Chapter 373
Chapter 373
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 373
Chapter Title: The Saint and the Completer (29)
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The first to sense the battlefield tipping from taut equilibrium was Ottoman, who had been holding back the enemy's advance from the rear, creating waves that spanned the entire field.
“That thing... what in the world is...”
Crackle!
“Ottoman! Did you see it!? That thing that vanished with the Professor...!”
“I had hoped it was a mistake on my part...”
Idrasil and Notum, who had been supporting the heroes’ battle with sniping from the rear, also noticed the anomaly on the battlefield and rushed over.
A massive explosion at the center of the field.
The white sphere that followed, and the crumbling walls.
And with them, the enemy’s vast horde pouring in.
And then.
- [Party of Pael/Drad, 2 parties, 3 members! It’s the white one! The white one’s coming this way! Our rear lines are all dead! If we don’t get backup to hold it— Kaaak!]
- [Talk about bad luck. Everyone else dead, and I’m left alone when the white one latches onto me. Wielding a massive axe. Heh heh heh, at least dying to someone who swings the same axe isn’t all bad.]
- [Centurion Captain Shraus here! Th-the White Death is breaking through unstoppable! Unlike the reports of it using a spear, this one’s got a scythe— Slash!]
- [What nonsense! That hound just flew over my head too— Damn it, evade, Heinrich! It’s targeting the mages!]
Bad news streamed in over the comms one after another. The white mutant pierced through each front line, sequentially shattering the precarious balance wherever it struck.
No, even without the comms, it was obvious.
The footsteps slashing fiercely through the water he had laid down.
“Kaaak!”
“Fall back! It smashes people shield and all— Gurk!”
“Avoid the ground touched by its spear! If you get spiked, you’ll have to amputate— Aaak!”
Chaos and screams approached rapidly. Dozens of short spears flew faster than knights could deflect them, exploding into thorny vines upon landing. The white spikes bloomed red in an instant, carving open paths.
“...At this rate, it’s all over.”
Ottoman, Idrasil, and Notum were positioned far back, focused on supporting the fight. The enemy reaching them meant it could soon hit those handling non-combat duties beyond.
Mountains of wounded piled up from successive battles.
Healers tending to them.
The Saints of Mercy and Abundance, immobilized after using sanctification, and the Saint of Wisdom directing the remaining forces to somehow contain the worst chaos.
If this line broke, the allied forces would suffer irreparable losses. Every combatant was already giving their all, so no reinforcements could be expected.
Thus, instead of checking escape routes, Ottoman focused beyond the barrage of javelins.
...Splash.
Splash... splash.
Movements too swift and erratic to track with eyes or mana. Yet the moment it touched the sodden ground, slick with his magic, its position was clear to Ottoman.
“...There!”
Crunch, thud, crack!
Slash!
“Gather in one place and circle eternally— Water Shell!”
The water droplets shattered in the direction of its leap. Ottoman’s spell, drawing on every last drop of strength, ensnared the slender white form.
Thud—
“Grraaah!”
...Or so he thought. The thing halted briefly in the watery prison, then swung its spear lightly. Mana drained like an ebbing tide, the shell sloshing as if about to burst.
‘Even a few seconds. If I can buy time for the disrupted allies to regroup, even partially...!’
Thanks to the water mages blanketing the field, he sensed it. Twelve paths where the mutant’s claws rampaged unchecked. And the sound of knights who had broken formation to fight the walls and white sphere kicking off the wet ground to return inward.
Amid the shock of the spell forcibly shattering, hand seals formed in sequence. Backflow and clear water. Still ponds and every form of water in his imagery layered down upon the foe. The moment its form was exposed, halting high-speed movement amid the waters, Idrasil nocked a spirit arrow and Notum drew her soul jar—
Grind—
The head of the captive beast turned precisely toward Ottoman amid the layered currents.
As their eyes met, Ottoman’s seals shoved Idrasil and Notum away from his side.
—Bang.
The casually swung short spear cleaved through the watery bonds and charging infantry in one stroke.
Thwack—
Before the severed torsos hit the ground, the hurled spear.
Thud.
Pierced the chest of the mage who had annoyed it, dead center.
“Gaaah...”
Someone seemed to scream his name like a wail.
‘If only I’d had a bit more mana...’
If he could have cast a sinkhole-scale binding. Maybe held it a few seconds longer. If he’d conserved magic a little. If he hadn’t unleashed that tidal barrage at the battle’s start...
The mage’s body, holed through fist-sized in the chest, fell feather-light.
Drip drip.
Blood poured from the gaping chest like a river.
Plop, crash!
His belongings spilled from the ragged robe.
A small coin pouch.
A charcoal sketch of an old mage.
A thumbnail-sized holy emblem of the Luminary Church.
A shattered vial and mud-brown liquid.
They evoked a face from memories flashing backward.
A final chat with a friend met late in life, already feeling ancient.
=========
‘Aldrich. I don’t think I’ll see you again.’
‘Hm?’
‘Isn’t it so? The Church calls mages heretics officially, so I’ve no ticket to their afterlife. When I die, won’t I follow your strange guidance?’
‘Come on, don’t talk such nonsense... If you hate parting, just say so. No need for drivel.’
‘No, at our age, it’s time to seriously discuss lying in graves! Don’t you think?’
‘...Good grief. It won’t happen, so say your goodbyes thinking it’s the last. People misunderstand: death’s just exiting life’s stage, not the period at the end of everything.’
‘...Undeath?’
‘Cycle! The cycle, man! Gods or no, forsaken shepherds like me or not, the dead go where they’re meant to just fine! Got it?’
=========
“...The end. Yes, the end... like this...”
Ottoman felt a cold marsh, a chilling weight pressing his body.
The end. The river mage Ottoman’s end, here.
“Yes... at last, reached the end...”
A mage’s life. Ottoman’s memories shone on a desert.
Scorching land once a sea. Amid endless adventures, one nagging doubt tormented him.
Why the dissatisfaction?
Even diving into the primordial sea, purest of oceans, sunken depths—why didn’t the satisfaction from his youth, that profound emotion and revelation from the sea, return?
Wasn’t I seeking my sea?
“Hah... hah hah ha... cough! Holding the answer... yet looking up for it...”
The answer he’d groaned over alone until leaving the desert now found him.
Faintly, someone called his name. His two non-human comrades, pushed back by his magic, ran toward him. He’d meant to shove them all the way to the Saints. Mana shortage, after all.
An elf’s arrow, fired till blood beaded her fingertips, deflected the javelin. He saw the white monster’s head turn toward them.
“Flow. The flow...”
His body, drained of blood, sank into icy mire.
“But how could a water mage fear sinking...”
Sensation gone, his hands rose arduously over the gaping chest.
His disciple, fighting alone in the white sphere, crossed his mind.
‘No need for last words.’
As a water mage himself, he’d see it all with his own eyes.
No need for more.
Ottoman’s raised hand, in final seal, uncurled gently from its tense bend.
As if cupping water with joined palms. Round, soft.
“Last... spell...”
Flow. If life was his river. The river flowing with life.
“The dream of all that flows...”
Would reach the sea at its end.
Water flowed from the mage’s chest. Silently spilling, it became a brook in moments, burrowing into the battlefield’s scars.
****
Splash—
Splash,
Splash—
Notum couldn’t believe what unfolded before her eyes.
Ottoman’s magic shoving her and Idrasil away.
Barely escaping his waves, yet the old mage’s soul pierced by spear departing flesh beyond her reach.
Not vanishing, but merging into some vast flow settling over the field.
Even the white mutant leaping from water, its dozens of short spears losing force futilely against tiny splashing droplets.
None of it fit Notum’s common sense, leaving her frozen, hand outstretched to where the mage had been.
Splash—
Amid clashing blades and blood, waves laden with deep inland salt crashed at the center. Embracing survivors gently. Waves of purification staunching blood, purging infection.
Conversely, sweeping mutants and foes aside, cresting walls, becoming a tsunami engulfing the city.
True to one who crossed countless deathlines yet never grasped water’s capacity to harm, mage Ottoman Bodler’s essence merely pushed and wrapped, lacking lethal force to slay.
It was enough.
Splash—
Starting with Edeorna’s ambush, separating tangled allies and enemies, granting time for human combat over melee frenzy.
The tsunami halting all but heroes and named ones created the vital minutes of respite humans needed, and more.
...Splash.
Notum, rooted where Ottoman had stood, picked up a shred of his torn robe carried by the tide.
Inside the empty robe gleamed a fingernail-sized blue droplet gem, purest sea.
A modest miracle beside grand archmages’ final casts.
Smaller than great mages’ building-sized remains or a father-teacher’s staff pierced in seven holes—Ottoman’s remains as tiny gem.
“...Just like Ottoman.”
Notum cradled the gem glowing blue like his life, thinking.
He’d believed this sufficient.
Not a storm rending foes, but seed for new streams. Believing so, the mage’s soul took peaceful sea form, not savage—soft salt breeze shoving blood-scent aside, entrusting the rest.
Splash—
The brief miracle ebbed, the sea flowed with the mage’s life receding.
“Some souls can be this purely wondrous, this good.”
Notum’s entranced eyes held Ottoman’s gem.
Awe for a soul enduring sixty years of world-weariness yet upholding goodness.
Realization a soul shard held such miraculous potential.
Longing for the comrade who awaited this moment, vanishing before her.
And now, understanding what his final piece reaching her meant.
Click.
Notum opened her soul jar, placing the departed comrade’s last shard beside her teacher and her own.
Waves subsided, hostility rose between formations split by the mage’s miracle. Countless souls met the shaman’s eyes clutching the jar.
Souls haunting the field despite waves washing blood.
Clack!
Shamanwood sprouted instantly, coiling her soul jar. Three ancestral spirits whispered at her side.
[Shamanism is symbol and history. What you attempt transcends shamanic bounds.]
[Daughter of Autarum, Notum. Your existence is history’s most precious kin-tie; cross no reckless rivers.]
[Xua tAuk! Forgot who taught and gifted you shamanism—forest and trolls? Leaper-shamanism handles not human souls! Cease, or for history’s sake, we reclaim your power!]
Worried counsel. Irritated advice from ancestors who honed forest shamanism till death—thus true.
Crack!
But Notum drove her soul jar-turned-staff, linked to shamanwood, into the earth with both hands.
“...Ancestors, you’re wrong.”
Troll shamanism handled only troll souls, so inherited ancestors were all prior troll shamans.
But her own soul—truly kin to forest-leapers?
Born green-skinned, sturdy, yet in human lands, not forest.
Learned human tongue by eavesdropping, not theirs—hence her curt speech.
Her past lonely life paled to two dense, vibrant years.
She traveled with humans.
Gifted horsemeat to the elf who drew her.
Wept parting with the werewolf.
Now called mixed folk allies.
In her life, human, troll, elf, beastkin—divisions meaningless.
Just people. Met as such, treated as such.
“Notum sees them not as other kin.”
Thus, she reached for souls haunting the field, fretting survivors, lamenting atop shields, swords, shoulders, powerless.
Clack!
As vital spirits like her troll ancestors. If troll spirits influenced living, so could human, elf, beastkin— she believed.
“Learning. Elf who travels with me likes that word.”
[If shaman sets will, too late to stop.]
[Become history, or end it.]
[Your spirit pleases. Little female.]
Absorbing all three ancestors’ power, Notum extended it to every soul on the field.
『Blue fields and winds. Rivers and sun. Whatever you desired, you grasped not.』
From shaman’s lips, not troll tongue but human words formed the incantation.
『Yet if you wish return, so be it. By shaman Notum’s name, I grant you daringly a second chance!』
...Clack!
『Rise! Dance the farewell rite!』
With empowered words, hazy somethings from battlefield skies sucked into the shaman’s jar.
Faint souls one by two. Soon cloud-masses swarmed, diving unhesitant into her soul jar.
Then out again.
Pouring souls flew to spots retaining their faint warmth.
Thud thud thud thud—
As mutant hordes closed on human ranks.
...Click.
Masterless swords stirred faintly.
Click, click click!
Clank, snap! Click!
Similar motions everywhere on the field. Dead flesh crumbled to dust, lingering grudges animating armor and weapons with returned souls, rising.
“La, Lathura!”
Fwoosh!
...Clank. Clank.
Click, click.
“N-not undead?”
“How, oh god...”
Overwhelmed by ranks of empty armor, one priest unwittingly dropped holy magic atop them, but the living shells merely rose sequentially, forming lines.
“...Grooo. Go, settle grudges yourselves, then depart.”
Notum, power spent, pocketed her glowing blue soul jar. As Idrasil supported the staggering shaman.
Clang!
Kaaang!
Armor spewing blue soulfire charged into mutants.
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