Chapter 280
Chapter 280
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 14
Chapter Title: One Empire, Three Legends (39)
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The method Aldrich described for dispelling the witch's domain.
It was, in a way, strikingly similar to dealing with a third-form variant.
‘Black Mages are those who exploit the cracks in their souls, drawing on the corrupted mana that seeps through those fissures. If it simply leaked out unchecked, their life force would drain away until they died, so Black Mages seal those cracks with whatever they can. In my case, I used Neria's evil spirit to plug it. Others have gone so far as to encase their entire soul in a vessel to separate it from the fissure. And some distort their soul itself, reshaping its form entirely.’
‘The key point is that no matter how well they hide it, that fissure always exists within a Black Mage's inner self. That is their weakness—their inescapable fate.’
‘Our goal is to locate it and inflict damage somehow. The fact that she's erected this domain and projected an entire environment means this place is linked to her inner world.’
‘Whether through physical or mental harm, shake her. Once it reveals itself, Nell and I will seize it.’
It sounded complicated at first glance, but it boiled down to breaking the opponent's will and creating an opening.
Indeed, the interior of this Cursed Tower felt like a place of profound significance.
"A battlefield..."
"Familiar faces, aren't they? Come to think of it, you said you worked as a mercenary before becoming a hero?"
"Yes, well. It's not the sights that make it familiar."
For me, a battlefield evoked not the familiar visuals, but the smells assaulting my nose.
The battlefield before my eyes could vanish if I entered a tent or closed them, even if just for a moment. But that nose-stinging stench clung relentlessly until the very last breath.
It wasn't just the smell of blood... Fresh and rotting mixed together. The stench from spilled entrails blended with the aroma of burning flesh.
Add the scent of gunpowder and the ozone around laser blades for an outdoor battlefield, or omit it for one in these parts—that was the only difference. Those core elements assaulted you the moment you neared any battlefield.
In that regard, the battlefield within the witch's domain felt strangely alien even to a veteran like me.
Rot. A battlefield filled solely with corpses rotted to their utmost.
For a moment, I thought it might represent an abandoned field left uncleaned after battle. But the steam still rising hot from that putrid blood suggested otherwise.
A battlefield where the dead rotted before their knees could even touch the ground. A land that mocked the death of the fallen. Rotting corpses and lingering warmth—what could be a more mismatched pairing?
"This... even looking at it charitably, it doesn't resemble the capital—"
"No. The place where you stand is from long ago, before any of you were born. It was the battlefield of the one who once dragged the world to the brink of annihilation—and once, my own battlefield."
A hill tangled with rotting corpses. Aldrich and the Professor immediately assumed combat stances at the voice echoing from atop it.
The witch appeared alone, without cursed knights or corpse-heap monsters.
"Long time no see, my son Aldrich. And... Neria?"
"...Enough time has passed that paltry words like that no longer shake me, witch."
"How heartless. I truly loved you all. As a mother, and as a witch."
She sat atop the corpse hill in the form of the First Imperial Princess, exuding an air of refinement and purity despite the stench and backdrop.
But the malice leaking through her sweat-matted hair and trembling voice rendered it all grotesquely hideous.
"And you. Saint of Light. Not a fragment of the divine, but a tool grasped in its hand. Touched by the hand of Lo Haram... his other proxy."
Her tone and expression seemed calm. But the horde of corpses slowly sprouting behind her were anything but.
Countless faces grew upon rotting tentacles, blooming and withering in cycles.
Anger, shame, sorrow, affection, resignation, denial... and enlightenment.
Shifting, intertwining like the witch's seething emotions, they sprouted like the legs of a colossal insect, each segment igniting with violet flames as they enveloped her protectively.
"Guidance of Light... Hm, I'll commend you for not flaunting that repulsive divinity the moment we met. Saint, do you perhaps know where we are?"
"...A battlefield. One cursed with profound malice."
The witch had called it the battlefield of one who nearly destroyed the world. Combined with her identity, it was easy to infer what this place represented.
"...The Undead Lord. The battlefield where the 'Gaze Beyond Silence' descended."
And the battlefield where, in a crushing defeat, the once-saint Mea Maria was captured by the Undead Lord.
Clap clap clap clap!
"Well done! These days, the Church of Light tends to taboo even mentioning those events. You've studied hard!"
Pleased with my answer, she clapped with a bright, innocent smile.
"The most painful failure in the Church of Light's history. Against the three eastern kingdoms and the western empire—the entirety of this continent's humans—they drove us all to the brink of annihilation. A calamity that could induce mass panic among refugees just by uttering its name. The Lord, Gaze Beyond Silence. This hill is where he and I met after descending upon a battle already lost."
Stab—!
Rumble rumble rumble—!
With her words, one corpse-leg pierced the hill, and the corpses forming it collapsed like a bursting tumor.
The heaving dead earth split, violet curse-energy rising from the fissures. And my blurring vision.
In an instant, a wall of corpses sprang up, separating Aldrich and me, cocooning us like pupae.
"...A curse without a medium! It's an illusion! Professor, keep your wits! From now on, everything you see is—"
"Shhh. It's fine. You can resist if you want. Truth is, I just want to show you. Sometimes, seeing is enough to change everything."
The witch whispered dreamily amid the corpse stench, her voice weary and strained.
"It will only steal away a blind man's happiness, after all."
Swept away by the wave of corpses, Aldrich receded into the distance. Rotting flesh piled onto me, forming a perfect cocoon of pitch-black darkness where I couldn't see an inch ahead.
[...Break out? Now?]
'No. Sink in.'
I'd sensed it since first arriving in this capital's battlefield.
The witch, drawn by the emperor's will, wanted to show me something.
When an opponent's actions carry meaning, grasping that meaning is key to countering them.
What desperate message did the fallen Saint of Light wish to convey to the Saint of Light after decades?
Understanding that was essential to shattering her inner world and extracting its core.
'...I'll watch.'
The Professor yielded to the encroaching darkness like night, closing his eyes.
Like a corpse bound to stone, his consciousness sank into the void. Fading hazily, as if drifting asleep to an endless distance.
And the moment he opened his eyes.
...Clang!
Screeeeech!
"Forward! With our lives as beacons, forwaaaard!"
He stood on a battlefield resembling the witch's domain.
Not filled with rotting corpses, but overflowing with the freshly dying.
A shadow of history where the entire force perished, leaving no record beyond the word "defeat."
2nd World, Imperial Territory White Dallas Defense Line.
The final battlefield of the Saint of Light, Mea Maria.
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"Hah, hah, hah... O Light, my lord, my radiance...!"
Fwoosh!
The staff carved from sacred wood blazed like the sun, reducing the undead blocking her path to handfuls of ash. Without screams of agony or death rattles.
Unlike in heroic epics, the dying undead don't wail in pain. They simply crumble like a sandcastle. Thus, the battlefield was only half as chaotic. The screams reaching the ears all signaled allies' deaths—a place where you'd want to plug them shut.
'This... is wrong.'
Maria shook her head at the wave of undead instantly filling the gap.
At the war's outset, she knew only faith and prayers. But repeated battles had gifted her the eye to read the tide.
Three days and nights of fighting already, and her allies hadn't pushed the undead from the plains a single step. Instead, after repeated retreats, the rear priests chanted healing spells amid throngs of huddled refugees with no room to stand.
No more ground to yield. The enemy host remained intact, even swelling as they raised knights' corpses from allied nations.
Screeeeech!
A holy knight's voice snapped her from despair as he parried a jagged sword.
"Saint! Saint!"
"Ah... Brother Landeil."
Holy Knight Landeil. Blessed with a naturally robust physique that earned him holy knight training, yet his heart was closer to a priest's—pure and simple.
"What of the Dawn Knight Order... why are you here...?"
"The brothers... have all returned to the Light's embrace. You must retreat! Withdraw now and live to fight another dawn!"
The holy knight revealed a shoulder turned blue-black from corpse poison beneath his rent armor. His face screamed imminent collapse, but Maria agreed with his words.
Yes, a lost battlefield already. Retreat was the right call.
But if those barely holding on sought their own escape, what of the people here?
She bit her lip at the myriad life-forces pulsing behind her.
Refugees who'd flooded in indiscriminately from nearby estates. Dallas territory was packed from back alleys to markets, central districts to the lord's castle—every inch teeming with them.
She knew because she'd met them while tending the wounded. Ordinary housewives, farmers, children. Folks who tilled fields, grumbled, and knew maybe one pre-meal prayer.
The moment she and the holy knights departed, the black tide would seal the fate of those jammed refugees.
"I... cannot leave."
"Saint!"
"As a fragment of the Light that shines on all, as the proxy saint representing Him, I have no right to choose who lives!"
Nights fall, lanterns gutter in unknowable darkness.
But if fear of that stops you from lighting the flame, who could press onward?
"...I'll buy as much time as I can. Brother Landeil, guide the refugees out the back gate with the other knights. The nearest Pesshan territory is a natural fortress—enough to shelter them all and hold off the undead horde."
"Saint Maria, but you...!"
"That's an order! I fully grasp my position and importance. With brothers still holding the front, I'll earn just enough time and escape with them. Go. Never forget that my will carries the Light's touch, Brother Landeil. By sun, moon, and starlight—He is always with us. If He granted me this unyielding resolve, then this too is His will."
"...Ratura. May the Light watch over you."
"Ratura, Lo Haram."
Unable to sway her iron will, Landeil rode alone toward the refugee-packed castle. The saint dragged her weary body toward the front where holy knights battled.
『How is it? The feeling of gazing upon the saint's figure from erased history?』
"...So idiotic it's hard to watch."
From her body emerged another saint-like soul. I gave the witch my honest impression.
Foolish, brainless, utterly devoid of responsibility. Humans can't stay fully rational amid war's horrors, but even if incomplete, some cold calculus must always churn in the mind.
The saint is the church's greatest symbol, the linchpin of morale for terrified soldiers and civilians—a key commander. Her duty to shield them by stepping forward must balance the duty to bear the weight of their dying lives.
'...But religion isn't a discipline of reason.'
Blind faith. Pure belief excluding thought. A faith so strong it denies the evidence before one's eyes—that is religion's beginning and end. Maria never had choices to begin with.
『Hehehe. One more thing. She thought something like, 'I'm fine dying because my body can afford it; I'll lose my memories but be reborn retaining only my mission—so this devotion is right.』
"So that's it? She stubbornly held out like an idiot, got captured by the Undead Lord, and became a witch? And you just wanted to show me that?"
The witch, gazing pityingly at her past self, shook her head with the saint's face.
『No, my choice was right. Far beyond what you imagine, the power of a saint—God's fragment—is immense. My brothers and I succeeded in buying time, and we still had strength and leeway left to turn back. Everyone survived. My choice wasn't wrong.』
"Then why..."
『Because this world has been wrong from the start.』
Rustle.
With the witch's gesture, the past battlefield blurred, then reformed. Corpses piled higher.
More bone dust and wounds.
Exhausted but triumphant faces on the saint and holy knights.
They awaited only word that the refugees had evacuated. To them, the approaching hoofbeats of Knight Landeil—who'd ridden ahead—were like dawn breaking endless night.
****
"Hahk, hahk... S-Saint, Saint, Saint..."
"Stop the horse, Sister Tyra! Healing... somehow, enough healing to retreat..."
"We... we weren't lacking in His will, were we? Saving the Light of all those people..."
"Sister..."
Stamina and holy power depleted. Maria cradled Sister Tyra's head—her armor and body twisted unnaturally—and met her fading eyes.
"Yes... of course. Everyone escaped safely."
"Aaah, Ratura. May my starlight reach their futures..."
With her final prayer, the soul departed fully. Maria closed her eyes, then turned to the knights surrounding her.
One, two, three, four... twenty. Holy knights armed with trained bodies and faith; countless soldiers and knights who'd once raised humanity's banner—now reduced to twenty in battered armor.
Tears welled as she tallied the countless dead, but she wiped them with her sleeve before they fell. Sad, yes—but the path they'd all chosen.
Those immeasurable deaths had finally pushed back the undead horde, saving every refugee from nearby territories.
Undead still approached distantly, but at that range, she and the surviving holy knights had ample time to withdraw.
Clop clop clop clop—
The distant hoofbeats sparked hope on the knights' exhausted faces, on the verge of collapse.
"It's Brother Landeil, Saint."
"The refugees must all be evacuated. We withdraw now too."
"Yes... let's go, everyone. Thank you for surviving. The brothers ahead... surely..."
They'd saved everyone, but at such staggering cost—joy was impossible. The holy knights supported her as they advanced toward Landeil, who'd brought horses.
"Brother... Landeil?"
The saint, half-lidded with exhaustion, thought her eyes deceived her. Why? She'd sent many brothers, vibrant knights, saving hundreds of times their number. Yet why did Brother Landeil charge forth weeping, face contorted?
As the same question dawned on surviving knights and holy knights, Landeil—who'd brought an extra horse—burst out in fury like unleashing pent breath.
"Is this... all that's left? All that's left!?"
"Yes. The rest have all embarked on journeys to the stars..."
"...Damn it all, O Light... Goddamn it, goddamn it! Why, why!!!"
"Brother Landeil! Calm yourself! What in the world—"
"...No time for this. Before the undead tighten the noose, while their lines are thin—we must break through even a corner head-on! At least the Saint, the Saint must escape! Saint, this way, hurry!"
"Urk, Brother Landeil! Why suddenly—ugh, tell us...!"
Holy Knight Landeil roughly hoisted the saint onto the horse and shouted.
"The bridges... the bridges are gone! Every bridge near Dallas territory, every boat—gone!"
"Nonsense! This is the frontline against the undead legion—no undead has slipped past! The river bridges, vital militarily, were built as sturdy as walls with dedicated guards! Destroyed beyond crossing!?"
Grrrrrind!
Swallowing his rage, the holy knight spat through gritted teeth, recalling refugees hurling themselves into the fierce currents in desperation.
"No undead, no black magic aura! The bridges were cut by humans—like us!"
"Ah..."
The saint understood the implication. A horse still vigorous enough to charge through harsh battlefields appeared before Knight Landeil's eyes, and far off, the Guidance of Light—a clear path of Lo Haram's will—beckoned.
Unwilling to comprehend that will, the saint squeezed her eyes shut.
'...They abandoned us.'
Just as the Professor, watching that scene in the witch's illusion, closed his eyes.
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