mtlumby2d Chapter 182 : Chapter 182
Chapter 182 : Chapter 182
182
Wheeeeeeee——————.
A tinnitus filling my ears snapped me back.
The world had gone black, and I had no memory of the past few seconds.
My hands, rigid from the pain, were gripping with enough force to drain all the blood and leave them white.
Thanks to that, it was a miracle I had not dropped the Holy Sword.
No — it was the pain.
The sword, linked to my will, was endlessly creating flow and drawing it into my body.
'———ghkkkkk?!'
With pain this intense, I could not even breathe.
I knew I was in agony, I knew this was pain, I knew every single joint in my bones was being crushed and my whole body felt like it was being ripped apart —
And yet the pain continued to the point where I could not find words to describe it.
Worse still, the pain kept compounding.
————!
For a brief few seconds, pain was born and died in cycles.
I tried to grit my teeth somehow, but my body would not listen to me.
No — I did not know what state my body was even in, or what it was doing.
'Change...... your thinking......'
Let this pain be the indicator.
The fact that I felt pain meant I was still controlling the energy.
Crack, crack — twisting sounds came from all over my body.
Through my fraying consciousness, I searched for a single thread of warm heat.
'This.'
At my fingertips, still wrung tight, I felt warm heat.
The aura of the Holy Sword, endlessly supporting me.
'My will...... has not broken.'
From the moment I first created the flow until now.
My will had been one.
To create flow, combine it, and fuse it into a single point.
'No.'
To forge it into a sword and swing it.
Once my will was set, the energy — which had felt ready to swell my body tenfold and tear it apart — flowed into a single point.
It was refined.
Tempered.
Compressed.
Accelerated.
And then.
"Ah."
My mind cleared to an astonishing degree, and for a moment the world grew still.
With effort I glanced sidelong at the sword.
The Holy Sword was glowing with a brilliance beyond any aura I had ever seen.
It was as though God, while creating the world, had left just this spot as a blank white page.
That brilliant blank warmly consoled me.
And then.
— Thump!
It reacted.
The Holy Sword, for the first time, vibrated strongly — moving away from my will.
And soon.
Snap.
As if I had bitten into a cookie, the Holy Sword shattered absurdly.
The blade crumbled and fell to the ground.
The gathered energy slowly dispersed.
Where the light faded, an angel stood.
A chaste, quiet nun stood with her hands clasped at her chest in prayer.
Her eyes were tightly closed, and her fluttering white vestments rippled in the wind.
But the twelve wings on her back were all turned inside out.
Beneath her eyes, tears of blood flowed.
And at last, when she finished her prayer and opened her eyes —
— Ahh. Why is the world so revolting?
There was nothing in her eyes.
Entity name: Sacer.
— Revolting, revolting, revolting.
Her hollow eye sockets turned toward me.
I knew intuitively.
I am going to die.
— Sacred thing, be stripped from this world and vanish into myth.
A pain as though my entire body were being crushed gripped me.
And at that moment.
"Fuck no!"
Emitting Aura in midair, my sword, my disciple came rushing in like lightning.
Then.
CRACK!
With the speed of a storm, he sent Sacer flying with a side kick.
......Why did he draw his sword at all?
***
"Wow, holy shit — a Hectopascal Kick."
"What?"
At Berlith's words, Sihan shook his head.
An old, worn meme had briefly surfaced and calmed his racing heart.
Right now, there were more important things.
"You felt it?"
"Yes."
The two of them turned their gazes toward the distant sky.
It was not just them.
Among the people who had witnessed power sublime enough to be called divine, everyone of any notable ability was looking toward the same spot.
The energy that had flashed past at the moment Sacer appeared.
It was a distinct magical aura — different from the usual unpleasant heartbeat-pounding that accompanied a demon's emergence.
Black magic that defied the natural order of this world.
And of a very high circle at that — magic that had never before been revealed in this world.
It had been felt from the southwest of the Empire.
"Good. We are falling back."
Sihan gripped the carriage's control lever and steered.
As it happened, Sacer had crashed to the Holy Kingdom's side — specifically where Ganemia was.
If only Sacer had fallen there, the Holy Kingdom would have suffered enormous damage.
Sacer's signature was the absolute cutoff of all Holy Power derived from God.
But there.
"Die! Die! Die, you damn bastard! Because of you, our Teacher — huh?!"
Rozalin, eyes rolled back white, was slashing at Sacer with an Aura-infused sword, emitting a menacing demonic aura.
Teacher Cassian, who had sacrificed his body to the extreme, seemed to have lost consciousness.
But with hundreds of clerics flocking to pour Holy Power into him, he would not die even if he tried.
— Kaaaahhhhh——!
Sacer thrashed, trying to do something, but Rozalin's rage was greater.
Rozalin's swordsmanship was already a fully matured Adept.
She was one preparing her growth into Expert through private tutoring in the special class.
Originally called a once-in-a-generation sword prodigy, her experience fighting demons on the battlefield for ten years was more than enough to butcher a newborn demon that had not even been in this world for five minutes.
"Stop her! We must acquire that demon's data!"
"This is the Empire! Whatever emerges within the Empire must be the Empire's!"
"The one who controlled the flow is that sword's hilt! Even if we lose the demon, retrieve the sword!"
The Empire's mages did not sit idle either.
Due to the aftermath of Sacer's ability, the Holy Knights' power had diminished.
They had to do something and produce a result.
Of course, it was not easy.
"Th-there is no mana!"
"Damn it, that monster......"
Ocean Hall's flow had not only absorbed manifested mana.
It had haphazardly taken the pure mana that existed in this space and stirred it all together.
Then it had evaporated all of it.
The Anti-Magic Fantasy.
Perhaps due to its aftermath, magic was not manifesting properly.
A hand-to-hand fight between Holy Knights who had lost their Holy Power and mages who had lost their mana.
Naturally, the Holy Knights' martial might had to be overwhelmingly superior.
— Ahh, God, descend into corruption......
In that stable situation, Rozalin's blade at last pierced Sacer's heart and cut through all twelve wings.
Sacer's body turned to ash and vanished into the air, and Rozalin, her breathing rough, quickly pocketed Sacer's Fantasy.
Everything else she could miss, but not this.
This was the Fantasy she had been vouching for since last year as the one that could bring Teacher's body to perfect condition.
Now if she just retrieved the hilt of the broken Holy Sword......
"Ho ho. Giving that up too would sting my pride."
It was divine luck.
Her body reacted before she did, to the chill that ran up the back of her neck.
The sword she had unconsciously raised blocked her vital spot, and an enormous shock followed.
Her sword was shattered, and her body flew through the air.
After colliding with a few clerics, she tumbled a long way across the ground.
Pain rattled her body, blurring her vision.
"Wh-what......"
"Lionheart!"
"Perdius! The Empire's sword has come!"
"Th-the Emperor! The Emperor has come in person!"
Before she could even collect her senses, the clerics' screams — shouts like cries of anguish — informed her of the situation.
Perdius de Lionheart.
And the Emperor.
Those who, in the last life, had stayed holed up in the imperial palace and never once shown their faces even at the final moment when demons destroyed the world — they had personally descended here.
"Th-this cannot be......"
Rozalin tried to hurriedly pull herself up.
But her body would not obey.
Not even when the nearby clerics poured Holy Power into her.
Finally regaining her vision and lifting her body, she saw a monster there.
"Hup."
As Perdius swung his sword, ten clerics were sent flying through the air.
A bizarrely radiant golden Aura rippled along his blade.
'......Expert.'
It was a realm she had believed only her mentor had reached.
And yet that monstrous old man, too, had reached that realm and was swinging his sword.
None of those sent flying by his blade could recover their bodies.
It was as though his Aura had cut through some kind of essential energy.
Wielding power beyond common sense through the sword alone.
It was a technique only an Expert could display.
"Is this it?"
Perhaps trusting in such a Perdius.
The Emperor walked leisurely, as though he had come on a sightseeing trip, and picked up the Holy Sword's hilt — all that remained of the blade.
"No! Stop him!"
"Protect the Emperor!"
"Your Majesty!"
The Holy Sword was a weapon equivalent to the Holy Kingdom's pride.
And the Emperor of the Empire was taking that Holy Sword — no matter that its blade had been shattered?
It was an outrage difficult to accept.
The Holy Knights' eyes rolled white as they hurled themselves at the Emperor again and again.
But not a single one of them could slip past Perdius's sword and reach the Emperor.
On top of that, Perdius was not even putting particular effort into his swings.
He was simply flicking his sword as though brushing away insects.
'Damn it...... the trajectories are unreasonable.'
But Rozalin could see.
Each of those trajectories held the same profound essence as Teacher Cassian's honest cuts and powerful thrusts — no, even greater.
They were both Experts, but when you took their overall swordsmanship into account.
'That man is stronger.'
He was truly someone who deserved to be called the strongest in the world.
"As long as we are here, I would like to have a talk with that man too. To say he wants to meet me, and yet sleep right through it."
At the Emperor's words, Perdius's gaze shifted toward Ganemia and Cassian, who was lying at her feet receiving treatment.
"Damn it!"
Rozalin forced her creaking body up and ran toward Cassian.
Even if it cost her life, she had to protect her Teacher.
But Perdius's stride was far faster than Rozalin's approach toward her mentor.
At last, just before Perdius's hand could reach Cassian.
"Teacher!"
"Oh, come now. By whose leave?"
There was something Rozalin had forgotten.
From the beginning, five of them had come here.
With a sharp sound, Perdius was, for the first time, pushed back.
The one who had pushed him back was a young man in tailcoat with a sturdy build.
"Bonnie!"
"Let's go! Get on!"
Sihan, who had leaned out of the carriage, hurled a flurry of flasks at Perdius.
Potions glowing fluorescent green, red, and yellow collided in midair and produced an enormous explosion.
Its force was enough to laugh off the magic of 4th or 5th-circle mages.
In that interval, Bonnie scooped Rozalin and Cassian into his arms and launched himself into the carriage.
"Where do you think you are going!"
But Perdius tore through even that explosion and took a single step toward the carriage.
However, there was one more person in the carriage.
"Nah-ah. No, no~!"
A hand made of bone came flying at his face.
It was a corpse Berlith had been using as a substitute arm.
BOOM!
The bone fragment, filled with wicked energy, exploded like a bomb.
It was the Necromancer's signature spell — Corpse Explosion.
"Well now."
Perdius succeeded in cutting through even that, with a few swings of his blade.
But in that brief time, the carriage was already pulling away into the distance, out of sight.
If he threw his sword now, or chased them on foot, he could catch them.
But.
"Your Majesty!"
"Let us go."
He had not come alone.
On top of that, the area was swarming with the Holy Kingdom's fanatics.
Perdius smacked his lips and stood down.
At least they had retrieved the sword that had wielded the demon's power, so it was not entirely without gain.
'Before using that strange power, he clearly absorbed those things they call Fantasies into the sword, correct?'
If they could make use of that power, the Empire could recover its standing.
Perdius slowly turned his body.
***
"The Fantasies...... were absorbed by Teacher?"
Sihan nodded.
"Yeah. When the Holy Sword was destroyed, all the energy that had been in it was absorbed into Teacher Cassian."
"Then the Empire......"
"Morons. Let them take it and study it for a hundred years. Nothing will come out. The Holy Kingdom might be a little sore about it, though. Well — that is their problem."