Demon Sword Master of the Holy Sword Academy - Volume 11 - Chapter 8.2

“Le…o…niiiiis…!”

As the faced tree emerged from the ground, crushing the soil, it raised its voice in a baneful groan.

…But how?! I know I completely destroyed him! Leonis growled, his eyes wide in disbelief.

Six months ago, the Archsage of the Six Heroes tried to merge with the Seventh Assault Garden’s mana furnace, but Leonis slew him using the Demon Sword Dáinsleif, reducing him to nothing.

…But no. His body’s roots had spread out all over the Seventh Assault Garden’s underground. If Arakael was able to avoid destruction, and someone was there to recover him after he regenerated—

That priest clad in a white garb came to mind—the Dark Lord Azra-Ael’s aide, Nefakess Reizaad. It was him that resurrected the Holy Woman Tearis in the Third Assault Garden, and the one who resurrected the other Undead King in the Ur-Shukar ruins.

So if he resurrected Arakael in some way…

He likely fused him with the Divine Dragon Gisark.

“Leoooo…niiiiiiis…!”

Countless faces appeared in the tree’s barky surface and let out a loud laughter.

“…Phranis!”

Leonis instantly chanted a third-order fire spell to burn away the tree roots. But as soon as they burned into ashes, the tree began instantly regrowing. The Holy Tree’s vitality was still intact.

“How unsightly…,” Leonis whispered in annoyance.

Mixing the power of undeath with the Holy Tree’s life force… Its very existence was an affront to Leonis’s sense of aesthetics.

It seems this other me and I have radically different tastes!

Holding up his staff, Leonis chanted another flame spell, but then he heard chanting from within the burning flames.

Tearing Hallow.

Countless rings of light appeared in thin air and began rushing toward Leonis.

“Zof Meires!” Leonis used a dark element spell to offset the light rings.

He can still use holy magic..!

But even so, Leonis couldn’t sense the intellect the Archsage once had, even after becoming a Void. His cries of hatred and malice toward Leonis only felt like an echo of what he once was. He was but the remains of the Archsage…

…Disgusting. Utterly disgusting.

He chanted explosions spells one by one, blowing away the tree roots. “This time, I’ll completely destroy you, so you can never regenerate again.”

Arakael deployed a holy magic barrier—but, unbothered by it, Leonis continued firing spells that burst against the barrier, shattering it and blowing up the faces that surfaced on the bark in a flurry of flames.

“…This is for showing me something so offensive.”

Stepping over the blown-off roots, Leonis rushed at his original opponent, Gisark.

Le…o…niiiiiiiiiiiis!

Arakael’s soul was blown to pieces, but the remains of his body were still full of residual hatred toward him.

“…?!”

Roots burst through the ground, coiling around Leonis’s legs to hold him in place.

“You impudent…!” Leonis whispered in annoyance.

He cut through the roots with a blade of flame, but then—

■■■■■■…!

Gisark pushed away Veira, who was trying to pin him down, and roared. A flash of heat formed in his open jaw—

Oh no…! Leonis’s eyes widened in alarm. But then—

“My looooord!”

Someone kicked Leonis out of the way.

“Beast Lord Explosive Claw!”

The Lord of Beasts’ claws shined with blue fire as he tore through the Holy Tree’s roots. A pained voice rose from the roots as Gazoth Hell Beast stomped over them. The ashes of the Archsage scattered in the wind and blew away.

“It…can’t be…,” The garbed priest stammered, his fair features contorted in alarm. “The Archsage’s cells…!”

“Come on, this was your ace in the hole?” Gazoth regarded him with a savage, toothy sneer. “You think you could size up to a Dark Lord with this faulty toy?”

The wrath the Lord of Beasts was emanating made Nefakess stumble back.

“This ain’t the Archsage. It’s an insult to call this part of the Six Heroes. It’s just an empty shell.”

Gazoth rushed Nefakess in the blink of an eye and grabbed him by the throat.

“But what were you thinking, making a toy like that? What’s your plan, eh…?”

“Ngh, haa..!” Nefakess scrambled under his grip, but the Lord of Beasts’ hand wouldn’t budge.

“Whoa, I almost killed you there, didn’t I? Guess I gotta hold you real gentle, don’t I?”

“It seems I…have…misjudged…the might of the…Dark Lords…”

“Huh?”

“Followers of the goddess, enemies of the world, the tyrannical rulers. You Dark Lords cannot be dominated by…those subjected to the natural order…!”

Held in midair, Nefakess smirked in self-derision.

Crack…

A fissure ran across Nefakess’s body.

“The emptiness…beckons…”

“What?”

Crack, crack, crack…!

Small, narrow cracks extended from the priest’s face, down his neck, and gradually all over his body.

“…You!” Gazoth instantly tightened his grip on his neck…

But Nefakess’s body faded away, swallowed into a tear in space.

“He got away…” Gazoth clicked his tongue and looked about the rooftop.

All over the city, human warriors were fighting countless Void monsters. And at the city center…a single boy was fighting a gigantic zombie dragon.

“Ooh. Looks like something fun’s going on over there…”

“Continue straight down this passage.”

“All right!”

In the midst of blaring alarms, Riselia sprinted ahead, following Schwertleite’s navigation. More and more security combat machines were rolling over to them, but most of them fell under Schwertleite’s control and became inert, with Riselia and Sakuya easily sweeping up any that didn’t.

“I’m feeling kind of useless here, Lady Selia…,” Regina complained, holding her Drag Striker.

“Uh… Oh, here’s your time to shine. Blow through that!” Riselia pointed at a bulkhead partition wall blocking their path.

“You got it. Mode Shift—Drag Howl!”

Regina changed her Holy Sword from its rifle form to its cannon form, but just as she was about to fire…the bulkhead opened on its own.

“—Door unlocked,” Schwertleite said with her emotionless voice.

“Wow! Good work, Leite!”

“Heeey, that was my moment!” Regina pouted, once again denied her time in the limelight.

Past the bulkhead partition was the door to a large elevator.

“Taking the elevator to the twelfth floor should be our fastest route to the central control room.”

“It doesn’t look like it’s working, though…”

“Please wait a moment. I will undo the password protection on this elevator.”

Schwertleite reached out and touched the elevator’s panel. But as she did, Sakuya rapidly turned to face the wall behind them.

“—They’re coming.”

“Eh?” Riselia frowned.

The next moment, the wall was blown to bits with a loud rumble.

“What?!”

A human with his arms turned into two massive blades emerged from the hole in the wall, followed by five figures with the same physique emerging from the cloud of dust. All of them were wearing protector suits with combat configurations and had visors on their faces.

“These don’t look like your average guards to me.” Sakuya said, looking at them with severe eyes.

All five of them had malevolent-looking blades sprouting out of their arms—and those blades couldn’t possibly be Holy Swords.

“Demon Sword users.”

“…?!” Riselia and Regina gulped.

“Miss Riselia, would you let me handle this?”

“Sakuya, what are you saying? I can fight, too,” Riselia said, the Bloody Sword held on guard.

Sakuya shook her head, however. “I can handle them on my own. Right now, we need to hurry and save Miss Elfiné.”

“Sakuya…”

They could hear the sound of the elevator doors opening behind them.

“Hurry. These people are dangerous enough to keep monsters like these as their pets. Go, before it’s too late,” Sakuya said.

Riselia bit her lips. “…Fine. I know you can handle this, Sakuya.”

“Just don’t do anything dangerous,” Regina said, and the two hurried for the elevator.

The Demon Swordsmen let out an inhuman howl and made a beeline for the elevator—only for a swift flash to streak through the air—Raikirimaru’s blade slashed through their protector suits, cutting into their flesh.

“—Too slow. You’re like flies sitting in place.”

Sakuya brushed up her hair, revealing a glowing, amber-colored left eye. As the Demon Sword user collapsed, his visors split in half and fell to the floor.

“…?!”

Sakuya’s expression froze upon seeing the face exposed under the visor. This was a man she knew.

“Uzan, how…?!”

This was the leader of the Kenki Gathering—a Sakura Orchid warrior group that became Finzel Phillet’s private troops for the sake of taking revenge on the Void Lord that destroyed their homeland. But they all became involved with the power of the Demon Swords and lost their lives in the process. Or so she thought.

“Don’t tell me…”

Undoing her Mystic Eye’s power, Sakuya bolted forward. A flash of lightning and the glint of a sword streaked through the air, and the other Demon Sword users’ visors all snapped in half and fell to the ground.

“…I see. So that’s what’s going on.”

All of them had the same face under the visors.

“Phillet company homunculi. They’re producing humans that adapted to using Demon Swords!”

Sakuya stood stock-still without realizing it, and sensed more presences approach. Eight more figures, clad in protector suits and with the same physique.

“This is disgusting. Absolutely repulsive…,” Sakuya whispered coldly, fixing her grip on Raikirimaru. “I was right to let them go ahead.”

Ominous miasma began coiling around Raikirimaru, lending its blade a dark glow.

“My seniors are all too kind. They’d hesitate before breaking an opponent that looks human.”

“Nngh…” Leonis crawled out from under the rubble.

“My lord, you’re safe!”

“What kind of maid drop-kicks her master?!” Leonis scolded Shary, still coughing.

“M-my apologies, my lord! But it was an emergency…”

Leonis raised his head, and saw that Gisark’s flash of heat had burned through the entire area. Had Shary not kicked him into the shadow in the last second, he would have been blown to bits.

“…Hmm. True. My apologies, Shary, you saved me.” Leonis got to his feet and glared at the Divine Dragon.

Gisark’s flesh was dripping and falling apart like sludge. He no longer even looked like a dragon anymore.

…That’s because you planted the Holy Tree in undead flesh. Fools.

If left alone and given time, Gisark would probably fall apart and die on his own before long, but Leonis wasn’t sure the Seventh Assault Garden would last until that happened.

Either way, its abnormal regenerative powers are a problem…

Defeating the Divine Dragon would require him to completely destroy its entire existence with one strike. Nothing short of a full power, tenth-order destruction spell could defeat someone in the class of one of the Six Heroes. If he joined forces with Veira and managed to chant an eleventh-order spell despite his child’s body, he could possibly defeat the Divine Dragon with the Archsage fused together.

Losing Dáinsleif really puts me at a disadvantage… Leonis dropped his eyes to his left arm.

Leonis had awakened to his own Holy Sword, the Excalibur XX. But that power was now sealed by the goddess’s curse.

■■■■■■…!

Gisark raised his head, a glowing heat once again forming in his jaw.

“Leo, we need to finish this soon or we’ll be in trouble!” Veira, who was soaring in the sky above him, spoke into his mind.

“…Yes, I know.”

Arakael extended his tendril-like roots at Leonis.

“—My lord!” Shary picked up Leonis’s body.

She leaped away from the shadow corridors a split second before it was cut into pieces, and began racing perpendicularly up a wrecked building’s wall.

“…And what kind of maid carries her master in her arms?!”

“My apologies! But right now, you are a mere ten-year-old boy…”

“Gah, put me down…!” Leonis thrashed for a moment but then paused, realizing something. “Shary…I need to ask you for something.”

“What is it, my lord?!” Shary replied in a flustered manner, still weaving and turning to evade Arakael’s roots.

Leonis swung his staff, unleashing a flurry of flames that burned away the roots. Shary touched down on the rubble-covered earth and put down Leonis.

“Shary, can you connect the shadow corridors to the inside of this monster?”

“Huh?! My lord, I can’t, not without a Shadow Gate set inside its body—”

“I’ll see to that.”

“W-well, if the gate is set, it would be possible… Wait, you’re going to do it?!” Shary looked at him in surprise.

But there was no time to argue about it.

“I’m counting on you…!” Leonis said and bolted toward Gisark.

“Ah, my lord!” Shary called after him.

He chanted a gravity control spell and floated up into the air.

“Veira, keep him pinned down. I only need you to do it for a moment,” he told the crimson dragon circling overhead.

“How many times do I have to tell you not to order me around?! Who do you think you are…?”

But despite her complaints, Veira swooped down, diving at the Divine Dragon.

■■■■■■…!

Gisark unleashed a beam of sizzling light at the sky, but Veira parted her jaws and began chanting in dragon tongue.

“Dei Argh Dragray!”

The two blasts collided in midair, producing a deafening, blinding explosion.

“…!”

Leonis produced a barrier, blocking the billowing flames and pieces of rubble that went flying with all the intensity of a barrage of bullets, and proceeded to bolt toward the Divine Dragon.

“Leo…niiiiiiiiiiiiiis…!”

The roots of the Holy Tree surfaced, the face of the old man appearing on them, and rushed toward the boy.

“—You think you can stop a Dark Lord, Archsage?” Leonis summoned his copies of the Evil Rending Sword, Zolgstar Mezekis, from his vault. “My swords, danse macabre alongside the fallen—Vaas Rest!”

The swords were possessed by undead souls and began moving independently, slashing and cutting down the approaching tendrils. Leonis continued his advance—Gisark’s massive form was right before his eyes. The servitude seal etched into his forehead glowed bright.

Can you feel my presence now, Undead King?!

Leonis smirked victoriously, and plunged into the Divine Dragon’s gigantic maw. He thrust his staff into his rotting flesh and pierced the shadows.

“Now, Shary!” Leonis shouted.

As soon as he did, the shadow of his staff’s tip was connected through a shadow corridor to the main Realm of Shadows.

“—Unleash!”

The moment Leonis said the word, the shadows within the Divine Dragon’s mouth produced a large number of magical apparatuses. This was the wreckage of the Machina Soldiers that filled Ur-Shukar. They couldn’t move without their commanding unit, Schwertleite, to lead them, but they were still machines containing small mana furnaces. And the furnaces were still intact and operational in many of these machines.

“Break…!”

Leonis flooded one of the inert machines with as much mana as he could, and instantly plunged into the shadow corridor. The overloaded Mana Furnace became critical and exploded. The explosion went on to trigger the other nearby furnaces, inducing a chain reaction.

With an ear-splitting roar and a blinding flash, the furnaces all exploded. The destructive blast blew up the Divine Dragon from the inside out.

I’d have hoped to use these powerful mana furnaces to power my army’s forces…

“Le…o…niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis!”

Was that Arakael’s agonized last cry, or Gisark roaring in his death throes? From within the rising flames, the Divine Dragon used the last of its power to swing his claws down on Leonis.

…Blast?! Leonis’s eyes widened in shock.

But before the claw could descend on him, some kind of blade whizzed through the air and chopped off the Divine Dragon’s arm.

What?!

Leonis turned to look, and for a moment, he saw a figure standing there.

…Who’s that?

“My lord!” Shary shouted, forcing Leonis’s attention back to the Divine Dragon.

As Gisark crumbled to the ground, glowing mana swirled inside his mouth…

“—Undead King. Next time, come fight me personally instead of sending your minions to do your dirty work.” Leonis held up his hand to the roaring Divine Dragon. “Perish—Meld Gaiez!”

Leonis’s tenth-order spell hit the undead Divine Dragon—which, this time, fell silent for good.