༺ Empty Space ༻
“Push! Push it!”
“Aaaaah!!”
Under the command of S-rank adventurer Louis, the adventurers of Shubaltsheim pushed their shields forward in unison.
“Grrrrr…!”
“Clang! Clack!”
Boom! Thud!
Skeletons and zombies that were climbing the fortress wall were struck by the shields and fell down.
Even though they were undead, the height was significant enough to shatter their bodies and kill them. However, there was no time to feel satisfied as an equal number of undead began climbing back up the fortress wall.
[Screeeeeeam-!]
“It’s a banshee! No! Swords don’t work on them!”
“Don’t panic maintain formation! Hold your positions and endure to the end!”
Swoosh!
[Shrieeeeek-!!!]
Louis drew his Aura Sword and sliced the incoming banshee in two with a single stroke. Unable to withstand the swordsmanship of a Master class, the banshee instantly turned to ash and vanished.
However, even more specters and ghosts were flying overhead in greater numbers.
“Damn it…”
He thought they could handle it. Just until last night, that was.
It wasn’t as if they had voluntarily entered a dangerous dungeon; it was a defensive battle where they only had to hold out for a few days until reinforcements from the empire arrived.
A whopping 30,000 skilled adventurers who were well-versed in fighting the undead. If you include the city’s militia and volunteers, the number exceeded 50,000. Considering that defense is easier than offense, they should have been able to easily repel the first wave of undead.
However, the number of enemies was simply impossible to count.
Over the past few days, the fire traps that had been meticulously prepared, the walls that dwarves had heavily fortified and the barriers that priests had erected with their divine powers, all were horrifically destroyed simply by the overwhelming numbers of the undead filling the horizon.
It wasn’t that they had no effect. At the very least, they must have killed tens of thousands. But this was merely akin to scooping a few bucketfuls of water from a lake. In other words, there was no noticeable change.
In the end, all they could rely on were the weapons in their hands and the comrades fighting beside them, and so they had desperately held out for half a day. But now they were reaching their limits.
What truly drove Louis to despair was neither the countless number of undead nor the allies who were gradually dying as the battle wore on.
What made him despair was the existence of a single dark wizard, leading the undead forces from a place far removed from the city.
Louis had participated in the previous war, so he could recognize it. Although he had never seen it with his own eyes, in all the history of the continent, there was only one necromancer capable of controlling nearly a million undead. Just facing these numbers of undead made it even harder not to think of that name.
An elf dark wizard, more commonly known now as the Immortal Corps Commander, but known among the citizens of the Kingdom of Ionia only by the nickname “The Immortal King” since his real name was not disclosed.
‘How are we supposed to deal with that…?’
Had he survived without dying? Or had he resurrected after the war had ended five years ago? There was neither the time to find out nor the luxury to consider it.
Fortunately or unfortunately, the Immortal Corps Commander kept sending undead but did not move himself. Nevertheless, Louis felt that overcoming this desperate situation would be impossible without at least one of the Seven Heroes present.
‘…Just how many have we killed? How much longer do we have to hold out?’
The number of undead that he had personally slain must have easily been in the hundreds. Without rest and continually expending his aura, Louis was nearly depleted of his magic power. Even though they had seemingly repelled tens of thousands while holding the wall, the number of undead filling the horizon appeared no different from when the fight first began.
His throat felt like it was boiling with blood rather than phlegm due to yelling encouragements to his subordinates all day, and he felt severe nausea and dizziness from dehydration.
A single sip of water was desperately needed. Louis reached out his arm to his adjutant.
“Jaden, water…”
But what came flying in response was not an answer, but his adjutant’s sword.
“Gasp!”
Instinctively tilting his head, Louis narrowly dodged the sword looking at his adjutant in shock. His adjutant’s eyes had rolled back, revealing the blood-red sclera.
Classic symptoms of spirit possession. Even his adjutant, capable of using Body strengthening techniques, couldn’t withstand the prolonged battle and had been overtaken by a ghost.
“Dammit, someone get a priest…!”
He realized mid-sentence. All the priests had been deployed to maintain the holy barrier in the city center. Furthermore, the barrier had already been shattered so even if they brought a priest, it was highly unlikely that they would have any divine power left to expend.
“I’m sorry!”
His judgment was quick, and his decision was ruthless. The head of his adjutant, with whom he had spent years, flew through the air.
But there was no time to mourn that fact. A horde of undead who had climbed up the city walls swarmed over Louis. These weren’t ordinary zombies but higher-grade undead like ghouls and skeleton knights, and the subordinates who could have shielded him were either already dead or had fled.
It was a situation utterly devoid of hope, but Louis clenched his sword handle even tighter.
“Come at me, you rotting pieces of meat!”
A radiant aura spread all around him. It was a light of death that cut down everything it touched. But like a candle burning brightest just before it goes out, Louis’ aura was nothing more than a desperate attempt, squeezing out his depleted magical power.
Soon the aura dispersed into thin air. leaving him with nothing but a well-crafted sword and a body worn to the limit.
Crash! To make matters worse, the sound of something breaking could be heard from below. It meant that the defense led by S-rank adventurers, the Dwarf Bane guild guarding the city gates, had collapsed.
The plains tribe’s Mark, an S-rank adventurer who was responsible for guerrilla warfare, and his guild members were nowhere to be seen. Had they been alive, they would have come to help. The fact that they hadn’t meant they were either restrained somewhere or had already died.
With a hollow laugh, Louis spoke.
“Is this the end for me…?”
Even if that was the case, Louis gripped his sword resolved not to die easily. However, Louis had only two hands, and it was impossible to fend off the undead attacking from all sides with just a sword that had no aura left.
After decapitating about three ghouls with skulls as hard as steel, he saw the claws of another ghoul aiming for his neck.
Louis felt the unavoidable presence of death.
“Haah!”
Just at that moment, someone with a sword dashed in like a bolt of lightning and quickly slaughtered the surrounding ghouls.
Swish!
A small frame allowed for nimble movements. Precise and efficient sword strikes.
“Are you alright?”
“You, you are…?”
The person who had saved Louis was none other than Gwyn.
Caught off guard, Louis, who had never expected to be saved by a student, asked in surprise.
“Th-thank you. I owe you my life. But shouldn’t you be in the shelter? Weren’t you evacuated?”
“We were. But sitting there, I thought we’d all die if things continued like this. Haah!”
As she spoke, Gwyn continued to swing her sword.
Her swordsmanship was honest and straightforward. With unflashy movements, every swing of her sword took an undead life with precision.
Louis was amazed to sense that the aura emanating from Gwyn’s sword was only at an intermediate to advanced level in Body strengthening techniques. The power she displayed shouldn’t have been possible with just that level of aura.
His seasoned eye honed by long experience, recognized that her straightforward movements were part of some extraordinary swordsmanship. After realizing this, looking at her grip on the sword, it somehow felt familiar.
‘Could that be the Rock Sword…?’
Louis had had the opportunity to witness the sword saint’s sword just once by sheer chance. The feeling he got from that sword and this student’s sword were eerily similar, albeit with clear differences.
The sword saint’s sword looked heavy yet was overflowing with power, whereas the student’s sword was light yet precise. It was as if he was seeing a new swordsmanship technique derived from the Rock Sword.
The skill and talent seemed hard to believe for someone of that age. Louis pondered if this student could be the rumored disciple of the sword saint, but it didn’t particularly shake his emotions. After all, it wouldn’t change anything.
“…I appreciate the help, but if you want to live even a little longer go back to the shelter immediately. This city is already done for. One person coming won’t change—”
“I didn’t come alone.”
“What?”
Instead of a reply, what answered him was a deafening roar.
“Whooooah!! Holy mother of god, watch over me—!!”
A man at least one and a half times larger than an average person ran across the city wall, wildly swinging a steel axe. The undead hit by the blade were torn apart as if they were minced meat.
“Argh! Do you know how much trouble I went through to make this!”
Below the city gate, a red-haired student was rapidly throwing something. Soon after, meticulously crafted golems holding shields rose from the ground and began to block the gate. There were only a few dozen, but the effect was significant. Each golem demonstrated strength comparable to an adventurer trained in Body strengthening techniques.
But that wasn’t all. A student with Middle Eastern-looking skin and another student with gray hair and a noble demeanor wearing glasses, were also wielding their swords against the undead.
“Let’s see how good you are with the royal fencing technique of Al-Kamil?”
“Speak for yourself, don’t slow me down!”
Despite their occasional bickering, their teamwork was spot-on.
While the efforts of Gwyn and the others were anything but what one would expect from students, Louis could only briefly admire them; he still couldn’t afford to be optimistic about the situation.
“…There are a million undead outside the city. Just because you’re good with a sword doesn’t mean you can turn this situation around”
At that moment, a bright light flashed overhead. Then a massive booming sound drowned out all other noises around them.
Kwaaang! Kwaaang!!
A colossal bolt of lightning that resembled a natural disaster struck down outside the city. It looked as if the sky itself was angry. Each time the lightning struck, it indiscriminately incinerated everything in its vicinity from zombies and skeletons to ghouls and banshees.
“……”
That lightning was emanating from the fingertips of a girl floating in the sky.
Louis couldn’t hide his astonished expression and opened his mouth wide as he shouted,
“…Why on earth did you only bring that girl now!”
