Chapter 175: Gift (5)
The rain continued to fall. The dark clouds that filled the sky obscured both the starlight and the moonlight, casting the village below in complete darkness.
Only the faint glow of the raindrops reflected off the slick cobblestone streets, revealing their presence.
Not a single light shone from the houses. Only the dim glow of candles and lanterns flickered from within.
A flash of real lightning, not the artificial kind created by magic, illuminated the valley, momentarily blinding those who stood below.
Crackle━
Blinded by the flash, Calia and Aellasis were protected by their barriers, remaining dry, while Russell and Weizen were drenched.
As if the flash and thunder had been a signal, the monstrously enlarged knights charged forward, their heavy footsteps shaking the muddy ground.
Their appearances may have been grotesque, but their movements were those of seasoned warriors, their swords swinging with deadly precision.
“Light!”
Weizen shouted. He could amplify the dim light by focusing his mana in his eyes, but it was difficult to maintain such a spell in the midst of battle. The eyes were a very sensitive organ.
Understanding, Aellasis fired a white sphere of light upwards. With a flash, the sphere exploded, scattering fine dust of light in all directions and illuminating the surroundings.
The falling raindrops reflected the light, becoming white streaks of rain, and the three transformed knights charged through the streaks, their swords slashing.
Weizen, Calia, and Russell rushed forward, each facing one.
CLANG CLANG CLANG!
Weizen swung his two swords relentlessly against Ateulio, while Calia’s crimson spear, conjured from the long, thin stream of blood that rose from the ground, deflected Tenon’s blade. Keldon’s thick, long steel sword slashed diagonally across Russell’s left shoulder.
Final Frost, held in Russell’s left hand, swung up from below, its axe blade catching the steel sword under the blade. The steel sword, upon touching the axe blade, instantly became covered in frost.
BAM!
With just a flick of his wrist, the frozen steel sword shattered into two pieces, still attached to the axe blade. Keldon, who had dropped the broken sword, pulled out the short sword that had been embedded in his left thigh and aimed it at Russell’s chest.
Nahilnir, in Russell’s right hand, sliced off both his wrist and arm at once. For a moment, his chest was wide open. Keldon, as if unaware of the fact that his own left arm had been severed, opened his mouth wide, aiming for Russell’s neck.
Keldon’s face, stretched beyond the limits of a human jaw, looked more like a snake’s than a man’s. Instead of blunt teeth, sharp, pointed teeth protruded from his mouth, their tips dripping with yellow venom.
Russell dropped both weapons and pulled back his right arm. As he bent his arm inward, his elbow straightened, twisting his waist and shoulders. His elbow, cutting through the raindrops, struck Keldon’s face.
CRACK, a bone-breaking sound, and Keldon’s head turned. However, before his neck could fully turn, Keldon’s body reacted, his left knee slamming into Russell’s right side.
BAM!
Both Russell and Keldon were knocked away. Unlike Russell, who landed smoothly on his feet, Keldon rolled several times before finally getting up.
Keldon, with a dislocated jaw and a long, hanging tongue, as if completely shattered, turned his head forward with a blank expression.
CRACK, CLICK!
In an instant, his neck bones and shattered jaw were realigned. It was a sight that was impossible with human regenerative abilities. Just as Ateulio had consumed the potion and gained a surge of mana and vitality, he must have also been granted monstrous regenerative abilities.
Meanwhile, on the other side, a fierce battle of swords and spears was taking place.
Calia, clad in crimson armor and cloak, her long crimson hair flowing behind her, and Tenon, his thrusts as sharp as a needle, engaged in a deadly duel.
As Calia and Tenon twisted their bodies in different directions, dozens of sparks flew and collided in the air.
TATATATATATAT!
With each swing of their blades, colorful trajectories were drawn, the raindrops being pushed away, creating transparent ripples in the air, etching behind them the remnants of spark.
A single sword strike split into three, each aimed at Calia’s forehead, throat, and chin. The thrusting swordsmanship, specialized in piercing, split the raindrops in half, creating large holes in Calia’s head, neck, and chest.
Weizen, who had been fighting Ateulio, noticed her condition and shouted in surprise.
“Hey, what the?!”
At that moment, Calia’s crimson lips parted, her eyes and nose completely gone, leaving only her jaw.
“Don’t worry.”
At the same time, a wave of crimson surged forward, filling the holes instantly, her eyes and nose restored.
Surprised by her inhuman appearance, Tenon faltered, and Calia seized the opportunity.
In an instant, the spear shaft that had been lowered below her waist was swung with great force, the long blade at its tip rotating clockwise.
SWISH!
In a duel between superhumans, who could stretch a single second indefinitely, even the slightest opening was fatal.
Calia’s seemingly nonchalant recovery from a fatal situation, with three vital points pierced, was enough to make even the mindless Keldon hesitate, and Calia capitalized on that hesitation, driving the spear blade forward. The blur of her movement, as smooth as a wave, yet impossible to predict, grazed Keldon’s midsection.
Keldon’s body, split in two, fell heavily, splashing raindrops. The raindrops that fell on his body, which had been heated by the intense movement, turned into white steam.
“No can do.”
As Calia reached out her bare hand to finish him off and explode Keldon’s blood, Rictus intervened.
WOOOSH. . . . . .!
Mana surged from the hands of the two-meter-tall Draconic Lizardman, creating a deafening roar. It had only been ten seconds since Russell, Calia, and Weizen had begun fighting the potion-enhanced knights.
During that time, Rictus had been observing the flow of the battle, concentrating a vast amount of mana in his hands.
“Burst, scatter━”
Rictus’ massive hands clapped together like thunder, almost at the same time as Calia, her expression cold, extended her hands forward.
A flash of light and a shockwave spread out, engulfing everything. Within the hemispherical flash, three distinct mana sources emerged.
Calia, who had created a crimson barrier, Weizen, who had deflected the flash by swinging his two swords like a storm, and Russell, who had split the mana wave that was about to engulf him with one hand.
“This bastard, he wants us all dead━ UGH!”
As Weizen, his head throbbing with anger, was about to charge at Rictus, Ateulio, unscathed by the flash, swung his two-handed sword at him. Weizen hurriedly crossed his two longswords, and Ateulio’s sword crashed down upon them.
BOOM━!
The ground beneath Weizen shook, sinking more than half a foot.
“G, ugh. . . . . .! What kind of power, damn it. . . . . .!”
Whether there was another spell embedded in the flash, Ateulio’s crazed body possessed even greater strength than before.
Weizen struggled to swing his sword and retreated, but Ateulio did not let him go.
“Gulp. . . . . . .”
Calia, kneeling on one knee inside the crimson barrier, coughed up blood. She had managed to deploy the barrier in time, but the shock she had failed to deflect was wreaking havoc on her body, damaging its very structure.
Right in front of her, Rictus licked his lips, his yellow eyes glowing.
“Oh, I see you’re not human after all. A noble of the night. I thought the true vampires had all died out long ago. That would explain your ability to use blood magic. . . .”
CRACK
A vast amount of mana surged around Rictus’ massive body. Immediately after, the ground where he and Calia had been standing exploded as if a bomb had gone off, collapsing in a straight line.
“How rude of you to interrupt my conversation.”
“No need for courtesy towards a lizard head.”
As the rain quickly washed away the dust and smoke, Russell and Rictus appeared. Rictus, who had blocked Russell’s fist with one hand, tilted his head.
“How did you. . .”
The lizard’s eyes turned to the space behind Russell. There, Tenon, his upper body pierced by Nahilnir and his head frozen by Final Frost, lay as a monster.
“Were you hiding your strength? You couldn’t have defeated him that quickly otherwise.”
“Bullshit.”
BOOM!
A massive shockwave erupted, sweeping through the surroundings. Within it, a fist covered in lightning flashed, pressing Russell.
Russell also waved his hand, deflecting and repelling the barrage of fists.
In addition to his mastery of magic, Rictus was also highly skilled in hand-to-hand combat.
FWOOSH!
Intense mana, too strong for even Russell to ignore, flowed down Rictus’ legs, igniting flames. The intense heat was so intense that the raindrops still falling from the sky instantly vaporized, forming a wave of heat that enveloped the surroundings.
In an instant, the wet ground dried up, cracking and crumbling, and the weeds turned to ash and disintegrated.
SWOOSH!
Before the flames could transform into magic, Russell moved first. His purple eyes began to glow, and the mana within a 15-meter radius around him condensed.
Rictus’ face, which had been constantly adorned with an arrogant smile, twisted for the first time.
“What is this?”
The local energy control that Russell activated through his magic eyes shattered the waves of fire that surged beneath him, dispersing the magical energy that had enveloped Rictus’s body.
As soon as his eyes met Russell’s, a sharp pain pierced Rictus’ mind, instantly disrupting the flow of mana within his body.
“GACK!”
Rictus, spitting out a mouthful of blood, hurriedly took a step back. His demeanor was completely different from the confident one he had been using to press the attack.
“Where do you think you’re going.”
Russell, his upper body bent low enough to touch the ground, moved smoothly within the space controlled by his authority. His right shoulder was raised high, and his fist, fully charged, was clenched with enough force to crush steel.
“W, Wait a━”
Rictus’s limbs twisted, as if he were experiencing the inability to move his mana and magical energy flow freely for the first time.
At that moment, the frozen mana and magical energy flow returned to normal, and an intangible energy erupted from Rictus’s scaly body like a wildfire, transforming into destructive beams that engulfed Russell.
No escape.
Making a split-second decision, Russell chose to push forward rather than defend himself.
Dozens of beams of intense heat pierced Russell’s body. The skin on his face, which had been hit head-on by the beam, melted, and his retinas turned black.
Even with his vision temporarily limited, he twisted his waist as if performing a rehearsed motion.
The rotational force transmitted through his twisted waist, shoulders, and elbows exploded at the tip of his fist, striking Rictus’ left side.
BOOM!
A circular shockwave erupted from Russell, and sharp mana rays flickered. The shockwave, which spread in all directions, swept away Calia, who was retreating with her crimson barrier, Weizen and Ateulio, who were in the middle of a fierce battle, and Aellasis, who was preparing a spell behind them.
“Ugh. . . . . .!”
“What the!”
“GYAAAAAH. . . . . .!”
Rictus’s massive body, thrown back, flew past the village and crashed into the nearby valley wall. The impact caused the valley wall to collapse.
RUMBLE RUMBLE RUMBLE. . . . . . .
“Cough. . . . . . .”
Russell, who had been standing in the pose of throwing a punch, covered his face with one hand and collapsed to the ground. His face had melted from being hit by the beam at close range.
A thick smoke rose from around him due to the intense heat, and the smell of burnt flesh filled the air.
“Russell, Russell! Are you okay?”
“UOOOOOOH!”
Calia, who had been rolling on the ground, rushed over, while Ateulio, still reeling from the shock, had two swords plunged into his back.
“Die, you monster!”
BAM BAM BAM!
Weizen, pulling out the swords from Ateulio’s back, channeled his magical energy into the blades, desperately. For a moment, his blades reached such a speed that they repelled the falling raindrops. But then. . .
With a ‘crack’, the swords broke in half, unable to withstand the combined force of Weizen’s magical energy and Ateulio’s durable body.
“Damn. . . . . .”
The spinning sword blades took turns illuminating Weizen and Ateulio, who was trying to get up from the ground with his arms as supports.
“Frozen Soul.”
At that moment, a white pillar of ice fell from the sky, piercing Ateulio’s back and chest. At the same time, icy vines grew rapidly from within Ateulio’s body, piercing through his skin and protruding outward.
“. . . . . .!”
Ateulio, his entire body transformed into a crumbling ice statue, swayed and fell to the ground.
CRACK.
It shattered into thousands of pieces. Aellasis, wearing boots, floated down from the sky and landed on top of it.
“Are you okay?”
THUD, Weizen collapsed on the ground, his butt hitting the ground.
“Oh, thank god. . . I came here to rest, and this is what I get, damn it. . . . . .”
As the burning pain subsided, Russell opened his eyes. No, rather than opening his eyes, his retinas had regenerated.
“Hold still. Just now, your skin and muscles completely burnt. I could see your bones!”
“I’m fine.”
“No. . . . . . .”
Calia slowly saw Russell’s face regain its shape. The burnt skin had hardened into fragments and was falling off, revealing new skin regenerating over his raw muscles.
Eyelids grew back, covering his eyes, and his melted nose straightened back up. Calia sighed in relief.
“Whew, that’s a relief. If you lost that face, it would be an irreplaceable loss to the world.”
“You were worried about me, right?”
Russell, pushing himself up from the ground, turned towards the valley. The creature, who should have come back by now, seemed to be moving further away. The direction was towards the inner gorge of the valley.
Russell remembered that Rictus had told the knights not to call him unless absolutely necessary. If that had something to do with something inside the gorge.
“It’s not over yet.”
Russell, summoning the axe that had frozen Keldon’s body and the great sword that had pierced his chest, turned to his companions.
“Take care of things here.”
“What, no, wait. . .”
Before Weizen could say anything, Russell shot out of the village and into the valley.
🔷🔷🔷🔷🔷🔷
“Damn it, cough!”
The massive lizardman held his left side as he hurriedly walked. It was Rictus, the Draconic Lizardman who had been sent flying by Russell’s blow.
“Ugh, what kind of human has become so strong. . . . . . .”
When he removed the hand that had been covering his side, a large fist-shaped scar was revealed. Around it, a circular ring spread out, and broken scales fell off.
The human mana that had invaded his body continued to shock him, shaking his internal organs.
The shock of having his body and mana, which he had trained and accumulated for 300 years, so ruthlessly shattered still lingered.
No matter how strong a creature was, it was difficult to resist the mana rampaging within its own body.
“Ugh, I’m not ready yet, but if this keeps up, I’ll be the one who dies first. . . . . . .”
Rictus’ muttering eyes narrowed as they looked towards the increasingly narrow inner gorge of the valley.
He could not let what he had worked so hard for for so long fall apart like this.
He needed time.
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