Chapter 210: The Tin Knight and The Forest of Deception (4)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 210: The Tin Knight and The Forest of Deception (4)
The name Rognir once signified the noblest bloodline in the nation of Aeolia.
Once, that was the case.
Rulers were revered and noble simply because they were rulers.
The blood flowing through their veins granted them the right to rule, a ‘matter of course’ that required no justification.
But war changed everything.
Nations devoured nations, and victors brought the vanquished to their knees.
Aeolia was no exception to this trend.
Whether they began to consume out of hunger or to avoid being consumed was unimportant.
What mattered was that they, too, were swept up in the currents of a turbulent age, and to survive it, they needed power.
In that sense, magic was a straightforward form of power. Mages were straightforwardly strong.
The royal family, who had initially treated mages as a convenient military asset, eventually realized that the people's reverence and fear were directed not at them, but at the mages. They also realized that the mages' military might and influence had grown too great to be simply cut away.
To avoid being ousted from their position as rulers, the royal family chose to become mages themselves.
They sought out exceptional mages and took them as marriage partners, even if they were of a social status they would have previously scorned.
This was to ensure the talent for magic would flow through their own blood.
They appointed scoundrels with no character or pedigree as their confidants and granted them power.
This was so that those who had tasted the sweetness of power would become their staunchest supporters and shields.
As long as it helped strengthen the tower's power, they accepted even those who were shunned and avoided by others.
This was to compensate for their lack of history and knowledge compared to the other magic towers.
As a result, the Tower of Control was able to obtain many things.
Skills rivaling the Tower of Annihilation. Knowledge rivaling the Tower of Foresight. A support base rivaling the Tower of Protection.
While they never became the absolute best in any single field, no other tower could match the Tower of Control in overall strength.
The individuals deployed for this operation were among the most skilled even within such a tower.
They were the elite, nurtured by a royal family that once stood at the pinnacle, all to reclaim their former position.
And now, every single one of those elites was sprawled on the ground.
“Keuk.”
“Ugh…”
“Cough, cough!”
Few of them understood what had just happened.
All they perceived was a flash of something within the raging blizzard, and in the next instant, everything was overturned.
Those who managed to regain their senses stared at the scene before them, their mouths agape in horror.
The playful act of scuffing the dirt with a shoe.
The ground was torn up as if a giant had performed that very action.
The ice barriers erected to block the enemy's path, the once-sturdy boulders, and the deep-rooted trees—all of it lay strewn across the ground, tangled in heaps of earth.
“…Is this… high-level earth magic?”
“No, it could be a localized storm.”
“Impossible! To use something like that alone, you'd have to be at least at the level of a tower head!”
The mages who pushed themselves up tried to interpret the scene before them with their knowledge.
They needed to correctly analyze the enemy's strength to formulate a proper response next time.
However, considering they were in the middle of a battle, it was an overly relaxed course of action.
As if to prove it, black hands and curse bullets flew from somewhere, cutting down their consciousness and silencing them.
Then again, it was doubtful they would have reached the correct answer even if they had been given the leisure to contemplate the situation.
The idea that such a phenomenon could be caused by ‘the mere aftermath of a sword swing’ was something their common sense could never comprehend.
The only one who fully understood the situation was the Tin Knight standing beside her.
And the only one who vaguely understood was Jeras Rognir, who had been directly hit by the attack.
Having barely escaped a fatal blow thanks to his familiar acting as a shield, he leaned against a tree, gasping for breath.
The handsome young man's eyes, twisted like a demon's, stared fixedly at Adelaide.
The torrent of excessive power had blown away the disguise magic Dorothea had cast, revealing Adel's true form.
A voice filled with hatred spilled from Jeras's lips.
“I see. So this was all your scheme, Lennart…!”
Adelaide did not answer.
She was busy dealing with the aftereffects of momentarily surpassing her limits, trying to fully internalize the experience.
But her silence seemed to be interpreted differently by her opponent.
“What is your goal? We should have both gotten what we wanted! Or are you people... actually trying to start a war?!”
“—”
For a moment, Adel's mind went blank.
The words Jeras had spat out scattered into pieces, then began to reassemble in her mind like a puzzle.
We both got what we wanted. Who? Lennart and the Tower of Control.
Actually trying to start a war? Then, before? It wasn't real, but fake?
“—What do you mean by that?”
At the question that slipped from Adel's lips, a spectrum of emotions flickered in Jeras's eyes.
First, anger and disbelief, as if looking at someone feigning ignorance.
Next, suspicion and bewilderment, wondering if she truly knew nothing.
Finally, a sense of dismay, as if he'd said something in a fit of anger that he shouldn't have.
“You—”
Shunk.
Jeras's words were cut short.
A sword, blackened with vengeful spirits, had pierced through the tree he was leaning against and was now impaled in his chest.
Blood surging up his throat hideously stained his beautiful face.
Jeras's hands grabbed the sword.
The cold energy flowing from his hands traveled up the blade, forcibly stopping the bleeding.
It was a tenacious, almost stubborn, will to live.
“With something like this—Keoheok?!”
But even that struggle was futile.
Like air escaping a balloon, Jeras's body began to wither in an instant.
Sucked dry of blood, mana, life, and even soul, Jeras's body crumbled like dried mud.
Clank.
A heavy, metallic sound echoed.
Its once faint, ghost-like form now possessed a solid, imposing substance.
Adel didn't know that this was the result of it devouring the lives of others.
Nor did she know that the Death Knight, once on the verge of subjugation, had successfully counterattacked because the encirclement had been broken by her party's arrival.
“You bastard!!”
The remaining survivors from the magic tower charged at the Death Knight.
Flames, frost, storms, rocks—all sorts of attacks radiated menacing killing intent and mana, as if to crush the Death Knight.
Attacks that would have undoubtedly been effective against the Death Knight from the beginning of the battle.
However, when the Death Knight emerged from the smoke and dust, it didn't have a single scratch on it.
The Death Knight raised its sword high.
The black mana extending from the blade transformed into black tentacles, spreading out in all directions.
The familiars that should have protected the mages from the attack had long since been destroyed in the preceding battle.
The mages tried to evade with flight magic or erect barriers, but the black tentacles saw through it all, piercing and slaughtering them.
CRUNCH! CRACK! SQUELCH!
Hearts were pierced, necks were snapped, and heads exploded.
The mana left in the remaining flesh and the souls that had departed their bodies were the finest feast imaginable for fattening an undead.
The continent's top-tier elite mages were annihilated in a single moment, without a single survivor.
The more it slaughtered, the denser the mana and presence emanating from the Death Knight became.
Suddenly, Adel's and the Death Knight's eyes met.
An inexplicable sense of longing and familiarity made Adel unconsciously hesitate to raise her sword.
But the corrupted knight did not hesitate.
Fwoosh!
In the blink of an eye, the Death Knight closed the distance to Adel, its sword striking down without a shred of hesitation.
The black sword drew a clean, elegant arc.
One that the Death Knight, and the souls that comprised it, had repeated hundreds, thousands of times.
“Father…?”
The swordsmanship of Friedel, taught to them by their lord.
The sin of wielding the sword taught by their lord and master against his own daughter. A horrific betrayal.
The Death Knight no longer possessed the reason to understand this.
It no longer had the conscience or morality to feel shame for it.
The pieces came together.
The tragedy was complete.
[`The Tin Knight` shouts that it will not forgive bad manners like last-hit stealing!]
*
And then, declaring that you couldn't care less about such things, you intervened.