The Third Brother's Will
The North God's new Three Brothers. And of them, the third — Grayson. She possessed the power to command dead birds, and whether because even the small ones could be summoned, they poured endlessly from the hollow in her back.
If this were left unchecked, the entire northern sky would soon be choked with flying corpses.
I have to do something before the North God seizes Grayson's mind completely.
Simon brushed the feathers from his clothes and gathered his focus.
Hold it, Boy! Herseba's voice rang out through the psychic link. Why are you fighting it yourself? It's dangerous! Fall back with the troops until the other Ancient Undead arrive!
Just a moment is all I need. Simon lowered his stance. There's something I want to find out for myself.
Grayson wept tears of blood as she swept both arms wide. The birds pouring from her back split left and right, then came surging at Simon like a horrific swarm of insects — warped beaks, protruding eyeballs, ruined feathers.
"Royal Guard!"
At Simon's command, the two remaining Royal Guard knights stepped forward, their teal jet-black flowing out to spread a magic circle in the empty air.
"Come out, Knights!"
Skeleton Knights burst from Simon's subspace in answer.
Simon Original – Royal Guard & Blade Storm. His signature technique. The sword-wielding knights spun into a living whirlwind and shredded the oncoming flock to pieces.
"Mages!"
Above them, a colossal subspace yawned open, and Skeleton Mages unleashed their dark magic.
Dark Blaze. The birds diving in from another direction were all consumed by black flames. The moment the flock shielding her thinned, Simon kicked off the ground and charged.
"Grayson! Can you hear me?"
Fwuuuud!
But just before he arrived, a cloud of birds flew in and veiled her body. Simon stopped dead in his tracks — and once the flock had noisily swept past, she was gone without a trace.
"!"
This time the flock spread open behind his back, and within it Grayson's claws came rushing in. Simon leapt backward while twisting his shoulder out of the way.
Not yet!
Even as he dodged, Simon's body spun like a top —
Craaaack!
A picture-perfect roundhouse kick slammed into Grayson's head.
…….
Yet she didn't so much as flinch, taking the kick squarely to the face. Her expression never changed. The blow hadn't properly landed.
Did becoming the Third Brother enhance her physical abilities too?
Simon fell back, drew the Overlord from the ground, and swung — and even that Grayson deflected with a casual flick of her sharpened nails.
Simon.
Her face crumpled with guilt, trembling on the verge of tears.
They're coming from behind you.
"!"
At those words, Simon threw himself aside on pure reflex — and sure enough, the flock came screaming past where he'd stood.
This time from the right — and one's rising from beneath the ground.
It was true. Birds flooded in from the right, while from the earth itself a massive beaked avian undead burst through the soil. Simon flipped into the air to evade; the bird's beak snapped shut over empty air with a bang before sinking back underground.
"Grayson……!"
Simon, please run.
Tears streaming, she raised both arms.
I don't want to kill you.
As she waved her arms like a conductor, every winged avian undead in the North God's army rose into the air and converged on her.
I'm scared. The North God's power is slowly taking over my mind. Soon I might disappear entirely.
Just as he'd expected — Grayson was fighting desperately against the North God's power as it sought to dominate her.
"Understood."
Simon let both arms drop limply to his sides. At that very moment, the bird-undead that had surged up at him earlier thrust its beak out of the ground in a cloud of dust.
Thwack!
Simon lifted his leg and stomped down hard, pinning the beak so it couldn't rise. But the gap in strength was vast, and his leg was being forced back instead.
"Then, from this moment on —"
Clack!
Snk!
Bones flew in and locked onto Simon's right leg, snapping into place like a suit of armor. The instant he poured his strength into it —
Kuuuuung!
The bird-undead was crushed flat, and the ground caved in beneath it.
— Squeeeeeeeee!
The flock encircled Simon from every direction, wheeling in circles. Simon silently extended his right arm. Bones flew to him one after another, linking at his elbow and the back of his hand, and at last the white greatsword settled into place with a snap.
His foot drove forward. His hips turned.
CRUUUUUUUUUUNCH!
A searing white line ripped through the air, and the flock scattered and vanished one bird at a time, like motes of dust swept away in a storm.
Simon, clad in Pier's armor, walked boldly forward.
"From now on, I'll face you with the power of a Legion Commander."
Simon……. Grayson's eyes wavered. A Legion Commander — like the Grand Duke……!
But whether or not she was stunned, her body kept moving with grim precision. She raised more flocks, even drawing in the named flying undead, and the feathered dead gathered around her, spinning up a black storm.
And Simon — smiling faintly — walked straight into that storm of his own accord. The undead came plunging down like arrows from every direction, all of them bent on erasing this one boy.
Simon! Run! she sobbed. Even a Legion Commander can't withstand it! This power is……!
Kheheheh!
Pier's sinister laughter rolled across the battlefield.
What a strange woman! Worrying for others even in undeath — in a way, that's magnificent willpower! Had she opened her core normally and enrolled at the Necromancer Academy, she'd have made a necromancer whose name echoed across the land.
"I agree completely."
Simon breathed power into the Greatsword of Ruin. The bone-white blade, pale as fresh paper, began to darken into a murky, corrupted green.
That technique — can you really use it in live combat?
"Only one way to find out!"
Standing at the heart of the feathered tempest, Simon swung the greatsword with everything he had.
Karl Original – Venom Yaksha. In every direction the blade swept, hounds of concentrated poison surged outward.
At the same moment, Simon — still carrying the momentum of the first rotation — began a second, raising the power of venom once more.
"Haaap!"
This time, a green ring of sword energy fanned out.
Karl Original – Venomous Blast. Birds pressing in, as if devouring space itself. Hounds advancing into them. And the sword energy following hard on the hounds' heels — the instant it touched their bodies —
BOOOOOOOOM!
BOOOOOM!
The hounds' forms collapsed into explosions of poison. The pitch-black surroundings turned green from horizon to horizon, and the incoming birds melted away down to the very bone. Karl's venomous blast didn't end with a single detonation — it kept expanding outward, dissolving the flock as it spread.
Simon slipped out through the gap and charged at Grayson, now standing alone.
"Grayson!"
Pak!
He kicked off the earth and leapt, the soil he'd trampled bursting upward in a wave. From midair, Simon regripped the greatsword and swung for her neck.
Chunk!
The white blade stopped mere inches from Grayson's throat. The skin caught at its tip split slightly, and a single line of black blood ran down her neck and slid between her breasts.
She wore her trademark goofy smile.
Why did you stop?
Simon bit his lip. "Because you stopped first."
Her arm — the one that had been aiming for his flank — hung trembling in place, frozen mid-strike. She hadn't even tried to dodge the Greatsword of Ruin as it flew at her throat.
She seized her own arm with her other hand. She was refusing the North God's command to attack him. Simon's eyes twisted with fury, and he threw his body forward.
Kudang!
The two of them tangled and crashed to the ground. Pinning Grayson beneath him, Simon drove the Greatsword of Ruin into the earth and tilted it sideways until its edge rested at her neck.
One ounce more of pressure, and the blade would fall and take her head.
Simon. she said. Even as she wrestled against the North God's dominion, that goofy smile hadn't changed. I have a last request…… no, a favor to ask.
"……"
My father has dementia. He can't work the farm anymore, so I do it in his place. The reindeer farm has been my father's trade — my family's trade — for generations.
She gave a soft, goofy laugh. You remember, don't you? The first day you came to the North, you asked me.
"Pride! Every northerner carries the Pride of Protection. To defend my land, my family, my territory!"
How did it come to this? She stared up at the sky with eyes drained of light. All I ever did was try to protect my life and my family as a northerner — and somewhere along the way, I became the worst kind of traitor, the one who defiled the North's pride itself.
"……"
Simon. She closed her eyes, still smiling. I'm shameless to ask this, I know — but please look after my father. And the farm……
"That part."
Simon's bangs swayed. "You can stay behind and settle it yourself."
What? But I'm dea——
"You're not a corpse yet. Not completely."
Simon placed his hand over her chest, where her core lay. "If you truly care about your father — if you really do carry guilt toward the North — then you settle it."
What?
"An undead isn't a being that has fully died. And you especially — you're a special undead with your reason still intact, aren't you?"
Keiiiiiiiing!
Simon's jet-black began boring into her core. Watching, Pier cried out in alarm.
Reckless, Boy! Have I not told you? The Three Brothers are under a direct contract with the North God! No other necromancer can wrest them away — it is impossible!
"That's exactly why —"
Simon opened his mouth.
"— you never know until you try!"
KWAKWAKWAKWAKWAKWA!
Simon's jet-black began pouring into her core. Now that he'd laid hands on it, there was no backing out.
Khahahaha! A monster of stubbornness — you and that rich fool are cut from precisely the same cloth!
Laughing as if there was no stopping him either, Pier returned to his skeletal form and laid his own hand atop Simon's.
The jet-black of Simon and Pier together began to seize her core.
At once, the North God's jet-black surged up inside it in furious resistance, calling the birds — the ones moving with the Third Brother's power — to its defense.
Protect the little one!
Herseba shouted. Golden cities cracked open across the battlefield, and mummies came pouring out, hurling bandages. Birds snared mid-flight by the wrappings dropped lifeless from the sky, and the moment they hit the ground, they became prey for the mummies.
"Kuh!"
Simon, hand still pressed to her core, coughed up blood. His jet-black was already flowing backward.
That was how solid the contract between the North God and the Third Brother truly was.
S-stop! Please! If this goes on, Simon really might——!
"Then make an opening for me. Grayson!" Simon gritted his teeth. "Just like you kept resisting the North God!"
!
She closed her eyes as if realizing something. And then the bluish jet-black that had been swirling uselessly around her, rebounding off the contract, began — little by little — to be drawn into her core.
Rrrrm-rmm-rmm——
Her body arched upward. She resisted the North God's power to the very end, and accepted Simon's.
Kheheheh! I thought stealing one of the Three Brothers was impossible. Pier's mouth curled upward. But you, Boy — and this woman's will as well — are truly remarkable!
FWAAAAAAAASH!
Something pitch-black began streaming out of her body like a wave in reverse. The convulsions wracking Grayson's frame subsided, and she soon went slack.
"Haah! Whew!"
Simon panted like a madman. And at some point, her eyes had turned a deep blue-green — the same shade as his own jet-black.
"You did well, Grayson."
It was the moment one of the Three Brothers passed, whole and entire, into the 7th Legion.
Gathering the last of her strength, she lifted her arm —
Quaak!
— and clenched her fist fiercely at the empty sky.
Fwuuuuud!
Fwuuuuud!
Every feathered undead that had been under the North God's control was freed at once, scattering upward into the sky.
"What—?"
"The birds……!"
The northern warriors fighting hard at the front lines stood gaping, watching the magnificent spectacle unfold.
The sky had turned pitch-black — with birds taking wing, not falling.
There's no time to rest! Now is the moment — strike!
The Grand Duke, quick to read the tide, issued his orders.
All three Brothers have fallen! Nothing stands in our way any longer. With this momentum — advance on the Abyss!