Chapter 44
Chapter 44
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 44
Chapter Title: Fires of Self-Destruction
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The Red Magic Tower’s Purifiers. From horseback, he could count a little over a dozen of them. Those very dozen ‘Purifiers’ were channeling their red mana, their killing intent burning.
“Groooaaar!”
Along with hundreds of Orc riders supporting them, they pursued Dale’s cavalry of three hundred knights.
This was the worst-case scenario.
Charging in formation against the Red Tower’s mages was nothing short of a suicide mission. Before their vaunted, overwhelming firepower, it would be like openly inviting them to bombard this very spot.
The true strength of knights lay in the tactical destructive power born from their meticulous organization. And the terrifying thing about the Red Magic Tower was its ability to shut down that very organization. The red mages weren't called 'Gods of War' for no reason.
But if they scattered and dispersed, the pursuing Orc riders would bog them down.
‘This situation has become a real headache.’
As he thought this, just as Dale was about to turn his gaze to the 'tentacle' constricting his heart...
“Dismount, Dale.”
The voice of the elf mage, Sephia, reached him. She had regained her usual composure and calm. Dale did not hesitate at Sephia's words. He was well aware of the meaning behind the words of a 6th-circle elf mage.
Leaving behind the cavalry scattering at his command, he dismounted.
Along with his escort knight, Charlotte, who guarded his side.
“The rest of the cavalry will carry out my orders as given!”
Dale shouted with all his might at the cavalry, who were unsettled by their commander's sudden dismount. Immediately after. Aiming for the 'Black Prince' who stood defenseless on the frozen earth, the Orc riders and Purifiers began to charge.
“Crystals of ice.”
Facing the rapidly approaching enemies, Sephia spoke softly.
Amidst the blessings of the Sachsen family's frozen lands, as a Snow Elf and a 6th-circle water-attribute elf mage. She steeled her resolve to protect her student and face the enemy.
“Rage forth.”
Sephia spoke. Her voice was incredibly clear and resonated transparently. An incomparably pure echo.
At the same time, the world froze over.
Centered on her feet, crystals of ice began to swirl like a storm.
*Fwoooosh!*
The hundreds of wolves and Orc riders charging toward the two were caught in the vortex of cold swirling from Sephia's feet and frozen solid. Like fossils from an ice age trapped in ice.
All except for a few Purifiers who protected themselves from her cold with 'armor of flame'.
“Send your young knight away, Dale.”
Sephia spoke from within the storm of cold.
“I... I have a duty to protect Dale...”
Understanding the meaning of those words, Charlotte tightened her grip on her sword's hilt.
“Charlotte.”
But Dale quietly shook his head.
“It's an order from your lord.”
“...”
After a moment's hesitation, Charlotte nodded.
“Get on the horse, and don't you dare let go of the reins.”
After saying that, Dale helped Charlotte onto his horse. Along with the grave responsibility she had to carry out.
“Retreat to the designated river crossing and inform my father of our situation.”
“...I understand.”
Charlotte nodded. She was not one to misunderstand the weight of the command given to her.
As Charlotte rode away, 'shadows of flame' revealed themselves within the raging storm of cold. Standing on two legs, they were clad in blazing armor of flame. Twelve Purifiers from the Red Tower. It was by no means a small number.
Dale's cavalry, now scattered in all directions, were finishing off the Orc riders.
“Why is the Red Magic Tower working with demonic races?”
Dale asked.
“...”
The shadows of flame did not answer.
Purifiers.
Fanatical worshipers of the Red Magic Tower's flame, executors of madness who did not hesitate to burn their own bodies. To them, the only thing that mattered was incinerating the enemies of the Red Magic Tower.
For a Purifier, the study of magic was entirely about 'how to burn the enemy in any given situation,' and any magic not intended for slaughter was a mere luxury.
They could truly be called the 'Knights of the Red Magic Tower' without exaggeration.
As individual mages, their capabilities could not dare compare to Sephia, an elder of the Blue Magic Tower, but their true value, as their moniker 'Knights of the Red Magic Tower' suggested, lay in their 'organizational strength as a collective'.
The shadows of flame extended their arms in unison. The crimson mana swirling from their hands combined, creating a synergistic effect.
To rain down the fires of hell that would obliterate Dale and Sephia in a single blow.
“Resonate.”
But Sephia snapped her fingers once more.
With a clear, yet strangely discordant chord.
“...!”
The bombardment that should have rained down as blazing hellfire fizzled out like a fleeting candle flame. Buried in a scene that looked like scattering sleet.
He could tell instinctively. A technique of the Blue Magic Tower, which specialized in defense and disruption over offense.
Neutralization... a dispel magic.
Countless particles of blue mana generated from Sephia's hand were scattering in all directions.
A specialty of Blue Mages: interfering with the combination of mana as it formed, breaking its structure, and fundamentally blocking the spell.
<>.
Seeing this, Dale did not hesitate either.
“Knights of Sachsen, now is the time!”
As long as magic requiring a certain level of complexity was blocked by 'Sephia's Dissonance'. There wasn't much a mage incapable of casting advanced magic could do against charging cavalry.
“Charge!”
And so, having reformed their ranks, the black cavalry of Sachsen began to gallop forward.
***
At that moment.
Orcs were endlessly attempting to force a breakthrough across the shallows, and opposing them, the main force led by Duke Sachsen was engaged in a fierce battle.
The barrier of heavily armored knights and the desperate struggle of the Orcs to break through it.
Lord Black and the elders of the Black Magic Tower under his command also watched the scene from a distant slope. With countless young necromancers of the Black Magic Tower arrayed behind them.
“Eris.”
“Yes, Master.”
Watching the battle unfold, Lord Black spoke softly.
“Send the children to the crossing point commanded by Baron Kennet and the mercenary captain, Lord Yones.”
He pointed to a spot that was relatively on the defensive against the Orcs' forced breakthrough.
“I will carry out the Master's command.”
At his words, Eris, the secretary to the Master of the Black Magic Tower, silently nodded.
'The children'.
The young black mages of the Black Magic Tower, who had been silent behind them, began to move. For the mages of the Black Magic Tower, the battlefield was a learning ground beyond compare. Death was everywhere, and truth always existed within death.
Furthermore, as the lords gathered under Duke Sachsen's name fought a bloody battle, and the intensity of the combat heated up beyond a certain point.
“...It is time.”
Lord Black finally spoke. Towards the Black Robes, the Empire's foremost black mages, clad in jet-black robes. To bring this battle to an end.
He was about to give the order.
“Your... Your Grace, Duke Sachsen!”
It was just then that the young female knight, Charlotte, arrived with Dale's message.
***
The cavalry began their charge in a horizontal line, and in response, the twelve Purifiers began to move.
They kicked off the ground and surged forward, streaks of flame scattering in all directions.
Swift, instant-cast spells unaffected by the Blue Dissonance. Nevertheless, it was firepower more than sufficient to annihilate the cavalry charging toward them.
“...!”
From the armor of flame surrounding the Purifiers, jets of fire erupted and engulfed the cavalrymen. Dale and Sephia easily erected a wall of cold to block their attack. Though the cavalry's charge was also halted by the suddenly raised wall of cold, it was better than suffering casualties.
A shield of ice raised by two water-attribute mages on this blessed land. They added a formula for bond strengthening—in other words, rapid cooling—to withstand the Purifiers' heat, and furthermore, Dale added formulas for fragmentation and shrapnel to the ice wall.
To detonate the ice wall for offensive purposes immediately after defending.
The cavalry charge had been nothing more than a feint.
Shard Magnum.
The large ice wall exploded, and countless ice fragments, sharpened and honed, scattered like buckshot. Towards the armor of flame surrounding the Purifiers.
But the icy projectiles melted away uselessly before reaching the blazing shadows of flame.
‘...!’
Flame is the result of the combination of three elements: heat, material, and oxygen... and heat is ultimately a measure of the intensity of the molecular motion that constitutes matter.
Just as cold refers to the concept of molecular motion decreasing, gradually approaching a state of stillness.
Yet this armor of flame could melt even the ice bonded by Sephia's formulas.
‘It's impossible.’
They weren't fighting on a land of scorching sand. To be able to kindle a flame hot enough to melt ice created by an elder of the Blue Tower in the frozen lands of Sachsen? With what, exactly?
It didn't take long to find the answer.
After the ice wall protecting the cavalry disappeared, the twelve Purifiers scattered in all directions. Most of them were left defenseless before Dale's charging cavalry, while a few broke through the cavalry's encirclement and closed the distance to Dale and Sephia.
Immediately after.
“Shadow Bullet.”
'Bullets of shadow' that couldn't be melted by mere flame rained down, and one Purifier, riddled with bullets, collapsed.
Right in front of Dale.
His robe fell away, revealing his face. He was a being akin to a living pile of ash, his skin burned and bones melting from the flames.
“...What is your purpose?”
Dale asked the Purifier who had collapsed to his knees.
“Heh, hehehe.”
He hadn't expected a particularly sensible answer.
“Soon, this entire world will burn...!”
As expected.
“The world will burn, and from the ashes, they will descend...!”
It was just more crazed nonsense, accompanied by a twisted smile.
*KABOOM!*
At the same time, an explosion occurred. A blast powerful enough to engulf not only himself but the entire area.
‘Self-destruction magic!’
He realized it instantly. He finally understood. They weren't wearing some kind of armor of flame.
The Purifiers from the Red Magic Tower here were burning themselves from the very beginning. Not armor, but their own flesh, blood, and bone.
The moment he realized this, Dale's blood ran cold.
A baptism of fire raged, from which not even Dale and Sephia, let alone Dale's cavalry within the blast radius, could be an exception.
And that was just one of the 'twelve explosives'.