King of Dobong-gu (5)
CRASH!
The Flame Emperor's sword reduced the wall to rubble with almost casual ease. Wherever the blade touched, stone simply melted away under that insane heat.
"So this is the Flame Emperor… I expected as much, but he really does shatter a wall in a single stroke."
Even Lahan sounded impressed.
Tch. I figured as much, but against a real powerhouse the walls barely help. Not much I can do about that.
"All right. Let's get ready."
Honestly, I wasn't sure we could actually take the Flame Emperor down. If we couldn't, I'd just grab Se-a and run. We could always sneak back later and put everyone back together.
The moment the Flame Emperor broke through the wall encircling Dobong 1-dong—
"Go, Ttacttac-i!"
Clack!
I sent Ttacttac-i straight at the Flame Emperor, who had already reached roughly the middle of Dobong-gu. Nearly ninety-eight hundred skeletons and monster undead advanced in perfect formation.
Clack-clack! Clack!
Watching the undead shift their ranks in flawless unison at Ttacttac-i's command, I couldn't help smiling in satisfaction.
Bet you've never seen an army this size in the apocalypse. Go on—despair a little!
Se-a and I climbed onto the roof of a building overlooking the expected clash point and waited. The instant the army and the Flame Emperor met—
"…To kill this many people. Just how monstrous can one person be?!"
The Flame Emperor unleashed a sword-wave boiling with rage.
CRASH! KRRRACK—BOOOOM!
"Wh—wait."
"…Lord Necro, is this… okay?"
A single attack wiped out more than half the undead.
"No, this is not okay!"
It wasn't a casual basic attack, of course. He'd been charging that sword-wave the entire way in, and he'd pushed so hard one of his arms had blackened and charred—but still.
"He doesn't care in the slightest. He isn't even undead, yet he shows no fear of injury."
"Lahan, can you take him?"
"With the reinforcement of Master’s skill, I can hold my ground. Winning alone, however, seems unlikely."
The Flame Emperor switched his sword to his other hand and charged back into the undead, smashing them apart one by one. A slaughter so furious I couldn't even begin to gauge the depth of his rage.
Clack. Rattle-clatter.
Even so, Ttacttac-i fought on with everything he had. He thrust his shield forward to blunt the Flame Emperor's charge, and in that same heartbeat the skeletons drove their spears home in unison. Between volleys, the monster undead used their unique traits to tangle his feet, stack tiny wounds, and force him to spend just a little more strength each time.
"…So you're the necromancer. The one who made this nightmare."
Clack-clack! Clack!
"Die, you piece of trash—kh!"
Having identified Ttacttac-i as the commander, the Flame Emperor carved through every undead in his path and closed the distance, sword already raised for a finishing blow—
"Gyaaah!"
Mari appeared and twisted the blade's trajectory. That alone was enough to shatter her entire body under the shock; she crumpled to the ground.
"Pointless."
True to his word, the Flame Emperor—his sword knocked only slightly off course—casually kicked Ttacttac-i and exploded him into hundreds of fragments.
But Mari had never come to save Ttacttac-i.
At her command, Cursed Skeletons closed in around the Flame Emperor. As a living human, he had no choice but to endure the curses pouring off dozens of undead at once.
"Grave Sanctuary."
Grave Sanctuary
Undead-exclusive healing field
Se-a's skill unfurled across the ground—a healing field exclusive to the undead. Misty fog bled out from a skull-shaped mark etched into the earth, and the fallen undead began to rise again. Even the weakest, most fragile skeleton could stand back up in ten seconds if it stayed within that field.
"…Strange. I was certain I'd already killed the necromancer."
"Well, yeah. Because I'm not a necromancer."
The Flame Emperor staggered upright and, with his rotting flesh, started smashing skeletons all over again. But that wasn't the end of it. Through the ranks of thousands of rising undead strode a figure wreathed in blue aura—an undead in dark-blue armor with no head. Lahan had arrived, zombies in tow.
"And I'm no necromancer either. Myungwang is a being far beyond the likes of me."
"…This Myungwang of yours. Heroic-rank at the least—no, Legendary. A hidden powerhouse who awakened early and has been quietly building strength all this time?"
"Ha! Spare me the delusions. It offends me to hear refuse like you presume to measure my Master."
The Flame Emperor said nothing more. He simply raised his sword. Lahan lifted his spine whip in answer, and just as both of them stepped forward to clash—
"How naive."
Fwoosh! Spider silk shot out and wrapped the Flame Emperor tight. A Deathweaver—hidden in a nearby building from the start—had seized that single instant of opening.
"You cowardly bastard!"
"Did you think you were fighting a saint? I've always been a coward. In life I was a bit more flamboyant, but…"
Lahan raised his arm.
"Now that I'm already dead, I thought I'd try living with my head for a change."
There was something I had proposed—and actively pushed for. A trap that made use of Lahan's skill.
KRRRACK!
Iron bars punched up through the ground and caged the Flame Emperor in a single breath. Lahan could freely manipulate any material he created. So what if we buried iron cages under the floor in advance? Far faster than building them on the spot.
KRANG! Trapped, the Flame Emperor had his legs skewered by more bars rising from below. Or rather—almost skewered. The moment the bars struck his legs, sparks flew and the metal bent without piercing through.
What, is this guy a cyborg or something?
"Those legs aren't human. You seem closer to a machine than a man yourself."
"Shut your mouth, lackey of a villain."
The Flame Emperor vented fire from his entire body, heated the cage white-hot, and cut his way free. He vaulted upward at once and swung at Lahan.
"Sorry, but I didn't come here empty-handed either."
CLANG! The sword slammed into a stone shield that materialized before his eyes. The Flame Emperor spun in midair and thrust again—but he'd already spent too much power. The blade failed to pierce Lahan's armor, and he crashed to the ground.
"Kh…!"
"This ends now."
Just as Lahan's whip came whistling down, the Flame Emperor murmured a single phrase.
Flame Severance
The technique that had killed an S-rank Arachne in a single strike.
"That's bad!"
The Flame Emperor's mouth opened and his sword moved in the same instant. With grotesque speed and impossibly dense power, the blade whipped through an unnatural arc—and Lahan was cleaved in two. The zombies preparing their skills lost their heads in the same stroke.
"Ha! Haha! You let your guard down!"
But only for a moment. It took a little longer—there was more to repair this time—but Lahan rose again. At the same moment, iron bars erupted from the ground once more, and spider silk rained from every direction. In a heartbeat the Flame Emperor's limbs were bound tight.
He had been straining his senses to the absolute limit, clearing skeletons while hunting for the necromancer. Now, with a hollow expression, he finally spoke.
"This is… absurd."
"Well. One of those my Master took in happened to acquire a rather remarkable skill."
At those words, the Flame Emperor's face hardened to stone.
"You're telling me trash like you… was granted a skill like that?"
"I won't deny being a villain. Myungwang doesn't seem to care much for justice either."
Lahan spoke, then cracked his whip.
"Who knows? Perhaps the gods themselves are sheltering us."
"Don't talk nonsense!"
CLANG! Sword met whip, and the fierce exchange resumed.
"If gods exist, then why would they favor the likes of you?!"
"Who says gods are kind? Any god who made the world like this would have to be thoroughly evil. And I prefer it that way."
Chest. Abdomen. Thigh. Heart. The Flame Emperor's sword pierced and carved Lahan in a blur. Vital points meant little to an undead, but injuries were still dangerous.
Without Grave Sanctuary, they would have been.
Under the endless hail of skeletal spears and blades, the curses, and Lahan's opportunistic strikes, the Flame Emperor could only take the beating.
"Huh. Weaker than I expected?"
"Don't get careless. The Special Safety Department's Flame Emperor… I've heard of him. They say he once killed an Immortal."
"An Immortal?"
"There was a monster like that. A growth-type S-rank that rampaged all over Gyeonggi-do. He was the one who took it down."
As if to prove the story true, the Flame Emperor roared in desperation.
"I wasn't supposed to use this skill here… but I have no choice."
Flesh tore free under the whip. His own flames had burned his clothes half away, laying bare legs that were clearly not human. Looking closer now, his eyes were inverted as well. Had he replaced his entire body with prosthetics?
"Kinda cool, actually. Like something out of a comic."
"Is this really the time for that?!"
Se-a simply refused to appreciate the aesthetic.
Fwoooosh—flames surged skyward. The Flame Emperor had hurled and vented fire many times before, but this was different. This was fire born of pure resolve to burn everything here to ash. The blaze flooded the entire area.
Skeletons rose only to crumble into cinders again the moment they stood. Only Lahan remained upright in the inferno. From within those flames, the Flame Emperor spoke.
"I can distinguish good from evil. I have a skill for that."
"Convenient. How bad am I, then?"
"Utterly, thoroughly evil. You've killed one hundred seventy-two people."
"Ahh. So that's what you mean by knowing good from evil."
A skill that revealed how many people you'd killed. That was how the Flame Emperor sorted the world into good and evil.
Lahan had been the leader of a bandit outfit, so of course he'd racked up a body count. Which meant the Flame Emperor had fought him from the first second without a shred of guilt.
"Those undead over there have barely killed anyone. One, maybe, on rare occasions. The one directing them had only two. You're a murderer who deserves to die, but you're still within a range I can account for."
Yeah, that tracks.
The skeletons had only killed a little over twenty people at Bukhansan Fortress. Lahan had been more of a manager for the raiders, so he probably hadn't done much killing himself. Honestly, clearing a hundred was already impressive.
"But then… that master of yours, that son of a bitch—how many people did he have to kill to command this many undead?"
"No, that's a misunderstanding—"
"Thousands? Ha! Easily ten thousand by the look of it. Disgusting creature. And you, serving under him, are nothing but garbage yourself."
"Mmm. No interest in listening, I see."
What Lahan had been about to say was probably this: My Master, Myungwang, can raise corpses that died long ago—so your assumption is wrong. He would have said something like that. Even if he had, I doubted the Flame Emperor would have believed him.
He seemed to rationalize his own killings by wrapping them in the packaging of "righteous action."
"I've got a slightly terrible idea."
"What?"
"And a pretty good plan to go with it. Come here a second—lend me your ear."
I told Se-a my plan. She recoiled in horror and tried to stop me, but there was no talking me out of it.
Through the flames, the Flame Emperor thrust his sword. Power and speed of an entirely different magnitude. Lahan raised stone to block and lashed his whip through the gaps, but the whip burned to nothing the instant it drew near. The stone pillars, the iron bars continually erupting from the ground—none of it lasted a second against that overwhelming heat. They simply melted away.
The Deathweavers and the yellow dogs tried to slip into openings, but their threads dissolved the moment they touched the superheated air. They couldn't even get close.
"If you keep regenerating, I'll burn you so thoroughly there won't even be scraps left to grow back."
At last the Flame Emperor closed the distance and brought his sword down on Lahan.
First strike — a blade glowing red-hot
Once with a sword heated to a searing red.
Second strike — a blade beginning to melt and shine
Twice with a blade that had begun to melt and blaze with light.
Third strike — no blade remains, only pure flame
And a third time, with a sword that was no longer steel at all—only living fire.
"Master."
But that final blade never reached Lahan. His gaze, and the voice with which he spoke the word Master, held a sincerity so absolute that the Flame Emperor turned his head before he even realized what he was doing.
"…A zombie girl?"
Looking back, the Flame Emperor could only stare in shock.
"Long time no see, huh?"
Standing there was the zombie he had once encountered at the mixed-use apartment complex—still displaying the same number he'd seen then.
A floating 2.