Chapter 184: Decisive Battle (4)
Santea, Calderic, Adessa—while there was a slight time difference in their encounters with the demon forces, in terms of scale, they happened nearly simultaneously.
While Calderic was in the midst of continuing the war, a fierce battle was also unfolding in the south of the Great Plain.
“Engrave Adessa’s pride into the filthy demons’ bones! Make them pay the price for defiling our forests!”
Beastmen fought with demons amidst the chaos.
The forms of countless spirits stretched across the sky, controlled by the elves.
Having suffered two major attacks from the demons, Adessa was no less determined than Santea.
When their weapons broke, they tore their enemies apart with their claws and teeth.
Even as they fell from exhaustion, they would bite and tear at the enemy until the last moment.
The spirit mages fought just as fiercely as these warriors.
Many pushed themselves to the brink, blood flowing from eyes, noses, and mouths, and those cornered by the enemy used the power of the spirits to self-destruct, taking the enemies with them until their last breath.
In the center of the battlefield, Udakbat, the beastman chieftain, and Shandra, the Elf chieftain, were battling two archdemons.
Bandapmoshan, fourth in rank.
Valach, fifth in rank.
It was they who blocked the two chieftains who were driving the demons back more than anyone else.
Kwaah!
Giant plant stalks stretched out from the ground and surrounded Udakbat.
Udakbat swung his crescent blade.
The sweeping arc of the blade cut through the stalks.
As he leaped, trampling on the falling fragments and charging like a beast, ripples spread through the empty space around him.
Udakbat leaped backward in a blur of motion.
Out of nowhere, plant stalks shot out of the rippling air and struck the place where he had just been.
More plant stalks followed suit, sticking to him confusingly.
Udakbat cut down the stalks on his left as he flew.
A blast of wind from elsewhere defended his right side, slicing through the stalks.
Paaaa!
This time, flowers bloomed from the stems of the plants on the ground, and they began to emit a thick cloud of yellow pollen.
Udakbat sensed the unfamiliar energy in the pollen and intuited that even a slight touch could be lethal.
Simultaneously, a massive whirlwind surged.
The whirlwind encircled Udakbat, blowing away all the pollen and safely guiding him down to the ground.
“Tsk.”
Landing on the ground with the wind, Udakbat clicked his tongue and sighed.
Then Shandra descended beside him.
Above her head, the great spirit of wind flickered.
“Not an easy situation.”
Shandra murmured, her gaze fixed on the rampant plant stems sweeping across the area and the two archdemons beyond.
Bandapmoshan’s ability was to summon and freely manipulate enormous plants.
And Valach’s ability was to distort space.
The plant stalks were not just large but incredibly tough, and contact led to the absorption of mana, limiting their movement.
Plus, the mysterious pollen.
With Valach’s spatial ability added to the mix, the chaotic attacks from all directions made the situation extremely challenging.
The only silver lining seemed to be that, apart from those two, there didn’t appear to be any other archdemons around.
The southern part was not the main base where the Demon King was located.
If they could defeat just those two high-ranking archdemons, the war would have turned into a victory for Adessa.
Of course, even if they achieved victory here, the war wouldn’t be over.
Unless the Demon King was killed, the demon forces would remain formidable, no matter how many archdemons were slain.
Therefore, they had to quickly finish this battle and head to support the side where the Demon King was.
“If you can block the spatial attacks as much as possible, I’ll break through the rest on my own so we can get closer.”
“Understood.”
Shandra created a path of wind in the air.
Riding that path, Udakbat charged through the plant stalks.
Once again, a fierce battle began.
***
Dreadful.
Blood, screams, corpses, agony.
Kaen looked down at the battlefield with empty eyes.
Whether by their own will or the will of others, everyone was fighting for their lives.
While some were paralyzed by fear, others remained unyielding in their determination, even until the moment of death.
For the nation, for family, for faith.
Or perhaps for revenge.
If there had been at least something to protect, what kind of heart could one have fought with?
She would never know.
Before the war began, she had pondered such thoughts.
Moving to face the advancing demons alone, as Aindel had done, was an option.
Not only did she dislike the idea of many people dying, but it was also her immature sense of revenge towards Aindel.
But in the end, it didn’t come to that.
Kaen shifted his gaze to the other side of the enemy lines.
A massive and overt energy that seemed to overlook the entire battlefield.
It was the presence of the Demon King.
The main stronghold where the Demon King was situated turned out to be the demon forces in the central direction, which was exactly what Kaen had hoped for.
However, the reason Kaen hadn’t joined the battle yet was due to Nuremberg’s obstruction.
“How long do we have to wait?”
Nuremberg, who stood by Kaen with a determined face, answered.
“Wait until the Demon King makes a move first.”
The enemy was the Demon King, an opponent against whom even the power of the absolute Holy Sword could not guarantee victory against.
Observe the opponent’s actions and respond accordingly.
It was a natural way to start the battle a little more advantageously.
The demons divided their forces into three, so the size of their troops itself was in favor of Santea.
Of course, if the Demon King or the archdemons were to join the battle, numbers wouldn’t mean much, but at least until then, there was no need to move first.
If one was willing to bear the sacrifices of the soldiers who were still dying miserably within sight even now, then yes, this was the best strategy.
Nuremberg had a firm resolve before the war began.
No matter what sacrifices they had to make, they would kill the Demon King and definitely see the end of this hell.
“…I’m done waiting.”
But even so, Kaen was not like Nuremberg.
Out of respect for him as an ally of Aindel, she listened to him, but her patience was wearing thin.
Kaen, who summoned the Holy Sword, leapt high into the sky.
Nuremberg gazed at that sight.
He knew she’d been patient enough to wait this long, so he didn’t think much of it and prepared to fight himself.
“Please emerge victorious, Kaen.”
Flash!
A wave of golden light cleaved the battlefield in half.
The swept-up demons were eradicated in an instant.
And in their place, a massive chasm appeared.
Kaen gracefully descended into that spot and began to walk.
“……”
The demons on either side of the path were paralyzed with fear, and no one dared to move.
Amidst the ongoing battle, where blood continued to splatter on the front lines, a bizarre and absurd spectacle unfolded in the midst of the demon camp.
If the Demon King had been synonymous with terror for humanity, then for demons, the hero was equally such a presence.
Furthermore, they couldn’t understand how the hero they were certain had died was still alive.
Kaen kept walking.
Toward where he could feel the aura of the Demon King. Before long, someone appeared and blocked her path.
It was Honka, the second-ranked archdemon, with a head and horns resembling a goat.
“Who are you?”
Honka asked Kaen.
On the day when the hero had attacked Altelore alone, all the archdemons had been present.
And they had watched carefully.
The figure of the hero who had died by the Demon King’s hand, who had vanished without a trace, turned to ash.
Just as Santea, Calderic, and Adessa had scouted the demons’ movements, the demons had continued to use their spies to learn about the world outside of Altelore.
Of course, even during their advance.
And until the war began, there hadn’t been any ripple in Saintea regarding the deaths of warriors. Naturally, Honka scoffed and believed that they were hiding the truth to prevent chaos.
But the hero was alive.
Not some fake. The power felt from the Holy Sword was real.
Kaen raised the Holy Sword without a word.
Honka urgently summoned his power.
His crimson aura covered the surroundings densely.
Saaaah!
However, it was just a single blow.
The third strongest demon’s power couldn’t even temporarily stop the divine power of the Holy Sword.
A golden line carved through the air, slicing Honka in half.
Kaan took another step.
The more she walked, the further the surrounding demons receded, and a vast space was created.
Finally, she reached the end and stopped.
Standing alone, there was a demon with an appearance not much different from that of a human.
The Demon King stared at Kaen for a moment and then spoke.
“It did seem strange.”
“……”
“There’s no way Santea, bereft of the hero, would choose to march separately from the other two factions. They’d be annihilated. There must be a compelling reason behind it.”
The Demon King asked.
“Who are you?”
“The hero. The successor of Aindel.”
“I see. Now everything makes sense.”
With each word, with each exchange, there was a chilling feeling seeping in.
She wanted to swing the Holy Sword right now, but Kaen refrained from doing so.
She had her own questions to ask.
“How did Aindel die in Altelore?”
The Demon King replied.
“She vanished after burning away her own life. It wasn’t a grand death.”
Kaen closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Then she asked.
“A grand death. What does a grand death mean to you?”
The Demon King found Kaen’s question somewhat unexpected.
He had thought the new hero would want to believe that the death of the previous hero had been noble, and he planned to provide a vague answer with that in mind. But now, the conversation was turning in a different direction.
“Death is just death. No matter how you dress it up, it’s meaningless.”
“Knowing that, how can you still attempt to bring about the world’s destruction?”
It was true. A dead life was nothing anymore.
They couldn’t move their limbs, savor delicious food, or converse with anyone else.
The demons were trying to turn hundreds of millions, billions of lives into nothingness.
It wasn’t for the sake of their own survival. They were just monsters driven by the instinct to annihilate.
Setting aside her anger, Kaen couldn’t genuinely comprehend the breed known as demons.
So, she wanted to ask.
“You’re a more boring human than Aindel.”
The Demon King no longer felt the worth of continuing the conversation.
Having grasped what kind of being Kaen was, his interest waned.
Both of them were beings perfectly aligned along parallel lines.
Kaen also shared the same thought and asked a different question.
“One last question. Who was the demon that watched me because of the demon’s seed I carried?”
The enemy who killed her father.
The reason that led her onto the path of being a hero. Up until now, Kaen still didn’t know his identity.
But the Demon King was in the same boat.
The Demon King wondered what Kaen was talking about.
The demon’s seed was his torn-apart soul.
It was like the window where he had watched the outside world during the long years of being sealed.
There were no memories dormant in the flesh of the human woman before his eyes.
Without answering, the Demon King reached out his hand. Darkness enveloped Kaen.
At the same time, the divine power of the Holy Sword exploded.
Kukugugugu!
The clash of the two energies spread out in ripples in all directions.
“Fine, then…”
Kaen clenched her lips and grasped the Holy Sword with both hands.
“First, I’ll cut off all your limbs. Then, I’ll ask again.”
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