Velus Ma'kel
Velus Ma'kel
Under his grip, Aslan felt it—the unmistakable chitin of a Bug. A texture no human frame should ever bear.
He felt that carapace, and a faint smile touched his lips.
He knew exactly what this was.
The phenomenon had no formal name.
The player community called it "partial priestification," and so did everyone else.
It was a rare sight among the faithful.
A privilege granted to those chosen by their god—not full priesthood, but a mark of distinction all the same. You couldn't earn it with shallow piety. It was undeniable proof of genuine faith.
Aslan looked at the soldiers and the Emperor, and understood that they worshipped the God of War with absolute, consuming devotion. A sneer crossed his face.
These people were no longer human.
That was why they had charged in to seize a last descendant of the Ancient Gods without a shred of concern for an emperor's life.
His expression sour, Aslan hoisted the Emperor forward.
*Thud. Thwack!*
"Guhk— guh-hurk!"
Arrows sank into the Emperor's body or skittered off his carapace. Aslan listened to the man scream, then hurled him away.
*Crash!*
As soldiers scrambled to catch their emperor, Aslan lunged straight into them.
"Hup!"
A wet crack—the sound of cervical vertebrae snapping. The Executioner's Sword tore through a soldier's throat and severed his spine in one stroke. A decapitation.
Before the head even finished its arc, a cold prickle crawled up Aslan's scalp. He twisted aside.
*Shhiekt!*
An arrow sliced through the space his forehead had occupied a heartbeat ago. He spotted the volley following in its wake and clicked his tongue.
Too many arrows. Too many archers. And far too many infantry.
The Executioner's Sword, all five kilograms of it, was the wrong tool for this mess.
Lethal, yes—but its balance was terrible, and its weight made it a poor defensive weapon.
Aslan brought it down on a soldier who had rushed in while his head was turned.
*Crunch!*
The blade split metal and cleaved through a skull half-sheathed in chitin. Blood geysered from the fissure.
Aslan ripped the sword free and reached out.
He tore the soldier's helmet off. Beneath it, compound eyes bulged from the man's head. Aslan swung the helmet.
*Clang!*
The helmet cracked against the soldier's skull. The man, mid-lunge with his weapon drawn, reeled and staggered.
Aslan's sword slipped into the opening.
"Gek."
The thrust punched through the soldier's cervical spine. His head snapped backward, and he died without spilling a drop of blood.
Aslan used the sword to shove the corpse aside and twisted away from the spear hurtling toward him from behind.
A long thrust aimed at his gut. He evaded and started to counter—
*Too many.*
He saw the wave of weapons swinging at him from the soldiers charging behind and abandoned the idea. Instead of countering, he dropped flat against the floor.
The sudden low target threw off their aim. Blades hissed through empty air. Aslan's sword swept across their ankles.
*Crack!*
Ankles severed, the charging soldiers toppled. Aslan dragged one of the falling bodies close and yanked the dagger from its belt.
*Shunk!*
In one motion, he drove the dagger up under the soldier's chin, then pulled the slack corpse over his own prone body. A shield against the incoming arrows.
*Thud. Thwack. Thwack-thwack-thwack!*
Six shafts. The impacts sounded like rain hammering a rooftop. Aslan held the twitching corpse steady with each hit, then shouted.
"Angie!"
Angie, busy caving in a soldier's skull with the haft of her spear, yelled back.
"What!"
"Kill the archers first!"
No instructions on how. He didn't need to give them. Aslan repeated a phrase inwardly and drew his legs up, pressing the soles of his boots against the corpse's belly.
*Thunder Call.*
*CRACK-BOOM!*
Thunder roared, and the corpse launched away. It spun through the air, limbs flailing grotesquely, blood trailing down in scattered droplets.
As blood pattered against his forehead, Aslan kicked off the ground and used the recoil to surge upright.
*Thunder Call.*
His third use of the technique today. He reinforced his legs with wild magic and ground his right foot into the stone.
*CRACK-BOOM!*
Thunder rolled, and Aslan launched skyward. Suspended in a moment of weightlessness, he called out.
"Harod, cover however you see fit!"
He reached out. The barrier spell that had been orbiting above Harod and Angie flew toward his hand. He pulled it in and landed on the terrace.
*Screeeech.*
Below, every archer drew their bowstrings in unison.
Even priests mostly died if you hit the vitals. For a Master who was merely human, the vitals were obvious targets.
Heightened Luck sent an icy prickle across his face. Aslan raised the Executioner's Sword and shielded himself.
*Clang-clang-cla-clang!*
Arrows hammered the flat of the blade or glanced off it. The sheer volume pushed him backward.
His heels skidded off the terrace railing and into open air. Aslan whipped his outstretched arm.
The orbiting barrier spell flew in and halted behind him.
*Boom!*
He kicked off the shield, launched himself higher, and raised the Executioner's Sword.
*Crunch!*
He brought it down. The blade bit deep into an archer, whose eyes rolled back as he died. Aslan released the hilt and threw his body into a lean.
"Kyaak!"
Another archer charged, shrieking. Aslan ducked under the thrusting arrow and wove his arm around the archer's, trapping it.
*Bam!*
The world flipped. The archer felt reality spin and slammed into the ground. A wild-magic-reinforced stomp caved in his skull.
Aslan snatched the arrow from the entangled arm, then seized the bow from the first dead archer. He nocked and loosed at the nearest target.
*Twang!*
The arrow blazed like a lightning bolt—and pierced through. The archer clutched his throat with a choked sound and collapsed. Behind him, his comrade stared in horror and pulled back his bowstring.
Aslan read the bow's trajectory, let the cold pulse of Luck guide him, and dropped low as he scooped the next arrow from the ground and fired.
"Volley fire!"
Desperate now, the archers loosed as one. Arrows sheeted through the air. Aslan threw himself flat to the stone and grabbed a quiver.
*Thunk!*
"Ngh."
An arrow punched into his ankle, but surging Fighting Spirit numbed the pain into irrelevance. The moment the spike dulled, Aslan yanked five arrows from the quiver and set them against the string.
Far faster than the archers who had already nocked their own shafts, he loosed.
Two arrows every half-breath, leaving the string in a staccato rhythm.
*Twang. Twang-twang-twang-twung!*
"Hurk."
"Ugh—aghk!"
Five arrows through the air. Two archers died. The third took an arrow to his helmet and another through the leg.
As the man staggered and crumpled, Angie vaulted onto the terrace and drove her spear home.
"Hraaaaagh!"
The archer screamed as the spear punched through from behind. Angie clenched her jaw and wrenched the weapon aside, hurling him off the terrace.
"Hraaap!"
From below came Harod's battle cry and the sound of a skull being pulverized. He had finished the job.
"Lord Aslan! More of them climbing up on your side!"
Below beyond the railing, Harod was holding off soldiers with his shield, fighting furiously. Aslan glanced at the Dragon-kin, then nodded to Angie.
"Go help Harod."
Angie snorted sharply and leaped down from the terrace. Aslan kicked the fallen Executioner's Sword up and caught it in a reverse grip.
He used that hand to yank the arrow from his ankle, then immediately fired into the infantry scrambling up the rear staircase.
The bowstring thrummed so fast it sounded like a single note. Soldiers on the stairs clutched at chests and throats and collapsed, or knelt with their skulls pierced through.
"Die, just die!"
One soldier rushed him mid-shot. The man swung an axe straight at Aslan's forehead. Aslan stretched out the bow to block it.
*Crack!*
The bow stave shattered. Without a flicker of regret, Aslan adjusted his grip on the Executioner's Sword and slashed horizontally.
The blade tore open the infantryman's nape, and he crumpled. Two more soldiers were charging right behind him.
Aslan spun the broken bow stave inside his hand and thrust.
"Guhk. Hrgk."
He drove the splintered end through a helmet gap into the soldier's throat. The man clawed at the stave, trying to wrench it free, but Aslan slapped his hands away and hammered the stave deeper with an elbow.
"Grrrk..."
The soldier collapsed, blood bubbling from his mouth. Behind him, his comrade's eyes flew wide, and he screamed and swung his weapon.
*Clang!*
Aslan batted the blade aside with the Executioner's Sword. The parry threw the soldier badly off balance, exposing a clear opening. Aslan reached out without hesitation.
He seized the man by the nape and pulled. Already staggering, the soldier was dragged into Aslan's flank. Aslan trapped his head there and fell backward.
*Crunch!*
The soldier's neck bent at an obscene angle as they hit the ground. The life drained from his eyes in an instant.
"Hah... hah... hh..."
Aslan lay there with the soldier's head pinned against his side, breathing hard.
Even with his Fighting Spirit running high, his body was hitting its limit. He steadied his breath. From beyond the terrace, the sounds of combat on the ground floor were dying down.
He squeezed his eyes shut, opened them, and heaved himself upright. Limping, he descended the staircase.
"Uh... uhh..."
The ground floor battle was over. Harod stood with his shield and metal club stained crimson, and Angie's scarlet hair was soaked an even deeper red. Aslan looked them over with a sidelong glance, then surveyed the survivors.
A terrified Emperor. A panicked Kornil Ashuld.
And an expressionless Ileina.
Aslan studied the three of them for a moment, then swept his sweat-and-blood-drenched hair back.
He approached the Emperor. Blood smeared from his limping footsteps.
The Emperor stared at the red footprints and the blood-slicked Executioner's Sword. He shrieked.
"K-Kornil! Kornil Ashuld! Defend your emperor! Kill him!"
Kornil blinked and made a small sound of alarm, then drew up his mana.
The mage had stayed out of the fight at first, convinced he wouldn't be needed. Then, unable to find the right moment to intervene, he had simply stood there stunned. Now, belatedly, he began shaping lightning and chanting.
Aslan sensed the surge of mana and leveled a finger at Kornil.
The strength of wild magic was speed.
No spell requiring incantation or hand seals could ever match it.
From Aslan's fingertip, a shockwave fired well before Kornil's chant was done. The invisible force smacked Kornil square in the forehead.
"Guh."
Not lethal. Not even as painful as a punch. It simply knocked his head back and sent him toppling.
Mid-fall, he knew he had made a mistake.
"Harod!"
At Aslan's shout, the red-scaled Dragon-kin lunged forward and slammed his shield down.
"Guk—"
Kornil Ashuld was pinned beneath nearly two meters of Dragon-kin and steel.
With his last soldier subdued, the Emperor staggered backward, floundering in panic.
Aslan closed the distance and seized him by the nape again.
The Emperor gasped. "Y-you. Think this through! If you kill me here—right now—all of Velus Ma'kel will hunt you! Every soldier in the imperial palace! Every guard in the capital! They'll all want your head!"
Aslan just looked at him in silence. The Emperor saw the coldness in that gaze and began to tremble.
"You are clearly a phenomenal warrior... but you cannot fight the entire garrison alone! You're exhausted already! Anyone can see your breathing is ragged!"
"And?"
Aslan's half-lidded stare made the Emperor's mouth twist into a trembling smile.
"I-if you release me... out of respect for your prowess, I will let you go! I swear no one will pursue you until you've left the capital! I swear it on the name of the Kallus Empire!"
Aslan frowned faintly and tilted his head.
The plea was a jumbled mess, utterly devoid of persuasive power. Aslan felt a pang of disappointment watching the Emperor grovel. He thought to himself, *Well... history back on Earth had its share of useless emperors, too. Some so incompetent their own brothers tried to usurp the throne. Compared to that...*
As he was suppressing his disillusionment, the Emperor added hastily,
"Or... or take me hostage! If you don't kill me, news of your infamy won't spread! If you commit regicide twice, your notoriety will spread across the whole continent—"
Aslan rolled his eyes. The Emperor took it as a positive sign and opened his mouth to press further, but—
"If you hadn't undergone partial priestification, I might have let you live."
Aslan's tone was offhand. The Emperor froze. "Wh—?"
"I don't leave priests alive."
He lifted. The Emperor's legs kicked uselessly as they left the floor. His face twisted with terror and suffocation.
"And besides."
The Emperor's fear-bright eyes met Aslan's. Aslan smiled gently.
"Killing one emperor... that was difficult. Killing a second one shouldn't be nearly as hard, should it?"
The Emperor had no answer.
*Crack.*
The light in the Emperor's eyes went out instantly, and his body sagged. Aslan watched blood seep from the dead man's eyes and mouth, then let him drop to the floor.
The corpse tumbled across the stone with a heavy, echoing thud. Aslan stared at it for a moment, then turned.
Ileina was still there. Standing at a safe distance, watching him.
Aslan walked toward the girl, and she met his eyes with an eerie composure.
Time to finish the plan.
He spoke. "Would you go and summon Captain of the Guard Reynald for me, Your Majesty?"
At those words, Ileina fell silent, and her gaze filled with a quiet, expectant light.