Episode 38: Aftermath (1)
Damian dispelled the darkness.
The pitch-black sky that had enveloped everything vanished in an instant, revealing the night sky in its original form.
He approached the dark, murky puddles left on the ground.
The power of the darkness was truly formidable.
Even the seventh-tier dark sorcerers had been unable to resist, losing their lives without a chance to fight back.
Their bodies, along with their clothes and belongings, had been reduced to nothing.
Damian looked up at the sky.
The dark magic, now ownerless due to their deaths, swirled chaotically above.
Given that both were high-ranking seventh-tier dark sorcerers, the amount of dark magic was immense.
Damian absorbed all the dark magic, storing it in his bracelet. The bracelet now held an enormous amount of power.
It seemed to be about five times the amount he had gained from killing Agito.
“Oh, I forgot to ask about Dorgo.”
In the heat of the moment, he had acted without thinking ahead.
But just because they were dead didn’t mean there was no way to learn about Dorgo.
In fact, there were often more ways to extract information from the dead.
However, Damian preferred not to resort to such methods.
“Well, it can’t be helped.”
He reached out toward the puddles. From them, two pale, misty forms emerged.
Two gray, smoke-like orbs hovered slowly above his palm.
-Screeeech!
-Screeeech!
The orbs emitted horrific screams.
These were none other than the souls of Mustang Fury and Rebecca.
Manipulating souls was one of the greatest atrocities committed by dark sorcerers.
They often used souls in various dark magic rituals.
Normally, souls cycle through life and death, reincarnating.
But souls used in dark magic are consumed and eventually destroyed.
It was as if a person was completely erased from existence.
That’s why Damian was reluctant to use this method.
Yet, as he extracted the souls, he felt no guilt.
Perhaps it was because these were the souls of vile dark sorcerers.
“You’ll spill everything you know.”
Using dark magic, Damian forcibly extracted the memories from the two souls.
-Aaagh! Nooo!
-Screeeech! Nooo!
The souls writhed in agony, but Damian did not stop.
Their memories flowed into his mind.
-I am Archlich Dorgo.
And within those memories, Damian Haxen saw the face he so despised.
-You’ve probably heard of me. Most of the dark magic you practice has passed through my hands.
Seeing Dorgo’s face again, a surge of murderous intent rose within him. Damian suppressed it with effort.
Now was not the time to give in to anger. He needed information about Dorgo.
-I’ve watched your exploits for a long time. You’re quite skilled. I have a task for you.
-I aim to build an empire for dark sorcerers, a sanctuary for those persecuted.
At those words, Damian Haxen couldn’t help but laugh.
“An empire for dark sorcerers? What a load of nonsense.”
Dorgo’s true goal was the annihilation of humanity, dark sorcerers included.
He had used them and then slaughtered them at the end of the war.
-To achieve my goal, I need to weaken the nations. Go to the Apple Kingdom and sow chaos.
That was the extent of the meeting between Yuran’s dark sorcerers and Dorgo.
It was a single encounter, but Mustang Fury and Rebecca had diligently carried out Dorgo’s orders.
Their attack on the Goldpixie Duchy was part of that plan.
“No more information, it seems.”
Unfortunately, that was all the information these two had.
There was no clue on how to meet Dorgo, which Damian desperately wanted to know.
“I was foolish to expect anything from these small fry.”
Dorgo had moved so secretly that he left no trace for thousands of years.
There was no way he could be caught so easily.
“I need to find and kill him as soon as possible.”
Dorgo was roaming the world, trying to bring his apocalyptic plans to fruition.
Damian’s encounter with Dorgo in his past life had been purely by chance.
Even if he returned to that place, there was no guarantee he would find Dorgo again.
“Is there anything else?”
Still unwilling to give up, Damian continued to search the souls.
Each probe with dark magic elicited more screams.
“What’s this?”
Amidst the memories, he found something intriguing.
A memory of Yuran’s leaders moving something in a cave.
“A secret stash, huh.”
Yuran had amassed considerable wealth while operating in the Apple Kingdom.
But as fugitives, they couldn’t carry it all with them.
So they had created a dungeon deep in the mountains to store their treasures.
“I should check it out later.”
Having gathered all the necessary information, Damian stopped probing the souls.
As the torment ceased, he sensed the souls’ relief.
Once a deep gray, the souls were now noticeably faded.
The dark magic had severely weakened them.
“Is Sir Sebastian still alive?”
As Damian muttered to himself, a loud noise echoed from afar.
It meant Sebastian Vincenzo was still alive.
“Oh, he’s still kicking.”
With a satisfied smile, Damian infused the souls with dark magic.
The souls screamed once more.
“When you performed the procedure on Ernst Horwitz, you implanted a mark of obedience, right? Send a signal to Ernst Horwitz to trigger the dark magic.”
The souls immediately obeyed Damian’s command.
Using the dark magic he had infused, they sent a signal to Ernst Horwitz.
The distant explosions fell silent. Proof that the command had been received.
“Good work. As a reward, I’ll set you free.”
Damian clenched the souls tightly. They let out a final cry before vanishing.
He dusted his hands off as if ridding them of filth.
The battle was over, but Damian’s work was not yet done.
“Huff, huff, huff.”
Sebastian Vincenzo panted heavily.
His body was covered in wounds, and his clothes were stained red with blood.
“Sir Sebastian, you look exhausted.”
Ernst Horwitz smirked as he spoke.
Despite his relaxed demeanor, he too bore injuries.
Sebastian’s occasional counterattacks had left their mark.
But compared to the near-collapse of Sebastian, Ernst was in much better shape.
“I didn’t expect you to hold out this long against me. Truly admirable.”
“Admirable, you say… I find it disgraceful.”
“You should be confident. I’m so strong now, it’s frightening.”
Sebastian scoffed at that.
“It’s disgraceful to be pushed back by someone who only knows brute strength and magic.”
A knight’s strength isn’t just about speed and power.
It’s about mastering technique.
Sword, spear, axe, and more.
A knight hones their weapon skills to the extreme and grasps the truth beyond.
A knight who understands this truth can cleave the sea and split mountains.
That’s why knights are feared.
And what of Ernst Horwitz?
He had no technical improvement. He had merely enhanced his physical abilities and magic power.
That’s why he hadn’t been able to kill Sebastian Vincenzo yet.
“Still haven’t learned your lesson?”
Ernst Horwitz’s face twisted with anger.
He assumed a stance, red aura gathering at the tip of his spear.
Seeing this, Sebastian Vincenzo steeled himself.
He was ready to die here, but he intended to take Ernst Horwitz with him.
Sebastian gathered his aura.
He poured all his skills and insights into his sword.
In the darkness, Sebastian’s aura shone brightly.
“You’re trying hard, but it’s useless.”
Ernst Horwitz sneered.
Then, suddenly.
“Ugh!”
Ernst Horwitz choked.
“Gah! Ugh! Gah!”
He began to convulse.
He dropped his spear and clawed at his body with his fingers.
“Aaagh!”
Black smoke started pouring from the holes in his face.
Sebastian Vincenzo immediately recognized it.
It was dark magic.
“No…! No!”
As the dark magic drained away, Ernst Horwitz’s muscles shriveled, and his hair turned white.
In an instant, he became an old man and collapsed to the ground.
“Huff, huff.”
Watching the struggling Ernst Horwitz, Sebastian Vincenzo blinked in disbelief.
”…Am I alive?”
By dawn, reinforcements from the duchy arrived.
Two mid-class and five low-class knights had come.
The group arrived to find the forest utterly devastated, leaving them speechless.
What was even more astonishing was that not a single person had died in the attack.
Sebastian Vincenzo was severely injured, but his life wasn’t in danger.
Damian Haxen, on the other hand, was completely unscathed. He had even managed to kill two dark sorcerers.
“How on earth did you take down those two? From what the knights said, they weren’t ordinary foes.”
Two mid-level knights approached Damian, who was resting, and asked.
Damian shrugged it off as if it were nothing.
“I just dodged them well enough and then beheaded them.”
The knights glanced at the shattered forest in disbelief.
He dodged such powerful dark magic just like that?
“The spells were strong, but their execution was sloppy. They must have used some method to amplify their power.”
The two knights nodded in agreement.
Dark sorcerers often resorted to dubious means to enhance their magic’s potency.
But power gained that way was never reliable.
It often came with drawbacks, like slower casting speeds or reduced activation chances.
“I don’t see the sorcerers’ bodies anywhere.”
“See those two puddles over there? Those are the bodies. As soon as I beheaded them, they just melted away.”
Dark sorcerers had many secrets, and it wasn’t uncommon for them to conceal themselves like this.
Still, one of the knights found it hard to believe.
“I know you’re skilled, but… I can’t fathom how you dodged such large-scale dark magic.”
“Oh, do you really need to see it to believe it?”
Damian vanished from sight, reappearing behind the knight.
His movement was so swift that even mid-level knights had to focus to track it.
Seeing this, the knight finally understood Damian’s explanation.
“Truly impressive. How do you possess such skills at such a young age?”
To the knight’s question, Damian replied nonchalantly.
“Because I’m a genius.”
The knight looked at Damian Haxen with an expression that said he found him insufferable.