<<Arise!>>
A gloomy wind swept through the makeshift battlefield as rows upon rows of dead soldiers crawled up before standing.
Some of the bodies were complete while most of them were barely hanging. Despite this, the horrifying aura of death emanating from them wasn’t something anyone could take lightly.
“A necromancer.”
Duke Tyr murmured with dry lips. His sweaty hand, gripping more tightly his spear.
Even though was a general who fought on too many battlefields to count, out of all magics he ever witnessed, necromancers were the most absurd of them all.
‘Are the demons from Envilya also intervening?”
Necromancy was a branch of death magic. All the most renowned necromancers were from the death race of Envilya. Hearsay, their ancestors were dwellers of the underworld who got lost during dimensional travel before settling in Envilya.
The most known of them all was the Necromancer King, Anubis. A man who, even without being blessed, managed to reach the level of demi-god.
Fighting a necromancer in a zone filled with corpses was the height of madness. You didn’t fight necromancers with an army. This would only result in more bodies for them to use.
What you needed was,
“ALL SOLDIERS RETREAT NOW!”
What was needed was a small team of powerful elites.
Jumping from his horse, he discarded his spear and took out his sword while sending a whisper.
[Duke Travers, please secure my brot–no, secure the traitor and then take command of the soldiers to make an organized retreat. Duke Milaris, I need you to use your golems and fight with me.]
Neither of the two rebuked him for taking command and did what was asked of them.
Meanwhile, Drei looked at the Duke with admiration before looking at the sky.
He could see that a row of knights flying on wyverns were nearing. While Lilith was standing high in the sky and looking at him like a hawk.
He sighed before caressing the ring on his finger.
One of his most prized skills was this ability to send his consciousness into dead bodies and manipulate them. Thanks to this, he could literally be at a different place at the same moment, and even getting killed wouldn’t be a problem. All the bodies shared the same mind and vision.
This skill though wasn’t without limit. The first one being that he could only use 3 bodies at the same time and each body needed a long preparation. Meaning that he couldn’t just jump from one body to another. The second limitation was that he couldn’t bring too much power to those dead bodies without breaking them. The last one of course were his items.
That’s why, from the start, he had already decided to use Berthold’s body as his ‘main’ during this operation and had bestowed it with his dimensional ring.
‘I didn’t want to use it now, but there aren’t enough distractions.’
In his initial plan. All the nobles with traitorous minds should have been scattered all over the capital and created mayhem.
‘Well, first thing first.’
<<Empowerment>>; <<Restoration>>; <<Blood thirst>>
The previously sluggish zombies suddenly became faster and stronger as their eyes turned scarlet and they began to rush behind the retreating army.
<<Switch>>
Switching with one of the undead, he avoided swords launched by Lilith before finally stretching his finger below him.
"Come."
Immediately, a large red portal opened under him.
*ROAR!!!*
This was followed by an overwhelming presence sweepint off the battlefield making all the fleeing soldiers buckle down while groining.
Looking behind them, their legs grew weak as they wondered just why they were so unlucky.
Lilith, who was about to send another rain of swords, opened her eyes wide as she saw what came out of the portal before asking in disbelief.
“You dared to defile a dragon? Are you not scared of them coming at you?”
Indeed, slowly, a dragon came out of the portal before lifting Drei in the air.
Pungent smells and a powerful aura followed the entry of this dead entity.
Lilith had no doubt, this was <<Dragon fear>>.
With its decaying skin and wiggling flesh showing some of the bones, no one would ever believe that the monstrosity in front of them had once been a respected and mighty dragon.
But this wasn’t all, the dragon absolutely abhorred anything that went against the law of nature. Because of this, they hated absolutely all forms of magic that could bring back the dead.
But this wasn’t all. Back then when Necromancy was still thriving, some necromancers in search of stronger bodies began to experiment on dragons and created a large number of undead dragons.
This action resulted in the near extinction of all necromancers because of the dragons’ wrath.
Drei laughed before shaking his head, “Who cares about their revenge? Thanks to those stupids goddesses’ rules, Tiamat cannot descend on the mortal realm. As long as one of the fourteen doesn’t descend, few people in this world can threaten me.”
“Who cares about your gibberish? Take my sword!”
Ten light swords formed before rushing toward Drei at full speed.
“Crazy bitch! Who acts like this during a discussion!?”
Anyone else would have been unable to avoid such an attack, but this was simply too easy for Drei.
The dragon under him deployed his wings before fully flying away like a rocket. Avoiding the sword with a twirl, it used his wings while spinning and destroyed them.
This was then followed by it opening his maw as large as possible.
<<Dragon Roar>>
Lilith didn’t even bat an eye at the beam of light that flew toward her. Another ten swords appeared, but this time they formed a circular protection in front of her and negated the power of the beam.
As long as her zone <<Limitless swords>> was activated, she could literally create an unlimited number of swords. The only limit being her own mana.
Watching her stop an attack that could blow off a mountain easily, Drei once again cursed under his breath.
He couldn’t use his weak body as an excuse. His bone dragon source of energy was its own core. Not himself. Meaning that even if his true body had been present, the result would be the same.
Meanwhile, the wyvern knights had finally reached the battlefield, but thanks to Lilith’s whisper, they immediately rushed toward the undead on the ground. After all, they had the air advantage and didn’t fear the zombies as much.
The fights both on the ground and in the sky were spectacular.
On the ground, the Duke Tyr was facing the horde of undead with the help of Arachne golem, as well as the young black knights on their wyverns. Thanks to the empowerment of his zone <<War Zone: Scream of thousands of soldiers>>, the more terrified his soldiers were, the stronger he became.
Standing against the undead army, he did not look like an old man at all.
Currently twenty centimeters taller than normal, with steam rising from his body while his broken armor showed his bulging muscles, he looked like a mini giant.
Like a berserker, he fought the undead and broke them again and again without any fear. No matter how many wounds covered his body, he never stopped.
Tyr had been hesitant to use this form since it was extremely taxing on his aging body, but he didn’t have any choice.
Meanwhile, in the sky, Drei on his undead dragon and Lilith on her sword were moving so fast that no one watching could even understand what was happening.
They had long since broken through the speed of sound and were closer to the first cosmic velocity.
At this speed, they looked more like comets colliding against each other than anything else.
Still, even though Lilith held the advantage, she couldn’t help but feel frustrated.
Each of her attacks were extremely well contained through her granular control. This wasn’t just to maximize the power of each of her attacks, but also to avoid destroying too much of the kingdom or worse, killing her own soldiers.
But Drei had no such limitation. Each of his attacks were as widespread as possible and he even tried to bring her to the ground many times.
This wasn’t all. A necromancer wasn’t just about summoning the dead. An array of debuff type spells, such as <<Slow>>; <<Frost>>; <<Mind down>>; <<Decay>> and so on were launched against her one after another.
Until now she had been able to barely escape them, but at this rate, she would slip sooner and later.
‘Should I simply go all out?’
The more this dragged on the worst it was for her. After all, she was a human. Her energy was limited. Meanwhile, her opponent was a necromancer and an undead dragon. They were basically tireless entities.
She couldn’t help but hesitate. In her most powerful state, her control was extremely awful. She might very well kill some of the citizens
It was then that Gerald, who was being dragged by some soldiers, looked at the sky and said in a barely audible voice, “Dear lady, if you do not act now, you would have no better occasion.”
Somewhere, in the depth of the church, a golden-haired woman opened her eyes, and almost blinding light covered her body as she sighed.
She was pretty sure that most of the enemies had now appeared. Still, she would have rather waited for a little while longer. In fact, she would wish to not even act. This way, her existence would still be a surprise for Wratharis Republic.
But not everything could go their way.
‘Well, I will soon have the perfect excuse so it doesn’t matter I guess.’
Kneeling down, she chanted, “In the name of the representative of the goddess, I call for the ultimate.”
<<Holy Territory>>
From all over the capital, all the people could see an awe-inspiring pillar of golden light shooting toward the sky and illuminating the horizon.
Then, from this pillar, threads of light shot all over before slowly forming a dome covering the entire capital.
Witnessing this moment, all the citizens kneeled down and prayed while praising the goddesses. What they couldn’t see was that their bodies were being surrounded by a bluish aura that seemed to protect them.
Finally, in a part of the kingdom where Lilith and Drei were fighting, walls of light slowly emerged before completely enclosing them in a large cube-like prison and thereby separating them from the rest of the people fighting.
Back on the battlefield,
“Impossible!!”
Drei exclaimed while opening his eyes widely. He knew what was happening. He had already witnessed the holy territory being used hundreds of years ago.
This was why he couldn’t accept it.
The holy territory could only be opened by a supreme daughter, or a holy daughter combining her strength with other priestesses.
That’s why he couldn’t accept it.
The sole and only holy daughter candidate was deep asleep thanks to a poison they personally created. Meanwhile, the supreme daughter was supposed to be out of commission after using <<Saint Fall>>.
‘We have been tricked!’
This realization finally dawned upon him.
On the other hand, when she witnessed all of this, a grin split on Lilith’s face as she gazed at the necromancer with a murderous gaze.
“Now, nothing is stopping me.”
Closing her eyes, she muttered, “I am nothing more than a sword...”
Goosebumps filled Drei’s body as the very air around him became so sharp it felt like he was surrounded by thousands of invisible swords. What he had feared the most was happening. He had seriously thought that the queen was only a warrior standing at the highest level of the zone.
After all, going past this limit wasn’t something anyone could do if they didn’t have a blessing.
But it seemed that he had been wrong. The worst was that he couldn’t use his own avatar with this body.
Not caring about Drei’s internal struggles, Lilith’s eyes opened abruptly as she continued, “...And there’s nothing I cannot cut.”
<<Avatar: Tyrfing>>
In one instant, everything in the confined two kilometers radius was slashed and cut apart.
The sky, the ground, the building, and even the very space itself. Nothing was spared. Even the barrier surrounding her that was created from divine grace and days of prayer was blasted open.
Of course, Drei and the undead dragon weren’t spared from this fate.
This was Lilith’s — The Sword Saint or the Sword Demon’s true strength.
Panting a little, Lilith took a deep breath before charging toward the Gorfard mansion. She had a bad feeling.
[Gorfard Territory]
One dwarf holding two long guns in his hands observed the golden barrier that had surrounded the kingdom with suspicion.
Feeling his strength weakening and the overpowering aura approaching from afar, he sighed as he looked at the bloodied purple-haired girl with hazel colored slitted eyes,
“Damn, I shouldn’t have played around too much with the prey it seems.”
How did it come to this?
(AN: So in myth, Norse myth to be exact, Tyrfing is a cursed sword that can cut absolutely everything and that would eventually kill its own wielder. Pretty suitable for a woman with suicidal tendencies, right? Lol)
