Flight (3)
Flight (3)
Lee Seo-yul breathed in and furrowed her brow.
The acrid scent of blood and the stench of rotting corpses pricked her nose. Her ears were filled with the ceaseless mingling of roars and explosions.
Every sensation blooming from the battlefield was uniformly unpleasant and grating.
Because she was a fairy, that aversion was even stronger.
"Get lost."
Lee Seo-yul swung her raised greatsword. Shrrrk! The pure white aura coating the blade carved a slash.
The massive undead that had been about to kick off the ground was cleaved cleanly from left to right.
The tip of the sword didn't stop. Successive slashes ultimately chopped the undead into dozens of pieces.
Black blood and chunks of flesh splattered onto the ground. Whoosh! White flames clung to them, blocking regeneration and burning the remains.
The undead here don't simply end at being chopped apart.
You have to finish them off so thoroughly they can't regenerate, and annihilate them so they can't become material for other undead.
Similar scenes were unfolding across the battlefield, but Lee Seo-yul didn't so much as blink.
By all common sense, she should feel fear, not aversion.
Lee Seo-yul, who has barely any real combat experience, shouldn't even be able to keep her wits on the battlefield.
Yet Lee Seo-yul showed no particular agitation.
She didn't tremble in fear, and she wasn't swept up in the battlefield's thrill and madness.
A Fairy Knight.
A shield and sword for protecting the king.
Fairy Knights, born with a clear purpose, are innately gifted with abilities and dispositions suited for combat.
In particular, Lee Seo-yul is no ordinary Fairy Knight.
She is the first knight born under Lee Ha-yul's influence.
Though she hadn't fully grasped the king's Innate Talent when she hatched, that specialness hasn't faded.
Now, she has even received an affection-filled blessing from Lee Ha-yul, who has embraced the king's Innate Talent.
Lee Seo-yul is overwhelmingly superior and special compared to ordinary Fairy Knights.
She can play a significant role even on this battlefield, where high-ranked monsters are scattered everywhere.
'I can't be of much help to Father right away.'
But Lee Seo-yul didn't overestimate her own strength.
After flicking the blood off her sword, Lee Seo-yul turned her head.
Toward a place so distant it was hard to distinguish with the naked eye.
Where the sea should have been by distance, the earth had risen, and intermittently a giant serpent came into view.
Its widespread wings veiled the sky, and its body was so thick and long that it made her doubt her own eyes and common sense.
More than the visual information, it was a monster whose presence crushing down on her Qi Sense was far more distant and overwhelming.
Lee Ha-yul was clashing with that monster.
The mere aftermath of their clash shook the ground. Mountains crumbled, and the black sky seethed.
'......'
Her heart wanted to fly over and help right away.
But the current Lee Seo-yul could be of no great help. Even if she flew over, she would only be a hindrance.
Though self-reproach and self-loathing lingered within her, Lee Seo-yul didn't just sit back.
What she could do. To avoid hindering Lee Ha-yul, reduce the monster's army.
"Terramor."
- Yes!
At Terramor's reply, who had been holding back the 3rd-Rank undead, five-colored wings surged from Lee Seo-yul's back.
Hwaak! Bright droplets of light poured from the fluttering wings.
The spirits who gobbled up the light droplets had gleaming eyes.
- Power recharge...! Advance again!
A Fairy's Blessing.
Spirits, which are already efficient with their fuel, become even stronger and can fight longer when fairies are nearby.
In other words, they become the most prioritized targets on the battlefield.
A presence that had been staring fixedly at Lee Seo-yul pushed off the ground.
Reacting to an intuition that pricked her nape, Lee Seo-yul raised her shield, and Terramor blocked in front of her, raising the earth.
Kwadeuk! A fist shattered the earth like a pane of glass and drove down.
With eyes wide at the immense power in the fist, Terramor stretched out a hand.
- Kuung!
The air trembled from the heavy vibration. The fist caught in the hand quivered. Terramor's eyes widened.
- Queen...!
The hand that blocked the fist wasn't Terramor's, but Lee Ji-yeon's.
"...Why the hell are you trying to beat someone else's kid."
After glancing at the fist quivering in her grasp, Lee Ji-yeon turned to face the person who had thrown it.
Brown hair and yellow-green eyes. Not an ancestor raised by that bastard of the Tower of the Dead...
"Mother."
A person who was clearly alive and breathing.
"Your indifference toward your child already left me with deep disappointment, but I thought at least you weren't the kind of lowlife who beats up your own kid."
Lee Ji-ah did not reply.
She merely threw another punch. In response, Lee Ji-yeon, her eyes calm, stomped down with her leg.
The ground sank, and the punch flew over her head.
Lee Ji-yeon lunged forward and thrust her elbow. Kwaang! Lee Ji-ah blocked it with her forearm and flew backward.
"I'll handle that person, so please stay by Seo-yul's side, Terramor."
- ...Yes, I shall follow your command.
"Please do. And Seo-yul, don't overexert yourself."
"I also know my limits, so I won't do anything stupid."
"I didn't say it to that extent."
Glossing over her embarrassment with a bitter smile, Lee Ji-yeon kicked off the ground.
* * *
Lee Ji-ah.
The eleventh head of the Taesan family.
Commonly called the Taesan North Star, she is a figure frequently mentioned as one of the strongest of the era by people who love to rank others.
"Mother, why are you over there."
Her own birth mother.
Looking at that Lee Ji-ah, Lee Ji-yeon's eyes grew calm.
What Lee Ji-ah had turned her back on was the enemy army. It was the tower rooted there. It was the monster Lee Ha-yul was fighting.
"How about you unclench your mouth and say something. Huh? Or are you being controlled by that Tower Master too?"
The question flew again. Actually, it was more of a request hoping for an answer than a question.
With an indifferent expression, Lee Ji-ah brushed the dust from her shoulder. Vitality energy from that touch spread in all directions.
- Ooooo...!
The undead who received the vitality energy let out wailing cries.
It wasn't an answer. Far from answering, she was helping this undead army. Lee Ji-yeon let out a hollow laugh.
"That face of hers is as unreadable now as it ever was."
At least with Baek A-rin, if you knew the inside story, you could tell them apart. Shaking her head, Lee Ji-yeon clenched her fist. The green Winged Garment, fueled by mana and stretched out, wrapped around both arms.
"If you don't want to talk, fine. Actually, I didn't have the time to listen calmly anyway."
Lee Ji-yeon quietly settled into a stance. Boiling vitality energy boosted her physical abilities.
Taesan Expansion Ability
Strength to Uproot Mountains
Ppudeuk! The fist she had clenched tightly let out a sinister cracking sound.
"I don't have time because I need to go help our kid, so for now I'll just beat you up and knock you out, and hear the story later."
As Lee Ji-yeon casually spat out such unfilial words, a suit of rock armor coiled around her body.
Taesan Expansion Ability
Golden Mountain Iron Wall
"......"
Lee Ji-ah raised her fist. Her body was wrapped in the same Golden Mountain Iron Wall. Shrugging, Lee Ji-yeon scraped the ground with her toes and pulled her leg back.
A brief silence. A space created because even the undead couldn't approach due to their presence. In the center, the two clashed.
Taesan Expansion Ability
Mountain-Breaking
- Kwaaaang─!
The ground was overturned by the clash of fists. The armor wrapping the fists shattered.
Gritting her teeth, Lee Ji-yeon threw another punch. Lee Ji-ah did the same. Once again, their fists collided.
- Kwaaaang...!
The overturned ground couldn't withstand the impact and scattered. Her planted legs slid backward. As she stepped forward from the slid-back leg, she threw a punch.
- Kwang! Kwang! Kwaang─!
The successive overlapping punches were blocked midway.
At some point, it was no longer fist against fist. Fists drove down onto forearms. She raised her arms to block the onrushing fists.
The shattered armor restored itself. She grasped the brute force driven by frantically burning vitality energy and slammed her fist in.
In the blink of an eye, dozens of blows were exchanged.
Unable to withstand the force, the ground collapsed flat. The terrain was markedly lower than the surroundings. Lee Ji-yeon stomped her foot.
The Innate Talent expanded from Lee Ji-yeon encroached on the entire area. Ggu-gung! The heaving earth became Lee Ji-yeon's hands and feet.
Taesan Expansion Ability
Terrain Upheaval
The ground she stood on shook her balance and bound her. Like stone spikes and blades, they surged forth.
Attacks instantly filled the surroundings. In the sensation as if the earth itself had become her enemy, Lee Ji-ah also stomped the ground.
Lee Ji-ah's expanded Innate Talent clashed with Lee Ji-yeon's Innate Talent.
- Ppadeudeudeuk!
From the collision of Innate Talents, the air and ground distorted together.
Tightly holding their ground, a power struggle unfolded in fierce tension.
But she couldn't claim every inch of the field. Lee Ji-ah's Innate Talent pushed in and bled into the earth.
Taesan Expansion Ability
Stone-Splitting Hell石割地獄
The stolen ground rose in blades. Crack! The point that slipped through her guard hammered into the armor at her flank.
"Ngh..."
It felt less like a blade and more like a bludgeon. Lee Ji-yeon's face twisted beneath her helm, and she dragged her mana higher.
Body Enhancement Expansion Ability and Environmental Domination Expansion Ability.
They had split Environmental Domination between them, so what was left was slugging it out like dogs.
She's strong.
Boom! Her head snapped to the side. Her legs wobbled and she gave a step—and Lee Ji-ah closed the gap without a pause, pounding in strike after strike.
It wasn't just wild punching.
It was high-level hand-to-hand combat built on a Technique Category Unique Ability.
Reach out carelessly, and she'd be caught and pummeled in an instant.
She was strong.
She'd known it for a long time, but facing it head-on only drove the truth deeper into her body.
Her rattled mind let suspicion creep in uninvited.
Lee Ji-yeon had no confidence she could beat Lee Ji-ah.
She'd never let it show, at the very least, but she hadn't been able to carve the doubt cleanly from a corner of her heart.
Doubt urged a safer, weaker choice.
It was the temptation to turn her back on the danger in front of her and run.
Though the choice still belonged to Lee Ji-yeon, if she chose to flee, the Lee Ji-yeon who'd made it this far might as well be dead.
If she couldn't do it, countless people would die.
Unidentified enemies would trample her homeland, and the people of the territory would lose their lives. She wouldn't be able to help Lee Ha-yul, who was fighting an even greater monster ahead of her.
I have to.
The weight pressed down on her shoulders.
It felt as if the soaring spirit inside her was being crushed down into silence by the pressure.
Her self-assurance wavered, and through the cracks, doubt seeped in.
If it were Mother.
She surely would have felt no such unease.
In any situation, with a composed face, she would have been at the very front, holding back the danger.
The Lee Ji-ah that Lee Ji-yeon knew would certainly have done that.
She'd admired that Lee Ji-ah.
Since she was little, she'd heard about Lee Ji-ah's strength until her ears bled. She'd yearned for that spirit, unshakable as Taesan itself.
She'd envied Lee Ji-ah for possessing everything that Lee Ji-yeon herself could not.
But I'm not her.
Lee Ji-yeon and Lee Ji-ah were different.
That was obvious.
The Innate Talent each of them held was different.
The root was the same Taesan. Lee Ji-yeon had been born from Lee Ji-ah. But the direction she carved was different.
No matter how much she admired and followed Lee Ji-ah, she could never become the same.
And she'd never needed to be the same in the first place.
Lee Ji-yeon's limits didn't need to be drawn at Lee Ji-ah.
The mindset she'd held long ago finally inscribed itself genuinely into her mind.
—Thump!
In that moment.
Lee Ji-yeon felt her heart pulse.
Layered atop it, her core heaved. Her trembling Innate Talent swelled, rose, and shattered the boundary it had drawn.
—Crack!
A single instant. Her fist tore through Lee Ji-ah's guard and drove up into her abdomen.
The impact felt different. Lee Ji-yeon's eyes flew wide. The fist pulverized the armor, reached the flesh beneath, and the concentrated Mountain-Breaking exploded.
—BOOM—!
"...Guhk..."
Lee Ji-ah's body heaved hard. A small but unmistakable groan escaped her.
Lee Ji-yeon didn't flinch at that—she seized the opening and buried her fist into the weakened spot again and again.
Staggered backward by the shock, Lee Ji-ah didn't retreat; she dragged them back into a wild brawl.
—Boom! BOOM! BOOM!
Under the unrelenting assault, the armor that couldn't keep up with the regeneration steadily scattered.
Real damage punched through the Taesan Manifestor's superior durability and recovery.
Lee Ji-ah sucked in a choked breath and pulled back another step.
Before she could step forward again, a Winged Garment shot in from nowhere and wrapped around her wrist.
It yanked hard, pulling Lee Ji-ah's arm—and pulling Lee Ji-yeon's fist right along with it.
"Fuck, just—!"
Mana seething white-hot, it drove her body forward. Lee Ji-yeon twisted her fist—packed tight with Taesan's Innate Talent and Vitality Energy—and slammed it back into Lee Ji-ah's stomach.
"Lie down nicely—!"
—Crack!
"Geuhk—!"
The armor that had barely been hanging on shattered entirely into dust.
Lee Ji-ah buckled at the waist and just as she expelled a strangled breath, Lee Ji-yeon twisted her fist. The gathered Mountain-Breaking detonated.
—BOOM—!
A deafening roar, and Lee Ji-ah's body was hurled backward.
She skipped across the ground a few times before crashing into the earth.
"Haah... haah..."
Lee Ji-yeon's shoulders heaved roughly. The armor that had barely held together crumbled away, revealing her gasping face.
"......."
A look stripped of any sense of reality.
Mouth open, Lee Ji-yeon gulped down air, then forced her heavy legs to carry her toward Lee Ji-ah.
"...Mother?"
The dust cloud settled. Lee Ji-ah, slammed into the ground, wasn't moving.
A worst-case scenario flashed through her mind, but thankfully, through the shattered armor, the rise and fall of a voluptuous chest was still visible.
"Ah, fuck... you scared me... I thought you were dead..."
"...Your... language... is terrible..."
Swallowing a sigh of relief, Lee Ji-yeon's eyes went round. Lee Ji-ah was gazing up at her.
"...To look at... your own mother... and say she's dead or not... that's a bit..."
"Then why didn't you say something sooner? Would've been great if you'd said that earlier!"
"......"
"I don't have time to listen right now. I'll hear it later."
Lee Ji-ah's mouth pressed shut.
Lee Ji-yeon let out an exhausted laugh, swayed, and then forced her legs steady.
Right on cue, with Lee Ji-ah down, the surrounding dominion over the ground fully returned to her.
She pulled rock around Lee Ji-ah, binding her with the Expansion Ability, and drew the Vitality Energy that had seeped into the earth, pouring it all into physical recovery.
"...Huh?"
The recovery was slow. Were the wounds just that severe? Lee Ji-yeon thought so and blinked.
She lightly touched her own face.
Pain flared—but it was far less than what she'd expected.
"...Hah."
Lee Ji-yeon let out a dry laugh. Pure white magic clung to her fingertips.
The pure white magic wriggled a moment, then seeped into her fingers, and the shallow cuts healed in an instant.
Something that mitigated shock and damage, assisting recovery. Probably some high-level magic or artifice that Lee Ji-yeon couldn't begin to grasp.
"Really, I told you not to worry."
It was something Lee Ha-yul had placed upon her. Lee Ji-yeon's shoulders rose and fell with the overflowing warmth that filled her chest.
It was hard to think she had won on her own.
It seemed there was help Lee Ha-yul had left for her.
'And Mother didn't even use her undead properly.'
Lee Ji-ah's specialty was, undeniably, the Necromancy Type.
Her current fighting style—focused on earth and Life Force Manipulation—was strong, but it was hard to claim a complete victory in a battle where necromancy had been excluded.
"Exhausting..."
Regardless, due to a combination of reasons, she was the one still standing.
She let out a heavy breath and surveyed the area.
She'd been prepared to deal with undead swarming them the moment the fight ended, but there were no undead in sight.
—Queen! Are you finished?
—Uweeeh... Queen, you're hurt...
"...Thank you. You lot cleared out the surrounding undead, I take it?"
Several spirits who'd kept their distance from Lee Ji-yeon and Lee Ji-ah had dealt with the nearby undead.
Thanks to that, she could set aside the trouble of wasting stamina in another brawl right away.
After expressing her thanks to the spirits, Lee Ji-yeon turned.
Her stamina and wounds would recover soon. She'd also managed to temporarily seal Lee Ji-ah, who had been strengthening and leading the undead Army Corps.
Her plan was to quickly mop up the army and go help Lee Ha-yul.
—─────!!!
"Ngh—?!"
—Aah!
—Gyaah!
Just then, a majestic wave of mana swept over everything.
Her body locked up on its own. The spirits, whose very bodies were made of mana, trembled and crumpled flat against the ground.
"What the..."
Lee Ji-yeon clenched her teeth hard enough to chatter and turned her head toward the source of the mana wave.
Her green eyes flew open in bewilderment. Her expression flooded with disbelief and shock.
A monster so colossal it felt impossibly distant was visible now. An Earth Dragon clad in black scales.
"...That's... what..."
And driving that Earth Dragon back, another monster came into view.
Radiance-white scales—the opposite of the Earth Dragon.
Three pairs of five-colored wings spread behind its back.
Razor-thick talons pinned the Earth Dragon down, and before its gaping jaws, three brilliant hues of Innate Talent swirled into a violent maelstrom.
Three Ends.
—Kwaaaaaah—!
The unleashed beam of Three Ends caved in the Earth Dragon's scales.