Velus Ma'kel
Velus Ma'kel
[Completed Main Quest]
[ ! Audience with the Emperor]
[Repel the Priest and Survive]
[Prison Break with Angela Tail]
Aslan glanced at the system window drifting in the corner of his vision and let out a breath heavy with pain and exhaustion.
How it had come to this, he couldn't say. His shoulder throbbed from blocking that last strike, and his whole body sagged on him like a dead weight.
His mana was nearly spent. The flow of it through him had dwindled to almost nothing.
Propped on the executioner's sword like a staff, Aslan stared at the trail the thrown axe had carved.
A red streak ran down the street like a carpet—a grotesque red carpet of corpses and blood, the kind he'd never imagined he'd walk in his lifetime.
Aslan bit his lip and forced his eyes shut, then open.
A mother and child, tangled together and split in half by the axe they hadn't been able to dodge. The sight of that twisted family made his teeth grind.
But he had already made his choice.
To survive.
Dying here would render everything meaningless.
He flattened his emotions and muttered,
"...We have to run."
No one argued. They didn't need to—each of them could feel the situation for themselves.
"Shit... where the hell did something like that come from?"
Even Angie swallowed hard at the destruction the thrown axe had caused—the danger of the high priestess was sinking in.
Harod, veteran warrior that he was, had already assessed the woman's lethality and lowered his tail.
Three sets of eyes fixed on her, and the woman simply smiled and kept walking.
Aslan watched the high priestess approach and stepped forward—
"Ngh."
A sharp stab in his ankle twisted his face. His gaze dropped to the blood trickling from it, already pooling on the ground.
The arrow wound from earlier must have torn open while he was fending off that attack.
Aslan's expression tightened.
Running on this ankle was out of the question. He needed some other means of escape.
And finding another way would be just as impossible on this ankle. He made a snap judgment and spoke.
"I'll handle the priest. Secure an exit and a way out. Horses, a wagon—anything..."
He cut himself off mid-sentence, eyes going wide. The woman had dropped low and was charging.
She came on like a sprinter, drawing two short-hafted weapons from behind her back as she ran.
A hand axe and a war hammer. Both crackled with flame, lethal at a glance.
She wasn't coming for Aslan. She was coming for Angie.
"Angie!"
"Shit—!"
Angie saw it too and pulled the spear from her back. With its thick, long blade, it was closer to a glaive than a spear. She raised it and charged to meet her.
Clang!
They collided.
Angie swung the spear wide. The woman bent her body clear and brought the hand axe down. The curved beard of the axe caught the shaft and held it fast. Angie pulled, trying to wrench it free.
It won't budge?!
The strength behind that grip was leagues above her own. The spear didn't so much as quiver. Angie's eyes shot up in alarm—just as the flaming hammer came around.
Whoosh!
Instinct yanked her body backward. The dodge left her stumbling, but it got her clear of the hammer.
Relief flooded her for a split second. Then the hammer that had whistled past her face changed direction midair and smashed down on the spear shaft.
Clang!
"Gah!"
A numbing shock shot up her hands. The skin of her palms tore, and the spear dropped. She threw her arms up to block—
Crack. Snap. Crunch.
But the war hammer was already moving, smashing into her ribs, her skull, her jaw in rapid succession before it finally withdrew.
Angie crumpled, and Aslan hurled himself into the gap.
"Harod, get Angie! I've got this!"
He shouted, snatching up one of the twin swords from the fallen Warrior Monk who had guarded the Emperor. The executioner's sword came up in his right hand. Behind him, the Dragon-kin surged forward, scooped Angie up, and retreated.
The woman—Ereta—watched Aslan close in and the Dragon-kin pull away, one after the other, then smiled and thrust out her axe.
Aslan's executioner's sword caught the thrust like a parry. The woman spun the hammer in her left hand, reversed her grip, and brought it up in a rising strike.
Boom!
The blow was ferocious. Aslan barely tracked it with his eyes—it was Luck that let him slip it.
Clang!
The rising hammer halted midair and came in from the side, straight for his temple. Aslan swept the Warrior Monk's sword across and deflected.
Sparks erupted with a harsh screech. Through them he saw the axe streaking in. He twisted the sword he'd angled in the deflection and whipped it toward the axe.
Clang!
The impact made his whole face clench. Blocking attacks like this with what little mana he had left was brutal.
But if he didn't block, he died. Aslan forced the thought aside and dragged up his remaining mana to reinforce his arms.
Even with wild magic bolstering his muscles, he was being overpowered. Gritting his teeth, he intercepted strikes he couldn't even see and dodged the ones he couldn't possibly parry.
Ereta's assault was simply overwhelming—blinding speed and crushing force. This was beyond anything a level 4 Aslan could handle.
Yet he held on, applying every combat art and weapon technique he knew. Fighting Spirit kept his will from breaking. Luck kept him breathing.
But the limit always comes.
The moment Aslan's executioner's sword batted aside an attack, Ereta's lips curled.
Crack!
"Ngh—!"
His right arm, the arm holding the executioner's sword, shattered. The hammer smashed down, folding the limb, and the rising axe followed through and severed it.
As the severed arm spun into the air, Ereta mocked him.
"Did you really think you could keep catching my attacks with a weapon that slow? Come now. Let's end this."
She swung the axe. His arm was gone, his ankle pierced and useless.
Aslan, a breath from death, pulled up the corner of his mouth. Cold sweat streaming, he forced the words through the pain.
"I gave you that opening, you miserable bitch."
He thrust the stump of his arm forward and flung blood into her face. The spray caught her across the eyes. A fraction of a second—not even a tenth.
But it was enough.
Enough time to cast.
"Equalization!"
His tattoos flared with the word.
Equalization was a spell of the Transmutation School, mostly used by mages who needed to prolong test subjects or perform emergency repairs on them. The failure rate was high, and even when it succeeded, the pain was so severe it was never used for healing people. It distributed damage evenly across the entire body. If it failed, the caster's whole body could collapse. Unless the caster was Aslan, who had maxed his Magic Tool Proficiency.
A pale glow washed over him, and his ankle and arm came back. The puncture in his ankle sealed. The severed arm, already disintegrating into dust, reversed its decay and rematerialized in place. Wounds bloomed across the rest of his body in recompense, but they meant nothing. Jaw clenched, Aslan drew his restored right arm back.
Thunder Call.
His extended arm blazed with a hazy light. He poured what remained of his mana into it, reinforcing it—then balled his fist and drove it forward before Ereta's axe could land.
A roar split the air the instant his fist caved in her stomach.
KRRRAAAA-BOOM!
Thunder.
The thunderclap hurled the woman backward. She hit the ground, tumbled a full rotation, and plowed into a building. The structure collapsed in a cloud of dust. Aslan gulped air and retrieved the executioner's sword from his severed hand, now whole again.
"Did you finish her?"
Harod asked as Aslan turned and sprinted toward the main gate. Aslan shook his head, face drawn.
"No. That won't kill her. She's still alive."
Given the god she served, there was no chance she was dead. Aslan gestured at Harod, who had Angie slung over his shoulder, and ran for the gate.
"What's the plan? How do we run from something like that?"
"We commandeer a ride. If we can find a horse worth taking..."
Aslan was halfway across the drawbridge, answering Harod, when a prickle ran up his scalp—a hair-raising jolt of danger. He threw himself sideways.
Thwip!
A hand axe seared through the space between his shoulder and head.
Wreathed in flame, it sheared through the drawbridge chains and buried itself in a signpost by the gate.
The signpost blazed. Aslan clicked his tongue and looked back. There she was, drenched in blood, limping toward them from several hundred meters away. Her leg had broken and torn somewhere in her flight, blood streaming from it, but it was already regenerating. She wasn't in any condition to give chase—not yet—but even at this distance, the pressure she radiated was hideous.
Aslan scanned the area and spotted a halted wagon.
He jerked his chin at it and climbed aboard. Harod dumped Angie into the cargo bed and hauled himself up after her. The owner, standing beside it, let out a bewildered noise at the sudden hijacking.
"Sir, take this!"
Aslan hurled a coin pouch at the owner and snatched the reins.
"Buy yourself a better wagon and a better horse! I'm buying this one!"
The owner stammered something at the dramatic transaction. Aslan gripped the reins and shouted,
"Hyah!"
The owner stood there blinking between the coin pouch and his departing wagon, looking dazed. The wagon rattled forward.
It wasn't a particularly good wagon, but the horse ran as the reins demanded.
Jouncing and clattering, the wagon pulled steadily away from the Imperial Capital.
Once the immediate threat began to recede, Harod, still catching his breath, asked,
"Is this all right? The wagon had an owner..."
"The longer we stay, the more people die and get hurt. This is the best option." Aslan kept his grip on the reins and glanced back, jaw set. "Besides, the coin in that pouch is worth a lot more than this wagon and horse."
"Hm, but spending that much..."
"Beats dying. Money isn't worth more than your life."
Aslan drove the wagon at full speed, as if brooking no argument. The horses picked up speed, and before long the Imperial Capital was behind them entirely.
Watching the city shrink to a dot, Aslan ground his teeth.
*
The wagon Aslan was driving came to a halt only when the horse was on the verge of collapsing from exhaustion.
But the stop wasn't by choice.
It was forced on them.
Slightly more than thirty soldiers blocked the road.
Harod studied their armor, gleaming in the moonlight—plate cuirasses, chainmail, long shields, well-made spears and swords. Seasoned troops, and their equipment was excellent. Every piece of armor and every shield bore the same emblem: a red droplet.
He didn't recognize the device, but these men were clearly sworn to a noble house. The wagon must have crossed into another lord's territory, Harod thought, though he didn't lower his guard.
Aslan's voluntary dismount, hands raised, was a separate matter.
Harod tightened his grip on his weapon, poised to spring. Aslan shut the idea down with a shout.
"Harod, put the weapon down!"
The Dragon-kin hesitated.
Aslan's judgment had never been wrong, but dropping his weapon while surrounded was an affront to his pride as a Clo.
The hesitation didn't last. Harod decided to trust the Master of Combat's assessment and laid his weapon down. He rose from the wagon bed, and his massive two-meter frame drew every soldier's eye—and their weapons.
Watching them, Aslan felt a surge of relief.
Relief as he looked past the soldiers at the figure behind them.
Darkness hid the man's face, but even in the gloom his clothes were clearly sumptuous, and he sat a warhorse. Aslan knew him well, and the man surely knew Aslan in return. The shout that had checked Harod would have carried to the commander; he would have recognized the voice by now.
Certain of that, Aslan stepped forward. A soldier thrust a spear at him. The blade halted just short of his throat, its edge gleaming.
An easy kill if they wanted one. Aslan simply stared past it at the man in the dark.
The man raised a hand.
"All of you, weapons down!"
The spear withdrew. Every soldier lowered their arms in perfect unison.
Amid the synchronized clatter of metal, the man on horseback laughed.
"...It's been a long time, Aslan."
Well-drilled soldiers who obeyed their commander without hesitation. The man who had trained them from the ground up, personally, addressed Aslan.
"Have you been well?"
"...Not especially well. But you know how it is. Masters never have it easy."
"That they don't."
Aslan gave an awkward smile. The man turned his horse out of the shadows and into the moonlight.
His face emerged: an earnest, solid man balanced on the line between middle age and his later years. Dark eyes, but brown hair that carried a faint reddish tint. Ornate fur-trimmed armor covered his frame, and a plain, well-used longsword hung at his hip. Anyone would take him for a warrior.
The Frontier Count of the Kallus Empire. The empire's greatest martial lord and most celebrated general.
Margrave of Saingirus.
Looks like he made it in time.
Aslan let out a quiet breath at the sight of the noble before him.
The Margrave studied him and asked,
"So. What business brings you out at this late hour?"
Aslan's face relaxed as he answered.
"I'm sorry to trouble you, but... could you hide us?"
The Margrave's eyebrows rose.