Chapter 126
Chapter 126
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 126
Chapter Title: The Spark of Heroism
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In the past, Ian had endured countless hardships and ultimately founded a great empire.
At its pinnacle, he had ascended to the throne of the Hegemon, a figure who once struck fear into the heart of the entire continent of Agera.
That meant he had emerged victorious in an uncountable number of wars.
In truth, during the era when Ian, as Lucas Alexei, dominated the North Continent—excluding the final great war—he had experienced defeat in battle only a handful of times before founding the Alexandr Empire.
In other words, Ian's ability to read the tide of battle was on a level far beyond that of ordinary people.
'This won't do. It's like pissing in your pants in the dead of winter.'
Bam!
Ian, having cleaved through a ghoul, had realized from the start that there was only one way to turn this tide of war in a single stroke.
A small elite force of the strongest warriors.
By infiltrating them to sever the neck of that damned lich.
There were no other options.
And upon overhearing the squad leaders' conversation with the Little Stars, Ian hesitated no longer.
Whoosh!
Ian swung the Twin-Headed Blood Serpent wide, pulverizing the surrounding undead in one go.
For a brief moment, a space opened up for him to take to the skies.
"Latent Dragon Squad! Hold the line here with the other strike teams—fight the undead to the death!"
"W-what? Hey, Captain! Where are you going? What the hell are you doing?!"
The squad members panicked at Ian's sudden move and tried to stop him, but Ian ignored their desperate calls, stomped the ground, and soared into the air.
Ian knew his own abilities all too well right now.
The past version of himself had been a powerhouse capable of overturning the entire flow of a war.
But the current him couldn't even control the flow of a single battle on his own, let alone a war.
'This front line is doomed to fail anyway if we don't take down that lich.'
That skullhead's army-commanding prowess was something even his experiences conquering the North Continent as Lucas couldn't compare to—it was nothing short of miraculous.
If he didn't have the power to take down the lich himself right now...
At the very least, he had to carve a path for the Martial Clan's squad leaders to subdue that skeleton.
That way, he wouldn't bring shame to the direct lineage of the Lichtenauer Martial Clan.
Krunch!
He pushed aside, shattered, and deflected the undeads' attacks.
Step by step, he advanced.
Finally, knights clad in pitch-black armor came into view before Ian's eyes.
-Ooooooo!
Shing! Shing!
To judge the insolent living who dared approach, the Death Knights menacingly drew their weapons.
The sight was enough to chill the blood in one's veins.
"They say you need at least the aura of an Expert Advanced knight from life to be summoned as a Death Knight, right?"
Facing off against nearly twenty of these terrifying monsters...
Ian bared his teeth in a white grin.
Perfect.
From his perspective, there wouldn't be a better stage anytime soon to freely test the extent of his growth.
"I'm curious... Just how many of you can I take on right now?"
Clang!
Chain-like blades erupted from beneath the feet of the Death Knight facing Ian, wrapping around its legs.
And with it suspended in midair, he mercilessly unleashed his aura.
Vwoooom!
"What a fool."
Arckandor was dumbfounded watching the human charge foolishly straight at the Death Knights.
A young whippersnapper, blue as they come.
An immature punk who hadn't even fully matured as a martial artist, yet he barreled in bravely as if he were somebody special.
Swimming upstream against this wave of undead like an ocean.
He had decent skill for his age, sure... but it wasn't nearly enough to make any meaningful difference in this cataclysm, let alone the war for supremacy over the entire South Continent.
So Arckandor lost interest in Ian.
He was just another lump of meat about to be diced up by the Death Knights anyway.
But why was it...
"Ian! It's dangerous! Don't go alone!"
Boom!
"Ow, seriously! Young Lord Ian! Would it kill you to take us with you?!"
"...Pathetic trash, always sticking your nose where it doesn't belong..."
"......"
"...Whew... Young Lord Ian. So you're one who doesn't wield a proper sword either. You're on the demonic path too."
The young humans around Ian's age reacted in their own ways to his reckless charge and began to move.
No, it wasn't just them.
"The Second Young Lord is holding back the Death Knights!"
"Damn it, the Second Young Lord's going all out like that. We can't just stand around like idiots—it'd be a disgrace!"
"Hey! Bring the hammer! I'm gonna smash this skullhead to pieces!"
The humans, drained from holding back the undead tide, felt their spirits surge.
Step by step.
Slowly, agonizingly slowly, but toward his Death Knights—and toward him standing behind them.
They began advancing in perfect unison toward the goal of 'victory'.
"Kill them!!"
Those who had been frantically blocking his legion's flood now started counterattacking one by one.
"...I see."
Arckandor watched the ominous shift in the air, blue soulfire igniting in his empty eye sockets.
"You... You're the seed of the human who turns history on its head in this era!!"
Arckandor had endured for centuries for the revival of the Earth Dragon.
Having observed human history for ages, he had come to one realization.
Those with absolute power that shook mountains and rivers, shattered peaks, and cleaved seas.
The world called them Hegemons or Absolutes who dominated eras.
They were rare, perhaps one or two per age, and undoubtedly remarkable humans.
In the past, the patriarch of the Lichtenauer Martial Clan—who had sealed the Earth Dragon Karakthus and perished alongside him—had been one such figure.
Yet even after that, as Arckandor led the Great Curtain without its Earth Dragon and clashed endlessly with the Lichtenauer Martial Clan, he learned something.
There was a type of human even more dangerous than those Absolutes.
They wielded no great power, just pitiful strength.
Yet they overturned the flow of battles, shifted the atmosphere of the battlefield, and even defied the predetermined outcome of wars.
Not shakers of eras... but creators of them.
The world called such people 'heroes'.
He didn't seem aware yet... but Arckandor was certain.
The human at the forefront, battling the Death Knights and carving a path toward him.
That one was the human closest to becoming a 'hero' on this battlefield right now.
If this war ended and much time passed... he might grow into a pesky foe blocking the Great Curtain and the Earth Dragon's path.
"I can't let that happen."
He had seen countless buds of heroes over the years.
And Arckandor had never let a single one slip away—he had erased them all.
Because they would become nuisances to the Great Curtain.
This time would be no different.
Right here, right now.
He would turn him into a puddle of blood.
Roar!
Flames eerily similar to the Earth Dragon's black fire rose from Arckandor's hands.
Flames born from studying the supreme, transcendent, mortal black flames of the Earth Dragon.
This was Hell Flame.
"Perish, bud of the heaven-defier!"
Fwoosh!
As Arckandor swept his hand, the superheated infernal blaze—intensified by the Earth Dragon's blessing—hurtled toward Ian.
Or rather, it tried to.
Boom!
"!"
A golden-haired girl gripping two short daggers in reverse grip plummeted from the sky, shredding Arckandor's flames wildly.
"Whoa, hot! Hot! Whew, whew!"
The girl, extinguishing a stray flame clinging to her hair, made a sour face at her singed and frizzed locks.
"Argh, my hair! Ugh, I just got it done... Everyone, be careful—this stuff stings like hell."
The girl grumbled playfully, but she wasn't some delicate little thing worthy of being called a girl.
She was Niariele, captain of the Flying Flame Unit.
"Picking on the sprouts, you old fogey? How pathetic."
Crack!
Walter, now at Niariele's side, drew his pair of crude tonfa and sneered.
"Let the kids play among themselves. Why don't you have some real fun with us?"
Following the path opened by Ian and the Little Stars, the squad leaders had now blocked Arckandor's front.
"...Is that so."
Even in this dire moment, Arckandor didn't blink.
The power bestowed by his master, the Earth Dragon, wasn't so frail as to crumble before a few humans.
"Well, that doesn't sound bad either."
Roar!
"Beings like you will surely provide fine life force to the Earth Dragon!"
A strange zeal boiled in Arckandor's soulfire eyes.
"Come at me, foolish mortals!!"
Scree!
A clean trajectory without a hint of waste.
The epitome of a knight's swordsmanship.
No doubt, in life, he had honed his skills endlessly to reach this level.
Undoubtedly an exceptional knight.
The overhead slash was merely the opening.
A mace rising from the lower left, and a flail sweeping horizontally from the mid-right in a grand arc.
Perfect timing, as if they had practiced joint attacks for ages.
The one flaw in this picturesque assault was the opponent facing it.
A normal Expert would have floundered in the Death Knights' linkage and met their end.
But the foe they faced now was once the Hegemon who battled the entire world.
Ian, inured to assaults from multiple enemies, saw the Death Knights' combo as mere child's play.
Clang!
He stabbed the chain of the flail with his greatsword reverted to blade form and twisted hard.
The flail's precise path plummeted to the ground.
Bam!
Easily neutralizing the flail, Ian spun the broad side of his greatsword like a shield to block the mace from the left.
Bam!
"...Hm!"
The flail was simple enough, but the shockwave in the mace was hefty—Ian let out a small grunt.
'...Not as easy as I thought.'
Using the mace's force to create distance, Ian scanned his surroundings.
The other Little Stars, excluding him, were locked in fierce struggles against the Death Knights.
They were the Martial Clan's prized geniuses, but the Death Knights had been 'at least' Advanced Experts in life.
Even three or four of them... especially with the undead's disregard for life in their charges... made it hard for the Little Stars to fully unleash their power.
But unlike them, Ian was a battle-hardened Hegemon with a hundred—no, a thousand—wars under his belt.
He already had a plan to turn the tables against these Death Knights.
"Huuuuuuh..."
As Ian regulated his breathing, his aura slowly shifted.
If this were like facing Attila in the birch forest back then...
Ian would have opened his blood gates immediately.
But unlike that confined space, this was an open melee on all sides.
With no telling when the fight would end or if allies could assist amid overflowing variables.
Blindly opening blood gates here would be suicide.
So Ian decided to draw on another trump card he had prepared in his solo training.
The Death Knights, unaware of Ian's intentions, mistook his sudden lowering of his weapon and steadying breath as surrender.
Scree!
Without hesitation, they swung their swords down toward Ian's head.