A Send-off Fit for a King
The expedition that had marched out of Habun Castle to take the Ice Troll Lord's head had already reached the region bordering Sterin Mountain.
"Ten minutes' rest!"
Milland halted on a hill from which Sterin Mountain was faintly visible and ordered a break. From here on, they would have to move in constant readiness for battle—there was no telling when a fight might erupt.
"Where was the Lord last confirmed?"
"The rocking boulder on the mid-slope of Sterin Mountain, sir. We'll have eyes on them before sunrise tomorrow."
Barti, captain of the 1st Scout Squad, bowed his head as he answered.
"I see..."
Milland narrowed his eyes at Sterin Mountain, which lay buried in darkness and snow, radiating an eerie, almost grotesque presence.
This doesn't sit right.
They'd been pressed for time, so they had moved first and thought later—but the situation was strange in more ways than one. Marine monsters climbing from the North Sea into the mountains. An Ice Troll Shaman and Warrior stalking the scout squad from behind. And a Lord appearing after the Wave. None of it was ordinary.
Milland gripped the sword at his waist until it seemed ready to snap.
But there's no other choice right now.
They had confirmed it three times. The Ice Troll Lord's appearance was certain. Even if this was someone's trap, the Lord had to be eliminated without fail.
"Now we move—hm?"
He let out a sigh too quiet to hear and was about to give the order to move out when it happened. A small spark of fire shot up from the direction of Habun Castle.
"Huh? What's that?"
"A flare?"
Those who saw the signal flare went wide-eyed.
"Wait—"
"A-a second one?"
"That means..."
The swordsmen and knights who saw the second flare swallowed dryly. Consecutive flares meant crisis. Habun Castle was in danger.
"S-should we turn back?"
"Even if we go back, we take the Lord first!"
"Are you insane? That's a signal that the castle is in peril!"
"We can't go back empty-handed after coming this far! And even if we run ourselves ragged from here, it'll take too long!"
Opinion split even among the swordsmen and knights. Those arguing eventually turned to Milland, who held the authority to decide.
"Terian, Raon, and Edquil are at Habun Castle."
Milland twisted his lips as he watched the flares fade.
"Those three wouldn't fire a flare over nothing."
Terian trusted Raon completely. That they had sent a crisis signal even with Raon there meant this was no ordinary matter. But that wasn't the only reason for Milland's decision. The image of Raon leaping from the walls during the Wave, putting the soldiers ahead of himself, was still burned deep into his mind—and it was shaping his actions even now.
Milland turned his back on Sterin Mountain, both eyes gleaming.
"Hah."
Raon looked down at the blue flower bracelet on his wrist and let out a dry laugh.
So this is how it turns out?
He had been fighting Wrath for his life every single day, so his resistance to frost and mental assault was already at Master-level or higher. If they had come a little sooner it might have been different—but now that he had mastered Glacia, neither cold nor curses meant a thing.
It's all thanks to you. Appreciate it.
Raon tipped his head toward Wrath, who was poking slightly out of the bracelet.
"Nngh. This King never intended for it to turn out this way."
Wrath glared at him through narrowed eyes.
"Still, the fact remains that their attacks are meaningless because of you."
"Urgh! You insolent brat!"
Apparently taking it as mockery, Wrath trembled, his frost-forged arms shaking. He muttered that Raon would someday receive heaven's punishment, then withdrew into the bracelet.
"What the hell are you?!"
Bluebeard, who had kept his voice low until now, suddenly screamed.
"How does a brat's mental fortitude... how is it even..."
Shock flickered in Ice Fang's eyes as well. His long, fishbone-thin pupils stretched as if they might tear.
"I'm the scouts' escort."
Raon pointed, his gaze calm, at the scouts loosing arrows from atop the walls.
"You think that makes any sense?!"
"Sense or not, what does it matter? We're enemies either way."
He swept his sword in a circle. A crimson blade imbued with the energy of the Cultivation of Ten Thousand Flames split the freezing air.
"Come at me."
"Khrrrk!"
"You bastard!"
At a twitch of their fingers, Ice Fang and Bluebeard's auras surged exponentially. Battle Qi twisted the very space around them, roaring upward as if it might pierce the sky—they had drawn on everything they had.
"Rashikma. Viratun! Ju!"
Bluebeard swept his staff through empty air, and the blizzard howled to life. Snow crashed down like rain, blotting out every scrap of vision. It was a storm packed with curses and frost far stronger than before.
KRAAAAAH!
Ice Fang spread both arms. Coarse Battle Qi coiled around his body like a serpent and spawned hundreds of spikes.
"KRAAAAAAAH!"
Ice Fang roared and kicked off the ground. The instant Raon moved to defend, the creature vanished. He was trying to hide in the storm and strike from ambush.
Raon did not panic. He closed his eyes and opened the Sea of Senses. A colossal wave rose behind him.
It was Ice Fang, bursting up from the ground. Raon opened his eyes and drew his sword along the flow of the Mad Fang Sword.
KRAAAAAANG!
A shockwave that no human should have been able to produce rang out, and for the first time, Raon's blade was driven back.
"Your senses are filthy good. But this won't be like before! This snowstorm is my domain!"
And so it was. The power and speed of the strikes were on another level entirely. It wasn't just that Ice Fang had unleashed hidden strength—the blizzard itself seemed to be amplifying him.
"Die!"
Ice Fang swung his fists and drove out his legs. The spikes and blades along his forearms and shins spun, whipping up a tide of Battle Qi.
KRAAAAAH!
Raon drew the Cultivation of Ten Thousand Flames to its limit and brought down a blade wreathed in searing crimson fire. The enormous shockwave born from the collision of Battle Qi and aura scoured every last flake of snow from the ground.
But Ice Fang, who should have been right in front of him, was gone. He was hiding in the snowstorm again, preparing another ambush—like a shark catching its breath before it struck its prey.
A waste of effort.
Raon smiled, cold and thin. Through Glacia, he already knew exactly where Ice Fang was.
CHIIIING!
Ice Fang closed in from the left and drove a fist at Raon's heart. Raon turned the flat of his blade and shed the thunderbolt of Battle Qi as it fell.
KRAAAAAH!
The moment he moved to pursue the retreating Ice Fang, the snowstorm roared back to life, and ice shards honed sharp as thorns came pouring down. Bluebeard and Ice Fang were combining their strengths, each playing to his own specialty, trying to tear Raon's throat out.
"So that's how you want to play it."
Raon blocked the hail of ice shards with his Frost Coat, crimson eyes gleaming.
"You won't even see my face again. You'll be buried and die beneath this endless falling snow!"
Ice Fang's voice rolled out of the blizzard. The sound echoed from every direction, making it impossible to pin down his location.
"You have no idea who you're posturing in front of."
Raon's left foot moved, carrying will. The Supreme Harmony Footwork, which crossed space itself. In an instant he cut through the snowstorm and appeared at its rightmost edge.
A single step that sunders space itself.
"What do you intend to do?"
"What they're trying to do. And..."
He pointed at the flower bracelet and grinned.
"What I learned from you."
"What?"
Ignoring Wrath's startled question, Raon circulated Glacia. Not the Sea of Senses. Not Glenn's Coat.
As an assassin wraps himself in darkness, he draped the endlessly falling snow and frost around his body. Presence and aura died away, until he painted the image of becoming the snow itself.
He had done this his entire life as an assassin, so it was hardly difficult. Before Ice Fang could even register his position, Raon's presence had already sunk until it was indistinguishable from the snow.
"What?! Where did he go?! Bluebeard! I can't see him!"
Ice Fang's panicked voice rang out as he came chasing after.
"He's nearby! He's targeting you—don't let your guard down, keep moving!"
Bluebeard's voice, coming from outside the snowstorm, was shaking. He was rattled too.
"Damn it! That bastard just keeps running his mouth and never actually does anything useful!"
Ice Fang clenched his teeth and tried to vanish again. But Raon was already behind him. A heat-laden blade fell like a thunderbolt.
In the split second the murderous sword touched Ice Fang's neck, the creature twisted. Reaction speed pushed to the extreme. No wonder he was a freak who had received one of Eden's helmets.
SHKRAAAAAK!
But the sword was faster. Instead of the neck, Ice Fang's upper body was carved open on a diagonal, and a savage volume of blood erupted upward.
"KRAAAAAAGH!"
Ice Fang threw his massive jaws wide and screamed. The moment Raon moved to finish him, those jaws shot out like a beam of light and clamped onto his left arm. Even while dying, he was still going for Raon—the creature was well and truly insane.
"Khrrrk! I'll tear that arm clean off!"
"Arm? What arm?"
"Yours, obviously—ghk!"
Ice Fang's eyes flew wide as he looked at the arm he was biting.
"Th-this is..."
"What you bit wasn't my arm. It was the ice covering it."
The instant Ice Fang had gone for the arm, Raon had circulated Glacia and forged a thick ice shield over it. That was what the creature had sunk his teeth into.
"Hold on tight."
"Hup—!"
The moment Ice Fang tried to let go and fall back, Raon's sword traced a half-circle. The fastest, sharpest stroke he had thrown yet. Ice Fang's body, which had been about to move its legs, locked in place.
"Kh... y-you really are..."
He never finished the sentence. Ice Fang's neck split open. With a heavy thud, the shark helmet dropped and vanished into the yellowed snow.
"Tsk. Disgustingly strong."
Raon frowned at his dangling left arm. Ice Fang's jaws had punched through the frost shield made with Glacia and shattered the bone. A terrifying bite force.
"Even with a broken arm, I have to finish this."
He kicked off the ground, locking onto Bluebeard, who was still waving his staff beyond the snowstorm.
"Hhk—!"
The instant Raon punched through the blizzard with Glacia, Bluebeard screamed and stumbled backward. The ice shards he had been pouring out hammered down even harder.
"Get away from me!"
Whether it was shamanic art or not, his fleeing speed was faster than a martial artist's. But Raon, using the Supreme Harmony Footwork, was faster still.
"Protect me!"
Realizing he was caught, Bluebeard shrieked and snapped his staff in two.
"KRAAAAAAAH!"
A terrifying explosion erupted from the gray smoke, and Dorian and Edquil—beaten to a pulp—came tumbling out. The Ice Troll Lord smashed through the smoke and charged straight at Raon.
"KRAAAAAH!"
"KRARARARA!"
"KYAAAAAK!"
The monsters that had been assaulting the walls all spun around at once and came rushing at Raon. It looked like a spell that summoned every last brainwashed monster.
"I'm not done! I can't die here!"
On the heels of that, Bluebeard forged a colossal sword and spear of snow in midair and hurled them. A declaration of will—he would live, no matter what it took.
"KRAAAAH!"
The Ice Troll Lord, who had already closed the distance, brought down an axe the size of a man's torso.
THUNG!
Raon stepped into the Garam Footwork and crashed in on Bluebeard's right. Ten flames bloomed along a silver curve and spun like the teeth of a single saw.
A silver curve. Ten flames turning as one.
SHRAAAAAK!
A crimson trajectory drawn along the snowfield's horizon split the ice weapons apart and went on to crack Bluebeard's mask down the middle.
"Hhk— I-I can't die like this..."
A red line was drawn across Bluebeard's wrinkled face. He tried to catch the blood running from the center of it. A wasted effort.
"I-I should have killed you back then..."
With those words, Bluebeard crumpled forward. The ghastly light in his eyes snuffed out like a candle.
HWOOOOSH.
The blizzard that had been pouring down without end came to a halt, and every monster that had been leaking madness froze in place.
"Khrrk..."
Even the Ice Troll Lord, who had been about to bring his axe down, had pupils shaking violently, as if plunged into confusion.
"Raon has struck down the enemy's commander! Now! All forces, attack!"
Terian's heated voice rang out from atop the walls. Soldiers boiling with fighting spirit drove their swords and spears into the bewildered monsters and tore them apart.
Raon, however, did not attack the Ice Troll Lord standing right in front of him. Those eyes, trembling like a sailboat struck by a wave—that disorientation looked exactly like his own, in his previous life.
"Khrrr."
The madness drained from the Ice Troll Lord's eyes. He seemed to have realized where he was, and what had been done to him. A clever one. That gaze, too, was the same as Raon's in his previous life, when he had mastered the Ring of Fire and broken free of brainwashing.
"KRAAAAAAAH!"
The Ice Troll Lord roared and fell back. It was not a signal to fight. It was a signal to take the dying monsters and leave this place.
A proper king, I see.
Raon narrowed his eyes at the Ice Troll Lord calling to the monsters. Compared to Bluebeard, who had used them as bait just to survive, this was a leader of an entirely different caliber.
Even so, I have no choice.
He liked the creature. But he could not let it run.
"I'm sorry. I can't let you go."
He stepped into the path of the Ice Troll Lord as it tried to withdraw.
"KRARARARA!"
The Ice Troll Lord bared its long teeth and bellowed, as if telling him to stand aside.
"If I let you leave, this castle will fall someday."
He could tell from that one action alone. This creature had the makings of a king. It could become a far truer king than Derus Robert, who treated humans as nothing but hunting dogs. That was why it had to end here.
"You couldn't live as a king—so I'll see you off as one."
Whether it understood those words or not—
"Khrrr!"
The Ice Troll Lord's expression hardened. It set down the ill-fitting axe and drew up blue Battle Qi. Fighting spirit incomparably vaster than when it had been brainwashed blazed and roared.
WOOOOOONG!
Blue Battle Qi compressed above the Ice Troll Lord's fist, curling in on itself into a sphere. The smaller it grew, the more terrifyingly the power packed inside it amplified.
HWOOOOSH!
Raon drew up every last drop of remaining aura. Droplets of flame-aura gathered along the blade. Like an icicle formed over a long winter, a spearhead of aura was forged.
"KRAAAAAAAH!"
The Ice Troll Lord shattered the ground as it leapt, and brought its fist crashing down. The compressed energy detonated, and the entire field of vision filled with blue Battle Qi.
CHIIIING!
Raon snapped the sword he had drawn back and thrust it forward. The flame-aura gathered on the blade became a single ray of light and raced ahead.