really learn some basic manners,” Rudy commented, dropping the mangled remains onto the floor.

The lively music halted instantly. The musicians dropped their instruments and fled the balcony. The banquet guests shrieked in terror, scrambling toward the exit doors in a frantic stampede to escape the slaughter.

Nobles tripped over their own gowns running toward the exits.

A faction of royal backers aligned with Vesier drew their glowing enchanted swords. Over thirty armed nobles surrounded Rudy and charged forward to avenge their fallen comrades.

Rudy sighed and stepped forward to meet their assault. He possessed the power to turn them to ash in a fraction of a second, but he intended to leave a lasting impression on the OrionHeart court.

He raised his palm toward the first wave of attackers. He utilized his Pyrokinesis to target the blood inside their veins. Five charging nobles collapsed to their knees, screaming as their blood boiled into scalding steam. Their skin blistered and tore as they cooked from the inside out.

Another group swung their blades at his neck. Rudy inverted the gravity around them. The vampires launched upward and slammed into the crystal chandeliers.

Rudy reversed the pull to send them crashing back down to the stone floor. Their bodies broke upon impact, leaving them gasping in a puddle of their own making.

“You all value pure blood so much,” Rudy remarked, dodging a thrust from a remaining noble. He utilized microscopic spatial cuts to sever the attacker’s fingers one by one. The noble dropped his sword and wailed in agony.

Rudy moved to the next limb, systematically dismantling the vampire without granting the mercy of a quick death. “Let us see how much of it you are willing to spill.”

The grand wooden doors burst open. A battalion of royal sentries flooded the banquet hall with their spears leveled at Rudy. They halted their advance upon seeing the gruesome display of boiled and crushed aristocrats.

“If you wish to see tomorrow, drop your weapons right now,” Rudy projected his voice across the ruined hall. “Anyone who raises a blade against me will share their fate. Nothing will happen to you if you stand down.”

Dozens of sentries looked at the mangled bodies and immediately dropped their spears. The metallic clatter echoed through the room as they stepped back to surrender. A handful of stubborn loyalists ignored the warning and rushed forward.

Rudy tapped into his Cryokinesis. A blast of freezing temperatures swept over the loyalists to turn them into solid statues of ice. He casually tapped the closest frozen guard. The statue shattered into a thousand glittering pieces, causing the rest of the icy figures to crumble into dust.

Vesier stood frozen near the archway. His calculating smile had vanished entirely. He stared at the carnage in pure terror.

“You will not get away with this!” Vesier stammered, backing away toward the wall. “The penalty for harming a royal vampire is immediate execution! You just slaughtered over a hundred of our elite!”

Rudy laughed out loud. He casually wiped a drop of blood from his tailored suit. “I can do whatever I want, no one will stop me. No, let me correct that statement. No one can stop me.”

Vesier swallowed hard and gripped the table. “Why are you doing this?”

Vesier backed away. “Why are you doing this?!”

“Why are you doing this?” Rudy fired back, tilting his head. “You spent your life plotting and tormenting. Did you think consequences did not exist?”

King Virgil pushed through the terrified crowd of onlookers. The ancient monarch surveyed the ruined banquet hall, his gaze sweeping over the groaning, maimed vampires.

“What is the meaning of this?” Virgil asked, his voice betraying a hint of dread.

“They were insulting Jane and Rias,” Rudy explained calmly. “Then they decided to attack me. I took out the trash.”

Vesier scrambled across the floor and hid behind Virgil’s flowing cape. He gripped the king’s garments with trembling hands. “Save me, Uncle! He is a monster! Please help me! You must execute him!”

Virgil looked down at the cowering nephew, then shifted his gaze to Rudy. The ancient king stared into Rudy’s glowing crimson eyes. Virgil recognized the boundless, terrifying power radiating from the human.

The king realized opposing the Overlord meant the total annihilation of the OrionHeart Kingdom. Virgil sighed and stepped aside to leave Vesier completely exposed.

“No!” Vesier shrieked, crawling backward.

Rudy extended his hand. He utilized his telekinesis to yank Vesier across the room. He grabbed the traitor by the throat and lifted him off the floor. Rudy launched himself through the ruined ceiling, carrying Vesier straight into the night sky.

Virgil, Jane, Rias, the remaining sentries, the surviving nobles, soldiers, and royal family members rushed out to the courtyards to watch the spectacle. The entire capital city gathered below to watch the spectacle unfolding above the palace spires.

Rudy floated over the main gates of the OrionHeart Palace. He held the thrashing, sobbing Vesier high for all the vampires to witness.

“You spent your life making others suffer for your amusement,” Rudy projected his voice to echo across the kingdom. “I am going to give you a permanent monument to reflect on your choices.”

Rudy slammed Vesier directly into the towering obsidian wall beside the front gates. He utilized his molecular transmutation to fuse Vesier’s flesh, bone, and armor straight into the solid stone.

The traitorous vampire shrieked as the wall swallowed his limbs and torso, leaving only his head and chest protruding from the wall like a grotesque gargoyle.

Rudy did not stop there. He tapped into the vampire’s nervous system, rewiring the pain receptors to multiply every sensation a thousandfold. He stripped away Vesier’s vampire healing factor and replaced it with a custom restoration loop.

A continuous flow of highly concentrated acid manifested within the stone, eternally burning away Vesier’s fused skin while his cursed vitality forced the tissue to regrow instantly.

Vesier unleashed a bloodcurdling scream. The fire burned his internal organs to ash, while the restoration loop instantly rebuilt the tissue to be burned again.

“Kill me!” Vesier screamed, tears of blood pouring down his face as the eternal torment began. “Please, just kill me!”

“Dying is a privilege you have not earned,” Rudy replied coldly, hovering just inches from the screaming face. “You will remain here as a weeping gargoyle. Every citizen who walks through these gates will hear your screams. They will remember what happens when someone disrespects my family.”

Vesier became a living, burning chandelier. Dying was a kindness he desired, yet it became a privilege Rudy would never grant him.

Rudy descended to the courtyard and landed smoothly next to Jane and Rias. The kingdom watched the horrific, living statue writhe in the wall. No noble would ever dare harbor an insulting thought against the princesses again.