The Black Death (6)
The Black Death (6)
Kleis returned to her unit.
The legend had returned. That news alone turned the tides of war. After the welcoming ceremony, the troops' morale pierced the sky.
"The Iron Tower that stood on the First Island Defense Line has vanished."
"They must have dismantled it themselves."
Having finished her frontline inspection, Kleis was assigned a regiment-sized force.
The total combat strength was 326 personnel. All of them were mages of high-class or above. The remaining positions were filled with medical, communications, support, and supply roles.
An operation was drafted: a grande armée capable of launching over three hundred flares at once would charge straight to the 3rd Defense Line, escorted by surrounding divisions. They did not forget to keep a retreat path open for contingencies.
The thoroughly prepared army advanced north with irresistible momentum. They crossed one of the Elankaya sub-ranges, then traversed a snow-covered plateau.
And in just a few hours, they broke through the First Defense Line.
Next, they reached the 2nd Defense Line. The number of high-class magic beasts gradually decreased, and Calamity-class beings appeared in their stead. But even Calamity-class creatures fell before the Flare like autumn leaves in the wind.
We were winning. We could win.
Perhaps, this war that had lasted for hundreds of years could finally be ended.
The 2nd Defense Line collapsed four days after the operation commenced. Six Gargantuas guarded the gate, but all of them fell futilely before Aether's Flare.
"Shall we advance further?"
"Secure the supply route thoroughly and steel yourselves. From here on, Extinction-class beings may appear at any time."
Thus, they advanced toward the 3rd Defense Line. Now, every magic beast that blocked Kleis's unit was Calamity-class. There were no high-class magic beasts at all.
Even so, they were no match. As long as they had the Flare, there were no human casualties. They pressed forward without rest. It was an advance speed rarely seen in standard operational doctrine.
It was nearly a week after the operation began when Kleis's unit discovered a massive tower.
"Isn't that the tower that was near the First Defense Line?"
"It seems it was originally here."
"What should we do?"
There was no reason to hesitate.
They would bring that tower down.
First volley. Fifty flares were loaded. Crimson beams of light leaped toward the tower. Struck by the simultaneous barrage of flares, the tower lurched. It seemed to be straining desperately to regain its balance.
It was right after the second bombardment ended that a girl from the Gold-Eye Tribe appeared before the tower.
"That... isn't that a member of the Gold-Eye Tribe? What should we do?"
Kleis knew that girl.
The girl who had come to her not long ago, warning her not to cross the 3rd Defense Line, was an enigmatic being who resembled Aether but whose hair color was the exact opposite. The fact that this girl had appeared here was a bad omen. It was something Kleis, a veteran of the battlefield, knew instinctively.
But she only had a split second to make a judgment. Her adjutant shouted.
"That's a human-form demon! The ones here are all magic beasts! Prepare to fire—!!"
The next scrolls were primed. The flares were loaded and fired. Dozens of light beams flew simultaneously toward the spot where the white-haired, golden-eyed girl stood.
It was a crossfire. There was no way to dodge. She had to block them, or change the direction of the beams. If she didn't do one or the other, the girl was as good as dead.
The girl from the Gold-Eye Tribe used a third method. With a single gesture, the fiercely incoming flares vanished all at once.
"Wha...!"
There was no time to react.
The next instant, the heads of the comrades beside her burst open.
"You crazy...!!"
"What is it! What just happened...!"
No one knew what had happened. They could only indirectly deduce that something with mass had pierced through their comrades' skulls. Thick, visible sparks crackled around the bodies of their fallen comrades.
"Do not panic! The enemy is only one person!"
"Request support from headquarters and reform the lines first!!"
The girl before them smiled a bloody smile. She held several metal bullets in her palm. Toying with them, the girl drew her arm back.
"I believe I told you repeatedly."
Pak-pak-pak-pak! The shooters who were preparing the next spell all collapsed at once. Some had their heads vanish, others were severed at the waist. Tiny sparks flew around the spots where they fell.
"Not to crawl into the 3rd Defense Line."
"So you are... that member of the Gold-Eye Tribe from back then. Or would it be more accurate to consider you a magic beast?"
Kleis stepped forward, grinding her teeth. Flames erupted from the tip of the staff she gripped with both hands.
"A magic beast? Me?"
The girl chuckled and tapped her chest. As her cheekbones rose, black blood trickled down her cheeks. Seeing this unfiltered, Kleis furrowed her brow.
A chill ran down her spine. Truly, a member of the Gold-Eye Tribe, really?
No. That couldn't be.
Magic beasts were ferocious by nature and hated all races other than their own. If the Gold-Eye Tribe were magic beasts, that would mean Aether was a magic beast too. If her former assistant had been a magic beast, there would have been no reason for her to obey Kleis for the past three years.
"Fine. Since you'll all be dead soon anyway, I'll let you in on a special secret."
The girl put the remaining bullets into her robe pocket. Then she inhaled a thick cloud of mana cigarette smoke.
"Half right, half wrong."
The girl raised her arm. It was the preparatory motion for summoning a staff.
"Colonel, they say reinforcements will arrive within fifteen minutes."
"...We hold out until then. Showing our backs here is the same as offering our waists to the enemy."
[Composition: Staff]
Shwoong. A slender iron rod emerged from subspace.
It was an irregular staff with a silvery sheen. Its tip was sharp like a spear, and three nails were embedded backward into its center. The central blade and the other two blades formed a Y-shape.
"Frontline mages, prepare for close combat!"
The enemy numbered only one. No other magic beasts were emerging from the iron tower behind her. Now was the opportune moment to subdue the white-haired girl.
And the next instant.
Pook!
The girl folded space to dash forward and pierced through the eyeball of the young mage who had been about to thrust out his staff.
The mage returned to the Goddess's embrace with a final scream.
"M-Marco...!"
"You son of a bitch—!!"
"Stop! Stay calm!"
In the following moment, the solar plexus and jaw of two mid-ranking mages were impaled.
Crunch. The sound of cartilage being crushed rang out. The speed was hard for human eyes to follow. At that blinding velocity, one, three, five, ten, twenty fell in an instant. Flesh and bone clung to the spear-like tip of the staff. The white-haired Gold-Eye Tribe had gathered human heads together and made them into meatballs.
Pulled to the rear by her subordinates' sincere pleas, Kleis pushed her other adjutants aside and stepped forward again. No, she burst out with the momentum to kill the girl outright. Her eyes were horribly bloodshot.
Taking a low stance, she swung her flames at the girl. The girl blocked the flames in a single stroke.
Chang! A sound that tore through the earth rang out. Kleis pulled a scroll from her chest and thrust it into the girl's face.
She tried to thrust it.
[Intermediate Lightning Magic — Capacitance]
Misfire. The scroll stopped functioning. Unfazed, Kleis drew up mana with her left hand.
[Top-Grade Fire Magic — Corona]
Whoosh. A flame reaching six thousand degrees Celsius bore down upon the girl.
"Oh, you're using something fun?"
[Intermediate Lightning Magic — Corona]
"Too bad for you, I use the exact same thing."
"Th-this is...!"
A high-temperature, high-pressure plasma rose back up in reverse. Kleis twisted her body hard enough to nearly dislocate her shoulder. It was a hair's breadth difference. She dodged, but the upper part of her field robe was burned away.
"A technique thousands of years old, but quite useful, isn't it? Were you hoping for this kind of retro feel?"
Kleis's eyes became bloodshot.
"That is a Magic Art developed by my family! How do you even know...!"
"Corona takes a long time to develop if you approach it through fire-type theory. I guess you went down that stupid path? Pity, it already existed as a Magic Art."
"Th-this...!!"
Thud. A sound rang out. While Kleis was distracted, her ribs were kicked. One roll, two rolls, three rolls. Having lost her staff, Kleis tumbled across the snowy field.
Groaning pitifully, she pressed against the ground and rose. The girl had already arrived right in front of her.
She felt it instinctively.
This was no Calamity-class.
A monster.
This girl was a monster beyond all comparison to the Calamity-class 'riffraff' they had faced on their way here.
A flashback raced through her mind. Roughly five years ago, when she and Meri had crossed the First Defense Line, the colossal sky fortress had blocked their path. It felt like she was seeing that fortress right before her eyes.
Her sympathetic nervous system began to run wild on its own. Tension, fear, excitement. Emotions close to death flickered before her. Kleis squeezed out her voice.
"All forces retreat—!!"
A commander's order on the front lines was absolute. The survivors each bit their lips and pulled back.
She had ordered the retreat as written in the military manuals. At least one more person had to return alive. They had to return and report this fact. However, the moment the enemy heard that order, it became effectively meaningless.
"Where do you think you're running off to."
The girl plunged her staff into the ground and chanted an incantation. Her posture was similar to the stance Meri took when using top-grade magic.
"Your Grace, Duke Haspelt, since you're here, I'd like you to turn around. I'll show you something interesting."
Kleis had no intention of taking her eyes off the girl. Even so, the girl kicked her and forced her to look back.
The girl's previously flat tone turned icy.
"I'll show you the results of ignoring my advice."
The mages fled soundlessly. They hastened their steps far away, toward the vanishing point beyond the horizon. There were no screams. They were retreating, having forgotten even to shout in the face of indescribable terror. Clouds gathered over their heads.
It was night. Although it was the polar region and thus relatively bright, it was still night.
The moment the sun's altitude was at its lowest, at the girl's single word declaring she would make them pay the price, the sun vanished entirely beneath the snowy mountain.
Just when it seemed complete darkness was about to arrive, the girl chanted.
[Legendary Unique Magic — White Night]
Bands of every color formed in the sky. The bands flowed from one end of the sky to the other, from high latitude to low latitude, forming a massive substorm.
And then, discharges occurred between the layers of the accumulated ionosphere. Hundreds, thousands of lightning bolts struck down upon the heads of the fleeing mages, one, two, three.
A sound as if heaven and earth were being torn apart rang out. It was literally a bolt from the blue.
The soldiers struck by the lightning coughed blood and collapsed on the spot. Their skin burned away, then regenerated again. The same lightning struck the same spot over and over, inflicting infinite agony.
With every hit, their bodies decayed further, and human forms gradually turned to charcoal. Kleis was forced to witness every single moment of it right before her eyes.
"Ah, aah......"
Words failed her. It felt as if memories she had tried to bury in the depths of her mind were being dug up with a shovel.
A minute? It hadn't even taken that long.
The two hundred fifty mages who had been trying to retreat—not one of them remained.
They were all dead.
Just like that day five years ago, when the colossal ironclad ship had appeared in the sky. Everyone had become a corpse. Every single member of her unit had vanished from this continent, leaving only Kleis herself behind. An indescribable sense of enervation swept over her.
"Y-you, you... what on earth........"
Kleis contorted her face and put strength into her calves. But her body, buried in snow, wouldn't move well. She couldn't grasp what kind of face she was making right now, how things had come to this in an instant, or what would happen next.
It was simply that she felt sheer terror, for the first time, toward this girl who was the spitting image of Aether. And so, she couldn't speak properly.
"Did you think that if you came here slicing up Calamity-class beasts with someone else's magic, you could easily defeat Extinction-class ones too?"
"You, don't tell me......."
"I've been pretty lenient with you. But not only did you touch the person most precious to me, you invaded our home ground and ran wild. That's really crossing the line."
"You... don't tell me that precious person is......."
"Hmm, what to do now. Now that I've told you my identity, I can't exactly let you go back to a peaceful life. You die, or you live with us forever. Usually, it's one of the two."
The white-haired girl let out a brief, pensive hum.
Her deliberation was short. Puh-uk! Kleis's consciousness cut out there.
"Heave-ho."
The white-haired, golden-eyed girl slung Kleis over her shoulder. Then she walked off somewhere.
Thud.
That was around the time the door of the Magic Tower closed.