I Can Only Cultivate In A Game-Chapter 362: Insult To The Dead

Rhozan raised his staff and began chanting resolutely.

Ancient Kahr’uun syllables rolled off his tongue with authority. The air around him vibrated violently as the mana density skyrocketed.

Frost gathered, thickened, and crystallized into massive glyphs that floated around his body, spinning in slow, deliberate orbits.

The Kahr’uun warriors still standing—over seven hundred of them—felt it immediately.

Their eyes widened.

"This is... High Sovereign Magic..." "He’s burning his life force..." "He doesn’t plan to survive this."

The chant reached its crescendo.

Rhozan slammed the base of his staff into the ice.

The world answered.

A colossal spear of compressed glacial mana formed above him, spiraling with layered enchantments—destruction, binding, severance, purification. The temperature plunged so sharply that even corruption recoiled for a split second.

The spear descended.

It struck the corrupt entity squarely in the torso.

The explosion was deafening.

Ice vaporized into mist. Shockwaves tore across the battlefield, flinging warriors backward as the ground split open in spiky fissures. The corrupt entity let out a ear splitting roar ear as its body was driven into the ice with massive portions of corrupted flesh obliterated in a single strike.

Before it could recover, the Kahr’uun warriors attacked.

Hundreds of spells detonated in rapid succession.

Magical explosions and ice intertwined. Lightning lanced down from above. Weaponized mana tore into the exposed core of the entity. Chains of light wrapped around its limbs, anchoring it momentarily.

For the first time since the battle began, the corrupt entity was pushed back.

Rhozan didn’t stop.

Blood leaked from his mouth, eyes and ear but he continued casting.

Again.

And again.

Each spell struck with terrifying power carving away corrupted mass, blasting craters into the ice, forcing the entity to stagger, to recoil and to endure.

For several heartbeats, hope shone across the battlefield like a blistering sun.

"We’re doing it!" "It’s retreating!" "Hold the formation!"

The entity’s attention narrowed.

The corrupt entity stopped reacting to the warriors as its gaze locked onto Rhozan alone.

Everything else faded.

The temperature shifted and the air felt suffocating, as though reality itself was bending inward toward a single point.

Rhozan’s heart sank.

"...So you’ve chosen me," he murmured.

The corrupt entity shot forward with intensity.

It ignored every spell fired from the sides. Lightning struck its back—ignored. Ice spears shattered against hardened corruption—ignored. Chains snapped as its strength surged exponentially.

It crossed the battlefield in an instant while Rhozan barely raised his staff in time to block a dark arm sweeping towards him.

Bam!

The impact was devastating.

He was sent flying like a broken doll, smashing into a rough ice outcrop with bone-crushing force. His body slid down, leaving a trail of blood behind him.

He coughed violently as his vision blurred.

The corrupt entity loomed over him as its form reconstituted rapidly with corruption knitting together what had been destroyed. Its massive limb rose slowly as dark energy condensed around it like a collapsing star.

This was the end.

There was no doubt about it that once this dark energy hit Rhozan, he would be obliterated.

’So this is our retribution...’ Rhozan thought inwardly as the limb descended.

All of a sudden....

Thooooomm~

The world exploded outward.

An invisible force unlike anything the battlefield had felt before erupted from a single point causing ice to shatter outward in a perfect radius.

Rhozan’s body was lifted effortlessly and hurled away, cushioned by an unseen force that prevented him from splattering against the ground. Warriors were flung dozens of meters in every direction, shields ripped from their arms, spells dispelled mid-cast.

Even the corrupt entity was sent flying.

It slammed into the ground hundreds of meters away, plowing through ice and stone before finally coming to a halt.

Silence fell.

Snow drifted gently through the air.

A figure stood at the epicenter of the devastation.

It was none other than Victor.

He stood calmly with his hands lowered and his eyes cold. His presence pressed down on the battlefield like an unseen sky, heavy and suffocating. The air around him trembled faintly, space subtly distorted by restrained telekinetic pressure.

Every Kahr’uun warrior froze.

"...Iruhun..." "He’s here..." "The true Iruhun..."

Shock rippled through their ranks.

Even the corrupt entity stilled.

Its twisted form slowly rose from the crater with corrupted energy bubbling around it erratically as it fixed its gaze on Victor. There was recognition in that gaze.

And disbelief.

It had believed Victor would not return.

Victor looked at it.

Then he glanced briefly toward Rhozan, ensuring the Kahr’uun leader still lived.

Only then did he speak.

"You shouldn’t be here," the corrupt entity growled with a layered and distorted tone. "I believed you abandoned them."

Victor didn’t deny it.

"I did."

Murmurs rippled through the warriors while the corrupt entity’s corruption surged.

"Then why are you here?" it demanded.

Victor exhaled slowly as his mind traveled to ten minutes ago.

Far away, beyond the battlefield, beyond the storm of magic and blood... Victor stood atop a craggy ice ridge.

The battle sounds reached him clearly now.

The clash of mana.

The roars of warriors.

The unmistakable presence of the corrupt entity.

Victor’s expression was dark. Ever since he left the underground ice city, he never went too far. He had been here this whole time thinking...

And he was also well aware of when the battle began and how it was currently going. All this time, he chose not to interfere because his mind was plagued with the concept of right and wrong.

"...Two hundred dead already," he muttered quietly.

His fingers twitched as The Void Emperor Bloodline stirred in his veins.

Telekinetic pressure rippled subtly through the air around him, cracking the ice beneath his feet.

Victor exhaled slowly.

Below him, the battlefield drowned in blood.

And the question he had tried so hard to avoid finally returned... louder than ever.

’How many more have to die... before I stop pretending this isn’t my responsibility?’ Victor voiced internally.

Although, he believed the corrupt entity had a right to revenge, he also felt that innocents such as that little Kahr’uun girl did not deserve to perish for a crime she never committed.

And now he couldn’t just sit by and let the army of one thousand be wiped out because it would spell the end of the Kahr’uun race since they were the last defense.

After much contemplation... he finally intervene at the moment Rhozan was about to meet his end.

...

~ Present Time ~

"I thought about it," Victor stated. "About what you are. About what they did. About the innocent ones who weren’t even alive when the sin was committed."

The Kahr’uun warriors began shouting.

"Great Iruhun, kill it!" "End it now!" "Destroy the corruption!"

Victor raised a single hand.

Silence fell instantly.

He turned to the corrupt entity.

"You’re capable of communication," Victor said evenly. "You’re not mindless. You remember. You feel."

The corrupt entity tensed.

Victor’s gaze hardened.

"So tell me," he continued with a calm but intentful tone. "is there any way to resolve this forty-year-old grudge... without wiping out an entire civilization?"

The battlefield held its breath.

For the first time—

No one attacked.

No one cast spells.

Even the corrupt entity hesitated.

And in that moment, Victor stood not as savior, nor executioner but as one who refused to choose a side blindly.

Silence followed Victor’s question.

Snow drifted slowly through the frozen air, settling on shattered ice, broken weapons, and the bodies of fallen Kahr’uun warriors.

All eyes were fixed on the corrupt entity.

Even the wind seemed to pause.

The corrupt entity did not answer immediately.

Its towering form turned unstable as corruption flickered like a heartbeat beneath its surface. Where eyes should have been, swirling darkness churned as old hatred, ancient pain and endless resentment spun in its expression.

Then it let out a hollow and broken laughter that scraped against the ears.

"No."

The single word struck like a hammer.

The corrupt entity’s voice deepened, layered with countless echoes ranging from anguished to furious to grieving.

"There is no rectification," it continued. "There is no absolution. Their crime was absolute. Their survival was built upon the blood of the innocent. And blood must answer blood."

The Kahr’uun warriors stiffened.

Victor’s expression darkened, but he did not move.

"I will not rest," the entity went on as its aura rose violently, "until every last Kahr’uun breath is extinguished. Old. Young. Warrior. Child. It makes no difference. They exist because twenty lives were stolen. Their continued existence is an insult to the dead."

A murmur of fear rippled through the battlefield.

Some of the warriors clenched their weapons tighter. Others felt their resolve waver.

Victor stepped forward.

"You’re wrong," he said. "The ones you’re killing now weren’t alive when the crime happened. They didn’t choose it. They didn’t benefit knowingly."

The corrupt entity turned fully toward him.

"I do not care," it snarled. "They live because of it. That is enough."

Victor eyes narrowed but he continued anyway.

"You’re perpetuating the same crime," Victor said evenly. "You’re killing innocents to avenge innocents. You’ve become the very thing you claim to hate."