Necromancer Of The Black Bible (142)

‘Four of them? No, three?’

The number of knights conjuring flames.

Whatever else, their flames were threatening.

They had reduced Konrad to ash in an instant.

Verdin drew his sword.

A cold gleam from the blade scattered in the breeze.

At the same time, the skeleton horse began to pick up speed.

Scritch-scritch scritch-scritch-

Across from him, the knights who had ignited flames on their weapons began to charge.

The one in the middle lifted his shield at an angle, while the ones to the left and right leveled their spear tips toward him.

The flickering aura of flame at their tips was lethally dangerous, not to be taken lightly.

-Do not hesitate. There is always an opening.

Verdin did not answer William’s voice.

Instead, Verdin shifted his mount to the left and drove into the gap between the middle and left knights.

A knight’s spear aimed at Verdin’s head and thrust, but Verdin parried it lightly.

At the same moment he sliced off the knight’s right shoulder.

Skak-

The knight’s arm, with solid plate armor attached, flew upward into the air.

“Aah!”

A woman’s scream split the battlefield.

The knight Ivelin.

The blood spouting from her shoulder poured onto Orion’s shoulder, who was riding right beside her.

Ivelin gritted her teeth and cast emergency treatment, and Orion and Kael turned their mounts toward Verdin.

Verdin lightly shook the blood from his blade, looked back at them, and prepared for the next charge.

‘Difficult.’

Three against one was certainly overwhelming.

The reason he had driven left in the earlier clash was because the knight on the right showed no openings.

‘The right bothers me more than the center.’

In the current situation, targeting the left knight, whose shoulder he had just cut, was the best option.

But Verdin’s thoughts were something the enemy could easily predict.

They had positioned the injured knight in the middle and made her hold the shield with her remaining arm.

The knight who had shifted from the center to the right wielded a mace instead of a shield.

A fierce spirit and killing intent shone in their eyes.

Verdin started riding again.

Scritch scritch scritch-

Like before, the skeleton horse began with a light trot and gradually accelerated, and the opponents also started charging again.

‘Where’s he going this time?’

The enemy’s strategy was a trap set in case Verdin charged the center.

Therefore, charging the center would have seemed foolish.

‘But the center really is the weakest.’

Verdin smiled faintly.

Because he had thought of a technique they had not seen until now.

He tightened the reins of the skeleton horse and lowered his sword.

Then he charged straight at them.

As the skeleton horse sped up, their expressions twisted, and Verdin used his technique.

‘Etherealization!’

In an instant, Verdin and even the skeleton horse became transparently concealed.

In that state, Verdin brushed past the middle knight, and with it Ivelin’s head shot up into the air.

Whoooosh-

Thud.

It was truly a horrifying sight.

Despite the flanking knights escorting her and her holding a shield, Ivelin’s neck came off all too easily.

Verdin only reappeared after Ivelin’s head had hit the ground.

In an instant, the soldiers’ morale plummeted.

It was hard to comprehend what had just happened before their eyes.

What kind of technique was that?

In just two strikes, one of Ivelin’s arms was severed and her head was cut off.

She hadn’t once managed to parry Verdin’s blade.

No matter that she was a woman, Ivelin was still one of the Empire’s Swordmasters.

When such a woman died so easily, the expressions of Orion and Kael, who had been attacking together until then, hardened.

Orion spoke with a stiff expression.

“Did you… happen to see that just now?”

Kael shook his head.

“I didn’t see it.”

What they had seen was the ghostly knight vanish before them and, at the same time, Ivelin’s head shoot into the air. And when that head hit the ground, the ghostly knight had reappeared.

Only after their comrade had been senselessly killed did Orion realize the opponent was beyond normal comprehension.

“Still…”

Orion calmed his excitement and continued.

“There must be a way.”

Kael recalled what his adjutant Ashrin had said not long ago and spoke.

“No matter how spectral, they won’t withstand the flames of the Eckhart family.”

“Hm.”

Orion nodded in agreement.

The flame aura they used was not ordinary fire.

An intense blaze handed down from the Eckhart family.

This flame possessed tremendous power, capable of burning everything.

If their attack landed, the outcome of the fight could be uncertain.

At that moment Kael impaled two nearby undead with his spear.

They were knights once nicknamed Iron Wall and Red Wolf.

Reanimated as undead, they were nothing more than slow-walking skeletons.

Having instantly burned the two, Kael said to Orion.

“The ghost knight’s movements are no joke. If we charge together they’ll look for another opening.”

“Then what should we do?”

“It’s better if we engage one by one.”

Orion nodded at Kael’s suggestion.

“That’s a decent idea. If at least one blocks the blade, it can create an opening.”

‘It’s a nice way to put it—what it really means is using someone as a meat shield.’

The problem was who would step forward first.

Orion looked at Kael and asked.

“You, can you do it?”

Kael’s gaze deepened.

In battle, orders from a superior are absolute.

But Orion was not his commander—only a senior who became a knight earlier.

Kael calmly observed the situation.

One comrade dead, facing a phantom knight.

If they acted individually here, they’d all die.

‘I wish we could launch an all-out attack even now…’

Kael looked toward the Commander-in-Chief Aegis, but he only watched in silence.

As expected.

Aegis was a man who valued chivalry.

Once combat began, he was extremely reluctant to intervene from the outside.

No matter how undead the enemy, Aegis would not bend his principles.

In the end, Kael spoke.

“I’ll charge first.”

Orion nodded with a relieved look, and the two began to spread to either side.

From their movements alone, Verdin could predict what tactics they’d employ.

‘What a predictable lot.’

Verdin had been a knight in life, so he knew their habits well.

Those who lived and died by chivalry.

Therefore they wouldn’t even imagine attacking in ways that violated chivalry.

Verdin in life had thought the same.

He would rather die than live by breaking honor.

But after dying and waking like this, those things all seemed pointless.

In the face of death, they were meaningless, and keeping such codes changed nothing.

‘They only serve as self-comfort.’

Comfort can never be a shield.

Verdin decided to turn that comfort they clung to into a weapon.

Verdin moved his mount again.

The skeleton horse charged toward Orion, who stood behind, just as Verdin had guided.

Orion and Kael, facing him, their pupils wavering.

Proof that he’d taken them by surprise.

Verdin increased his speed.

Because the skeleton horse bore no armor, it began to charge far faster than them.

Thanks to that, Verdin soon reached right in front of Orion.

But an unexpected situation occurred at that moment.

Kael had arrived here faster than expected.

He summoned a dense aura of flame on his spear and hurled it at the skeleton horse Verdin rode.

‘Damn!’

Verdin gritted his teeth and leaped off the mount.

It was a movement like the wind.

It was too late to Etherealize, so he made a split-second leap.

In that state he brushed past Orion and swung his sword.

Skak-

It made a somewhat rough sound, but his blade slashed obliquely across Orion’s torso.

Of course, because of Orion’s large build, only about half his body was cut.

But that alone was enough.

A human body struggles to endure even that level of damage.

“Gah!!!”

With a short scream, Orion tumbled off his mount.

It was far from a perfect cut, and Verdin’s expression soured.

And his mount vanished in an instant.

Fwoosh-

The skeleton horse looked at Verdin for a moment.

Then it burned and turned to ash, scattering away.

A sense of emptiness settled in Verdin’s heart.

Though he shouldn’t have felt anything, an inexplicable loneliness rose within him.

Verdin could not discern the nature of that feeling.

Only that.

-I will take you in.

Those he had raised with Necroturgy all turned to ash and vanished.

Coincidentally, it was the same fellow who had just destroyed the skeleton horse.

Verdin turned and faced Kael.

Kael’s demeanor, riding a red destrier, was astonishingly calm.

From the smooth, unlined face to the glinting spear tip, an ominous heat of flame was radiating.

‘The young one is quite something.’

Verdin coveted Kael.

At that age and at that level, he was surely a prodigy.

He wanted such a genius under his command.

‘If I leave this one here, I could depart without worries.’

It was Verdin’s honest inner thought.

So he put his hand on the metal collar at his throat and communicated with Damian.

-Master. Could you perhaps raise this one with Necromancy?

Originally, Damian had permitted only Necroturgy.

Necromancy is a different order of magic: a spell that binds the soul of the dead to a dead body.

Then Damian’s voice came through.

[One person or so might be possible. But… can you handle this one’s soul?]

Verdin realized what Damian was asking and nodded.

-I can.

They say a knight recognizes a knight.

Just from Kael’s eyes and expression, Verdin could guess his thoughts.

He had been like that once himself.

Verdin was confident he could handle Kael’s soul.

Verdin said to Kael.

-Come.

Kael spurred his mount and began to run.

His spear flared an even deeper crimson.

His appearance had similarities to Krause, whom they had fought before, but one thing differed.

That was the focus.

Krause had expanded his aura to encompass himself and his surroundings; as a result his entire body and mount were engulfed in the flame aura.

But Kael concentrated all his aura at the spear tip.

Eckhart-style flames inherently have a higher density than other fires.

Concentrating such a high-density flame at the spear tip generated an even stronger heat.

It was a fierce force capable of scorching even souls to cinders.

Verdin gripped his sword anew and stepped back a pace.

Then he waited for Kael’s spear.