111. Blight, the White Knight of Pestilence
111. Blight, the White Knight of Pestilence
Big Game Hunter Im Tae-yang.
Ironically, this hero who specialized in hunting boss-level threats had been dismissed as low-tier when he first arrived in this world.
His unprecedented ability to regress could only rewind a few seconds into the future at most. And its activation condition—his own death—was a burden no human psyche could ever hope to bear.
Cross the boundary of death enough times, and even with an immortal ability, sooner or later you'd break.
'If I just let go when death comes... I'll be free of all pain and fear.'
The ones who first worried about that were those who summoned heroes in the first place, desperate to prevent humanity's extinction.
The general consensus was that no one could last long if the price of that power meant suffering through despair itself.
-Boom!
But look at him now.
The one everyone overlooked now stood overwhelming a colossal threat to all of humanity.
-Whoom, bang!!!
No matter how swift or vicious the attacks aimed at him, not one ever landed on his body.
It looked like a precarious exchange—dodging incoming strikes and exploiting the openings to counterattack. But to sustain that relentless onslaught, he had already endured dozens of deaths.
Enduring the sensation of his heart stopping as his body was slashed apart, his consciousness severed—all while fully lucid—was a torture beyond any comparison.
-Thud!!!
Yet he did not yield. He swung his blunt weapon and charged, again and again.
Not a single agonized scream or shriek escaped him through the ordeal.
Silently charging, dying, dodging, counterattacking—in a very real sense, he had transcended humanity.
"Gah, aaaah!!!"
Driven mad by that one-sided assault, Annabel gathered all her power into her sword, preparing to sweep the area.
After all, an enemy who could only swing a club at point-blank range could simply be crushed with overwhelming firepower.
Sensing the magical power gathering in that sword, Im Tae-yang silently gripped his club with both hands and braced to meet the attack.
And—Boom!
The club he swung in retaliation was rendered meaningless. The Red Knight's attack tore the entire area apart, blasting away even the surrounding defensive walls.
Naturally, his body, caught in the torrent of power, was obliterated without a trace.
-Clang!
And with his death, time rewound once more.
Ten seconds reversed, marked by his two hands gripping the club.
The moment he returned to just when she had gathered her magical power, Im Tae-yang hurled the club at her with all his might.
That was the optimal conclusion drawn from thirteen regressions.
-Thwack!
The unexpected blow shattered her stance. The instant an opening appeared, Im Tae-yang closed the distance and swept her legs with a low kick, sending her sprawling to the ground.
It was the moment the calamity called the Incarnation of War knelt before a mere human.
-Buzz!
And Im Tae-yang never missed an opening.
The light surging from his body to drive in the final blow was not mana, but divine power.
A force that liberated one from all illness and mental anguish—it even affected the lingering regrets that formed the very foundation of the undead.
In other words, it was a power that forcibly guided one to enlightenment, whether the target wished it or not. The most lethal force to any undead.
-Bang!!!
That divine-infused blow struck her head with full force. Annabel's body, already kneeling, finally gave way and crashed to the ground.
An absurd event had occurred: the Incarnation of War, the product of humanity's madness, had knelt before a human for the first time since rising from death.
-Thud! Bang!
But Im Tae-yang did not stop.
His opponent was stronger than any foe he had ever faced.
This would not be enough to end it. He had to keep up the onslaught while he had the chance.
-Bang, bang!!
Under that merciless barrage, Annabel felt her mind slowly fracturing, exposed to the divine power trying to unmake her.
The moment she felt herself forcibly liberated from the lingering regret that was the source of her power......
No. That moment had not yet arrived.
She was a grotesque anomaly among the undead—a being who did not cling to her lingering regret.
'...Annabel, do you remember that name?'
To dispel her regret, she first had to realize what that regret even was.
And the memory that formed its foundation—a memory from sometime before this moment—slowly began to surface in her mind.
'This is a request not as your sovereign, but as the mother who gave birth to you.'
Gwen Hwibar.
Leader of the once-prosperous Kingdom of Britannia, and the most noble cleric who led an order.
'Annabel. When this battle is over, would you agree to become my daughter once more?'
The moment that vow surfaced in her mind, she felt the lingering regret she had always ignored finally seize control of her.
The resolve she had held—to become nothing more than a tool for the one who resurrected her—fused with her past memories and began amplifying that power exponentially.
"Ah, aah.... Moth... er......."
-Crack, craaack.
As the earth split apart with her groan, Im Tae-yang stepped back and silently observed his opponent.
A torrent of magical power on a level that defied all previous comparisons.
His stance wavered as if the force itself was crushing him—but it lasted only a moment.
"Everything.... for my mother."
"Her mission—the extinction of humanity—I shall accomplish with my own hands."
The trembling stopped, and her posture steadied.
A fragment of memory had restored the calamity to her prime strength, and her voice quietly echoed before the hero.
And then.......
****
"Legion Commander, sir! You must evacuate!"
While three heroes confronted the Red Knight at the eastern wall, the inner garrison zone was being overrun at terrifying speed.
Because another of the Four Horsemen, equal in rank to the Red Knight, had infiltrated.
But unlike the east, where the walls at least allowed for a fair fight, the interior of the garrison was being plunged into chaos by enemy sabotage—a one-sided slaughter.
"I cannot! If I retreat, who will command this place?!"
"I understand your heart, but you must withdraw! Against the one who has seized this place, force is utterly meaningless! Staying will only lead to more casualties!"
He knew it in his head.
But despite his subordinate's plea, Commander Marcus could not bring himself to make the decision to abandon this place.
Because if they failed to stop the enemies here, it would only be a matter of time before everyone was annihilated.
'Where did it all go wrong?'
Looking only at the outcome, it was no one's mistake.
Marcus had made the best judgment possible for humanity's side, and his soldiers had followed him faithfully.
If the Red Knight drew their attention in the east, the enemies would invade from the north—the route for escorting the dragon bones.
So he had concentrated forces on the northern wall to block their pincer maneuver and planned to deploy the heroes at the right moment to take out the enemy commanders. That was supposed to win the war.
'To think they dug tunnels all over the garrison zone and lay in ambush... Was letting us occupy this place their plan from the very start?!'
Yes. From the beginning, they had never intended to excavate the dragon remains themselves.
Sending undead here beforehand to dig tunnels was only to create hiding places for this very ambush.
If they dug deep tunnels outside the excavation site and simply waited in hiding, the humans who caught the scent would occupy the area and excavate the dragon bones for them.
'All they had to do was wait for the work to be finished, then deploy forces at the opportune moment... It's a strategy unimaginable for anyone but the undead.'
For over a month since he'd been assigned to this land, they'd buried themselves underground with no biological functions whatsoever, just waiting for a signal.
What living human could even conceive of such an operation?
"Cough, hack!"
Moreover, the other Horseman who had invaded this place—while perhaps not as powerful as the Red Knight—was a nightmare specialized in mass slaughter.
Due to the covert nature of the ambush, only a few troops had been deployed, but just looking down from the watchtower showed how severe the damage was.
"Hey, you alright...?"
"D-Don't come near. I'm already... Bleeergh!"
A soldier staggering nearby collapsed to his knees, coughing violently.
The blood he vomited bubbled and steamed as if from a raging fever.
After infection, the blood in their veins rapidly transformed into an acidic substance.
The body melted down, twisted at will, and mutated into a chimera that lost all original form.
"Everyone stay away from the corpses!! Close proximity will infect you!"
"Gwaah, urgh!"
With agonized groans came the crunching, grinding sounds of flesh reshaping itself.
Those who underwent the process met death in the end, but they went beyond being revived as the dead—they even forgot their original shapes.
Their skin, bleached white, draped over their whole bodies like a hood. The bones that tore through their facial skin jutted into a mask that covered their newly avian faces.
"Plague White Knight......."
Marcus instantly recognized that his transformed subordinate had become a being representing one of the Four Horsemen.
Plague White Knight—Blight.
True to his name, he spread pestilence. With just a small exertion of his power, he could annihilate unprepared armies and whole crowds.
'Why you, of all people...!'
Face to face with him, Marcus ground his teeth and urgently shouted at his subordinates.
"Clerics!! It may not be too late! Get the clerics here!"
"One of the ambush tunnels was right under the chapel! The clerics took the heaviest casualties first—recovery is impossible right now!"
A vicious ploy to target the clerics first, stealing even the time to respond before the disease worsened.
Even if the clerics somehow overcame it and returned to the front, there was little hope they could resolve a plague already running rampant through the wounded.
"Uu, uuu......."
In the end, the only immediate option was to keep their distance from the soldiers dying of sickness.
As Marcus watched the horrific end of those who couldn't respond to the ambush, a sense of helplessness and despair he had never felt before began to bloom across his face.
Those who had transformed into grotesque figures like Blight.
"Uh-hyo...?"
The sight of them emitting cries more grotesque than their forms.
It was devastating to face the reality that he could do nothing but watch.
"Uh, u-hyo. Uh-hyooo..."
"Uh-hyooo~!"
But even if he regretted their lack of preparation, turning back the infected soldiers was impossible.
He saw the Infected, wandering the danger zone the survivors had fled, eventually face each other and tilt their heads.
"Uh-hyoooooo?"
"Uh-hyoooooo~~"
"Uh-hyooo~! Uh-hyoooo~!!!!"
A chorus of ecstatic, maddening cries echoed throughout the garrison zone.
Not even the countless flocks of crows that swarmed battlefields to feast on corpses were this dreadful.
To turn soldiers who had entered the battlefield with a sense of duty and honor to protect humanity into these farcical monsters utterly devoid of solemnity...
"You damned White Knight bastard.... What the hell kind of thinking is behind this sick joke......!"
"Puhaha! A sick joke? How harsh, my friend!"
A voice reached him just as his body trembled with rising humiliation.
Startled, Marcus flinched. Before him, an Infected wearing a white hood and mask slowly approached.
No—its consciousness was far too lucid to be an ordinary Infected.
"Blight! You bastard, when did you get here...?!"
-Slash!
In the blink of an eye, the head of his adjutant, who had spotted the being and tried to charge, was cleanly severed.
Blight, having trimmed the claw that had decapitated the man, cackled as he closed the distance.
"Isn't it way too grim to trudge through this bleak, despairing world without a sense of humor? Even if we're gonna go, let's go out having a good time, lil' bro~ Puhahahahah!!"
-Scrape.
Grinding his teeth, Marcus drew the sword from his waist.
His eyes blazed with fierce hatred as he stared him down.
"...You are not my brother."
"Ooh, now that hurts my feelings. Why so cold? Even if my appearance has changed a lot from the old days......."
-Slash!!
Marcus swung his sword and lopped off Blight Cradle's head without another word.
"Don't you dare defile my brother's death any longer! You damned revenant scum!!"
In the furious roar that burst toward him,
there was no longer even a shred of respect for the brilliant scholar who had once been his brother.