The Fallen Knight (3)
A faint cough echoed right after the incantation. It wasn’t an ordinary cough; it sounded as if someone was coughing up blood. But Dalen ignored it, keeping his eyes fixed ahead.
The elderly mage, who had long surpassed his limits, was using his power at the cost of his own body. This meant he had foreseen something through his ability to read the earth’s memories and made a decisive choice.
A low hum reverberated as the space around them rippled. A massive force swept through the area from behind.
In the slowed perception of time, an unbelievable phenomenon began to unfold before Dalen’s eyes.
The space twisted inward like a black hole, drawing everything into the ruined fortress. Suddenly, the direction of the distortion halted and began to move toward Dalen.
“…!”
Everlock’s eyes widened in shock. Felber’s spell wasn’t meant to intervene in the twisted space twice. The space that had been sucked in was retracing its path back to its original state, as if time itself was reversing.
Dalen’s lips curled into a subtle smile.
In a fleeting moment, the spell lost its power. Time resumed its normal flow, and the figure of the fallen knight began to recede. The time Felber had turned back was but a mere instant. Yet, for Dalen, that instant was all he needed.
His hand blurred.
With a crack, a dagger shot forward, unleashing a series of sonic booms. It collided with the closing distortion of space, where the spell of the dark moon’s assassin twisted the magic to its limit.
A shattering sound echoed as a slender crack appeared in the nearly closed space.
Dalen, a half-beat behind the distortion, retrieved his dagger and drew the holy sword from his waist. The brief moment Felber had created, the palm-sized gap the assassin had pierced through, was enough.
The gleaming blue blade, wrapped in a swirling vortex, seemed to declare its sufficiency.
With a thunderous roar, the sword descended, gathering strength from every fiber of his being. The superhuman strength, which could not be contained within a mortal body, tore through the gap like a flash of lightning.
Magic clashed with magic. The power of the dark god collided with the holy might of the sacred sword. The resulting storm reopened the closing space, creating a gap large enough for a person to pass through.
Without hesitation, Dalen leaped through.
In the next moment, his vision flipped, and all his senses were thrown into chaos.
The world was silent.
The first thing Dalen noticed was the solid ground beneath his feet. As he pressed his foot down, he realized that the noise that had been ringing in his ears had vanished as if washed away.
The thunderous sound from the sword’s tip, the wind’s resistance that had stung his steel-like skin—none of it remained.
In the eerily quiet space, Dalen opened his eyes.
Before him lay a bizarre sight. The first words that came to mind were jungle or forest. Yet, the twisted trunks and roots of the plants, entangled and rooted into each other, filled the space densely. It was far from any ordinary forest or jungle.
‘I’ve made it inside.’
In this hallucinatory landscape, Dalen’s lips curled into a slight smile. The massive jungle, with its red vines, dark green flowers, blue fruits, and purple moss interwoven among the tangled branches, was a place he recognized.
‘The Illusion Palace of Lapilem. Specifically, the outermost area known as the Sunken Garden.’
This was a kind of dungeon, a shadow of the garden overlaid on the ruins of the knight’s fortress.
‘Seeing it in person is quite something.’
In this alien landscape that seemed to steal one’s soul, Dalen slowly moved, taking in his surroundings. The Illusion Palace of Lapilem, a domain of the dark god, was one of the places commonly referred to as hell.
It was one of the five microcosms, infused with the essence and power of the five dark gods, existing somewhere in the world of illusions. The entrance to the Illusion Palace was the Sunken Garden.
Naturally, the scenery surrounding Dalen was not the true essence of that hell.
‘If it were, I wouldn’t have even a bone left.’
The true malice of hell was incomparable to this place. Even Dalen, who had fought demons and slain dragons, would find his soul and body shredded within minutes there.
Hell was a place where demons, who devoured countless humans, could suddenly meet their end. Among Dalen’s hundreds of characters, fewer than ten had ever set foot in the real hell.
‘The sorcery that summons the shadow of hell into reality merely copies the appearance and some attributes of the true hell, overlaying it like a barrier on reality.’
It’s like pasting a degraded version of hell onto the canvas of reality.
Thinking it a frivolous analogy, Dalen slowly drew upon the power of the holy sword.
A rumble echoed as the Sword of Thunder, Tortanis, began to resonate with the thunderous sound from beyond the realm of imagination.
There was no need to hold back any longer. In the previous battle, he hadn’t killed the vice-captain in one blow because there was a slim chance of redemption. But according to his experience from hundreds of iterations, a vice-captain who had fallen this far would never return to the knights’ side.
Perhaps he had walked too far down this path.
If only one in ten dark mages could summon the power of a demon, then a user of the forbidden art that summons the shadow of hell was one in a hundred.
Receiving such privilege and power from the dark god in such a short time meant that most of his existence and soul had been mortgaged as the price.
As Dalen drew upon the power within the holy sword, the massive maze of plants and trees began to awaken. Thick vines slithered like snakes, and petals the size of a person flicked their long tongues between stamens and pistils.
The ground beneath his feet trembled, and eyes the size of watermelons began to open one by one.
Blink. Swivel.
The various eyes scanned the surroundings and quickly found Dalen. The plants of hell, sensing the presence of the holy sword, began to show aggression toward their owner, Dalen.
Leaves large enough to cover a grown man bristled with sharp thorns along their veins.
A fruit the size of a cart split open, revealing sharp teeth within its maw.
The moss and mushrooms, stimulated by the holy sword’s aura, began to emit poison in all directions. Not just any poison, but a plague that rotted flesh and twisted innards.
Feeling the murderous intent closing in from all sides and the plague seeping into his skin, Dalen chuckled softly.
Steam rose from his slightly parted lips. White smoke began to emanate simultaneously from his nose, ears, eyes, and skin.
The regenerative factor of dragon’s blood was countering the plague’s aura, healing the dying cells.
Dalen calmly raised the holy sword. He drove the blade into one of the large eyes blinking beneath his feet.
――!
―――!!
The sky and earth screamed.
The Illusion Palace of Lapilem. Even within it, the Sunken Garden was a bizarre place where the sky and earth were composed of the dark god’s pet plants.
All the plants here were interconnected, so attacking one was akin to attacking them all.
In other words, it was an assault on the world itself.
Vines bristling with thorns shot out from all directions, trying to ensnare Dalen.
A massive fruit lunged with its maw wide open, attempting to swallow the intruder whole.
Despite the venomous thorns and triple-layered teeth, Dalen showed no fear. Instead, he grinned fiercely, his lips curling into a savage smile.
Why did he know this place? It wasn’t for any other reason.
After losing the paladin character he had painstakingly nurtured, he had spent countless hours strategizing to conquer this fragment of hell he had never encountered before.
And all that research and trial and error had not been in vain.
The paladin’s corpse, lying at the dungeon’s bottom, became a beacon of hope and a goal to shatter this hell.
The dozens of hours spent studying the grotesqueness of hell empowered him with strategies to pursue that goal.
With a swift slash, the sword’s edge unleashed a storm of destructive energy, slicing through hundreds of vines in an instant.
Boom! Crash!
Each step on the massive tree trunk propelled him upward, crushing the eyes that sprouted from the wood and launching his body with formidable force.
Crackle!
The hand axe, drawn from his waist, danced around him, scorching the approaching branches with lightning as if protecting its master.
Dark red sap sprayed through the air.
Severed trunks and crushed fruits littered the ground.
Everywhere his sword and limbs touched became a scene of destruction, something breaking or being severed.
At first glance, it seemed like a brute force approach, but it was far from simple.
By observing the color of the fruits, he identified the type of poison they held, crushing the most toxic ones from a distance and dealing with the milder ones up close.
He calculated the movement of the vines, matching them to patterns he had studied beyond the monitor, and pierced through their formidable encirclement with well-timed strikes of lightning.
No matter how shadowy the threat, when its source was hell itself, overcoming it required not just strength, but also experience and wisdom.
And as he fought through the seemingly endless onslaught, Dalen felt it.
With each wave of attacks he broke through, the air grew thicker with malice and dark magic, more so than before.
Snap!
A vine was severed, the sensation in his hand was tough and resistant.
Boom!
Fruits exploded under his flame-wreathed feet, sprouting not just teeth but twisted limbs as well.
The more he killed, the more grotesque and powerful the plants became.
It was as if the more an ant struggled, the deeper it was pulled into the antlion’s pit, a palpable manifestation of hell’s determination not to let him go.
Dalen knew the truth.
The more he resisted, the deeper he would sink into the Abyssal Garden.
And he understood that the deepest malice at the bottom was something even a paladin, who had once held a high rank in a world on the brink of apocalypse, could not withstand.
Yet.
“Heh.”
Instead, a swelling sense of anticipation drove him forward.
At the end of this hell, where the corpse of a high-ranking knight lay, he hoped to gain unprecedented new power.
And perhaps, by accumulating such strength, he might overcome the apocalypse in this cycle.
After all, even if it was just a shadow, breaking a fragment of hell was, in a way, a small proof that he could conquer the end itself.
His paladin character, who had been drawn into the deepest trap despite bearing the flames of sanctity, would be the final piece of that proof.
Swish! Shhh!
With this thought, Dalen raised his sword against the relentless wave of vines and thorns, leaving no room to evade.
The blue blade of the holy sword shone brightly, undulled by the aura of pestilence.
The combined hunger, hatred, and anger pressed invisibly on his shoulders.
Rumble…
Thunder resonated from his steps, traveling up his legs and torso, reaching his fingertips.
Flash―!
The wave of moss and vines, crashing down like the fist of a mountain giant, split in two before a single streak of lightning.
Boom―
The storm of power surged with the flash.
The aftermath of his full-force strike did not easily subside, distorting the densely packed plants and the space beyond.
Fresh air filled his lungs.
The lightning summoned by the holy sword had pierced the ceiling of the massive barrier, creating an opening above the ruins.
He could have used his leap skill to escape the shadow of this hell, but Dalen chose not to.
He hadn’t invoked the power of the holy sword to escape safely from hell for that reason.
Step.
In the midst of the hesitant stillness, as the hellish plants slowly recovered but dared not attack immediately.
Breaking through the ever-strengthening pressure of hell, he reached the bottom of the Abyssal Garden.
[You have discovered the corpse of a paladin who lit the sacred flame at the bottom of the shadow of hell.]
Dalen saw the familiar notification window appear over the hunched, ashen corpse.
[You have recovered the corpse of the paladin who lit the sacred flame at the bottom of the shadow of hell. You inherit their abilities.]
[Inheritance Reward: Dexterity +1, Perception +1, Intelligence +1, Magic +1, Ember of Sanctity (C)]
It was time to dismantle the shadow of hell.