Chapter 181
Chapter 181
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 181
Chapter Title: Ascension (3)
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The knight who first spotted Arsen's group shouted, and thanks to the relic's power, his cry spread across the entire mountain.
Knights carrying communication relics, along with the soldiers following them, all began converging on Arsen's location.
"Hya, hya!"
"Run!"
Some knights rode Jins, while the others mounted riding beasts specialized for mountainous terrain, making their assembly speed incredibly fast.
Arsen felt a quiet sense of pride that his group was climbing at a pace incomparable to Earth hikers, but these foes were on another level entirely.
The king's wolves raced across sheer cliffs as if they were flat plains, soaring like they were flying through the sky.
Those scattered across a ten-kilometer radius gathered in about ten minutes.
"Over there?"
"I hear voices!"
The four knights who joined at the reported position realized the targets had climbed a bit higher from the initial sighting and sent out another signal. Then they charged toward the enemy.
"Looks like there are a lot of them?"
"Let's just harass them until reinforcements arrive!"
A knight named Rom temporarily took command of his comrades.
Not because he was particularly skilled in martial arts or the eldest, but simply because he had the talent of speaking without biting his tongue while riding at full speed.
Using that skill, Rom directed his comrades with contingency plans as he spurred his Jin forward.
As they advanced, the sounds of battle soon filtered through the underbrush.
The clash of metal, screams, the stench of blood, and a bizarre roar unlike any they'd heard before—like metal being shredded.
"What is that sound...?"
"Wait, don't tell me?"
A head rolling atop blood-soaked bushes. Rom picked it up and turned it to see the face.
The distorted features looked familiar.
"Rand..."
His comrade from the neighboring outpost.
"What the hell? Why are our guys dying?"
"We were supposed to keep our distance and buy time, right?"
Their questions were answered soon enough.
With a tearing scream, a soldier on a riding beast charged toward them, his face pale as death.
"Monster—!"
Before his cry could finish, the soldier's head flew into the sky.
What appeared then was a palm-sized disc dripping blood.
"...Did you see it?"
"A little."
Only a few knights caught a clear glimpse of the disc slicing the soldier's neck.
A knight appeared before them, their bodies rigid with tension.
"Another one."
The knight rode a black lion.
They knew nothing of lions as animals, nor that this one wasn't a real beast but a meticulously crafted Jin resembling one.
But they could feel the overwhelming mana emanating from the knight, a presence that pierced their guts.
The knight's weapon was grotesque. It looked like a spear in form, but instead of a blade at the tip, there was a cylinder.
Its end spun ceaselessly, grinding metal and air with a deafening roar.
"Enemy..."
"One guy—charge!"
Four knights and twelve soldiers—overwhelming numbers, no matter how strong the foe.
Unless it was a transcendent like the Giant King, a single knight couldn't overcome that disparity.
Even if a few died, someone would land a hit.
As they steeled themselves to charge, a familiar voice rang out from afar.
"Don't engage! You'll die!"
"What?"
Before they could register it as one of their comrades, the enemy surged toward them first.
The foe's riding technique was crude. Not mastering the terrain like them, but brute-forcing obstacles with the mount's power and speed.
Yet despite the sloppy form, the speed was unreal—enough to make reality flicker for a moment.
"Figh—...!"
As he tried to shout "Fight!", the enemy's spear moved too fast to track.
With the grinding of metal, the weapons of the two lead knights screamed.
"Argh!"
The force was so immense one even dropped his spear. Blood streamed from his torn grip.
No time to check—the spear pierced the necks of the engaging knights, and Rom, a bit behind, nocked his greatbow.
'Take this!'
With his shout, a bolt like a beam of light shot from Rom's bow.
An arrow even top knights could barely deflect, nearly impossible to dodge.
But astonishingly, the enemy batted it away—tilting his head to glance it off his helmet.
"No, what the...?"
Not dodging, not blocking with a weapon—using his head?
As if he couldn't be bothered to use his hands.
Before the insult could sink in, bushes rustled, and more enemies appeared—about seven knights.
They held strange devices—like a bow laid flat and cluttered with attachments.
Rom didn't know they were crossbows, made of special materials and enchanted to kill even knights in one shot.
That ignorance sealed his fate.
"Fire!"
At the shout, a burning sensation engulfed his body.
Rom realized arrows had sprouted all over him. As an archer himself, he knew: this many in these spots meant no survival.
'Ah...'
As he fell from his Jin, time stretched endlessly, and he thought.
They were the ones being hunted here.
* * *
"How many did we kill?"
"About fourteen knights, I'd say."
"Nearly wiped out, as planned."
Arsen didn't obsess over blindly climbing the mountain.
With a portal near the summit, enemies would soon call reinforcements anyway.
If they'd climbed undetected, fine—but caught, the foes would nip at their heels, harassing their advance.
Better to thin their numbers first than get bogged down and encircled.
The plan worked well; they'd nearly eradicated the mountain guards without losses.
Arsen, Reno, Bazkal, and Anun—four knights—freely intercepted foes, while the rest maintained formation, advancing and firing crossbows or spells to keep enemies at bay whenever they appeared.
The high-end crossbows from Timak proved lethal; even knights fell under the arrow storm.
Unlike Bazkal and Reno, Anun who stuck together for safety, Arsen moved solo.
Kingdom knights skilled in mountains tried guerrilla tactics for time, but the black lion's explosive power let Arsen hunt them down one by one like executions.
Once, when eight charged together, he fell back to the main group for cover fire.
"So, how many left?"
His quiet question made the prisoner squeeze his eyes shut, staring at the dead knights' corpses. Arsen pressed on regardless.
"I asked how far to the summit."
"Al... almost there! At this rate, thirty minutes tops. I haven't been to the top much myself, so I can't be sure, but..."
"Thirty minutes."
Arsen glanced back down. They were above the clouds now, ground barely visible.
They'd neared the peak unnoticed.
'Took about six hours to get here... Everest's fastest ascent record around seventeen hours?'
Unrealistic for such a comparable—or taller—peak, especially dodging traps, detouring, and sniping harassing knights.
Then again, Everest climbers didn't sustain 20-30 km/h nonstop, blasting blocked paths with magic. If anything, they were slow.
Amid these idle thoughts to clear his mind, Arsen sat atop the moving black lion, relaxing muscles to shed fatigue.
'A bit more—I need to peak my condition.'
Arsen exhaled thinly, half-closing his eyes.
Powerful foes would appear soon, as expected.
How far had they gone when the prisoner shouted urgently.
"There—the highest peak! But..."
They were at the ridge beside the true summit.
Practically within arm's reach.
But neither Arsen nor the others could rejoice.
Enemies encircled the summit.
Lattis the elder sighed in lament.
"They anticipated this path..."
It made sense.
With superior forces and known destination, no need to gamble deploying below amid variables.
Better to wait in open, predictable terrain.
They blocked the only approach to the summit clearing, dug in.
Then Anun beside him asked in a trembling voice.
"Charge through?"
Arsen caught the excitement in her tone. Fitting for a war god follower—perhaps seeing a chance to die in battle.
Glancing at the others: tense or fearful, but no lack of will to fight.
Outnumbered, but with Arsen, they'd win—that belief held.
"Good. Everyone, advance."
As he ordered, Arsen eyed the knight at their forefront—unusually massive even from afar.
Too distant to read mana, yet an odd pressure emanated.
* * *
"You're late."
Giant King Nardork's voice was gravelly.
He wore mystical armor with glowing runes flickering in and out, gripping two axes with eerie luminescence.
Axes too massive for a normal man to wield two-handed looked like hatchets in his grasp.
His Jin was no ordinary mount.
Like Arsen's black lion, Nardork's appeared a living bear at a glance—or rather, a bear-shaped magic beast: goat-like horns on its forehead, large spurs on its flanks for footing.
Already huge, atop a bear, the Giant King loomed three times larger than Arsen on his lion.
Behind him, the army.
Over fifty knights, two hundred soldiers at least, twenty mages.
A force fit for a king.
"Got held up by all the welcome down below."
"All dead? Some decent ones should have been there—Mallak, my retainer, for one."
Nardork's words recalled the knights Arsen killed en route.
Mostly small fry, but a few well-equipped and skilled.
Persistent harassers, driven into crossbow fire to die.
"A few maybe, not sure. So, you're Giant King Nardork?"
"Yeah, judging by your look... survivors of those mage scum. The ones I crushed long ago."
Lattis's face burned with hatred—losing revered kin and comrades. It wouldn't fade in a millennium.
But acknowledging Arsen as leader, he swallowed rage, gripping his staff tight.
"I didn't see it myself, but slaughtering innocent mages and stealing relics isn't something to brag about, is it? 'Crushed'—anyone'd think the mages did wrong."
"Just punishing trespassers in my domain. Dozens of mages are a threat; lords have rights to respond."
Nardork defended coolly; Arsen shook his head.
"Passing through's a crime now...? Called Giant King—maybe switch to Bandit King. Or Plunderer. Seems your level. Heard you got mages under you—do they know what you really are?"
"Insolent cur! Mind your tongue!"
A knight beside Nardork bristled, weapon raised.
But Nardork raised a hand to silence him.
"Quiet. Don't fall for cheap bait."
"Yes, Your Majesty."
Nardork grimaced slightly; the knight flinched, standing obediently aside.
More level-headed than expected—Arsen deemed the taunt failed, shook his head, and gripped his spear.
"Anyway, talk's over. You don't listen."
"Impatient too. Let's chat more—"
"Waiting for reinforcements?"
With portals anywhere, more kingdom troops could arrive anytime.
Unexpectedly, that struck home—Nardork's face flushed faintly.
His tone shifted, suppressing something.
"Me, Nardork, call reinforcements with this army because I'm scared of whelps? Absurd. Got the skill to back that mouth...?"
Voice dropping, eyes bloodshot.
Arsen's eyes narrowed slightly.
'Something's off.'
Moments ago, he brushed off provocations smoothly; now overreacting to trivial words.
Arsen couldn't know it meant the dragon heart had activated. Nor Lattis and other Starbelly mages.
They knew of the drug only in theory, never used it.
Finally, Nardork's rage erupted in a roar signaling battle.
Comparable to howling Janak from the ancient ruins.
[I will confirm it myself—!]