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Chapter 41: Illusionary Army (6)
Chapter 41: Illusionary Army (6)
Chapter 41: Illusionary Army (6)
TL/Editor: Rungir
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"Help!"
"Please, don't!"
A man watched in silence as the village descended into chaos.
Had his instincts led him here only to be proven right again?
"..."
Observing the brutal scene of villagers falling victim to human hunters, he turned away.
It was none of his business.
He wasn't the annihilators' captain or an empire's defender anymore.
He had no duty to protect others.
"Captain, your heart is too soft."
He remembered the dying annihilator's words. The man had said them while gazing at him.
"You won't handle losing those dear to you."
His team, no, his entire squad knew.
Once he chose to safeguard something, it became invaluable to him.
"So, don't protect anyone."
With his last breath, the squad member begged the man, who'd lost everything and held nothing dear anymore.
"Don't guard others, don't sacrifice yourself. Live for yourself, Captain."
That's why he couldn't dismiss the plea.
No, he didn't wish to dismiss it.
He no longer wanted to cherish anything.
One step, two steps.
The man slowly retreated from the village, now a battlefield.
His eyes became more somber.
"Let him go! You monster!"
A girl ran past him.
He recognized the girl who dashed toward the hunter gripping an old man, oblivious to his presence.
The girl who once gifted the young man with a sunlit smile.
The daughter of the woman with eyes as tranquil as a lake.
"Mister, can you fight?"
He remembered the moment the girl first found him, and he was reminded of the woman reborn, just as she had been years ago.
"You're doing that wrong. I'll help you if you teach me sword fighting."
The girl with the same sapphire eyes, full of trust, was running.
Rushing towards an enemy she couldn't possibly defeat.
"Do you realize? Sometimes, it feels like you're seeing someone else in me."
And the moment he recognized her faith mirrored the one he used to harbor,
He understood.
He'd found something precious once more.
Slowly.
"I'm sorry, but your request..."
He pivoted back towards the battlefield.
"I can't honor it."
Whispering softly to his fallen comrades,
The retired warrior balled his fists again.
---
Raei Translations
---
Legendary weapons.
These are weapons that embody a whole myth or an equivalent tale, enabling its user to employ a part or the entirety of the power transmitted through the story.
A tool of the gods, nothing short of a miracle.
Naturally, the power of a mythical-class weapon's user skyrockets once they wield it, sometimes even granting god-like abilities.
Moreover, the better the bond between the weapon and its user, the more the weapon's effectiveness multiplies.
So, what happens when the Extinction Sword Eclaxia is in hand?
Puhwahahahak!
Darkness erupted from Zion's body, coalescing over the half-formed blade of Eclaxia, creating a complete sword.
Black Flash.
Zion, in perfect sync, unleashed a flurry of strikes on the demons closing in.
Right then.
Grrrrrrt!
A dark streak cut through the space between Zion and the demons.
"What...?"
The onrushing demons, sensing something eerie from the line, stopped and dispersed.
Simultaneously, everything that had been in the space moments ago,
Shukagagak!
Began getting sucked into the black line drawn in mid-air.
As the demons watched the scene unfold, their eyes wide with confusion,
Tock.
Zion lightly tapped the ground with his toe.
Before the sound of his tap could reach the demons, he vanished.
"Be careful...!"
A tad quicker than Cainlis's warning to the others,
"Just one."
Zion, appearing before a blue-skinned woman, spoke tersely, plunging the Extinction Sword into her heart.
Could she be a mid-ranking demon or higher?
"!!!!!!"
The blue woman reacted, conjuring a barrier of magical energy in front of her chest.
But,
Kwadddddd!
Zion's sword tore through the woman's barrier as if it were paper, embedding itself in her heart.
No, it was more accurate to say it erased, rather than pierced.
Immediately, the darkness unleashed from Eclaxia ravaged the woman's heart, whirling through her body.
“Kyaahhhhh!”
A scream erupted from the woman's lips in agonizing pain.
'She won't be fighting anymore.'
Zion watched the woman with icy eyes, sensing swift movements on both sides and tapped the ground again.
His figure merged with the dark night.
A moment later, the attacks from Cainlis and the gilled demon landed where Zion had just been.
Kwaaaang!
The ground shook violently, torn apart by the terrifying magical energy in the attacks.
Through the thick cloud of rising dust, Zion, his eyes calm, stared at the two remaining demons.
'I need to wrap this up.'
The Black Star, perpetually cycling and intensifying between the Extinction Sword and his body, magnified Zion's abilities, including his senses, to a degree that outclassed his normal state.
However, this effect only persisted while he maintained Eclaxia's blade.
'After intensive training, I can keep the blade for roughly 10 minutes.'
But Zion couldn't afford to spend the full ten minutes here.
The real battle was yet to commence.
'I have 2 minutes left.'
That was all the time Zion could allot here.
Dark Stream.
Once more, Zion tapped the ground, vanished from his spot, and materialized before the gilled demon.
A speed seemingly defying space itself.
"You won't fall for the same trick twice."
This time, as if expecting it, the gilled demon extended a hand towards the suddenly appearing Zion.
Fweeeek!
Simultaneously, his magic morphed into a sticky green slime that enveloped Zion instantly.
A high-level magic technique that traps the target within a specific space, not just a simple restraint.
Kwadddddd!
With a constricting noise, Zion's figure vanished into the green slime.
As if on cue, Cainlis materialized behind Zion, swinging his fist, now the size of a full-grown man.
Tukwaaaaaang!
He had clearly given it his all, no holding back.
An enormous magical wave, dwarfing previous ones, erupted with a thunderous noise, ravaging everything around.
The trembling air, the vibrating space.
Drrrrrrr!
The aftershocks caused the hill they stood on to begin crumbling.
'At this level....'
A gleam of triumph flared in Cainlis's eyes as he landed his punch.
The solid sensation at his fingertips confirmed a successful hit.
But that light was short-lived.
Grrrrrrt!
Dozens of thin lines etched across the surface of the slime sphere enveloping Zion.
And it seemed like they even spread to Cainlis's enormous fist touching the sphere.
Kwajijijik!
Everything began to be severed along those lines.
Shortly after, Zion, unscathed, emerged from the slime sphere, now sliced into myriad pieces.
"How...how...?!"
Cainlis, in utter shock, grasped his severed right hand and retreated rapidly.
But.
"Where do you think you're going?"
As if he had no intention of letting Cainlis escape, Zion pursued him at an even faster speed.
Before anyone realized, Zion's Eclaxia, fully drawn back, scattered an eerie darkness around.
"No!"
Cainlis, instinctively knowing his life would end the moment that sword swung, reached out his remaining hand in desperation, concentrating all his magic.
With it, his hand, several times harder than diamond, shimmered with a terrifying purple magic.
'With this, I can fend it off once....'
But before Cainlis could complete his thought.
Sugagagak!
Zion's sword sliced through the demon's hand with unsettling ease.
Or rather, it erased it.
The characteristic of the Black Star, which nullifies everything in the world, was perfectly embodied in the Extinction Sword.
And that was enhanced even further.
So, it was simpler than a flick of a wrist to cleave through Cainlis's physical body, now lacking any magic.
"Kaaaaah!"
A gut-wrenching scream exploded from Cainlis's mouth as half his upper body and remaining hand were severed.
The shock and profound disbelief in his eyes were palpable.
Just as Zion was about to deliver the final blow, lifting his sword once more.
"Cainlis!"
The gilled demon beside them shot dozens of slime tentacles at Zion.
Each held power sufficient to obliterate a house-sized rock.
Zion stared at the oncoming tentacles with composed eyes.
The Extinction Sword nullifies all magic it contacts.
But he couldn't sever all of those tentacles.
'But it doesn't matter.'
As long as they didn't touch him, that was all that counted.
Using the enhanced Clairvoyance of the Extinction Sword, Zion captured all the information, including the movements of the inbound tentacles, and calculated the optimal path.
The moment Zion moved forward without hesitation.
A variant of the Dark Stream, taken to another level, made its debut in the novel's world.
It was a blink.
A blink of existence itself.
As if he was phasing out of and reappearing in the world in an instant.
Zion's existence, leaving only a faint afterimage, blinked incessantly, weaving through the swarm of tentacles like a wraith.
Unobservable even when directly looked at.
An achievement only the wielder of the Black Star in this world could attain.
"Ah..."
Seemingly numbed, the gilled demon stood with his mouth ajar, blankly observing the spectacle before him.
Poof!
Zion, who had approached undetected, thrust Eclaxia into his heart without hesitation.
"What in the world..."
A trembling voice, marked by disbelief, escaped Cainlis's mouth. He, like the gilled demon, had been dumbfoundedly witnessing the scene.
That ominous sword, swallowing all the surrounding light, was indeed a sword, but that power cloaking Zion like darkness.
That power was unquestionably not the Celestial Sea wielded by Agnes's direct royal descendants.
If the Celestial Sea reigns supreme over everything in the world, that power distorts, shatters, and nullifies all entities in the world.
'How can such a power exist in the world?'
Even among the devils, notorious for their malice towards all things excluding themselves, there was no entity commanding such an unnerving power.
No.
There was one.
Not a demonic entity, but one who harnessed a power eerily similar.
The Eternal Emperor, Aurelion Khan Agnes.
Along with him, a secret history, unbeknownst to humanity and known only to a select few demons, started to unfold in Cainlis's mind.
A fragment of the hidden history, overheard accidentally from Omalyeong.
"No way, no way..."
The eyes of the demon observing Zion trembled unsteadily.
'I must report this. I must convey this to the higher-ups soon!'
After all, the tide of this battle was unmistakably turning.
Right now, the utmost priority was to escape from here before that monstrous Prince Zion could finish off the gilled demon entirely.
With this thought, Cainlis pivoted and started to sprint with all his might.
Or, more accurately, he attempted to sprint.
Phwahahahahak!
The moment he tried to swivel his body, the darkness that erupted from his wound shredded his body into pieces.
Cainlis didn't know.
That ever since Zion had sliced with Eclaxia, he had been strategizing.
"Kaaaaaaah!"
He had ingeniously embedded the Black Star into the wound and detonated it at the opportune moment.
Jeruk, jeruk.
Meanwhile, Zion, who had seamlessly silenced the breath of the gilled demon and the blue woman, gradually approached the squirming Cainlis.
'I'm going to die.'
Despair seeped into Cainlis's eyes.
There was no longer an opportunity to flee, nor the strength to resist.
He could only recoil, screaming horrifically.
'No.'
There was still one action he could take.
Once Cainlis himself was certain of his impending death.
Nevertheless, there was a way to inflict a significant blow to Zion Agnes standing before him prior to that.
"Zion Agnes."
No sooner had he thought that, Cainlis retrieved something from his bosom and infused his magic into it.
"Try to stop this as well."
At that moment.
Vvvvvvvvvvv!
The hill where they were standing, the Kurd village, and all the surrounding areas began to tremble as if caught in an earthquake.
The atmosphere swirled and space shrieked.
Along with it, a colossal curtain of divine power descended from the cleaved sky.
-------------------!
The curtain began to engulf the entire Kurd village as Cainlis had pre-determined.
"Hahahahaha!"
Cainlis erupted into maniacal laughter, observing the scene reminiscent of a myth.
Why did Prince Zion come to find them?
The demons contemplated and finally arrived at a conclusion.
'To thwart the summoning of Chronos's phantom troops in advance and seize the coordinates.'
There was no more efficient way to handle phantom troops.
However, Cainlis had just summoned phantom troops using the 'coordinates', and there was no way to interrupt it now.
"...... Hahaha! Now, accursed blood of Agnes, what will you do......"
Cainlis's speech trailed off as he swiveled his head towards Zion, his face brimming with ecstasy.
Simultaneously, the demon's eyes gradually filled with confusion.
The visage of Zion, mirrored in his eyes, was grinning at him, a smile so radiant it suggested delight in the unfolding situation.
"I've been waiting for when you would summon it."
As soon as such a mild voice trickled from Zion's mouth.
Cainlis's vision was abruptly swallowed by darkness.
---
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