Chapter 405
Episode 119: The Banquet of the Sword Emperor’s Castle (10)
Kiiiiing—!
The sphere of magical energy clenched in his hand spun rapidly, emitting a sharp, piercing sound. The gray-robed mages immediately recognized the spell and hastily raised their protective barriers.
Under the dark night sky, the sphere of Reverse Heaven glowed like a moon.
Lightning struck around the sphere, relentlessly battering the gray robes’ shields.
Normally, the power of the Lightning Slash of the Mingwang Sword would be insufficient to break through their barriers. After all, these were formidable mages.
But the true problem was the power of Reverse Heaven.
The shields, which needed to be maintained with tight precision, trembled as if on the verge of collapse.
Moreover, the lightning wasn’t meant to break the shields—it was a distraction, designed to cloud their vision.
Pazjig, pazjig!
The lightning bolts scattered upon hitting the barriers, disorienting the gray robes’ eyes. Because of this, they couldn’t easily track Jin’s movements.
“Graaah!”
The bio-golems lunged at Jin. Each possessed considerable strength, but it was meaningless if they couldn’t land a hit.
Converting the lightning into suppression energy, Jin caused the charging bio-golems to falter, losing their balance for a moment.
Seizing that instant, Jin unleashed sword energy in all directions, shredding them into pieces in a flash.
A close-combat fighter who had reached the level of a superhuman, wielding magic that could easily be called that of a great mage—such crude bio-golems posed no threat to him.
“Is this also one of Jo’s creations?”
Jin asked as he focused the power of Reverse Heaven toward the gray robes.
Jo Ch’a, the cold and ruthless elder brother of Rolt Jo and leader of the Dark Magic Council, was known for creating ‘Myeongin’—golems that mimicked the Mingwang race.
“Compared to a Myeongin, these bio-golems are crude. They must have sent these deliberately—to hide the fact that the terror attack was Kinzello’s doing.”
The gray robes didn’t answer, instead concentrating their magic.
What Jin truly wanted to know was how they had produced so many bio-golems, especially as mere disposable tools.
There were about three hundred bio-golems on this plain, and the ones Jin had seen earlier at the Sword Emperor’s Castle surely numbered over ten thousand.
At minimum, that meant over ten thousand humans had been used as raw material for these bio-golems.
And it was highly likely that wasn’t the full extent.
“Someone must be helping Kinzello with human procurement.”
The numbers were too large for Kinzello to manage alone. This implied the backing of at least a high-ranking vassal state or even a kingdom.
Back when the Dark Magic Council’s headquarters were in Oterium, Kinzello barely managed to procure thousands of humans through the use of the Sword Empire.
“If possible, I’d like to capture some alive and find out, but they won’t be careless enough to give up information under torture. They must have a way to commit suicide.”
Zzzeong!
Before Jin could finish his thought, he slammed Sigmund down, breaking through the gray robes’ shields.
The gray robes, their vision obscured by the lightning, didn’t notice the moment Jin attacked.
Though the blade was deflected, the shield shattered. Fragments scattered as Jin regained his stance and thrust Sigmund deeper.
A familiar sensation of flesh and bone catching on the blade followed. Jin had pierced the shoulder of the foremost mage, while the others began casting offensive spells.
Two beams of magical energy and a Frozen Shard Sword.
Jin dodged the beams and blocked the Frozen Shard Sword with his sword energy. Shards of broken ice scraped his cheek, drawing blood.
But the gray robe whose shoulder was pierced met a fatal end. The sword energy he had deflected tore through his entire body.
“Three left.”
As the fallen mage collapsed, his hood slipped off.
Jin had never seen this face before, despite being able to recognize mages of this caliber.
Whether Bubar had disguised him or he was a mage operating in the shadows was unknown.
The Reverse Heaven sphere spun faster and faster. The mage wielding the Frozen Shard Sword coughed up blood and bent over, while the other two reformed their shields.
A magical backlash was occurring.
It seemed the fight would end without much difficulty. Though the gray robes were skilled mages, like most in the world, they were unfamiliar with fighting a magic swordsman.
Even most high-ranking warriors would find it impossible to control distance in close combat against Jin.
Mages had even fewer options. Without Reverse Heaven, they might have tried to keep their distance with other spells, but maintaining their shields left them little chance to cast anything else.
The bio-golems kept trying to restrain Jin, but whenever they got close, they were swept away like fallen leaves.
“Ugh, cough!”
The remaining two gray robes were also succumbing to the magical backlash. When it started, even Jin’s combat effectiveness dropped sharply—let alone theirs.
“Why do you look so panicked? Did you not expect this when you attacked the Sword Emperor’s Castle? I thought you came prepared to die.”
The chaos in the Sword Emperor’s Castle was only because this was a ‘terror attack.’
The gray robes, the giant monsters, and the bio-golems were not weak. They could have dealt near-apocalyptic damage to a small or medium-sized nation on their own.
But openly confronting the Sword Emperor’s Castle—especially with Ron Hiran inside—was unthinkable.
Had they come head-on instead of as terrorists, they would have been cut down by Ron’s sword, or even before Ron appeared, by Hiran’s knights.
Even setting aside the background of Bimant, Hiran’s family was among the most powerful in the world.
Shak!
Sigmund traced an arc, severing another gray robe’s right arm. The blade had glanced off the shield, but it didn’t change the fact that he was doomed.
Jin grew increasingly confident, while the mages were pushed into an endless defensive retreat.
The power of Reverse Heaven was now at its peak.
Wrinkles appeared on the hands of the mages revealed between the gray robes.
This was a common symptom when forcibly suppressing magical backlash. If it continued a little longer, their bodies would shrivel, bleeding from every orifice.
The guards behind Veradin watched Jin fight, their faces pale as death.
It felt distant and surreal that their lord had to compete against such a man.
Though there seemed to be some kind of friendship between their lord and Jin, they were ultimately Runkandel and Ziphl.
If Jin finished off the mages here and suddenly turned his blade on their lord, it wouldn’t be strange.
In fact, from the guards’ perspective, it would be more advantageous if Jin killed Veradin and them all.
Though Jin had come under Ron’s orders to rescue Veradin, he was still Runkandel.
He didn’t have to obey Ron’s orders absolutely, and with no witnesses, this was a rare chance to kill Ziphl’s heir. There was even someone to pin the blame on.
If it had been another Runkandel, no one would have spared Veradin.
As if reading their thoughts, Veradin met the guards’ eyes.
“Jin isn’t that kind of man. Wait calmly.”
Pazjig—!
With every lightning strike, the gray robes screamed.
Their shields could no longer withstand the impact, even from above.
Without needing to unleash the Mingwang Sword’s ultimate techniques or the Martial God’s power, Jin was driving the gray robes toward death with just his sword and magic.
Their breathing grew ragged, as if they were about to collapse at any moment.
Jin stared coldly at their tattered shields.
It was time to finish this.
But just as he took a step forward to deliver the killing blow—
Jin flinched and turned around.
From behind, a powerful and familiar energy was spreading.
Kurrururu…!
In an instant, the entire area was bathed in a brilliant blue light.
Turning to look, Jin saw the Sword Emperor’s Castle.
Thousands of bolts of thunder rained down upon it. Though not comparable to the tidal wave of lightning Jin had summoned in Runkandel, the scale was beyond what even a tenth-rank lightning spell could explain.
Most importantly, the thunder wasn’t magic.
“Brother’s power…!?”
The might of the Mingwang race—the strongest warrior species in history.
The thunder hammering the Sword Emperor’s Castle bore a striking resemblance to that power.
Though subtly different, even Jin was momentarily fooled by how similar the energy felt.
Myeongin.
Two words immediately came to Jin’s mind.
“Has Jo Ch’a’s Myeongin been completed? Even if it has, I thought they sent these failed bio-golems to hide Kinzello’s involvement…!”
Kuk, kukkukuk!
Amid the sudden shift, a chilling laugh echoed. It came from the dying gray robes.
“Monsters like you have always made a mockery of everything we’ve spent our lives building…”
“That’s why we decided to become monsters ourselves. Born a monster, you Runkandel’s Twelve Riders, will never understand that desperate choice until your dying breath.”
The mages tore off the gray robes that concealed their faces and bodies. When their bare chests were revealed, Jin couldn’t help but swallow hard.
Embedded in their chests were jewels resembling the ‘Light Heart’ stones.
“I suppose you hoped this power would be yours alone, Runkandel’s Twelve Riders.”
“A new world is opening. There will be no place for you in it!”
As the gems embedded in the wizards’ chests began to glow brilliantly, Jin clenched his teeth.
It wasn’t because the ‘Thunder Beast’ they were summoning held an unexpectedly overwhelming power.
It was a deep, gnawing disgust.
That unbearable, sickening feeling he had first encountered when facing the unfinished masters in Oterium.
Jin’s face twisted with rage.
“Hah.”
No matter how much the gems in their chests resembled the Radiant Heart, no matter how potent the power contained within them—
The strength they wielded was nothing but theft, a counterfeit that insulted his brothers.
“These worthless bastards… they’ve crossed every line there is.”
As if deciding they weren’t even worth watching anymore, Jin charged forward, unleashing Sigmund.
Klang!
The men, now showing physical abilities far beyond when they’d been cloaked in gray robes, struck Sigmund away with their fists.
They believed they could defeat Jin, but in the next instant—
Crack!
Jin grabbed the head of the wizard at the front with his bare hands.
As he squeezed, the man’s skull shattered, fragments scattering in all directions.