Chapter 185
Chapter 185
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 185
Chapter Title: Halt!
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“Cast heals on the attacked!”
“Petrification magic too!”
Tagneum’s group frantically unleashed heals and petrification spells. Now that they knew these were descendants of the same Barbarians, they couldn’t just let them die.
Understanding their feelings, Millerph shouted to the Horcamun tribesmen.
“Don’t attack—focus entirely on defense!”
“Prioritize defense!”
The Horcamun tribesmen, who had no desire to swing their swords at children, devoted themselves solely to defense.
But they couldn’t perfectly block the children’s relentless attempts to bite.
“Argh!”
“My ear—! Aaaah!”
The agonized screams never ceased.
Millerph quickly scanned for the source of the screams and cast heals.
Unable to attack or defend flawlessly, all they could do was heal to prevent injuries from worsening.
But even this had clear limits.
On top of that, the knights of the Nanshar Empire were closing in, making the situation unbearably tense.
“We can only do our utmost until we can’t. Great Heal!”
Millerph deployed wide-area magic to stave off the deteriorating conditions.
Tagneum and his companions kept casting petrification and heal spells, but soon collapsed from mana exhaustion.
The situation grew graver by the minute, with only Millerph continuing to extend the Horcamun tribesmen’s lives through Great Heals.
‘Damn it! Even I can’t...’
The spam of wide-area spells had rapidly depleted his mana. He needed to reserve at least a minimum for emergencies.
Thus, he could no longer use Great Heal.
Millerph limited heals to those on the brink of death.
But with injuries occurring simultaneously everywhere, even that proved impossible.
‘My lord!’
It was then, as Millerph thought of Arthur and glanced down the mountain.
A golden figure hurtling up from below at ferocious speed caught his eye.
In an instant, Millerph’s eyes widened as he bellowed.
“My lord!”
***
‘Just hold on a little longer.’
Arthur ascended the mountain, eyes fixed ahead, driven solely by the resolve to save the children and his comrades.
The seal on the child had lifted successfully.
But per the chieftain’s words that the others would release too, Arthur had raced here like a madman.
The pitch-black sky was gradually brightening, and en route from King Mountain, he’d spotted the Nanshar Empire’s knights heading south.
It was spiraling into the worst possible scenario.
Moreover, the unsealed children had rampaged, putting Millerph and the Horcamun tribesmen in dire straits.
To minimize casualties, he had to arrive even a second sooner.
Yet the spot where the children had been was empty.
“Where did they all go?”
It was as Arthur scanned the surroundings.
“My lord!”
Millerph’s cry echoed from above.
They’d likely moved to higher ground with the Nanshar knights approaching.
Above all, desperation saturated the shout.
‘Just hold on!’
Arthur sprinted with all his might.
Reaching the summit in a flash, he immediately summoned the tyrant’s power.
From eyes flowing with golden aura rose a bloody aura.
No sooner had he crested the peak than he roared like thunder.
“Stop!”
Empowered by the bloody aura’s momentum, his command reverberated thunderously.
“……!”
The children attacking the Horcamun tribesmen froze in unison.
With dazed expressions, as if entranced, they peeled away from the men they’d clung to.
Then, they turned toward the voice.
Arthur strode toward the altar, unleashing the tyrant’s aura fully upon them.
The children gathered before it, lost in a trance.
Gradually, the blood-red hue faded from their eyes, and they collapsed one by one.
By the time all the children had fallen.
Millerph finished treating the injured Horcamun tribesmen and approached Arthur, bowing at the waist.
“Your Majesty.”
Tagneum and his comrades also drew near, offering deep bows of respect.
Arthur withdrew the tyrant’s power and surveyed the surroundings.
Fortunately, no children had died, and all the Horcamun tribesmen were safe.
He let out a sigh of relief.
“You’ve all done well.”
“You arrived just as we were clinging to the cliff’s edge with our last strength.”
Gratitude filled Millerph’s face as he bowed once more in thanks.
Arthur nodded and turned to Tagneum.
“I leave the children to you.”
“Where are you going?”
“I must find the escaped ones.”
“Ah…….”
They had come here to prevent the Demon King’s resurrection.
Fires still blazed in places.
Moreover, the children who’d fled Munar Mountain—though their seals were broken—might suffer backlash from it.
By now, they were undoubtedly slaughtering indiscriminately somewhere.
With troops from every territory marching to the Oscar Empire, innocents were meeting gruesome ends.
He had to stop them somehow.
“Let’s go.”
Arthur signaled Millerph and dashed downward.
Millerph cast a spell, plummeting vertically like a controlled fall.
***
Flames suddenly erupted in the village, houses igniting.
People fleeing in panic toward the castle encountered the children in the forest.
Naked children screeched ferociously, charging and biting at the people.
“Aaack!”
“What are these kids?”
“Their eyes are weird!”
“Help! Aaaah!”
It turned into pandemonium in an instant.
The children relentlessly lunged at people, biting mercilessly.
The people didn’t yield either.
They swung anything that could serve as a weapon, counterattacking the children.
Thud! Thwack!
“Kill them!”
“We have to kill them to survive!”
“Kraaang!”
The children screamed too, charging even more ferociously.
Blood sprayed everywhere, screams unrelenting.
Among the evacuating folk, women and children trembled in terror.
“Mommy, I’m scared…….”
“I-it’s okay. Daddy will protect us…….”
The mother clutched her child tight, eyes shut, praying inwardly.
‘Please... spare at least my child…….’
Every mother with a child prayed the same.
Meanwhile, the men and older boys who’d stepped up to protect their families fought fiercely.
The children bit without mercy; the men swung weapons without hesitation.
But as ordinary farmers, they couldn’t withstand the frenzied children’s assaults.
Once they started yielding ground, defense crumbled, and they were unilaterally overwhelmed.
“Aaaah!”
“Argh!”
As the area filled with wretched screams.
The children attacking the men halted in unison.
Then, they turned their heads toward one spot.
The sun rose over the ridge, and below the horizon, someone enveloped in golden light like the sun galloped atop a massive steed.
It was Arthur.
***
To rescue the escaped children, he’d headed straight for the nearest village.
But it had burned entirely, the people already gone, so he’d pursued.
Corpses littered the road, mauled as if by beasts.
Among them lay naked children’s bodies too.
“Damn it!”
Arthur gripped Britannica’s mane tight, spurring harder while summoning the tyrant’s power.
If circle power rose like brilliant, intense light, the tyrant’s power was an absolute force compelling all under heaven to kneel.
Each time he felt it, an urge welled to place everything beneath his feet.
It was the same now.
Seeing the children, Arthur opened his mouth.
“Kneel before me.”
Though spoken softly, his voice boomed across the field like atop the mountain.
His words pierced the children’s ears like daggers.
“……!”
In an instant, the children froze like statues.
Then one charged toward Arthur, the rest soon following in a rush.
Arthur halted Britannica as they approached.
The people were doubtless in utter panic.
Better to greet the children as far from them as possible, he judged.
The children gathered around Arthur.
Blood-soaked, their eyes quivered wildly as they collapsed one by one.
Arthur glanced over them once, then looked ahead.
The people remained in chaos.
But the children’s cries dwindled, and the taut men slumped where they stood as tension released.
Around them lay bloodied corpses of men and children.
A battlefield.
As dawn broke, surroundings came into view.
“……!”
The sky hung heavy with dark clouds; the fields lay barren and withered.
Even visible trees differed from Oscar Empire’s—bare branches without leaves, despite mild weather.
An eerie aura permeated spots.
It resembled Selom’s atmosphere.
The people all looked gaunt, faces pallid like the ill.
They knew light had vanished from the sky for unknown reasons long ago.
He hadn’t imagined its effects so dire.
‘If the entire Nanshar Empire resembles Selom…….’
“Now it makes sense.”
Yati Mountain had deemed it uninhabitable for humans.
Hence the relentless push to conquer the Oscar Empire.
But what of the ritual planned at Munar Mountain?
If Artisann were possessed by the Demon King, Nanshar now offered ideal monster habitat.
No need for prolonged wars of attrition.
His mind grew tangled.
He’d stopped these children’s rampage, but they weren’t all.
Escaped ones rampaged elsewhere, destined to die at people’s hands.
Had he truly prevented the Demon King’s resurrection?
Suddenly, Shaman’s dying words resurfaced: ‘The grand scheme has begun.’
If for Artisann—or if not, for the Demon King……
Someone else likely backed Artisann.
“I thought too simply.”
Arthur had assumed the Demon King possessed someone like him.
He’d suspected Emperor Ruan, Altros, Artisann.
Expanding his view yielded the most logical inference.
What if they were all the Demon King’s familiars?
The current events as three omens for resurrection?
Then the Demon King wasn’t possessing anyone but preparing revival somewhere.
As Arthur frowned, he recalled scouting Kanura Continent recently.
Summoning K1 to clear monsters, the gunfire would’ve reached Kanura’s beasts too.
Griffons could’ve flown and attacked.
Yet they hadn’t stirred.
They’d seemed to guard something……
‘If the Demon King is truly there?’
Arthur fitted scattered clues around this hypothesis.
As he sank into deep thought, Millerph arrived.
Though departing together, Britannica’s speed left him behind.
He’d checked each fallen child en route, saving as many as possible.
Thus, only now arriving.
Millerph sighed in relief at the sleeping children, but darkened at their scant number.
Heartache struck, imagining similar scenes elsewhere.
‘Is this the will of the gods…….’
As Millerph glared resentfully skyward.
Arthur’s eyes flashed with resolve.
“We must go to Kyafur Castle.”
“Your Majesty…….”
Millerph’s eyes widened.
Arthur met his gaze firmly.
“There’s something I must confirm.”