Chapter 150
Chapter 150
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 150
Chapter Title: Collapsed Vallantia Mine
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Collapsed Vallantia Mine.
A thick haze of smoke billowed out from its entrance.
The mine had exploded entirely, turning Vallantia Village into a wasteland.
The village had already been on the verge of collapse.
Now, not a single intact building remained.
Thud!
In that instant, the entire ground of Vallantia began to rumble.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
It felt like a massive beast stirring and roaring.
The earth shook as if struck by an earthquake.
The source of the noise was deep inside the collapsed mine.
Inside the mine.
White Lion Knight Order Leader, Leon.
His face twisted with rage as he demolished the ruined mine.
With every swing of his greatsword, chunks of the mine exploded outward.
The swirling aura around Leon's body pulverized the dust clouds.
"Get your heads straight, all of you!"
"Yes, sir!"
Leon bellowed, and the knights behind him responded in unison.
They madly burrowed through the completely collapsed mine.
Just before the poison filling the mine detonated all at once...
Leon had thrown himself forward, taking the blast head-on.
As a result, his armor was mangled, and his arms badly scorched.
But his valiant body withstood the Abyssal magic directly.
20 Ascensions, Platinum Hero rank.
He demonstrated exactly what that meant.
Of course, even sacrificing himself, he couldn't block the entire explosion.
Several knights were buried under the collapsing mine amid the blast and fell unconscious.
Naturally, he couldn't stop the explosion's shockwave from surging toward the mine's entrance.
The mine began to fully crumble as a result.
Crunch!
Leon ground his teeth in fury.
His own blunder filled him with shame.
To be toyed with this badly by a single necromancer.
Had the White Lion Knights ever suffered such humiliation in their history?
Even with the Savior Lord present, they shouldn't have been pushed this far.
'And besides.'
Leon still hadn't even seen the Abyss's face.
He had thoroughly hidden in the shadows, fighting the White Lion Knights.
Even though the White Lions had struck first, they fell for his schemes.
'What kind of monster is he?'
Leon recalled the warning from the imperial necromancer.
"Be cautious when facing the Abyss. He's far more cunning than you can imagine."
Cunning.
Now he understood what that word truly meant.
He knew exactly how to corner and kill people.
Leon swallowed hard.
This bastard would become a threat to the empire someday.
He had to be eliminated here and now.
The moment he steeled his resolve, Leon's eyes widened slightly.
Inside the collapsed mine.
He noticed the shadows had changed.
Vampire Queen, Syria Nosferatu.
Realizing she was on the move, Leon shouted.
"Tighten formation, everyone!"
The instant he cried out, an old man burst from the shadows at the rear of the knights.
An elder blind and deaf, wielding a long sword.
The Savior Lord.
As soon as he appeared, Leon kicked off the ground and leaped back.
No matter how elite the White Lion Knights, none could face the Savior Lord head-on.
Only Leon could handle him.
'Damn it.'
The recent noble power grabs had poached veteran knights, leaving gaps that were felt now.
But on the battlefield, blaming circumstances wasn't an option.
Leon activated White Lion Transformation and confronted the Savior Lord.
Leon never lost to the Savior Lord.
The Savior Lord knew this too.
Moments ago, in their clash, he'd been completely overpowered in raw strength.
So Leon was confident he'd dispatch him easily again.
Kaboom!
Sure enough, the clash between Leon and the Savior Lord favored Leon.
However, with Leon away from the front, there was no one to breach the mine.
The collapsing mine surged into the gap.
The knights hurriedly reformed their disrupted lines.
The moment knights rushed to fill Leon's spot...
Whoosh!
Two Sword-Tooth Clan members sprang from the shadows.
They swung their weapons at the knights the instant they emerged.
The knights swung their swords to counter the sudden assault.
Clang!
A harsh metallic ring echoed, iron oxide sparking flames.
The force behind the weapons was something the knights could handle.
But that wasn't their aim.
The knights had spent their turns blocking Hanok and the Shadow Warlord's attacks.
They couldn't seal the crumbling mine's gaps.
In that interval, Hanok and the Shadow Warlord finished their business and vanished into the shadows again.
"Aaaargh!"
"Gaaargh!"
Two knights failed to brace against the pouring debris and were buried.
No time to use skills.
In this confined space, half-hearted skills would backfire.
And that judgment led to them being crushed.
Of course, being buried wouldn't kill the knights.
But they'd be pinned until someone dug them out.
The front line emptied in an instant.
The formation fell into even greater chaos.
The remaining knights desperately tried to cover the gaps.
Scritch-scratch-scritch!
At that moment, venomous insects began emerging once more.
The shadows endlessly spewed them forth.
Each time they struck, the insects spewed fierce poison spores.
The knights' faces paled.
The oppressive weight of the collapsing mine threatening to crush them.
Enemies freely traversing space.
Stamina depletion from constant sword swings.
And now the insects and spores.
The knights' morale plummeted in seconds.
They were the empire's proud White Lion Knights.
Even they had never faced such a situation.
An endless mine with no end in sight and limited visibility.
The stifling air and labored breaths unique to mines.
Every sense screamed crisis relentlessly.
The morale drop shattered their condition instantly.
The decline showed in their actions.
Mistakes multiplied, muscles stiffened.
They strained not to give up, but their bodies kept choosing surrender.
"Ah, aaaah!"
One knight hallucinated and slashed at harmless rock.
Proof their minds were being eroded.
"What are you doing?!"
Leon's roar followed.
He pressed the Savior Lord while rallying the knights.
"We're White Lions! Don't falter to this!"
Leon's thunderous cry lifted their spirits.
He was desperate to escape this place somehow.
But the situation had deteriorated too far for his words to reach them.
Pfshk!
A sword blade erupted from beneath the lead knight's foot.
It pierced from his sole straight through the top of his foot.
"Aaaargh!"
The knight, nerves on edge, screamed.
He instinctively swung his sword sideways.
Splat!
His reflexive swing cleanly severed the neck of the knight beside him.
The decapitated knight collapsed.
"Uh."
The one who'd struck him down froze in shock.
He'd committed the absurd mistake of killing his comrade.
But an even graver error followed.
He had stopped moving.
"If you stop...!"
Thud!
The knight behind collided with the halted one.
The stopped knight lurched forward.
The collapsing mine and venomous insects filled his vision.
Krunch!
He was buried alive.
The formation crumbled again.
This was the final blow to the mentally frayed knights.
They collapsed one after another under the unrelenting mine.
Some accepted their deaths with hollow resignation.
The chain reaction's cost was immense.
The survivors swung desperately, but the debris overwhelmed them.
Just as death loomed...
"Abyss!"
Leon, having pulped the Savior Lord, yanked his greatsword with full power.
Light haloed his blade like a backlight.
Seeing it, the surviving knights flattened themselves to the ground.
In that instant, blinding light engulfed their heads.
A white lion in the form of flames swung its forepaw with full force.
The entire Vallantia Mine was swallowed by light.
And then.
Kraka-boom!
The mine vanished entirely.
The raging white flames oxidized into the air currents, rising to the sky.
The heavens themselves were dyed white—an overwhelming display of power.
But in exchange, Leon's White Lion Transformation ended.
White Lion Ten Strikes was a finisher used only in White Lion form.
He'd originally saved it for the Abyss.
But he couldn't watch his knights die anymore.
So Leon played his trump card.
Amid the scorched surroundings, Leon gripped his greatsword tightly.
"Hoo."
No need for White Lion form.
He'd smash that vile necromancer flat.
The moment Leon resolved this and looked up.
Above the dispersing White Lion Ten Strikes, under the night sky.
For some reason, tonight's moon seemed unnaturally huge.
No.
It wasn't the moon.
The sun.
A black sun.
"What... is that...?"
One surviving knight muttered absently.
The sight before them defied reality.
Before the black sun.
A lone man stood.
His staff aimed skyward, his eyes gleaming in two colors.
One a vivid blood-red.
The other pitch-black darkness.
His multicolored hair fluttered as the man unfurled crimson bat wings.
A transcendent spectacle created by one man unfolded.
Before this scene far beyond human comprehension...
All anyone could do was laugh hollowly.
Leyzon's goal had been singular from the start.
To buy time to complete his spell.
And that goal was now achieved.
Boom!
Leon kicked off the ground and leaped into the sky.
Even he felt his mind reeling as he ascended.
20 Ascensions, Platinum Hero rank.
A monster in a realm higher than the world's renowned powerhouses.
That was White Lion Knight Leader Leon.
Yet before the black sun, his thoughts wouldn't settle.
He leaped purely on the instinct to block it.
But he had no idea how.
The transcendent calamity slowly opened its maw.
In contrast, Leon's pathetic greatsword thrust forward.
He poured every SSS-rank skill into his blade.
Immense power surged from his greatsword.
A strike laden with belief it could cleave the world.
But not this time.
His sword couldn't even touch the black sun, let alone the world.
That certainty gripped him.
"It's all charged up now."
Leyzon raised the black gem in his off-hand, away from the staff.
The gem screamed in his grasp.
Its final scream seeped into the black sun.
That special effect faded as the timer expired.
Thus, every spell during the fusion magic preparation had crit.
Preparation complete.
Leyzon aimed his staff at the leaping White Lion.
"Fierce Poison Cataclysm."
⟨ 'Abundance' Activates ⟩
Crack—
The black sun split open.
All light in the area was devoured by encroaching darkness.
No sound. No light.
The black sun simply opened its maw.
And in the end, everything in the area ceased to exist.
Including Vallantia Mine Village today.
The day that entire region was erased from the map.