The Final Descent
They had defeated the Northern God's new Three Brothers.
The third, Grayson, had been especially instrumental. As the 'Third Brother', she had squeezed out the last of her strength to unbind the chains of the flying undead and strip away the Northern God's control over them.
Every flying undead on the battlefield had been liberated, and now the Northern God's army could no longer stop Akemus and the Skullwing Unit. The finest possible stage had been set for them to shine.
On top of that, the combined offensive of the Northern Army, the 2nd Legion, and the 7th Legion pressed ever onward, and the Three Brothers' forces dwindled by the minute.
“They're running!”
“What the hell are you waiting for? Chase them down and butcher every last one!”
With victory in their grasp, the Northern Army raged with wild abandon.
Simon left the cleanup to his legion captains and walked forward.
“Hoooh.”
The vanguard of a battlefield drawing to its close.
Simon removed Pier's skull helmet and gazed out across the mountain range.
A pitch-black hole bored straight into the center of the reddish land.
There it was — that famous Abyss. Where the Northern God lived.
[You've been fighting while wearing Pier, I see.]
There was a faint clatter of armor joints, and the Grand Duke drew up beside him.
She, too, had removed her helmet like Simon. Her long hair swayed, revealing a strikingly beautiful face.
In that moment, as she gazed down at the Abyss with eyes shimmering with countless emotions, her figure was like a masterpiece captured by a master painter.
“You haven't overexerted yourself, have you? I distinctly told you to conserve your strength for the Northern God.”
“I've got plenty left.”
Simon beamed and raised his arm to show her. She gave a small laugh as well.
“Then I'm glad.”
“You're not avoiding my eyes anymore, are you?”
“Don't tease your elders, brat.”
The two of them chuckled under their breath and looked down at the Abyss together.
“We have the momentum. The Northern God has lost a considerable number of troops in this battle, and it will have exhausted itself creating a new Three Brothers. Look.”
She swept her fingertip across the landscape of the Abyss.
“The undead garrisoning the Abyss have thinned considerably. Above all, the fall of the Third Brother freed the flying undead — that was decisive.”
“Yes, it does look that way.”
Simon nodded, then added a question.
“Will Chronos be all right? The First Brother, I mean.”
She suppressed a laugh — hah.
“We couldn't erase him completely, since the Grand General was helping, but we struck his core. He won't be showing his face again in this war, at the very least.”
“That's a relief.”
“Indeed.”
WAAAAAAAH—!
A battle cry echoed faintly in the distance. Far off, the Northern Army and the 2nd Legion, descending from the mountains, were entering the mouth of the Abyss.
The Grand Duke lifted the helmet at her waist and set it back on her head.
[Come. This is the North's final war. Every soldier and every departed soul will open the road before us.]
Simon pressed his skull helmet on with resolute determination.
“Let's go.”
The two Legion Commanders bumped fists.
The decisive battle was upon them.
At the same moment, in Bilkenos.
Tap. Tap.
Godric, the head butler who had not joined the expeditionary force and instead bore the overall responsibility for Bilkenos's defense, was drumming his hooked hand against the armrest of his chair.
'This anxiety is going to drive me mad.'
Gazing at the ceiling with an expression eaten away by worry, he pointlessly stuffed a mouthful of the table's carpet trim in his teeth and gnawed at it.
Truth be told, marching out to battle with only one arm would have eased his mind considerably.
'Are we winning? We aren't losing, surely? What happened to the kingdom army that marched out ahead? Is the Grand Duke safe? What are Romario and Chronos plotting?'
All the worrying did was make his head throb and his mouth go dry. Godric brought his forehead down against the corner of the table with a resounding thunk!
'Calm down. Calm down! I must guard Bilkenos flawlessly against any scheme the Northern God might devise. That is the role the Grand Duke entrusted to me!'
Godric shot up from his seat.
“Who's out there!”
“What now, Mr. Butler?”
One of the cavalry troopers assigned to Bilkenos's defense strolled in with a bored expression. Godric flew into a rage.
“You young whippersnappers get made trooper and think yourselves above your station! Until the Grand Duke returns, you will address me as Commander-in-Chief of Bilkenos!”
“Yessir, yessir.”
Tch. Clicking his tongue, Godric sat back down.
“The war really is winding down, it seems. Northern discipline, once so rigorous, has gone utterly to pot.”
“So why'd you call me?”
“The way I see it, there is no chance the Northern God would collapse this easily.”
Godric stretched out his arm.
“By the Grand Duke's order, every resident of the North has evacuated here to Bilkenos! There must not be so much as a speck of a gap in this city's defenses. Order the troopers to patrol once more — leave nothing uncovered.”
The trooper gave a hollow laugh.
“You know that's the third time today you've given that exact order, right?”
“Dig deeper! Into the smallest, most trivial details! Whether Lady Roxa skipped her drink today! Whether the reindeer dunged more generously than usual! Anything out of the ordinary, report it all—”
“Sir.”
While the two were talking, a warrior entered the office at a swift pace.
“An outsider has entered Bilkenos.”
“!!”
Godric's face flushed crimson.
“Out. Siders?”
Ever since the kingdom army incident, northerners had been terrified of outsiders — ready to bolt at the very word.
To be sure, there was the one exception of Simon, who had entered as the Grand Duke's disciple, but outsiders like Chronos, Romario, and Count Boldmont had always been calamity-bringers, sowers of chaos.
And now, at this most critical of moments, an outsider?
It could not be more suspicious.
“B-boss, your blood pressure's gonna kill you. Take a breath, will ya?”
The trooper snickered.
“What's the big deal about an outsider showing up? Probably just a merchant or an adventurer. What'd they claim as their identity?”
“Th-that's the thing……”
The warrior broke into a cold sweat as he continued.
“They say they're a necromancer.”
Ba-dump. Ba-dump.
Veins bulged one after another across Godric's forehead.
'A. Nec. Ro. Man. Cer?'
Chronos's face flashed through his mind.
“Summon every warrior in the fortress this instant! I'm going myself!”
Godric moved faster than he ever had in his life.
He swept up every soldier in the fortress and came charging through the streets of Bilkenos.
“You've got that necromancer from outside contained, I trust? What manner of person are they?!”
“Ah, well, about that……”
The warrior who'd come to deliver the report scratched his head.
“I haven't seen them with my own eyes either, but word is the warriors are at their wits' end with them. Must be one seriously powerful necromancer, right?”
“At their wits' end?!”
Northerners, burned so many times by outsiders before, would invariably pick a fight the instant one appeared — or at the very least react somehow.
And this latest kingdom army business would have only sharpened that instinct.
Yet they'd been at their wits' end?
Northern warriors did not frighten at mere appearances. Judging by the soldier's words, this had to be a considerable powerhouse.
'A transcendent physical specimen, no doubt about it!'
Godric's mind conjured a hulking giant of a man, his enormous frame packed to its absolute limit with muscle.
“More! Tell me more!”
“Ah! They say they have wings on their back!”
“Wings?”
Godric pictured a monster spreading vast demonic wings from a hulking frame — horns on its head, hands ending in hawk-like claws stretched long and sharp.
It was surely a being the Northern God had sent to seize Bilkenos.
“Damnation! Run faster!”
“Yes, sir!”
Godric and the warriors tore headlong through the streets.
And the moment they arrived at their destination—
“?”
They spotted the outsider at once.
Godric felt his imagination shatter into a million pieces.
Twin braids of pale lavender hair trailing down, a petite frame. A round, adorable face. She wore the black uniform top of a school uniform with a gray skirt.
“Oh!”
The girl, who had been sitting on a wooden crate swinging her legs back and forth as she waited, hopped down. Spotting Godric's party, she came scampering over.
“Hello there!”
She bowed her head politely in greeting, then broke into a beaming smile. Like a puppy overjoyed to see a person, the adorable little bat wings on her back fluttered and flapped.
“The men over there told me to wait here, so that's what I've been doing!”
“……”
Several of the northerners could be seen holding snacks awkwardly, scratching their heads sheepishly.
“What in the…”
All the tension drained out of Godric in an instant, and he glared at the warrior beside him who'd delivered the report. The warrior offered an awkward smile.
“W-well, you see. The wings.”
“We'll be discussing this later.”
The girl blinked and tilted her head. Godric gave a stiff cough.
“State your identity.”
“Oh, yes! I'm Camibarez Ursula, from Kizen!”
“Kizen?”
Godric's eyes went wide.
This tiny girl was a necromancer of that notoriously brutal Kizen?
“Yes! I finished my mission and came to see Simon! I'm going back to school with him!”
The girl said, her wings fluttering away. Godric felt every last ounce of tension leave his body, his shoulders going slack.
'If she means Simon, she's talking about the Grand Duke's disciple.'
“Where is Simon, then? Is he still in his lessons?”
Godric gave a hollow laugh.
“Lessons? Well — you're not wrong, exactly.”
The Abyss.
“HRAAAAAAAAHHH!”
Simon, clad in Pier, swung the Greatsword of Ruin like a madman, cutting down elite undead after elite undead. His whole body was drenched jet-black and crimson with the enemy's blood.
This was the Abyss.
From this endlessly gaping hole, countless undead came pouring out without cease.
[Commander! The path is clear! Go, now!]
'Thank you, Erzebet!'
Every soldier of the Northern Army was fighting at his post.
And while the Ancient Undead in particular took on the North's Named, Simon and the Grand Duke plunged straight down into the Abyss.
At first, he'd assumed that falling into such an open hole would carry them to the bottom in no time. He had been wrong. The gravity within the Abyss differed from the outside. The descent took a great deal of time, and all the while the enemy's attacks kept raining down.
Running along the walls was actually the faster way down.
“Hah! Hah! Kghuh!”
Simon's eyes bulged and his arms trembled violently. His muscles were screaming in pain, and his mouth had gone bone-dry.
But.
'I cannot stop — not even if it kills me!'
The Northern God waited below.
Every soldier and every departed soul was buying him time by any means necessary — he had to see this through. Gritting his teeth, Simon swung his greatsword at the swarm of undead surging up jet-black.
SHRAAAAAAAAK!
Undead split in half, and the Grand Duke drove through the gap.
[Hmph.]
From slightly behind, she loosed arrow after arrow. Black streaks hissed through the air, skewering the heads of colossal undead one after another.
Kiiiiiing!
Then the next arrow she had just formed she fired straight into the sky. It flew only a short distance before bursting apart into a rain of arrows that pierced the undead pouring out of the Abyss.
'Incredible control, as always…!'
Not a single arrow of that dense rain struck Simon, the Grand Duke, or any of the surrounding legion undead.
But even as he marveled, Simon's eyes flew wide.
Named undead guarding the Northern God itself were closing in on the Grand Duke's flank.
“Grand Duke! To your side—!”
[Your final lesson! Insolent wretches!]
At a sweep of her arm, the Phantom Dullahan riding the cliff face along their death steeds came hurtling down like comets and intercepted them.
[Do not treat battle and command as separate things! Carry out both in a single motion!]
“Yes, ma'am!”
Simon swept his arm down as well. The Skullwings seized the black worm-like undead and slammed them against the wall, and Simon finished them with a swing of the Greatsword of Ruin.
[Can you follow me to the very end?!]
She roared as she poured a torrent of arrows into the Abyss.
“I'll follow you no matter what!”
Simon swung the Greatsword of Ruin with everything he had, body and soul.
Now, at last, the two of them had reached the deepest reaches of the Abyss.