Chapter 156: Knights of the Flaming Sword of Baltan
In the Great War with Lionheart, the demons suffered terrible losses.
The demons of Slaughter and Destruction, Wisdom and Exploration, Pleasure and Decadence, Chaos and Ruin, who lost their lords, suffered the most.
The Demons of Wisdom and Exploration, in particular, lost most of their highest ranking Archdemons, including the Archduke, in an all-out war with the Kingdom Army.
All of the demons lost a monarch or archduke in that war, but the Archdemons of Sloth and Idleness were in a more delicate position.
They didn’t lose a monarch, nor did they lose an archduke.
“Lord Velotas…!”
At the observation post in front of Archduke Kadsha estate, the Archdemon of Sloth and Dullness, who was in charge of observing the glacial continent, woke up to the urgent report of Ice Observer Velotas.
“Tell me…….”
Velotas grunted, digging through his earwax and like an Archdemon of sloth, he stared at Beltata with a carefree expression.
“This observatory on the Glacial Continent is a time killer for demons who were born slothful and lazy.
It was here that Kadsha, the Demon Archduke of Sloth and Idleness, destroyed them over two hundred years ago, and it was here that they were nominally stationed to guard the seal.
Though it has been barren and uninhabitable to even demons since the events of two centuries ago, who could be trusted on a glacial continent in the middle of the Demon Realm?
Demons, of course, don’t trust each other, but what’s in there is their natural enemy.
It’s like a ball of radioactivity that destroys all demons, and who could–
“Energy has been detected inside the Glacial Continent! It’s the Zero Destruction Element!”
“Hmph…!”
Velotas, who had been reacting slowly, moved his unusually enlarged body.
“Has the seal been broken?”
“Uh, I don’t think so, since Archduke Kadsha’s magic reaction hasn’t awakened yet!”
That was a good thing. If the Glacier Archduke buried with him hadn’t awakened, it wouldn’t be the worst thing that could happen.
“Kadsha magic is loose.”
It had been more than two hundred years since the Glacier Archduke Kadsha had unleashed the great magic that froze the continent.
The Demons of Wisdom and Exploration said it was a seal that would theoretically last a thousand years, but it’s already starting to break!
“It’s a big deal, if that man… that monster… is released…!”
It was a day of horrific slaughter by that man who fell from the sky with flames──
“You go first, lead the special forces. I will head straight for the legions that can be mobilized.”
Velotas clutched at the burns on his side, recalling the trauma.
* * * *
“The Knights of the Flaming Sword, they must be.”
Leon thrust the flame of his holy spear into the icy wall.
“I will rescue them first.”
The holy flame does not hurt the worshippers of the divine. The only thing it melts is the block of ice that trapped him.
-Swoosh!!!
The ice wall melts in a massive burst of steam, then with a crack and a splinter, the knight falls from the ice wall.
-Thud!
The knight and horse land on the ground, just barely, before Leon catches them but it took a few seconds before he came to his senses.
“Ugh…!”
The helmet flashed up and the knight swung his sword in an instant.
“Die, you scoundrel! Die!”
Leon’s holy sword blocked the knight’s blade and the knight’s eyes widened.
“Your majesty?!”
“I’m glad to see you’re healthy.”
“Your Majesty!”
The red knight falls to his knees, stunned to realize that he swung his sword at Leon.
“Yes, my name is Leon Dragonia Lionheart, King of Lionheart.”
“Yes… I am Lord Laihar Dever, Third Sword of the Knights of the Baltan Flaming Sword!”
“Lord Laihar, do you know your current status, and how far back do you remember?”
“Ummm….”
Laihar searched his memory for a moment before revealing the most recent information he could remember.
“We were fighting the Glacial Archduke and his legions on the Plains of Randolce, chasing him as he opened the Demon Gate and fled!”
It was over two hundred years ago, when the Legions of Vulcanus and the Legions of the Glacial Archduke clashed on the Plains of Randolce.
Having won the fight, Vulcanus and his knights chased the fleeing Archduke inside the Demon Gate to finish him off, slaughtering demons in the process, at which point he lost his memory.
“Lord Laihar, I need to ask you something.”
“……With your great power of dreams and death, who are you, Lady?”
“I am Beatrice Alighieri Spero, Queen of the Kingdom of Spero and current High Priestess of Dreams and Death.”
“The Kingdom of Spero?”
Catching Leon’s eye as he tilted his head at the unheard-of name of the kingdom, Laihar put on his best polite face.
“You are the queen, and you are also a saint, so you are certainly not a stranger.”
After Laihar bowed, Beatrice finished her question.
“When your lordship arrived in this land, was it filled with ice like this?”
“No. It was a desolate land, but not with glaciers like these.”
“I see.”
“What have you found out, Beatrice?”
At Leon’s question, Beatrice told him her theory.
“It seems that this continent was artificially created by a demon, and Lord Vulcanus and his knights were caught in it and frozen.”
“Hmm…Do you think a Lord-level demon was involved?”
“If a demon of that caliber was involved, he’d rather take down Lord Vulcanus, but if it’s the Glacial Archduke…….”
“I see, so he froze space and time for this entire continent when he ran out of power.”
It doesn’t seem impossible if the Demon Archduke was willing to throw everything he had at it.
“This world is their world, a land of pure, unadulterated magic that doesn’t need to be tainted with miasma. They could perform miracles here and maybe… just maybe… Glacier Archduke is still alive.”
In other words, if the knights melted the ice wall where they were buried, they might come face to face with the Glacier Archduke.
“No problem. I wouldn’t be here if I was afraid of that.”
────!!
At that moment, a peculiar sound rumbled through the space, which no one could fail to recognize as a precursor to the summoning of the Gate.
“Your Majesty, it’s the demons.”
Beatrice pointed to about five hundred meters from the ice wall where hundreds of demons poured out of the open gate there.
“They’ve noticed.”
“They’re here sooner than I thought. Is there some kind of base that keeps an eye on this place?”
Beatrice felt embarrassed.
She couldn’t use magic at the moment and to open the gate in this frigid land that freezes even space and time, she would have to channel her own magic power.
“Your Majesty must also melt the ice wall and rescue the knights and Sir Vulcanus, and you can count on…….”
Laihar Dever, a member of the Knights of the Flaming Sword of Baltan.
“Lord Laihar!”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“One minute.”
It sounded like a suicide order to Beatrice since the enemy outnumbered them by a few hundred and the power difference was overwhelming.
“Understood.”
But the knight merely fixes his helmet and heads for the front. He took up his sword and shield and left the two behind.
“Your Majesty…….”
“Trust and watch.”
With those words, Leon headed for the ice wall, while the demons opened fire on Laihar.
The demons were surprisingly high-powered.
Their weaponry is beyond the comprehension of modern Earth, and magic is their mastery.
Naturally, martial science has advanced, and the machetes wielded by the lowest demons can bring down even giants.
-Fire!
-Three! Two! One! Power shot!
The first to be fired is a giant mahogany horse drawn by the demons of sloth. Fired by consuming magic stones, it could tear apart a modern Earth warship in a single blow.
-Boom!
With a dizzying roar, the cannonballs formed a parabola but thanks to the gunner’s skill, it went straight and headed straight for Laihar.
“With these toys…….”
He threw up his hands in annoyance and his bare fist struck the flying projectile with precision.
-Bang!
The bouncing projectile slams into the ice wall and the ice wall, which would never have been able to be broken by projectile strength alone, was pierced like a stone by the added force of his blow.
-Ki, knight…….
The Knights of Realm are those who have proven themselves in all aspects.
Only the most veteran of them, those who possess not only a mastery of the Holy Law but also phenomenal strength and mobility, become Holy Knights.
“I shall return the favor.”
Laihar grabs a fallen ice cube and his arm flexes like a baseball player throwing a pitch.
-Boom!
The thrown ice projectile slices through the air, cutting through the air for hundreds of meters.
It pierced through the demons’ armor in a straight line, stopping only after shattering their armor.
-Crazy…….
Holy Knights are the chosen members of the Holy Grail superhuman army and they are the definition of ‘strong’.
-Charge!
The demons charge in unison.
“Third Sword of the Baltan Flaming Knights.”
A sword is drawn from the Red Knight’s scabbard. His stellar iron blade is crimson, as if compressed with searing flames.
“Laihar Dever.”
In an instant, a fiery whirlwind engulfed the Starblade.
* * * *
Leaving the cleanup to Laihar Dever, Leon examined the ice wall.
The ice wall is massive and solid and there was no way to effectively melt it without the Holy Law.
“I’ll have to melt it all at once.”
Leon had a way to melt this ice wall but then came the problem.
‘If I do that, the waves will be too much to handle.’
This is a big ice wall and if he melted it all at once, a tsunami of waves would come crashing down on them.
Even if Lord Laihar can hold out, Beatrice, who is using all her magic to open the gate, will be swept away.
‘I can control the water by using the wave spell.’
The problem is, if he’s going to use a Holy Law that can melt an ice wall of this size, and then use another one to control the water, he won’t have the energy to follow it up.
He can do it, but he can’t waste his holy power as recklessly as he used to, so he has to be careful.
“No, I have people I can trust.”
Leon knows who they are. What he can do, they can do.
“Holy sword.”
From the subspace, the Holy Sword emerges from its sheath.
It takes a great deal of power just to summon it, and it appears before Leon.
He channels his power into the holy sword drawn from the scabbard of the first Lionheart King.
The flames of Petos envelop it and the holy sword’s brilliance shines in all directions.
He has one wish for the holy sword.
‘Cut down all winter before me.’
He swings the blazing pillar of fire.
The plane plummets toward the ice wall with the contradiction of its own weight.
────■■■■■■■■!!
The ice wall collapses upon impact with the fireball.
As it melted, the evaporated water vapor rose as steam. And then──
-Kaaaaaah!!!
The unevaporated water pours out in waves. It would sweep away not only the demons but also the allies.
“Should we stop here?”
After retracting his holy sword into subspace, Leon continued to use the power of the sea and waves.
Holy Technique <Wave Strike>
The enormous mass that seemed to be about to turn everything into a sea stopped. It unnaturally stopped in midair, just as Leon wished, using the power of the waves.
Some might call it foolhardy.
Why would he expend his power to block a wave when he could sweep away hundreds or thousands of demons at the cost of one ally?
But Leon’s gaze is drawn beyond the stilled waves, where he hears the sound of horses’ hooves, a sound that cannot come from the center of tens of thousands of tons of water.
“The Baltan Flaming Sword Knights.”
The Lionheart King commanded them and those who had broken free of the two-hundred-year seal and would face anything.
“Destroy the enemy.”
Without hesitation, the Knights respond.
“”Atrocity!””
“”Atrocity!””
“”Atrocity!””
Flames rise from their breath, leaving a horseshoe-shaped trail of sparks in the center of the room.
“”Merciless death…!””
The Templars burst from their long seals.
The flame-forged riders of the War God resume the battle they left unfinished two centuries ago.
