Chapter 56 - Retribution (3)
10 min read ·
Losing your composure in a crisis meant death.
It was a truth Damian Aslan had learned beyond all doubt through his years on the battlefield. Indeed, it was likely the only reason he had not lost his mind yet.
“Say that again. What?”
“All the outer castle’s defenses have been breached.”
“...”
Instead of folding the soldier in half at the waist, Damian took a deep breath.
Rage boiled in his head, urging him to do just that, but his remaining composure reminded him that it would accomplish nothing.
Fortunately, he still had one option left.
“... Contact the standing knight corps.”
The grand-ducal House of Aslan was one of the Empire’s foremost martial houses, which meant it maintained its own knight corps independent of the imperial military.
Surely superhumans on an entirely different level from ordinary soldiers could handle even this extraordinary situation.
But his effort to remain calm was immediately rendered pointless by something that poured fuel onto his rage.
One wall of the main castle corridor where he stood blew apart. It looked as though a planted bomb had detonated, but beyond it stood a person with an outstretched fist.
Before he could marvel at a human accomplishing something that should have required a battering ram, he let out an incredulous laugh.
He recognized the face beyond the wall.
“... Lionhearted?”
He uttered her title in disbelief.
Before he could even wonder what on earth she was doing here, the people nearby collapsed all at once.
The energy rising from the Lionhearted, who had just smashed through the wall, gathered into tiny spheres. They scattered, shooting straight between the brows of everyone around her with pinpoint accuracy.
It was staggering to see them drop without so much as a grunt.
“... What the hell are you—!”
“I have quite a few questions for you, young lord.”
The moment he heard her voice, the realization that something had gone very, very wrong struck Damian hard.
Normally, the Lionhearted wore a masklike, expressionless face and spoke in a strictly businesslike tone. But the woman facing him now...
“The Night of the Hunt, the calamity that plagues the Duchy of Aslan, is almost upon us. Yet I saw no preparations for the magical beasts anywhere on your estate.”
... She could have passed for a vengeful spirit.
Clearly, she was far beyond merely angry.
“Civilians will die. There will be endless casualties. What precautions have you taken?”
“...”
“From what I saw on the way here, none at all.”
“... I hardly think you’re entitled to demand answers after barging in and committing this outrage, Lionhearted.”
With a low growl, Damian brushed aside Noel’s reproach.
Of course, a serious examination of the issue would put him at a disadvantage. But anyone could see that she was the one who had crossed the line first, and by a considerable margin.
“We will handle our own family affairs. Outsiders have no business interfering.”
“... Is that all you have to say?”
Noel sounded incredulous.
“You’re about to send countless people to their deaths, and you’re telling me to stay out of your family affairs?”
“Yes. That settles it.”
The man beside Noel, who had been listening quietly, let out a deep sigh as well.
“I don’t need to hear any more. There goes the last of my guilt.”
Before Damian could ask what nonsense he was spouting, the man who had sighed strode forward.
Rather than angrily demand who this layabout was, Damian quickly turned his head, searching for someone nearby.
The man was approaching him with some intention, but that hardly seemed worth worrying about.
His attention was fixed on the Lionhearted, who had come with him.
Whoever this fellow was, it didn’t matter. The problem was that he had come with the Lionhearted and was acting familiar with her.
If Damian hurt him, the Lionhearted might retaliate—
“I can see exactly what you’re thinking.”
Noel’s voice cut into his thoughts.
And her answer was the complete opposite of what he had imagined.
“I won’t do anything, young lord.”
“...?”
Damian stared blankly at her.
It was only natural, seeing her fold her arms as though she truly intended to do nothing at all.
“Listen carefully. I won’t do a thing.”
She even repeated herself.
As though she very much wanted to drive the point home.
“What are you—”
“She means asking her to help because you know each other won’t work.”
The answer came instead from the man who had stepped forward.
He tilted his neck from side to side as though warming up.
“Because I’m about to knock some sense into you.”
“...”
Another vein bulged on Damian’s forehead, much thicker than the last.
He might be a lesser warrior than the Lionhearted, but Damian was still the eldest son of the renowned ducal House of Aslan.
He was skilled enough to strip the flesh from the bones of an ordinary supernatural-power wielder while planning his monthly schedule in his head.
“... Fine.”
Grinding his teeth, he drew his sword.
Really, continuing to exchange words with someone who had forced his way into another man’s estate and done all this was absurd.
He didn’t know who this fellow was or what abilities he was hiding, but he plainly intended to harm Damian right now.
Indeed, Damian’s eyes narrowed at the glowing spheres rising around the man’s body.
It was an especially difficult form of supernatural power to manipulate, yet the man had produced three spheres in an instant.
The Tribal Alliance’s dharmic power. He looked unremarkable, but everyone had a hidden blade up their sleeve.
‘He won’t be an easy opponent.’
Reaching that conclusion, Damian tightened his grip on his sword, tense.
Every muscle in his body drew taut. He readied each of the combat techniques etched into him.
Of course, he did not think he would lose. Even if his opponent wielded dharmic power, Damian was a formidable warrior himself.
This would certainly be a fierce battle—
“Hold on. Please wait a moment.”
“...”
... Or perhaps not.
Having spoken with perfect ease, the man squinted, looking back and forth between Damian and the glowing spheres he had raised.
He was clearly waiting for something.
“There’s still a little left.”
“... What?”
“It should be ready soon, but just a moment. If you could wait just a little—”
As Damian questioned him in disbelief, Aiden remained standing still, watching him with glowing spheres arrayed around him.
His hazy, unfocused gaze held no tension at all. It felt as though he saw Damian not as an enemy to fight, but as a ‘target’ to knock down...
“You don’t seem quite powerless enough yet.”
“...”
While Damian stood there wondering what on earth that meant, he suddenly heard someone running frantically toward him from the side.
It was a squire belonging to the estate’s knight corps. Every movement was steeped in urgency.
A thick vein rose on Damian’s forehead at the sight.
How long ago had he sent for them? This was far too late.
“Where in the world are the resident knights—!”
“M-my lord...!”
Despite Damian’s murderous demeanor, the poor squire apparently had no choice but to deliver his report. Trembling, he spoke.
“The knight corps has been wiped out...!”
“...”
“They were fighting one of the attackers, and then they all...!”
The vein on Damian’s forehead subsided.
At this point, disbelief took precedence over anger.
Let him get this straight.
Three people had torn his estate to pieces.
And the knight corps, its very last line of defense, had been destroyed by just one of them.
The man before him, on the other hand, finally began nodding at the news.
“No troops left to mobilize, weaker than me...”
Listening to him apparently checking conditions one by one, Damian suddenly felt a surge of dread up his spine.
It was a moment when the sense of danger he had honed through years on the battlefield truly shone.
For other supernatural powers were now beginning to rise from the man’s body alongside the dharmic power he had just summoned.
The Lionhearted’s pure-white energy. And searing divinity. Both emerged at once.
Damian’s eyes flew wide.
‘He just used dharmic power. How can he use other powers—’
But before he could even finish processing that thought...
“... Then all that’s left is to beat you up.”
A fist wreathed in those powers rushed into Damian’s field of vision.
That was, without a doubt, his last memory before losing consciousness.
▣
“... Hmm.”
Having nearly reduced his opponent’s face to pulp with a single blow, Aiden looked back and forth between his fist and Damian’s face.
A fresh sense of surprise filled his chest.
“You crushed him in one blow. Why are you the one who’s surprised...?”
It was enough to prompt even Noel, watching him, to comment.
But that did nothing to change Aiden’s impression.
‘... Haven’t I gotten pretty strong?’
All he had done was mix pure-white energy with The First Vow and wrap it around his body. Without using Meyer’s techniques or any other skills, he had knocked his opponent out in a single blow through sheer raw power.
It hadn’t been all that long since watching the Lord Protector fight Noel had left him feeling thoroughly outclassed.
He still couldn’t so much as graze Meyer in his dreams, and he still felt that a proper fight against Noel or Katya would end with his skull cracked open in an instant.
He hadn’t expected to crush a man of this caliber with one blow, without giving him a chance to resist...
“Isn’t that only natural?”
“Pardon?”
“I don’t know what you think of yourself, Aiden, but who could be confident in their strength if their points of comparison were Her Highness and me?”
“...”
“The only people I can think of who could say that with certainty are His Majesty the Emperor in his prime and Her Holiness the current Pontiff...”
“... Aha.”
As Aiden nodded, Noel continued calmly.
“Your basic capabilities alone are now enough to quickly overwhelm an average knight. You may not rank among the truly renowned, but you’re clearly beyond the average supernatural-power wielder.”
True, after gobbling up so many Unique Skills, it would have been strange if he were weak.
... And he was about to add another weapon to that personal arsenal.
“Hmm...”
Aiden glanced at the glowing spheres wavering before him.
“I’ve bullied a powerless person, so all that’s left is for it to become contaminated...”
“... A powerless person?”
“It seems the God of the Supreme Vehicle interprets the ‘powerless people’ I mentioned in my vow from several different angles.”
Words were fascinating things.
Apparently, someone being ‘powerful’ encompassed not just physical strength, but also the authority they wielded and the number of people they could mobilize.
“That’s why we had to take out everything around this man.”
“...”
“Apparently, he only considers this man definitively less powerful than me once he has nothing left but his own body...”
“... So.”
Noel spoke in disbelief.
“You destroyed the duchy’s entire standing army and knight corps to weaken this man, simply to contaminate your dharmic power?”
“That’s how it turned out.”
“...”
... He was starting to get used to seeing Noel clutch her head as a headache set in.
At least she wasn’t objecting further. She apparently understood that he had only done this because he had a plan to deal with the aftermath.
In any case.
“... I suppose it won’t have been for nothing. It certainly seems contaminated.”
Noel murmured as she watched the dark flickers in Aiden’s dharmic core.
It had twisted into a form that radiated an unmistakable sense of something being ‘wrong,’ just as it had when he had botched the consecration before.
-System Message
▶ A violation of your prohibition has been detected. Urgan is enraged.
▶ Dharmic power manipulation is canceled. The backlash of failure corrupts the manipulation of dharmic power. This will result in bodily damage.
Indeed, this window confirmed it outright.
He could consider his ‘preparations’ complete now.
Taking a deep breath, Aiden pushed a separate supernatural power into each of the floating spheres.
Pure-white energy and colorless flame each merged with a darkening sphere.
The effects were immediate.
-System Message
▶ Through the effect of ‘Unique Trait: Omnipotence,’ combining supernatural powers develops a new effect!
▶ You have combined ‘Heart of Pure White’ and ‘Savior’s Vow’ to develop ‘Brilliant Radiance’!
-System Message
▶ Through the effect of ‘Unique Trait: Omnipotence,’ combining supernatural powers develops a new effect!
▶ You have combined ‘Heart of Pure White’ and ‘The First Vow’ to develop ‘Purifier’!
‘... Oh.’
Even at a glance, the results looked impressive.