13 (58)

Meanwhile, Louis, who was beyond the path, faced Sire. He appeared after smashing the door. The center of the iron-mixed door had been dented as much as it could be by the iron hammer. The viciously large iron hammer, which looked like two or three people combined, seemed difficult even to lift, but Sire was holding it lightly. His baggy clown outfit and the chain suspenders tightening around his upper body were unbalanced. He was covered in blood, showing just how many people he had killed on the way here.

In the end, one more quest formed and appeared before Louis. There were now three quests that had suddenly formed in total: the decisive battle against the Wandering Guild, the elimination of Duke Rose Christopher, and the elimination of twelve Wandering Guild members. Every Wandering Guild member was a powerful mana user. If he had been attacked by them not long ago, he would have died helplessly, but not now.

It had already been quite some time since Louis surpassed Sir Kaban Ferdinand, the only Sword Master in the Eron Duchy. His reborn body showed efficiency in mana absorption and usage that could not be compared to anyone else.

“Huh? Ben is here. I clearly told that bastard long ago that the king was mine. Ptui. Good thing he died. Looking at that sorry state, he was so weak it would be embarrassing to even call him a comrade.”

Ishulman came to his senses and shouted.

“Who are you!”

“Me? Are you stupid? You ask that of an enemy? You look dumb, so I’ll smash your head first.”

Bidwell shouted.

“We have the numbers. Everyone, attack!”

Those words meant a coordinated attack by the battle slaves here. The slaves, who had been watching each other’s reactions in displeasure, came forward one by one. They had trained only in combat and had considerable pride of their own. Perhaps because of that, the northern slave from Bidwell’s side spoke to the blond battle slave from Aiwood.

“Wouldn’t dealing with this fellow first prove our superiority?”

Perhaps Sire disliked the man’s final tone, because his forehead twitched, and in an instant, he leaped forward and grabbed the man by the nape. The slave trembled as if he was suffocating and grabbed Sire’s wrist with both hands. All the slave’s muscles swelled, but Sire’s wrist showed no sign of loosening.

“Will you die like an insect like this?”

“Gggggh. Spa… spare….”

Only a few seconds after he opened his mouth, he foamed at the mouth.

“Tsk. Know your place.”

After spitting out those words, he threw down the northern slave he had been holding. Until then, the others had not even been able to think of interfering. In particular, the blond slave who had intended to attack distorted his face after feeling the overwhelming difference in strength. Fear spread quickly. Ishulman’s southern slaves shouted.

“We attack together!!”

The blond slave nodded absentmindedly as if he understood. The southern slaves who had dashed forward in an instant surrounded Sire as if hunting him. Sire grinned and gave a low whistle. The southern warriors, each taking a unique stance, exuded a strong sense of foreignness different from this place. Each stance was one that only martial artists would take.

Against an opponent holding a weapon, bare fists seemed like suicide, but they had thick iron plates attached to their fists and elbows. They were not simply broad plates, but had several spikes protruding from them. If their attacks were allowed to land, wounds more difficult to heal than sword cuts could be formed.

They attacked all at once. A bitter smile hung on Sire’s lips. One by one, they were sent flying by the iron hammer. One died with his head crushed. Another had his chest caved in. Another was struck off-center and avoided instant death, but was rolling while clutching his shoulder. He gritted his teeth and crawled on all fours. As he dragged himself across the floor with difficulty, Sire approached and stepped on him.

His waist snapped with a crunch, and an even louder sound followed immediately. Sire had struck him with the iron hammer. His spine shattered, and the Aiwood slave who saw it collapsed to the ground. Sire passed him by as if he had no interest in cowards. The black pupils visible within his large whites slowly turned upward. Louis smiled lightly and drew his sword. Sire, taking a leisurely stance, said,

“You’re unbelievably strong. But I won’t know exactly until we clash.”

His final words grew long, and then his figure disappeared. Just as the iron hammer entered Louis’s sight, it came smashing down from above. Before a heavy sound could even ring out, Sire’s expression twisted.

“Im… impossible.”

He was knocked back several steps and instantly turned pale. It was understandable. Louis’s mana density was abnormal. Only after getting close did Sire become certain. If his reaction had been even slightly slower, the sword would have been driven into his neck, face, or chest. That alone would have been one thing, but he would certainly have died. A massive number of warning sounds struck Sire’s mind.

How could a king possibly be that strong? He asked the question, but no answer came. Louis was only barely of age. Sire had trained more than ten years longer, yet the difference in mana was harshly vast. He trembled with an inferiority complex.

“What are you doing? Come, come again.”

It was an expressionless voice, but to Sire, it sounded cruelly cold. The ones who could not grasp the situation were the only surviving people here: Bidwell, Ishulman, and Devis, the slave traders. In a situation where it was obvious that if the king died, death would come next, there was not a single person who could stay sane. In particular, Ishulman, who was kneeling and bowing toward the south, had braced himself for the final moment.

That was how strangely the current situation was unfolding. The figure of the king under the coldly long moonlight was close to an absolute being. The concentration of mana continued to thicken. Its density was rising as high as it could. Mana that rose to a suffocating limit pressed down on all without distinction. Inside Sire’s complicated mind, two judgments circled.

Attack. Run. Then he soon realized that the second option was not something he could easily choose either. In the midst of that, he arrived at one suspicious fact. The possible existence of an artifact. Artifacts that simply increased the amount of mana endlessly certainly existed.

If he was using a trick……. No, Sire eventually concluded that had to be the case. Even the leader, who had been called an unparalleled genius, had not gathered that level of mana at that age. Hadn’t even that leader used impure methods to obtain that power? It was strength received through a method on a different level from the mana ordinary people obtained through something called training.

Grin. Sire’s face, which had overcome fear and formed a smile, twisted with rage.

“That kind of cheap trick won’t work on me!!! I’ll grind your entire body into powder!!”

The moment he finished saying that, his mana was pushed to its limit. Beyond simply opening his mana, his muscles received power abnormally, and he leaped while holding the iron hammer. It was a strength far surpassing most armed warriors. In an instant, chaos followed. The iron hammer struck down toward Louis indiscriminately. Marble was crushed into powder, and all kinds of food flew everywhere, turned into shapes that were difficult to recognize.

Even the chair covered with lion hide had its form crushed. Devis’s head, too slow to dodge, was included among them. However, among these numerous attempts, there was not a single effective hit. When an ominous premonition began creeping up from below him, a sharp sword strike brushed past him.

“Uh… uh… this isn’t right.”

He stepped backward, but as strength drained from him, he clutched his own neck and collapsed while spurting a fountain of blood.

After checking the new message, Louis looked around. There were two humans who had survived. The rest had all died because of their intrusion. Were there more? He briefly wondered, but the surroundings were quiet. The mysterious man who had been fiercely battling Anok had lost one arm. The fight had been so intense that not a single wall remained intact. Anok, too, was seriously exhausted, and the thought of dealing with the other three in succession existed only in his mind. In the middle of that, Oar opened his mouth.

“We should run.”

“Why?”

“Sire died.”

“What? To whom?”

“The king.”

The conversation between these two had not yet reached Anok and the man sitting collapsed on the ground. Anok had just brutally trampled the unfamiliar man after a fierce fight.

“As expected, you were an outstanding one. But the checkmate was set without much trouble. The king you serve should be dead by Sire’s hands by now. In any case, the result is my victory.”

Anok, too, knew that much time had passed, so it was difficult for him to deny it. In the middle of that, Oar suddenly attacked. It was not a fierce attack, so Anok was able to create distance properly. The masked boy who approached the fallen man said,

“Sire died. We need to run.”

“………What?”

“If you’re going to die here, then stay here.”

“No. No. Absolutely not. Take me with you.”

Oar chanted a spell, and the forms of the three disappeared in the blink of an eye. Anok, who could only tell from the flowing death energy that it was not normal magic, ran inside like a madman.

“…….So Sire and Ben ended up dying.”

Oar reported quietly and inconspicuously, but the content was enough to shock Duke Christopher, Nestor, the traitorous knights, and the Wandering Guild members inside. Nestor, who had tried to pretend to be calm after receiving the report, suddenly staggered from a shock too hard to endure. The feeling that grew stronger with every step he took was close to fear, but at the same time, what lit a fire in one corner of his heart was the absolute moment of opportunity that occurred only at a chance of one in hundreds of millions.

This fearful yet joyful emotion was also something strange that Nestor could not clearly distinguish at all. For him, who had lived long years, it was also the moment when he understood that if fate could decide a single instant at the end of a long tunnel that seemed as if it would last forever, then perhaps he had been kept alive precisely to accomplish this. Breaking the gazes of everyone looking at him in the hall, where deep silence had fallen, he opened his mouth.

“At last, the time of descent has arrived.”

How much preparation and breathless waiting had he undergone to reach that body? The wish to bring a complete end to the world he had begun to hate at some point was now not a moment that would end as a mere desire. However, what tormented him even at this moment was the fear that he might fail after all. He thought.

If Christina had been captured according to plan, she would have spilled all the information to Louis. Even Sire’s death was no problem for the plan when viewed in the overall framework. The only variable was that the being called Louis was unexpectedly even stronger. In the end, Nestor decided not to think about this unpleasant part. Such things were bound to create only discord. Above all, what had to be prioritized now was manipulating the puppet and deploying troops.

Louis was waiting for someone, thinking that something had become tightly tangled. Christina entered about fifteen steps away from the door destroyed by the infiltration only a few hours earlier. Having just come out of prison, she looked like a ragged mess similar to when she had first appeared here. However, unlike her appearance, she was wrapped inside in the emotion called hope. The news that Louis had been attacked by assassins again had spread loudly even beneath the prison. In the midst of this, knowing that those assassins were vicious and individually powerful beings, she realized that Louis was stronger than them.