Chapter 907: Descent of the Progenitor
The former Tank sensed the danger first and raised his shield, activating his Unique Skill to create a barrier, but the wave that shot out from the vortex of energy before them cut through both barrier, shield, and even his body with ease.
Blood sprayed into the air, entrails spilling to the ground as the two halves of the man’s body collapsed.
The former Knight hadn’t even fully processed the horrific images his eyes were capturing when another wave sliced out, the curved slash cleaving his head from his neck, his headless body spraying blood as the last thing he saw before darkness consumed everything.
The vortex of death law energy dissipated, and Elaine dropped to one knee, breathing heavily, her hands trembling as a wave of nausea hit her.
She bit her lip, holding back the vomit threatening to spill from her mouth, and reminded herself of her mission in this world.
’Summon...Arthur...!’
Forcing herself to her feet, she glanced at the undead Knight behind her and muttered,
"Can you...buy me...some time...?"
Elaine could instinctively sense that she held complete control over Knight’s existence now, and she could command him to do almost anything, and he would have no choice but to obey.
Still, she didn’t command him and instead made a request.
Knight remained silent, his understanding of the control over him leaving him conflicted by her choice not to exert it.
He glanced at the fallen soldiers around him as they rose, at the gathering magic energy, at the spells forming, and taking a deep breath, he extended his hand. Death energy drained from Elaine into him, coalescing in his hand and solidifying into the shape of a sword.
Seeing this, Elaine muttered under her breath, "Thank you."
With those words, she dashed past him and rushed toward the centre of the elevated platform, summoning the bag of magic chalk from her subspace and crushing several sticks along the edge of her scythe’s blade.
Spinning, she drew the curved blade across the ground, sketching a perfect circle, before dropping to her knees and immediately grabbing another chalk to begin tracing the contents of the circle Arthur had given her, something she had studied every day on this world and had committed fully to memory.
Screams echoed all around her, the chaos of terrified civilians scrambling to escape the chain of events that had just unfolded.
From Knight’s execution to Elaine’s sudden appearance, from Knight becoming undead to the killing of two former Heroes.
Everyone was trying to flee at the same time, stampedes breaking out as some soldiers struggled to control the situation, while others moved to check on the former Heroes and the Hero Candidates.
Another group charged toward Elaine, fully determined to stop whatever she was doing, their eyes red with rage and hatred over the deaths of the two former Heroes they had idolised.
The one who stood before them to block their path was Knight, the same Hero they had just executed.
Law energy spiralled around his sword as he lifted it, the overwhelming death law energy Elaine currently had gathering around her transferring into his blade and merging with his sword law energy.
Then, he brought the blade down in a single, powerful slash.
[The...Devil’s Sword.]
**BOOOM!!!
Explosions shook the earth as his slash split the city in two, but Elaine ignored the chaos and continued tracing her magic circle.
She finished in under a minute, but as she did, she noticed a trail of silver dripping onto the ground in front of her.
Blinking in surprise, she raised her hand to her face and realised blood was running from her nose, her body straining under the stress of the immense death law energy that had poured into her when she broke the crystal Arthur had given her.
She wasn’t supposed to release it all at once, but she had, and that had consequences.
Consequences that, unknown to her, were far lighter than they should have been.
Elaine wiped the blood away and quickly funnelled her magic into the ground, and the magic circle lit up, resonating with the energy that had accumulated beneath the ground from multiple energy veins intersecting at this point of the planet’s crust.
The former Heroes fought against the undead Knight to reach the currently immobilised Elaine, aiming to stop her and avenge their comrades, but the Hero Candidates she knew were all frozen still, unable to lift their weapons.
Even when their predecessors shouted at them, they stayed immobile, unable to lift their weapons against their former leader.
As the undead Knight fought to protect Elaine, his body breaking down from tanking attacks from dozens of Level 800+ devils, she began the summoning.
The stronger the Deity, the stronger the repulsive effect of this planet’s barrier, and the greater the energy and offerings required to summon them.
The entire Regional Capital City sat atop an energy hotspot that she could harness to power the summoning spell to bring Arthur into this world.
She needed a catalyst to summon Arthur, but the death law energy released from his Authority crystal that filled the area was more than sufficient.
Then came the invocation chant, requiring her to infuse her tongue with magic power and speak words of power that would call forth that existence, including officially recognized Titles recorded in their Existential Records, and the real name of that existence.
"I use this well of energy as an offering, a guide to rise from beyond the stars and descend into this world.
The Child of Destruction, the Prince of Hell, the Silver Summoner, the One Who Overcame Adversary, and the Lord of godslayers who shall bring an end to the divine.
I call upon you with your True Name!"
At this point, Elaine unconsciously altered the chant she was meant to recite, changing a single word without realising it or understanding the consequences.
"Come into this world, Primordial godslayer, Arthurius Vaughn!"
The moment she spoke, countless arcs of magic and cosmic energy erupted around the circle beneath her feet, air currents became a violent wind, and the energy from beneath the ground was drawn up by the magic, coalescing into a straight ray of light that shot into the sky.
The clouds in the sky swirled around, black lightning striking down behind Elaine and tearing apart the fabric of space.
Everyone who witnessed it was dumbfounded.
Knight’s undead body finally collapsed to his knees, unable to regenerate fast enough under the continuous attacks from all sides.
The former Mage, realising Elaine was attempting a summoning, acted to intervene, but the undead Knight hurled his sword at her spell, the blade colliding with the projectile in an explosion that destroyed both.
The former Archer acted at the same moment, releasing an arrow that pierced through Knight’s hand as he attempted to catch it and flew toward Elaine.
However, just before the man’s arrow achieved a headshot on Elaine, a hand emerged from the rift behind her and caught it, stopping it mere inches from her forehead.
The arrow instantly crumbled to dust and was scattered by the wind, and following this, a familiar True Voice rang out.
|Since when did it become practice for Infernal Devils to riddle children with arrow holes?|
Elaine’s expression brightened as the entire area fell silent, every being completely frozen in instinctive fear.
Not a single body moved. Some fainted where they stood, while others began to have hallucinations of death.
The hand that had destroyed the arrow came down on Elaine’s head, ruffling her hair as its owner spoke with a smile.
"Good work, Elaine. I’m very proud of you."
Those words of praise elicited the brightest smile Elaine had worn in the past three weeks, but it quickly faded as all the strength drained from her body, the immense relief cutting off the flow of adrenaline as she collapsed backwards.
Naturally, there was no way Arthur would let her hit the ground.
He caught her and lifted her up princess carry style, a smile on his face.
That smile vanished almost immediately as he looked up at the devils before him, and at the sight of his glowing, odd-coloured eyes, the former Mage choked, blood spurting from her eyes as she vomited everything she’d eaten that morning mixed with blood.
"Oh?" Arthur muttered, glancing at her.
"You seem to have some sort of optical analysis ability. How unfortunate."
There was not a trace of sympathy in his voice for the woman whose soul was straining under the stress of trying to analyse his existence.
The spatial rift behind him slowly closed as he spoke, and he glanced in the direction of the Continental Capital immediately afterwards.
’They’re trying to stabilise the barrier generators. I have a few minutes, then.’
While he confirmed the states of the Infernal Devil Lords there, the other devils before him were all breaking out in cold sweat.
At this point, only the Sovereign Realm existences remained conscious, and everyone below that level had passed out from the pressure of his aura, especially as he’d arrived with several Authorities active.
He’d been bracing for an immediate attack by Infernal Devil Lords, after all.
The remaining infernal devil soldiers and the former Heroes before him had no idea who he could possibly be, but the Hero Candidates Elaine travelled with, who knew she was on a quest to free her ’Guardian,’ all instantly connected the dots, especially given the proud smile Arthur had worn the moment he appeared.
"...he’s...a Lord! A Senior Lord!!"
"!"
Arthur heard the former Mage’s voice and glanced back at her, her ashen expression of disbelief spreading to her companions.
"And here I thought the Infernal Devil Lords of this planet had isolated you all. It seems some are not ignorant, after all."
After saying this, Arthur turned to the Hero Candidates and spoke, "I’ve been watching you lot over the past few weeks, and while Elaine may not realise or admit it, she’s grown rather fond of you."
Raising a finger, he pointed at them and declared,
"On account of that, and because you haven’t raised your weapons against her, I’ll allow you to keep your lives."
Then he turned toward the former Heroes and continued, "But for the rest of you..."
A gust of wind blew as he trailed off, and carried away in it were the dust of all those who had attacked Knight, trying to reach Elaine, the former Heroes included.
All that remained of them were their smoking feet, everything above the ankles erased.
Arthur then turned his gaze to the undead Knight, a sigh escaping his lips as he stepped forward.
"Your existence is slowly crumbling. I suppose it’s only natural that Elaine was unable to create a proper undead.
With her loss of consciousness, there’s no active force tethering your soul to the waking world, and death would soon reclaim it."
Arthur reached out and grasped his head, then, without further explanation, he froze the undead in time to prevent his existence from turning to dust.
’I’ll leave him to Berlal when she gets back.’
Finally, Arthur looked down at the scythe on the floor, sighing as he shook his head.
"Really, Elaine? Your soul itself is already a fragment of another, and you’re breaking off even more pieces?"
Just as Arthur muttered this under his breath, Celestia, taking on her humanoid form, appeared beside him and looked at the scythe.
[She doesn’t know she’s only a fragment. As far as she’s concerned, she’s whole.]
"Oh? Someone’s being rather generous with information today."
Celestia ignored Arthur’s remark and crouched, reaching out to touch ’Requiem,’ but the instant her fingers brushed the scythe, a violent burst of cosmic energy threw her hand back.
At the same time, the unconscious Elaine in Arthur’s arms groaned and shifted uncomfortably.
"That was cosmic energy, wasn’t it?" Arthur asked, visibly shocked.
[Yes, it was,] Celestia replied.
She rose to her feet and dusted her palms, adding, [No one can touch that thing beside her, and maybe you, I suppose.]
Arthur wasn’t about to test whether Celestia’s ’I suppose’ was accurate, and besides, he had run out of time to dawdle.
"Here. Don’t do anything foolish," he said, passing the unconscious Elaine to Celestia, and at this, the Ego weapon frowned slightly.
[Really? You think I don’t know when and where not to mess around?]
Arthur didn’t respond, instead turning and summoning Lostvayne, his eyes lifting as the skies split open and several Infernal Devils appeared, their powerful auras sweeping across the land.
"Five, huh? The perfect number of hostages."
With that, Arthur shot into the sky, destruction energy flowing into his sword as he swung it with all his strength, illuminating the sky with crimson silver light.
