Chapter 158: Holy Knight Vulcanus (2)
More than 200 years ago, on the plains of Randolce in the Lionheart Kingdom.
There, the Demon Legion, led by Archduke Glacier, clashed with the Knights of the Burning Sword and their allies, led by Vulcanus.
They were outnumbered ten to one and everyone expected the demons victory. But──
“I am Vulcanus…!”
He was the embodiment of irresistible, overwhelming violence.
The strongest Holy Knight, who had been given two holy swords by the Blacksmith’s Holy Knight with great care.
With each swing of his one-handed greatsword, waves of fire covered the battlefield, cremating demons in a flame that left no ashes behind.
-Strong.
The Glacial Archduke acknowledged his strength and that he was the second strongest Holy Knight next to the Lionheart King.
-I admit it. You’re stronger!
Archduke Glacier opened the Demon Gate.
In this united front to destroy the Holy Kingdom of Lionheart, he is the supreme commander representing the demons of sloth and idleness.
His absence would tear a hole in the coalition and give up the souls of the Holy Knights, promised as spoils in a war already won…….
-Survival comes before loot.
Archduke Glacier was very wise, and made a much more sensible choice than the rest of the Demon Legion, who remained to consider the sunk costs of losing their later Lord of Wisdom.
Only──
“Where are you running……!!!”
It was just that the Holy Knight he was dealing with was extremely irrational.
He had opened the Demon Gate, taking only a handful of Archdemons and elites with him, and retreated to his estate.
Magul was the home base of the Demon Archduke of Sloth and Idleness.
That’s where Vulcanus and his knights chased them down before the Demon Gate closed!
-Madman, this is my territory!
“No…!”
The flames pouring from the Holy Knight’s armor intensified. It burned through the surrounding magick, dyeing the sky red.
“This place, that place, this place, that place, all the land of the gods!”
Vulcanus along with his knights and the demons of sloth and idleness that had retreated continued the battle.
But was the momentum of the battle? Or was it that Vulcanus was simply too powerful?
High-level demons were being slaughtered, Archdemons were being broken through, and Vulcanus’ sword was being swung at the Glacial Archduke…
“A human…! I have to gamble with my soul on a human!”
Archduke Glacier unleashed his last great magic by combining all of his magic power to freeze space and time.
This freezing of space and time was an absolute binding that even a Lord-level demon could not break. In other words, no external force could break it, and he himself would be trapped……….
“As time passes, he will lose his connection to the gods, and I will regain my power!
This is the Demon Realm, the domain of the Demon Overlord. On the day the seal is broken, he will be greeted by a vast army of demons, and he and his few tin foil hats will be swallowed up by a tidal wave of evil.
-Thud!
[Finally…!]
Glacial Archduke Kadsha sensed the loose seal and opened his eyes.
Although he had only been fighting Vulcanus a moment ago, a great deal of time must have passed.
[The time has come to avenge my humiliation, Knight of the Gods, for I, Archduke Glacier, will…!]
Raising his massive body, Archduke Glacier, snow giant Kadsha looked at his strangely ‘hot’ skin and the red sky, puzzled.
Even though the magic had been released after a thousand years, it was still a great magic that could freeze the continent.
Its traces alone should have created a tremendous cold snap, so why is it so hot and…….
The white giant’s gaze fell to the ground below, where a vast amount of water was evaporating in real time, creating a steam sauna.
‘I wonder if he woke up with me.’
This is getting annoying. I can’t believe he had this much energy left after being disconnected from his god for so long.
But it doesn’t matter, they must have summoned his legions when the seal was broken, and he must have been weakened during the seal.
Unless the Grail Guardian, the monstrous creature that killed Malus, the Lord of Chaos, come, there’s no way to bow to him-
Blond hair, blue eyes, a handsome man, perhaps even a stereotype, but the demons who saw his face couldn’t forget the image that was burned into their minds.
“To the Lionheart…! Glory be!”
The otherworldly Lionheart King who had killed the Chaos Lord and slaughtered millions of demons.
[Why…!?]
Archduke Glacier couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw the Lionheart King in front of him.
This is the Demon Realm. Even though it was tainted by the overwhelming flames of holy power, the miasma that filled the world was unmistakably the one he knew.
But why? Why is the Lionheart King here?
[You… are alive!]
Leon tilted his head at the Archduke Glacier shout.
“This is the first time I’ve met a demon who hasn’t received the latest information. For two hundred years, they’ve been cowering in fear in my presence.”
Two hundred years? Two hundred years since he was sealed?
[It can’t be! The Lord of Wisdom had ten million troops! There’s no way you guys could have survived──!]
“Shut up, evil creature…!”
Vulcanus shouted in anger and struck the Glacial Archduke with Petos’ flashing holy sword.
Vulcanus crushed the Glacial Archduke with a blast of infinite flame.
“Do not mention Lionheart with that filthy mouth of yours. Don’t you dare defile my lord and my ears!”
[You…! On the subject of savage tin cans…!]
Archduke Glacier unleashed an immense amount of magic power. Although the area has been purified by the sanctification, it is still strictly the demon realm.
His power connects to the world and presses against Vulcanus.
The demons gathered, one after another, with a massive presence. The great demonic forces triggered by Velotas death have been observed, and they are rushing to the continent.
“Even as we speak…the demons are coming. Hurry, Lord Vulcanus, we must get out of here quickly.”
“Death to evil…!”
Leaving Vulcanus behind, who was already engaged in combat with the Glacial Archduke, Leon chuckled at the gathering demons.
“Knights of the Baltan Flaming Sword.”
Leon said to the fifty knights.
“Follow me.”
──Then shall we be victorious.
* * * * *
–Crack, crack!
The world freezes.
A great spear of ice is formed from the moisture in the air, and it rushed in like a dizzying storm of ice caps──
“Grrrrrrrrrrrr!!!”
For the Red Knight, whose breath is a burning flame, evaporating the flying spear of ice is a matter of course.
[────!!]
Kadsha, the Glacial Archduke, was in awe.
The Demon Realm is more than just a place to live, it’s their foundation, their source.
For demons with estates, their home grounds are fortresses that repel the thieves who seek them out.
By the time they reach the age of lords and archdukes, they’ve been defending it for tens or hundreds of millions of years. It’s not an exaggeration to say that the manor itself has been assimilated by the demon and become its own body.
Of course, in the case of Glacial Archduke Kadsha, he had expended a great deal of energy to perfect a space-time magic in this estate that even a Lord could not touch in order to seal the Red Knight who was trying to kill him.
In other words──
[C’mon…! Stop your footsteps, you monster…!]
This means that even two hundred years ago, Kadsha was unable to repel that knight from his estate.
Numerous great spells are completed in an instant. The Demon Archduke, wielding the power of the realm, could unleash any number of magic spells he wanted, but none of them could stop that knight.
“Ignorant bastard, wasting power like that!”
There’s a limit to the amount of power a human can hold, and yet he poured it out as if he were a god himself.
Grand Technique <Crimson Meteor>
Vulcanus unleashes a frenzy of power that makes the demons scream.
As it leaps, it looks like a meteor rising backwards into the sky, and when it finally reaches the end of the universe-─
“Die, demon…!”
It fell with gravitational acceleration, aiming for planetary entry.
[Ouch…!]
Kadsha recalled the same memory from just a moment ago when a legion was swept away by that nonsense.
He’s a knight that doesn’t use horses, a ridiculous man who can travel between continents, so unless he’s joining the other Knights, he doesn’t even use transportation!
[Don’t think I’m going to get caught twice!]
With the Power of the Realm the Archduke can channel and manifest directed magical power.
He is both a warrior and an archmage. He may not be the Lord of Wisdom, but his magic is no less than the miracles of the Holy Law!
[A mere mortal making me unleash Great Magic twice!]
He draws upon the power of the realm and unleashes an energy-draining Great Magic.
It even saved Kadsha from the brink of death two hundred years ago.
[Frozen in time and space…!]
With the help of the realm, magic is manifested in the line of the meteor.
A miracle that could be called ‘magic’, such as freezing space and time, was limited to Vulcanus himself.
No human vessel can resist it, not even the Demon Archduke himself!
-Pow!
Space freezes and the meteor that was hurtling toward Kadsha stopped when it was three hundred meters away from him.
If it weren’t for the blowing snow and roaring flames, one would have thought that time had stopped.
[Ha, hot…! Did it stop?]
This is not a force that can be countered from the front. Even the most powerful Holy Knights were doomed once they were caught.
[I need to merge with the Legion before the Lionheart King can help──]
Suddenly, he looks up and sees Vulcanus frozen in space and holding a holy sword.
[One sword?]
Where did the other one go?
Just then, a holy sword falls from the crimson sky. The flame, compressed to the limit of Petos’ power, is like the fury of a god about to unleash heavenly punishment on the earth.
It lands precisely where it froze space and time.
[Thrown from orbit!]
Kadsha was not the only one who would not be caught twice. Vulcanus has also found a way to deal with the magic he was struck 200 years ago!
[Vulcanus’ Holy Sword – War God’s Flame!]
The holy sword pierced through the frozen space-time with a compressed flame──
“Grrrrrrrrrrrr…!”
Just as Leon had done, Vulcanus evaporated the frozen space on his own, and the meteor’s acceleration did not decrease.
[…Stop it!]
Kadsha summons a massive wall of ice, that became a huge shield and blocked Vulcanus, but──
-Ka-ching!
The ice wall was literally destroyed by a single blow as if an all-piercing spear had pierced through the shield.
[Vulcanus…!]
The same development repeats itself.
No, not the same. Any hopes that such a ridiculous display of holy prowess could have left him with anything left to spare were shattered by the merciless violence as Vulcanus’ advance continues unabated.
‘This cannot be!’
The Lionhearted King is the proxy for all the gods.
The Chaos Lord was defeated by the Lionheart, and so were the other lords who could not defeat him in the end.
He might have had an excuse for losing against the gods representative but the monster in front of him, expending such vast amounts of energy, pummeling him so ignorantly…The Demon Archduke is defeated by an ‘individual’?
[This cannot be!]
Vulcanus declared, evaporating the freeze that now seemed to have overtaken common sense beyond anger.
“You arrogant scum of the earth, the end of your era will be brought down by your arrogance!”
Kadsha, frozen for two hundred years, does not know that the pinnacle of the ages has already crushed the waves of the Great Sea that seemed unreachable.
A demigod, an agent of the divine, has done so and the exalted fighter reversed the malignity of destruction.
How arrogant to think that miracle, that feat, could not be accomplished by another.
-Crack!
The final shattering blow was like a meteor from the apocalyptic orbit that had so easily consumed everything in its path.
The unfinished battle of two hundred years ago has finally come to an end.
