The Soul-Reaping Ghost
The world shuddered with a deep, grinding roar.
Raon drove the Ring of Fire to its absolute limit as cascading streams of magic poured from the sky and a Hellfire Sword lunged for his throat. Perhaps it was the resonance born of a situation pushed to the extreme, but time itself seemed to crawl slower than it ever had before.
I knew it would come to this.
He had felt it the moment he stepped into the Land of Death, where three pillars stood driven into the earth. The death energy saturating this place was of a different caliber from every stretch of ground he had crossed so far, and countless magic formations lay hidden in every direction.
Of course it would be.
The Archlich had been watching them and commanding the undead since the siege began. There was no chance it would have sat idle without preparing a thing. Stockpiling every means of slaughtering the martial artists who had charged this far was as obvious as fire being hot.
And among those preparations, especially…
It wanted him dead first. Only one person had entered the inner grounds, yet the Archlich had opened the formations and even revealed a Sanggwi-rank Death Knight that had been lurking in the death energy. The will to kill him before anything else was unmistakable.
But you weren't the only ones who prepared.
He had known the Archlich was observing them. He had known the situation would unfold exactly like this. Watching the Death Knight's Hellfire Sword and the streams of magic draw closer, Raon curled his lips.
Wrath. The deal, quickly—
"This King refuses."
Huh? What?
"This King said no."
Until they had arrived here, the brat had agreed to restore his stamina and aura and even lend him frost and wrath. Now, all of a sudden, he was shaking his head.
Raon swallowed dryly as the Hellfire Sword closed in.
What are you talking about all of a sudden? We had a deal!
"Upon reflection, it seems only you would profit from this."
Wrath lowered his eyelids, insisting that no matter how he looked at it, he was taking a loss. His lips curled upward, as if he knew full well he held the upper hand. That said, he didn't seem entirely unwilling to negotiate. He transmitted a strange power that left Raon's thoughts running at the same speed while making time itself crawl even slower.
Ugh…
He hadn't predicted it would come to this. His heart clenched tight.
I'll take more wrath. That should do it, right?
Wrath had been constantly pushing wrath into this body in order to seize it, but that wasn't entirely a bad thing. He had learned how to use wrath from the brat, so there were advantages as well as costs.
Wrath didn't answer. He just stuck out his lips in a pout.
That wasn't it?
He had been certain Wrath would tell him to take even more wrath, but the brat said nothing at all.
We're out of time. If you don't speak up, it's all over. You won't get anything—
"Tsk."
Don't tell me…
Raon frowned as he watched Wrath smack his lips.
Not just after the war — from the moment we leave here until we return to the house, I'll eat whatever you want.
"Hmmmm…"
I'll even eat that new bead ice cream Runaan mentioned!
"It's a deal!"
You damn glutton!
Haggling at a moment this desperate. The brat made curses rise to his lips all on their own. Wrath didn't know it yet, but his bargaining wouldn't go quite the way he expected.
"This King shall grant it properly, then."
With Wrath's excited voice, vitality surged through a body that had been crushed like wet cotton. Heat and frost erupted endlessly into a dantian that had been completely empty. The frost in particular swelled to a monstrous size, enough to punch through even that thick, vast dantian.
Raon lowered his center of gravity and thrust the Requiem Sword forward.
A pale yellow demonic energy unfurled from the blade — and over it settled frost at its extreme and the Demon King's wrath. A blue light blazed atop the crimson edge wreathed in those alien energies.
He detonated the enormous demonic energy, frost, and wrath surging from his left hand all at once. The Requiem Sword shuddered as if it would snap, and frost erupted with enough force to freeze the world.
Using the Requiem Sword as a medium, a domain of absolute frost bloomed — and the magic falling from the sky froze solid together with the Death Knight spewing hellfire.
"Kh…"
Raon bit his lip as he looked at the frozen world.
As expected, it's not easy…
His stomach churned. His strength was draining away. He felt like collapsing on the spot. It had only been possible because of Wrath's help. Using the Silver Aurora on his own still seemed beyond him.
From within the ice came the creaking of the Death Knight's body. The fact that it was still trying to move after taking Wrath's technique meant it was stronger than he'd thought.
Raon endured the throbbing pain in his chest and poured the heat of the Cultivation of Ten Thousand Flames into the Heavenly Sky Sword in his right hand. A thermal blade surged up the glowing red edge and shattered the torso of the Sanggwi-rank Death Knight frozen right in front of him.
The massive ice pillar born of the Silver Aurora split under the thermal blade and came crashing down in countless shards.
"What in the world is that…"
Milland, Lord of Habun Castle, stared at the ice barrier Raon had created with his mouth hanging open.
"I-it looks like magic, but it isn't magic. It's the phenomenon itself…"
Morell's eyes bulged as if they might pop from his skull. The whole thing was so absurd he could barely process it.
"Did his swordsmanship change?"
"It didn't change. His skill simply grew in the time between."
The Third Prince of Owen and Borini Kitten swallowed dryly — not at the Silver Aurora, but at the Red Flash that had split the Death Knight in a single stroke.
"Now he's putting on a whole circus act."
Trevin, leader of the Iron Halberd Squad, let out a long sigh and shook his head.
"Is that even human?"
"I'm more scared of that human than the undead…"
"Yeah. I am never mouthing off again."
The Light Wind Squad muttered among themselves as they stared at the impossible spectacle, thoroughly, genuinely sick of how ridiculous their leader was.
"W-what is this!"
The Archlich stumbled backward as it stared at Raon, who had stopped hundreds of spells and the Death Knight's sword with a single technique.
This is impossible…
Could aura even be restored that suddenly? It had known the young Zieghart could create a barrier of frost, but it had been certain that was impossible with his current aura and stamina. And yet, in the instant before sword and magic made contact, the boy had detonated an enormous surge of aura that hadn't even existed in his dantian and created that absurd pillar of cold.
What… what even is that…
No matter how it turned the problem over, the present situation made no sense. But right now, escaping this precarious moment came before unraveling that secret. The enemy was not that child alone.
What do I do?
Resummoning the Death Knight wouldn't be difficult, but it couldn't think of a way to kill all of those humans.
As the Archlich moved threads of death energy to revive the fallen Death Knight, the young Zieghart gestured behind him.
"It's over. Come in."
At his signal, the humans waiting at the rear slowly set foot upon the Land of Death.
An opening!
The humans wouldn't know it, but the magic formations installed in this space were not single-use. They were persistent. Even that boy wouldn't be able to deploy the frost wall he had just created in succession. If the formations were triggered once everyone had entered, the damage would be fatal.
The humans strode onto the Land of Death without hesitation and began sweeping aside the undead that hadn't been frozen.
Now!
The instant the last person set foot on the ground, the Archlich triggered the formations again. It meant to drop offensive magic while accelerating the Death Knight's resurrection — and then it froze.
Huh…?
The formations did not activate. It wasn't merely a failure to trigger. Magic circles that should have remained intact even if left alone for a month were melting away all at once.
"W-what! Why aren't the formations—!"
It was so stunned that even the resurrection magic it had been weaving came to a halt — and then the young Zieghart's voice reached it.
"What? Formations not working?"
He spun the dagger that had created the ice barrier around one finger and smiled.
"Don't tell me that dagger…"
It had seen that ominous demonic blade shatter magic and formations many times, but it had never imagined the weapon could nullify every formation in this place at once.
"What are you? What the hell are you!"
"Who knows."
Raon looked at the trembling Archlich and offered a faint smile. The creature's blue soul-flames wavered as if they might go out, panic written in every flicker.
It worked perfectly.
Even the Requiem Sword couldn't shatter every formation here at the same time. He had used the Ring of Fire to pinpoint the cores of the arrays, then destroyed them with the Silver Aurora and the Magic Disruption Field. It had landed exactly as intended.
"This is a great stress reliever!"
Burren crushed a Spatoy's body underfoot and grinned.
"Bring me those damn skeleton bastards' heads!"
Marta smashed nothing but skulls, paying back everything she had endured until now.
"Finish this. Sleep. Sleep. Sleep."
Runaan had reached her limit. Violet eyes wreathed in fierce blue fighting spirit, she carved a Dullahan into four pieces.
"The end is in sight!"
"They were nothing!"
"Wipe them all out!"
It wasn't only the Light Wind Squad. Martial artists and mages from all four forces poured out their mana, slaughtering the undead with the end finally in view. Forces this powerful, gathered in one place, needed only a short while before every undead monster except the Archlich had fallen.
"Just one dried-out bag of bones left."
Milland came to stand beside Raon and leveled his sword at the Archlich.
"A Sanggwi-rank Archlich. Not a specimen you see every day. This will make for a fine experiment."
Morell compressed a storm of flame in his palm, a chilling smile on his face.
"Anything that can command undead of this caliber must be eliminated, no matter the cost."
Borini Kitten approached with a sharp killing intent coiled around him.
"So this is the culprit that lured us all the way here. An insolent creature."
Trevin raised Ganggi along his blade and locked his gaze on the Archlich.
The four of them unleashed such overwhelming pressure that the Archlich's fingertips seemed to tremble.
"What now? You're all alone."
"I am not alone."
The Archlich ground its teeth and raised a hand. A vast surge of death energy convulsed, and from beneath it the Death Knight that had just died reappeared, along with high-ranking undead.
"I'm sorry."
The Death Knight lifted its sword at once and apologized to the Archlich.
"No need to be sorry."
Raon answered in its place, a faint smile on his lips.
"Your friend will be following you soon enough."
"Shut your mouth!"
The Death Knight gnashed its teeth and charged. Faster than before — it looked to be using its footwork at full power.
Fast. But…
He knew this style.
Raon stepped forward with his right foot and swept the Heavenly Sky Sword up from below.
A vicious strike steeped in the principles of the Mad Fang Sword smashed the Death Knight's Hellfire Sword aside.
"What!"
The Death Knight's jaw trembled, as if it couldn't believe its own blade had been knocked away so lightly.
"The Death Knight that was here before was your clone, wasn't it?"
"How did you—"
"Because the swordsmanship is identical."
This Sanggwi-rank Death Knight used the exact same stances, footwork, and swordsmanship as the growing Death Knight he had faced here before. Matching posture, build, and technique had been enough to identify it as a clone, and knocking its sword aside had not been difficult.
"Preposterous! You faced that thing once and claim you've already read my sword?"
The Death Knight charged again. As if conscious of his words, it altered its footwork and swordsmanship slightly — but the difference was negligible. The flow of a sword art ingrained in the body was not something that could be changed so easily.
Similar.
Raon let the Death Knight's Hellfire Sword slide off the Heavenly Sky Sword, the flow of the Snow Wind Sword Art seeping through the blade, and stepped in. The moment the distance closed to a breath, he raised the Requiem Sword.
From within a brief blade-shadow that drifted past like a dream, a demonic edge leapt forth and cleaved through the Death Knight's core.
"Ah…"
The Death Knight dropped its Hellfire Sword without even knowing what had been done to it.
"This is…"
"First time seeing it?"
He had used many sword arts while cutting down the undead, but he had deliberately never shown Silver Sword Dream. Facing the technique for the first time, the Death Knight's core burst, and it crumbled into dust. Even in a land overflowing with death energy, it would not be reviving anytime soon.
A thunderous crash followed. The Archlich, dodging a coordinated sword strike from Milland and Borini Kitten, was wrapped in the Flame Snake Morell unleashed and slammed into the ground.
"Ghhk…"
It could not feel pain, but the impact was real enough. The Archlich groaned, its hands trembling.
"Y-you wretches!"
As the Archlich severed the Flame Snake and tried to invoke black magic, Raon closed the distance with the Supreme Harmony Footwork.
If I just swing, it'll dodge.
Mage or not, given everything this creature had done, it could not be taken lightly. Time was short, but the cut had to be clean.
"Kh!"
The Archlich looked his way and raised a hand. A dense violet flash erupted from gray finger bones.
Raon traced a wave with the Heavenly Sky Sword. A white shadow blooming from the blade gently wrapped around the flash the Archlich had conjured. At the same time, a sword-cry wreathed in crimson light burst from the Requiem Sword extending on his left.
The wail of the dead — seen by the Archlich, but never heard — locked the creature's limbs in place.
One more step from here.
Raon planted his left foot and, with White Shadow Flash that had absorbed the black magic and the Requiem Sword still scattering Blood Rain, drew a cross.
"Gh…"
The Archlich stared at the two approaching blades and tried desperately to move, but the wail of Blood Rain still would not release its arms and legs.
The Heavenly Sky Sword and the Requiem Sword fell, and the Archlich's body split into four pieces. Ganggi from Milland and Borini Kitten crashed down upon the torn remains, and Morell's flame storm detonated.
The Archlich vanished into the death-soaked earth without leaving so much as a splinter of bone. They hadn't shattered its soul orb, so it would revive someday — but it would take an enormous amount of time.
"YEAAAAAH!"
"It's overrr!"
"We finally wrecked them all!"
"Hhhk— I can finally sleep."
The Light Wind Squad, having fought for six days straight, roared with the joy of people who could finally rest.
Raon narrowed his eyes at the ground where the Archlich had died.
Something's off.
The death energy the Archlich and the Death Knight had carried was certainly enough to raise goosebumps, but the actual fight hadn't been that difficult. Even accounting for their plans falling apart and the outstanding martial strength of his allies, it had felt too easy, and a weight settled in his chest.
"My lord."
Raon turned and approached Milland.
"Didn't these things go down a little too—"
He was about to speak his thoughts when a chilling voice cut across the field.
"Sharp instincts, as expected."
The Land of Death heaved once more. Unlike before, the death energy saturating the earth itself began to move. Pitch-black hands surged up from underground and bound the hands and feet of every person who had entered the Land of Death.
"Hhk!"
"W-what is this!"
"B-black hands?"
"That Lich isn't dead yet?"
Martial artists and mages poured sword aura and magic at the black hands, but the darkened grips would not vanish.
"This is…"
"E-even Ganggi won't erase them?"
Milland and Borini Kitten stared at the black hands, which remained untouched even by Ganggi, their pupils trembling.
"This isn't magic!"
"It won't even cut…"
The black hands did not melt under Morell's flame magic, nor did they yield to the Ganggi of Trevin, who had reached the peak of Master.
"I-it's absorbing mana!"
"Everyone, draw up your aura and stop it from draining you!"
Just as the Third Prince and Milland said, the black hands did more than restrain movement. They were absorbing the stamina and mana of everyone they held.
"Damn it!"
Raon brought the Requiem Sword down on the black hand clamped around his wrist. Even with the Magic Disruption Field channeled through the blade, the hand did not disappear.
Meaning this isn't magic.
These hands were not a spell. Like the Silver Aurora, they were a phenomenon that used energy itself.
"Ghhhhk…"
"If we stay like this, our Life Essence will drain out and we'll turn into zombies!"
"Move, somehow!"
"I'd love to, but there's no way!"
As people thrashed in panic, a small tremor rose from the ground where the three pillars stood. A vast, sluggish ripple spread as if a swamp were welling up through the Land of Death once more — and a grotesque figure in a black robe rose from it.
"Ah…"
Raon's fingertips trembled as he saw the Archlich's mask the creature wore.
"Manghongwi?"
It was unmistakably Manghongwi — an executive of Eden who had inherited the power of a high Archlich.
"This is the first time we've met in person, Raon Zieghart."
Manghongwi's heavy voice rolled out as he slowly rose into the air and looked down upon the humans.
"You have no idea how grateful I am that you brought them all the way here."
He extended his right hand toward the ground. From the black orb in his grip, a light erupted that dwarfed anything the Archlich had produced.
"There was value in staying to experiment instead of leaving at once."
Raon bit his lip as he watched the violet sphere of light swell like a sun.
I thought someone was here, but Manghongwi…
Damn it. Tatcheon had sent word that he would stand down for a while, and Merlin hadn't come looking on her own, so he hadn't believed Eden stood behind this war.
No. This is my mistake. I shouldn't have simply assumed they wouldn't come.
Merlin had said that all sorts of personal missions were handed down to the executives. Eden was a gathering of lunatics. He should have accounted for the possibility that they would ignore Tatcheon's word and attack independently.
But.
It wasn't as if there was no foothold for a reversal.
Raon drew up the wrath sunk at the bottom of his soul and the Ring of Fire at the same time. A presence vast enough to twist bone and skin was unleashed, and the black hands clinging to his wrists and ankles were crushed apart.
He kicked off the sodden earth and leapt at Manghongwi. He meant to nullify the magic with White Shadow Flash and take Manghongwi's head with the Requiem Sword — and then the creature thrust out its left hand.
"You'd best stop right there."
With those words, Yua and Julius appeared in Manghongwi's left hand. Both children hung with their eyes squeezed shut, as if unconscious, swaying like shirts on a clothesline.
Fakes? No — the Life Essence…
He wanted to believe they were fakes, but the presence and the sense of being he felt were real. Fakes wouldn't matter. If they were real, he could not cut.
"It is the pineapple girl!"
Damn it!
Wrath was never wrong. Raon forced his aura to its limit and wrenched his body to a halt in midair. The moment his feet touched the ground again, a black hand even larger than before surged up and clamped around his legs.
"A wise choice."
Manghongwi laced a sneer through that heavy voice.
"I went to House Arian myself and brought these children back."
"I never sensed you move."
"Because I traveled hidden within the death energy."
He said he had spread death energy across this entire land for that very purpose.
"Don't take it too hard. I was the one who found these two children first, not you. From my perspective, you were the one who stole them."
Manghongwi smiled as he looked at Yua.
"This child is a far greater vessel than I expected. She's been corrupted in your hands, but don't worry. I'll soon make her kill thousands of humans with a single song."
He let out a chilling laugh, as if he could hardly wait.
"Now, then. Let us end this."
A vast light surged once more from the orb Manghongwi held out. It was the manifestation of a power that crushed with death energy itself — something even White Shadow Flash and the Requiem Sword's Magic Disruption Field could not fully stop. He had already received Wrath's help. He couldn't think of a way to block it.
Do I attack again? No — then he might use Julius as a shield. But if I stay still, everyone dies…
His head felt like it would split from the tangle of thoughts, and still no method came to him. Even so, the sphere of death energy Manghongwi had created finished preparing to fall.
No choice. I was trying to save it, but…
He was about to draw up the holy power he had intended to hide until the very end when a clear wind tickled the tip of his nose. No — not only wind. The sharp, noble scent of lightning came with it.
Don't tell me…
He lifted his head, and the figure was already behind Manghongwi. The red-haired elf's blade of wind and lightning carved down, and it split Manghongwi's body in two.