Chapter 90
Chapter 90
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 90
Chapter Title: Those Who Worship Death (7)
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Necromancers just manipulate corpses from the rear, so wouldn't facing one head-on be easy?
That was Cain's initial thought. But now that the battle had truly begun...
Cain was forced to revise it. If the strong foes he'd faced before were towering walls,
Melisto was the sea—an endless abyss. Bones erupting from the ground shattered his idle musings.
Cain dodged the bone in a hurry, but he couldn't evade the hand that suddenly appeared at his back.
It was just a light touch. Yet that alone was enough to corrode his armor in an instant and reach his flesh.
"Your life and soul shall serve me, becoming stepping stones for my advance."
"Kuh...!!"
"Fall for a moment. I'll revive you shortly."
His flesh rotted away in seconds. Even the remaining patches of unspoiled meat were devoured by maggots that bubbled up and swarmed over them.
Still, he gritted his teeth to the last and swung his sword, but Melisto merely watched on with amusement.
His final, futile resistance didn't last long. He'd collapsed because even the tendons in his legs had been gnawed away.
Energy Drain.
A death magic that absorbed life force. And it wasn't something triggered merely by contact—it was a basic passive.
What that meant was simple: the instant any of Melisto's spells connected even once, it was over.
'Yeah, it's way better if I handle this bastard myself. I nearly lost some valuable troops otherwise.'
Master-level powerhouses probably wouldn't fall to him, but Melisto was a monster on par with them.
Plus, allowing even a single attack through was as good as instant death. Variables everywhere.
To eliminate those variables... Melisto was best marked by Cain personally.
He barely dodged the hand creeping up from behind and instinctively drove a kick into Melisto's gut, sending him flying far away.
His legs were armored, at least, and the contact hadn't been prolonged, so he avoided the rotting from before.
It was far from an easy fight, but he was steadily building experience and countering bit by bit.
"...You're wielding a peculiar power. Are you treading the same path as I? Or perhaps a Death Knight?"
"As if."
"A pity. I thought you might be a fellow practitioner."
One more thing he'd realized through repeated deaths: Melisto was thoroughly avoiding his death force.
Meanwhile, swords or strikes without it inflicted zero damage.
No fool would fail to grasp Melisto's weakness.
Simply predicting his own death wasn't enough to win. He had to move one step faster than the enemy.
"From the start again!"
He forcibly imprinted the enemy's patterns and attacks into his mind. He didn't even need to remember them. Death would reset it anyway.
Death was the most intense memory of all. Even if his mind forgot, his body remembered.
Thanks to that, Cain could move far faster than he'd expected. His body reacted before his mind could.
The jet-black greatsword instantly swatted away Melisto's deathly hand materializing at his back. Bone shards scattered.
Melisto hadn't fully evaded; his pinky finger smashed to pieces against the blade.
Cain's eyes gleamed at the sight. Unlike before, when he'd struck without death force, there was no regeneration this time.
"Looks like you can't regenerate after all."
"......"
"Good. Then I can kill you."
"A truly strange power. Just making contact affects the life vessel... but that's all it amounts to."
Melisto made a casual gesture. With that alone... a calamity capable of engulfing an army of ten thousand descended.
Amid an ominous rumble, it revealed itself: a green gale reeking of rot.
Soldiers' armor and flesh rotted and peeled away under the storm that erupted from the clear sky.
Of course, Cain had sensed the foul omen and tried to block it. He'd simply failed.
'If I'd succeeded from the first try, I'd have been called a Master by now.'
He'd focused every nerve, even activated his foresight—yet still failed. No excuses.
But he couldn't afford to despair after one failure. There was too much to protect behind him. So he rose again.
Opening his eyes, he saw the Elder Lich who'd lived for centuries. Staring at those eerie bones, Cain vowed.
That fucking bony claw...
I’ll cut it off for sure.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ The tide of battle was turning in their favor. At least for the moment.
The Empire's elite troops weren't so feeble as to be pushed back by a mere corpse legion.
But the real issue was that the corpses kept reviving like ghosts, no matter how many times they were cut down.
Morgana, who'd taken command from Cain, clicked her tongue.
'Scardi and Chris are holding the Death Knights for now... but the troops are starting to wear down bit by bit.'
Miraculously, there were still no fatalities, thanks to the intel Cain had provided.
Without his rough outlines of the enemy's traits and movements, they'd have suffered serious losses.
Especially those undead that hid underground like antlion pits before bursting out—things she'd never seen before.
'And there were others too. He spotted them all instantly? How?'
It went beyond mere tactical brilliance. It was like a prophet foreseeing the future.
But no time for dwelling—he'd handed over command willingly and shared the info to boot.
Once the table was set, the least you could do was not flip it over.
Yet Princess Morgana wasn't the only one burning with resolve on this field.
"Her Highness is holding up decently."
"If you've got time to assess the battlefield, help out!!"
"Yeah, you're enduring better than I thought too..."
"Sis???"
"So keep holding!!"
His ominous hunch hadn't missed the mark. Scardi charged forward without a moment's hesitation.
Abandoning her precious little brother amid the throng of Death Knights. Chris screamed in anguish.
"Sis!!! What am I supposed to do!!!"
"We need to prioritize cleaning out the trash controlling the Death Knights first!!"
"Then at least say so... damn it!!"
Chris barely parried the sword from a Death Knight's ambush. He hadn't been careless.
Which meant... the Death Knight before him was no ordinary one.
His past self might have fallen for it. Back when he was just a frog in a well, ignorant of the world.
'Everyone's risking their lives to defend the Empire. And what was I doing? Swinging my sword for empty glory.'
The strongest sword, the finest blade—that was what Chris had craved. He'd devoured sword after sword in pursuit.
But what had it amounted to? Had he protected even one person with all those blades? Of course not...
In contrast, Cain's sword was blunt and crude to a fault, yet that greatsword existed solely to protect everyone.
Since that day, Chris had redoubled his brutal training. All to chase even a step behind him.
"Come at me all at once! Chris von Leonhardt will take you on!!"
The man hailed as the Empire's greatest genius, now with relentless effort on top. He had no choice but to grow stronger.
Thanks to that, the battlefield was a deadlock where no one yielded. Or rather, Melisto was being pushed back.
It was inevitable... Cain was predicting every one of Melisto's moves, as if reading his mind.
'He knows exactly what I'm about to do. Does he really possess the power to see the future?'
Judging this couldn't continue, Melisto teleported to create distance. He'd sweep them all away.
But the instant he teleported, Melisto—rarely for him—stared in shock at the scene before him.
The jet-black greatsword Cain had wielded was somehow right in front of him again, post-teleport.
'He predicted I'd teleport here?! Kuh...!!'
Even in that dire moment, Melisto summoned all his mana to erect a barrier.
Yet not even an Elder Lich's barrier could halt the jet-black blade infused with death force.
Boom! The barrier shattered, and the greatsword plunged down like a thunderbolt, claiming Melisto's right hand.