“This device contains the princess’s route. Send your forces there to rendezvous with her.”
“…”
All at once, Alexios’s head was a storm of thoughts. The gears of his mind spun at high speed. What was the Dark Lord trying to achieve? He didn’t seem the sort to help another purely out of the kindness of his heart. Was it possible he’d orchestrated this whole incident? Certainly he wouldn’t have done something so roundabout.
Then what is he…?
The maid stood from the sofa.
“Y-you have my thanks! I’ll deploy a unit right away.” Alexios bowed his head in a flustered manner. “Um…”
“Yes?”
“What does the Dark Lord demand of me in exchange for this information?”
“Hmm…” The girl cocked her head. “The Dark Lord does not demand anything in particular.”
What?
Zol Vadis had requested a battleship during their first audience, yet now he wanted nothing? Did this mean he would come to collect in the future? Perhaps this was his way of saying that this was inconsequential to a Dark Lord of his might.
Just what are you thinking, Zol Vadis?
Alexios’s fists trembled as he struggled to fathom the Dark Lord’s intentions.
“So, Holy Sword, answer these emotions of mine. ”
Her choice of song aside, Leonis was taken aback by Riselia’s vocal talents. The invention of magical apparatuses had bolstered humanity’s capacity for music, but she was impressive nonetheless.
This is remarkable.
A thousand years ago, Riselia would’ve been considered a diva. Leonis found himself enchanted by her.
“What do you think of Lady Selia’s singing, kid?”
“Honestly, I’m surprised. She’s like a professional performer.”
Riselia blushed at Leonis’s frank praise. “Um… Thanks.”
“Back at the Crystalia Estate, Lady Selia went through rigorous vocal training,” Regina said.
“Really?” Leonis asked.
“…That was a long time ago,” Riselia answered. “I was a kid.”
“Oh, how about you sing that one song next? You know, the one we did during last year’s Holy Light Festival,” Regina suggested.
“Huh?! I can’t sing that alone!”
“How about I join you, then?”
Leonis raised an eyebrow. “Last year’s Holy Light Festival?”
He had some bitter memories of the Holy Light Festival, since he’d been forced to dress as a girl for it.
“Oh yeah, we set up an eighteenth platoon band and performed onstage. Customers at our café got really excited. It was a lot of fun.”
“…A musical group, eh?” The closest thing Leonis was familiar with was his skeleton war band.
“Lady Selia did the main vocals, and I did backup vocals and guitar. Sakuya played bass, and Miss Finé handled the keyboard. Practicing in between training sessions was really hard.” Regina looked a bit nostalgic as she recounted last year’s events.
“I wrote the lyrics,” Sakuya appended from her spot in the cargo hold.
“You can write, Miss Sakuya? I never knew you had the talent for that…”
“That’s rude, kid. I like to think up song lyrics to kill time.”
“…What kind of lyrics?”
“O Fluffymaru, Fluffymaru. Wherefore art thou, Fluffymaru? ” Sakuya hummed.
“…”
As Leonis listened idly, something occurred to him.
Perhaps writing a victory song for the Dark Lords’ Armies will boost morale?
Surely some of the recent recruits in the capital had musical talent.
And the emperor’s younger brother seems knowledgeable in the arts. Maybe I can ask him for advice.
While Leonis was busy pondering on the idea, Regina spotted something outside, and she leaned forward to get a better view.
“Mm? What’s that?” she muttered.
“What’s wrong?” Leonis inquired.
“Look at that, over there. It’s not a rock.”
Leonis leaned forward and peered outside at the object ahead. “Isn’t that…?” Regina had noticed a wall clearly different from the scattered stones in the area. Leonis called up the map on his terminal to confirm.
“Leo? Is this…?” Riselia whispered.
Leonis nodded. “Yeah. That’s the place.”
They had arrived at the Rognas Kingdom’s capital city—Ur-Shukar.
It was 10:30 Imperial Standard Time, one hour after the group had discovered the ruins.
What a surprise. This place…
Leonis exited the vehicle and approached the remains of the structure. He raised a hand to shield his face as he peered up. Great stone walls surrounding a city stood before him.
There was no mistaking the place. These were the familiar barricades of Ur-Shukar. These same walls had been destroyed many times by attacks launched by the Dark Lords’ Armies. Yet each time they fell, they were rebuilt and improved to be more resilient.
Multiple watch towers had been erected and crewed by gargoyles created by Diruda Ars Magna, the Spellweaver of the Six Heroes. The walls had been blessed by the Holy Woman Tearis Resurrectia and equipped with mana cannons invented by Arakael Degradios to handle airborne threats.
This was humanity’s final stronghold, which had withstood countless assaults by the Dark Lords’ Armies. The lion crest of the Rognas Kingdom was etched into the main gate.
This solidifies my theory.
The Void world really did seem to be some version of the real one.
“Wh-what is this?” Regina muttered in disbelief.
“This is on a whole different scale compared to the ruins in the forest,” Sakuya remarked.
As the two took in the incredible structure, Leonis tugged on Riselia’s sleeve. “Miss Selia…,” he whispered. “Are there no ruins back in our world as complete as this place?”
“I don’t think so,” she replied. “Investigation teams typically only find rubble and demolished buildings.”
But the Ironblood Castle and the temple in the Spirit Forest were both intact on this side.
What was the source of this discrepancy?
The only way to find out is look for myself.
“For now, let’s head inside.” Regina approached the massive gate and tried to push it open with both hands. “Mmm! Mmmm! Phew! It’s a no go. Feels like it’s locked.”
She was quite quick to give up, and she wiped the sweat from her forehead.
“Why would you expect it to open that easily?” Leonis muttered, exasperated.
“Hey, kid, did you just make fun of me?” Regina said, grinding her fist against his head.
“That hurts.”
Regina had put hardly any force into her revenge attack, so it didn’t pain Leonis much at all.
“So how do we open it? Do I blast it away with my Drag Howl?” Regina suggested.
“Wait.” Riselia moved to stop her friend. “We’re in the Voids’ territory here. We should watch our step. Let’s look for another way in first… Huh?”
Riselia reached out and touched the gate casually, and it immediately burst into radiant life, glowing with mana.
“Huh, what?!” Riselia pulled away from the gates in surprise.
Brr… Brrrrr, brrrrrrrrrrrrr…
The tightly closed gates slowly ground open from the inside out.
“Did you do something, Lady Selia?” Regina asked curiously.
“No, I just…touched it…”
Hmm. Leonis scrutinized the gates suspiciously. Did they react to her vampiric mana? That doesn’t seem right.
As far as Leonis knew, there was no trick like that applied to the gates.
“Well, either way, we’re in luck. Let’s go in.” Sakuya bravely and calmly strode ahead.
“Hey, Sakuya, wait…!”
“It’s dangerous!”
Riselia and Regina hurried after her.
“…”
Only Leonis delayed, remaining at the entrance. This was where he’d made his triumphant return many times when he was one of the Six Heroes, where countless people greeted him as a champion, where he paraded down the streets on horseback alongside his teacher, Shardark. He still remembered the cheers he heard when he came back after defeating the Dark Lord Zol Vadis.
Pointless sentimentality.
The Undead King crossed the threshold, moving as though to stomp on those old memories.
The thousand-year-old capital was as silent and lifeless as the wilderness surrounding it. Leonis walked down the flagstone road beneath the crimson sky.
“That was so strange. Why did the gates open?” Riselia was still confused. “Do you have any ideas, Leo?”
“No, I don’t…”
Despite his answer, he did recall that something similar had happened before.
The seal on my resting place in Necrozoa was broken, too.
Undoing that seal wasn’t something a mere human could accomplish. Perhaps the magic had weakened after a thousand years.
“This looks like a human city…,” Sakuya whispered as she examined the surrounding buildings.
“Do you think people like us used to live in the Void world?” Regina offered.
“It’s hard to say. But the Voids certainly couldn’t have built this,” Sakuya replied.
“These don’t look like old ruins to me. It’s like…” Riselia paused for a moment. “Like someone’s been tending to this place, keeping it maintained.”
“…” Leonis felt the same way. He’d expected to see some evidence of weathering on the buildings, yet they all accurately matched what he remembered.
The only difference was the absence of life.
Did the Voids spare this place? Leonis thought to himself as he eyed the conspicuously intact structures.
Stone walls wouldn’t have stopped Voids. Seeing Ur-Shukar so unchanged after all this time served only to highlight how unnatural it was.
“What’s that large building over there?” Riselia pointed down the street.
Sitting on a small hill at the heart of the city was a building Leonis knew very well.
“…It must be where the king lived,” Sakuya said. “Castle Tenki in the Sakura Orchid stood on a spot like that.”
Sakuya was right—this building was a palace.
Just like everything else, it’s mostly untouched.
The Ur-Rognasia Palace’s size wasn’t impressive when compared to the Seventh Assault Garden’s laminated high-rises, but a thousand years ago, it stood as humanity’s greatest architectural achievement. Leonis himself didn’t have too many memories of the palace.
The aristocratic world of ostentation and deceit hadn’t suited him. He’d felt more at home in Death Hold, surrounded by undead minions.
I suppose since the palace has survived, it’s worth checking.
Leonis’s objective wasn’t in the castle itself. Rather, he wished to consult the Great Arakael Library on the palace grounds. It was a treasury of endless wisdom, a repository that the Archsage of the Six Heroes had filled with knowledge from all over. The library ran deep underground, like a labyrinth.
If that manifestation of the Archsage’s greed and obsession remained intact, perhaps it held some clues about what had happened to the world during Leonis’s slumber.
“Look! Over there!” Riselia called out. She pointed to a circular plaza where several roads intersected. Its flagstones were crushed and flipped, and the surrounding buildings showed signs of heavy damage. “What happened here? Why is this the only place that’s wrecked?”
As the group approached the plaza, its members found the place littered with rubble from the nearby buildings. Small craters dotted the ground.
“There was a battle here,” Regina concluded.
“Yeah. A recent one, judging by the marks.” Sakuya’s sharp gaze swept over the surroundings.
Regina cocked her head. “How can you tell?”
“There isn’t any dust gathering on the rubble…”
“So Voids did this?”
“I don’t know. We’ll need to look around some more.”
Sakuya abruptly stopped and knelt. Narrowing her eyes, she picked up a piece of white cloth lying on the ground.
“What’s that?” Leonis asked.
“A ribbon. It’s Arle’s.”
“Arle’s here?!” Riselia exclaimed, her eyes round with surprise.
I suppose that makes sense. She would come here.
Arle knew the pyramid in the Spirit Forest was a temple devoted to the Spirit King. She must have concluded the same thing about this world that Leonis had.
To Arle, the Rognas Kingdom was the land her teacher, the Swordmaster of the Six Heroes, served. She’d visited Ur-Shukar several times during her time as a hero.
And her elven sorcery likely allowed her to cross that forest much faster than the combat vehicle.
Leonis looked around cautiously. He found no evidence of enemy presence, but something had undoubtedly happened here.
“Was she attacked by Voids?” Riselia wondered aloud.
“It’d be strange if that’s what happened. I mean, if Voids appeared here, why is the damage isolated to this one area?” Regina answered, puzzled.
Suddenly, Riselia cradled her head and crouched low to the ground. “…U-ugh…!”
Regina hurried to her friend’s side, clearly alarmed. “Wh-what’s wrong, Lady Selia?!”
“Are you all right?” Leonis asked.
“Something…is…calling for me…?”
“Huh?” Leonis was taken aback.
A spell circle appeared under Riselia’s feet.
“What…?!” Riselia cried. Light exploded from the magical array, enveloping her.
“Miss Selia!” Leonis hurried to help her. His panic was well warranted, for he recognized the circle. It was a teleportation spell.
“Leo, no!”
“Miss Selia!”
Riselia’s body broke into countless specks of light, which vanished after only a moment. Leonis held up the Staff of Sealed Sins to cancel the spell—
“Kid, look out!” Sakuya shouted sharply.
Before Leonis or the others could react, a flash of light swallowed them all.
Vrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrn!
A loud rumble shook the Ur-Shukar ruins. An intense blast blew through the city, crushing and blowing away buildings and kicking up large clouds of dust.
“What was that?” Leonis stood at the center of the explosion. He pushed himself to his feet, the Staff of Sealed Sins in hand. A pale blue Mana Barrier surrounded him.
“Cough, cough…! Wh-what just…happened?” Regina asked as she cleared dust from her lungs.
Thanks to Leonis’s Mana Barrier, she was unharmed.
“I don’t know… Miss Selia!” Leonis looked around, but Riselia was gone.
“Lady Selia, where are you?! Lady Selia!” Regina shouted desperately, but there was no reply.
Curses! I can’t believe I was so careless. Leonis cursed himself for his foolishness.
That teleportation circle had clearly spirited Riselia away somewhere.
Calm down. There’s still time.
Tightening his grip on his staff, Leonis tried to go over what he knew. From what he’d seen, the spell array hadn’t been complex, so it couldn’t have taken Riselia far. As worried as Leonis was, he still possessed a sorcerer’s intellect and carefully judged the situation.
His eyes went to the crest on his left hand. Riselia’s soul was bound to his by the seal. He could use that to pursue her.
“Lady Selia. Lady Seliaaa!” Regina shouted, looking for her friend.
“Miss Regina!” Leonis grabbed her by the arm.
“…?!” She turned to look at him, alarmed.
“Don’t worry. I promise I’ll find Miss Selia and bring her back.”
“Kid…”
“Something’s attacked us. We need to focus on that for now.”
“…”
Leonis’s explanation helped Regina to calm down. She took a deep breath and nodded.
What attacked us, though?
Leonis tried to peer through the cloud of dust.
Was it a Void? There’s none of the usual signs of their presence, though.
“This is strange. If there were Voids around, I should’ve been able to sniff them out.” The voice and accompanying sound of footsteps on the rubble prompted Leonis to turn. He saw Sakuya with Raikirimaru in hand. Amber light shone from her left eye.
The mystic eye of time—its power allowed Sakuya to alter her perception of time, enabling her to evade attacks with ease.
She’s already mastering the power of that artifact as though it were her own. Terrifying.
Leonis swung the Staff of Sealed Sins lightly, creating an intense gust of wind that blew away the cloud of debris surrounding them.
“What?!” Leonis exclaimed, mouth agape.
Countless shadows of varying sizes surrounded the plaza.
Sakuya tensed. “What are those things?”
“What the heck?!” Regina shouted.
It can’t be!
A glance made it clear there were dozens of hostiles assembled. They filled the plaza and beyond, forming a tight circle around Leonis, Regina, and Sakuya. Each stood at least two meltes tall and was covered in metal that shone brightly. Most of them resembled spiders, and their bodies were covered in countless eyelike organs that shone an artificial blue.
“Void Simulators?” Regina whispered. She didn’t sound confident.
Indeed, they were the magical apparatuses that behaved like Voids and were used for training at Excalibur Academy. Indeed, for a human of this era, a Void Simulator would be the first image to come to mind when looking at these things. Leonis, however, knew what these strange things really were.
Why are there Machina Soldiers here?!
Machina Soldiers were relics of the super-ancient civilization that predated the arrival of the Luminous Powers. They were lifeless murder weapons that lacked will and fed on the planet’s mana to strengthen themselves.
That explains why I couldn’t sense their approach.
But why was a swarm of Machina Soldiers running amok in Ur-Shukar? The Machina Soldiers formed an army under the command of the Deus Machina, one of the Eight Dark Lords. They should have ceased all function when the Deus Machina was destroyed.
Skriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!
The gathered Machina Soldiers all simultaneously let out an earsplitting screech. Their armored carapaces glinted as they raised their tail-like engines.
“Here they come!” Sakuya leaped away, having seen the future a few seconds early thanks to the mystic eye of time.
“Rua Meires!”
Leonis deployed a dome-shaped barrier around himself and the others. Not a moment later, a bombardment from mana cannons rained down.
Boom, boom, boom, boom, booooom!
“Miss Regina, keep your head down and stay next to me!”
“Kid? A-all right, understood… Whoa!”
The thundering blasts forced Regina to plug her ears in a hurry.
So many of them certainly makes this annoying.
Machina Soldiers were soulless creations. Leonis’s sorcery was focused on the Realm of Death, which would have little effect on these enemies. What’s more, Machina Soldiers possessed high magic resistance, second only to dragons. They would deflect all but the most powerful spells.
I’d have preferred to save my mana, but the situation won’t allow for that.
While keeping his barrier up, Leonis thrust the Staff of Sealed Sins into the ground.
“Blow with violent rage, storm of black ruin!” Leonis began to invoke an eighth-order large-range destructive spell.
Shards of dark crystal appeared in the sky overhead.
“Avis Zol!”
The former Dark Lord Zol Vadis had created this spell, and Leonis had later improved upon it. The crystals struck the metallic carapaces of the Machina Soldiers, tearing through them with an intermittent staccato. The mechanical foes looked like their very existences were being wiped away. While Leonis worked his spell, a brilliant streak of lightning cleaved through a large swathe of the swarm.
Sakuya.
“Hyahhhhhhhh!”
Raikirimaru ripped through the air, cutting off many Machina Soldiers’ legs in a single motion. Sakuya moved like a blur, faster than the eye could follow. The mystic eye of time’s predictive powers and Raikirimaru’s acceleration ability allowed her to weave through enemy attacks, avoiding their blasts by the thinnest margin.
However…
“…?!”
…as Sakuya pressed her attack, new spell circles appeared around her. The fresh teleportation arrays produced new Machina Soldiers.
“More of them!” Sakuya whirled, using the momentum to slash at the fresh enemies, but they deflected her blade. These were a different type of Machina Soldier, a variant focused on melee combat rather than artillery shots.
Leonis scowled. Someone appears to be deploying Machina Soldiers with intent.
The first force had likely been sent out all at once. Machina Soldiers had no will to act on their own, so someone else was undoubtedly controlling them.
“Miss Sakuya, get out of there!” Leonis warned her.
Sakuya enveloped her body in lightning and sprinted up the wall of a building to break away.
“Vira Zuo!” Leonis chanted an eighth-order gravity spell. Space warped around the new wave of Machina Soldiers, crushing them like tin cans.
Our enemy’s reinforcements look to be endless. We should get out of the city for now.
Leonis was still short on mana after using the Demon Sword, and since they still had to rescue Riselia, he couldn’t risk wasting mana on this fight.
“Kid, what’s that?!” Regina pointed ahead.
The Machina Soldiers that appeared from the spell circles gathered and stacked on one another. The prismatic metal that formed their carapaces melted, fusing the individual machines together into one in a manner that felt organic. Before long, they had become a gigantic sphere.
Oh no!
The massive orb released a blinding flash, blowing everything away.
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