Chapter 120 - The Dark Mage's Desperate Struggle

Bairif Crotinu. Once a dark mage who dreamed of freedom, now a servant captured by a Demon King, he rubbed his prickling skin. Goosebumps had risen all over him.

The battlefield he saw through his undead was terror itself. Immense aura cleaved the world, and brilliant spells burst like fireworks. The undead were rapidly returning to their original state.

"They're strong."

An admiring thought came unbidden: this truly was the Empire.

He was afraid, knowing those blades would ultimately turn toward him. At the same time, a thrill ran through him.

Those men, those imperial elites, that terrifying hero!

What if he could kill them with his undead, with his own hands? What if he could turn them into undead?

The Demon King had been right. This was the surest opportunity to prove the worth of the undead he had spent well over a decade creating—and his own worth.

"He said members of the imperial family were there, too."

He did not know exactly which ones, but the Demon King would not have lied.

"If I kill even the imperial family..."

The Empire would be thrown into an uproar, and the fearsome reputation of him and his undead would soar. Even if the enraged Empire assembled a force to hunt him down, he would have left the gorge with the Demon King's help by then.

The mere thought sent shivers through him. His mouth watered.

"I'll give you a proper fight."

He closed his eyes and concentrated. The wills of thousands of undead flooded in at once, making his head throb. Yet it only stoked Bairif's fighting spirit.

Anything less would offer no satisfaction in defeating them. Naturally, the Empire ought to be capable of at least this much.

Bairif quickly grasped the enemy's strategy. With the hero at the front, the troops behind him were smashing through the undead like an awl. That charge was the core of their attack.

"Still, that bastard really is incredible..."

The undead linked to him were being destroyed in real time. Even watching through them sent chills down his spine. The dimensional interference made the demonic energy lodged in his heart tremble with unease.

Bairif directed his undead. A head-on fight was hopeless. He had to circle around the flanks and wear down the troops supporting the charge.

Skeleton archers stationed atop the gorge fired their arrows. Crude arrows fashioned from bone became deadly weapons under the force of demonic energy and gravity.

"There are undead up above, too!"

"Block them!"

Magic circles intercepted the arrows, but the defense was imperfect. Some soldiers fell.

"Get up there and deal with them!"

Some knights ascended the gorge with the mages' help. But what awaited them were headless corpses and the death knight commanding them.

"... A death knight?"

"Dullahans!"

The charge on skeletal horses sent the knights tumbling down before they could even gain a foothold.

The knightly orders of death raced down the gorge's cliffs without slowing. Hurtling along precariously, seemingly on the verge of falling at any moment, the two orders slammed into both flanks of the human army.

"Aaaaargh!"

NEIGH!

"Watch the flanks!"

One section of the formation crumbled. The soldiers' screams shattered into their last words.

A knight, made by tempering a knight's body and cramming countless souls into it, thrust out a blade of vengeful spirits. It smashed armor and sliced living flesh. The hot blood was not enough to warm souls colder than the bitterest winter.

ROOOAR!

The death knight roared. The headless knights answered their legion commander's thirst. Demonic energy surged, gnawing away at mana and baring its fangs at the intruders.

"Move aside."

THUD-THUD-THUD!

Hoofbeats shook the earth. Two groups of knights broke away from the vanguard and wheeled toward either flank. They collided head-on with the bloodthirsty death knights.

BOOOOM!

A death knight's body rocked. Skeletal horses screamed, and dullahans went flying.

"Worthless corpses."

The Black Lion Knights. House Osrian's black lions roared. Divided into two halves, they advanced, crushing everything before them. The death knights clashed with the Black Lions' commander and deputy commander.

BOOM!

The Black Lions gained the advantage in the initial collision. Black aura rising nearly two meters high sliced through demonic energy and death energy, striking for the death knights' cores.

"How dare you."

A death knight spoke in an uncanny voice. With almost miraculous horsemanship, it maneuvered its skeletal mount to absorb the impact and open some distance. It spewed demonic energy at the aura targeting its heart.

Dozens of sword strikes followed in an instant. Death knights, dullahans, and Black Lions entwined like snakes, driving their blades at one another.

Thus the Black Lion Knights were drawn away from the front. The advance slowed noticeably, deprived of the sustained strength supporting it.

"Just as planned...!"

Watching it all through his undead's eyes, Bairif trembled with exhilaration. He would lose two death knights and a hundred dullahans he had painstakingly created, but he had already resolved to pour everything he had into this gorge. They were fulfilling their roles admirably.

"That bastard. It has to be Val... whatever his name was."

The continent's strongest hero, in both name and deed. Bairif's memory was hazy after living among corpses in the gorge, but the man had already been famous before Bairif came here.

"So the imperial family really has made its move."

He had expected someone roughly at the level of a Star to come. Bairif set in motion the undead he had spent the longest and most painstaking effort creating.

RUMBLE!

An enormous head surged up amid countless white bones. Red death energy gleamed within its empty eye sockets.

Its neck, body, short arms and legs, and wings of bone emerged. Nearly fifteen meters long, its immense body resembled a dragon.

"... A bone dragon?"

The imperial troops faltered in alarm.

"Heh heh heh."

Bairif chuckled.

A lesser dragon.

Despite its name, it was not a true dragon. Yet it was the closest imitation, the pinnacle of drakes, and had once ruled the center of Habstrain.

After prolonged, fierce battles and immense effort, he had turned it into an undead. It had retained most of the abilities and power it possessed in life, or had grown stronger as they changed. It was the greatest source of Bairif's confidence.

The lesser bone dragon opened its mouth. Wind gathered between jaws made of nothing but black bone. The gorge's demonic energy stirred, and the lesser bone dragon's core swelled like a balloon.

"Die, all of you!"

With Bairif's shout from somewhere underground, a breath that devoured everything erupted.

* * *

At first glance, the enormous body could easily be mistaken for a dragon.

"Your Highness, you must take cover!"

His guard knights shouted at him. But he dismounted his frightened horse and began running.

"Your Highness!"

The knights followed him.

"Where do you think you're running?"

He stabbed through the heart of a soldier fleeing in terror.

"Gah...!"

The soldier's blood soaked his armor.

"I gave you an order. Advance and bring me the dark mage's head."

Then...

"Should you not obey to the very end? Who gave you bastards permission to flee!"

His mana-laden roar rang through the gorge. Everyone trembled at his fury.

It was then.

"I obey Your Highness's command!"

Someone's shout swallowed the soldiers' terror.

One man alone.

The great hero advanced. Dismounting his terrified horse, he kicked off the earth with his own two feet.

At the same moment, everything poured out of the dragon's jaws. A black flash blazed, staining the sky black. The white bones caught in its wake crumbled to dust and vanished. Without losing any momentum, the black streak struck the humans' front head-on.

Some collapsed where they stood. Some hid behind rocks. Some cloaked themselves in aura. Some tried to protect the imperial family even with their own bodies.

And some anticipated the hero's gruesome fate.

But there was neither impact nor explosion.

A flash.

A blue radiance rose within the darkness. Illuminating the dark, it advanced into the storm. An immense sword of light cleaved the tempest.

ROOOOOM!

He was like a great hero out of legend. As though vanquishing evil and proving the existence of good. As though defending a kingdom and proclaiming the age of humanity.

He became the lone torch in the pitch-black gloom, lighting the darkness.

The darkness split. He cleaved through every pressure seeking to extinguish that flame.

At its end stood a dragon. Spewing darkness, destroying the world, the demonic dragon made its presence known.

Sensing the hero, the storm grew fiercer. In proportion, the hero's sword shone even more brilliantly. Piercing the heart of the tempest, he drove deeper, past the open jaws and straight down its throat.

RUMBLE-CRASH!

The breath weakened. The demonic dragon screamed, writhing its immense body in resistance.

"Return to where you belong."

For that was His Highness's command.

CRUNCH!

There were no more screams. The enormous body fell.

* * *

"Cough...!"

Bairif coughed up blood. As his connection to the lesser bone dragon he had painstakingly created broke, demonic energy flowed backward. The rampaging energy brought pain as though his heart were being forcibly wrung out.

"Impossible...!"

But his mental anguish was greater than his physical pain. This was a work he had spent fifteen years perfecting.

He had feared no one. Not even the Empire. Not even heroes. He had been confident of victory. Moreover, the elixirs tainted with demonic energy he had received from the Demon King had made it even stronger.

Then why?

"... So easily?"

The process had hardly looked easy. But the result was.

The lesser bone dragon was dead. Unable to defeat a single hero, its core had been shattered. Its fifteen-meter bulk had fallen, and the hero trampled its corpse and roared to proclaim his victory.

"... You son of a bitch."

The dark mage who had lost fifteen years seethed. Blood dripped from his mangled lips.

"Whatever happens, you, at least...!"

But how? With the final bastion he had trusted shattered, he had nothing left.

No. Did he truly have nothing?

"..."

Madness filled his eyes.

It would be a waste. Even destroyed, the lesser bone dragon's remains were still useful. The bones the enemy had brought down could also be used if he gathered them again.

Was it right to give all of that up?

"Of course it is!"

Even losing everything he had gathered over fifteen years was better than failing to avenge the lesser bone dragon.

Bairif bit all ten fingers until they bled. Drawing a spell formula, he closed his eyes and concentrated.

"Disappear along with the dragon you destroyed."

Bairif retched up blood as the demonic energy raced beyond his control. At the same time, all the bones filling the gorge began reacting to it at once.

* * *

BOOM-BOOM-BOOM!

The explosion was immense enough to shake the entire gorge.

"What is this...?"

The question barely lasted a moment before a shock wave of demonic energy swept through the gorge a beat later.

"Lord Hillen!"

"That direction is the center of the gorge! Something must have happened!"

"From this moment, we ride for the center at full speed!"

"Brother, we should find out exactly what happened..."

"What else could it be? Our elder brother must be fighting the undead. If we stay here, he'll take the dark mage's head from us! If you're uneasy, take your time. I'm going ahead."

The Second Prince began racing ahead with his troops. The Third Prince had no choice but to follow.

"Master Pale."

"Don't ask. I don't know either."

"Really?"

"I'm more curious than anyone."

It was true.

'What in the world happened?'

Berge bit his lip. He had been signaling Bairif ever since he felt the explosion, but there was no reply.

He knew instinctively that something had gone wrong. And that thought was by no means mistaken.

When they reached the center of the gorge, they found an enormous crater.

"... I'll kill you! How dare you...! How dare you!"

Inside it, the First Prince was raging out of control, his hand clamped around the dark mage's throat.