Corpse Explosion
[Assault.]
Simon issued the Absolute Order through the power of the crown. The horde of zombies surged upward like a colossal wave and hurled itself at Manus all at once.
To the Empire.
Manus raised his swordpoint to the sky. There was only the dark heavens that no sunlight reached and the blood-red clouds — but this was his ritual.
May there be glory.
Manus tightened his grip on his blade. Tracing a sleek, graceful line, the steel swept down from above.
Shreeeeng!
The oncoming wave split vertically, and with a sharp crack! the zombies went flying in every direction.
-Uwooooooooh!
-Kiiiiiiih!
The waves of zombies came again and again — the second, the third, crashing down upon him. Each time, Manus swung his sword and cleaved the tide in two.
The force with which each strike quelled the wave proved beyond any doubt that his reputation as a Swordmaster was no empty boast.
Shring!
He cut through the fourth wave just the same — and as it split down the middle and parted to either side, the fifth wave, with Simon riding its crest, came crashing in right behind it.
[……!]
Manus severed the fifth wave with lightning speed, but Simon, perched atop the crest, came flying at him like a comet.
Manus hastily raised his sword above his head.
BOOOOOOOOM!
Blade met blade head-on.
The ground caved in, and the wind itself shrieked. The zombie swarm behind Simon and the skeleton unit behind Manus were flung in all directions by the head-on gale alone.
Tch!
Locked in a contest of strength, Simon let out a bitter laugh.
This guy really is absurdly strong.
[Magnificent!]
Manus seemed to be thinking the same thing, the corners of his mouth curving upward.
As they strained against each other, blade to blade, Manus's sword twisted at an exquisite angle, sending Simon's greatsword sliding upward.
"!"
His strength was scattering.
Before Manus could move into his next motion, Simon detonated jet-black through both legs and vaulted upward like a tumbling acrobat. Manus twisted back and swung; Simon hurled a slash of his own in answer.
CLANG!!
When those two colossal forces collided, the very fabric of space seemed to warp.
The moment Simon touched down, Manus was on him, sword flashing.
KAKAKAKAKAKANG!
The two titans traded offense and defense without pause. Lines of white and black chased each other's tails, crisscrossing in a dizzying tangle that densely embroidered the empty air.
Both slipped into the state of selfless focus, sparks flying as their weapons crashed together, striking and retreating, striking and retreating again.
"Ngh!"
He was being overwhelmed. Even wearing Pier, he was losing ground in pure swordsmanship.
[A necromancer has no weaknesses. You excel at everything. But that excellence becomes your flaw.]
SHLAAACK!
Simon gasped, his eyes dropping. Before he even realized it, his left shoulder had been cleaved open, a fountain of blood erupting skyward — and the strike had aimed precisely for the seam between segments of Pier's Bone Armour.
It cut clean through even Kizen's uniform!
Simon scrambled backward.
[But I offered my soul to the sword and honed nothing else for my entire life. To be good at everything is, in the end, to be master of nothing.]
"……"
Simon's eyes hardened.
He could dismiss everything else as so much noise, but one thing was unmistakably clear: even with Pier's power, he was no match for this man in swordplay. He was, without question, a Swordmaster.
And yet.
"Fine — then here's my question."
Simon still had room to spare.
"Why is it that your kind perished?"
[……!]
Manus seized his hilt, face twisted with fury. Simon flashed a grin and leapt far back, mounting the wave of zombies once more.
This wasn't some tired platitude about how necromancers are the trend of the age while knights have been left behind by time.
Simon's golden eyes gleamed.
"You're wrong. Being good at everything — you know what that actually means?"
Simon raised his arm.
"It means you're simply strong."
-Kieeeeeeek!
-Uwoooooooh!
Tens of thousands of zombies roared. At some point, zombies from beyond the manor had joined the ones already there, swelling their numbers even further.
[Wait, boy! Embracing that much death-will is a gamble beyond reason! You've already reached your limit!]
"Then I'll gladly push past it."
There was no stopping him now. Captivated by euphoria and exhilaration, Simon clenched his fist.
The crown's golden light erupted upward and coiled around his body. Under that electrifying focus, Simon's eyes gleamed.
One more time.
[Follow me.]
Simon's blue-black jet-black engulfed the zombies' bodies — no longer like smoke, but like flame. The dead bellowed endlessly, praising and worshipping their new king.
Once more, the Absolute Order descended upon every zombie gathered here.
The command of a being no one could defy was but a single one.
[Bring me his head.]
At that one command, the zombies moved as a single organism.
They began climbing onto one another's bodies, and then climbing atop those, and atop those again. No longer a wave — they rose like a towering tsunami.
Manus looked around in alarm.
Before he knew it, a tsunami of zombies surrounded him on all sides. His skeleton subordinates who had been nearby were nowhere to be seen — taken down without him ever noticing.
[Guhk!]
Tsunamis studded with thousands of eyes advanced on him, shaking the very earth.
Manus slashed at them in terror. Swinging, swinging again, again and again, countless times.
But each time a sword-stroke brought a wave crashing down, the zombies behind it poured into the gap and the tide swelled anew. However many times he drowned the surge, its feral momentum would not break.
[GRAAAAAAH!]
And then.
The body of the tsunami came crashing down on Manus.
KUGUGUGUGUGUGU!
Manus leapt skyward as if to take flight, dodging and dodging again — but in the end, the current of dead flesh swallowed him whole.
In an instant, his torso and skull were buried under a mountain of zombies. In the terrifying间隙 of pure killing intent, only Manus's arm remained visible — and then even that vanished.
A moment later.
A mountain of zombies had formed over Manus, pinned beneath it. And there was a man watching the scene unfold from directly in front of him, eyes blank with disbelief.
……How is this possible?
Prince could only gape at what he was witnessing.
This — this is what the crown is truly meant for.
Even he had never seen this effect before — zombies becoming legion-bound the instant Simon donned the crown, their physical abilities soaring as a result.
Is that guy even human?
Pier was marveling just the same.
[Kheheh! Neutralizing him was well done, boy, but—]
He shifted his gaze.
[You can't kill him like this. So what will you do n—]
Pier's words died in his throat.
Something was wrong with Simon. Even with the crown on, he'd been controlling the power properly — but now his eyes had lost focus, hovering on the edge of blankness.
[Hey! Boy!]
He's drunk on power.
Processing too much death-will had created a delay, and his reason was on the verge of boiling away.
Pier hastily severed his link with Simon and withdrew from the Bone Armour into his original form. He tried to pull off the crown — it didn't budge an inch.
The crown refused. Simon refused.
And yet even now, Simon was moving with steady purpose. He was driving the zombies back with the death-will. The great mountain of the dead was shaping itself into a hill.
And in that state, Simon was raising a magic circle.
This kid……!
Simon hadn't lost his reason at all.
In this very moment, the greatest concentration of his life was at work. Time had slowed to an extreme crawl to process the calculations, leaving his body unable to respond — that was all.
What on earth kind of magic circle is he building?
'!!!!'
Pier's jaw dropped as he recognized the circle.
He had followed Simon's school life closely — and there was no mistaking it. He had never once been taught this spell.
He could never have encountered it anywhere.
……No. He didn't learn it.
Not acquired through concepts or knowledge —
he was grasping it through pure intuition.
A way to crush Manus beneath the zombie horde, and then destroy what lay beneath. The fruit of that thought was unfolding in the magic circle being drawn across Simon's right arm.
One might call it a dark magic that already existed — but in this moment, Simon was, without question, creating dark magic.
"Whew."
Simon extended his right arm — toward the very spot where hundreds of zombies lay packed dense together.
Manus was struggling on the ground, doing whatever he could to break free. The horde churned and seethed.
Pier's eyes blazed a razor-sharp blue.
There's no doubt.
That dark magic was the emblem of the necromancers during the 100-Year War.
The most terrible terror of all.
The flower of all flowers in the necromancer's garden.
Simon slowly turned his right hand over.
[……Corpse—]
Then he clenched his fist tight.
[—Explosion.]
The world turned blinding white. The last thing Pier saw was the sight of the hundreds of zombies blanketing Manus going berserk, their cores erupting, blue-black jet-black gushing forth. And then —
KUWOOOOOOOOOOOM!
An explosion beyond all description.
The zombies had driven their own cores into rampage and burned their entire bodies to fuel it — a cataclysm wearing the name of an explosion swept away everything in its reach.
The fury it could not contain gushed upward, billowing into the shape of a colossal mushroom.
KUGUGUGUGUGU!
Surrounding trees were torn out by their roots, zombies sent tumbling through the air. Every window in the manor shattered, and the walls came crashing down.
……Unbelievable.
Prince could only stand there with his mouth hanging open.
'Insane' is the only word for it.
As the smoke of the explosion drifted away, Manus's torso was gone without a trace — only his skull remained, lying alone on the scorched ground.
True to his station as a Swordmaster, he had poured every last measure of jet-black into his skull and tried to hold out through defense alone — but in the end, it hadn't been enough.
Simon walked over and confirmed it: Manus's death-will had already dissipated into nothing.
"Rest in peace, Swordmaster."
Leaving those words behind, Simon tucked Manus's skull into his subspace.
[Hey! Boy!]
Pier hurried after him.
[Are you truly all right?! Corpse Explosion — how on earth did you……!]
Simon couldn't answer. He simply swayed where he stood, his body tipping over toward Pier.
Tap.
The crown fell to the ground. The blue-black jet-black that had been overflowing from the zombies' bodies began to slowly fade in turn.
"Heheh! Pier, I did well, didn't I?"
[……You reckless fool, through and through.]
Just then, Prince came trudging over, his face blank with awe.
"I told you, didn't I?"
Simon grinned at him.
"That I'd show you how to win."
[You — what in the world……]
But the rest of Prince's words never came. Simon's consciousness cut out, and he crumpled where he stood.
[What a Legion Commander who needs constant babysitting!]
And yet, as Pier hoisted Simon onto his shoulder, his face — his voice — brimmed with a pride deeper than anyone else's in the world.