The First Snow of the Northern Empire
The First Snow of the Northern Empire
[Ongoing Sub-quests]
[Subjugate the Self-Birthing Mother's Priest, Astrid the Wailing]
[Completed Sub-quests]
[Defeat the Self-Birthing Mother's Priest, Monster of Kravrig]
[Defeat the Self-Birthing Mother's Priest, Knight of Lelanda]
[Support the Honor Tribe's Chieftain Installation]
......
.........
A long list of completed quests filled the entire corner of his vision.
Seeing the names of two priests added to that list told Aslan he hadn't been wrong to act in such haste.
It was hard to grasp exactly what had happened or was happening, but the outcome was clear.
Rumel and Fay had teamed up and defeated two priests.
Encouraging news.
But it did little to lift his spirits. He had good reason.
"Die, General-slayer!"
Because Aslan was on a battlefield right now.
He straightened and faced forward.
Squared toward the beast-mounted cavalry charging at him, Aslan swung his greatsword of dark blue light.
A spear thrust down like a harpoon from above.
The greatsword sheared through spearhead and shaft together, and the cavalryman holding it was torn apart as well.
"Rush him all at once! Charge!"
The shout came from a monsterized soldier on a similar beast.
Aslan let out a long breath at the countless killing intents rushing toward him.
He should have felt threatened, but he looked composed.
Perhaps that composure rattled them. The cavalry surged toward Aslan—
Kwaaaaah!
—and flinched to a halt as heat and light screamed in.
A single arrow hurtled at the charging cavalry.
A mass of mana forged from plasma.
Heat that promised a gruesome death even without a direct hit.
The riders tried desperately to wrench their reins away from the sudden death, but the mana mass struck their center first.
Kwawoooong!
A sun bloomed. Shredded and charred flesh scattered through the raging plasma.
"Khahahaha!"
A booming laugh followed, far beyond any human voice, as if this were only natural.
Tiyamal, red scales bared without reserve—a massive dragon-kin two and a half meters tall—clutched his still-radiant bow and let out a hearty laugh.
"Kneel before the might of this old man!"
"Shut up. You're hurting my ears."
"Sorry! But I'm having too much fun!"
Normally, Tiyamal would have had to keep his clothes on, cutting his accuracy drastically.
But now, with Ereta radiating heat beside him, he could strip without hesitation and fire freely.
In sheer power, he was arguably the strongest in the party—a strategic weapon who could shift the battlefield on his own.
If there was a downside,
[Unidentified Operator's Available Energy: Mana fully depleted. Switching to additional fire mode.]
it was that Tiyamal's mana was shockingly low.
The joints of his heat-spewing bow closed. Tiyamal clicked his tongue and drew an arrow the length of a short spear.
"Even without mana, this old man won't back down! Take this, you damned bastards! See who's the livestock and who's the superior one!"
A twang, followed by a scream.
A dragon-like beast, skewered by the arrow, went tumbling. A priest dressed like a knight charged forward—and Angie stepped in to block him.
"Die!"
The sword of War and Knowledge, Victory, came down with brutal force.
The knight had no way to dodge; he was struck clean through.
The priest shattered under that blow. Behind him, the monster soldiers let out savage howls and rushed in.
It was Richard who met that charge—he'd come along, determined to look after Samae.
Richard twisted aside, trapping the lead monster's thrust against his flank.
He drove an uppercut into the monster's jaw, crushing it, then spun, deflecting every weapon aimed at his life.
"Hyaah!"
Angie, hammering the knights beside him, finished off the soldiers sprawled on the ground.
As the sideways sweep of Kal's blade carved soldiers apart, Richard was splattered with flying flesh and snow.
He wiped his stained face with his hand and grumbled.
"...Samae, a little more gently...."
"What?!"
"N-nothing...."
Cowed by Angie's bark, he shut his mouth and took a stance.
Seizing a charging soldier's arm and snapping it, then slamming him to the ground, Richard backed up Angie.
The party fought within their own spheres, and any priest or monster soldier who breached those spheres died without exception.
The battlefield, then, was not too unbalanced.
It had achieved a strange equilibrium.
"Stand and fight, you fucks! Pick up your weapons!"
"For War and Knowledge!"
The warriors, first of all. They couldn't match Aslan's party, but from those with intact limbs to the maimed, none put down their weapons. They kept fighting.
They fended off the charging cavalry with long spears, or struck them down with tent poles ripped out in haste.
Many were unable to do so and died.
Some lost their lives to spears and blades because frostbite had stiffened their limbs.
But the people of the Northern Empire did not know retreat.
So long as there was a chance of victory, they would not abandon even a hopeless fight.
That was why the battlefield was not yet desperate, even after being swept by a great spell.
Aslan found that puzzling.
Using a great spell and then attacking was sensible.
Given Geladrion's nature—magic existed—many tactics and strategies centered on magic.
But those strategies never advised pulling your soldiers back just because things turned sour after a successful spell.
And when the spellcaster's forces included a master who had slain the Sword of the War God, the sensible thing would be to watch the situation and withdraw.
Yet Astrid hadn't pulled her soldiers back.
She hadn't cast any new magic.
She hadn't committed new priests or tried a new strategy.
She'd simply cast a spell and thrown in her soldiers.
This was not a strategy meant for a foe strong enough to kill the Sword of the War God.
Convinced of that, Aslan knew Astrid's plan couldn't end here.
She was clearly aiming for something else.
Something beyond soldiers and tactics.
He couldn't guess the goal. He couldn't see the process. But letting it play out would do no good.
'I need to meet Astrid.'
If he saw her with his own eyes, he could get a sense of whatever she was plotting. Trusting his luck, Aslan moved at once.
"Purity."
He sheathed the greatsword on his back, plucked a feather, and murmured.
From his hand grew a pure white fighting spirit.
A divine technique that turns fighting spirit itself into a blade. With a sword lighter than the feather he held, Aslan split in two a soldier who blocked his path.
"S-stop him! Stop that bastard!"
As Aslan suddenly charged, the priests serving Astrid reacted as if seizing.
He gave those priests a glance, ignored the warriors rushing at him, and kept running.
'Thunder Call.'
Kwarururung!
His white-stained leg kicked the ground, and a blurred afterimage stretched ahead.
Enemies in his way were carved apart with a sweep of Purity.
Soldiers scattered. Beasts caught up, trying to stop him. Then arrows the length of short spears flew at them.
"Go, boy!"
Tiyamal's booming voice. As the beasts chasing him were struck down, Aslan caught sight of Angie and Richard fighting hard behind.
While he broke through, his party was fending off the pursuers.
With their help, Aslan pushed past the soldiers and climbed the hill.
The snow-covered hill from which the whole battlefield could be surveyed.
He crossed the battlefield and reached the hilltop.
A place where the piled snow had hardened like thick ice.
Astrid was there.
"Astrid."
She hadn't changed at all since Aslan last saw her.
"Aslan."
Flowing black hair and blue eyes. A woman who suited winter, whose smile had once been bright.
Now she looked at Aslan with a somber, grave expression, as if that cheerfulness had never existed.
She adjusted her clothes and spoke.
"It's been a long time, my friend."
In truth, it hadn't been that long. Two years at most. Hardly enough time to call it a long time.
The "long time" she spoke of measured events rather than years.
An implied, indirect way of saying much had happened while he was gone.
Aslan's expression tightened.
It sounded like she was asking him to overlook it all.
But whatever had happened, becoming a priest could never be forgiven.
The kind, bright woman who had loved the Northern Empire—that Astrid was gone.
The one standing here was merely Astrid the Wailing, priest and mage.
So Aslan offered no reply, simply leveling Purity at her.
Across that white blade, they met each other's eyes in silence, and the mages behind Astrid stepped forward.
Aslan swept his gaze over them and back to Astrid, who wore an expression of genuine regret.
There was no room for negotiation.
All that remained was a fight to the death over their convictions.
Both thought that, and prepared for battle, but—
Step. Step.
—suddenly, something cut in between them.
One of the disciples clad in a robe. Or at least, that was how it appeared.
As Aslan and Astrid stared at it, puzzled, the figure threw off its robe.
A disciple in the form of a werewolf.
Astrid felt a sharp dissonance as a disciple who had egged her on, given orders, and then vanished stepped forward.
Before she could act on that unease, the disciple's Shadow moved.
To Aslan, it came with the prickling sensation of his Luck.
The moment he reflexively raised Purity, the Shadow stirred viciously at the disciple's feet.
It looked like a great wave of swords, spears, and axes raging in every direction.
Like the lethal intent of an entire battlefield concentrated into one form.
The Shadow burst forth, and the mages and priests caught in it were torn to shreds.
The sole exception was Aslan, who blocked with Purity.
Everything else was carved apart without an ounce of wasted motion.
Naturally, Astrid was among them.
Her head fell, eyes wide with shock and incomprehension.
Her face contorted as she tried to regenerate with the power of a priest of the Self-Birthing Mother, only to realize it was impossible.
Beyond Purity, Aslan watched that, then looked at the one being who remained as unharmed as himself.
It was an instinctive stare.
Like looking at an oncoming car before being hit, or staring down a bullet flying straight at you.
In a situation deeply wrong, an instinctive glance at its cause.
The wolf-shaped priest stood perfectly still and quiet.
A chill ran down his spine.
Reflexively, Aslan lowered Kal and wrapped himself in Stymphalos's wings, and the wrongness revealed its form before his eyes.
The Shadow writhed, then surged upward.
A black Shadow covered the hilltop shaped like a mound, revealing itself.
The Shadow, shaped like awls, ravaged the priests' corpses and pushed Aslan back.
He wasn't pierced like the priests thanks to the Dragon-king's scale armor and Stymphalos.
With a grating scrape, Aslan's body skidded through the snow and stopped, and he looked at the Shadow.
The ravaged priests dissolved into the Shadow immediately, and a tendril-like Shadow snatched up Astrid, pulling her in.
The way the Shadow was wielded was terribly familiar to Aslan.
Only one person could manipulate shadows like that.
"Rowena...."
He spoke a name that was both missed and painful.
"Hello, Hyeon-u."
The Black Witch shed the illusion of the werewolf and revealed herself.
Flowing black hair and a black dress.
Purple eyes, as if carved from the most beautiful part of the sunset sky.
Aslan gritted his teeth at Rowena's sudden appearance, and Rowena gave a languid wave of her hand.
"What...."
Before he could even glare and demand, Rowena smiled brightly and answered.
"Sorry. It's rare to find a mage this useful."
Rowena's Shadow moved before Aslan could grasp her meaning.
The Shadow crawled forward, snatched Astrid's head and body, and reassembled her before Aslan's eyes.
As her dead, cold blue eyes tinted black, Aslan knew what was about to happen.
No sooner had he aimed Purity and braced for battle than Astrid's body began to warp.
Crunch, crack, crrrrack!
The sound of joints violently twisting and locking.
Soldiers below, confused by the sudden shower of shadow-awls, murmured as they looked up the hill.
Amid the shouts and dying screams of soldiers, something slowly revealed itself.
A bizarre shape covered in black crystals, looking surprisingly gaunt despite its massive frame.
From far away, from a great distance, one might say it resembled a sheep.
A bestial thing sheathed in black crystals.
As soon as Aslan recognized it, Rowena spoke.
"Because this is too easy for you, Hyeon-u. A hero needs a proper trial, don't you think?"
A trial? Aslan watched Astrid slowly rise and let out a hollow laugh.
A monster with a moose head covered in black crystals.
A massive form staggering upright, dripping black fluid in streams.
[Ongoing Sub-quest]
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As the warped quest text testified,
that thing was no longer Astrid.
When Aslan realized that and gave a hollow laugh, Rowena smiled with her eyes.
"Eat up."
ë¼ì—ì—ì—ì—ì—'!
As the twisted monster wailed, black snow fell from the sky.