If They're Allying With the Ghoul King Who Killed Me, I Guess I'll Become a Ghoul Too

In my past life, I stood on the execution platform, watching the entire city—brainwashed by the Saintess—smile as they willingly degenerated into ghouls.

When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to exactly one month ago.

I smashed the knight's sword that symbolized my honor. Dragging a high-tier ghoul into my basement, I slashed my left wrist open with a heavy blade.

Stripping away all the Holy Light protecting my body, I brutally shoved my bleeding wrist straight into the ghoul's gaping maw.

My bones let out muffled, explosive cracking sounds as they were eroded by the tyrannical ghoul virus. I crushed the reinforced steel bedframe out of shape with my bare hands.

Days later, when the Saintess kicked open my door with her execution squad and mercifully declared me "willingly fallen,"

I ripped the bandages off my wrist, shattered the holy weapon pressed against my throat with a single hand, and let dark gold flames ignite abruptly within my pupils.

I stared at her frozen, hypocritical face.

"Right on time," I said.

Chapter 1

"Sera Cross, with your bigotry and hatred, you have obstructed the path of humanity and ghouls toward a shared rebirth. Today, Karl and I will end your atrocities in the name of love and forgiveness, ushering in the true integration of our two races."

The voice of Ira, the Church's Saintess, echoed through the plaza's amplification array like the compassionate sigh of an angel.

Accompanying that arrogant verdict, Karl's claws pierced straight through my chest.

My lungs were punctured, causing my breath to grow frantic as blood poured backward into my airway. The distance between myself and death rapidly vanished.

The massive chains forged from Sacred Iron suppressed my "Sacred Flame Bloodline" to its absolute limit, rendering my healing abilities entirely useless.

I looked up at Karl—the Ghoul King who ruled Ironthorn City. Standing right in front of me, his dark red eyes held no hatred, only the apathy of someone looking at a piece of troublesome trash that had finally been disposed of.

This isolated wasteland city beneath my feet was named the "Bastion of Dawn." It remained the final sanctuary of human civilization after a century of the devastating Blood Plague.

For a hundred years, crimson clouds had shrouded the heavens, and the Blood Plague had mutated countless humans into low-tier ghouls who knew nothing but slaughter. Only the Church's "Sacred Flame Bloodline" could barely purify this filth.

As the Chief Holy Knight, I never took a single step back, swearing an oath to protect the myriad of glowing hearths behind me.

Yet, half a year ago, Ira, the Saintess of the Church, brought back a man infected by the ghoul virus: Karl.

I constantly advocated for his execution, but Ira protected him as if she were possessed.

Until half a month ago, Karl successfully resisted the total corruption of the virus. He didn't revert to being human, but instead became the first Ghoul King in history capable of commanding the undead horde.

Lusting after this unprecedented power, the Church's higher-ups struck a deal with Ira and Karl. Through the conspiracy of the century—the lie that "voluntary infection allows peaceful coexistence with high-tier ghouls"—they brainwashed the entire city.

And I, the Chief Knight who swore to fight to the death to keep the Blood Plague outside our walls, became the "greatest sinner" obstructing peace...

My vision began to darken, but I forced myself to look down at the plaza.

Tens of thousands of people stood packed together.

I saw my comrades in arms. I saw the civilians I had traded my life to rescue from ghoul swarms. I saw the students who used to idolize me... At this moment, there was no grief on their faces.

Some were whispering in relief. Some were weeping tears of joy, warmly embracing the high-tier ghouls stepping out beside them to represent "peace."

They were celebrating. Celebrating that "warmongering thug" had finally died, and they could finally embrace peace without hesitation.

My blood thoroughly drained, leaving my dying shell hanging on the stone pillar. But my soul did not dissipate; it slowly ascended, pinned above the plaza by an invisible force.

Forced into a god's-eye view, I witnessed the next few years of this so-called "peaceful grand integration."

Time compressed madly before my spirit's eyes.

Year One.

Ira stood on the very same platform and publicly slit her wrist, injecting a vial of highly purified Blood Plague into her jugular. The moment she fell, ten thousand people fell to their knees, weeping and screaming below. Three hours later, she stood back up. Her blonde hair had turned ash-grey, and an unnerving, putrid green light burned in her pupils. She smiled, calling it "The Rebirth of the Holy Spirit."

On that day, the Bastion of Dawn's voluntary infection rate surged from zero to ninety-seven percent.

The remaining three percent were labeled "Traitors" by their neighbors.

Year Two.

The Church enacted a new decree: "To guarantee collective security, those who refuse Blood Plague modification will be deemed a public health threat."

A twelve-year-old girl was pinned down by her own mother while a health officer plunged a needle into the back of her neck.

Her mother cried, saying, "This is for your own good."

Three days later, the girl lost her mind and mauled her mother to death.

But the official broadcast proclaimed: "The sacrifice was monumental."

Year Five.

The walls of the Bastion of Dawn were dismantled. The stones were shipped out to Ironthorn City to build a monument.

The last few humans who resisted infection were tied up in the center of the plaza, completely surrounded by ghouls with rotting, peeling flesh.

The ghouls clapped. They used human hands to clap.

When the smoke from the stakes rose into the air, not a single person cried.

Year Ten.

There were no "humans" left on the wasteland. There was only Karl and Ira's Undead Empire.

Those who had once screamed "Long live peace" had devolved into the lowest tier of rotting slaves—flesh peeling off, bones exposed. Any meager ounce of sanity left within them only served to let them consciously perceive the horrors they had become.

Tens of thousands of rotting throats couldn't squeeze out a complete sentence, forced to utter broken, wheezing wails:

"Sera... was right..."

"Sera... was right..."

Floating in the air, I heard their cries.

There was no pity. No vindication. I solely felt cold.

A bone-chilling, absolute zero cold that froze me from the very depths of my soul.

I didn't hate Karl, nor did I hate Ira—hating them was a compliment to their capabilities.

I hated the things below me.

Those fools who had personally shattered their own spines, handed the butcher's knife over to the monsters, and then hypnotized themselves with the word "survival."

The sheer magnitude of hatred burned to its absolute limit within my soul. Suddenly, it felt as if something snapped.

A tremendous gravitational pull violently snagged my core consciousness, like an invisible hand grabbing my soul and yanking it downward. The darkness collapsed, and a sensation of weightlessness consumed everything.

"Cough! Cough—!!"

I shot up in bed.

When my vision refocused, I realized I was no longer a phantom.

I saw moldy stone bricks, a flickering yellow oil lamp, and an official wall calendar of the Silverwing Knights.

The date circled on the calendar was crystal clear—exactly one month prior to my public execution.

I had been reborn into ten years ago!

Sitting on the edge of the bed, I felt the strong, rhythmic beating of my heart and the unhindered flow of the Sacred Flame bloodline rushing through my limbs. Yet, the decade of humiliation and cold-blooded betrayal from my past life was seared into my brain like a brand.

Being a Holy Knight was merely acting as a meat shield for a bunch of people unworthy of salvation. It was a joke destined to force me into a dead end.

Then I'll stop being a Holy Knight.

If Karl can be a Ghoul King, why can't I?!

Once I command peerless power, those who betrayed and harmed me in my past life will wail eternally in the fires of my wrath!

I slowly stood up, my gaze drifting over the pristine Mythril broadsword resting on the weapon rack, before locking onto the heavily rune-sealed iron door of my basement armory. A terrifyingly ambitious thought sparked in my mind.

There was a hypothesis in the Church's ancient texts that was treated as the ultimate taboo: If a host of the Sacred Flame Bloodline abandons their faith, using an absolutely extreme, maniacal will to actively embrace and harbor highly purified Blood Plague into their body, it will trigger an unprecedented 'Third Form Mutation'.

In my past life, it was exactly because Karl validated the Church's hypothesis—becoming the perfect hybrid of human and ghoul—that he was able to persuade the higher-ups.

Unfortunately for them, the holy blood and willpower of those idiots fell pathetically short, leading to zero successful replications of Karl's miracle.

But I was different!

I was the purest inheritor of the Sacred Flame Bloodline, and the most unshakeable avenger!

Most importantly, I knew exactly how to safely survive the phase where the ghoul virus violently attacks a host's sanity.

I walked over to the iron door sealing the high-tier Blood Plague strains, a frigid smile tugging at the corners of my lips.

Since you all want to see a monster, I guess I'll just intercept all the resources Karl dreams of, crawl my way back from hell, and become a monster that even the Ghoul King will have to drop to his knees and tremble before.