Chapter 119
Chapter 119
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 119
Chapter Title: The Collapsing City, Ptah (2)
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*
[To dare betray a god!!]
Adorned with the most splendid relics and treasures from the ancient Ivorysheet Empire era, the skull of Tutan Gartep glared with fiery eyes as it overlooked his city from the palace balcony.
Fires blazed throughout the city, and soldiers turned their blades on one another. Magic cannons, meant to face outward, were swiveled inward toward the slums, the bustling markets, the shopping districts, and the residential areas, unleashing a barrage without mercy.
-BOOOM!!
A magic shell traced a gray-white trajectory before slamming into a building. And soon,
-RUMBLE!!
With an earthquake-like roar, the building and the surrounding area shattered and collapsed. The magic cannons, crafted by Ivorysheet's finest mage-engineers and modeled after the techniques of ancient dwarves from ages past, displayed the might of destruction incarnate. Tutan Gartep trembled with rage.
[To betray the son of a god!!]
A rebellion, no less. In the days of the Ivorysheet Empire, no one who did not carry the pharaoh's bloodline would even dream of rising against the pharaoh. Not even in the weakest of dynasties!
A pharaoh was not merely a king like those in other human civilizations. He was the son of a god, his proxy, his very incarnation. Only another son of a god could point a blade at such a being.
Thus, pharaohs traditionally guarded only against their own blood kin. Tutan Gartep had believed that in this vast wilderness, the only ones in the Asit Empire who might turn their blades against him were the other two pharaohs.
Yet now, his own subordinates were turning their weapons on him. They dared? Tutan Gartep's hands shook with fury. The ornaments adorning his entire body gleamed ominously, clattering.
[O Divine King, stay resolute.]
[Kaharephr...! Is this truly something to take lightly!]
[The rebellion was sparked by Prince Neferka's hand. His forces are nothing to fear; their current momentum may seem grand, but it is laughable.]
[You go!]
Tutan Gartep shouted down at Kaharephr, prostrated before the throne. With blazing eyes, he spat each word like a curse.
[Show him hell. Make him pay dearly for daring to profane the Divine King's city. No, do not kill him. Bring him to the Divine King alive!]
[That I cannot do.]
[...What?]
Kaharephr rose slowly and spoke with utmost courtesy.
[O Divine King, Prince Neferka is a palace official granted entry to your presence by the gods themselves. In your humble servant's absence, should he dare harm you, guards must stand ready to intervene.]
[What is Merenre doing now?]
[He has just arrived at the palace and has already marched to the battlefield. Prince Merenre leads the troops himself to crush the traitors.]
[Very well. Send Temphthis and Sepses.]
[Shall I dispatch the entire Triad?]
[Order Temphthis to halt the spire's cannons. Have Sepses aid Merenre in capturing Neferka alive. Even if Neferka himself comes to the palace, you alone would suffice many times over.]
At Tutan Gartep's words, Kaharephr bowed deeply.
[As the Divine King wills.]
Tutan Gartep watched Kaharephr depart the throne room, then turned his gaze back to the city descending into chaos.
*
-Screee...
A skeletal eagle glided gracefully, tracing a blue trajectory through the air—a familiar summoned by magic. It circled widely toward the residential district before diving like a shot arrow.
-Thud.
There, atop a rooftop overlooking the city, sat Fernandez. He seized the eagle perched on his forearm and gazed at it. Green glows flickered beneath the eagle's skull.
Fernandez tapped the eagle's head affectionately before extracting a scroll tucked between its ribs.
The small note bore two ancient Ivorysheet hieroglyphs, written in Kaharephr's characteristically curt script.
‘The palace is empty. As expected.’
A sign of success, at any rate. Fernandez watched the magic shells arcing down in their trajectories. Astonishing technology. The city's core districts were being demolished in moments, allowing Prince Neferka's meager forces to throw the pharaoh's legions into disarray.
Shaxisi and Neferka had seized the outer magic cannons the instant the operation began. By the time Prince Merenre could rally the scattered palace guards for a counterattack, the city would be beyond recovery.
Yet Tutan Gartep's true legions were not garrisoned within the city. Word of this commotion would have already reached the forces stationed outside. Indeed, countless messenger birds flitted chaotically through the night sky.
‘Not enough time.’
No matter how capable Shaxisi or how fiercely Neferka fought, they could not withstand Tutan Gartep's main army once it began its assault on the city. Fernandez's sunken eyes fixed on the pharaoh's palace.
A massive citadel under heavy guard. An artificial hill towering to eclipse the moon, crowned by a resplendent palace. Though countless troops poured from beneath it, the palace's minimal defenses held firm.
This was a race against time. Could he topple the pharaoh before Tutan Gartep's main force arrived? And—
‘A race to open the gates of the Necropolis.’
Mahras's Altarac. The pharaoh of Mosat City had met death at his hands before fully harnessing that power. His life force had not sufficed to unlock the gateway to the Necropolis's realm of souls.
But the three pharaohs of the current dynasties, who had fully established their empires, were different. Their souls could serve as keys to the Necropolis.
To fully unseal and draw upon Mumto's power in its entirety would require all three kings' lives. But that was not the goal now.
Just one person. A mere crack to let only himself pass would suffice. Fernandez glanced at the back of his hand.
-Sizzle...
The Necropolis's cursed dagger had embedded its malediction in his soul, and hellish magic seeped through the breach, twisting his wrist grotesquely. The saint's blood countered the curse, but hellmagic poisoning was not so easily dispelled.
Of course, given enough time, a Religiosa Demonica's body would recover its original functions. But that was not what he desired. Therefore.
‘A race against time.’
Tutan Gartep's legions arriving at the city. The Necropolis's curse and hellmagic corruption purging from his body. Both were races against time.
‘So. Proceed at the utmost speed possible.’
-Have we ever had the luxury of leisure?
‘Ha, never.’
If anything, he was accustomed to this sort of fight. Scarce reserves, scant time, overflowing enemies and failure points. Squeezing victory and survival from between them.
At twenty, the year he became a quarry for the Inquisitors. At thirty, pursued by the Empire's intelligence agencies. At forty, branded a global criminal.
And at eighty, the year he brought the world to ruin.
The reason he had survived was his unparalleled familiarity with battles amid dire straits and relentless time pressure.
-Tap.
He tore the scroll in two. Palace / Empty. The Ivorysheet hieroglyphs split into two characters. Fernandez bound the remaining half between the eagle's ribs and struck its skull.
-Flutter.
The eagle soared into the sky. The message it bore: Palace.
A reply soon, signaling his imminent arrival.
*
The bombardment rained down relentlessly, crumbling sections of the city. Ancient stone walls, dynastic tombs. Ruins from antiquity, long buried under sand for centuries, now reverted to dust and debris.
-RUMBLE!!
The magic shells embodied the pinnacle of the ancient Ivorysheet Empire's magitech prowess—weapons to subjugate foreign barbarians and symbols of dynastic authority. Now, they turned against their own.
-RUMBLE!!
Massive craters formed at impact sites. Fernandez leaped over the fissures, dashed across collapsing buildings, bounded over rooftops, pressing straight ahead—ever forward.
Beneath his feet, skeletons and mummies clashed in tangled melee. Blades raised against one another, shields hoisted, they fought in silence. They conversed through psychic bursts. No sound emerged from their parched throats.
Thus, the battlefield was eerily quiet. Only the clash of arms and the roar of bombardments. No screams or howls as one might expect. Their death cries were mere explosions.
-Tat-tat!
He vaulted over a crumbling building without losing balance. A Religiosa Demonica's senses mirrored those of a beast more than a human. Innumerable instinctual calculations and predictions wove between each step. He kicked off the roof of a collapsing residence and leaped into the sky.
His blue eyes swiftly charted the optimal path. Close overhead streaked the gray-white trail of a magic shell.
-BOOOM!!
The shockwave enveloped his body. Magic-induced destruction wrought more than physical harm. In this immense arcane blast, the soul realm and material plane intertwined. Amid it—
-Hummm...
He felt Mumto's gaze. He saw its chains writhing. Fernandez sensed the creature glaring at him with his entire being.
A greater demon's gaze, laced with menace, was unbearable to a mortal frame. They could slay with a look alone. But alas for it, he was no mere mortal.
Fury, terror, pain, hatred. Even as its spiritual gaze hammered those emotions and sensations into flesh and soul—
-Kiiing.
The stigmata embedded in his back gleamed. Like a torch in the darkness. [Unyielding]. He would not be broken by external forces. It was the creed that defined his life.
He never gave up. He never rested on laurels. Even through a lifetime of pursuit, failure, and ruin, he had reached the pinnacle because he never surrendered, not for a moment.
-BOOOM!!
Once more, the shockwave engulfed him. Yielding to it, he twisted his trajectory toward the epicenter—straight on. He never halted. The pharaoh's palace loomed before him.
Almost there. Time races were his domain.
"Wait there for me, Mumto!"
-BOOOM!
Amid the crumbling rift torn by the magic shell's impact, Fernandez shouted. It was surely listening. Ever since he slew Mahras's pharaoh—no, since he massacred the Conclave of Dane Kingdom.
It had always watched him. Even now, it must be seething, desperate to block and kill him.
But wait. See how far I can go. How, and what I can do!
"Just wait there, Mumto!"
I'll come to you. You just wait there, powerless in that spot! A feral smile curled Fernandez's lips. He dashed onward, leaping over the relentless bombardment and the specters crushed beneath it.
Toward the pharaoh's palace. Toward the greater demon's seal at its heart.
He never stopped.