Chapter 104: 058. Imperial Prince Saw Him -2 (Part Two)
It’s running away!?
You want to see me again later? Bloody hell, that thing’s planning to pay me a visit in the future! Anyone would be able to tell that guy was quite pissed off!
I couldn’t afford to let it escape like this.
I quickly chased it down into the alleyway.
After offering one more prayer, I injected divinity into the musket.
Meanwhile, the Blue Santas pounced on the fleeing Lich. They raised their machetes and leapt up before hacking down.
However, the undead Lich easily handled them all.
It loaded demonic energy into the staff and waved it around, activating various hexes. The Blue Santas either turned into ashes and scattered away, or rotted away to nothing.
The Lich dispassionately glared at the Blue Santas trying to block its path.
One of the Santas began swinging its machete, but the Lich simply ducked lower to evade the attack and reached out to grab the bearded undead’s head – before easily crushing it.
The Lich powerfully flung the sagging headless corpse at the other Blue Santas afterwards.
More Santas scaled and ran on the walls on both sides to pounce on the Lich’s position, but the latter expertly wielded its staff and beat them all down. And with its free hand, it grabbed a wayward Santa before slamming the undead hard on the ground.
Since I was currently sharing the visions of the Blue Santas, it allowed me to observe the Lich’s movements.
This thing’s skill level was simply extraordinary. Not only was it adept at magic, Nasus the Lich was also very good at hand-to-hand combat as well.
Eventually, though, its movement had to come to a halt.
It had run into a dead-end, that’s why. It looked back only to discover the numerous Blue Santas standing on the rooftops and the alleyway itself.
I too stepped into the very same street by then.
I quickly raised the musket in my hand and took aim.
“Checkmate, pal.”
The undead Lich belatedly raised its staff, but it was too late by then.
I had already squeezed the trigger.
The holy bullet penetrated cleanly through the Lich’s skull right where it stood.
The bones that used to be its head exploded to bits and rained down on the surroundings, leaving behind only its jawbone.
The undead Lich stumbled ungainly before clattering against the wall behind it. Then, the whole pile of bones simply crumbled down.
“…The end?”
No, hang on. The stench was still here.
Besides, if it was the Progenitor Vampire Count instead, that one little hit wouldn’t have killed it.
That’s how powerful this existence wa…?!
-Let us meet again next time, little pup.
The undead Lich’s finger suddenly began moving. This bony finger scratched a magical circle on the ground in the blink of an eye, then injected demonic energy into it.
-When that time comes, I shall personally dissect you. I will definitely uncover the source of your unique power.
In an instant, both the undead Lich and its staff seemingly broke down to tiny little particles before disappearing from the spot altogether.
No, the Lich hadn’t been erased from existence. That was simply the result of a teleportation-type magic spell called ‘Warp’.
Not only was it one of the highest-tier magic spells out there, only a small handful of people were capable of using it in the entire continent, too.
On top of that, the Lich was able to complete and activate the magic circle in a matter of seconds to successfully escape from here without leaving behind any traces.
I clenched my teeth hard at this sight.
Son of a b*tch!
A creature that I couldn’t afford to let go managed to slip through my fingers and escape from my net.
It said ‘abducted its underlings’, which implied that the Lich was aware of me kidnapping the Necromancers. Which also meant that the undead was a member of the Black order, too.
What did Harman tell me before? That even if the Black Order attacked in droves, they couldn’t even injure the Progenitor Vampire Count?
Horsesh*t.
We’ve been underestimating our enemies’ strength up until now.
Besides all that, Aslan was still denying having any ties to the Black Order, right? But if they were really unconnected, then I wouldn’t have seen all that nonsense about the glory of Aslan or whatever in the Lich’s status window.
Through this event, I definitely learned that the ‘Black Order’ was not a piffling little organisation at all. No, they actually belonged to the kingdom of Aslan.
This meant that my enemy was the whole of Aslan.
**
(TL: In 3rd person POV.)
In the underground floor of a nondescript house near the city of Humite.
On top of a magic circle with mysterious rune letters inscribed within, countless individual particles began rapidly gathering into one solid mass.
Eventually, it became the undead Lich wearing a robe and gripping Amon’s Staff.
The creature raised its head. Even its shattered skull had reverted back to how it was by then. It got up from the spot but its legs suddenly wobbled and creaked noisily.
Nasus grasped its regenerated skull.
‘His attack was far stronger than I thought.’
It should’ve been nothing more than some minor damage to its physical body. But even then, it still suffered from a tremendous impact force. The projectile containing divinity was so frighteningly strong that even the Lich’s soul was shaken up.
It could’ve been truly dangerous if it had allowed the boy to fire another round.
The human referred to as the Theocratic Empire’s angel – the Imperial Family had been taming such a monstrous creature, was that it?
“…And you finally showed up.”
The special envoy Haima was standing before Nasus. His complexion was flushing red from anger.
Several Necromancers stood next to him as if to act as his guards while wielding swords in their right hands and magic staves held in their left.
“I have something to ask you, Nasus. Our fellow priests found in Humite’s plaza, was that your handiwork?”
The undead Nasus ignored Haima and simply walked past the group.
However, Haima continued to roar at Nasus. “I’m speaking to you right now! How dare you besmirch the great name of Aslan like this?!”
The envoy angrily reached out and grabbed the Lich’s shoulder.
“Not only that, you dare to make a move without making a report first? You are nothing more than a mere puppet, so how dare you think that you can do whatever you please?!”
As if it belatedly recalled something, Nasus quickly waved its hand around in the air. Its bony hand slipped into a seemingly empty space and then began extracting several documents from there.
The Lich proceeded to scan through each and every document it found.
When it continued ignoring Haima, the envoy couldn’t hold back anymore and stepped in front of the Lich. “How dare a measly little undead Lich try to oppose living humans! We had to sacrifice one hundred noble priests just to create you, yet to think the end product was a defect rubbish like this!”
Haima gnashed his teeth, but in the meantime, the undead Lich finally found a document it was looking for.
The crimson glow in its eye sockets narrowed as if the information contained within proved to be very interesting.
“I shall report your actions to Aslan without a doubt. Also, I now hereby rescind all of your controlling authority over the Black Order. We shall dispose of you at a later…”
Nasus suddenly spun around and grabbed the envoy’s throat, lifting the latter easily off the ground.
“Wha-what…keok?!”
The guards on either side of the envoy tried to rush in, but then the eerie glow within Nasus’s eyes powerfully gushed out.
The bodies of all the Necromancers froze up where they stood. But that lasted for only a brief moment; their flesh began rotting away and desperate screams escaped from their mouths.
The special envoy Haima’s complexion paled instantly as he watched his escorts wither and die.
He shifted his terrified eyes back to Nasus, the undead Lich.
-I do not serve the god of death. No, I exist solely for the glorious kingdom of Aslan.
“W-what was that?!”
-Tell me, dear envoy. What have you done so far for the everlasting glory of Aslan?
Nasus tossed the envoy away, and then lifted up its staff to pointing at Haima.
The latter remained on his butt and ungainly scampered back in fear. “W-wait! I’m the special envoy from Aslan! Your action of disobeying me is the same as disobeying the will of his majesty, our noble king Rahamma!”
-His majesty has already bestowed unto me all the necessary authority.
“W-what?!”
-And so, from this moment on, I will be in charge.
“…”
-Once the banquet starts, your role will be to secure the Third Imperial Prince and block the movement of the Order of the Golden Cross. Meanwhile, I shall eliminate both the city of Humite and the source of our headaches.
Nasus cocked its head to the side and withdrew the staff.
-At the same time, the great wall of the Theocratic Empire that surrounds Aslan will be destroyed. A thousand members of the Necromancy Corps, fifty thousand undead army they have summoned, fifteen thousand elite troops of Aslan, and finally, another fifty thousand slave soldiers will march into the empire’s territory.
“…”
Haima’s brows shot up high.
He already knew that the plan was to invade the Theocratic Empire sooner rather than later. But the scale of the invading troop Nasus mentioned was on a completely different realm than the information he knew.
This… this was no doubt a frontal warfare.
-We now have our pretext. On the day you arrived at the city, I’ve selected two priests and a high-ranking noble as our glorious sacrifices. That alone should suffice.
More importantly, no one else knew the truth of what Nasus had done – other than Haima and the Lich itself. However, if some signs of this matter getting out were to be detected, then Nasus would simply dispose of the envoy as a sacrificial lamb and that would be the end of it.
The Lich smiled with its eyes.
-As such, we shall make this verdant land the new territory of Aslan. And…
Nasus looked down at the document one more time, its glowing eyes arching so much that they now resembled a pair of crescent moons.
-We may get our hands on an existence that can dominate the devotees of the Theocratic Empire.
The piece of parchment currently held in Nasus’s hand contained information regarding an assassination request the Black Order had accepted a while ago.
-The seventh grandson of the Holy Emperor, Allen Olfolse.
The information was about the Seventh Imperial Prince, Allen Olfolse.
The one making the request was ‘Rose Darina’ – the mother of the Third Imperial Prince.
The request originally said to kill a powerless little child. But then, the end result turned out to be rather different.
That boy was not some little hatchling.
Not only was he a powerful existence, the most concerning thing about him was actually the unique ability he possessed. It was something that could pose an immense threat to Aslan’s future.
An existence that relied on divinity to perform Necromancy.
A being of contradiction who commanded both life and death.
A medium that could ‘unify’ two disparate religions into one.
Just like the rumour had said, he was…
-The ‘angel’, is it?
…An angel-like existence.
If the foundation of the boy’s powers could be understood, then the resulting impact would be felt not just in Aslan, but even within the Theocratic Empire as well.
That boy… Aslan definitely needed to secure that boy no matter what.
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