Demon Sword Master of the Holy Sword Academy - Volume 4 - Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

THE DARK LORD ZOL VADIS

“That reminds me. They still haven’t found that elf girl, right?” Riselia remarked. She, Regina, and Leonis were on their way to the library during their lunch break.

“Oh yeah. Miss Finé is looking for her, though,” Regina said.

“She didn’t go through her citizen registration… I wonder what she’s up to.”

Riselia and Regina were discussing the girl they’d found on the Third Assault Garden.

Unbeknownst to them, that elf was actually the Hero of the Sanctuary—Arle Kirlesio.

As soon as the eighteenth platoon had returned to the Seventh Assault Garden, Arle had disappeared. She’d done so before registering as a citizen, which made it more difficult to track her. Leonis was quite anxious as to her whereabouts, albeit for his own reasons. This elf hero was the protégé of Shardark Ignis Sabane, the Swordmaster of the Six Heroes and the same person who’d trained Leonis. In other words, she was his sibling apprentice.

She also wielded the Demon Smiting Sword, Crozax, one of the Arc Seven, a collection of Dark Lord–slaying weapons. Arle had made multiple attempts on the Undead King’s life in the distant past.

Though I never faced her myself.

What was a hero like her doing in this era? Her presence here was probably the doing of the Sanctuary’s Elder Tree. Sensing the Goddess of Rebellion might reincarnate a millennia later, it had sent an assassin to destroy her.

Well, she isn’t that major of a threat. I can leave her alone for now, decided Leonis.

The odds of Arle having some direct connection to Nefakess Reizaad were low. It seemed she still hadn’t realized Leonis was a Dark Lord, so he could ignore her for a while. Perhaps she’d even prove useful at some point.

As Leonis mulled over such things, he, Riselia, and Regina arrived at the library.

“All right. Let’s split up and look for some materials,” Riselia declared, as if bracing herself.

They’d come here to gather reference materials for their haunted café. Riselia’s idea was to use the Hræsvelgr dorm’s aged appearance to their advantage, creating a spooky but enjoyable atmosphere for the visitors.

Back in Leonis’s time, the undead ran rampant, and the somewhat perverted idea of enjoying horror hadn’t existed. Since then, it seemed humanity had normalized incorporating fear as a form of entertainment.

I swear. It’s utterly baffling. Cracking a strained smile, Leonis looked up. Spirits in the form of shining owls fluttered among the bookshelves, functioning as librarians.

I could lend her books from my personal library, but…

The tomes Leonis kept were all magical grimoires, and reading them could rob one of their sanity.

“Here we go…” Regina grunted, carrying in a heavy pile of books.

Due to some personal circumstances, Regina was capable of controlling spirits, so she could have the owls flying around help her locate what they needed.

“There sure are a lot of them…”

The volumes Regina had gathered described monsters from an assortment of ancient myths. Skeletons, walking dead, ghosts, vampires. There were illustrations based on materials found in old ruins, too.

Leonis keenly noted a few mistaken descriptions in the text. For instance, it said Death Shades devoured people’s life force, but that was actually the predilection of Soul Eaters. Of course, the two creatures were similar in appearance, so he couldn’t fault the humans of the later ages for confusing them.

However, there were some entries that even Leonis, magnanimous though he was, couldn’t tolerate. Foremost among them was the passage on Elder Liches, which claimed they commanded all types of undead.

Fools. I am the one and only Undead King.

“Is something wrong, Leo?” Riselia peered into his face, noticing his grimace.

“No, nothing. I was just curious…” Leonis gave a dry cough.

“Look, Miss Selia,” Regina whispered as she flipped through a book. “Vampires are really scary. It says they suck people’s blood to turn them into their minions.”

“…Y-yeah. It’s spooky,” Riselia replied falteringly, looking away.

“Still, these aren’t all that helpful,” Regina admitted with a frown.

“Yes, if only we had something more tangible…,” Riselia agreed.

“How about some footage?” the blond maid proposed.

“…Footage?” Riselia parroted.

“Yeah. I checked out a lot of them!” Regina replied, placing some videos on the table with a little “ta-daa!”

Looking at their packages, Riselia frowned.

“Hmm… Aren’t these movies kind of scary?”

“Yeah! I was looking for frightening ones.”

“Could you watch them with me, Regina…?”

“Sorry, I can’t. I have sharpshooting practice after this,” Regina said with a shrug.

Riselia turned her eyes to Leonis. “Leo, watch the movies with me!”

“I don’t mind, but…”

“You can’t, Lady Selia,” Regina chimed in. “It says these aren’t suitable for children age twelve and below.”

“Huh?!” Riselia looked mortified.

“I guess that’s that…,” Leonis stated. He couldn’t help but feel that an undead being afraid of other undead was a problem. He sympathized with Riselia, but if she was going to run the Dark Lords’ Armies, she’d need to handle skeletons and zombies more maturely.

“L-Leo, you bully…!” Riselia whined, tears in her eyes.

Suddenly, Leonis’s small communication terminal rang from in his breast pocket. “Oh, my apologies…,” he said, looking down at the device.

The call was from the Demon Wolf Pack. He’d forbidden them from contacting him unless it was dire.

Does this mean something’s happened?

“I’m sorry, I remembered some urgent business,” Leonis remarked, putting away his terminal.

“Huh? Hey, Leo…!” Riselia hurriedly called after him, looking like she was about to cry.

After exiting the library, Leonis swiftly plunged into the nearby shadows.

Passing through a shadow corridor, Leonis instantaneously entered the Dark Lord’s palace. Utilizing shadow corridors was a power typically unique to denizens of the Realm of Shadows, like Blackas and Shary. However, Leonis had reached the zenith of magical prowess and was able to use them as well, albeit in a more limited fashion.

The Seventh Assault Garden’s special demi-human protection ward featured a massive artificial natural environment. Its trees filtered seawater and contributed to the city’s food production. This was the home of demi-human refugees, like the beastmen and the elves.

On the seventh underground stratum of the special demi-human protection ward, connected by countless tree roots, was a large domed space. Normally, it was a warehouse meant for emergency provisions, but Leonis had requisitioned it, turning it into a base for the Dark Lords’ Armies.

It’s a bit dreary at present, I admit. But I will one day renovate it into a castle worthy of being home for the Undead King.

Leonis took a seat on the skeletal throne he’d prepared. He’d previously tried to fill his room in the girls’ dorms with bone art, but Riselia had scolded him for it. Here, he could decorate freely, however.

“Mantle of Illusions,” Leonis called, and his form was shrouded with a dark mist. When it cleared, a king clad in a skull mask and covered in a dark cloak stood in his place. In this form, Leonis went by the identity of Zol Vadis. That was the name of an ancient Dark Lord who’d reigned over the world before the Goddess of Rebellion and the Eight Dark Lords rose to power.

Leonis himself had defeated Zol Vadis when he was still a hero. Leonis assuming his name was his way of showing respect to this olden Dark Lord.

“I am the Dark Lord Zol Vadis,” Leonis said, revealing a change of voice. “You may enter…”

His voice echoed heavily through the vast space. The tree roots that sealed the place twisted and disentangled, opening like a gate. On the other side were two kneeling figures.

“Division commander for the beastman army, Zarik Mashid,” stated a large werewolf.

“Division commander for the fairy army, Lena Darkleaf,” spoke a dark elf girl.

These were two high-ranking officers in Leonis’s newly formed Demon Wolf Pack.

“To what end did you beckon me?” demanded “Zol Vadis,” the gravitas of his voice forcing the air to vibrate.

“O-our apologies, Your Greatness,” the dark elf girl expressed, visibly sweating. “But we’ve run into a situation that’s beyond our capacity to control… A monster appeared in your castle’s underground labyrinth.”

“What?”

Leonis had created a subterranean maze using the Create Labyrinth spell to grant the Demon Wolf Pack a proper hiding place. This formed a large complex of tunnels somewhere in the world, as well as a unique teleportation gate that connected to it.

That a monster had appeared wasn’t too unusual. Labyrinths naturally matured and improved themselves to better ensnare and devour the souls of adventurers who challenged them.

Leonis had been expecting monsters to form and intended to have them train the Demon Wolf Pack. However, his underground labyrinth had been growing slowly. It should not have produced any creatures that were more than his minions could handle.

“What kind of monster?” the Dark Lord asked the shivering girl.

“A gigantic…lizard!” she replied.

“What?!” Leonis found himself rising from his throne. “You can’t possibly mean a dragon?! Are you sure you saw it correctly?”

“W-we can’t be sure,” the large beastman said. “But all I can tell is that it’s massive, and.…”

“…”

The notion that the labyrinth had produced a dragon after only a few weeks was unthinkable. At best, it should have been capable of nothing but skeletons. There was one other possibility, however…

…Did it connect to a dragon’s lair?

The maze had formed in a random location. However unlikely, it was possible that an underground dragon roost still remained somewhere, and the labyrinth broke into it.

But I thought the creatures of my age had become extinct…

“Was that monster rampaging?” questioned Zol Vadis.

“No, it looked like it was asleep,” replied the werewolf man.

“I see. Lead me to it.”

The Dark Lord Zol Vadis rose from his throne.

Passing through the gate set inside the underground passage, Leonis teleported into the labyrinth. Monsters didn’t appear on its first level, and it was mostly a space for storing the Demon Wolf Pack’s food and supplies.

Leonis had his own treasure vault in the Realm of Shadows, but its custodian, Shary, had been warning him recently that it was overcrowded.

“So on what strata did the dragon appear?” the Dark Lord inquired.

“It was in an unexplored area in the fifth level…,” responded the dark elf girl.

“The fifth, you say. How about this, then…?” Leonis, still as Zol Vadis, pointed to the floor.

“Graz Garud!”

Brrrrrrrrrr…!

Carefully regulating the spell’s power, he fired an eighth-order earth spell. The labyrinth trembled, and a large, gaping hole opened in the ground.

“Y-Your Greatness?” The dark elf girl, who had fallen backward from the shaking, looked at him with shock.

“I tore open the way down to the fifth floor,” Leonis told his two servants. “Descending normally would be too bothersome.”

A fully matured labyrinth would’ve resisted his magic, but this one was still fresh. After a few days, the structure would naturally patch up this hole with its mana.

“Let’s be off,” commanded the Dark Lord.

““Y-yes…!”” Lena and Zarik said in unison.

Leonis chanted a spell, forming a gravity field that enveloped the three of them. They levitated softly and then descended into the pit.

“Eeeek!”

“Y-Your Greatness, we’re floating…!”

Leonis’s heart danced with excitement, and he remained heedless of his officers’ cries of surprise.

A dragon… What sort of variant might it be? Fire? Lightning?

Of all monsters, Leonis preferred dragons. They reigned sovereign over all monsters as tyrants of the sky. They were proud, extremely powerful, and highly intelligent. The skull dragon he commanded had once been an overwhelmingly powerful Dragon Lord who had oppressed countless of its kind in life.

I thought them extinct, but perhaps a few survived underground.

“Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr.” A mighty, rumbling growl reverberated from the bottom of the hole.

“Your Greatness, did the explosion earlier wake it up?” Zarik asked anxiously.

“Perhaps it did. So much the better…,” answered the Dark Lord.

It took them a full five minutes to reach the bottom of the shaft Leonis had created. After lighting a flame at the end of his staff, Leonis had Zarik and Lena lead him through the maze. The howl they heard earlier grew closer with every step.

Boooooom!

Suddenly, a huge maw crashed through the walls.

“…?!” Leonis’s eyes widened in astonishment.

The sheer size of its head easily exceeded five meils. Were it to open its jaw fully, it could consume their entire room. However, what shocked Leonis the most wasn’t its proportions.

“This isn’t a dragon,” he pointed out calmly.

“Huh…?” Lena said, dumbfounded.

This is just a Greater Maze Worm!

Leonis let out a disappointed sigh behind his skull mask. Greater Maze Worms were large monsters who made their homes underground, rising to the surface to swallow cattle whole. Although unquestionably imposing creatures, they lacked intelligence and weren’t capable of flight.

I can’t fault them for mistaking it for a dragon. They’ve never seen a real one, after all…

“Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!” The massive beast let out an angry howl, lunging at Leonis and his servants in the hope of devouring them.

“…G-Great One!” Lena squeaked.

“Fear not. Who do you take me for?” Leonis thrust his staff toward the worm’s open jaw. “Insolent fool. Farga!”

Boooooom!

A sphere of incandescent-white fire erupted inside the monster’s mouth, blowing its head off.

“Oooh…,” Zarik, having stumbled back in fear, exclaimed in admiration.

The worm thrashed wildly, bashing its body against the labyrinth’s walls.

“I-it’s still alive?!” Lena exclaimed.

“Giant Maze Worms don’t die from losing their heads. They have powerful regenerative powers.”

Now what, though…? Leonis thought, pensively bringing a hand to his chin.

Killing this monster and using its bones to create an Undead Worm could be amusing, but rationally speaking, he had encroached upon its nest. The creature’s meager intellect wasn’t capable of understanding that it was disrespecting the Undead King.

Shrugging, Leonis released his Aura of Death to make himself menacing even to this lowly being. As soon as he did, the worm started wiggling and then burrowed into the ground, disappearing into the depths.

Be grateful that I am a forgiving lord.

The Lord of Beasts, Lord of Rage, or the Dragon Lord would have simply reduced the monster to dust.

“Having felt such terror, I doubt it will ever appear here again,” Leonis stated confidently. With that, he turned to look to his underlings. “…?!”

Zarik and Lena had quite literally been petrified from being exposed to his Aura of Death.

Passing through the labyrinth’s gate, Leonis returned to the base in the bowels of the Seventh Assault Garden, where he returned his servants’ stone bodies to flesh.

My word. This is what they call premature joy.

Leonis sighed in disappointment under his mask. He wasn’t angry with Zarik and Lena for their mistake, however. If he desired servants who were simply loyal and made no mistakes, a legion of the undead would have sufficed.

“Your power was amazing, Your Greatness!” Zarik praised, overwhelmed with emotion. “You defeated that frightening monster so easily.”

“With your strength, you could rule over the entire world, Your Greatness!” Lena appended, bowing her head to the floor.

If only it were as simple as that. Leonis couldn’t help but smirk bitterly, recalling his painful experiences from a thousand years ago.

Despite their great power, the goddess Roselia and her mighty Eight Dark Lords had lost to humanity in the end. Humans were not to be underestimated. Individually, they were weak and brittle, but collectively, their vitality and determination were paramount. Even now, faced with the new menace of the Voids, humankind proved tenacious. They’d discovered the power of Holy Swords and developed a civilization run by advanced magical technology.

In the end, I’m nothing more than a piece of ancient history.

That was why he kept his pride at bay and blended in by living as a mere student at Excalibur Academy.

Yes, as a student…

This reminded Leonis that he had a lecture on anti-Void tactical theory coming up soon. If he was late, there was no telling what the lecturer, Instructor Diglassê, might say.

“The monster has been taken care of,” Leonis announced, flapping his dark cloak. “I leave the rest to you.”

“Ah, oh, erm, w-wait, Your Greatness.” Lena stopped him.

“What is it?” the Dark Lord questioned, turning to face the young woman.

“I have a report to make,” she explained.

“…I very much hope that, whatever this is, it’s worthy of my attention,” Leonis said with irritation slipping into his tone.

At this rate, he wouldn’t arrive to class on time. The shadow corridor would allow him to travel instantly, but he couldn’t very well go into a lesson looking like this.

“This is crucial information we’ve received from the Sovereign Wolf remnants in the Imperial Capital,” she explained.

“…Let’s hear it.”

“A few weeks ago, the Sixth Assault Garden’s government general sent a large-scale expedition to the old Kingdom of Frosthaven, in the tundra lands to the north.”

Frosthaven. That wasn’t a nation Leonis was familiar with. It must have been established after he’d been sealed.

“Hmm. And?” he urged her to continue.

“They exhumed something there and brought it back to the Sixth Assault Garden.”

“What did they discover?”

“That’s yet to be confirmed,” Lena admitted with a shake of her head. “This is just conjecture, but I think it’s possible they discovered an Origin Spirit sealed in the ice.”

“Oh? What makes you say that?” Leonis pressed, his interest piqued.

Spirits were manifestations of nature’s power. In particular, the Spirit King, born of the planet’s core, wielded power comparable to the gods and the Dark Lords. From what Leonis understood, most natural spirits had died out, though.

“Because the leader of the expedition is a high-ranking official from the Phillet household.”

The Phillet household. That’s Miss Elfiné’s family…

The Phillet Company was an imperial enterprise. It was in charge of research and development of the Artificial Elementals used to control the magical apparatuses in the Assault Gardens. An expert on spirits had been part of this excursion.

“Assuming what they brought aboard the Sixth Assault Garden was a sealed Origin Spirit, if we steal it, we could use it to take charge of an Assault Garden’s control core,” Lena elaborated.

“…I see.”

The royal family’s vessel, the Hyperion, was steered by Princess Altiria’s spirit, Carbuncle. If Leonis had an Origin Spirit, perhaps he could use it to seize the city.

“I think the coupling with the Sixth Assault Garden is a prime chance for us to steal away the spirit!” Lena stated, kneeling before Leonis.

“Your Greatness, give us the order to take it,” Zarik entreated, his head bowed.

After a moment of contemplation, the Dark Lord replied, “There is merit to the idea.”

“Oooh. Do you mean…?!” Zarik glanced up eagerly.

Leonis was interested in the spirits. A high-ranking one could live for a century or more. However…

This is all a bit too reckless.

All he had at his command were the remnants of a terrorist group that hadn’t even undergone sufficient training yet. Their standard weapons were of no use against Holy Sword wielders. Staging a heist was impossible. Of course, Leonis could go and do it himself, but that ran the risk of exposing his identity.

There’s no proof it’s even an Origin Spirit in the first place.

Leonis didn’t have enough information to make a move. The time might come to pounce on this opportunity soon, but it wasn’t now. After his defeat one thousand years ago, Leonis had learned to cast aside his pride and err on the side of caution.

“I’ll keep that information in mind. But right now—”

Just then, a cheery ringtone sounded.

…?!

It was a message from Instructor Diglassê. Leonis hurriedly thrashed inside his coat.

“Y-Your Greatness, what’s the matter?”

“It is my time to return to the darkness of chaos! You are to remain vigilant at all times,” he hastily stated.

““Y-yes, my lord…!””

Bowing respectfully, the werewolf and dark elf saw Leonis off as he quickly plunged into a shadow corridor.

“Now, Charlotte, you put in too much sugar!”

“Huh? Isn’t it better when it’s sweeter?”

“The sugar will burn if you do that!”

Shary’s superior shrugged theatrically in exasperation. The assassin maid frowned, stopping partway through mixing the batter.

I suppose it’s not that easy…

Shary had recently started working a part-time job at a confectionery, under the pseudonym of Charlotte. Since Shary didn’t have a citizen’s certificate, she used her Evil Eye of Domination to get the work.

Having this kind of position might prove helpful somehow, the dark-haired girl justified. That was only one reason she started working there, though. Another was that it allowed her to snatch and eat assorted treats.

…I hope my lord will like this.

Most of all, Shary simply wanted to give Leonis some handmade sweets. Prior to his rebirth, Leonis had been undead and hadn’t required sustenance. Thus, despite being his personal maid, Shary never had a reason to polish her cooking skills. Things were different now that Leonis had a human body. He was also a child, which gave him a penchant for sugar.

Determined not to lose out to her master’s new minion, Riselia Crystalia, Shary had resolved to develop her confectionary skills. After all, she was the Dark Lord’s one and only personal maid.

Unfortunately, despite her determination and effort, her skills when it came to baking were lacking.

Driving a knife through an enemy’s back is so much simpler. Shary sighed, looking reproachfully at the small mountain of failed cookies she’d made.

“Well, we’ll be having a lot of customers on the day of the Holy Light Festival. Work hard!” her senior pâtissier said encouragingly, to which Shary nodded.

Her superior was making a sponge cake with lots of fruit kneaded into it. Shary was born in the Realm of Shadows, where the concept of color didn’t exist, so just seeing such a brilliant thing filled her heart with excitement. All her time as an assassin had never made her feel this way.

Shary Corvette Shadow Assassin was initially a weapon of murder, created by the Realm of Shadows’ assassination society, the Septentrion. She had made seven attempts on the Undead King’s life, failing every single time. Thinking back on it, Leonis had likely been toying with her all along. The Undead King had not once sought to claim her life in retribution.

Before her final attack, the Septentrion had ordered her to self-destruct. However, Leonis had successfully wiped away the Death Detonation Curse that had been etched into her heart.

When asked why he did it, Leonis answered, “You’re the same as I was, once.”

Having been cast aside by the society, Shary became his personal maid. That was the first time color had bloomed in the assassin’s world.

My lord gave me all that I have. A heart, colors… Everything. So I…

“Hmm, Charlotte? What’s this?” the pâtissier girl asked with a befuddled expression.

Looking down, Shary realized that while she’d been lost in reverie, she’d unconsciously shaped all her cookies like skulls.

Aaah, thinking of my lord made my hands move on their own…!

“…Grr, Regina, why did you make me watch this kind of stuff?!”

Having returned to her dorm room, Riselia dumped the books she’d borrowed from the library onto her desk. She’d tried to watch the horror movies Regina picked out for her but hadn’t made it more than an hour before growing too frightened.

“And Leo’s gone off somewhere, too…”

Although, Riselia had learned that Leonis disappearing for no apparent reason was to be expected.

We can watch them together when he comes back. I won’t be as scared if I’m not alone…

Nodding to herself, Riselia sorted the volumes she’d taken out for reference based on subject. Tomorrow, she and the rest of the eighteenth platoon would be reading through them for research.

Today, I should work on decoding this, however. Riselia opened her desk drawer, retrieving a different book. It was the one she’d discovered on her father’s desk in the Crystalia Estate’s study—the only memento she was able to recover of her lost childhood home.

She leafed through the pages carefully, so as not to damage them. The text was written in an unknown language even Riselia, as well versed as she was in ancient dialects, couldn’t decipher. Human and elven vocabulary, while different, had some commonalities. This language appeared wholly alien, though.

What was this strange book doing on her father’s desk on the Third Assault Garden’s final day?

If only I could have met Father’s soul.

The key for decoding this writing was in eleven slips of paper, inserted behind the book’s binding. Riselia’s father had created this method of translation. Using these notes, Riselia gradually read through the book.

“That one is…Dark Lord and…hero and…annihilation of…”

One term was repeated time and again—Dark Lord.

“Dark Lord…”

When Riselia was little, her father would often tell her a fairy tale. In it, a terrible, frightening being would destroy the world.

“One Dark Lord…governed the skies… Its name… Viora…? Of the undead… Le…Nas…? Oh, drat, how do proper nouns work in this language…?”

Faced with this book, written in a language she didn’t know, Riselia cradled her head, perplexed.

In the depths of the Sixth Assault Garden’s anti-Void countermeasure laboratory’s eleventh underground level, enclosed by countless partitions and bulkheads, was the massive ice block exhumed in the old Frosthaven territories.

This facility was the only place that could house the massive, forty-meil object. The frozen thing was still giving off cold waves, causing frost to form on the sealed sector’s walls.

The ice was a kind of cursed seal. Normal fire couldn’t hope to melt it. Even anti-Void depth charges and Holy Swords capable of producing intense flames were ineffective. No one knew how the gigantic creature contained within came to be trapped.

“It almost looks alive, Research Officer Phillet,” one suited man said. He was the Phillet Company’s overseer. His job was to monitor Clauvia’s activities and then report them in detail to her father. Clauvia’s dad was very much a monster in human form. The sort who was sure he could dominate everything and anything. He likely thought even this ancient being could be kept under his thumb, too.

“That’s because it is. It’s survived in there for the last thousand years…” a beautiful black-haired woman in a lab coat replied. Clauvia Phillet checked something on her terminal before she continued speaking. “For now, it’s just sleeping…”

“A living specimen of an extinct ancient life-form—a dragon. If we can analyze the source of its power, the imperial prince and Count Phillet will be overjoyed.”

“…Yes, they will,” Clauvia stated coldly, nodding.

The sound of footsteps clicking against the floor filled the room as a white-haired young man clad in white priest’s garb appeared from the corridor. “My oh my, what a spectacle.”

“Cardinal Nefakess, whatever are you doing here?” the suited man asked.

Clauvia furrowed her brow. Cardinal Nefakess had been dispatched from the capital’s Human Church, an organization on poor terms with the Phillet Company. Undoubtedly, this person had been sent to watch over Clauvia.

Everyone certainly is overzealous about this, aren’t they? Sighing internally, Clauvia felt her lips curl into a frown.

Nefakess grinned as he looked up at the ice block. “So this is the ancient creature you excavated in the tundra, I see. Simply wonderful.” He then turned to face Clauvia. “I took the liberty of reading through your thesis. The theory you established was that the Voids are, in fact, ancient creatures resurrected by the planet’s power, yes?”

“Yes. Until several decades ago, the prominent theory was that the Voids were alien life-forms that appeared from some alternate dimension. However, excavations in recent years have made it clear that Voids bear characteristics unique to ancient life-forms from this world, like nightmares that have jumped to life from our fairy tales. Analysis of this specimen may help us advance our knowledge of Voids,” Clauvia detailed.

“Well, I sincerely hope so. Our most earnest wish is to see your research help wipe the Voids off the face of this world.” Nefakess regarded her with a gentle smile and nodded. “May the blessing of the planet be upon humankind.”

“…May the blessing of the planet be upon humankind.” After returning the man’s quote, taken from the scripture of the Human Church—Clauvia turned her back on him.

“Clauvia Phillet. She is a fascinating human, I’ll admit.”

With the research officer gone, Nefakess remained alone in the sealed sector, whispering to himself.

“Who knows. She might be a suitable vessel for the goddess herself…,” he said, looking up at the giant ice block. “So this is where you were, proud sovereign among sovereigns…”

Kneeling reverently, he took a triangular black stone out of his pocket. It was like a lump of nothingness, chiseled out of the empty expanse. A stone that did not reflect light.

A Void Origin—a Trapezohedron.

He began chanting otherworldly words, and Void energy began seeping out of the stone, invading and polluting the ice block thought to be impenetrable.

“I solemnly hope that you will prove to be a suitable vessel…”

Rising to his feet silently, Nefakess Reizaad turned to the darkness behind him. At first, it seemed no one was there, but the shadows soon began writhing.

“Shade Fiend,” Nefakess called.

“Present,” a collection of rumbling, overlaid whispers answered.

“I must request something of you.”

“Ask us anything, Cardinal.”

“I want you to go to a place called Excalibur Academy on the Seventh Assault Garden. There, I need you to look for someone… No, someone isn’t quite right, is it? I want you to find a vampire.”

“…A vampire. Do such things still exist in this age?”

“Yes, I was quite surprised to discover as much myself. But it is not so unimaginable. You’re still here, after all.”

“Keh-eh-eh… Indeed.” Spiderlike shadows cackled eerily, squirming in the darkness.

Shade Fiends were demonic assassins summoned by Nefakess, eliminators affiliated with the Realm of Shadows’ assassination society, the Septentrion. No one was better suited for tracking and hunting down a target.

“Are we to kill this vampire?”

“No, I want to torture her for information,” Nefakess stated, shaking his head with a serene smile. “Bring her to a state of near death if you must, but you must not completely destroy her.”

That undead girl he’d run into in the ruined city was undoubtedly involved in Tearis Resurrectia’s destruction.

“The beauteous, silver-haired vampire. Bring her to me.”