Chapter 154
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 154
Chapter Title: Slaughter in the Black Mist
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Ropal's threat made me realize they were laboring under a grave misconception.
So, drawing in a short breath, I spoke clearly enough for everyone to hear.
"My family means more to me than every single human on the continent."
"……."
"The moment you bastards did that to my little sister, the war began."
Except the main players in that war wouldn't be the Phainas Archipelago and Bata.
It would be the Phainas Archipelago and Leon Cascadia.
"Nonsense!! Do you really think a single individual can fight a nation and win?!"
I met his shout with a calm, unflinching gaze.
"Let me turn that around on you."
A razor-sharp aura blade—sword aura—began rippling along the edge of the ghost sword Electra gripped in my hand.
I had aura to spare, overflowing in fact.
Rather than worrying about running dry, I needed to be concerned about not killing them too easily.
"Why do you think you'll walk out of here alive?"
"What……."
"If I kill every last one of you and leave, who would even know who wiped this place out?"
It was a bit of wordplay, really, but if they bought it, fine by me.
If it escalated into an international incident, Melissa could just disavow me from the family.
"You mad bastard……."
"Anyone who stays calm after their family gets treated like that is the weird one."
The rebound from the Hall of Truth's power was considerable, no doubt, but without it granting me control over elemental magic, I wouldn't have been able to fully block their ritual magic.
Slash!!!
With those words, the sword I swung severed the neck of a Sword Expert novice knight whose blade had been flickering with aura.
"Attack!!!"
Ropal's shout unleashed a barrage of assaults from all directions.
The intruder's movements were downright ghostly.
He dodged the dozens of arrows hurtling toward him with casual little sidesteps, as if out for a stroll. Before anyone could blink—slash—he'd taken the head of the man right in front of him.
From Ropal's perspective, the most chilling part was that this guy could decapitate them in one shot, yet he was taking his time, slicing them down one by one.
Even as he attacked and evaded repeatedly, not a single breath came ragged.
"Y-You…… demon!"
Ropal quickly grasped his intent.
"U…… Uwaaaagh!!"
"Stay back!! Stay back, please!! Kuaak!"
"Spare me!!! Spare…… gurgle……."
He was instilling maximum terror in those collapsing amid sprays of blood.
Even though he could have swept them away in an instant, he butchered them cruelly for all to see.
In just a few minutes of combat, their morale had plummeted visibly.
The bigger problem was that rotations did nothing.
Normally, anyone would run out of aura or tire eventually.
But whatever experiences this guy had been through, he wasn't tiring—in fact, he was turning their rotations against them, and there was no sign of his aura depleting.
Subduing him? A cold analysis made that prospect hard to gauge.
The real issue was the lack of firepower strong enough to pin him down.
At that point, Ropal realized ordinary tactics wouldn't cut it.
That was when it happened.
Black smoke began billowing outward from the ground where Leon's feet touched.
"Th-The bastard's trying something……."
His voice was soon smothered, crushed physically into silence.
With a thunk!, the spreading black smoke somehow muffled all sound from propagating.
Those engulfed in the black fog screamed and lashed out wildly in every direction.
With vision and hearing in utter chaos, panic was inevitable.
Ropal bellowed for them to hold position without fear, but his cries became hollow echoes that didn't carry.
That was when it happened.
In the darkness, sky-blue glowing eyes appeared like slashes, then vanished.
"Kwaaaagh!!!"
"Aaaagh!! Spare me!!"
What emerged from the gloom were streaks of sky-blue light. And the horrific screams that suddenly pierced the air.
Their own voices wouldn't carry a meter.
Yet the screams rang crystal-clear in their ears.
With unnatural precision.
"Y-You filthy, vicious bastard!"
Ropal poured aura into his sword and swung, but the black fog didn't dissipate easily.
"It's still a 7th-circle necromancy spell. That won't cut it."
"Hup!!"
A chilling voice from right behind made him swing reflexively, but his blade met no resistance.
He was being toyed with completely.
All the while, the screams continued to echo.
And then.
About four minutes of screams later, the black fog vanished in an instant.
The carnage that unfolded forced Ropal to bite his lip hard.
How many had died in those few minutes?
Amid the horrific scene, he roared in fury.
"Are you even human after doing this?!"
How could a human be this cruel?
In response, Leon shook the blood from his ghost sword with a fling! and stared at him with a impassive face.
"At least normal humans don't do shit like this to each other."
"What?!"
"Did you expect the ones who did that to an eleven-year-old kid to be human?"
With that, he turned his head toward a nearby soldier kneeling helplessly, neutralized.
"Sp…… Spare……."
Puuk!!!!
His sword flashed once, cleaving the soldier's head through the air.
"Keep coming, you monster spawns."
This wasn't a fight anymore. It was a one-sided hunt.
"Ropal."
At that moment, the voice of his master—silent and rigid until now—reached Sword Master Ropal's ear.
"If this continues……."
"Young Lady?"
"If it keeps going like this, our lifelong wish……."
Ropal silently regarded Vania Remilish. Everything had gone wrong, and that invader was carving through soldiers by the second.
In this pitch-black situation, Ropal recalled an artifact the cultist had given him alongside word of the ritual—one radiating ominous energy.
—If things go awry, use this. Don't you need to protect your lord?
He'd ignored it then, but now was different.
He and his master both knew it.
After brief hesitation, Ropal bowed his head.
"My life is yours, Young Lady. Please stay safe."
"Ropal."
"I'll gladly accept the sin of letting my lord fall in battle. May curses rain upon the central continent."
Long ago, in the war with the central continent, the previous head of House Vania had fallen in foreign lands.
Having bid his final farewell to his lord, Ropal leaped into the ritual circle without a shred of regret.
He activated the artifact from Vania and cried out.
"Predator of the Darkness, devour my heart and my desires. I offer you my soul and body entire."
⟨ Rite of Devouring ⟩
The moment I sensed Ropal's sacrificial ritual, I beheaded the soldier blocking my sword and fell back.
"Crazy bastards."
Reaching Sword Master was a realm only the rarest geniuses touched in a human lifetime.
In the past, in Labyrinthos, the time I'd burned crossing into Sword Master—hadn't it repeated a human lifespan dozens of times over?
Having scaled such a daunting wall and claimed their hard-earned reward, Sword Masters clung fiercely to life.
Yet this powerhouse activated the ritual circle without hesitation, offering himself as the sacrifice.
And though I'd smashed it late, the ritual was mostly complete—something was tearing through the air, poised to emerge.
The space around him shattered and split, dark liquid gushing out in streams.
The sinister energy pouring from the artifact soon enveloped Ropal's body, oxidizing him into light and scattering him away.
"You'll die here."
With Ropal's final curse, a massive splash erupted from where he'd stood.
His flesh had fully dispersed, but from that spot on the ground, a gigantic eye-like glow rippled, blinking once hugely.
Too late to stop now. What a freakish artifact.
Still, no regrets.
Slaughtering them slowly for all to see had been deliberate, and I was prepared for contingencies like this.
Whatever they summoned, the outcome wouldn't change.
Worst case, I'd withdraw and strike again later.
"Ha…… haha…… hahaha!"
Then a girl's laughter reached my ear.
Turning, I saw Vania Remilish collapsed on the ground, laughing.
"It's over. You're a dead man now!!"
She shot to her feet, shrieking in hysteria.
"Go! Tear that bastard apart!!"
With her words, the ritual circle fully split, a colossal something beginning to reveal itself.
"Wh-What in the world!!"
The surviving troops cried out in terror-mingled awe at the enormous entity ripping through space.
Even knowing what it was, facing a massive unknown was viscerally frightening.
Soon, a gigantic arm extended, twisting the rift wider as it emerged.
And through that tear slithered a massive whale head.
Back end: octopus tentacles. Head: whale.
And besides that, enormous hands.
"Huh?"
The sight drew an involuntary "Huh?" from me.
For the thing bursting through space was none other than the new realm king I'd met in the Golden Realm.
The octopus-whale beast.
Vania Remilish screamed again at the overwhelmingly imposing figure.
"King of the Golden Realm! We have summoned you—fulfill our desires as payment!"
The octopus-whale silently stared at her.
Now that I looked, yeah, there was definitely some connection there.
"Kill him…… Kill that monster right now!! Tear him apart!!"
Her command dripped with utmost hatred.
The Golden Realm's king silently alternated glances between her and me.
And then.
Kwajik!!!
It seized the intangible thread linking her with both hands and ripped it apart.
"Huh?"
Her eyes flew wide at the utterly unforeseen turn.
"What is this……."
Then, from gods-know-where, it produced a brilliantly iridescent pearl and offered it to me.
"A gift?"