Side Story Chapter 154
Valmont cut down another skeleton and groaned. “When in the world is he coming back?!”
These undead were nothing, but their perpetual persistence was a problem. They would recover every time Valmont destroyed them. The undead were unable to feel pain, so when they lost their legs, they would drag themselves toward Valmont with their arms so they could gnaw at him. Worse, the dullahans, the high-class undead, were so sturdy that Valmont couldn’t chop them up, and they got back up just like the ordinary skeletons.
“We have to deal with those demons over there first since their demonic power is what is causing these undead to rise without end,” Duke Tremblin, standing back to back with Valmont, said.
“Do you think I’m going through all this trouble because I don’t know that?” Valmont snapped.
Those demons were the source of all their damned problems. The fiends had even set up chairs in the center of their undead army to observe the battle from. There were exactly ten of them, and considering that every one of them was as strong as Valmont, they were a formidable force.
“They could have created a kingdom of demons in no time if they’d dropped by another country first,” Valmont grumbled.
“We have to stop them before that happens.”
“Is Avalon a charity organization or something?! Other countries must have heard what is happening by now, so why are they just watching?!”
“That is what war is. When you act first, you will be recognized for your efforts, but that is all. Whoever striked the first blow ultimately suffers the most damage.”
“Selfish bastards,” Valmont angrily grumbled as he swung his sword again. His fierce attack wiped out dozens of the skeletons, but it was just as futile as all his other strikes. Although his attack had been successfully delivered, the other undead filled in the holes within moments.
“Those cockroaches. I wouldn’t have been this tired if they were humans instead...”
Valmont was starting to get exhausted. He didn’t want to even imagine what would have happened if the Magic Tower’s archmages hovering in the air weren’t there to help them in this battle. Their presence was sparing Avalon from the humiliation of those undead breaching Arcadia’s east gate, but they were at their limits. Being archmages didn’t mean that they had an infinite amount of mana.
“Shit...” Valmont cussed.
Grrrrrrrrrrr!
Valmont and Tremblin's eyes widened.
“Is th-that... Am I seeing things?” Valmont stammered.
“...I can see it too.”
When it rained, it poured.
“What the fuck...!” Valmont spat.
A group of five gigantic creatures emerged out of nowhere and flew across the sky. Their shadows alone were so big that it looked like castles were moving.
“Bone dragons...!”
They were the notorious war machines made by turning dragons, the strongest creatures in the Human Realm, into undead. They may not be able to use their dragon magic, but they were just as skilled as living dragons. They gargantuan forms wielded immense power and their dragon breath was just as strong as it had been before their deaths.
Bone dragons had only appeared in Igrant’s history a few times because it took at least a Ninth Circle black mage to even try making a bone dragon. However, there were five bone dragons flying overhead, not one, and three of them looked like they were fully grown before their death. Such a thing was unlikely to happen ever again.
“...Have you ever fought dragons, Duke Tremblin?” Valmont asked.
“I haven’t.”
“How about creatures that are similar to dragons? Bone dragons, for example...”
Tremblin shook his head. “I only met the ones with which His Majesty is acquainted with. Dragons aren’t creatures you can meet easily.”
“Alright, I’ll just ask you: are you confident we can win?”
Tremblin silently looked up at the sky. The five bone dragons were just flapping their wings in the air without doing anything else, arrogantly looking down at the creatures on the ground. Maybe they were enjoying flaunting their presence.
Tremblin eventually shrugged. “...I’ll have to fight them to find out.”
“What? W-Wait, what are you trying to do, old man?!”
Since they knew each other very well, Tremblin didn’t take much issue to Valmont’s remarks. Tremblin simply infused his mana into his legs and braced himself for the leap.
“Are you seriously going to jump up there?” Valmont chuckled dryly. “I think you’re forgetting that we’re human—bipedal creatures who live on the ground.”
“I know, but they’ll help if they’re aware of what’s going on.”
“‘They’...?” Valmont turned to see what Tremblin was looking at and realized that the duke was referring to the archmages of the Magic Tower and their master.
Tremblin kicked off the ground and went soaring into the sky.
“Oh...” Valmont exclaimed. Sword Emperor’s flight was a sight both majestic and overpowering.
“Levitation!” The quick-witted Theta quickly used his mana, just as expected. A translucent layer was created around Tremblin. The wind was on Tremblin’s and the others’ side because no one here understood wind better than Theta.
“Haste! Tornado! Airburst!” Theta added in quick succession. He made Tremblin lighter using the haste spell and created a tornado under Tremblin to help him stay in the air. Lastly, Theta’s airburst spell was to give Tremblin an extra push.
Tremblin ripped through the air with a thunder boom that rattled the earth and the sky. He went higher and higher, passing the bone dragons and touching the clouds.
“It’s definitely hard to breathe up here.” Trembling held his breath and examined the colossal bone dragons beneath him. In this situation, the best way to increase the odds of delivering a successful attack was striking downward, not upward.
‘I’ll kill it with one strike.’ Tremblin layered his aura on his saber, his eyes gleaming; the incredible density of his blue aura made it flicker and wave like tongues of fire. Tremblin swung his saber fiercely, dropping downward several times faster than he had flown up there. The fire-like aura trailed behind him like the tail of a shooting star.
When he was just above a bone dragon’s head, Tremblin swung his saber without hesitation.
The bone dragon he was attacking was the smallest one. Tremblin cleaved the bone dragon’s head in half and kept going, but the other bone dragons only watched him. After cutting about ten meters into the bone dragon, Tremblin ground to a halt. His saber got stuck in the bone dragon’s chest, making his brows furrow; his initial plan was to cut the bone dragon in half in one strike.
‘It’s much sturdier than I thought,’ Tremblin exclaimed. He abandoned his saber without regret, mere moments before one of the adult bone dragons swung its tail where Tremblin had been. The smallest bone dragon got by its larger counterpart, damaging its chest bones even more and sending it on an unstable path to the ground.
‘Well, I somehow achieved my goal,’ Tremblin thought with a sardonic smile. Had he been able to slay the bone dragon with one strike like he originally planned, his allies’ morale would have risen dramatically. It was quite a shame.
“Great job, old man!” Valmon shouted. Given that he’d used mana, it seemed he’d realized what Tremblin was thinking.
“Wh-Whoaaaaaaa!”
“His Grace took care of the bone dragon!”
“The Sword Emperor is with us!”
The soldiers on the ramparts cheered energetically, but Tremblin couldn’t get rid of the bitterness in his smile. Perhaps it was just Tremblin’s imagination, but it looked like Avalon’s soldiers were trying not to lose to their fear.
The gigantic bone dragon finally crashed on the ground, with Tremblin landing on top of it.
“It’s a shame.”
“You go, old man. You still have your edge!”
“The remaining dragons are the problem. The same method won’t work on them; they aren’t fools.”
“Would His Majesty have succeeded at once...?” Valmont’s face darkened, realizing the magnitude of the situation after seeing the demons laughing in the distance. “I really need to see those pricks eat shit... Shall I try too?”
“Don’t. I told you earlier that the same method won’t work on them twice. You might fall into danger instead.”
“Ah, my pride...”
Valmont was racking his brains for a solution when an earthquake made him stumble out of nowhere.
“Wh-what?!” He quickly steadied himself. “What are you going to do now—”
“...Wait.”
“Huh?”
“I don’t think it’s the demons.” Tremblin shook his head.
“What are you talking about?”
Tremblin focused on sensing the nearby energies for a moment. His eyes flew open.
“It’s His Majesty.”
“What?”
“I’m certain. Only he would exude such an overwhelming—”
When a red streak suddenly flew toward the bone dragons, Valmont understood Tremblin. Unless they were hallucinating, that blood-red spear was clearly...
“Longin!” Valmont was enraptured. They had all been desperately waiting for him. The emperor of the Avalon Empire had finally returned.
The source of this c𝐨ntent is fre𝒆w(e)bn(o)vel