Chapter 26: Seeds of Division (2)
26
Kiiiiii-!
The knight’s sword, imbued with mana, shone, and the skeleton’s body was flung uselessly across the ground.
“Hector, Young Lord! Are you all right?!”
“Hi, hiik…! Th-that… over there, undead…!”
A sudden assault by an Imperial Necromancer.
Before they could even grasp the situation, Hector’s group had been thrown into chaos, but the renown of the Polwyvern knights was no bluff.
‘Twenty skeletons for twenty minutes. They held out fairly well.’
Thinking that, I slowly revealed myself.
Of course, my face was covered with the mask used by Imperial Necromancers.
“Th-there, a Necromancer!”
“Capture him! We must interrogate him and find out what in the world is going on!”
Those they had believed to be allies had launched a sudden surprise attack.
Already, two knights had lost their lives to spear blades that had flown in without warning.
‘Good. It’s going according to plan.’
After confirming those charging toward me, I retreated backward.
“That bastard…!”
“Capture him! He’s a ruffian who attacked Polwyvern!”
Seeing the knights’ horribly twisted expressions, a snort of laughter escaped me.
‘This level of provocation is enough.’
A dark forest environment and an unexpected ambush.
On top of that, the death of comrades.
If circumstances suggesting betrayal were added, it was more than enough to blow away the knights’ reason.
[I grant you new bodies, so cling to the feet of those loathsome enemies.]
I chanted while advancing the ten skeletons that had been waiting in advance.
The targets were the remnants of skeletons scattered and staggering everywhere.
Hwarik-!
As I sent demonic energy into them, light returned to their dimmed eye sockets.
Krrrrrrrr-!
Skeletons whose bodies had not fully recovered crawled toward the knights.
“This is insane, they’re reviving again?!”
“What kind of undead is this…!”
Undead made from corpses were neutralized once their bodies were destroyed.
But undead formed by shaping mana could be restored endlessly, as long as the soul’s mana was sufficient.
They couldn’t overpower a knight’s formidable mana, but it should be enough to bind their feet.
‘It should be about time now.’
I was thinking that as I watched the skeletons gradually crumble under the knights’ swords.
Kueoooo-!
The cry of undead echoed from afar.
Hearing it, I smiled in satisfaction.
‘Bingo. They arrived right on time.’
With the smoke belched out by the skeletons and the darkness of the forest narrowing the knights’ field of vision,
I hid myself within the forest amid the confusion and withdrew far from the battlefield.
And shortly after.
“There are knights over there!”
“You dare launch a surprise attack—don’t think you’ll return alive!”
Necromancers wearing masks engraved with the Imperial seal revealed themselves.
“Necromancers who can’t even distinguish doppelgangers.”
I disguised myself as a Necromancer and targeted Hector.
And the doppelgangers I sent disguised themselves as Hector and the knights, then struck the Necromancers.
A diversion tactic I used as casually as eating during my active days.
Watching them fall completely for that outdated trick, a sigh escaped me.
“To think those things are my juniors.”
Pale.
And as I looked at those Necromancers, I became certain.
The necromancy remaining on the continent now focused solely on reviving corpses and creating powerful undead.
‘A deformed necromancy modified for ease of use in war. Quick to learn, but its limits are clear.’
As I thought that while watching the undead summoned by the Imperial Necromancers, the knights, having also noticed the Necromancers, drew even more mana into the hands gripping their swords.
“Knight order, prepare for battle! Protect Young Lord Hector!”
“Necromancer unit, prepare for battle! Execute those traitors at once!”
With casualties already on both sides, there was no way back.
[Summon Release.]
After releasing the spiritual bodies of the fallen skeletons, I erased all traces.
In the meantime, over a hundred zombies summoned by the Necromancers, and ten furious knights, charged forward wielding their respective weapons.
Boom-!
Kieeeeeee-!
A scene of carnage where blood and flesh flew everywhere.
The zombies summoned by the Necromancers and the knights tangled together, and a time that felt like eternity passed.
If I simply observed the situation for a while like this.
“Huk… heeok…!”
I could weaken both sides at once.
‘Good. Mutual destruction.’
The clash between ten knights and ten Necromancers.
After a fierce battle that lasted two hours, the ones who ultimately claimed victory were Hector’s knights.
“Young Lord. Are you all right…!”
“U-uuugh…!”
Even so, they themselves were far from unscathed.
Zombies created from corpses.
Their rotten nails and teeth were filled with deadly poison to the human body.
“Hurry, retreat to the territory. This place is dangerous, kgh…!”
The wounds of the knights tending to Hector turned black and necrotic.
“H-hey, what if you collapse here! How am I supposed to get back…!”
In the dark forest where the sun had completely disappeared,
Hector’s body trembled as he looked at the knights staggering with pale faces.
‘If you’ve never seen blood, no matter if you’re a knight, that’s how you end up.’
Looking at Hector trembling like a child, I gave a bitter smile.
For someone who had only ever served as Hellian’s escort, this was his first time experiencing such a massacre.
Paralyzed by fear, he couldn’t do anything.
“Please go at once, Young Lord! Call for reinforcements from the main house…!”
“Reinforcements? Who says I’ll let you call them?”
Responding to the frantic voices of the knights, I revealed myself.
“Y-you are…!”
Imperial Necromancers dispatched to support Hellian.
And the knights who had been escorting Hector.
Both sides were powerful forces that I could not confront head-on in my current state.
The most efficient way to break them all at once.
Was to make them annihilate each other like this.
“Necromancer!”
“You were still here?!”
Seeing me still wearing the mask, the knights struggled to rise.
‘You still have stamina left.’
The underlying strength of the Polwyvern knights, who called themselves descendants of the Dragon Slayer.
With a trace of admiration, I spoke to them.
“Yeah. A Necromancer.”
As I answered them, I slowly removed my mask.
The faint moonlight filtering through the leaves and the flames of the torches.
Those two ominously flickering colors of light illuminated my face for a brief moment.
“Y-you are…!”
“Young Lord Klein…!”
The knights who recognized me were flustered only for a moment.
As if they had realized who the mastermind behind this carnage was, one of the knights pointed an accusing finger at me.
“I see. This situation is your doing…!”
“What, you figured it out already?”
My face, floating within the wavering flames, held a cold sneer.
“For guys who only ever chopped off lizard tails, you’re thinking a bit better than I expected?”
As I provoked the knights like that, those who had been lying down rose one by one.
“How dare you…! How dare you toy with the mighty Polwyvern?!”
“Polwyvern? No.”
I accepted their shout with a smile and spoke toward them.
“What I toyed with wasn’t Polwyvern, but parasites clinging to Hellian and begging for scraps.”
Parasites.
When I referred to the knights of the Hellian faction that way, the eyes of the knights staring at me grew even more vicious.
“How dare you, with that mouth of yours…!”
Now, the looks they sent me were no longer the same contempt or disregard as before.
Bewilderment, rage, hostility.
And even fear they were desperately trying to hide.
“Kraaaaa-!”
Perhaps they could no longer endure the brief standoff, as the knights charged at me all at once.
“No matter how exhausted we are, you’re just a straggler swordsman without a scrap of mana!”
“In this area, you won’t be able to use necromancy either!”
The knights’ swords, shouting out my weaknesses, came crashing down toward me.
Their speed was too fast to think they were exhausted.
Even as I took in their techniques and the flow of their mana with my eyes, I remained as if frozen in place.
There was no need to move.
“Rudel.”
I spoke the name of the former Duke Leinrant.
The trump card I had prepared for this very moment.
The instant I called it forth, dozens of sword strikes simultaneously tore through the dark forest.
They wouldn’t have been able to see it, nor sense it.
Kkagagagagak-!
Along with a chilling sound of rupture, the heads of ten knights were severed all at once.
When I closed my eyes and opened them again, what appeared before me was a knight clad in black armor.
Death Knight, Rudel Leinrant.
Thudududud-!
“Uh, uh…?”
“Wh-what is this…!”
The knights’ heads that had been floating in the air fell to the ground.
Even then, as if they hadn’t realized what had happened to them, the knights’ mouths moved uselessly.
But that only lasted a moment.
Thump!
Along with their heads, their bodies, having lost control, collapsed right where they stood.
‘His physical specs shouldn’t be any different from ordinary knights, yet he’s a monster all on his own.’
The title Leinrant had bestowed upon him was, ‘the most splendid swordsman.’
After witnessing his swordsmanship, I could understand why he had earned such a title.
A brilliant line drawn with extremely compressed sword energy.
Even after cutting down ten knights, his mana circuits were perfectly fine, as if nothing had happened.
“Hi, hiik…?!”
Now, only one remained—Hector.
I approached Hector, who was backing away in terror.
“D-don’t come! Don’t come…! Aah?!”
Hector, retreating after completely losing his will to fight, soon tripped over a stone and fell to the ground.
‘So this is what a ducal heir looks like the moment he leaves his mother’s arms.’
To think trash like this was the main family’s sworn enemy.
With a hollow feeling, I slowly raised my sword.
I could do it myself, you know.
“No, this one’s mine.”
I replied to Rudel’s voice coming from nearby.
No matter how far he had fallen, Hector was still his maternal grandson.
If Rudel killed him with his own hands, the sin of killing one’s own bloodline would accumulate.
“W-why are you doing this?! What did we ever do to you?!”
Hector’s voice, filled with resentment, rang out.
‘If you didn’t know the circumstances, you wouldn’t know who the villain was.’
Seeing Hector’s pitiful state, a hollow laugh escaped me.
“Why I did it?”
“Y-yeah! We—at least I—didn’t do anything to you…!”
“Then let me ask you one thing.”
I cut off Hector’s protest mid-sentence and spoke while looking him in the face.
“What did the people of the Leinrant territory ever do to you, that they had to die as Imperial test subjects?”
This was the greatest reason I had decided to crush the collateral line.
The Imperial Necromancer, Pale’s cave, and the human experimentation site spread within it.
The moment I spoke of the people who had been dying there, Hector was left speechless.
“Th-that was Mother’s…!”
“You’ve been enjoying the wealth and glory forged from Northern blood all this time, and now you want to play the victim?”
“Ugh…!”
Seeing Hector unable to find any more words, I tightened my grip on the sword.
“You watched Hellian more closely than anyone. There’s no way you didn’t know. Isn’t that right?”
Even if he truly hadn’t known, he couldn’t be free of responsibility.
Dragged away alive, dissected like lab rats, and forced to harm their own families with their own hands—their resentment.
The rune of the promise carved into the village that day had yet to fade.
This wasn’t a sin that could be repaid with death.
An eye for an eye, a sin for a sin.
To recreate the same suffering and make him endure it forever—that was the minimum punishment I could pass down to him.
And so.
“Don’t think it ends with death, Hector Ross Polwyvern.”
Staring straight at him, stricken with terror, I continued.
“You still have a great deal of work to do.”
With those words as the last, I slashed the sword diagonally in my hand.
Skak-!
Hector’s head, floating in midair, rolled across the cold dirt ground.
A death far too shabby for the end of a ducal heir.
After surveying the forest filled with corpses, I formed hand seals on the spot.
Pachit-!
What floated before me were three contract inscriptions.
It was the same ritual I had used when turning Rudel’s soul into a Death Knight.
-What are you planning to do?
“Do you really think I’d end it with mere death, when so many lives were sacrificed to Hellian’s schemes?”
Replying to Rudel, I added new runes to the contract inscription.
-Hah, honestly. You’re wicked to the very end.
After checking the contract, Rudel spoke to me as if he was fed up.
“I told you.”
With a faint smile, I repeated what I had said before.
“I’m an evil Necromancer, remember?”
I looked at the contract inscription binding Hector’s corpse.
Black energy layered over a blue glow, and ominous runes.
They were runes of submission that erased the free will of the soul.
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