Chapter 127
Chapter 127
Iron Emperor — Chapter 127
In truth, the swordsmen had been using their daggers as their primary weapon all along.
The North Roselin knights had been completely deceived by the intimidating image the Gauri swordsmen had built until now. The long swords had been swung fast, but they carried no real force behind the blows.
"Watch out for the daggers!"
Someone's voice tore out like a shriek.
But by the time they realized it, half the knights were already sprawled across the ground.
"What are you doing? Attack them, now!"
The desperate command lashed out at the soldiers who had stood frozen in terror, merely watching as the knights screamed.
"Raaargh!"
Was it fear?
Or a howl of rage at the sight of their fallen comrades...?
The soldiers who had done nothing but watch threw themselves into the tangled melee.
"Tah!"
A blood-red figure shot forward ahead of the charging soldiers. The figure surged in a single stride, as if leaping the shortest distance in a straight line, and in its hand a long sword dripping with blood carved through the air, scattering crimson light.
Slice! Slice!
"My arm!"
"Graaagh!"
The limbs of the charging soldiers went flying into the air in an instant.
"I'll kill every last one of you!"
The scent of death erupted from Gye Ung-sam's eyes. Having severed five limbs in a single exchange, he whirled in the direction his long sword flowed and became one with the death-calling blade, his entire body drawing a circle.
His body spun like a top, yet no one could stop him.
Only death continued to descend.
"Just subdue him!"
"Huh?"
A word that didn't fit the situation reached Ung-sam's ears. And then a strange, familiar sound began to resonate through the air.
"Oum Sala Um Taa!"
"Ha!"
Seven wizards hung suspended in the sky. They were the escort wizards who had fled earlier while evacuating the high command.
"Hup!"
A streak of light shot from Ung-sam's hand.
THUNK!
"Aaaaargh!"
The moment the dagger that had left his hand embedded itself in the stomach of one of the floating wizards, a long trailing scream rang out and the wizard plummeted like a wingless bird. As if alerted by that scream, more daggers shot upward into the air.
"Shield!"
THUNK! THUNK!
The satisfied smile on Ung-sam's lips froze into shock.
"What the—!"
He had calculated that the soaring daggers would be more than enough to strike down the wizards in the air, but his calculation had missed. Before the daggers could reach their targets, they were all deflected by a translucent barrier.
"Almighty heavens, calling forth destruction...."
Crackle!
Sparks gathered in the hands of the wizards hovering in the sky. As the sparks coalesced, Ung-sam's pupils expanded in kind.
"Lightning Shock!"
Crackle!
The instant white lightning descended from the sky, Ung-sam launched himself upward.
"Tah!"
THUD-THUD-THUD-THUD!
He ran, trampling across the shoulders of North Roselin soldiers still locked in combat.
"Kraaah!"
Ung-sam's roar thundered out as his body soared, scattering light, straight toward the descending net of lightning.
"Urrgh!"
"Aagh!"
Screams poured from both of Ung-sam's arms. It was certainly not that his arms had mouths.
Rather, the two North Roselin soldiers he had seized by the scruffs of their necks and dragged upward were screaming instinctively as they watched the ground recede beneath their feet.
"Taaat!"
Another roar erupted from Ung-sam's lips, and his arms swung across his body as if crossing each other. In the same instant, the two soldiers he had hauled up felt their bodies being violently hurled.
"Hiiik!"
"Kraa!"
What filled the two soldiers' eyes was the crackling net of lightning reaching out for them.
Screams that seemed fit to tear their throats burst out just before the lightning swallowed them. But the moment their screams mingled with the lightning net, no more sound escaped. The net of lightning entangled them both in an instant, and they who had managed at least those brief screams plummeted slowly downward, mouths agape.
"Damn it!"
CRACKLE-CRACKLE-CRACKLE!
"Kkeuh-eu-eu-eu!"
The traces of lightning, reduced by the generous(?) sacrifice of the two North Roselin soldiers' bodies, struck Ung-sam squarely as he hung defenseless in the air.
Even Ung-sam could do little against magic. He fell, wringing dry, ragged sounds from his throat now and then as he dropped.
"General!"
"Daesaja!"
Thanks to Ung-sam's sacrifice, the Chain Lightning that had filled the sky met its end. Even as he fell, Ung-sam spat curses through his fading consciousness.
'What the hell kind of bolt from the blue is this....'
With that last thought, he let go of the fraying thread of his awareness.
Thud!
BZZT!
"Keughk!"
The residual current left in Ung-sam's body delivered a mild shock to the hands of the Gauri swordsman who caught his falling form. But five swordsmen swiftly surrounded Ung-sam, radiating killing intent in all directions.
"Protect the General!"
The swordsmen had every reason to panic at the unexpected turn, but they calmly rallied and formed a protective ring around Ung-sam. In the meantime, another net of lightning descended.
"Lightning Shock!"
ZZZAP!
"Scatter!"
Cries from swordsmen rang out from every direction, but before they could disperse, the falling lightning net entangled not only the Gauri swordsmen but the North Roselin knights as well.
"Kraaagh!"
Agonized screams tore from the mouths of the electrocuted swordsmen, but the screams of the knights who were also shocked were unexpectedly faint. In truth, they were less screams than soft groans.
"Lightning Shock is working! The enemy armor has no magical defense!"
"Kill them, quickly!"
The only ones falling were the Gauri soldiers. The armor of the North Roselin knights was warded against magic, but there was no conceivable way the armor of the Gauri swordsmen carried such enchantments.
SHNK!
"Keuk!"
Blood sprayed.
The sword of a North Roselin knight that drove into the heart of a swordsman stunned by the unfamiliar attack showed no hint of mercy.
SLASH!
"Kraak!"
"You vicious—!"
The swordsman, his heart pierced, thrashed and swung his blade until the moment his breath stopped. When the knight who had buried his sword in that heart and relaxed saw his own ankle severed in a spray of blood, the watching knights lunged in shock and butchered the swordsman's already lifeless body as if venting their fury.
"Protect your fallen comrades! Do you want them all to die?!"
Ung-sam's voice erupted, raw as desperation itself. The Lightning Shock spell was meant not to kill but to incapacitate. Thanks to that, Ung-sam had already managed to regain a measure of his senses.
The movements of the swordsmen grew sharper, like wounded beasts, as they gathered to one side while shielding their comrades who had yet to recover. Some among them even dragged away the bodies of fallen comrades so mutilated that their forms were unrecognizable.
"Damn it!"
A curse tore from Ung-sam's mouth.
Part of it was because they had looked down on wizards for so long. And during the initial ambush, they had grown complacent after killing the spellcasters first.
But the price of their arrogance was the corpses of their comrades.
One small mercy was that when the Gauri swordsmen collapsed under the Lightning Shock, the North Roselin knights had failed to kill them in time.
"Oum Sala Um Taa...."
Once again, the voices of the wizards floating in the air rang out. In that instant, as if on cue, the Gauri swordsmen below began snatching up fallen weapons and hurling them at the wizards.
"Shield!"
CLANG-CLANG-CLANG!
Their weapons bounced away uselessly.
These wizards were skilled enough to begin with, and they possessed considerable ability in their own right. Naturally, every counterattack the swordsmen could muster amounted to nothing.
"I'm going up!"
The moment Ung-sam's shout rang out, one swordsman planted his sword in the ground, laced his fingers together, and brought his hands to just below his navel. Behind him, another swordsman hoisted a comrade onto his shoulders as if giving him a piggyback ride.
CLACK-CLACK-CLACK!
Ung-sam's feet moved fast.
"Tat!"
With a short battle cry, Ung-sam's form shot toward the swordsman whose hands were laced below his navel.
THUMP!
The moment he stepped onto the laced hands, he pushed off the swordsman's shoulder as if climbing stairs, then launched himself higher by springing off the shoulders of the two men mounted up behind.
"Hek!"
It had all happened in a flash.
As Ung-sam rocketed upward toward the wizards who were flying low for another Lightning Shock, the wizard responsible for defense began chanting.
"Shield!"
WHIRRR!
Mana resonated, and an alien membrane enveloped the wizards. At the same moment, Ung-sam's long sword sliced through the wind.
SCREEECH!
The Shield shrieked as if in protest the moment the long sword was swung. Ung-sam, having struck only once, landed on the ground and immediately lifted his head and shouted in a disgusted voice.
"God damn it!"
SPURT!
"Keuk!"
The instant Ung-sam's words echoed into the air, the wizard who had deployed the Shield buckled at the waist and blood poured from his body. But the spells of the remaining wizards had not yet finished.
Ung-sam had launched himself to strike all the wizards massed for their attack in a single blow, yet his strike had managed to cut down only the one wizard maintaining the defense.
"Geolmuhyul!"
"Yes!"
Gnashing his teeth, Ung-sam called out to a nearby swordsman.
"Block it with your body!"
"As you command!"
Ung-sam's order was merciless.
The nature of Lightning Shock was to travel through weapons and electrocute everything in a given area into combat incapacity — but if a single person took the entirety of the blast, there was no telling whether they would live or die.
And yet the swordsman who had heard Ung-sam's command had already begun his running start, his answer booming.
"Lightning Shock!"
The net of lightning unfurled once more.
The figure of the swordsman hurtling toward it like a beam of light looked no different from a moth flying into a flame.
"Raaargh!"
A battle cry burst from the swordsman called Geolmuhyul as he faced the oncoming Lightning Shock — a cry that no one could tell was meant to drown out his terror, or born of fury that this was the only way he could respond.
RRRUMBLE!
"What the?!"
"Ha!"
Geolmuhyul's cry was swallowed by the crash of thunder echoing across the sky. At the same instant, gasps of shock erupted — not from the Gauri swordsmen, but from the North Roselin knights and soldiers.
"The Taedaehyeong has come!"
A cry from one of the swordsmen.
The net of lightning that had been bearing down on Geolmuhyul vanished, devoured as prey by a single water dragon. The bewildered wizards turned their heads and stared in the direction from which the water dragon had flown.
"A—a spirit?"
"What in the world is that?!"
Amid the wizards' shock, Yeon Hwi-garam revealed himself. Around his body, which raced forward as though gliding over the earth, torrents of water coiled and roared like a blazing blue fire.
"Stop him!"
The moment Hwi-garam appeared, North Roselin soldiers charged at him at the knights' shouted command.
The expression on Hwi-garam's face as he watched the North Roselin soldiers rushing toward him had shifted from its usual calm to something cold — so cold that it sent a chill through even the soldiers charging at him.
"Huuup!"
As he steadied his breathing, Blue Ghostfire flickered in his eyes. Then, from the Hwandudaedo in one hand, a blue light began to ripple.
"Raaargh!"
"Hap!"
With a short cry, Hwi-garam swung his Hwandudaedo toward the charging, shouting North Roselin soldiers. The torrents of water that had coiled around his body swept through the air in a half-circle.
ROOOAR!
From the surging water erupted a roar — whether it was the mockery of fools or fury against those who dared to block its path, no one could tell.
"G-get out of the way!"
CRASH!