Melkith found herself ensnared in a web of Chains of Dark Power. The weight of their grasp threatened to shatter her fragile form, yet she discovered solace in knowing that the limbs ensnared in the chains were but an illusion. As the earthly appendages crumbled under the strain of the chains, she surrendered, understanding the futility of attempting to break free from the oppressive clutches of Dark Power.
Melkith's actions were not fraught with peril. Without hesitation, the limbs that had retreated into the earth swiftly reemerged, seamlessly reattaching to her body and transforming into new appendages that adhered firmly.
‘How persistent, you obnoxious bastard…!”
At the heart of the Infinity Force, Melkith stood her ground. A frown etched across her face as she focused her attention. From the distant reaches of the battlefield, a relentless barrage of black magic cascaded down upon her. Edmund Codreth, the son of a bitch, was seeking to claim her life, cunningly concealed from sight and ensuring his own safety.
The darkness that covered the ground suppressed Melkith and severed her from her connection to the Earth Spirit King. Furthermore, the Dark Power that targeted her from the darkness ensured that she could not move and, in turn, rooted Infinity Force in place as well.
Melkith, being a formidable adversary by nature, was far from an easy opponent. In all honesty, had she merely forged a pact with the Spirit King of Earth and Thunder, it would have demanded her utmost strength just to maintain her position. However, considering the sheer force and destructive power Edmund displayed, it was evident that she would have succumbed to defeat long before.
However, she could stand her ground with Infinity Force and even fight back when there were opportunities.
…Craaack!
Emerging from the apex of the Infinity Force, a lengthy rod materialized, pulsating with immense energy at its tip. A fusion of lightning and flames intertwined, gathering in a potent amalgamation. With Edmund Codreth's Cube squarely in its sights, the concentrated energy surged forth, unleashed in the form of a formidable laser beam.
Rumbleeee!
Within the beam resided an extraordinary energy, prompting Edmund Codreth to swiftly invoke a defensive spell, his annoyance evident in the clicking of his tongue. However, before he could complete the incantation, luminous radiance descended upon him from beyond the concealment of the veil.
As if conjured by some mythical giants, numerous swords of light descended upon Edmund Codreth, their count easily reaching dozens. Towering in size, these majestic blades effortlessly cleaved through his defensive enchantments, rending them asunder.
The conjurer of the brilliant blades was none other than Kristina Rogeris, the hideous doll made by mixing the bones and flesh of the previous Saints. Beyond the curtain, Edmund could see Kristina levitating above the cliff, showcasing all her eight wings.
How was it possible that such a crudely formed doll had reached such a level of performance?
“You’re nothing but an imitation…!” Edmund roared with anger and irritation.
Kwaaaaah!
At long last, the laser beam unleashed by Melkith reached its intended destination. A multitude of sorcerers stood in Edmund's proximity, devoid of the protective shield offered by the Cube. Furthermore, the majority among them were already fatigued, having served as magical batteries for Edmund's magic. But their presence would have made little difference even if they had been in pristine condition.
None among them mustered the strength to mount any form of defense against the oncoming laser beam, which left nothing in its wake as lightning and flame engulfed the area. However, despite confronting such a formidable onslaught directly, not even a single blemish marred the surface of the Cube.
‘This isn’t good,’ Edmund thought as he raised Vladmir.
The conflict raged on within the realm of Blind, extending the duration of the battle. The effects of Balzac's Signature had stripped the warriors of their sight, hearing, and sense of smell. Though they could still discern allies from enemies through their spiritual senses, their morale had plummeted into the depths of despair.
‘The summons of the Red Tower Master…. They’re devouring the bodies and trapping the souls.’
It wouldn’t change the overall course of the ritual, but it still bothered Edmund. He couldn’t help but wonder if he should have targeted the Red Tower Master and the Saint first. Though he wanted to take care of them personally, he could not step out of the Footprint of the God of the Land, given that he was the centerpiece of the ritual.
Then he had no choice but to borrow someone else’s hands. First, Edmund divided his consciousness. He allocated a part of it to the ritual while focusing the rest on necromancy. Although he wasn’t fond of it, he was still capable of using necromancy.
Corpses began to rise, and the dead warriors of the Kochilla Tribe weren’t the only ones affected by the magic. The corpses of warriors belonging to the Zorans and the allied tribes were also reanimated as undead and dead demonic beasts began to rampage after coming back to life.
But he didn’t think this was sufficient. So, after conjuring a necromancy spell, he targeted the living warriors with black magic. He had wanted to avoid lowering the purity of their souls by using black magic, but… given the dire circumstances unfolding before him, he found himself devoid of the luxury of hesitation.
The Dark Power he had implanted in the warriors clouded their reason and strengthened their bodies, leading them to a state of madness.
The warriors began to run rampant while roaring like animals. Their nails and claws became reinforced like sharp blades, and their swollen muscles did not burst or break even in the face of their enemies’ attacks.
“To think it would come this far…!” Edmund spat in anger, quivering. He had made Samar his destination to filter and avoid unexpected variables as much as possible, but everything was running wild beyond his imagination.
What irked him greatly was the frustrating fact that he could not dispatch Melkith El-Hayah as swiftly as he had planned. It was not feasible for him to devote his undivided attention to her demise, and eliminating a master of Spirit Magic, who held pacts with three Spirit Kings, proved to be an arduous task indeed.
Furthermore, the limited resources he could allocate for her assault were being thwarted by a formidable divine power. With a pallid and fatigued countenance, Kristina Rogeris tightly clutched her rosary, exerting her own influence over the situation.
Every time he attacked, Kristina’s divine power interfered. She could not completely nullify his attacks, but she did well in reducing his power.
‘There are too many bugs to kill.’
There were too many things for him to care about. He was bothered that Balzac had disappeared for such a long time as well….
What was he up to? Was he hiding so that he could maintain Blind? Or was he waiting for the critical moment to try and rob the ritual from Edmund?
‘Hamel.’
Edmund searched for the Death Knight on the battlefield. Firstly, he would borrow the Death Knight’s hands to kill the Saint and the Red Tower Master. Since he claimed to be Hamel, that much wouldn’t be difficult for him.
‘Hamel. I need your help. Go to the cliff immediately and take the Saint and the Red Tower Master—’
Boooooom!
An explosion resonated, assaulting Edmund's eardrums with a deafening impact. The veil of darkness trembled, and in the wake of the thunderous noise, a fleeting but brilliant flash illuminated the world for a mere moment.
After the brief moment, Blind once again threw the world into darkness. However, Edmund understood what had transpired in that brief instance. An incredibly powerful force had split the world just for a moment.
‘Hamel?’
Edmund hastily called out once more, but he received no response. It wasn’t that the Death Knight had ignored his message, but rather that there wasn’t anyone to receive his message. This could only mean one thing. The Death Knight, who had been created by improving on the body of the hero from three hundred years ago, had been annihilated on this battlefield.
“How could this be…!?” Edmund spat out in shock and astonishment. He knew that Eugene Lionheart was strong. In their last skirmish, the Death Knight had been pushed back by Eugene rather than taking the upper hand.
However, both sides had been reserving their true power. Edmund had believed that the results would be different if both of them had fought with everything they had. Had he considered the possibility of the Death Knight’s defeat? It had not been out of the question, but he had been doubtful. It was only natural, given that the Death Knight was formed from the body of the Stupid Hamel. In addition to possessing Hamel’s body, the Death Knight had been created whilst maximizing Hamel’s ability to fight based on his memories.
So how had he lost in such a short period? How could he have lost? Indeed, Eugene Lionheart was strong and was the Hero chosen by the Holy Sword, but he was still only twenty-one years old.
Dizziness overcame Edmund, his head swirling with a disorienting sensation. In his endeavors within Helmuth, he had received no assistance save for Amelia Merwin, from whom he had borrowed the formidable Death Knight. The Death Knight was supposed to have played a pivotal role within his forces, yet its swift annihilation left him reeling.
‘I don’t even expect you to take him with you. A fatal wound, at least….’
Edmund immediately used a search spell. He hoped that Eugene was fatally wounded and unable to battle. However, the reality was too cruel.
Far from being fatally wounded, there wasn’t even a scratch on Eugene. He didn’t even look tired, either. Eugene’s cold, calculating golden eyes darted, and he made eye contact with Edmund, who was observing him through the spell.
Edmund unwittingly tightened his grasp on Vladmir.
‘Hector!’
Although Hector was incomparably insignificant compared to the Death Knight, it was better than nothing. However, even Hector did not respond right away. He wasn’t in a situation where he could come to Edmund’s aide right away.
Edmund became enraged after identifying the opponent Hector was engaged with.
“Cyan Lionheart? I even went to the trouble of building you a new body, and you’re stuck with a brat like that?”
He mobilized all of his divided consciousness to get an accurate understanding of the current situation and to come up with a solution. Soon, he came to a decision. He had to let go of his lingering feelings and greed. It was already impossible to reach the ideal, perfect ritual he had planned to complete in an all-out war, but he didn’t have the time.
He had dispersed too much power in the ritual, and it was all because he had been pursuing perfection. According to his original plan, he would have had more than enough time, but the enemy was much stronger than his expectations.
If things continued his way, everything would fail, and he could not afford that. Edmund tightened his grasp on Vladmir while focusing on and manipulating his Dark Power.
He interfered with the ritual and made changes. He had been pursuing quality over quantity with the blood and soul sacrifices for the ritual, but he could no longer care about the quality of the offerings. As such, he would quickly increase the number of sacrifices. Edmund’s lips moved quickly.
The frenzied warriors underwent yet another transformation in their relentless rampage. Stripped of all vestiges of humanity, their wild state intensified to an alarming degree. They became single-minded, driven by a singular purpose — to procure an ever-growing supply of living sacrifices, then to offer themselves as sacrifices at the end.
The change wasn’t only prevalent in the warriors fighting in the Footprint of the God of the Land. Edmund’s black magic refluxed through the Earth Vein back to the capital of the Kochilla Tribe, which was located far from here.
There weren’t any warriors remaining in the capital. Most of them were elders, women, and children who could not fight.
Black magic permeated their minds, and the lunatics started cutting out each other’s hearts after losing their reason. In no time, carnage unfolded in the heart of the Kochilla Tribe.
So the ritual accelerated. Blood and souls from the slaughtered in the capital would be transported to the Footprint of the God of the Land through the Earth Veins.
Edmund did not need much more time. He would become less than the ideal version of the Demon King he pursued, but there was no helping it.
‘At the end of the day, I will still transcend humanity.’
It’s what Edmund desperately wished for — to become a transcendental being beyond humans. Even if he could not become the strongest and greatest Demon King, a Demon King was still a transcendental existence. Even though he was forced to compromise, he would still be achieving his wish.
‘Ten minutes at most before the conditions are fulfilled. I can definitely hold on for that long.’
Now that he had changed the contents of the ritual, he no longer needed to suppress Melkith. Rather, he hoped that she would run rampant and speed up the process of his ritual. Lovellian’s summons were still hindering the process of the ritual, but it was as if he were trying to cover the entire sky with his palms. How did he plan on stopping the overwhelming amounts of blood and souls coming from the Kochilla Tribe’s capital?
‘I won.’
He had already made a compromise, so he had to win. Edmund raised Vladmir with a convinced smile. Having simplified the ritual, he now had a greater reserve of power to tap into. Moreover, Edmund had given up on suppressing Melkith, so the full might of his magic was at his disposal.
Edmund’s Dark Power rose from the ground as a giant black hand. The Hand of Death, which destroyed everything it touched, lurched forward. If there was any chance of the ritual failing, it was because of one person.
Edmund was wary of the power that Eugene Lionheart had used in killing the Death Knight earlier. Edmund was still quite certain that the Cube’s defenses were impenetrable, but he couldn’t simply ignore Eugene’s enormous power either.
In truth, Edmund harbored a desire to offer Eugene as a sacrifice. Despite having already relinquished numerous concessions in his ritual, the notion of sacrificing such a potent and extraordinary soul ignited within him the possibility of elevating his ritual to a realm of higher dimensions, a chance for its evolution.
Fwoosh!
Eugene suddenly appeared out of thin air from embers.
‘Magic…. I don’t know that kind of magic. Is that his Signature? Is he taking his feathers as coordinates and… I see.’
Despite studying magic for a mere span of less than five years, the young child had achieved the remarkable level of an Archwizard. His mastery of the arcane arts exceeded expectations, with his Signature displaying exceptional qualities and demonstrating a great level of sophistication.
“His existence itself is unreasonable,” Edmund muttered. He had never felt jealousy toward humans, but this was the sole exception. He felt jealous of that unreasonably talented youngster.
It only fueled his desire to take Eugene Lionheart as a sacrifice. It wasn’t based on his theories as a wizard, but Edmund was convinced. If he could take Eugene Lionheart as a sacrifice, he had a hunch that he could obtain the status of a Great Demon King despite the concessions he made.
“Come,” Edmund said while maintaining the Hand of Death.
Rumbleeee!
The hand approached Eugene while growing in size, and by the time it was near Eugene, it was as big as the side of a cliff. But despite the advance of the threatening attack, Eugene seemed unfazed. He reacted with a simple move.
The Holy Sword was already in his hand, and he was maintaining Prominence in place of Ignition. His mana was burning around him as flames. The lion’s mane fluttered, and the flames coating the Holy Sword became riddled with black spots.
Boooom!
A horizontal slash easily split the Hand of Death into two.
However, it was only the loss of a single spell. It meant nothing to Edmund.
With a disdainful snort, Edmund summoned his Dark Power once again. The domain surrounding him, centered around the Cube, was firmly under his control. He possessed the ability to unleash hundreds of spells in one breath, each infused with lethal potency capable of effortlessly extinguishing a human life.
As if to prove this, his magic materialized. Eugene grabbed Akasha from inside his cloak. The spells Edmund unleashed weren’t randomly created. All the spells were connected, and no exit existed to escape the barrage.
[Sir Eugene!] Mer arrived at the same conclusion. Even though she specialized in magical support, she could not find any gaps in Edmund’s magic.
She had no choice but to admit it. As a wizard, Edmund was superior in every way to Eugene. Eugene could never hope to win in a battle of magic.
However, this fact wasn’t despairing for Eugene. He had other weapons at his disposal besides magic. The moment Edmund’s spells descended, Eugene let go of Akasha and grabbed onto a pommel.
‘That’s….’
From within his cloak, Eugene produced an object, and a dull gray radiance diffused through the encompassing darkness. Despite the onslaught of spells relentlessly assailing Eugene, Edmund's incantations dissolved into nothingness as the ethereal gray light interwove in front of him. The moonlight voraciously devoured the magic, eroding its very essence.
‘What is it?’
Edmund unknowingly moved the Cube backward.
Eugene wielded the moonlight and painted a crescent moon. Dark Power could not block the moonlight. How could it when the moonlight simply devoured anything and everything it touched?
“Don’t tell me….” Edmund’s face turned pale.
He had read about a similar sword in the special archives of Babel. But that couldn’t be. The sword had not been seen for three hundred years, so how could it be here?
“The Moonlight Sword…?” Edmund spat out in disbelief.
Eugene stared at Edmund for a moment before bursting out in laughter. “So you know about this?”
Edmund’s expression crumpled after hearing Eugene’s answer.