Chapter 116: 064. Angel of Death -4 (Part Two)
The surrounding air expanded.
The ground both Kelt and Gallas stood on broke apart as the two men collided. A powerful blast exploded right behind the Holy Emperor and blew away all the death knights standing there.
Gallas grinned deeply.
He felt it. He felt the sensation of the blade digging into flesh!
Either the old man died instantly, or even if he somehow survived the attack, the wound itself should be too fatal to easily recover from!
With this, Holy Emperor Kelt Olfolse was…!
“…What?”
Kelt Olfolse stood upright within the dust cloud and stared at Gallas with an indifferent expression on his face.
The old man, he… had stopped the attack. Kelt’s bare hand caught the blade.
His hand was trembling a little as blood trickled down from his palm. Demonic energy had infected his fingertips and they turned black in colour, but that was as far as the attack went. The sword couldn’t dig in any further.
Gallas’s jaw nearly dropped to the floor.
He blocked that…?!
“What kind of nonsense…?!”
How could he block a sword permeating with demonic energy? And with his bare hand too…?!
While staring apathetically at the clearly-astonished Gallas, Kelt addressed him. “Didn’t you say that you want to take my head? In that case, I recommend that all of the twelve feudal lords and your king Rahamma be here. If they work together, then who knows?”
Kelt’s expression remained one of apathy as he raised the warhammer towards Galas’s head, who was currently too stunned to either advance forward nor retreat.
“They might stand a chance at killing me, then!”
The Holy Emperor tightened his grip further to obliterate the blade. And at the same time, he slammed the hammer downwards.
The Field Marshal’s head literally blew apart, and his body was vaporised in the next instant. The falling hammer collided with the ground below and yet another massive explosion went off, creating a crater at least a dozen-plus metres deep.
More death knights were blown cleanly away from the emperor’s vicinity after failing to withstand the shockwave .
Aslan’s soldiers shielded their faces from the choking, blinding dust cloud. However, they still saw what was happening.
…They saw the imposing figure of Kelt Olfolse standing upright all by himself. With only a light flesh wound on his hand, he was glaring murderously right back at them.
The soldiers no longer maintained their combat postures, the weapons in their hands dropping towards the ground.
“W-what… Just now… Lord Gallas, he…?”
“D-did one of the twelve feudal lords lose just now?”
Kelt took a deep breath and slowly exhaled.
He could feel his fatigue rushing in. It seemed that old age was indeed catching up to him. He only rampaged a little bit, and yet, he felt tired already. As a matter of fact, he even got injured in the process, too.
He angrily massaged his temples before shooting a glare back at the remainder of Aslan’s soldiers, rage still visible on his face.
The hapless soldiers were frightened silly by his demeanour and their complexions paled in an instant. Even the death knights vanished as if maintaining the steady flow of demonic energy was too much of an ask at this stage.
No one dared to attack.
No, they were busy casting glances at each other while stumbling back ungainly, hoping for a chance to flee from this place.
Although they hadn’t screamed out aloud yet, the terror from ‘death’ still paralysed their reasoning and none of them could make any rash moves.
Kelt realised from this sight that there was no need for him to step up anymore.
“…I’ll leave the rest up to you, lads.”
Kelt looked behind him. Before anyone had noticed it, the Heavenly Army was already standing by outside the border region’s gigantic wall.
One thousand Paladins riding on horseback were lined up one after the other, all of them wielding large shields and lances meant for cavalry warfare.
“We obey his majesty the Holy Emperor’s command, and-!”
They uniformly roared out.
Their roar was loud enough to rock the earth and reverberate throughout the sky.
Their cavalry lances were raised up as if to pierce the heavens above, before pointing forward.
“…We shall eradicate the heathens!”
The Paladins’ eyes hidden beneath their helms burned menacingly. They glared at the would-be invaders, and then began rushing forward towards their enemies.
Aslan’s soldiers fell further into a panicked state from this spectacle.
Their top commander was already dead. And not only that, Kelt Olfolse hadn’t suffered any grievous wounds either.
But now, even the Heavenly Army was going to join the fray, too?
“R-retreat!”
“Uwaaaahk!”
Kelt walked back towards the border wall within the dry, sandy winds. The Paladins on horseback brushed past his sides.
The captain of the Paladins climbed down from the horse and slightly bowed at the Holy Emperor. “Thank you for your hard work, your majesty.”
“Send a missive to Aslan’s leadership and prepare to advance.”
The captain’s eyes widened at this sudden order.
“I shall grant Aslan’s king, Rahamma, an opportunity. Unless he bows his head in defeat and hands over the Imperial Princes he abducted…” Kelt Olfolse turned his head and shot an icy-cold glare at the captain. “…We shall continue trampling on them. If he wishes to live, then he better crawl on the floor and quickly come up with a way to ensure his survival. If he captured the princes and intends to use them as hostages, then there will not be even a hint of negotiations. If I find that they were injured in any shape or form, even if the injury is negligible, I shall burn one of Aslan’s cities down to the ground. That is…”
Kelt finished the rest of his orders as veins started bulging on his face.
“…My, The Holy Emperor, Kelt Olfolse’s, will. If they still wish to defy me, then I shall grant them the final audience with the god of death that they love so much.”
The captain of the Paladins bowed deeply as thick sweat drops fell from his forehead.
And so, the curtains of war between the Theocratic Empire and Aslan were raised up once more.
**
The Necromancers trapped inside the Black Order’s headquarters were screaming their heads off.
“We need to run…!”
They finally emerged outside the temple.
What greeted them was a barren wasteland. There was literally nothing here except for the winds of sand.
Numerous Necromancers hurriedly dashed outside the temple and climbed on top of the waiting camels. They started their desperate escape on top of these animals, but then, the holy skeletons riding on skeleton horses easily caught up to them.
The horde of undead aimed their spears before skewering their victims.
“Uwaaahk!”
The Necromancers stabbed by the spears were dragged on the hot, barren ground or smashed against the rock walls.
As their screams continued to ring out, the imprisoned slaves shivered away from fear and huddled themselves.
Terror had stained their hearts.
But this lasted only for a little while; a sweet aroma began spreading out towards everywhere. They felt their bodies suddenly become languid and relaxed. All sorts of wounds inflicted upon their flesh began healing gradually.
The slaves looked beyond the steel bars that still imprisoned them and at the centre of the temple. The sweet scent was coming from the puddle of holy water.
“…Lady Tina, Lady Tina!”
The former Necromancer and noble, Damon, stared at this spectacle with a shocked face.
He was currently only forty years of age, yet his current appearance resembled a skinny old man in his 80s. He was now a cripple with not a drop of demonic energy found within him. Such a man was stunned beyond comprehension, and while hugging his bald head, called out to the girl behind him.
The girl squatting on the floor with her head buried between her gathered knees slowly looked up.
Her ears were long and pointy – she was a Dark Elf.
Her skin was tan-coloured while both her eyes and hair were scarlet, almost reddish-pink in hue. She slowly tilted her head.
Since she was a slave, the Necromancers didn’t hesitate to perform all sorts of experiments on her until her body was left in tatters.
Her physique, tormented by all sorts of diseases, torture-like drugs, and experiments, displayed countless signs of burn marks and scars from sharp blades.
“Look, my lady! Our wounds, they… they’re being healed!”
Damon looked down at his own hands.
His body, also used by the other Necromancers as an experimental tool, was being gradually healed little by little. His wrinkled skin was regaining hints of vitality.
“…Oh, my goodness. This is a miracle! Even though I’m nothing more than a dark magician who sacrificed his own lifespan for some measly power, how can my lifespan recover like this?!”
A Necromancer’s job required one to pay the cost of their lifespan in order to use their magic. Rather obviously, one’s body would rapidly age as their vitality was sucked out of them. No one had discovered a method to permanently reverse this damage until now.
However, this ageing process was being reversed little by little right before his very eyes. As a matter of fact, his whole body was reverting back to the days of his youth before he began accepting demonic energy.
The girl named Tina could also feel it. This strange, unexplainable aura was healing her diseased and sick body.
“That… that’s the angel-nim! An angel that punishes evil has descended right over there, my lady!”
Tina stood up from the spot and then approached the steel bars.
Both her and Damon stared outside their prison and fixed their gazes at the figure of the ‘angel’, currently sitting on the edge of the altar with his head lowered, almost as if he had passed out.
“Ah, aaaah… Oh my goodness. That person delivered salvation to us. He has come to rescue you, Lady Tina…!” Damon got down on his knees. “The others have tried to ostracise you, but the heavens have indeed chosen you, oh Lady Tina!”
The angel used divinity to heal people. However, he wielded Necromancy to rule over the evil spirits as well.
This contradictory power had completely entranced Damon.
“Now behold, my lady! Where can anyone find a miracle more miraculous than this?! Gaia with the miracle of life, and Yudai with the miracle of death – the archangel possessing both of those powers is right before our eyes! He has manifested right before us!” Damon raised up both of his hands high and offered his heartfelt exaltation. “That noble being is the perfect combination birthed by the two gods. The son of the gods! The advent of the archangel!”
Damon continued babbling nonstop like a crazed religious fanatic.
What he said caused Tina to swallow back her dry saliva.
“We… we witnessed the advent of the angel birthed by the gods, my lady!”
Because his voice loudly resounded out to the rest of the temple’s interior, the other imprisoned slaves turned their flustered and shocked faces back to the altar.
It was then, the bone armour of the archangel slowly dissipated away. As if to respond to that, the undead soldiers hunting down the Necromancers also disappeared from the world.
The boy sitting on the altar was asleep. On his opposite side, they could see a grim reaper nailed to the ceiling with a stake, the demonic energy surrounding the creature gradually dissipating away.
All of the innumerable slaves were now staring at the ‘archangel’ that killed a reaper.
An altar soaked in a pool of holy water, and a sleeping boy on top of it letting out an entrancing light; at this mysterious yet sacred sight, the slaves began kneeling down one by one. They began offering their prayers to the boy named Allen Olfolse.
“That… is Lord Angel?”
Tina’s trembling eyes were locked on him.
The girl thrown away by the king of Aslan, Rahamma, was captivated by the boy’s figure.
If what Damon said was correct, then he must be an angel that came to offer her salvation.
“H-hurry, my lady, offer your prayers to him! And please, you must tell everyone, no, the rest of Aslan, that you’re the king’s successor!”
At Damon’s prompt, Tina went down on her knees, placed her hands together, and offered her heartfelt prayer.
If what he said was true, then in order for the angel to choose her, the daughter of the king of Aslan, Rahamma, she needed to be noticed by him.
She bowed her head lower in her kneeling position. With her hands held tightly, she earnestly prayed.
Hundreds of still-surviving slaves all prayed together with her.
They exalted the angel and even began shedding tears at the existence that delivered salvation to them.
None of them had noticed it yet, but a new faith was budding deep inside their hearts.
Nasus’s assertion was indeed correct. This boy was an existence that would go on to create the third belief system.
This was the moment that a brand new religion was born into this world, one that had never been seen before in either the Theocratic Empire nor the kingdom of Aslan.
< 064. Angel of Death -4 (Part One and Two) > Fin.
