Episode 156
“We die where we stand, even if it kills us!”
The Black Armor Company’s thousand-strong heavy infantry stood as the backbone of the unit, with the elite handpicked and clad in ‘Artifact Armor’ forming Dale’s personal guard at the forefront.
At the same time, led by the 7th Circle white mage Borenius, an uncountable number of white mages began their ‘Hymn Magic.’
“Praise, praise!”
“The goddess’s heaven awaits you!”
The Aria of Valor.
A divine voice, as if echoing from the heavens, filled the ‘World of Light’ led by Borenius.
The white mages of the White Tower were not specialized in combat. Yet, their hymns had the power to revive even the dying soldiers as warriors of the divine.
“Oh, goddess!”
“The compassion and mercy of the sister goddesses are with us!”
“Praise, send the Saxon heretics to hell!”
Amidst this resonating light, the church’s soldiers were overwhelmed with an indescribable euphoria.
The templars charging towards Dale began to weep like children.
It wasn’t out of fear of battle. It was the overwhelming faith, the presence of the sister goddesses filling their hearts.
Like a fervent prayer meeting in a cult, they couldn’t contain their emotions and cried out the goddess’s name.
“Sob, ahhh, ahhh!”
Swords and spears in hand, the church’s warriors charged, unable to hold back their tears and sobs.
In a way, it was a scene befitting the madness of the divine.
“These crazy bastards.”
Dale muttered under his breath as he watched.
People need something to believe in, especially on a battlefield where their lives are at stake. Something to trust beyond their own frailty.
That was the power of fanaticism boasted by the White Tower and the church, but it was no longer theirs alone.
“Now it’s time to show them our god.”
Thus, the Shadow Lord willingly became a false god for them.
“Iä Shub-Niggurath.”
Dale spoke.
─ I’ve been waiting for this moment, brother.
The most terrifying and hideous being in the world smiled beside Dale.
Swoosh!
From beneath the hem of a pitch-black dress, countless tentacles began to rise.
Yet, the hundred-strong personal guard protecting the ‘Black Prince’ remained unfazed.
Dale looked up.
In the sky, a black Valkyrie stood alone against the ‘Master Templar’ made of blood.
The church’s aura masters, reborn as fanatical swords through the white mages’ hymn magic.
Towards them, Shub’s black tentacles began to lash out, providing covering fire for Lady Shadow, Aurelia.
He lowered his gaze.
The templar knights’ spear tips were already charging towards Dale and the Black Armor Company.
“Now.”
Simultaneously, Dale’s black magic spread across the field. It wasn’t to sweep away his enemies or create shadow creatures.
His magic was infused into the hundred elite soldiers of the Black Armor Company protecting him.
The mercenary organization, now a thousand-strong heavy infantry, was armed with the best talents and artifact armor.
Each piece was an artifact imbued with the darkness of the Demon King’s domain.
The price they had to pay was the mental strength to withstand the artifact, but the true owner controlling that power and malice was someone else.
The malice of the artifacts worn by the hundred heavy infantry surged towards their Shadow Lord.
Whispers echoed from all directions. Incomprehensible, maddening murmurs. In the midst of the malicious whispers that threatened to drive one insane, the Shadow Lord raised his head.
“──Enough.”
The Shadow Lord spoke, and silence fell like a feather.
Simultaneously, Dale’s black magic activated their artifacts, and what stood there was not merely a hundred heavy infantry.
Heavy infantry lacked the individual combat prowess of knights who wield aura. However, their organic system, organized around the Shadow Lord, was no longer ‘standard power.’
A steel formation strong enough not to break even against the aura-charged charge of the templar knights.
Dale had painstakingly scoured the Black Sphere’s artifact vault, the Demon King’s domain, and the entire Great Labyrinth to acquire a hundred armor-type artifacts.
The ‘Armor of the Undying.’
Crack, crack!
The black armor melded with the mercenaries’ bodies, fusing armor and flesh like Sir Helmut’s. But controlling and wielding the artifact’s power was not their task.
The one who bore the power and its cost was solely the Shadow Lord.
The only thing the hundred heavy infantry had to endure was the mental strength to withstand the pain.
Even if they fell in battle, they were promised the highest honor Saxon could offer and the care of their entire family. Dale, who had earned their genuine loyalty by sharing the battlefield with them, was the reason.
“For Saxon and Captain Dale!”
An unbreakable black formation unfolded.
Towards that black formation, the white cavalry lowered their spear tips.
Boom!
A shockwave hit, as if the world beneath their feet was shaking.
The lines of both sides finally clashed along the boundary where heaven and the winter night met, and the sound echoed.
The clash of steel, screams, curses hurled at the enemy, and prayers for the goddess to be with them.
In the sky, the blood angel and Lady Shadow, Aurelia. On the ground, the Black Armor Company and the templar knights, the Blue Rose and the Rosicrucian knights, and the nobles and their soldiers from each faction.
Amidst it all, the Shadow Lord stood.
Struggling to maintain the world of the cold, dark winter night against the celestial forces of the 7th Circle white mage and the elders assisting him…
Activating a hundred dark artifacts with magic, bearing their malice alone, and pouring black magic like water into a bottomless pit for Shub.
It was a power no mere 4th Circle mage could handle. Even considering the advantages the Demon King’s land offered him, it was the same.
“Igniter.”
Yet, nothing changed.
From the four circles entwining his heart, flames erupted. A searing red magic like magma.
A heat engine converting thermal energy into mechanical energy, generating power.
Dale began projecting the mechanisms of another world onto his heart and circles, assuming his existence as a mechanical device.
With the dark power of the Demon King’s land, surpassing the realm of a mere 4th Circle mage as the empire’s greatest genius.
The white and dark world of the winter night began to devour the heavens.
‘This can’t be…!’
It was impossible. Unlike Borenius, who focused all his power on a single spell, wasn’t Dale fighting on the front lines of the battlefield right now?
Blood splattered, flesh and bones, entrails scattered chaotically.
In the hell of the battlefield, the Shadow Lord raised his head.
Behind the magma-like, searing crimson within the armor of darkness.
He adjusted his grip on the hero’s beloved sword, ‘Peacemaker.’
His role as a mage ended here. But Dale’s strength was far from exhausted.
Projecting the ultimate skill of a knight, the avatar, and the martial prowess he had built as the empire’s hero.
With an undeniable true sword in hand, the Shadow Lord launched himself forward.
Into the black and white battlefield, where one side desperately maintained formation and the other clashed to break through.
Cutting through the Black Armor Company’s heavy infantry clad in the Armor of the Undying, the Shadow Lord surged forward.
Simultaneously, the white and dark world of the winter night began to expand, devouring the edge of the ‘heavens.’
A world was consuming another world.
An engineer, an SSS-class monster hunter, a hero from another world, the eldest son of the Saxon family.
Dale, merging the essence of the knowledge and power he had accumulated over a lifetime.
Finally, Dale had truly become the ‘unparalleled force’ revered by this world.
“Why do you not reveal yourself, child of the dragon?”
The mass of madness had ended, and there, the Immortal Duke Frederick asked.
To the golden-blooded, the seventh prince, Mordred, before him.
“Have you already lost your mind?”
Foaming at the mouth, laughing or crying, a pitiful sight akin to a child regressing.
Seeing this, the Immortal Duke asked, seemingly unable to comprehend.
“Oh, dear.”
And it didn’t take long to understand the meaning.
“It wasn’t a dragon… Well, that’s not so bad either.”
After a moment’s thought, the Immortal Craftsman leaned closer to Mordred.
He opened his mouth wide.
“Gah, ugh!”
At that instant, a mass of bizarre, writhing tendrils began to emerge from the depths of Frederick’s mouth. It was a grotesque creature, reminiscent of a giant leech, and it slithered into Mordred’s mouth, sliding down his throat.
“The silence of the shadows ends here.”
Frederick spoke, and with those words, murmured as if to himself, Mordred’s expression froze.
The color drained from his eyes. His pupils turned into dark, unfocused voids, staring at the other shadow lord before him. Mordred bowed his head in a gesture of allegiance.
“Return, child of shadows. And await the time for us.”
”…I will obey your command, my lord.”
The madness that had consumed Mordred moments ago was gone. Now, as the ‘child of shadows,’ he bowed to his new master.
“Wait for me, my daughter.”
Frederick turned away. Since that day of humiliating defeat, when his heart was torn apart, he had lost his grimoire.
“I will come for you soon.”
He could feel the presence of the ‘Book of the Black Goat’ writhing somewhere on this earth.