Chapter 146: Harvest Day (13)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 146: Harvest Day (13)
“You’re not sure…?”
Thick veins bulged on Octan’s arms and legs. With a roar, he pushed Cloud’s sword away with all his might.
“Then I’ll make you feel it!”
Octan took a deep breath. His chest swelled, and the breath he exhaled shot toward Cloud, mixed with black flames.
Cloud kicked off the ground with superhuman leg strength.
Thud!
Once from where he’d kicked off.
Thud!
Once from the wall to Octan’s right.
Thud!!
And once right beside Octan.
A series of dull thuds echoed.
In an instant, Cloud was at Octan’s side.
Before the cracks could even finish forming on the floor and wall he’d kicked off from, he swung his sword down.
Clang!
His sword failed to cut through Octan’s shoulder and bounced off.
Throughout this entire sequence, Octan couldn’t react properly at all. Only when Cloud’s sword bounced off did he realize what was happening and expand the black flames enveloping his body.
Cloud backed away to avoid touching the black flames.
Octan frowned, clutching the shoulder his sword had struck.
The skin hadn’t been broken.
But the bone underneath ached.
As if he’d been hit with a blunt weapon.
‘He ignored the effect of the Giant Armored Scorpion Pattern?’
Octan didn’t know that Cloud possessed a pattern. Therefore, he was unaware that Cloud had used the Ogre’s Pattern, or that it came with a 50% armor penetration option.
His momentum faltered as the power he thought invincible was so easily overcome.
Of course, it had only faltered; he hadn’t given up the fight.
Octan’s eyes glowed red.
[Medusa’s Pattern]
Paralyzes all living beings within line of sight for a short time.
Cloud froze, stiffening.
Octan immediately rushed toward him and leaped high.
“Die!”
He brought the twin-bladed axe in his hands crashing down.
Just before the axe blade reached the crown of Cloud’s head, Octan was certain of his victory.
He couldn’t hide his shock when the axe was repelled and his own body was thrown backward.
“What the—!”
That was a strike mixed with sword aura and black flame.
And he just repelled it?
Something that even he, with his Giant Armored Scorpion Pattern, wasn’t sure he could do—with the body of an ordinary human?
It was impossible.
But it had happened.
What kind of trick did he pull?
Deeply flustered, Octan failed to notice that Cloud’s earring had turned black.
Even if he had noticed, what happened next would not have changed.
As Octan’s center of gravity shifted backward, leaving him open, Cloud’s sword drew a red arc.
Drake-style Rapid Swordsmanship
[Leaf Cutting]
As the saying goes, no tree can withstand ten chops.
As if to prove that saying, dozens of strikes from Cloud severed Octan’s right arm. The stump was ragged and torn.
“Gaaah!”
Taking advantage of the opening as the now one-armed Octan screamed, he struck again.
And just like that, Octan lost his left arm as well and went rolling across the floor.
The black flames that had enveloped his body vanished.
“This scene… doesn’t it feel familiar for some reason?”
Thump, thump.
The footsteps of a reaper approaching.
Octan gritted his teeth.
‘No.’
How did I even make it this far!
‘Just one more step.’
All I need is one more step.
Then I can become a great chieftain whose name will be remembered for generations.
Octan pressed his forehead to the floor.
“Hnngh!”
From that position, he used his core strength to push himself up. But he was a little too slow. Cloud was already right in front of him.
Cloud reached out and grabbed Octan’s neck.
‘Now!’
Octan snapped his head up and spat the saliva he’d gathered. Medusa’s Venomous Sting. The moment it seeps into the skin, most living creatures die instantly.
Splat—
The venomous spit landed squarely on Cloud’s cheek. The poison seeped in the moment it touched his skin. Blackened veins bulged around the point of contact.
The black veins began to spread across his entire face. When they reached his eyes, thick drops of blood trickled down like tears.
It was a situation where the poison had clearly taken effect.
But Octan couldn’t smile.
“You’ve got a lot of little tricks, don’t you?”
Because the more he cried tears of blood, the more the black veins disappeared.
‘What is this...’
Medusa’s venom was so virulent that even the Great Chieftain Lugar had been reluctant to use it.
And he neutralizes a poison like that so easily?
No.
‘Neutralize’ isn’t the right word.
It was closer to extracting the poison.
But is something like that even possible?
“What are you… Are you even hu… Gack…”
Cloud tightened his grip on Octan’s neck. There was nothing Octan could do as his airway was crushed. He ground his teeth in frustration.
“Dammit… I was just one step away…! If it weren’t for you…!!”
“...”
Cloud let go of Octan’s neck.
His windpipe freed, Octan gasped for the air he’d been denied.
To him, and to the shaman watching from a distance, Cloud said, “Go on.”
…?”
“The one you were trying to summon with this whole pathetic ritual. Summon him now.”
The shaman stared at Cloud with a dumbfounded expression. What’s his intention? Is he serious? How should I react?
As he stood there frozen, Octan shouted, “Shaman, what are you doing?! Hurry and summon him!”
Snapping back to his senses at Octan’s cry, the shaman examined the altar. The thousands of souls had merged into one. It was as if they had been reborn as a single soul.
The perfect vessel to contain a lich.
With the preparations complete, there was no reason to delay any longer.
The shaman began to chant, warily eyeing Cloud.
“Oh, treasure of intellect, sorcerer of a millennium. Oh, king of death who scoffs at the living. The sacrifice and vessel for you have been prepared.”
The words the shaman murmured sounded less like a spell and more like praise for the lich.
And in fact, that’s what it was.
The spell had no binding power.
It was merely an invitation, telling the lich that the table was set and all he had to do was sit down and eat.
The shaman and Octan both knew this.
Nevertheless, the two orcs had no doubt the lich would come.
After all, he was the one who had reached out to them first, the one who was the hero’s greatest enemy, the one who possessed a mighty power that surpassed the hero’s.
Furthermore, Octan and his horde had paid the price he demanded.
So it was only right that he should come.
Was it in response to the two orcs’ wishes?
A powerful wave of magic power spread out from the altar. Not only the shaman, but Octan too was sent flying, unable to withstand the wave.
Octan quickly raised his head and looked at the wave of magic that had thrown him.
The altar had become the center of the magic wave.
It was shrouded in a black mist that radiated an ominous aura.
Shudder—
Octan’s warrior instincts were telling him. That thing is dangerous. It’s not something to be trifled with. And for that reason, he smiled.
“Hero, what was that you said earlier? To summon him? Hahaha! Yes, he has arrived. How about it? Do you regret your actions now? Don’t you hate yourself for your foolishness?”
Because it was on his side.
Meanwhile, Cloud paid no mind to Octan’s rambling. Keeping his eyes fixed on the altar, he drew the troublesome items from his waist: the Holy Sword and the branch of the World Tree.
And he waited.
In an emotionless state, neither excited nor afraid, he observed the black mist and the ominous state of the mana.
So as not to miss the moment the master of the altar descended.
The result of waiting for a long time.
“What, he’s not coming.”
The black mist swallowed the altar and then vanished.
Octan’s pupils trembled.
“Th-This can’t be…!?”
In a deep cave in the eastern part of the Empire.
Roughly a hundred corpses were laid out, and above them, a man chanted from a black book.
When he finished the incantation, the souls trapped within the corpses emerged and began to merge into one.
Watching this, the man laughed.
“It worked. It worked!!”
The ritual was a success.
With eyes full of anticipation, he approached the soul, which was radiating a powerful aura.
Shunk—
Something shot out from a black mist and pierced him in the chest.
His eyes trembled as he lowered his head.
He saw an emaciated arm bone.
“A bone…?”
Why is there a bone?
I was supposed to be summoning a succubus…?
His thoughts didn’t last long.
The bony hand that had pierced his chest squeezed and crushed his heart.
And so, his grand ambition to seduce a succubus came to a futile end.
“To summon me right in front of the Hero… Centuries may have passed, but an orc is still an orc, I see. So foolish.”
The owner of the hand that had taken the man’s life emerged from within the black mist.
A skeleton dressed in silk clothes.
It was a lich.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve come to the human realm. It’s only right that I enjoy myself a little, wouldn’t you agree?”
He snapped his fingers.
The corpses that filled the cave began to rise one by one. The man with the grand ambition of summoning a succubus was no exception.
They formed two lines and marched out of the cave in an orderly fashion.
An army of the dead, devoid of reason.
Its master, the lich, looked up at the clear sky and smiled.
“Let’s get moving. It seems I’ll need a large army to play with the heroes of this era.”