Large numbers of people who had gathered for the subjugation of Germane, gathered around the tightly shut gates that led to the entrance of the new Necropolis that was taken over by Kim Jonghyun.
In the front of the group, the leading vanguard was made up of several Holy Knights and Paladins, followed by the Priests directly behind their lines.
They voluntarily took the lead. It was not because of their spirit or they were trying to be martyrs or anything like that. No, it was because it was the most convenient for them to take the lead.
After that, crowds from around the gate settled down. They were grinding their teeth with the collected fighting spirits and murderous intents directed at Kim Jonghyun who had ruined this city in a massacre.
Abel’s vigorous speech the night before, made everyone’s adrenaline rush through their bodies, allowing them to be ready for the fight that was about to unfold.
The Priests gathered around a focal point; more specifically a person : the Holy Saint, Teresa. Looking at the tightly closed gates, Teresa hugged the staff in her chest closer to her body.
She may have been treated like an adult in political affairs with the Church, but this was the first time she had ever been forced into the forefront of the battlefield.
Lee Sungmin decided to move independently with Abel and Frau. Their purpose was to find the ringleader of all of this : Kim Jonghyun, and attack him. Abel had already finished talking with Theos, the head of the Holy Knights Group, and the leader of the Paladins, Daishin Kwan.
Rumbleeee…..
When Abel raised his hand, a dull sound erupted throughout the area as the ground started to tremor and the wind started to shake. The ambient temperature soared to a high heat. On Abel’s palm, there was a whirlwind of flames.
“God… help us.”
Teresa muttered to herself as Abel’s magic smashed the gate apart.
WOAHHHHHH !
The crowd, which had become an army overnight, shouted in unison. Theos, who took the lead, raised his lance high as he charged forward.
Theos roused his holy power to the tip of his lance and a silver light glowed around it with brilliant fervor.
Beyond the broken gate, zombies flocked towards the army in waves as if they somehow knew in advance that the army would be invading at this time. It was a siege, but it was terribly unorganized to be one as there was little to no organization amongst the groups when they charged forward.
In the first place, it didn’t seem like Kim Jonghyun’s forces had been planning to use the gates in an advantageous position as a siege. Instead, several of the zombies and ghouls were equipped with shields or whatever could be used to serve as a barricade.
It seemed that he had brought out everything that could be used as a shield after searching through the local city armory.
“Charge!”
Theos shouted. His horse raced forth with all its might. Theos lowered his posture and stretched the lance straight forward. Hundreds of Holy Knights following him took the same posture forming a piercing speartip charge.
The priests in the rear clasped their hands in front of their hearts and prepared their holy magic. All kinds of buff spells were embedded in the holy knights as they shone brilliantly in the dimly lit city. Together, the entire charge looked like a massive white spear charging towards a black bog of undead.
No, it became a white wave that swallowed everything that was in their way.
There was no sound of a collision to be heard. The speed of the charge had nearly reached the speed of sound and pierced through the zombies and ghouls like paper.
Even if they had shields in hand, they were unintelligent undead who couldn’t even use proper shield techniques. Their strength was similar to tofu in that moment, as ordinary citizens, despite being turned into undead, were nothing in front of the Holy Knights and their Holy Magic.
“Wow!”
When the knights’ rush crushed the entire head of the zombies’ front, the troops that had become flustered initially by the appearance of the undead, got over their fears and rushed behind with a collective roar. They trampled on the zombies’ heads that had fallen and were struggling with their footing and crushed them mercilessly. The battlefield was completed in an instant. The zombies’ disgusting and bloody, rotting smell permeated the entire city.
The leaders of each group immediately began to prepare. The Holy Knights were immune to zombies’ blood poison, but they were not the only ones gathered here. The rest of the groups quickly applied detoxification buffs or potions; whatever they had on hand, and marched to keep them from being separated from those who were ahead of them.
In the middle of these groups, Teresa looked around with a pale face. It had been less than ten minutes since the battle had first started.
How many people had died in the meantime, though? Teresa gripped her staff tightly tightly.
The zombies’ blood poison did not infect her, but the odor from their foul corpses couldn’t exactly be blocked out. Teresa was gasping from the terrible stench and foul smell that invaded her nose.
After crushing a group of leading zombies with their spearhead formation, the Holy Knights changed their weapons at once. Holding sharp spears, they stood on a horse and struck the spears down at the zombies’ heads to prevent them from rising up ever again.
Pwuck! Pwuck!
A disgusting sound of the zombies’ heads popping like watermelons, echoed out. The group behind the Holy Knights in the front, charged mercilessly at the zombies on the edge of the formation that the Holy Knights couldn’t get to with looks of anger and madness filled in their fighting spirits. Being exposed to all of this new side of life, where blood and lives were taken in seconds, Teresa felt like throwing up.
Teresa shivered as she watched all of it. Even though their opponents were not zombies and ghouls, they too, were once human beings.
“You’re the Saint.”
One of the archbishops grabbed Teresa’s faltering shoulders that were shivering with fright and anxiety.
“Don’t shake in your conviction here. Giving death to those who have already fallen is the only mercy we can give them at this point.”
“Yes…”
Teresa nodded heavily and clenched the staff in her hands. As Teresa began to step forward, the priests split sideways like Moses parting the Red Sea, creating a way for Teresa to move forward.
Whoosh!
The necklace around Teresa’s neck vibrated as she lifted the staff high.
The light that had been spreading from her soared high with the staff.
When Teresa stretched her arms wide, the soaring holy power split apart and divided behind her back and gave her an appearance of something like wings behind her.
“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”Reciting the holy prayer, Teresa closed her eyes as her holy power started to radiate like a beacon of hope across the entirety of the city’s area.
“She’s got much more power than I thought.”
Abel, Lee Sungmin, and Frau entered the gate a little bit after the main forces made their ways in.
Abel looked at Teresa wrapped around the wings of light and complimented her without hiding any words of praise behind.
The particles of light from the wings purified the foul stench that was coming from the bodies of the dead zombies along with the blood poison, and even healed the wounds of those who had been injured in any way. The presence of Teresa boosted the spirit of the Holy Knights and Paladins in the front. Their fatigue was also quickly recovered by Teresa’s wings of light.
“I can see why the Church went and hid the identity of the Saint. It seems clear that she is nothing but a plant in the greenhouse in terms of exposure to this kind of thing, but her power is definitely real.”
Lee Sungmin also nodded in agreement. Teresa’s power was not only something that was one-dimensional. Not only was it useful for buffing allies with holy power, but it detoxified anything and everything deemed as ‘evil’. It had incredible offensive prowess as it turned zombies into ash wherever her rays of light shone, and it gave overwhelming boosts to the others fighting alongside her.
‘The zombies and ghouls in the front are only useful for their numbers. In terms of capability, they’re worse than garbage.. It must have been placed near the gate to drag time or…… was it to see just how strong our forces were?’
[Or maybe he’s trying to build up fatigue to strike when the iron is hot.]
Heoju expressed his own opinion. Of course, with the presence of Teresa, the fatigue of the Holy Knights and the entire army only continued to recover more and more.
However, Teresa was clearly not going to be able to keep her monstrous power up for long. The legion of Death Knights, which can be said to be Kim Jonghyun’s real troops, hadn’t even appeared yet.
[That girl’s ability is precious. You shouldn’t force her to drown her power out so early in the fight.]
Lee Seongmin gave Abel a nod of understanding as his face turned cold and serious.
“I think it’s time for me to come forward.”
“Do we need to do that already?”
“I can’t see the Death Knights. Now that we’ve seen Teresa’s capabilities and strength, we have to let her save her strength.”
“Do whatever you want. Because I’m busy in my own way.”
Abel and Frau would not be the ones to come forward just yet. They would only move once it was absolutely necessary. Kim Jonghyun did not know of Abel’s powers or that the Weiss was even present with him. The same went with Frau. They had to be the variables for their own victory.
In this kind of situation, those two had to release their strength at the moment they really needed it. Bringing them forward was nothing but showing their cards early and they could not afford to do that.Even so, they couldn’t just let Teresa become exhausted so early. And for that… that was why Lee Sungmin was stepping forward.
Lee Sungmin’s power and capabilities were already known to a certain extent to Kim Jonghyun. That was why it was more or less the right time for him to come forward and act as a substitute for Teresa right now.
Back in Kim Jonghyun’s castle though, Lee Sungmin had shown some of his strength to a certain degree. But even then, he was somewhat restrained…. But now, there was no need to even hide his power now.
Lee Sungmin slowly walked forward, lowering the spear made of dragon bone in his hands.
Vuuuuuuoooong!
A purple current of internal energy wrapped around his body and he disappeared. The very next moment, he was already next to Teresa.
“Ah!”
Teresa was frightened when Lee Sungmin popped out right next to her, seemingly out of thin air. Lee Sungmin tried to reach out to calm down Teresa, who was reeling from surprise, but was forced to retract his hand in an instant.
When the internal energy of his body that was mixed with all sorts of powers that were deemed ‘evil’, came too close to Teresa’s wings of light, he felt that it would be dangerous to actually touch her to calm her down.(T/N : Mogma ;-; u dirty scoundrel)
After making such a judgment, Lee Sungmin stepped back a little and made a suitable distance between himself and Teresa.
“It’s still too early for you to step up right now.”
“But…”
Teresa understood what Lee Sungmin was saying. However, she glanced at the Holy Knights and the army running wild in the lead with her eyes filled with anxiety.
Before they even knew it, zombies were already filling the roads ahead of them in unending waves. Tens of thousands of citizens living in Germane had died and already become corpses. This along with Kim Jonghyun’s dark magic which forced them to turn into undead, made it clear just how many numbers they were up against.
“I know. I don’t want the people who gathered here for this cause to get injured. Especially not for the Holy Knights from the Church….”
“Even though you feel that way, It’s impossible for you to do anything meaningful right now. This is not a neighborhood fight between hooligans. It is a war against tens of thousands of undead, hundreds of Death Knights that haven’t even appeared yet and much more. Not only that, but those Death Knights are all at the very pinnacle of the Peak Realm. Take that along with a Dark Wizard like Kim Jonghyun who has powers that are demonic and who has already achieved a transformation into a half-devil, then you should know what we need to do. I find your strength useful Teresa, but now is not the time to bring it out in earnest yet.”
Useful? Teresa’s face turned red from embarrassment when she heard the sudden praise. The officials from the Holy Church around Teresa looked at Lee Sungmin sternly and glared openly. Lee Sungmin only shook his head as they turned back around and continued to chant their holy spells.
“I don’t know how to make cheesy speeches or sound coercive like my colleague Abel, but you stop the spell, just tell them to calm down since even though you are the Saint, you are still human and still have a limit in terms of energy.”
“Wait-wait. I…!”
“Do you not understand what I’m trying to say? Do you think I’m just telling you to just stay still because I want the Holy Knights and the people who gathered here to die?”
[I guess she doesn’t understand… It’s probably because she really doesn’t know much about you as a person.]
Heoju smirked as he spoke. Heoju was likely to be correct in this case. Lee Sungmin, was only known as the murderer and rogue of Murim and the heir to the Sama Order. They only knew him as the ‘Ghost Spear’.
“I’m saying this because I will make sure that you don’t have to use your powers yet.”
There was no need to say anything further. Lee Sungmin’s actions would do the talking from here on out.
Bzzzt! Bzzzzt!
Lee Sungmin, whose internal energy started to electrify into lightning bolts around his body, disappeared. He suddenly reappeared right in the middle of the flocking zombies. In the midst of such a horrific area and battlefield, everyone’s eyes suddenly turned towards him. Zombies, undead, Holy Knights, Teresa…. everybody.
A black and purple light exploded from his body with a flash. It was as if a black hole suddenly exploded and lightning bolts electrified the entire surroundings without stop. It was so intense, that shockwaves reverberated throughout the entire battlefield and everybody’s eyes widened in shock. The world seemed to turn deathly silent as the lightning broke the sound barrier and the world was dyed in a black ink.
Lee Sungmin who had inherited Sima Ryunju’s very essence of martial arts in the Dark Storm Arts, did not achieve the same kind of level and transformation his master had.
The power that Sima Ryunju had wielded in his final moments of being alive, was too great for Lee Sungmin to handle at the present. Like how he had yet to fully digest the Draconic magical energy from the heart of the Dragon, Lee Sungmin had yet to fully control the power he had obtained from his master.
Lee Sungmin knew well he couldn’t ‘control’ it.
But he did know. Unlike the Heart of the Dragon, Lee Sungmin had been taught by the man known as the Demonic Emperor, Sima Ryunju, and actually knew the direction he needed to follow in order to attain such a level.
BA-BOOOOOOM .
The current of lightning was so powerful and incredible that it flowed out and destroyed everything in its path. The undead and surrounding buildings vanished into dust as mass destruction overtook everything that stood before it. In the blurred surroundings that were filled with afterimages, Lee Sungmin corrected his posture. Even if he knew the moves with his head, applying it directly to his body and memorizing it with his muscles, was another story.
Lee Sungmin felt incredibly nauseous. The Dark Storm Arts was about achieving the pinnacle of speed. His body couldn’t fully handle the extreme acceleration he just went through, but it was enough.
He purposefully landed in the middle of the horde of undead because he did not want to be near the army when he went all out like this. And his result….Was a resounding success.
“Oh!”
Teresa’s eyes widened in shock and surprise. In a matter of not even a second, the world turned pitch black with a streak of purple, and everything that was in the path of Lee Sungmin’s spear, vanished without exception.
[What do you think?]
“I’ll be fine for now.”
Both of Lee Sungmin’s arms that had swung his spear were throbbing as they were completely mangled. Teresa hurriedly tried to direct the light of healing towards Lee Sungmin. At that moment, Lee Sungmin looked directly at Teresa with a cold gaze. At his cold glare, Teresa suddenly stopped and froze as she realized what she was about to do.
‘Her power doesn’t help me.’
Rather, it was closer to poison for Lee Sungmin.
[It’s alright.]
Lee Sungmin sent a telepathic message to Teresa. Both of his mangled arms quickly regenerated in a matter of seconds. Usually, people say that they would be suffering because they weren’t smart enough or talented to learn stronger martial art techniques, but for Lee Sungmin, it was the complete opposite.
His body would serve as a collateral and would suffer in exchange for using techniques that were too high level for him.
Roaaar!
Although Lee Sungmin had killed nearly hundreds of undead in a mere second, hundreds more charged at him despite the dangers. Lee Sungmin did not hesitate to run forward. Where he was headed was the front line of the group. Theos and the Holy Knights, who were blocking the zombie’s rush in front of him, looked up as Lee Sungmin hopped right above them.
Booing! (T/N : What is this? Super mario?)
In Lee Sungmin’s hand, the spear began to rotate. The purple current of internal energy that wrapped around his spear, extended into a gigantic blade.
BOOM !
Hundreds of zombies split into two when the spear was swung sideways. Theos’ eyes opened wide.
He was also a master of the Peak Realm with outstanding skills, but Lee Sungmin in his eyes, was a monster that far transcended the power that humans could possibly ever achieve.
Lee Sungmin, who landed back on the ground, felt numerous shocked gazes behind his back. Despite these gazes of shock and fear, Lee Sungmin did not feel any sense of pleasure from showing off his skills.
In fact, he was rather sad. He was sad that he could only show them this much of his master’s power. His master was someone that was incredible.
“Ah.”
Lee Sungmin slowly moved forward, receiving everyone’s attention.
‘It was good that you were my master.’
Lee Sungmin felt that he truly received too much from Sima Ryunju.
Therefore, he vowed that he should not bring shame to his late master’s name.
T/N : chapter 1/2 for this week ; expect one tomorrow ?