Chapter 46
Translator: True Detective
Chapter 46. 20th Floor (3)
As soon as we stepped into the red crevice that was the entrance to the rift, our vision was entirely dyed blood-red.
The sky, the ground, and even the air were red.
"Phew...."
We caught our breath for a moment, finished our preparations, and began searching towards the deeper part of the rift.
Every time we took a step, sticky dirt clung to the soles of our shoes.
I don't know if it was my imagination or the pressure this space gave, but every time I breathed, my lungs felt choked.
Not just me, but Cassia and the Royal Guards were also gasping for rough breath.
The deeper we went in, the more the ominous energy that seemed to pierce the skin became stronger.
Hostility that seemed to reject living creatures squeezed in from all directions.
How long had we walked.
Far away, the figure of a man sitting alone on the edge of a cliff was seen.
A tattered golden lion cloak.
An old sword stuck beside him.
As soon as Cassia saw that figure, her eyes widened.
"......Your Majesty!"
Her voice rang out across the red earth.
She unhesitatingly sheathed the [Rapier] she was holding in her hand and ran towards him.
"Your Majesty! You were safe! I have arrived!"
Relief and joy spread across her face.
It seemed the heart filled with longing and worry for her father burst out in an instant.
It was then.
The Emperor, who had been motionless, slowly turned his head.
At the sense of heterogeneity felt in that momentary movement, Cassia's running feet paused.
"......?"
Something was strange.
It wasn't her father's eyes.
It was the moment she harbored a question and blinked her eyes once.
—Pop!
The figure of the Emperor sitting on the edge of the cliff disappeared.
"Uh...?"
Cassia didn't even have time to look around in bewilderment.
Blinking her eyes once more, a giant shadow was cast right before her nose.
Before she knew it, the Emperor was standing right in front of her.
The sword held in his hand was striking down towards the crown of Cassia's head.
"......Your Majesty?"
Cassia was just blankly looking up at that figure.
She couldn't even think of dodging or blocking.
She had just frozen in front of the unbelievable reality.
But I was already prepared.
The moment the Emperor disappeared, I kicked the ground and sprang forward.
—Clash!!
Along with a roar, a heavy shock battered my entire body.
I gritted my teeth and received the Emperor's sword with my sword.
"Kugh...!"
My wrist throbbed as if it would break.
It was a weight as if a giant mountain was pressing down from above.
—Rumble rumble!
In the aftermath of the two swords clashing, the ground I was standing on screamed and sank.
My feet dug into the ground as if strong gravity acted.
If it weren't for the [Mithril Greatsword of Blast] held in my hand, it would have been split in two long ago, and I would have been split in half as well.
"Snap out of it!!!"
I shouted towards Cassia standing blankly and pushed the sword away with all my might.
"Hiyah!"
—Boom!
As I parried the Emperor's sword using the recoil, he stepped back as lightly as a feather.
Only then could Cassia look straight at the Emperor with trembling eyes.
The Emperor's face revealed through his disheveled hair.
There, the appearance of the father she knew did not exist.
Empty, unfocused pupils.
And eyes completely dyed blood-red, even the whites.
It was hard to see them as human eyes.
"...Y... Your Majesty?"
Cassia's lips trembled faintly.
Putting the greatsword forward, I blocked the space between the Emperor and Cassia and muttered low.
"...It seems the Emperor has been encroached by the red energy."
At my words, Cassia staggered.
She shook her head as if she couldn't believe it.
"...Why... Why His Majesty...."
Then I saw something bizarre.
Above the crown of the Emperor's head, a system window popped up with staticky noise.
I doubted my eyes.
I have met numerous people climbing the Tower so far.
Names were not visible for Cassia, the soldiers, or even the blacksmiths I taught.
Names and grades were only displayed for monsters.
But right now, a name is floating above the Emperor's head.
And with broken letters as if an error occurred.
The system... recognizes the Emperor as a monster?
Above all, what caught my gaze was the grade attached behind the name.
It was an incomplete notation mixed with question marks, but its meaning was clear.
An existence outside the standard that even the system found hard to define.
Or an existence with power strong enough to cause an error.
I couldn't yet know exactly what this phenomenon meant.
But I could feel one thing keenly.
That eerie and cold killing intent spewing from the Emperor and piercing my skin.
He was no longer the Emperor of the Empire or Cassia's father.
Gripping the sword properly, I thought.
That the Emperor right now is definitively an enemy.
The Emperor quietly lifted his sword tip towards me.
In the darkness behind the Emperor's back where not even light reached, a red spot popped on.
One became two, two became four, and instantly hundreds, thousands of red eye glints filled the darkness.
They were the eyes of blood-starved beasts.
"Grrrrr...."
"Kieeeeeek!!!"
Bizarre cries vibrated the canyon.
They were mutant monsters glowing blood-red all over their bodies, unable to contain the red energy.
At a single hand gesture from the Emperor, the bastards began to rush towards us like hounds off their leashes.
—Rumble rumble rumble!
The ground shook.
It felt like a red wave was rushing in.
However, the Emperor who caused this incident turned his body as if having no lingering attachments.
He threw his daughter and his people into the maws of the monsters and slowly walked into the deeper abyss of the rift.
As if telling me to follow him.
"Block them! All personnel take defensive positions!"
Along with the Royal Guard Captain's scream-mixed shout, the soldiers raised their shields.
—Crash!
The monsters standing at the forefront collided with the soldiers' shield wall.
They were on a different level from the bastards we faced outside the rift.
Thanks to the equipment I made, they were holding out, but the gap in strength was too large.
"Kuaak! Their strength... Their strength is too strong!"
"We're being pushed back!!"
"Hold on with guts!!! Do not get pushed back absolutely!!"
The battle line collapsing was a matter of time.
But Cassia, who should be commanding, was still slumped on the ground.
"Ah... Aaaah...."
Like a person who lost her soul, she was just blankly staring at the direction where the Emperor disappeared.
Her pupils were losing focus and shaking.
She couldn't accept the fact that her respected father, the Emperor she believed to be the Sun of the Empire, pointed a sword at her and unleashed monsters.
It was then.
A wolf-shaped monster that broke through the battle line discovered the defenseless Cassia.
"Grrrrrk!!"
The bastard opened its maw and flew aiming for her neck.
Cassia didn't even think of dodging.
She just blankly watched approaching death.
—Slice!
My greatsword horizontally split the bastard's waist.
The monster's corpse, cut in half, dropped at Cassia's feet.
Blood splattered and soaked her white cheek, but she didn't even budge.
I urgently grabbed her shoulders and shook her.
"Princess! Snap out of it!"
"......."
There was no reaction.
She didn't seem to hear the noise of the battlefield.
If left like this, let alone her, even the soldiers will be annihilated.
I threw away titles or whatever and shouted loudly.
"Cassia!!!"
My shout struck her eardrums.
Only then did her purple eyes, which were stopped like death, sparkle.
Color slowly began to return to the eyes that were dying gray from shock.
She slowly turned her head and looked at me.
I lowered my posture and met her eye level.
And firmly holding her trembling shoulders, looking straight into her eyes, I said.
"...I know it's hard to believe. I know it's a reality hard to accept."
At my voice, moisture filled her eyes.
Putting strength in the hands holding her, I said earnestly.
"But now is not the time to collapse. Your soldiers are dying."
"......."
"Your strength is needed right now."
That single sentence woke her up.
The words that her strength is needed.
The fact that there are things to protect.
Cassia bit her lip tightly.
A thin stream of blood flowed from the lips bitten so hard blood formed.
She staggered and stood up from her seat.
And drew the [Rapier] she was wearing at her waist.
—Vwoom!
The sword vibrated loudly as if welcoming its master.
The light-purple blade emitted a glamorous light, resonating with its master's will.
It was as if clamoring that it wanted to quickly cut down those monsters.
Cassia gripped the sword properly with her back to me.
Her back was no longer trembling.
"...I am sorry. I showed a shameful appearance."
Her voice was calmly sunken.
She didn't look back and kicked the ground.
Drawing a light-purple trajectory, she jumped toward the collapsing battle line.
"Kugh! Block them! If they break through, it's the end!"
A young soldier holding a shield and holding out at the very front screamed.
Right before his eyes, a monster was raising a giant club high.
The soldier's shield was already half-crumpled and in a state where it couldn't do its proper function.
—Whoosh!
Along with the sound of cutting through the wind, the club fell towards the soldier's head.
The soldier closed his eyes tightly.
It was the moment death approached right before his nose.
—Flash!
A purple flash shot across the battlefield.
It was the blink of an eye.
The [Rapier] held in her hand stretched out sharply like a snake's tongue.
"Pierce through!"
The tip of the Rapier pierced through the Ogre's thick leather like a sheet of paper.
A giant hole was drilled in the Ogre's back, and the sword tip popped out.
[Chain Penetration] was activated.
With explosive damage, the Ogre's heart burst right there.
But the trajectory of the sword didn't end there.
The blade that penetrated the Ogre's body bent bizarrely entirely like a living whip.
Using the recoil of the penetration, the bent blade gained elasticity and bounced off at an even faster speed.
The target was a monster looking for an opportunity behind the Ogre's back.
—Stab!
There was no time to react.
The bent sword, containing the elasticity to return to its original shape, precisely pierced the monster's nape.
The Troll's neck was half torn off, and a fountain of blood soared.
The sword didn't stop, bent like a whip once again, and dug into the solar plexus of another monster behind it.
With just a single motion, three monsters in a straight line were pierced simultaneously.
—Thud!
The three monsters fell sequentially like dominoes.
Withdrawing the sword shimmering with light-purple afterimages, Cassia gasped for breath.
Before her eyes, the soldier who miraculously survived sat blankly with his mouth open.
"Can you stand up?"
Cassia reached out her hand toward the soldier.
The soldier nodded as if possessed and grabbed her hand.
"Wow......."
Watching that sight from behind, I spat out an exclamation without realizing.
I made it, but I didn't know it would show such movements in actual combat.
The coexistence of hardness and flexibility...
Cassia perfectly understood and handled that contradictory characteristic.
It was as if the sword became her arm and stretched.
Cassia gripped the sword properly again and shouted towards the front.
"We do not step back! Advance!"
Along with her shout, the soldiers' cheers, which had stopped, burst out again.
Light-purple flashes cutting through the red wave began to embroider the battlefield once again.