Chapter 341
Chapter 341
Iron Emperor — Chapter 341
Shring.
With a cold metallic sound, Earl Pelloman drew his beloved sword. He could no longer stand by and watch. He alone could put an end to this unbelievable situation.
At that moment, the same murderous intent that had torn through his entire body before poured over him.
He flinched.
A wild-haired fiend was charging straight at him. Blood-red eyes blazing with ferocity. Pelloman knew who he was.
The man who had stood like an iron wall atop the fortress rampart from the very first day. That same man was now rushing at him with the face of a demon.
"Come!"
"Graaaaah!"
Pelloman kicked off his horse and launched himself. A strike meant to split the earth in two.
Muhyul, already charging, surged upward. He aimed to cleave the heavens.
KA-KA-BOOM!
"Uaaaah!"
"M-My ears!"
The power of one who would split the earth and one who would split the sky collided, and the powerless men nearby clamped their hands over their ears and crumpled.
"Ngh!"
Earl Pelloman landed on the ground, but still staggered back five or six steps. The violent trembling of his weapon told him everything about the collision that had just occurred.
"Huuuh."
Muhyul, who had landed on his back, sprang up like a beast eyeing its prey and glared from a low stance.
"You bastard!"
If he broke here, it would mean not just his own defeat but the entire army's collapse. Earl Pelloman let out a roar and charged. Muhyul met him head-on, lunging like a tiger pouncing on its prey.
Every time steel met steel, thunder cracked and fire flashed.
"Haaaah!"
Aura erupted from Earl Pelloman's weapon—the highest display a Peak Sword Owner could produce. That power, capable of cutting anything in the world, was scattering like sparks leaping from a campfire.
'Why!'
BANG! BANG!
'Why!'
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
"Why won’t it cut?!"
Muhyul's Hwandudaedo offered no answer to his question. It merely met Pelloman's incoming Aura-coated sword, blow after blow.
CLANG!
"Ngh!"
Excitement breeds openings.
Muhyul's Hwandudaedo turned aside Earl Pelloman's sword, which was laden with immense power. In an instant, a chill washed over Earl Pelloman as he watched the Hwandudaedo flying toward him.
'To end so pointlessly...'
KRAK!
At that moment, a deep blue blade blocked his view. An Aura Blade, the symbol of a Sword Master, blazed from it.
"M-Marquis!"
Earl Pelloman realized his savior was Marquis Luchia.
"Your name."
Marquis Luchia asked the wild-haired fiend.
"Geom Muhyul. A warrior of Great Gauri."
"I will remember it."
The instant those words ended, Muhyul's Hwandudaedo—which had stood like an iron wall—split in half and fell.
Clink.
"Graaaaah!"
A beast's roar erupted. The broken half of the Hwandudaedo slashed down toward Marquis Luchia.
SLASH!
Instead of the thunderous crash that had resounded so loudly, a single clean sound rang out low.
Marquis Luchia's cold blade was already back in its scabbard, and Muhyul had passed him by.
"I-Is he dead?"
At such a silent conclusion, one soldier said blankly, unable to believe that the man who had seemed like a demon only moments before now stood motionless like a statue with his shattered weapon lowered.
"Marquis, my apologies."
"You were overexcited."
At Marquis Luchia's cold voice, Earl Pelloman bowed his head.
Then Muhyul, who had been frozen like a statue, moved.
"ROOOAR!"
A ferocious roar rang out, and Earl Pelloman flinched and turned his head.
"Wh-What!"
CRUNCH!
"Aagh!"
Muhyul drove the broken half of his Hwandudaedo into the throat of a soldier who had boldly approached, seized the man's weapon, and charged at the other soldiers.
"Aagh!"
"Everyone fall back!"
Another soldier screamed, clutching the blade driven into his heart. Marquis Luchia's order rang out. The soldiers pulled back like the ebbing tide. Yet Muhyul's movements remained brutal.
He slashed the empty air,
he cut the empty air,
he thrust into the empty air.
Then he stopped.
SPURT!
The instant he stopped, blood fountained from the severed joints at his neck and limbs. His head rolled free of his torso, and his body slowly collapsed to the ground.
The defender of Gaemun Mountain Fortress, Geom Muhyul, had fallen in battle.
Chapter 117 - The One Who Guards Forever
Marquis Luchia tore his gaze from Geom Muhyul's corpse, which the soldiers were hacking apart as if venting their rage, and looked down at his own sword.
There was not a single smear of blood on the blade.
"...!"
His eyes widened.
The blade, radiating a cold like ice itself, was nicked. How could such a wound appear when he had used his Aura Blade? It should be impossible.
As Marquis Luchia stared at his beloved sword with a stiff face, screams and thunderous roars continued to ring in his ears. There was only one person it could be—he didn't need to confirm.
He raised his head and turned his gaze toward the source of the noise. There, Eulji Buru was slaughtering the soldiers and knights of the Holy Empire.
"M-Marquis."
Earl Pelloman, a trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth, called to him with a pale, aghast face. Buru should normally have been tiring as time passed, yet his attacks were only growing fiercer.
"Pull the soldiers back. Magic Corps Commander."
"Yes, Marquis."
"The moment the soldiers withdraw, pour down an attack with the wizards of the remaining Magic Corps."
At Marquis Luchia's order, the Magic Corps Commander's eyes widened. Since becoming commander, he had never used magic concentrated solely to kill a single individual. No—the very notion of using magic that way was something that only appeared in novels.
Of course, low-circle wizards occasionally did such things, but wizards organized into a formal corps never had. Yet he offered no retort. He simply bowed his head.
Because he too had seen that man neutralize magic. A half-hearted attempt would be worse than doing nothing at all. Besides, apart from himself, only two wizards in the Magic Corps remained capable of casting right now.
Even Geom Muhyul had now fallen.
Alone, Buru swung his great axe, fighting for Muhyul's share as well.
He cut, and cut again.
CRACK!
He brought a stolen shield down on a soldier's head. Helmet and skull shattered together. Leaving behind the soldier, who crumpled without even a scream, Buru turned his head to find new prey—
"Damn it."
The area around him was already empty, and an immense concentration of power was steadily swelling. As Eulji Buru muttered the curse, forces both blazing hot and freezing cold hurtled toward him.
KA-KA-KA-BOOM!
First came searing heat!
CRRRAAACK!
Then bitter, bone-chilling cold!
"Aaaagh!"
Soldiers who couldn't escape in time rolled on the ground trying to extinguish the flames clinging to their bodies. Others shrieked in horror at the sight of their own frozen arms.
Where those two forces struck in succession, an explosion more powerful than any before surged upward. A flash of light that threatened to swallow the sun devoured every trace of the fierce battle.
RRRRUMBLE.
"I-Is he dead?"
As the roar subsided, human flesh and blood rained down from the sky. Where the two enormous spells had collided, a towering cloud of dust rose like a mushroom.
Hssssss.
Magic. A power too terrible to have been wrought by human hands.
The soldiers who had witnessed this scene of destruction from only a short distance away watched with bated breath.
"W-We w-won..."
SWISH!
As a soldier began to voice their victory, a streak of light shot out before his eyes. It formed into a single long line and swept past.
THWACK! CRACK!
"...!"
The soldiers' heads turned, following the streak of light. At its end, a wizard was crumbling to the ground, the broken half of a sword driven into his forehead.
"Th-This can't be!"
As if watching something unreal, the soldiers shook their heads in denial as they saw the wizard's body slowly collapse.
Like being forced to look at something they didn't want to see, the soldiers slowly turned their heads from the dead wizard toward where the magic had exploded.
It was not yet over.
With his face hidden behind his great axe, Eulji Buru spat out a curse.
"Shit."
HSSSS.
The armor that had protected Eulji Buru's whole body had melted on one side and crumbled on the other. Blood surged up his throat from somewhere, the shock still lingering, but he stubbornly refused to spit it out.
Gulp.
Like a thirsty man drinking water, he forcibly swallowed it back down.
"Keuk, I was gettin' a little thirsty anyway. Thanks for that."
Even as his whole body trembled, Buru did not lose his smile. It was closer to madness. As the dust cleared, he saw Holy Empire soldiers standing there dumbly, and beyond them two wizards staring at him in disbelief.
He launched himself.
"S-Stop him!"
A knight realized it a moment too late and shouted at the soldiers, but it was counterproductive. The soldiers in Buru's path split apart like the ebbing tide.
"S-Save me!"
Indescribable terror.
Survival instinct.
It opened a path for Buru. And at the end of that path, he saw the frantic wizards.
The Magic Corps Commander stared at the terrible result they themselves had wrought, a tangle of emotions on his face, believing at last that the grueling battle was over.
He had thought it was over.
But it was not over.
It was a single instant.
When the wizard at the very front suddenly threw his head back, the Magic Corps Commander met his eyes for the briefest instant. They were eyes full of relief—even with half a broken sword embedded between them. Only then did the commander realize their attack had failed.
By the time the commander grasped what had happened, the man was already charging. A magical system designed to bring down a massive fortress wall had been fired at one man, yet he had broken through it and counterattacked. He came roaring like a dragon down the path no one had even thought to block.
"M-Magic! Use magic!"
The flustered corps wizard kept failing to complete his incantation.
And the result of that failure was death.
Like paper being torn, another wizard split in two before his eyes. Only then did the Magic Corps Commander unleash his power with desperate force.
"Lightning Field!"
KRA-KRA-KRAK!