Chapter 93
Chapter 93
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>Translator: Ryuma
>Chapter: 93
>Chapter Title: Listen Carefully
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Unlike his spirited leap, Shine's charge was effortlessly blocked.
Clang! Claaang!
After halting him in a single clash, two Death Knights encircled him.
Moments later, the undead that had escaped the ghost ship's hold surrounded Shine.
Kirik! Kieek!
Monstrous figures indistinguishable as human or beast, each in wildly varied forms. Yet they shared one trait: each one exuded sinister black magic.
"Kill him! Don't leave a single scrap of flesh!"
At Solion's shout, the already ferocious undead surged with even greater ferocity.
Shine's diminutive frame had long since been buried under the horde of undead.
Kaang! Chaeng! Claaang!
Kwaduk!
The occasional clash of metal was the only sign that Shine still lived.
Amid it all.
"......"
Solion watched the scene with bloodshot eyes.
‘Shine von Luman... No matter how impressive you were, you're just a Death Knight.’
He'd boasted about showing something, but a being's limits were absolute.
Even if he'd been a Master Knight in life, striding the transcendent realm, now he was merely undead.
And yet.
What was this nonsense?
- The promise that you'd let me take the black mage's head.
To dare speak of doing something to my neck?
Absurd.
‘I thought he'd left some grand trick up his sleeve... But this is no different from before.’
Before the ancient wraiths vanished, they'd already clashed once.
And the current situation was identical to then.
How had Shine fared back then?
Desperately fending them off without countering, then seizing a gap when the ancient wraiths shed their flesh to barely escape.
Sacrificing an arm in the process.
It was no different from a lizard fleeing in terror, tail severed.
Thus, Shine was no threat.
However...
‘What the hell is he scheming?’
Solion glanced at Aster, seated in meditation a short distance from the battlefield, circulating his breathing technique.
His face was hidden by the mask, but his posture radiated utter composure.
Hard to imagine for one facing battle.
‘Even if it's to supply mana to the Death Knight... what could that possibly mean?’
A Death Knight's primary energy source was black magic.
Shine von Luman might be a special Death Knight who could accept mana or ether indifferently, but its efficiency paled against black magic.
So it would be far more effective for him to step in himself rather than delegate to Shine von Luman.
‘Could he truly intend to hand me over to Shine?’
"Ha!"
Solion burst into incredulous laughter.
Thinking back now, it had been that way from the initial ambush.
‘He surely could have finished me off...’
But the masked one hadn't.
He'd merely kicked away the one trying to steal Shine.
"What kind of ridiculous farce is this...?"
A golden demon who had achieved transcendence.
Though there were executives, elders, and higher beings above him, he stood over all black mages.
Now he looked quite pathetic, a blow to Solion's pride.
But.
‘Actually... this is fortunate!’
Solion grinned wickedly. His pristine white teeth were smeared with fresh blood, a chilling sight.
Arrogant or bold—it didn't matter. The opponent's leisure had revealed a clear path to survival.
Narrow as it was, prying it open wouldn't be hard.
"You worthless undead scum...! Can't you even handle that trash?!"
Solion bellowed, displeased at Shine still holding out.
Yet his telepathic orders to the undead were the opposite.
‘Drag it out. Play along moderately.’
The masked figure gazed upon the battlefield with calm detachment.
Those clear eyes were infuriating, but Solion refrained from provoking him rashly.
Instead...
‘That's right, keep watching.’
The longer Shine rampaged, the faster the masked one's mana would deplete.
‘Looks like he's drawing a mana accumulation circle...’
Solion glanced briefly at Obern before averting his eyes.
He was compensating with the mana accumulation circle for now, but it couldn't be perfect.
It was then that Shine's voice echoed in his ears.
[Good. Adaptation complete.]
"......?"
Pang—!
"......!"
A thunderous explosion rattled his eardrums.
Solion's eyes widened at the sudden shift.
A circular clearing formed amid the pack of charging undead.
Hiiing—!
The abrupt burst of aura shoved the undead back as the ghost horses bearing the Death Knights reared up.
And at the center of that clearing.
[Exactly three minutes.]
Shine held up spread fingers, declaring to Solion.
[In exactly three minutes, I'll clear these mongrels and take your head.]
His spread fingers numbered four.
* * *
"Bullshit! As if posturing like that will...”
[Whether it's bluffing or not, you'll see soon enough.]
Shine stood still, eyes closed.
His vision blackened. As the repelled undead surged back in, all his senses sharpened to a razor's edge.
‘This body... it's been a while.’
A hulking two-meter frame. This wasn't Shine's original build.
King Slayer.
The knight who beheaded the emperor. The legendary traitor and genius of the age, Shine von Luman, had in truth been short and stocky.
For some reason, becoming a Death Knight had granted him this massive physique, but what felt natural to Shine was his original form.
Still, the sudden height change required time to adjust.
And now that adjustment was complete.
Sring—
Shine raised his limp sword.
Yet why?
Though the sword rose slowly, the frenzied charging undead moved even slower.
Not just them?
The ghost horses leaping with forelegs raised were slower still than the blade.
As if... yes. Time had stopped. Or rather, stretched out long.
[Hm.]
A faint breath escaped. No true breath from a wraith, but a habit of Shine's.
Time resumed its normal flow right then.
Hiiiing—!
Kieeeek......!
A cacophony erupted simultaneously.
Shine opened his eyes languidly, ignoring the din filling his ears.
Whoosh—a blaze ignited within his helm.
The first to meet Shine's gaze was some nameless undead.
Made from an orc, perhaps? Tusks curled upward. But grotesquely modified, its skeleton was bizarre.
Arms dangling like stretched dough, five razor-sharp claws protruding.
Whirrik—
Before the whip-like claws slithering forth, Shine moved his forward-thrust sword.
Had he moved it?
It wasn't visible.
Merely—
Slice!
A faint severing sound.
The flaccid forearm cleanly detached from the shoulder, soaring through the air.
Despite the impossible reach of the blade.
An aerial sword strike? No. Yet how had it felled the undead?
The truly bizarre spectacle began then.
Tik, tick—
Successive faint snaps echoed low.
Shine merely stood frozen, sword extended straight...
Thud, thud thud. Thud.
Undead shattered and tumbled in the order they charged.
Silence reigned.
No wild momentum. No sharpness. Pure stillness.
A scene defying common sense.
As if puzzle pieces, once fitted, fell apart effortlessly.
Or marionettes' strings snapped in an instant from the puppeteer's hand.
The undead crumbled powerlessly.
"Wh-what...?"
Solion gaped at the surreal sight.
Then metallic rings resounded.
Kang, kaang—!
Perhaps due to their past as Master Knights?
Only the two Death Knights reacted to the inexplicable phenomenon.
Their spear blades whipped invisibly fast, afterimages forming a circular barrier.
They were blocking it.
Yet even as they did, undead piled up on the ground.
Naturally, as the undead fell limply, a flicker of 'what if' hope stirred in Solion's mind.
But.
[No need to struggle for that trash any longer. Unfortunate knights.]
A gentle tone, as if consoling the two Death Knights.
But the outcome revealed at those words' end was anything but gentle.
Halt.
The Death Knights froze mid-swing. Had they understood Shine's words?
Had their reason, suppressed by one once like them—an unfortunate knight—awakened?
No, that wasn't it.
Tik.
Faint cracks spiderwebbed over black armor.
Srrrr, sring—
The plating slid along those lines. Slowly, like a slanted ice wall slipping down.
Platter.
The Death Knights shattered into fragments, tumbling like winter hail.
It was then that the motionless Shine took a step.
Step.
A single step.
"D-don't come closer...!"
It felt as if the world itself advanced.
Why?
His frame was far from imposing. His presence so faint it barely registered.
"Ah, ugh!"
Yet Solion crumpled to his knees under the bizarre pressure he exuded.
His eyes, already clouded by Deathrow's madness and terror of the Elder Council, now overlaid with utter confusion.
Another step.
"Ugh......"
Solion unwittingly recoiled. Crawling backward, dragging his rear through the dirt.
The distance remained vast.
Yet in his eyes reflected only the black-armored Death Knight.
No. Solion now fully realized whom he faced.
Shine von Luman.
Genius of the century.
The inscrutable knight who ascended to Master Knight at 18, treading the transcendent realm.
The epochal traitor who at 20 slaughtered all the emperor's guarding knights and severed his head.
No ordinary Master Knight.
That day in the palace, how many Master Knights had he slain?
The humiliating history kept details from public record, but he felled three.
Three.
Single-handedly butchering the emperor's knights and claiming three transcendent lives.
Though he himself perished on the throne, no deed to diminish.
Thus, one step. Another.
The Master Knight who left giant strides in history slowly approached the one who had made him a Death Knight with languid steps.
And finally.
"U, ugh......"
When Shine arrived, Solion lost speech. Thought halted.
Drip drip—
The ground beneath him grew damp.
[Was it amusing, I wonder?]
A chilling voice unlike his usual. An icy aura to freeze any blaze.
[Stealing the flesh and souls of the dead to play puppet master—did it make you feel like something grand?]
It was rage.
No restful death, but this scum had dragged him from eternal slumber to toy with him.
No honor possessed, but his lofty pride trampled by vermin.
Moreover...
Face and name unknown, yet fellow traveler on the martial path—senior or junior, a comrade in arms. An unforgivable sinner who mocked them.
This rage toward him was justified, yet cruelly merciless.
[Listen carefully.]
‘S-spare...’
Beneath the arrived reaper's shadow, Solion sensed death.
Live. That single emotion flooded his mind.
[You're nothing but vermin.]
Thud.
His head fell.