Chapter 39: Oh! My God (4)
39
The undead legion of Akimond that swept across the entire continent.
The greatest strength boasted by the five-million-strong undead legion lay in soldiers who did not tire and did not die.
Undead that neither ate, nor slept, nor rested.
Their true strength did not lie in martial force, but in labor.
A tremendous construction speed that raised a fortress in three days instead of a month, and completely overturned a mountain in just two days.
The countless ice castles and glacial fortresses located in the polar regions of the continent had also been created by their hands.
“An underground tunnel… you say?”
“A tunnel that runs from the north to behind the wall—please don’t spout such absurd nonsense.”
However, the knights who heard my words dismissed them as drivel.
Akimond and his army had long since been buried under two hundred years of time and reduced to old tales.
Now, there was no one left who remembered that might, nor anyone who even believed in that power.
‘There’s no guarantee there won’t be another bastard like me someday, and yet everything’s been forgotten…!’
I keenly realized just how thoroughly the Empire and the Alliance had tried to erase my existence.
Akimond’s tactics, analyzed by countless strategists across the continent.
But now, it seemed that the only one who still remembered them was me—the very person involved.
“This isn’t the time to concentrate troops on the wall. One company—no, a battalion needs to be sent to the rear!”
I said so while pointing at the map floating in the middle of the room, but the knights would not budge.
Whether Korax had given strict orders, or whether it was their characteristic insularity.
They simply refused to listen.
“Considering the scale of the enemy’s forces, we cannot pull troops back.”
“That’s why I’m going myself! Open it right now!”
I poured out my argument toward the knights, but they only shook their heads.
“An order from the captain will arrive soon. Until then—.”
“Wait quietly until a response comes back? Does that sound even remotely reasonable right now?”
“It’s more reasonable than you insisting on going outside at this moment, young master.”
“Tch…!”
My breath caught in my throat.
“We cannot withdraw troops based solely on the words of an outsider whose identity we don’t even know.”
“The honor of defending this place is ours. You are….”
“That damn duty, that damn outsider, that damn honor!”
I felt the thin thread of reason I’d been clinging to snap.
“If, even by the slightest chance, my words turn out to be true, will you accept civilians left in the rear being sacrificed?”
“Think carefully. What are you protecting? The wall? Or the lives living beyond it?”
The final question I threw at them.
And also my final warning.
The faces of the two knights twisted painfully.
Yet the answer that followed was so stifling it drained my strength.
“As knights, we cannot act rashly on information from an unverifiable source.”
“This is the wall we have protected for countless years. Do not interfere any further.”
….
…….
That was enough.
There was no more time to talk.
‘Yeah. Persuasion, conversation… I must’ve gotten too influenced by that bastard Berkel without realizing it.’
It wasn’t that I couldn’t understand their actions.
But there was no time for this kind of pointless squabbling right now.
The enemy’s detached units were drawing closer by the second, and in the middle of that, half-baked conversation?
This really wasn’t my way.
“Hector!”
I drew up my demonic energy and called his name.
From beyond the door facing me, a knight cloaked in shadows appeared.
“A Death Knight?!”
“Klein Leinrant! What do you think you’re doing?!”
Startled by my sudden action, they hurriedly grabbed their sword hilts.
“Withdraw the undead immediately! This is a clear violation of command authority—!”
“Violation my ass. I don’t care. Move away from the door if you don’t want to die!”
I brushed aside the knight’s urgent voice like that and issued an order to the Death Knight Hector.
Kiiiiiing—!
An upswing executed in an instant.
The technique of the Meteor Sword that I had personally engraved unfolded through the Death Knight’s hand.
It was not a half-baked skill lacking mana, but a true knight’s sword strike.
Kukwaaang—!
With a thunderous roar, the door where I had been standing burst apart.
Thick, murky smoke enveloped the doorway.
It seemed the knights hadn’t expected me to go this far, as they hurriedly drew their swords and tried to rush at me.
“Damn it, grab him! Don’t let him escape—!”
But the knight’s words went no further.
Crack!
A Necromancer’s eyes saw not the opponent’s form, but their soul.
“Guhh?!”
One of the knights lost consciousness as my kick, piercing through the smoke, landed squarely on his jaw.
“I clearly warned you.”
“Burken! Damn it all—!”
Seeing their comrade fall before their eyes, the other knight hurriedly swung his sword.
But at that moment.
“That’s far enough.”
Ian blocked the knight’s wrist with the bottle he was holding and smiled broadly.
“You…!”
“Didn’t you say it was a serious situation? It’s not like there’s anything to lose anyway, so try leaving it to us once.”
Ian said that with a smiling face, then immediately struck the knight’s neck and knocked him unconscious.
It took barely a minute to subdue the two knights.
It was fast, but to me, it was only frustrating.
“Damn it, I should’ve done this from the start!”
Leaving those words behind, I sprinted inside the wall, guided by the banshee.
“The ones trying to flank us seem to be a decent size too. Shouldn’t I go with you?”
I shook my head at Ian’s question as he followed after me.
“If we’re talking scale, the wall side is urgent too.”
Undead were crawling up the wall every passing second.
With the forces the wall currently had, it would be hard just to hold them back.
“Go that way, deal with all the undead, and bring Korax back.”
If we left the undead crawling up the wall unattended just to block the detached unit, that would be putting the cart before the horse.
At my explanation, Ian asked once more.
"You're saying you'll stop the detached unit all by yourself? Is that really possible?"
At words that sounded like a mix of worry and distrust, I nodded.
"I've already figured out those bastards’ necromantic command structure. Just forget it and go!"
When I said that, Ian clicked his tongue briefly and turned his back.
He too had grasped the scale of the enemy forces through detection magic, so he couldn’t refute my words.
“Even if it’s just a one-in-a-million chance—if you die, I won’t let it slide. Got it?!”
A curt remark from the blind man.
Suppressing the laughter that threatened to burst out at those words, I replied to him.
“I won’t die.”
Step— step—
Beneath the wall.
Akimond’s secret passage, left abandoned for hundreds of years, was a perilous path with collapses everywhere.
But that was only true for ordinary armies.
By reinforcing the walls with corpses and breaking through blocked sections with the strength of undead, their advance was unstoppable.
“If we arrive, turn the civilians incapable of resistance into undead first.”
“You mean to crush the enemy’s morale.”
“That’s right.”
A vile sneer hung on the Necromancer’s lips as he explained the operation.
“If their own family and relatives turn into monsters and rush them, even those knight bastards will hesitate at least once.”
“If we seize that opening, we could swallow this entire sector whole!”
“The bodies of countless knights, supplies, and even forgotten knowledge.”
“Kuhahahaha!”
The Necromancers gathered here numbered around two hundred.
They would unleash the undead they had amassed in the northern frozen lands all at once to strike the wall, while they themselves hit the rear and completely encircle it.
It was an operation only possible because this underground passage, created long ago by Akimond, existed.
“As expected, Lord Akimond made his arrangements all the way to the present day…!”
“A passage that could not be used in the glorious holy war! But do not worry, Lord Akimond…!”
Akimond.
With every step they took while uttering that name, an indescribable ecstasy filled their faces.
Through this battle, they would finally obtain His knowledge.
The legend of Akimond—the Necromancer who alone commanded millions of undead that blanketed the continent.
That legend would be reborn by their hands.
How could they not rejoice?!
“Wait.”
As they advanced, filled with anticipation for the future.
At the hand signal of the leading Necromancer, the twenty following him halted in place.
“There’s someone ahead.”
At those words, the ease visible just moments ago vanished.
Grrrr—!
Immediately, they placed one undead at the front and slowly advanced it forward.
Guruk! Guruk!
Rotting flesh scraped along the ground as it slowly began to capture the intruder’s form.
“That one is…?”
Soon, as the figure of a boy standing opposite came into view, the leading Necromancer’s eyes widened.
Shimmering silver hair and dark blue eyes.
And the sword hanging at his waist.
The very target they had been searching for so desperately had appeared before their eyes.
“Lord Klein!”
At the call of his name, the boy with the stiff, hardened face stepped forward.
“I didn’t think you’d know about this old passage.”
Klein opened like that, frowning as he looked at them.
“I was planning to seek you out myself, but I didn’t expect to meet you like this, Lord Klein.”
The leading Necromancer called out to the boy with deliberately exaggerated gestures.
“You know me?”
At the boy’s stiff reply, the Necromancer nodded and continued.
“Of course. We came to this wall in order to meet you.”
“For me?”
At those words, Klein narrowed his brow.
“More precisely, for the necromancy you learned—the knowledge of ours that Duchess Claire stole.”
“…….”
Klein did not answer.
Was it something he had never heard before? That was possible.
There was also the chance that he had learned that knowledge without knowing anything about it.
But it didn’t really matter.
What mattered was simply the fact that the boy stood before their eyes.
“Was it the Empire that put you up to this? To bring me in?”
“Ha! The Empire?! What a joke!”
Hearing Klein’s conjecture, the man snorted derisively.
“Why would we follow apostates who can’t even recognize who the true god is?”
“Apostates?”
At the Necromancer’s words referring to the Empire, Klein’s expression grew even more bizarre.
“Yes! Apostates!”
But the man, unconcerned, did not stop his insults toward the Empire.
“Then who are you? The Order? Or some other organization?”
“Hwahahahaha! No! No, indeed!”
As if he had been waiting for Klein’s question, the man spread his arms wide and shouted loudly enough to shake the cavern.
“We are the Akimond Order!”
Akimond.
At hearing that word, Klein’s eyes widened.
“We are the vanguard of divinity, risen to resurrect the true god who sought to punish the world—Lord Akimond!”
The man shouted, drunk on ecstasy.
The other Necromancers following him seemed to share the same feelings, many of them trembling with exhilaration.
Some were even so overwhelmed that tears streamed down their faces.
Some would call this fanaticism.
So what if it was?
When serving a god who descended upon the earth, what reason was there not to go mad?!
Thinking that, the man turned his gaze toward Lord Klein.
Whether he felt fear, or whether he felt awe like them, Lord Klein merely looked at them in silence.
The silence that followed.
At first his expression seemed mixed with surprise, then with discomfort, and finally—
“Ha, haha! Hahahaha!”
As he looked at them, a broad smile spread across his face.
0 Comments