Heart Of Ruin (5)

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“Cut it off. That is Aurelia Dawn!”

At Griselda’s command, her daughters cut off the limbs that had begun burning after being hit by the sparks.

Griselda’s daughters, who had escaped disaster by skinning the hide from their own backs while still alive or cutting off their arms and legs, now lost their composure and revealed their true forms as monsters driven mad by rage and bloodlust.

The appearances of beautiful women were nowhere to be seen, and they cursed Azadine in the form of horrible monsters that seemed like a cross between bats and ogres.

“You bastard!”

“I’ll kill you and suck out every last drop of your blood!”

“No, I’ll torture you alive! I’ll skewer you alive on thorned hooks and hold a banquet with the blood that flows from you!”

They shouted that and leaped at Azadine.

Like illusions of trees swaying in a storm, they were a feast of mirages, phantoms, and shadows that human eyes could not follow.

But when Azadine spread his hand, a poleaxe glowing with bluish light flew into his hand and was caught.

“Kyaahk!”

A vampire who had merely been in the trajectory of the poleaxe flying toward Azadine was only struck by the poleaxe, yet her waist was split in two.

“Impossible!”

Griselda’s daughters were horrified at the sight. Astonishingly, that poleaxe was a sacred relic of a Nether Reaper. More precisely, the shaft was a sacred relic of one of Nether’s reapers, Grimslone, but not only the shaft, even the magical power contained in the poleaxe blade was anything but ordinary.

Azadine swung that poleaxe and struck back Griselda’s approaching daughters.

“What?!”

“To think a mere human dares to cross blades with our bloodline!”

Griselda’s daughters sneered, but their thoughts changed when they found themselves holding swords that had been cut in half. Their arms were severed and their waists were cut away.

The poleaxe Azadine swung possessed terrifying power, and even they, transformed into beasts, could not block it.

“Uh….”

“What is this?”

On top of that, golden flames rose once again from the ground.

Aurelia Dawn, which had turned into molten metal, was returning toward Azadine.

“Ugh!”

“We have to dodge!”

Griselda’s daughters ran about to avoid Aurelia Dawn flowing along the ground.

When they attacked, they had seemed like a dance of reapers gathering human souls, but when they fled in surprise, they were as chaotic as a flock of quails fleeing from an eagle.

And that was precisely what Azadine wanted.

Azadine charged in with terrifying momentum, grabbed one of the female vampires who had risen into the air, and threw her at Griselda. At the same time, he rushed toward her.

If Griselda dodged the female vampire thrown at her, he intended to change his angle at that moment and attack her.

However, Griselda watched her own daughter and, without the slightest concern, swung her nails and sliced her to pieces.

Then she drove her nails toward Azadine as he charged at her.

Her sharp nails were black like the darkness of night, so they could not be seen properly in the rainstorm.

They looked like the nails of a person or beast, but in an instant they could easily stretch dozens of times longer, and despite being stretched so thin, they were strangely sturdy, tearing the opponent apart like well-forged blades.

Because Azadine did not know how much power lay dormant inside them, he avoided her nails and reached out his hand.

His target was the Eye of Ashajit. It was the large red jewel attached between Griselda’s brows.

However, Griselda evaded Azadine’s attack and drove her nail into that arm. Azadine’s palm was pierced through, and the nail protruded from his palm out through the back of his hand.

“Ugh?!”

“Ahahaha. What a sweet scent of blood. Little boy. Let’s have a look.”

Griselda lightly sent Azadine’s mask flying and raised her hand. Astonishingly, she lifted Azadine up with just one hand.

Despite Azadine’s body not being small, his feet rose from the ground.

Azadine immediately grabbed his own hand to prevent the wound from tearing further, but because of that, he was drawn straight toward Griselda.

“Ugh!”

“Oho? As expected?!”

Griselda exclaimed in admiration as she looked at Azadine’s eyes, revealed after his mask flew off. His smooth and delicate features made it hard to tell whether he was a woman or a man, and the purple eyes said to have even captivated Emperor Yaeslat, the Eyes of Harkonia, glittered like stars even in the darkness.

Azadine, born supernaturally through a copy of the Heavenly King’s Book of Truth, the twisted Contract of Servitude, and a mysterious origin, had originally possessed handsome and graceful features except for the fact that he had no eyes, but the Eyes of Harkonia put the finishing touch on that appearance.

“How captivating. Huhu. Far too precious to hand over to the Shade Hags….”

With Azadine’s hand still pierced through, Griselda stepped as though dancing in a ballroom. Azadine had to dance along with her in order to keep his hand from being torn apart.

“Ahahaha! Splendid, Azadine. To think I have obtained the hero of the Messenger Clan! What should I do?! Will you become one of my bloodline?! Will you become a master of the night with me and enjoy supreme pleasure? Ah, of course, assuming I do not grow tired of you.”

It was when Griselda rejoiced, thinking she had obtained Azadine. Suddenly, golden flames rose from Azadine’s hand. Part of Aurelia Dawn had remained in Azadine’s hand.

“Ah?!”

Azadine had judged that it would be difficult to approach Griselda completely unharmed, so he had held part of Aurelia Dawn, which had been split into dozens of pieces, in his hand and brought it into contact with Griselda’s body.

“Kuaaaak!”

Horrified, Griselda cut off her own hand to stop Aurelia Dawn’s flames from spreading through her entire body. Then she swung the nails from the hand with which she had cut off her wrist to attack Azadine, but Azadine lightly planted his hand on the ground and evaded her attack as though he had predicted it.

“Sorry, but you’re not my type!”

Azadine stood on his hands and kicked upward, blowing away Griselda’s jaw. Griselda’s jawbone shattered, and the Eye of Ashajit rose into the sky.

“Kahk!”

It was a terrifying attack that shattered her jaw and even twisted her neckbone backward in a single blow.

However, Griselda regenerated her wound and recovered with terrifying speed. She lost consciousness for only a mere instant. She hurled herself forward to seize the Eye of Ashajit, but a single human figure snatched it from the air.

Griselda’s daughter, a woman in black mourning clothes, had recovered it.

“My daughter! Well done! Hurry and return it to your mother!”

Griselda, who had regenerated her jaw in an instant, ordered her daughter to hand over the Eye of Ashajit.

“…….”

“Niselda?”

“Yes. You truly do not recognize me.”

The woman who had recovered the Eye of Ashajit rose to her feet. The veil covering her head fluttered in the cold night wind, revealing her face.

Like all of Griselda’s daughters, she had a beautiful face, but unlike the other daughters, this woman bore the brand of the Rescue Knights Order on her eyes and forehead.

“I am Niselda of the Rescue Knights Order. You hideous monster! It is time for you to pay for your sins!”

“N-No! How dare you! Hand it over at once! I’ll kill you all!”

When the enraged Griselda cast a spell, a dark-red vortex began swirling beneath her feet.

A dreadful Nether spell spread out around her and tried to devour all living things.

-Bzzzzzt!

But together with electric sparks, barriers of force appeared, blocking that dark-red vortex. A mage no less powerful than her had interfered with her power and obstructed the completion of her spell.

“It has been a long time, Griselda.”

Bone wyverns were circling in the sky above Griselda. Even amid the biting cold and blizzard of the cold wave, the wyvern riders were calmly flying.

The Death Knight Sok and his army, the Fimbulhorde, had appeared.

“Sok?! The Fimbulhorde?!”

Griselda was shocked by what was happening before her eyes. The Fimbulhorde began diving from the sky and attacking the cultist mutants that were trying to descend upon the refugees.

The cultist mutants and the undead army were both monsters that would be like the incarnation of a nightmare on their own, yet they were now fighting each other.

“Y-You. It’s true that you command Sok as your subordinate?”

Griselda looked at Azadine in horror. Rumors had spread that Azadine had taken in Sok, the leader of the Fimbulhorde, but naturally she had thought they were nonsense.

No matter if he was of the Messenger Clan, a God-King Slayer, there was no way Sok, who had mastered forbidden sorcery and led an undead army, would enter the service of a mere young bloodling.

And yet… Was the man before her not clearly wielding the power of a holy knight to its extreme while at least being allied with Sir Sok, a necromancer?

“It would be embarrassing to call him my subordinate. Let’s say we are allies.”

Azadine pulled out Griselda’s nail embedded in his hand and gripped the sword hilt.

Golden flames raced across the ground toward the hilt of Aurelia Dawn and gathered there. The molten metal gathered again and revived into a dazzling golden blade.

“H-Heavens.”

“To think he can melt and reconstruct a sword with ceramite flames….”

Judging by the astonishment of the Celestial knights as well, it seemed Azadine was the only person capable of this. Azadine had thought that since even he, who was only at an introductory level, could do it, others could do it too, but that had not been the case.

It was because it was Aurelia Dawn that the vampires burned until death, and it was because it was Azadine that flames hot enough to melt a ceramite longsword arose.

All of this was a miracle possible because Azadine was one chosen by the angels.

“Yes. Azadine. You are the one Sir Plank knighted at the end. Ha….”

Griselda realized Azadine’s identity and groaned.

“Griselda!”

Niselda charged in with her side sword to kill Griselda, but the other daughters of Griselda blocked her path.

“Do not let her escape!”

Sok also ordered his subordinates. The elf wights who served as Sok’s guards cast spells as they charged in and engaged Griselda’s daughters in close combat.

While the vampires and wights fought a bloody battle, biting and clawing each other, Griselda hurled herself among the cultist mutants and retreated.

“I will definitely reclaim the Eye of Ashajit! Fear the night!”

Griselda left those words behind and fled. As soon as she escaped, the cultist mutants went berserk and grew frenzied, so even Sok could not catch up to her.