Chapter 149
Chapter 149
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 149
Chapter Title: Fall of Valantia Mine
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Mining Village Valantia.
A sudden wind of battle began to sweep through the area.
Dust drifted slowly on the night breeze.
There stood one lone figure against a group of nearly thirty.
The solitary one was an elderly man with a hunched back, his hair turned completely white down to the roots.
He looked like an old man who would topple over if a grown man so much as shoved him.
Yet the White Lion Knights showed no carelessness in facing him.
"Remember this."
White Lion Knight Order Captain Leon instructed his knights.
"Our foe is an old monster who has attained immortality through the Goddess's blessing."
His low, beastly growl carried through the night air.
The Salvation Sovereign.
A monster who swung his sword at any he deemed evil, no matter who they were.
To him, the opponent's strength meant nothing.
The Salvation Sovereign's blade aimed only at evil.
It was an utterly contradictory situation for the White Lion Knights, the empire's pride, to be branded as evil.
But the White Lion Knights thought no differently from the Salvation Sovereign.
They executed anyone deemed an enemy of the empire.
That was the empire's blade.
At that moment.
The Salvation Sovereign's foot slowly lifted into the air.
The instant every knight reacted in unison.
Whoooosh—
They belatedly realized the power swirling around his foot like a tempest.
The knights' eyes widened.
This wasn't a leap.
"Damn."
Leon swung his sword, realizing what he intended.
But it was too late.
The Salvation Sovereign's foot, charged to its limit, slammed into the ground.
Boooom!
An explosion rang out.
At the same time, the ground shattered into fragments before the overwhelming force, flying in all directions.
The moment the White Lion Knights in formation batted away the incoming debris.
"Barriol!"
Leon cried out a knight's name.
Behind the ground fragment Knight Barriol had sliced away.
The Salvation Sovereign had hidden his small frame and closed in on him.
As Leon called out, the Salvation Sovereign's foot filled Barriol's vision.
But Knight Barriol was no novice.
He pulled back his neck to absorb the incoming kick's force and swung his own sword.
He was too late to dodge.
His plan was to drive his blade into the Salvation Sovereign.
But Barriol didn't realize how arrogant that thought was.
Crack-crunch—
"Huh?"
Barriol saw the Salvation Sovereign's leg snap.
But it wasn't just his leg that broke.
Barriol's own neck was snapping in the same way.
Humans have a natural limit to the power they can exert.
Exceed that limit, and bones and muscles shatter under the strain.
Thus, the body never pushes beyond it.
Yet some occasionally surpass it.
The most common case is injecting drugs that fry the brain.
But the Salvation Sovereign had gone mad in a different sense.
He possessed one skill.
A skill normally treated as a last-resort trump card, not worth acquiring.
But the Salvation Sovereign wielded it more than anyone.
A self-destructive skill that unlocked the brain's limits, allowing the body to unleash power until it shattered.
Limit Break [SSS]
Unleashes power beyond physical limits, at the cost of self-destruction.
Normally, one use would shatter the body or render it unusable.
But the Salvation Sovereign was different.
The moment his leg pulverized Knight Barriol's head.
Whirrl!
His shattered leg reassembled bone and muscle in an instant.
The supreme blessing of the goddess bestowed upon the Salvation Sovereign.
To him, death was forbidden no matter what.
Near-infinite body regeneration.
Combined with Limit Break [SSS], which spared no part of his body.
These two made the Salvation Sovereign an immortal monster.
Thus, all who faced him said the same.
Fighting him is pointless.
Choose flight over battle with him.
Thud-crash!
Barriol's headless corpse tumbled across the ground.
At the same time, the Salvation Sovereign landed, pulling Barriol's sword from his own neck.
Barriol had somehow landed a blow on the Salvation Sovereign.
But that strike, made at the cost of his life, was rendered meaningless in an instant.
The Salvation Sovereign hurled the sword in his hand, inheriting Barriol's will.
Crack-pop! Fwhoosh!
His arm shattered as he launched the sword, piercing the air.
Bam!
A knight who parried the cannonball-speed blade toppled over.
"Gahhh."
He had definitely blocked the sword.
But the incoming blade had shattered his own, embedding itself in his chest.
The price of underestimating the Salvation Sovereign's power.
As the Salvation Sovereign reached for the next knight.
A guillotine-like sword came crashing down from above his head.
Booooom!
Dust billowed up with the explosion.
The Salvation Sovereign's two arms were snapped clean.
The cost of activating Limit Break [SSS].
Yet even so, his sword couldn't fully withstand the impact.
Beyond the massive sword larger than the Salvation Sovereign.
A man in the form of a white lion stood.
White Lion Transformation [SSS]
Awakening skill passed down through White Lion Knight captains.
Leon, who had activated it, had doubled in size from before.
Tremendous power flowed from his swollen arm muscles.
It was a force even the Salvation Sovereign—who had instantly crushed two hero-grade knights—struggled to handle.
Leon showed exactly what an imperial knight captain was.
"Rampaging quite freely, aren't you? I'd heard the rumors, but not to this extent."
Groooan!
Leon pressed his greatsword harder against the Salvation Sovereign.
Overwhelming presence poured from Leon.
Thud!
The ground beneath them cracked.
The other White Lion Knights dared not intervene.
The power erupting from the two was too immense.
The Salvation Sovereign's arms regenerated continuously under the immortality blessing.
But they kept shattering.
They fell short against Leon's power.
"But that's all."
The white-furred muscles on Leon's arms thickened further.
His blue eyes blazed fiercely.
Thump!
The Salvation Sovereign began crumbling, unable to withstand the force.
"Even the vaunted Goddess's blessing is futile before true power."
The Salvation Sovereign's sword was slowly pushed back.
Squish—
Instead, his own sword began piercing his neck.
Blood sprayed from the Salvation Sovereign's neck.
It seemed his head would sever any moment.
"Salvation Sovereign, allow me to grant you your first death."
Just before the Salvation Sovereign's neck fully severed.
Pop—
Something burst from the shadows behind Leon and the Salvation Sovereign.
It was a single staff.
At the same time, a small gem-like crystal rose.
Leon's eyes widened massively.
He realized the shadow's identity.
"Syria Nosferatu!"
As he cried out the Vampire Queen's name, the crystal glowed.
Booooooom!
A massive explosion swept the area amid the deafening blast.
It was fierce enough to shake even hero-grade knights.
Whoosh!
A white beast burst through the explosion's smoke.
Leon in White Lion Transformation.
Leon grimaced like a demon, soot smeared darkly on his skin.
The explosion just now.
He knew who had caused it.
The one leaving absurd explosion scars everywhere lately.
And the master of the Vampire Queen, against whom Leon harbored an inexplicable grudge.
"Abyss."
The pinnacle of necromancers, great evil of the world.
As expected, he was here.
Whoosh!
Thick smoke from the explosion filled the surroundings.
As the knights and Leon cleared the smoke, they realized it wasn't just smoke enveloping them.
Darkness.
The darkness had slipped through the smoke to swallow them whole.
With the darkness devouring the light, visibility went black.
The sudden darkness didn't vanish even when slashed.
Leon scowled as he swung his greatsword with full force.
'Vast.'
He couldn't gauge the scale of the darkness.
'The Salvation Sovereign.'
He must have been caught in the explosion too.
Even if shattered, the immortality blessing would restore him.
Abyss knew this and detonated without hesitation.
Though an ally, his hand was ruthless.
"Captain, poison lurks in the darkness. A particularly vicious kind."
At that moment, a knight reported to Leon.
As he said, the darkness contained thick poison.
Poison crafted solely for killing.
But the knights wouldn't falter from mere poison.
It was pointless, but the darkness held more than just poison.
From the darkness came an incomprehensible string of voices.
Leon immediately raised and slammed his sword down.
Bam!
The voice scattered and shattered under his strike.
Leon's face twisted savagely.
"A curse! Form a defensive formation!"
The knights hurriedly gathered and activated a joint skill.
A defensive skill against mental interference like curses.
But the darkness was only beginning.
Skitter-skitter-skitter!
Whirrr-whirrr!
From the darkness came the sound of masses of insects fluttering wings or crawling.
An utterly repulsive noise poured from all directions.
The knights' faces gradually tensed.
Trained as imperial knights though they were, they were still human.
They too harbored primal fears.
And swarms that awakened those fears appeared all at once.
Thousands, tens of thousands of venomous pests charged.
The knights formed their formation and swung their swords.
They cleaved through the nightmare insects endlessly.
Splat!
Crushing an insect released spores from within.
The spores, laced with poison, clung to the knights.
The knights' faces hardened in an instant.
All the while, curse voices continued endlessly.
Darkness, curses, poison, venomous bugs, and spores.
Valantia Mining Village, peaceful moments ago, turned into the heart of hell in an instant.
And the architect of this hell was one person.
A necromancer.
Crunch!
Leon crushed an incoming venomous bug in his massive hand.
At the same time, his eyes flashed with fury.
Beyond the darkness, he sensed what he presumed was Abyss.
He was underestimating them; time to teach him a lesson.
"White Lion Knights!"
His shout reached the knights behind.
"Breakthrough formation."
The White Lion Knights moved in unison.
Though two had fallen to the Salvation Sovereign, they quickly filled the gaps.
Leon led at the forefront, greatsword aimed forward.
Venomous bugs clung to his legs, but he ignored them.
Their fangs couldn't pierce Leon's skin anyway.
Explosive power surged from Leon's body.
That power transmitted fully to the knights.
Leon and the White Lion Knights began merging as one.
Fwoosh!
White flames erupted from them all at once.
The flames incinerated every approaching venomous bug.
As the scattering flames took the shape of a white lion.
Thoom!
Leon's foot stomped the ground.
"Advance."
With his roar-like command, the White Lion Knights stomped forward in unison.
The white lion forged of white flame charged through the darkness.
Venomous bugs couldn't block it and shattered entirely.
As they tore through even the darkness.
Ruuuumble!
Something blocked Leon and the knights' path.
He had judged Abyss would be there and broken through.
But incredibly, a massive boulder stood there.
As Leon casually moved to smash it with his greatsword.
He belatedly sensed something off.
The boulder and surroundings felt strange.
Even with vision obscured by darkness.
This felt like a closed cave space.
Then it hit Leon.
This was Valantia Mining Village.
'Which way did we charge?'
The mine.
The mine.
They were inside the Valantia mine!
Leon had chased Abyss right into the mine on his own feet.
"Turn direction, everyone!"
"You catch on quick."
As Leon shouted belatedly, a voice echoed from somewhere.
At the mine entrance revealed through the darkness.
A Half Dark Elf poked his head from the shadows.
He smiled faintly as his eyes met Leon's.
"Fierce Poison Storm."
With his cry, the poison cloud filling the mine glowed.
―――――――!
An explosion that devoured even sound swallowed the entire area.
That was the day the Valantia Mine collapsed.