CHAPTER 7
THE VOID KING
The air wavered from the sheer heat. Bits of flame smoldered at the edge of the miasma forest. The site of Ironblood Castle was now a gigantic crater, a spear at its center.
A single spear had destroyed the entire area.
The three Dark Lords stood a short distance from the point of impact, a dome-shaped barrier surrounding them.
“Had that been a direct hit, I don’t think my spell would have managed to block it,” Leonis said, holding up the Staff of Sealed Sins.
“Is that…a spear?” Veira asked.
“I sense a vast amount of mana coming from it,” Rivaiz whispered, fascinated. “This seems to be a weapon of the gods.”
Remnants of stone walls littered the blasted ground. The Goddess Temple had been eradicated.
Brionac, the Divine Spear. Only he is capable of throwing such a weapon.
Leonis turned his attention to the sky. Shining within the fathomless dark was a gigantic, grotesque form. The Void King floated overhead, countless Voids waiting upon him.
“So fate has led us to meet again…” Leonis glared at the fallen hero. “My teacher, Shardark the Swordmaster.”
“…Shardark?!” Veira’s golden eyes shot wide. “Leo, what do you mean? Is that really the Swordmaster of the Six Heroes?”
Leonis nodded, feeling a bead of cold sweat slide down his neck. Shardark Shin Ignis, a Void Lord who commanded the Voids. His form had changed since the clash in the Seventh Assault Garden.
After absorbing gods and demons, he became a malformed monster. His lower half had swelled, sprouting eight legs, each belonging to a different creature. Likewise, eight hands had grown from his upper half, each wielding a mythology-class weapon.
The only part of this terrifying living nightmare that still bore any resemblance to the man he was once was his pale, handsome face. However, one of his eyes was crushed, the remnants of an injury Leonis had inflicted.
…What is he doing here?
The Swordmaster had descended upon the Seventh Assault Garden as a Void Lord to fuse with a Sakura Orchid guardian deity. After a fierce battle with Leonis, he’d retreated into a tear in space when Leonis had awakened to the power of his Holy Sword and shot him between the eyes.
So if he’s here after disappearing into that fracture in reality…
It seemed Leonis’s hypothesis that the Voids originated from this world was correct. That was a major piece of information about the otherwise completely unknown creatures.
Now’s hardly the time to celebrate that, though.
Leonis raised the Staff of Sealed Sins. “That is definitely the Swordmaster of the Six Heroes. After succumbing to the emptiness and becoming the Void Lord, he’s been indiscriminately fusing with any being he’s deemed worthy.”
“Shardark Shin Ignis!” Veira growled, her voice thick with bloodlust. Her draconic golden eyes glinted menacingly. Hundreds of her dragons had perished at this hero’s hands.
“What is the Swordmaster doing here?” Rivaiz inquired calmly.
“I don’t know.”
Had this fallen hero been drawn by the goddess’s voice? Or perhaps it was a result of Dáinsleif’s resonance…?
“■■■■■■■■■■■■…!” Shardark Void Lord’s howl shook the air.
“Here he comes!” Leonis shouted.
Whoooosh!
The Swordmaster’s gigantic form descended like a comet, blasting another, smaller crater into the earth.
“Eighth-order gravity spell—Vira Zuo!”
Vnnnnnn!
A sphere of gravity formed in the air, flattening the Swordmaster against the ground. But that was all it accomplished. Even the strongest gravity spell could only momentarily stall him.
“I’ll crush you with one blow—Drag Zelga!”
“Wintertide of swords, frozen blades of demonic ice—Sharianos!”
Veira chanted a spell in the dragon tongue while Veira cast an eighth-order ice spell. A spiraling force that dug into the ground and a storm of whirling ice blades enveloped the Swordmaster’s gigantic body. The maelstrom of the Dark Lords’ powers blew away the surrounding Voids in an instant.
“Even the strongest of the Six Heroes can’t hope to face three Dark Lords at once… What?!” Veira’s confident smile faded swiftly.
“■■■■—■■■■■■■…!”
Shardark swung one of his arms, brushing away the dust around him with a massive hammer, a mythology-class weapon. He hurled the hammer effortlessly. No ordinary defensive spell could block it.
“Come forth from the shadows, cadavers of the Realm of Shadows—Great Death Wall!”
Countless bones reinforced by mana assembled to form a thick wall of bones. This was an original spell of the Undead King’s, which didn’t exist in the magic system. However, the spinning mallet broke through each layer of the barricade, speeding toward Leonis.
My precious bones!
Before Leonis had time to lament the loss, the great hammer was upon him.
“Hahhhhhhhhh! Drag Fist!”
Veira threw a punch charged with mana, which smashed against the mallet’s side and knocked it off course. It raced past Leonis, barely missing his face, and slammed into the ground with a thunderous noise.
“What a monster… Just knocking it aside took all I had…”
“And that’s after the bone wall dampened so much of its momentum. He’s more powerful than he ever was in life,” Leonis said.
“And sorcery hardly affects him, too,” Rivaiz pointed out.
“Indeed.” Leonis nodded. “Shardark couldn’t use sorcery in life. He was focused purely on swordsmanship. But by evolving, he absorbed gods capable of wielding holy magic.”
He’d blocked Veira and Rivaiz’s onslaught with a holy spell.
My old teacher, you once called me a monster for becoming the Undead King, but you have become more monstrous than I ever was. Leonis scowled.
Had the three Dark Lords been at their full strength, they would have destroyed this pest effortlessly. But the strongest of them, the Lord of the Seas, had lost her other half, the leviathan.
Leonis was in a ten-year-old’s body, reducing his physical prowess and cutting his mana to a third of its original capacity. Donning Blackas in his Black Tyrant form would help, but he couldn’t summon his brother-in-arms from the Realm of Shadows right now.
The only one who could manage a decent fight was Veira, the Dragon Lord. But even in her case, her attacks were primarily magical in nature, making her ill-suited to face the Swordmaster. And a dragon’s innate spell resistance was nearly meaningless against Shardark.
We need to retreat, but turning our backs on him won’t be wise…
Leonis didn’t feel that knowing when to flee besmirched a Dark Lord’s honor. After all, it was only through countless defeats that the Undead King had found the path to supremacy. Unfortunately, retreating here would be too risky. If they tried, one of the three Dark Lords—Leonis, Veira, or Rivaiz—would surely be slain.
Besides, while Leonis didn’t see fleeing as disgraceful, the Dragon Lord and the Lord of the Seas might be too proud to run.
The Void King roared and charged toward them. With his eight legs, stolen from gods and devils, he kicked away the remnants of Ironblood Castle, his every step a thunderclap.
“Leo. I’ll stall him, so cover for me,” Veira said with a ferocious smile before shifting into her true form.
“Graaaaaaaaah…!”
A gigantic crimson dragon appeared, enveloped in crimson flames, and met the Swordmaster’s charge.
Thud!
The collision sent a shock wave radiating out in every direction. Dirt blew into the air, forcing Leonis to shield his face from the debris. Grappling her opponent head-on, Veira parted her jaws and exhaled sizzling dragon breath at point-blank range!
The red flames consumed Shardark’s upper half. His divine protection didn’t trigger. The dragon’s claws tore into the Swordmaster’s flesh.
Despite being struck directly and exposed to the incandescent fire, the Swordmaster refused to stop. He used the great shield he carried to slam the red dragon’s head, knocking her back.
Shardark hurled a greatsword.
“Sharia Sheiz!”
A blade of water lanced from the distance, severing Shardark’s fingers.
“We’re hunting big game here. We must attack it from three directions!” Rivaiz called out as she flew through the air.
Leonis sprinted along the ground, chanting an advanced spell.
If only I could use the Demon Sword, I’d be able to defeat him.
Dáinsleif remained locked within the staff, unstirring. Shardark had absorbed one of the Dark Lords, and owing to the oath Leonis had made with the goddess, he was unable to wield Dáinsleif’s power against one of his fellow Dark Lords.
The Demon Sword isn’t my only trump card, but…
As he raced through the wasteland, Leonis unintentionally clenched his right hand. His Holy Sword, Excalibur XX—Leonis had manifested that unknown power once before to defeat Shardark Void Lord. It wasn’t a power he could use freely, however. Much like Dáinsleif, it consumed all his mana and stamina, so he could fire it only in all-or-nothing situations.
“Ye who consume life, I offer my soul as a sacrifice to beckon you—Skull Colossus!”
The shattered bones scattered on the ground clattered and writhed, converging before Leonis. They came together, forming a thirty-melte-tall sculpture made of bone.
“It’s delightful, looking down upon my teacher like this…” Leonis smiled viciously, sitting atop the construct’s hand. He gazed below at Shardark, who was still grappling with the red dragon. “Holy Sword, Excalibur XX—Activate!” Leonis chanted the words while focusing on his fingertips.
Particles of light converged, manifesting to form a Holy Sword shaped like a pistol. Yet not a moment later, black sparks shot from his right hand. Pain ran through Leonis’s body, and the half-manifested Holy Sword dispersed.
“…What?!” Leonis grimaced and looked down at his hand. The strange pattern Rivaiz called a hex surfaced on his skin.
Has it sealed my Holy Sword?!
Leonis tried to manifest the Holy Sword again with no success.
“■■■■…!”
Shardark slammed Veira into the ground and charged at the bone construct.
“Tsk—tenth-order spell, Meld Gaiez!”
Bwoooosh!
A pillar of white-hot flames erupted, burning through the night, but it did nothing to stop Shardark’s advance.
That accursed monster!
Leonis raised his hand, and a moment later, chains shot out of the darkness, coiling around Shardark. This was one of the Arc Seven, a Dark-Lord-slaying weapon created by the gods—the Vile Dragon Fetter, Ragva Zol.
These chains had stopped Veira’s rampage in the capital when she went berserk, and the Arc Seven were exceptionally potent against Dark Lords. Additionally, Ragva Zol had a curse that made it stronger against dragons.
The binds stopped Shardark’s charge.
I knew it!
Shardark had fused with more than just a Dark Lord. As one of the Six Heroes, he was blessed by the Luminous Powers and had merged with countless forms of life to achieve continual evolution. Naturally, he’d sought to acquire a dragon at some point. And as Shardark froze in place…
“Graaaaaaaaaaaaah!”
…Veira fired a beam of argent heat at him, while Rivaiz cast a ninth-order ice spell from above, the Demon Frost Blizzard—Hield Berzed.
“Burst forth, darkness—Arzam!” Leonis followed up with a flurry of tenth-order spells.
Boom, boom, boom boom boom!
Destructive mana exploded, illuminating the world like a sun at noon.
The many attacks from the trio of Dark Lords silenced the Void King. He stood amid roaring, crimson fire, his body grievously wounded.
Crack.
A fissure ran through space.
“…?!”
Crack, crack, crack…
The fractures expanded swiftly, swallowing up the nearby area in no time.
Leonis swallowed nervously. Did we…do it…?
They certainly hadn’t dealt a fatal wound. The Void King wasn’t going to perish from this. However, during the fight in the Seventh Assault Garden, Shardark retreated into a tear in reality after being shot by Leonis’s Holy Sword.
Maybe he couldn’t maintain his form after taking a certain degree of damage? Or perhaps there was a time limit to how long he could fight.
Crack…crack…crack…!
<God…apostle…■■■■…!> Shardark said something akin to words.
“Oh,” Leonis said ironically, raising an eyebrow. “I’m surprised you can still speak, my teacher.”
Crash, clink, crunch!
Shardark blew the chains of Ragva Zol away.
<The goddess’s apostles…must…be destroyed…>
“What…? What are you saying?”
“Undead King, I’m preparing a powerful attack. Stall him for me,” Rivaiz declared from above.
“Do you understand what you’re asking of me?!” Leonis grumbled from atop the bone sculpture.
Rivaiz’s water mantle shone, and a half-transparent sphere of water surrounded her body.
“■■■■■■■■—!”
Shardark howled, swinging Ragva Zol around.
“…Tch!”
The chains bashed against the Skull Colossus, shattering its arm to bits.
The Skull Colossus is a siege weapon! How can it shatter it this easily?!
Having been knocked off the sculpture, Leonis reflexively cast a gravity spell to descend safely to the ground. Gigantic chunks of bone rained from above. He’d hoped the construct would provide a distraction while he fired his Holy Sword, but that plan failed.
If Leonis had had Blackas with him, he’d have been able to fight another way. There was also his third minion, still locked within the Realm of Shadows, although that was a perilous option.
I never counted on not being able to manifest my Holy Sword, though.
Leonis glanced at his right hand. He couldn’t see the hex pattern, but it wasn’t gone yet. Leonis was an expert when it came to curses, but this was no ordinary magic. He’d never seen a pattern like it before.
What a nuisance…
Clicking his tongue, Leonis bolted through the darkness. He didn’t have to try to sense Shardark’s presence, given that his giant form shook the ground with every step.
“The Evil-Rending Sword—Zolgstar Mezekis!” Leonis turned around and swung his arm, calling upon the Realm of Shadows.
Several dozen blades emerged from thin air, lancing toward Shardark. These were copies made from fragments of one of the Arc Seven. Their power was inferior to the original, but they were still effective against Dark Lords.
However…
Clangggg!
…Shardark swept away the flurry of blades with a single stroke of his broadsword. And then, much to Leonis’s surprise, he caught a few of them to wield as his own.
No weaponry is effective against him…
Even after being reduced to a Void monstrosity, Shardark’s authority as one of the Six Heroes, granted to him by the Luminous Powers, remained in effect. His ability to wield all armaments in the world extended even to the Arc Seven.
Blue fire billowed out of Shardark’s sole eye, which remained fixed upon Leonis. He swung Zolgstar Mezekis’s blades down on the boy. No spell could meet this attack.
“Grahhhhhhhhhhhhh!”
A massive red dragon closed its giant jaws on Shardark’s arm, crushing it.
“Veira?!”
“Feel the vengeance of the Demon Dragon’s Mountain Range’s dragons!”
The mighty creature’s claws, wreathed in flames, tore through the Void King’s hardened skin. Black miasma gushed like blood. Shardark swung down the Arc Seven swords, thrusting them into Veira’s neck, but her dragon scales deflected them easily.
“You underestimate the Dragon Lord if you think you can harm me with imitations!” Veira roared, her tail flailing like a whip to strike at Shardark’s body. The Swordmaster lost balance, his massive form crumpling to the ground. Seizing upon that chance…
“Hear my roar, fool—Dei Argh Dragray!”
…Veira sank her claws into Shardark, undoing his divine protection as she spoke a spell in the dragon tongue.
Bwooooooooooooooosh!
Before Veira could attack again…
“Grahhhhhhhhh!” she roared out in agony.
…Shardark’s arm emerged from the fire, tearing off one of the Dragon Lord’s wings. Shardark rose up and grabbed the dragon by one of its horns. He then used another arm to try driving a lance through her throat.
“Veira!” Leonis cried.
“That’s long enough. Beware, Dragon Lord, you might get caught up in this,” Leonis heard Rivaiz state.
“Hmph… You certainly took your time!”
Veira reverted to her humanoid form to escape the Swordmaster.
“Frozen souls, slumber in the eternal palace—Rei Zava Cocytus!”
A prismatic shining barrier of ice pushed against Shardark’s gigantic form. Rivaiz invoked a powerful, highly advanced eleventh-order limit-break spell. This was magic unique to sea sprites. It allowed them to trap targets within an ice block formed of mana, forcing the captive into an eternal slumber.
Shardark’s spell resistance was powerless in the face of this magic. The ice barrier held him in place.
However, the triumph was only momentary. Shardark’s sole eye continued to burn and glow within the ice block’s absolute zero environment. If the three Dark Lords didn’t capitalize on this opening, they would lose their chance at striking down the Void King.
Leonis was already prepared to chant the spell. Veira had risked herself to give the time needed, and Rivaiz provided the moment to loose it. Leonis couldn’t afford to let this opportunity go to waste.
He pointed the tip of the Staff of Sealed Sins at Shardark, focusing his mana into it.
—Hark the song of ruin. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust—
—The tragedy that returns all to its origin, once again, descends upon us solemnly—
Leonis hadn’t chanted a limit-break spell—a spell of the eleventh order and above—since reincarnating. Spells of that level required longer chants, meaning there weren’t many chances to use them in live combat. However, the greater reason he’d avoided casting one was the strain using so much mana would have on his current body.
No ordinary spell will work on him, though… Leonis gritted his teeth. Intense sparks flickered from the tip of the staff in his hands.
“Ngh… Ahhh…!”
The discharge of mana burned at his fingertips. Every nerve in his body screamed out in pain.
As I suspected, this form can’t handle it…!
Slender fingers slid over Leonis’s.
“Veira?!”
“I’ll lend you my mana, Leo!” Veira said, standing behind him with a smile.
Leonis’s mana circulated through Veira and then into his staff. The rod shone, overflowing with magical power.
“May my rage burn the world away, hastening the time of ruin…!”
Just as the ice barrier encasing Shardark shattered…
“Eleventh-order destruction spell—Meld Magnus!”
Boooooooooooooom!
…destructive light covered the world. A swarm of Voids that emerged from a tear in space evaporated instantly. And…
Crack, crack, crack…
…the cracks around Shardark Void Lord multiplied.
“…Leo…nis…”
“…?!”
Within the surging red flames, the Void Lord…called his name.
“Are you…the…successor…?”
For a moment, Leonis thought he saw his teacher’s eye regain the intellect it possessed when it still belonged to a hero. Shardark reached out, as though to grasp something, then vanished into a tear in space.
Crack, crack, crack…
The fracture that swallowed Shardark began to eat into the ground. It grew, threatening to swallow the sky. The world was breaking, transformed into a shattered palace of glass.
Leonis’s eyes widened in alarm as he peered overhead.
…That’s…! Could it be?!
“Leo, we have to run!”
“What are you dawdling for? At this rate, we’ll be overtaken, too!”
Veira and Rivaiz both warned him, yet Leonis stayed put and spoke with conviction. “We should let it. It’s probably…”
“Huh?! Leo!”
The canopy of the sky crumbled…and the world inverted.
The surroundings changed immediately.
Leonis shook his head lightly and looked around. He wasn’t in the crater where Ironblood Castle had stood, but in a forest full of dense trees. Sunlight was beginning to color the dim sky.
“…Where are we?” Veira whispered behind him. Turning around, Leonis saw the crimson-haired girl eyeing him with a confused expression. “Were we thrown to another world again?” she asked.
“…No. This is probably our original one,” Leonis replied. “I saw the stars through the crack in space…”
“Stars?”
“Yes…” Leonis nodded and glanced up at the sky visible through the forest canopy.
The Star of Calamity shone ominously as the heavens grew bright. Entering that fracture in reality had been a gamble.
But we managed to find a way back.
They’d failed to pursue the Devil of the Underworld, but there was little alternative.
“Undead King, where did the Swordmaster disappear to?” Rivaiz descended from the air, her water mantle fluttering.
“If he’s not here, then perhaps he used the tear to travel elsewhere,” Leonis replied, shaking his head.
The Voids likely used those fractures to freely traverse dimensions, but if that was the case…it made no sense that they appeared and disappeared so irregularly, like fog. If the Voids could move so easily, humanity would have been driven to extinction by now.
“Why did the Swordmaster of the Six Heroes… Why did he appear there?”
“…Good question. I don’t know.”
Shardark had definitely reacted to the goddess’s voice, but what he’d come there to do was unclear. Maybe he’d long since lost all sense of purpose and had gone mad from the emptiness eating away at his soul, and so he’d been drawn to this remnant of his old nemesis.
“What was that world…?” Rivaiz muttered.
A red sky. A wasteland that expanded endlessly. Swarms of countless Voids. Leonis speculated that world was the source of the Voids, but what were the ruins of the Lord of Beasts’ citadel doing there? And why did he hear the voice of the deceased goddess…?
Leonis reflexively gripped the Staff of Sealed Sins. The Devil of the Underworld and Duke Crystalia. The Azure Hold. The Void world. The goddess’s voice. The Ironblood Castle ruins that shouldn’t have been there.
Something connected all these pieces.
Azra-Ael must have the answer.
For now, Leonis was back in his world, and another matter demanded his attention.
I can’t leave my kingdom unattended for long.
It wouldn’t do to leave Blackas and Shary in charge of everything. Leonis thought of his minion. It had been only a few days, yet he felt oddly wistful.
I did promise, after all.
Leonis retrieved his terminal from his pocket.
“All right. Where are we?”
He tried activating the device, but it didn’t provide any information on the surrounding area. The magical apparatuses of this era weren’t of much use unless they were within range of an Assault Garden.
“If you’re looking for a human city, you’ll find one that way,” Veira said, pointing toward the dawn.
“Are you certain?” Leonis asked.
“Of course I am,” the Dragon Lord replied, grinning and placing her hands on her waist. “Dragons fly by watching the positions of the stars.”
“How far is it?”
“Well, I don’t know that much.”
“I see.” Leonis nodded. “Then I must return to the capital. I’m wary of Azra-Ael’s plans, but I have a promise to keep.”
“Hmm. I bet that minion of yours is worried about you,” Veira teased.
“I will go after the Devil of the Underworld,” Rivaiz decided. “I must reclaim my leviathan.”
“Me too. He still has the Azure Hold… Though for all we know, Azra-Ael and the Azure Hold aren’t in this world at all,” Veira remarked.
“If his objective is to collect the Dark Lords, he will have to return. Knowing as much, we should inspect the lands where the remaining Dark Lords slumber.”
“True.”
“You’re right. I will seek the Lord of Beasts’ resting place.”
“Okay. Let us know if you find anything.”
Leonis summoned his skull dragon from the Realm of Shadows and hopped onto its back. “Don’t be careless. There’s no telling what Azra-Ael might be planning,” he warned the other two.
“Hmph. I’ll reduce him to ashes next time,” Veira declared.
The skull dragon flapped its wings and took off toward the sun.
It was evening. Having finished her exercises for the day, Riselia returned to her room in the hotel, where she changed out of her training outfit and into her underwear. She collapsed on the sofa.
“I…I think…I’m done for…”
She whined most uncharacteristically, her hair disheveled. Normally, Riselia wouldn’t act so undisciplined, even with no one watching. But she was utterly exhausted from multiple days of rigorous training.
On top of the eighteenth platoon’s team practice sessions, which Riselia herself had scheduled, she also had to spend every morning and evening suffering through special lessons. Worse yet, her instructor was quite unforgiving.
Riselia had improved at handling the True Ancestor’s Dress and controlling her mana circulation, but she couldn’t say by how much or if it would matter.
Lying atop the sofa, Riselia fidgeted in place uneasily, turning around to look up at the mana lamp lighting the room.
“When’s Leo coming back…?” she muttered.
Four days had passed since he left the capital. She’d messaged him on each one but never received a reply. Riselia kept a cup of pudding in the fridge, waiting for him in case he returned.
“Leo…”
Riselia played with the sofa’s buttons, pushing them in. She grabbed a cushion she used as a pillow and sank her fangs into it.
With puffed-up cheeks, she decided, “Not good enough.”
Riselia was frustrated. She tossed and turned on the sofa, still hugging the cushion. Eventually, her eyes settled on the half-open window. The curtain danced from the soft breeze. Outside, the sun was sinking, and the casino’s neon lights were sparking to life.
The girl stared vacantly at the fluttering curtain. He’d been gone for only a few days, but she missed him desperately…
Once Leo comes back, I’m going to suck a whole lot of blood from him.
Riselia hugged the cushion tightly. Her mana sizzled, making her heart throb.
Ba-dump. Ba-dump. Ba-dump.
Huh? I-I’m feeling, kind of… Huh? Thinking about him made her cheeks flush. N-no…Leo is, well, he’s ten years old… That’s not…
Riselia’s heart beat like a drum, and she felt her face grow hot.
“…!”
The doorknob clicked.
“Leo?!” Riselia sat up at once.
“Sorry, I’m not the kid. It’s your favorite maid, Lady Selia. ”
The door opened, revealing Regina in a maid’s uniform. She struck a strange, cute pose, her twintails bobbing.
“…Oh. It’s just you, Regina.” Riselia’s shoulders slumped in plain disappointment.
“You know, Lady Selia, that reaction kind of breaks my heart,” Regina muttered dispassionately.
“Ah, n-no, I’m sorry! I’m glad you’re here, Regina!”
The maid shrugged. “Hmm. Fine, I’ll forgive you. Anyway, it’s time for the meeting.”
“Oh, right. I’ll go prepare.”
Riselia got off the sofa and hurriedly changed into her uniform. As she put on her skirt, she looked out the window again. No one was there, of course. There was only the gently billowing curtain.
Leo…
A petite shadow stood atop the Shangri-la Resort’s rooftop. Shary had dropped her Leonis disguise and was in her usual maid’s attire.
“My lord…”
Her hands were together, as though in prayer, while she watched the setting sun. Whenever Leonis went out to battle, Shary waited on Death Hold’s balcony to wish for her master’s safety.
She was confident of his victory, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t concerned. After all, at present, her master was in the vessel of a child.
And his opponent this time is the Lord of the Seas, touted as the strongest Dark Lord…
Even with all her faith in Leonis and his powers, Shary couldn’t help but wonder if he would return unscathed this time.
“Are you worried for Lord Magnus?” a calm voice inquired.
Shary turned around, her gaze settling on a black wolf with golden eyes, standing in the shadow of the setting sun.
“Lord Blackas…”
Blackas stood alongside Shary, turning his eyes to the horizon.
“My friend is sure to return to his kingdom. All we can do is believe in him,” he said.
“Yes, you’re right…” Shary bowed her head reverently.
“Incidentally, Shary, should Lord Magnus be late for the Holy Sword Dance Festival, it will fall to you to attend as his body double.”
She nodded. “I’ve made the necessary preparations.”
Shary had studied the rules thoroughly in preparation. A human combat festival was child’s play to one with the skills of a Septentrion assassin. She could win in a manner that wasn’t too spectacular or lose in a way that wasn’t too crushing.
The girl didn’t intend to throw the match, but she wasn’t planning on actively fighting. A needless show of her strength would attract undue attention to Leonis.
“I hope nothing happens, but the trifling fools who get in Lord Magnus’s way time and again might take advantage of the celebration. Bear that in mind.”
“Yes, understood.”
The Voids weren’t the only mysterious faction in this world. Past officers of the Dark Lords’ Armies, like Nefakess and Zemein, had reappeared in this era, and conspired against Leonis. Shary herself had been attacked and suffered an embarrassing defeat at the hands of one of their demonic assassins.
I won’t let it happen again…
With resolve in heart, Shary touched the ring in her pocket. Leonis had given it to her. It was capable of summoning the strongest being in the Dark Lords’ Armies. She’d used it once already, so the magic had faded, but it was still a dear treasure.
My lord, please… Be safe, Shary prayed, her eyes fixed on the horizon.
The days in Camelot came and went. The special training intensified as the Holy Sword Dance Festival approached. Fortunately, everyone showed clear signs of improving and maturing.
Before long, the day of the event arrived.
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