Chapter 485

Right after the arm—

“Come forth, leg of the warrior.”

Another cannibal stepped forward and spoke.

He seemed less skilled than the one who’d used the previous incantation.

He wore a colored band around his head and his face was marked with chaotic symbols.

His filthy leg turned black—and then shattered.

Crack-crack-crack.

A backlash from the magic.

“Ghhh…”

He clenched his molars and endured the groan.

His muscles, bones, and skin twisted grotesquely.

A sickening sound rang out as his leg below the knee fell off and transformed into a black mass.

From that pool of darkness, a new muscular black leg formed.

Now, with one arm and two legs conjured, one of the others began to bleed from his eyes and nose and collapsed dead.

His body crumpled inward and soon turned into a pool of black blood, from which a black figure was born.

Thin arms and legs—no head.

Onto that torso, a single arm and two legs attached themselves.

In the end, a humanoid figure formed from soot-black clumps.

It had only its left hand, and in that hand, it grasped a long stick.

Longer than a sword, it was clearly more like a spear.

A warrior with a black body. A black warrior born from a black pit.

Or perhaps a warrior returned from the river of death.

The distinct feature was the lack of a right arm—it was a one-armed figure, and its head was just a round lump.

A knight risen from death is called a Death Knight—the pinnacle of necromancy. A manifestation of a monster with knight-class power.

But this spell from the cultists was of a lower tier.

It began by capturing a powerful warrior, tearing out his heart, and keeping him in a state where he neither lived nor died using dark magic.

Seven days they kept him like that.

If the heart is gone, then one is dead.

But the sorcery convinces the warrior he’s still alive.

Whose heart is that?

The body is dead, but the mind survives.

Then they kill him with necromantic rites.

And that’s how a warrior born of death is created.

I am not yet dead. So I can still fight. If I win, this nightmare will end.

Because they are dead, they cannot hear the words of the living. A warrior of death cannot speak.

Communication is only possible through will—but they have no will.

All that remains is the desire to fight.

To battle. To kill.

To pierce through flesh with a spear.

It didn’t matter who or what stood in front of him.

Lua Gharne’s whip struck the black warrior’s head.

Snap!

The warrior blocked the whip with a sweep of the spear shaft.

The whip curled and whipped around it with sharp swish sounds.

At the same time, Lua Gharne charged forward, swinging her Loop Sword.

A horizontal slash.

A weighty blow, filled with Frokk’s strength, ready to tear through the enemy’s torso.

The black warrior pulled the spear shaft and blocked it with brute force.

Clang!

The black stick that deflected the Loop Sword shimmered.

Pulling the shaft with just one arm—he had overpowered Frokk’s strength.

The lone hand slid down the shaft like a snake, gripped the end just above where the whip was wrapped, and swung it forward.

Lua Gharne let go of the whip’s handle, gripped the Loop Sword with both hands, twisted it flat, and diverted the spear.

Clack, grrrrrrk!

The black shaft and the Loop Sword screeched and slipped past each other.

She used the rebound to leap back in one strong stride.

The warrior of death was a creation of a necromancer. Their power varied by the quality of the caster.

How skilled was this one-armed spear-wielder?

At least knight-tier.

She might barely be able to handle him alone.

Luckily, having only one arm reduced its overall threat.

Where was the other arm? That thought surfaced automatically.

That bastard’s arm from before.

Back when they fought the Nol, one of the cultists had cast the spell “Arm of the Warrior.”

An awkward figure with only a functioning right arm.

Enkrid had cut him down.

Later, they’d looked everywhere to find where that arm went.

Turns out—it was here.

Lua Gharne, retreating, flicked the whip’s handle up with the tip of her blade and caught it.

At the moment of catching—

“Ignite.”

Her voice carried intent and triggered the spell embedded in the whip.

Against this kind of foe, the easiest way was using magic tools.

Fire flared from the middle of the whip.

The searing heat warmed the air around her.

Even so, her odds of winning weren’t great.

Her eye for talent, her intuition, and her combat sense all screamed danger.

Because of the eyes watching from behind the warrior of death.

And that wasn’t all.

From behind the canyon, where the enemy forces were gathering, another group appeared.

Most bore strange markings on their faces.

Among them, two were especially notable: a half-blooded fairy and a half-blooded giant.

They weren’t from the West—you could tell just by looking.

Different race, different attire.

The fairy half-blood had a mangled ear with just a hole in place of the rim, and the giant half-blood had a flat nose and a square, stone-like jaw.

Enkrid was still pursuing the enemy mage.

Rem and Dunbakel were slaughtering giants with glee.

The summoned wolf spirit tore through the giant ranks, guarding their warriors as they stabbed with spears and hurled stones.

A few Western warriors approached Lua Gharne, gripping obsidian spears and javelin throwers.

This won’t work.

Her combat instincts screamed defeat. More precisely, a pointless death.

Especially when she saw that one—black hair, blind white eyes.

Under his left eye, a dotted teardrop tattoo. Under his right, the symbol of a dagger blade pointed upward.

The moment she laid eyes on him, a chill settled into her bones.

We’ll lose.

If it’s just her and the Western warriors fighting, they would lose.

She was usually slow to react—but in battle, Frokk’s combat senses became razor sharp.

From her perspective, this was the only conclusion.

But—so what?

The things before her were cultists.

Cultists were enemies.

So, she would kill them.

Whether it worked or not, the premise didn’t change.

There was someone she needed to kill right in front of her.

And so, her rage was justified.

Grururrrrk.

Half joy, half fury.

Lua Gharne puffed up her cheeks.

Though honestly, she didn’t feel like she was going to lose.

Because all her predictions had excluded Enkrid—who defied all logic.

***

Did you think giants were all I prepared?

The man who could no longer speak due to the endless flurry of blades was an Apostle of the Holy Ground of the Demon Realm.

I split the West. Created giants. Do you know how many seeds I’ve sown? This has been years in the making. How will you stop it?

He would grow a branch of the cult here.

More accurately, he would summon demons and turn this land into a pseudo-Demon Realm.

For that, he planned to gather the Westerners and slaughter them in one place.

Their blood, their flesh, their fear, despair, hopelessness, and false hopes—

All of it would be ingredients to shape this land into a dark mirror of the Demon Realm.

The Apostle intended to birth a new Demon Realm here.

But the sword kept cutting him off. Magic couldn’t flow. He couldn’t even form a seal.

This bastard.

Rage flared up, but the Apostle knew rash anger would not help.

So he began to pray inwardly to suppress it.

The god slumbers within the Demon Realm.

He would awaken him and let him rule this land.

Deliver divine punishment to the fools.

Hang all those who claimed false kingship.

Tear open the hearts of those who mocked the one true god with their heresy.

Let all die and be reborn anew.

Then the world would answer the true god’s call.

Meanwhile, the Seer Tribe was joining the battle, and the two hidden warriors began approaching his side.

The outsider swinging the sword would be held off by those two.

Once he was restrained, the Apostle would make him kneel and then speak:

Why do you waste your power on false paths?

This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.

Stand with us. Know true joy. Praise the god of the Demon Realm.

If you refuse, then die and be reborn. Stand at my side.

Even without your will, I will make it so. That is my duty, my path for the god I serve.

He had so much he wanted to say—it twisted in his throat.

The Apostle was, by nature, a talker.

But every time he opened his mouth, a blade came flying.

Had he not used the intangibility spell to let the sword pass through, he’d have died long ago.

Still, in this spirit form, he couldn’t properly cast his magic, which was deeply frustrating.

But maybe… maybe he could at least get a few words out?

He thought so.

The talk-starved Apostle turned to trickery.

All he had to do was convey his intent.

And if he could convey that—maybe he could utter the spell he had prepared.

Yes… maybe.

So the Apostle forced open a gap with a dirty trick.

***

“You!”

“Bastard!”

“Lis—!”

“Ten!”

“To!”

“My!”

“Words!”

“Now!”

Quite the trick.

Unable to speak fully, the man split his words up one syllable at a time.

Enkrid, for his part, kept pressing the mage using only Acker, save for the occasional spark burst.

That alone was enough to keep the man from chanting or forming seals.

“Block the incantation and the hand signs, and he’ll have to use sheer will to cast. But no mage can do that easily. So just slash his damn mouth and fingers.”

Esther’s teachings were excellent.

Enkrid did exactly that.

His opponent still couldn’t cast properly.

But how long would this last?

Could he cut nonstop for three days and nights and expect this man to back off?

No one knew.

With his mouth silenced, the man kept trying to speak through his eyes—rolling them madly as he spoke in single syllables.

At this point, it seemed like he could cast with just his eyeballs.

If Audin ever went mad, he’d probably look just like this.

“Wait—is that an insult to Audin?”

In that case, I take it back.

Enkrid’s blade sliced through his opponent’s body.

It felt like slashing through air. Nothing caught on the blade.

He was cutting smoke.

Even so, Enkrid didn’t stop.

“Be!”

“Re!”

“Born!”

After several more strikes, the man’s intent changed.

Instead of trying to get his message across, he began something else—a spell.

The shifting of mana brushed against Enkrid’s instincts.

Even as he slashed him, the man kept spitting out syllables—

The Apostles of the Holy Ground of the Demon Realm—

They were still considered geniuses.

This Apostle channeled mana even while his chant was being disrupted by Enkrid’s sword.

A long spell wasn’t even necessary—something had already been prepared here.

“Be!”

“Re!”

“Born!”

A six-syllable incantation.

The sacrifice buried beneath the ground responded to the Apostle’s spell.

Thanks to Rem and Dunbakel, the number of giants had been reduced significantly—

But now, one of the fallen giants began to rise again at the mage’s command.

GROOOAARR!

Torn flesh rejoined, and a severed neck regrew its head.

Pulsing lumps of meat squirmed upward, forming new eyes, nose, mouth, and ears.

It was grotesque. Just watching it made one nauseous.

The revived giant moved again, dazed eyes just like before its death.

What the hell was this?

Even trolls or Frokk couldn’t mimic regeneration like that.

“Come!”

“Forth!”

The mage now chanted a summoning spell.

And before Enkrid’s eyes, a massive red rooster’s comb burst from the ground.

Bigger than the head of an average adult.

Beneath it came the chicken’s head, a body clad in steel-like feathers, yellow legs, and razor talons that could tear a man apart.

Lastly, a snake-like tail scraped the ground with a hiss.

Enkrid recalled what he’d just seen.

A red-tinged magic circle had formed on the ground.

From within it, the comb had risen—and then the monster surged forth.

A creature that turned foes to stone with its gaze—a Cockatrice.

The monster planned to strike with petrifying vision, peck with its beak, and rake with venomous claws.

First, it aimed to tear off flesh with its beak and savor the taste.

Its neck muscles moved—

But before it could even lower its head, a beam of light shot in and severed it clean.

It almost looked like the beast had offered its neck for the killing.

Of course, it hadn’t. It was just a difference in speed.

Slice!

Thunk—

The head soared through the air.

The light faded from the Cockatrice’s eyes.

The summoned monster didn’t even get a scream out before it died.

But that instant bought its master a brief opening.

“Chains of Gulrak!”

The Apostle deactivated his intangibility and chanted without hesitation.

Green chains burst from the ground, binding Enkrid’s calves and forearms.

They locked around him.

“You tried to slash through an intangible opponent? What an idiot.”

At that moment, Enkrid heard something like an echo.

But he ignored both the echo and the chains binding him.

What is willpower?

The drive to act.

Enkrid filled his will with a single thought: strike forward and cut.

He didn’t care about the chains or the whispering.

Crack—BOOM!

The chains couldn’t withstand the force and exploded.

It was the power of thighs honed through relentless training.

Enkrid had shattered the spell with brute strength.

If Audin had seen it, he’d have burst into prayer, begging to meet his father in the heavens.

“You bastard!”

The Apostle, mid-chant for another spell, shouted in shock.

And who wouldn’t be?

Who the ◈ Nоvеlіgһт ◈ (Continue reading) hell breaks spells with raw muscle?

His half-blood fairy and half-blood giant subordinates lunged to protect him.

They grabbed at Enkrid’s legs—

But only for half a breath.

Enkrid saw them block his path and moved both arms at once.

He split a single beat into halves—half tempo—

Attacking with staggered slashes.

Crash, rip! Stab!

The fairy half-blood had the trick of hiding twin daggers until the moment of the strike.

It was nearly sleight of hand—astonishingly fast.

That was why they could react to Enkrid’s downward swing with both daggers crossed.

It was a smart decision. Dodging was too late.

The fairy crossed both daggers, braced their forearms—

But the heavy blade drove down, pushed through, split their skull halfway and passed through.

Thud!

Crack!

A massive impact shook the air, and the fairy’s spine collapsed downward.

At the same time, the half-blood giant’s face caved in.

Of course, Enkrid’s doing.

He smashed downward with Acker and stabbed with a Spark in his left hand.

Two attacks in half-tempo—a technique he’d practiced dozens of times recently.

It was a variation of dual-wielding, where Acker blocked while Spark pierced.

The half-blood giant had been mid-swing with a mace—

But he died mid-motion, blood gushing from his face.

Even dead, the mace continued its arc.

Boom.

It slammed uselessly into the ground.

By then, Enkrid’s blade had already reached the Apostle’s barrier.

He swung without giving the man a single breath to recover.

Whack—Crack!

With one strike, a fracture formed across the shield.

The Apostle’s pupils began to tremble.

“What the hell is this guy?”

Why does he fight like this?

A question bloomed in his mind—

And with it, the first true terror of death.

An ominous vision, as if no matter what he tried—he would die.

That dread slowly consumed his mind.