Chapter 301: The Holy Sword of the Church (3)
The Evil-Slaying Mage? Who? The young master?
The most infamous necromancer in human history was being called the Evil-Slaying Mage.
The world’s truly gone mad.
Varos, dumbfounded, turned to Desteran. "How do you even know that name, Sir Desteran?"
"He's famous," responded Desteran.
It was all thanks to the spread of the spell Redeemer of Necromancy. Because of how effective it was against necromancy, Karnak’s name had made its way even into the empire. And Desteran, in particular, had heard it more often than most.
"The bastards in the Dark Cult gnash their teeth every time they say it." He sounded almost as if he were proud of the leader of the Twilight Church.
He didn’t seem the least bit concerned that a cult leader like Karnak bore a title like the Evil-Slaying Mage. After all, in his view, the Twilight Church wasn’t evil, though that was only by his standards.
Meanwhile, Beltia had not spoken a word. She simply stared, not at Desteran or Varos, but straight past them, at Diogres standing behind them. She hadn’t even flinched even when Karnak, the cult’s archenemy, revealed himself.
Varos asked flatly, "And how long do you intend to just stand there watching?"
Beltia cast a glance at Desteran and replied, "Until he makes the first move."
What she was wary of wasn’t Desteran’s strength. "Our church has already been deceived by him once. I don’t intend to repeat the same mistake."
Desteran had previously tricked Dreltein and Elezar to extract Diogres from their grasp. Who knew what trick he might pull next? She wasn’t about to act recklessly.
"Reacting after observation is always safer than falling into a trap from rushing in," she said.
Desteran’s expression hardened. Tch. This won’t be easy.
She was right. He had no chance of victory in a head-on confrontation. But if chaos broke out, if things got messy, then he could look for a fleeting opportunity to escape. And Desteran, as the head of a criminal syndicate, was exceptionally good at seizing those slivers of chance.
He had been watching and waiting for just that. But if she insisted on playing it slow and steady, that chance might never come. It was the method of victory reserved only for overwhelming power, the kind that could afford to be patient.
"And besides..." Beltia turned her eyes to Varos and continued calmly, "With two silver knights present, there’s twice the chance something could go wrong."
She did not fear defeat. She simply feared the possibility that Diogres might slip through her fingers. It might’ve sounded arrogant, but it wasn’t. Desteran and Varos exchanged faint, wry smiles.
"Do you really need to go that far as a martial king?" questioned Desteran.
"You're really overestimating us," Varos chimed in.
But in truth, she was being cautious, too cautious, perhaps. The gap between silver- and gold-tier warriors were simply insurmountably vast.
Varos drew his aura blade and pointed it forward. "Then I have no choice. I’ll have to meet you head-on."
Desteran let his arms fall. Aura chains slithered out and unfurled across the ground. "Think the two of us can handle her?"
"Normally? Not a chance. But she’s not going to let us just run, either," responded Varos.
With a burst of silver aura, Varos lunged forward. "Let’s give it a shot!"
Then he abandoned Desteran and ran the other way.
"Excuse me?" Desteran froze in disbelief.
But as Varos fled, he extended a hand toward the outer edge of the barrier. A sharp clatter of chains rang out. It was his aura chain blade. The silver chain cut through the air and shot out several dozen meters toward a cluster of cult necromancers who had been trying to subdue the rebelling demons.
"W-what the—?"
The necromancers were caught off guard. They failed to react in time, and what followed next sounded similar to the cracking of a watermelon.
Two cultists fell in an instant with shattered heads. This was a strategy Varos had employed for years. He had feigned retreat to shake the enemy and used that gap to eliminate a more vulnerable target.
Gotcha, he thought. He retracted the chain blade and turned his gaze to gauge Beltia’s reaction.
What she did next would determine his next move. But his expression instantly stiffened.
"What?"
Beltia didn’t react at all. More precisely, she didn’t care in the slightest that Varos had killed the necromancers. Her focus remained solely on pressuring Desteran, who was now left to face her alone.
"H-Hey! Sir Varos!" Desteran, reeling under the barrage of golden aura blades, shouted as he barely dodged and blocked the relentless assault. "What the hell are you doing!?"
This was why trickery wasn’t to be used lightly. When it worked, it could flip a desperate fight. But when it didn’t? It just made things worse. It had been a tall order to face Beltia even with both of them. Now left by himself, Desteran was on the verge of collapse.
"Damn it!" Varos withdrew his aura chains while grinding his teeth.
He couldn’t hope to stop a gold knight with a chain blade. He needed to land a decisive blow, even if it meant pushing beyond his limits. Only then would Beltia take him seriously and shift her focus.
With a shout, Varos gripped his sword tightly in both hands and raised it high above his head. He gathered all his aura into a single point and unleashed it in one powerful strike:
—Reversal Blade: Frosted Flame.
Aura of ice and fire wove together like a dance, fusing into a single brilliant arc at the tip of his blade. A red serpent with blue scales slithered across the sky and lunged at its prey.
A glint of color flickered in Beltia’s eyes as she saw the incoming strike. "Impressive."
She had intended to lightly deflect his attack and take care of Desteran first. But she sensed that Varos’s attack was anything but ordinary. She twisted her body and met the blow with a surge of her own aura.
Golden energy burst from her as she countered the red-and-blue serpent head-on. Varos’s attack shattered in midair from a single strike and scattered in all directions.
But Beltia let out a breath of admiration. "I knew you were a silver knight, but I didn’t think you were stronger than this one. Looks like you’re not as young as you look."
Even so, Varos’s strike hadn’t been in vain. Thanks to it, Desteran narrowly escaped disaster. The two joined forces once more. Varos cast a glance toward the opposite side of the barrier.
"Even if the Dark Cult preaches that life is expendable, are you really going to throw away your faithful followers like that?" Varos asked.
Calmly aiming her sword again, Beltia answered without hesitation. "Death is a great gift bestowed by Lord Tesranach."
The deaths of the necromancers seemed to mean nothing to her.
"If they simply received that gift a little earlier than expected... what’s there to envy?" Still as composed and indifferent as ever, she unleashed another wave of killing intent. "Here and now, I shall bestow that same blessing upon you."
***
Karnak continued directing the rebelling Wiq-Tekka to harass the cult necromancers. "Go, demons of the Abyss!"
Over a hundred demons swarmed a mere dozen necromancers from every direction. The cultists ground their teeth as their own summoned minions turned on them.
"Damn it!"
"Why is he the only one who can do this!?"
Even so, the cult didn’t crumble.
"O darkness, dwell in my arm and grant me the strength to shatter mountains!"
"Grant me the might of beasts that twist rivers and tear through forests!"
They began drawing the power of darkness into their own bodies, strengthening their flesh and arming themselves with blades of darkness. In essence, they had entered a temporary state of being a dark knight.
With summoning magic effectively neutralized by Redeemer of Necromancy, they had no choice but to switch to direct combat. And as they dove into melee against the demons, their ferocity was anything but ordinary. Even while facing over a hundred Wiq-Tekka, they held their ground, spraying demonic blood in all directions.
"For Tesranach!"
"We will never retreat!"
The cult’s cries and the demons’ screeches clashed in a deafening chorus of chaos.
Karnak clicked his tongue while observing the situation. They really are elites.
He would have to break their momentum again. He swiftly sent a telephonic command.
—Milia!
The moment she had been waiting for arrived. "Let the radiance of Latiel descend upon this earth!"
A blinding burst of divine light exploded across the battlefield, crashing into the cultists. The dark power cloaking the cultists was gradually stripped away by the radiance of Milia’s divine light. The necromancers recoiled, startled, their eyes narrowing as they turned toward her.
"A priest of the sun goddess?"
"In the Twilight Cult?"
"Has a servant of Latiel fallen to heresy?"
"By the gods... what a tragedy."
Milia looked like she was about to explode. "I’m not part of the Twilight Church!"
Still, the light’s effect was clear. It wasn’t overwhelming, but it slowly wore down the cultists’ strength like a steady drizzle soaking through their clothes. Thanks to that, Karnak’s Wiq-Tekka began regaining the upper hand.
With the pressure easing, Karnak took a moment to glance toward Diogres. Is everything holding up over there?
***
A blade of darkness slashed toward Serati’s side, but she immediately twisted her body to evade the attack. Then, she launched a sharp counterstrike using that momentum. A necromancer was knocked back while coughing up blood. The other necromancers clenched their jaws while holding their shadow-blades.
"Damn it!"
"She’s only blue-tier. Why is she this strong?"
They too had given up on summoning arts due to Karnak and switched to direct combat. They had never expected to be on the losing end. The spell they had cast, Breath of the Devouring Netherworld, was a powerful one. It granted them might comparable to purple-tier aura users. So why were they being pushed back by someone a tier below?
Because this is our specialty, that’s why. Serati smirked and continued pressing the attack.
The necromancers were indeed stronger and faster than her. But when it came to martial technique, they were unremarkable. With that kind of skill gap, it wasn’t hard for her to handle them. If even Serati could dominate them, purple-tier warriors would find it effortless. In fact, Leven was fending off four necromancers at once while maintaining a clear advantage. But something was off.
"Lapicel! Watch out!" Leven shouted while shooting a long-range aura slash toward a necromancer creeping behind Lapicel.
The enemy barely blocked it while grinding his teeth. It allowed Lapicel to barely avoid the shadow blade aimed at her.
"S-sorry!" she apologized.
She’d been like that from the start. Even though she was only facing two enemies, she kept getting overwhelmed.
Serati frowned. Why is Lapicel so unfocused?
***
Lapicel steeled herself once more after narrowly escaping a fatal blow.
Focus. Focus! she kept telling herself.
But it wasn’t easy. No matter how much she tried to lock in on the enemies in front of her, her gaze kept drifting toward that middle-aged woman locked in a fierce battle against Varos and Desteran.
She was confused. What’s wrong with me?
It was her first time seeing this woman. And yet, something about her felt off.
Who is that woman?
