Chapter 64
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 64
Chapter Title: The Steel Knight
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It was.
Something immense.
It was.
A knight of solid steel.
A black knight, its dark paint lending it an even more intimidating presence.
Vwoooom—
A red glow flashed from within its massive helmet.
-What is that thing? A golem?
“…What is this.”
“A golem…?”
“…What is that.”
Aint, Ruina, and even Verian, who was sprawled in a corner of the battlefield, stared slack-jawed at the golem’s magnificent form.
It wasn’t their first time seeing a golem, but they had never seen one that stood nearly ten meters tall.
“So this is what the air up here is like.”
Pernyan took a deep breath.
Everything below looked as small as a toy.
Aint, Ruina.
“Such pathetic little toys.”
And even Andromalius.
“Do you truly believe you can defeat me just by creating such a thing?”
“It’s not impossible.”
It wouldn’t be easy, of course. But if there were no chance at all, Pernyan wouldn’t have invested so much time and effort into building it.
“Alright, Wooden.”
Pernyan patted the golem.
“Show that trash of a demon what you can do.”
That was the signal.
The golem’s red glow intensified. Its colossal body began to move.
Slowly, very slowly, as befitted its massive frame.
The moment they thought that.
The golem’s greatsword was already inches from Andromalius’s face.
“……!”
CLAAAAANG!
But the greatsword never reached its target. Something immense had suddenly appeared between the golem and Andromalius.
Hiiisssss—
A snake, its tongue flicking. The serpent coiled around Andromalius’s right arm had stretched to nearly thirty meters, transforming into a monstrous beast.
“I leave it to you. Destroy it.”
Shiiieeeek!
At Andromalius’s command, the snake shot forward like a coiled spring.
“It’s coming, Wooden!”
The golem took a stance. It bent its knees slightly and thrust its sword forward.
Whoooosh—
The snake’s head swerved in mid-air. The sword strike narrowly missed, slicing through empty space.
No, it only seemed to miss. The sword changed its trajectory and pursued the snake.
KRAAAANG! A thunderous boom erupted as sword met scale. The snake’s massive body was sent flying.
“…A golem can move like that?”
“It’s so fast…!”
The two knights were astounded. They didn’t know much about golems, but they knew this was something no golem they had ever seen could do.
“…It seems it’s not complete trash after all.”
Andromalius’s eyes widened slightly, a clear sign of his surprise.
“Of course. Do you know how much I poured into this thing?”
Money is combat power.
At least, in the world of golem engineering, that was an absolute truth.
Having sent the snake flying, the golem didn’t stop. It closed the distance in an instant and brought its sword down with enough force to split the world.
Just before the sword could reach Andromalius, the ground caved in.
He plummeted dozens of meters straight down into the earth.
───!
Immediately after, a massive impact struck the earth, as if a meteor had fallen.
The golem’s sword failed to slice Andromalius in two. The demon had blocked it by crossing his blackened arms.
But the shattered fragments of demonic energy, the flowing blood, and his trembling pupils proved the blow had been quite effective.
It worked. As expected, money never lies.
Pernyan’s face lit up with glee.
“…How dare you! A lowly human dares to laugh at me!”
Andromalius roared in fury at the sight.
Tendrils of demonic energy shot out from his entire body, writhing like snakes as they swarmed the golem.
The golem swung its sword, cutting down some of them, but it couldn’t block the hundreds of tendrils.
But it never needed to.
──!
The golem’s body emitted a soft glow, forming a translucent barrier.
“Pathetic tricks!”
But the real attack was the fist that followed.
A colossal force of densely packed demonic energy.
KRA-KOOOOM!
The barrier shattered instantly, its impressive appearance rendered meaningless.
Yet the force of the blow was not fully dissipated, and it slammed into the golem’s chest.
The golem’s breastplate buckled. Overwhelmed by the force, its massive body was flung out of the pit.
Thud. Andromalius climbed out, breathing heavily.
“…To dare injure me.”
Gritting his teeth, Andromalius roughly swept his hair back with one hand.
The reason he only used one hand was because the other was half-broken and dangling uselessly.
“None of you will die a peaceful death.”
“There’s a famous saying in the upper echelons. Someone who only talks big is usually one of two things.”
The golem repositioned itself. Its dented breastplate had already repaired itself, returning to its original state.
“A fool or a fraud. Which one are you?”
“Malius!”
Andromalius screamed.
“How long must I listen to this insect’s drivel?”
In that instant, a massive body lunged at the golem.
It was too fast and too large to dodge.
So the golem did not dodge.
Pernyan raised a wall of earth, and in the brief moment that barrier bought by sacrificing itself…
…the golem activated its core further, even siphoning its master’s mana, and cloaked its sword in aura.
The golem’s two legs dug into the earth.
And then.
────!
An emerald slash cleaved the snake in two.
* * *
“…My goodness.”
“…What am I seeing right now?”
-Is that a golem?
Aint stared blankly at the golem.
Not only was it his first time seeing a ten-meter golem, but its performance was unbelievable, even as he watched it with his own two eyes.
It was consistently pushing back a demon that had seemed utterly unbeatable.
It had sliced that enormous snake in half.
-Just how much has golem technology advanced in the thousand years I’ve been asleep?
-With something like that, you might not even need the First Emperor’s arrangements. You could just build golems and deal with the demons easily.
“…No, not all golems are like that…”
If they were, the world would be a battlefield of golems versus golems, not humans versus humans or humans versus monsters.
“…Just as I’d expect from Pernyan.”
Ruina was just as stunned as Aint.
No, the shock was even greater for her, as she had been prepared to sacrifice her life.
“…We can win.”
Not a desperate gamble with slim odds, but a real hope for certain victory.
“Pernyan!”
She called out his name without thinking. And Pernyan responded.
“You don’t have to shout. I can hear you just fine.”
Pernyan didn’t look to be in good shape, but the fire in his eyes was still there. He tossed potions to Ruina and Aint.
“Ruina, Aint. I’m leaving the rest to you.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Huh? Why all of a sudden?”
“Wooden can’t fight anymore.”
Flash—
An azure light enveloped the golem. When they blinked their eyes open against the glare, the golem had vanished without a trace.
“That last attack used up all the mana in its core.”
It would be impossible to activate it for some time.
“Same goes for me.”
And that applied to Pernyan as well. He had poured his own mana into the core to unleash that one maximum-power blow.
His completely depleted mana heart was throbbing.
“But…”
-No, you can do it. Your benefactor has done more than enough.
Look closely at that bastard’s condition, Gardner whispered.
-His arm is broken.
It was slowly regenerating, but for now, it was a major injury.
-And most importantly, that damned reptile is gone!
Aint and Ruina’s combined attacks had been more than coordinated enough to wound Andromalius.
The reason they couldn’t seize a decisive opportunity was because their opponents had also been a pair.
The black snake, whose scales were impervious to an ordinary aura.
A frontal assault was getting them nowhere, so Ruina had been about to gamble with her own life.
Though Pernyan’s sudden intervention had changed that.
In any case, the situation had improved.
“Yes, I understand.”
Ruina downed the potion in one gulp.
“I know you wouldn’t ask the impossible. I trust you.”
Over the past semester, an inexpressible trust had formed between Ruina and Pernyan.
Some might say it was one-sided on Ruina’s part… but at the very least, she believed that if Pernyan said something was possible, it was.
“Aint.”
Seeing her resolute gaze, Aint’s expression changed as well.
“Yes, Senior.”
“Can you stand?”
“Of course.”
Aint swallowed the potion and gripped his sword. There wasn't a part of his body that didn't ache. More than a few of his bones were fractured.
Still, he had to fight. Lives, and the continent itself, were at stake.
And this was a golden opportunity, a chance for victory.
The two knights began to move again.
* * *
“…Malius?”
Of all those on the battlefield, the one most shocked by the snake’s death was neither Aint nor Ruina.
It was Andromalius. The dead snake’s master.
“…This is impossible! To a mere toy like that…!”
The black snake, Malius, was no ordinary serpent. It was his familiar, a part of himself.
Malius’s death wasn’t just the death of a separate creature; it was as if a part of Andromalius himself had vanished.
“……!”
But there was no time for grief; the situation was far from over.
The demon could neither endure nor accept this humiliation.
“…Fine, I’ll kill you all. Every last one of you!”
He met the two knights charging at him, his ferocity swelling as he faced their blades.
The demon clenched his fists. Aint and Ruina lowered their stances.
An instant later, the knights kicked off the ground.
A pure white light and a blue radiance drew long arcs from different directions, both aimed at a single target.
Black demonic energy met them head-on.
KWA-BOOOOM!
Numerous scars were carved into the ground as dust and dirt flew into the air.
Shattered fragments scattered in all directions, and the shockwave swept across the area.
The demon’s energy surged. It writhed like a living snake, striking at the knights’ openings.
But the knights were not alone. They covered each other’s weaknesses, their swords crossing in a deadly dance.
It was a single, sublime dance.
A sacred dance that entrapped and slaughtered the demon.
─!
Wounds began to multiply on the demon’s body. His tough hide was not as resilient as before, and his broken hand created an unavoidable opening.
─!
The power of their natural enemy ran wild like a fish in water, chipping away at the demon’s energy.
“You Armian whelp, you whom I could chew to pieces and still not be satisfied…!”
The more brilliant the light shone, the more the darkness lost its depth.
The more the sword’s light scattered, the more the demonic energy lost its form.
Yet the demon did not fall.
“Do you think I will lose!”
The blood he shed became poison, and the fragmented demonic energy still obeyed its master’s commands.
“I am Andromalius! A Count of Hell and the commander of eleven infernal legions!”
He stood on two feet, roaring down at the humans.
“The vanguard of Hell, come to conquer the middle realm!”
His demonic energy boiled. More violently, more ferociously, more savagely.
“So what.”
But the one before him was no mere human.
“Then I am an Armian, the one you bastards hate so much.”
The natural enemy of demons.
“The heir of the First Emperor, whose very name makes you tremble!”
The adversary of Hell.
-Go, Aint! That’s nothing but a final, desperate struggle!
The one who thwarted the desires of all demons.
The First Emperor’s sword shone brilliantly.
The white light, which had grown by destroying and consuming demonic energy, swelled to an unprecedented size.
────!
Light and darkness crossed.
“Ah.”
Andromalius touched his chest.
A moment later, blood gushed from the gash that had opened across it.
Krr-chk. And then another sword pierced his heart.
“I… I…!”
The life quickly faded from the demon’s eyes.
“Do not think… this is the end…! This is only the beginning…! In the end, the middle realm will be ours…!”
-Typical last words of a third-rate villain.
That was the end.
The lifeless Andromalius crumbled.
Immediately after, his body turned to dust and scattered in the wind.
“…This is.”
-Demons are not beings of the middle realm. Therefore, they are not even permitted to leave a corpse behind.
And so, the demon died.
It was a miracle achieved in a desperate situation.
But it was not a satisfying ending for everyone.
“…This is ridiculous. The corpse just vanishes? We went through hell to stop it, and we get nothing out of it?”
A certain merchant, who had been planning to make various things from the snake’s corpse, despaired.