Although this was only natural, there was no one here who could see through to the true identity of the specter. Even Cyan, who had once encountered the specter in the Samar Rainforest, was unable to recognize him as he was now.
This wasn’t just because his face was covered by a mask; it was also because his very presence itself had changed so drastically. Even though he was just standing there quietly, he gave off such an intimidating aura that it caused everyone looking at him to break out in goosebumps.
However, just because they couldn’t guess his identity didn’t give them any reason to hesitate before attacking. That was just how blatantly the specter’s very presence was currently communicating his intentions.
He was exuding such an ominous and evil aura of power that it made everyone instinctively want to take a step back. The source of this aura didn’t seem to simply originate from his dark power. No one here had ever felt such a sinister dark power coming from any black wizard or even a demonfolk.
This meant that this mysterious figure had to be a Demon King or at least a being on a similar level to one. Everyone here had instinctively realized this fact.
Carmen, who had transformed into a fiery white dragon, charged at the specter. Making his move at the same time that she had, Genos also kicked off the ground. Genos may not have been able to practice the White Flame Formula, but in terms of skill proficiency alone, he was ranked second only to Carmen in the Black Lion Knights.
Genos’s skills were from the Hamel Style. The specter was naturally able to recognize this fact as soon as he saw it.
Neither of the two knights knew their opponent’s identity. However, they instinctively knew that this was someone that they couldn’t handle on their own. It was a being that shouldn’t be fought, that made them not want to fight.
But if everyone here were to honestly submit to their fears, nobody would be left to step forward. So just as Carmen had overcome her terror and charged out to meet him, so had Genos.
After all, this was the Black Lion Castle, the fief of the Lionheart clan with three hundred years of history behind it.
Genos’ body was engulfed by red-hot flames of mana.
This situation was different from the time with Eward when an insider had betrayed the clan. This was purely an invasion by an enemy. One who hadn’t even brought an army with them. Just a single person had dared to intrude into the Lionheart clan’s territory.
It didn’t matter whether or not they could actually kill him. The important thing was that they couldn’t just back down from such an opponent. In this, both Genos and Carmen’s thoughts coincided.
Even though Carmen and Genos had just joined forces without any prior planning, the movements of the two were as smooth as if they had done this hundreds or even thousands of times before. The Asura Rampage that Genos had trained for all of his life and Carmen’s Lightning Flash both struck the specter at the same time.
‘So this is Genos Lionheart,’ the specter thought.
The heir to the Hamel Style. The specter felt a wry sense of gratitude as he created a sword from his dark power. To be honest, if he could have his way, he wanted to respond to Genos with an identical Asura Rampage or one of Hamel’s other techniques. However, the specter didn’t choose to do so. He didn’t want to reveal that he was Hamel’s Death Knight at a place like this. To be more precise, he didn’t want Hamel’s name to be tarnished by his current actions.
So, the specter’s attack couldn’t be something that he had learned before. It couldn’t be an attack that was easy to handle or light enough to be overcome with a blind swing of the sword, either. So, since he had to hide his techniques, he needed to apply an even greater force to make up for that.
This wasn’t a difficult task for the specter. As the Incarnation of Destruction, his reserves of dark power were infinite. The dark power of Destruction was such a destructive force that most who tried to wield it were unable to control it. Until now, many of Destruction’s former vassals had self-destructed due to the dark power of Destruction, but there was no such risk for the specter.
Just like how a warrior could draw mana from his Core, the specter was able to draw on the dark power of Destruction.
Claaaaang!
The moment that the Asura Rampage and Lightning Flash reached the specter, they collided with the dark power of Destruction and were erased. But this violent, dark power wasn’t satisfied with merely extinguishing the attacks. The dark power spread out and formed a storm centered around the specter.
Whatever this power was, it was dangerous. Both Carmen and Genos shared this same thought. The two immediately leaped backward as they readied their next attacks.
The other people present also began to move. Excluding Gion, who wasn’t here, and Carmen and Genos, who had already made their moves, the remaining seven Black Lion Captains led the knights under their command to attack the figure. In an instant, the specter was surrounded by hundreds of knights, and on the outside of this encirclement, the warriors of the Zoran tribe were creating a second wall around the figure.
This suppressive formation made it obvious that they were attempting to consume the specter in a battle of attrition[1]. With this formation, the Captains could either take turns to attack and weaken their opponent, or they could just attack from all sides. Whichever way they chose to attack, their determination to put all their power into suppressing a single person could be felt strongly.
The specter was all alone, and there were hundreds of them. However, they all knew the truth. Even with these hundreds of allied troops working together, it was still impossible for them to deal with this figure. Even if the strongest among them, the Captains and the Council Elders, were to attack him at the same time, it would still be impossible for them to defeat this figure.
As such, they just had to wait for their reinforcements to arrive. They needed to hold on until then while also minimizing the damage to their own troops.
‘It’s pointless for them to try and drag out the time like this,’ the specter scoffed to himself.
Were they waiting for the reinforcements from the main estate? For the Archwizards of Aroth? Or maybe even the Wise Sienna. The specter didn’t really want to let this battle get too large, and he especially didn’t want to fight Sienna. Perhaps the one whom they were truly waiting for was Eugene Lionheart, who was currently in Giabella Park.
…The specter didn’t really want to fight with Eugene either. Or at least, he didn’t want the clash between them to take place here.
As such, he had already blocked all the paths through which reinforcements could arrive. He had sealed the warp-gate, and a field of dark power had been deployed to block any communication spells. Under such conditions, it was impossible for any outside reinforcements to make their way over.
That said, he didn’t want to prolong this battle for too long, either.
Every single one of them had shown their spirit by not running away even though they knew they were facing someone whose level far outclassed them. It wasn’t just the knights of the Lionheart clan. Even the tribal natives who had come here from the Rainforest had shown that they had a sense of honor and pride.
~
—I, Molon Ruhr, acknowledge you as a warrior.
~
While recalling those words, the specter gave a wry smile. He wasn’t just doing this because he had been recognized as a warrior. The specter who was born from Hamel wanted to respect those who had shown both honor and pride.
The specter slowly took a deep breath.
Time suddenly seemed like it was flowing slowly. The actual flow of time may not have been altered, but time, as it was being experienced by the specter, stretched out until it felt like a moment was an eternity. The specter examined all of the killing intents being directed at him, and he was able to predict all of the possible attacks that would be accompanied by their killing intents.
He read the path of both Genos and Carmen’s attacks. He calculated how their differently colored flames would react to each other, harmonize, and then amplify the combined result. He knew just how destructive the force of their combined attack would be.
‘But these two aren’t the main threat,’ the specter realized.
He could feel a violent force coming from behind them.
He could feel a power that seemed to be drawing strength from the entire earth, or, to put it metaphorically, it felt as if an immense tree was about to attack him with its roots. This power was something of a different nature from the strength that humans could achieve through pure training alone. As the Incarnation of Destruction, the specter understood just what kind of power this was.
This power had the traits of a miracle, a blessing, and a protection. Thus, it could only belong to someone who had received the protection of the World Tree and the blessing of the entire Rainforest. The specter shuddered slightly as he realized that this knowledge wasn’t something that he had learned on his own but had instead been carved into his mind at some point.
The specter questioned, ‘Was it Vermouth? Or perhaps… could it have been the Demon King of Destruction?’
The specter’s perception of time was still in a slowed state. He saw Ivatar leaping towards him while brandishing an axe with both hands. Meanwhile, Carmen and Genos’s attack was already colliding against the specter’s dark power and slowly drilling in.
As for the Captains and Elders who stood at the forefront of the encirclement, flames of mana aroused by their killing intents ignited on their raised blades as they faced a gradually growing storm of dark power. The moment that Carmen and Genos’s attack had ended, they would launch their own strikes one after another, and Ivatar, who was leaping over from the rear, would slam his axe down onto the specter’s head.
‘There’s something else mixed into this,’ the specter realized as he extended his senses.
By doing so, he detected a male and female duo who had yet to take action.
One of the pair was a young woman glaring at him from amid the other Black Lions. As this was his first time seeing her in person, the specter couldn’t know that the woman’s name was Ciel Lionheart.
However, he could tell that her left eye was something different from the eyes of the other Black Lions.
It had a dull, golden color, but strangely enough, that eye gave him a completely inhuman feeling. Still, in the midst of his slowed perception of time, he saw the color of her eye gradually begin to change. When a dark red color began to spread from her pupil, the specter realized that the power contained within that eye wasn’t a type of magic but instead a Demoneye.
‘How could a human have a Demoneye?’ the specter asked himself in disbelief.
His first thought was that this was absurd. The knowledge inherited from Hamel couldn’t explain how such a thing could have happened. However, through his own experiences, the specter understood how such a thing might not necessarily be as absurd as he first thought.
The specter recalled the sight of Vermouth seated within the Temple of Destruction.
The specter was the only one experiencing a slowed perception of time. For everyone else apart from the specter, the flow of time hadn’t changed in the slightest. Carmen and Genos gave it their all as they tried to break through the specter’s dark power. Waiting for them to pull back, the Captains and Elders got ready to launch their own attacks as Ivatar dropped down from above with his axe.
Ciel’s eye had turned completely red as she activated the ability of her Demoneye, the Demoneye of Immobility. As long as she had enough mana, her Demoneye had the ability to restrain even a Demon King, even if it was only for a few moments. So, the power of her Demoneye should have been able to immobilize the specter.
But before the ability could take effect, Ciel was left coughing up blood. The dark power of Destruction was able to flow back through the restraints that her power had tried to place on the specter and then destroyed the connection. The mana that had been pouring down through the connection to fuel her power snapped back, causing damage to her Core. Ciel stumbled, still coughing up blood.
Whooooosh!
The dark power of Destruction roused the storm to grow even larger. Carmen’s right arm, which was still covered by Heaven Genocide, was twisted backward. Genos’s sword, which he had used as a focus for his sword-force, shattered into pieces and disappeared.
Falling from the sky, Ivatar glared at the center of the storm as he let out a roar. His axe, filled with immense power, struck down as if to crush the storm. However, it failed. His axe was disintegrated, and Ivatar himself was swept away by the surge of dark power.
Although a completely different situation to what they had planned had occurred, what the Captains and Elders needed to do hadn’t changed. While letting out shouts, they swung their weapons at the storm.
The specter walked freely through the storm. Ignoring how his dark power was busily extending its reach, the specter raised his hands.
Clickclickclick!
His dark gray power condensed and transformed into a huge sword. The specter held this sword that was much larger than his own body in both hands and twisted his body to the side.
Booom!
The great sword cut through space itself, and the storm of dark power was transformed into dozens of flying slashes. And just like how this sounded, a whirlwind of blades was sent spreading in all directions.
“Ciel!” Cyan screamed out a warning as he leaped in front of Ciel.
Raising Geddon’s Shield and swinging Azphel, he stood in front of Ciel. The other warriors and knights also swung their weapons in an attempt to resist the gust of blades.
However, the dark power of Destruction easily shattered both their sword-force and mana. In mere moments, a strong smell of blood was left wafting through the forest.
The whirlwind of blades dissipated. The specter leaned the greatsword down onto his shoulder, which he had swung only once.
He had wiped them all out with the last attack… or at least, that was what he had ever so slightly been hoping for. He had even packed enough dark power into that last blow to make it a strong possibility.
There certainly were quite a few people who had collapsed. However, an overwhelmingly greater number of people were standing back up. To be more precise, there were many people who should have collapsed but who had somehow forced themselves to stand up.
The specter unconsciously let out a smile at this sight. He felt a genuine respect for them.
“Just who on earth are you?” Carmen demanded as she staggered to her feet.
Forcing her dislocated and broken right arm back into place, she glared at the specter. Genos also got to his feet, even as he was coughing up blood. His sword may have been destroyed, but the flames of his Red Flame Formula[2] formed into a new blade.
“I…,” the specter hesitated.
How should he answer her question?
The specter shook his head with a wry grin. He found that he didn’t even have a name that he could use to introduce himself. But was a name really all that important?
Instead of agonizing over that question, the specter took a step forward. The greatsword on his shoulder dissipated into dark power, and at the same time, the specter’s figure disappeared.
All that was left was the sword.
Hundreds of swords covered their entire field of vision. Although it seemed like the specter had only swung a sword that one time, that single sword strike had created hundreds of different slashes and thrusts.
There was no time to distinguish between which ones were real and which were only feints.
Carmen’s right arm and fingers were broken. Although she had forced the shoulder joint back into place, it should still be impossible for her to make delicate movements.
Crickcrickcrick!
Heaven Genocide forcefully underwent a transformation. Even as her fingers twisted in agonizing pain, Carmen didn’t let out a single moan. Her fist, now transformed into the Destiny Form, pierced through his slashes.
Tap.
Unlike the power it had first shown, her fist only managed to land a light touch on the specter when she hit him. Gasping for breath, Carmen glared at the specter.
“That was impressive,” the specter said, sincerely recognizing Carmen’s pride as a warrior.
The dark power of Destruction was able to destroy all mana through contact alone. However, Carmen’s white flames had managed to resist the dark power of Destruction and pierce through his slash.
Although the specter’s observation didn’t feel like ridicule, Carmen still felt an intense rage.
“What do you even want from us?” Carmen demanded once more.
The slashes she hadn’t been able to stop had swept through their surroundings again. From those knights and warriors who had already had to force themselves to stand up, the number of fallen had increased once more.
“Why haven’t you killed us?” Carmen asked, frustrated.
Even though he had unleashed such a destructive power onto them, not a single one of them had actually died. The weapons that they had held up in resistance had been destroyed. They had also received many injuries. Some were even so seriously injured to the point of not being able to stand back up. This meant that their wounds were by no means light. However, there weren’t any fatal injuries, and not a single person had died.
What did all of this mean? There was no way that Carmen could miss something like this. It meant that this mysterious Demon King had no intention of killing any of them. It was under such a condition that he had still managed to defeat everyone here.
“Are you here to cause us to despair and fear? If that is the case, you will fail,” Carmen spat out, still glaring at the specter.
As he returned her gaze, the specter quietly shook his head and said, “I haven’t failed.”
“...What?” Carmen voiced her confusion.
“I didn’t come here to bring you despair and fear,” the specter explained, still wearing a mask over his face.
Carmen couldn’t tell what kind of expression he had behind the mask. The only things visible were his eyes.
“I came here to bring you rage,” the specter revealed.
As he said these words, those eyes were calm and coldly collected. It wasn’t the sort of calm that came from not feeling any agitation at all, but instead, it felt as if he had resigned himself to something and was coolly determined.
“...Rage?” Carmen repeated questioningly, unable to understand what he meant by those words.
He had come here to enrage them? But for what purpose? However, Carmen at least knew this much. Just as the specter had said, he had already achieved his goal. He knew that he had been successful. Carmen did indeed feel an unbearable rage towards the specter currently standing in front of her.
It wasn’t just Carmen who felt that way. Everyone who had encountered the specter here today would feel the same rage towards it.
Even though he could kill them at any moment, he hadn’t done so. How dare he show them mercy like this. It was an intolerable insult to any knight or warrior. The fear and despair they felt towards that ominous being would never be able to surpass the rage currently being etched deep within them.
“That’s right,” a voice was heard from above, “You have succeeded.”
The specter’s shoulders trembled in surprise. He immediately raised his head to look up at the night sky.
It was currently late at night, the sun having set already. The bright night was lit up by the countless stars and radiant moon.
Floating high in the middle of the night sky, Sienna glared down at the specter, “After all, you have definitely managed to make me angry.”
1. The original text uses ‘wheel battle’ to describe how they intend to take turns fighting the specter. I wasn’t sure if this term was all that familiar to the readers, so I chose a more familiar Western alternative. ☜
2. The original text uses White Flame Formula, but I’m pretty sure it’s a typo, as it previously states in this very chapter that he hasn’t trained in the White Flame Formula and he is described as using dark-red flames. ☜