by Park Saenal
“They are also nobles of the Saharan Empire. They have territories, people, and soldiers… You can’t escape a grudge even if you are Duke Diworth.”
“Let’s see? I think people will happily accept the death of an incompetent lord. Isn’t that right?”
Diworth looked around at the several shocked nobles and knights who nodded hurriedly. Duke Diworth’s brutality was so great that even some of the Seven Dukes were reluctant to deal with it. Thus, the lower nobles didn’t even dare to face him. Diworth moved to the top seat alone. Then he took the baton from Marquis Fulbas and exclaimed, “They dared to rebel against the dukes of the empire. For those who dared to talk about retreat, killing them and turning them into dog food isn’t enough!”
A powerful magic power of alcohol spread through the barracks, and the nobles and knights quickly became drunk. Only five people… Only Marquis Fulbas and four earls were able to stand up and drive away the alcohol.
A smile of delight appeared on Diworth’s face.
“T-The enemy!” At this time, a knight rushed in and shouted. “The enemy commander, Chris, is coming!”
“One person? Only one?” Diworth’s eyes were clear because he had just released his drunkenness.
The knight became frightened after recognizing Diworth and hurriedly nodded. “Y-Yes! However, the sun will soon be going down!”
“What about the sun setting?”
What did the knight want to say? The moment Diworth cocked his head, some changes resolved his doubts. The ground was turbulent, and the tent rocked. The frightened soldiers screamed. There was an intense magic power that made one’s skin go numb. There was the smell of blood.
“Vampire!” Diworth quickly figured out what happened and rushed out of the barracks.
In the sky, a beautiful boy was laughing while revealing pointy molars. “Hahahaha! I’ll eat you!”
A bloody magic power covered the desert. It was a magic power with the nature of exploitation.
“Uwaaaack!” The soldiers of the empire, who hadn’t managed to spread out, screamed. Blood was drawn from their bodies and into the sky as they became mummies. The vampire earl, Noll—his stomach was bloated, and he laughed with joy, “Kuhahaha!”
He felt the extreme happiness of having a full dinner. However, it was a law that happiness couldn’t last forever.
“Oof!” Noll, who was happy with the rise in his magic power from the blood, suddenly stopped and grabbed his belly. His snow white face turned red. Then his trembling gaze captured one enemy to the side. It was the source where his magic power exploited something other than blood.
A man was standing there in a relaxed manner while holding a flask. It was the Drunk Duke Diworth. “Are you drunk after drinking alcohol? Are you weak when it comes to drinking because you’re a child?”
Diworth leaped forward. The speed at which he ran through the sky was so fast that the soldiers didn’t realize what was happening. The soldiers just thought a thunderbolt appeared in the sky. They saw the vampire crashing into the ground and thought the monster had been punished. Diworth’s rough hands were holding Noll’s thin neck.
Noll’s feet kicked in the air as he was caught by a transcendent’s grip. The boy was drunk and confused. Diworth hit him with the flask. A sharp piece of glass wounded Noll’s face, and the heavy fragrance in the air made Noll lose his spirit even more.
“I guess he didn’t lie when he said this is alcohol from the roots of the sacred tree.” Diworth pulled out a new bottle and gulped it all down at once. His face was flushed, just like when he first appeared.
“Let go of that hand!” Chris was attacking the enemy lines to draw attention away from Noll. He had been planning to retreat, but now he rushed deeper into enemy lines. Noticing what happened to Noll, Chris rushed to the center of the imperial army.
“1,000 Ton Sword!”
He dropped down from on top of the camel. The ultimate attack used by the best greatsword user fell on Diworth’s head. It seemed like it would smash Diworth’s head, but that didn’t happen. Diworth bent his upper body and easily avoided Chris’ attack. Then he kicked from a strange angle. Chris was hit in the face and fell off the camel. “Kuek…! Cough!”
He thought he was going to die after being hit. Chris was scared by Diworth’s fearsome power and regretted it. He thought he was crazy for running into the center of enemy lines to die. Then he soon changed his mind.
‘Noll…!’
He saw Noll’s miserable figure hanging from Diworth’s hand and jumped up. Did he feel regretful? No. He could die as long as he saved Noll. Chris made a pledge and raised the power of his second class, Tyrant.
He belatedly saw the golden name ‘Drunk Duke Diworth’, but he still raised his greatsword without hesitation. Diworth laughed. “You managed to get up right away. You are a tough guy.”
Chris also laughed. “I wouldn’t have gotten up if I were hit by Grid. You are weak.”
“Grid…?”
“The Overgeared King.”
“…The Overgeared King.” Diworth’s face distorted in a terrible manner. He had no intention of sparing the crazy person in front of him who compared the great duke of the empire to the king of a small kingdom. Additionally…
“You dare to despise my master?”
The man in the shadow didn’t intend to keep Diworth alive. Hundreds of thousands of shadows scattered across the battlefield in an instant.
“I will fight for my new homeland and repay the grudge of my old homeland!”
The shadow spears and swords slashed through the entire battlefield.
Chapter 1011
The better the skill, the higher the potential. The higher the potential, the harder the application difficulty. It meant that a user’s competence was important in pulling out all the potential of a skill. Nevertheless, there were skills that couldn’t be solved with the problem of competence alone.
Super Sensitivity was a representative example of this. It was a skill to predict upcoming crises and the behavioral patterns of targets. It predicted when someone became a target of a skill already used, when to target the opponent, when they would encounter the opponent, when to move to a specific place, and so on.
The skill functioned under all conditions and was given the ‘system assistance.’ The system alerted users to the predictions through a notification window or voice message. It was hard for even a genius to handle the flood of information that came in real time. How many people would tolerate the voice guidance or notification windows in a sober manner?
As such, there were restrictions. A great swordsman’s Super Sensitivity only had a duration of a few seconds while Kraugel’s Super Sensitivity had many functions limited. Every time the stat increased, the limits of the functions would gradually unlock, giving the player time to adapt.
The same was true for the Shadow Technique that belonged to Lantier’s Methods. This top-rated skill that had to partially control the shadows and their weapons reduced the player’s burden by limiting the number of weapons and shadows that a player could raise. Previously, Faker studied the skill from Kasim, and only six shadows could be raised when the skill was level 3.
However, Kasim was different. Just as Mercedes could handle Keen Insight which was the higher version of Super Sensitivity, Kasim was able to control the shadows perfectly. It was the ability of the named-grade NPC with the setting of ‘King of Shadows.’
Hundreds of thousands of shadow troops filled the battlefield. They emerged from the feet or from the back, stabbing the imperial soldiers’ necks and backs. The basic characteristic of the Shadow Technique where the ‘power is weakened when summoning a large number of soldiers’ also applied to Kasim, and it was rare for an imperial soldier to be fatally wounded or killed by the shadows.
“Uh… Uwahh…” Still, the morale of the imperial forces sank completely. The sudden appearance of hundreds of thousands of troops was more shocking than any natural disaster.
Just one
person… The center of the stage, which had been naturally created, contained the calm Drunk Duke Diworth. No, he was amused. He precisely captured Kasim’s image hiding in the darkness.
“You were a black cat survivor.”
Diworth threw Noll, who was held in his hand, to the ground. Noll coughed up blood. He was unable to recover. The unidentified alcohol absorbed into his body prevented his magic power and organs from functioning.
Tong! Diworth kicked Noll in the direction of the knights and shook his head.
“There weren’t any duty officers at headquarters at the time, so it was my job. I used my brain. Unfortunately, I was too excited and made a mistake. You will die by my hands and won’t be able to get revenge on the empire…”
“Take back those words,” Kasim interrupted Diworth in the middle of his speech. Kasim’s stealth disappeared, and his eyes shone with killing intent.
Diworth scratched his head. “What words?”
“Don’t call me black cat!”
‘Black cat’ was the name the empire used to refer to the Nero. The skin of the Nero was black and their actions were clandestine, so they were nicknamed ‘black cat’. There wasn’t a ‘demeaning’ intention behind it. Why would they demean insignificant beings? It was just easy to call them by this name.
“We aren’t black cats but the Nero! We are humans, not beasts! Humans!”
Then the empire trampled on the Nero, brutally murdering them regardless of whether they were adults or children. Only Kasim survived. Kasim’s shout rocked the battlefield. In the midst of the imperial soldiers, the shadow soldiers poured toward Diworth.
Diworth swung his hand. “Trivial things.”
The magic shield destroyed all the shadow weapons that flew at it. The scattered shadows returned to their places.
“In order to deal with a duke of the Saharan Empire, did you increase the number of shadows to this point?” Diworth didn’t know Kasim, but he knew the King of Shadows. The empire’s intelligence network which spanned the entire continent was well aware of the fact that the King of Shadows was Lantier’s disciple and that he used shadows. “The more shadows that are dispersed, the more cloudy they become. If you intend to kill a duke of the empire and get revenge on the empire, you should’ve gathered all the shadows at one point and aimed for my heart. Like this.”
Magic power condensed around Diworth’s fingertip and aimed at Kasim. Goosebumps appeared on the skin of Noll, who got caught by the imperial knights.
“A human has such power…!”
The desert split apart. A straight line of magic power pierced Kasim’s heart and didn’t stop as it disappeared beyond the desert horizon. No one knew where it flew to. There was no sound. Then Kasim fell to his knees. He looked like a broken doll.
“Kasim!!” Chris, who had been hopeful after Kasim appeared, shouted desperately. He belatedly realized things had gone wrong and used the Tyrant’s power. Chris hoped that Kasim would be alive and that Noll would escape while he attracted Diworth’s attention. He rushed through the imperial forces toward Diworth. Then a hand protruded from a gap between the soldiers and stopped Chris.
A voice rang out, “Teacher didn’t die.”
Kasim lived due to his desire to get revenge on the empire. He had protected a baby’s side for years while only thinking of revenge, and it wasn’t easy for him to lose his composure. Kasim’s fury when creating the shadow army was an act. It was a sacrifice to announce that there was a Nero survivor. He attracted Diworth’s attention and didn’t reveal that this was a falsehood. It was all for one purpose.
“…?”
It was to rescue Noll. Knights fell from a few flashes of light as Kasim appeared among them to grab Noll.
“Catch him!”
The great knights fought back against Kasim. The magicians also supported them. However, Kasim was the best assassin, and ordinary knights and magicians couldn’t stop him. Kasim was faster than anyone else as he held Noll in his arms. The Shadow Technique combined with the Nero characteristics meant it was more covert than normal shadow skills.
“Disappeared?”
Kasim appeared and disappeared like a ghost. He rescued Noll and hid in the shadows, making it hard for even Duke Diworth of the Seven Dukes to detect him.
“I was tricked.” Diworth was less intoxicated after releasing his magic power. Once his drunkenness was gone, he lost interest and handed matters over to Marquis Fulbas. “Catch the one you can grab.”
He was going to do it anyway. Marquis Fulbas’ gaze turned toward Chris. He didn’t intend to miss capturing Chris.
“Commander Chris of Reidan, you are valuable as a hostage.” Marquis Fulbas swung his sword and so did the four earls by his side. Every one of them was more powerful than Chris. They were leaders who led hundreds of thousands of troops. In the first place, there was no way for Chris to break through hundreds of thousands of troops.
‘I can’t be a hostage.’
If he was a hostage, he would grabbing at his teammates’ ankles. The time wasted would also increase. It was better for him to die neatly. Kasim and Noll had escaped safely, so there was no need for regrets.
Chris judged and released all of his armor. He intended to passively die from the enemies’ next attacks without letting them capture him alive. The death of the commander would greatly reduce morale, but it was better than being a hostage.
At this moment, the wind blew. There was a gust of wind that made the imperial soldiers split apart like the Red Sea and form a barrier in front of the marquis and the earls. There was only one magician Chris knew who could completely control the wind.
“Zednos!”
He was an early member of the Overgeared Guild. Zednos, former Tzedakah member and 1st ranked wind magician, sent a whisper to Chris.
-I can only maintain it for three seconds! Use this gap to escape!
A miracle didn’t happen easily. Zednos squeezed out all his mana, but only managed to tie up the feet of a few of the troops. One of the earls was gathering aura at the end of his sword. The wind barriers were already losing momentum and were destined to shatter.
-I understand!
His colleague had risked himself to come help, so Chris couldn’t passively die. Chris wore his armor again and rushed through the rain of arrows. The soldiers’ gazes were dispersed as Chris saw his companions everywhere. Jishuka and Yura covered him with arrows and bullets. Pon, Regas, and Peak Sword attacked the enemies while Vantner and Toban used wide-range taunt skills. His other colleagues like Zirkan and Laella were doing their best to secure the path of retreat.
“Chris! This way!”
“Run away!”
“In any case, I’m foolish.” Chris laughed as he swung the greatsword to the side and sliced the enemies. The members of Overgeared were positioned in oasis around the desert. Those who pursued guerrilla warfare or physical strength and maximum efficient now entered the battlefield. They were trying to save Chris, just as Chris tried to save Noll. They didn’t think life was worthless. They just believed that their colleagues’ lives were more important than their own.
This was all because of Grid. It was all learned from watching Grid.
Magic rushed toward Chris’ back as he rushed to escape. The imperial army didn’t miss this gap when Chris’ body was reeling from the powerful force. Spells quickly poured out and reduced Chris’ health. If the marquis hadn’t given the order to capture him, Chris would’ve already died. Chris felt the earls approaching and shouted with all his might, “Give up on me and run away together!”
“No.”
“…?”
Then Chris’ shadow moved. The shadow spoke, “The commander shouldn’t die.”
The shadow grew, and black hair fluttered.
“Faker!”
One of the earls reaching out to Chris fell down. Faker jumped out and inserted a dagger into the earl’s side. It was a destructive technique linked to speed. The move was reminiscent of the living Doran who
only Grid knew.
“Not a chance!” The fallen earl rose again. A total of four earls stabbed at Faker at the same time. Faker avoided one knife in exchange for thrusting a dagger into one person’s abdomen. His body was torn apart. The sight of Faker’s blood was unfamiliar to Chris. Faker was strong even to Chris.
“F-Faker!”
“Go.”
However, Faker didn’t look back. He summoned six shadow soldiers to protect Chris. Faker had to disperse his mental power in order to control the soldiers. This meant that his body was weakened, but he didn’t care. He was the shadow that protected the Overgeared Kingdom. It was his duty to serve and sacrifice himself for the light while not letting others know him. His death wouldn’t affect the war.
“Eclipse.” Faker completely assimilated with the darkness, but he didn’t have full control due to the six shadow soldiers. The earls didn’t lose sight of Faker, and Faker continued to grab their ankles while being cut.
“Next time… Next time, I will protect you!” Chris was escorted by the shadow soldiers and barely escaped the enemy’s encirclement. The members of Overgeared gathered in one place and helped him.
However, Marquis Fulbas was closely chasing Chris. “It isn’t a bad situation.”
It was the opportunity to strike down the enemy commander. Marquis Fulbas welcomed the golden opportunity and was about to release his ultimate technique, only to stop. It was because Noll appeared with Kasim from the shadows and threatened him. “Get lost!”
Marquis Fulbas realized that Noll had removed most of the alcohol and quietly lowered his sword. He had to give up the chase as the Overgeared people fled neatly. Then he resented Diworth.
‘If Sir Diworth fought to the end, we could’ve wiped out the enemies.’
Diworth was lazy when he wasn’t drunk. He didn’t show passion toward any particular situation. Diworth wasn’t in a position to condemn the young nobles for being cowards. The grim truth was that most of the Seven Dukes were like Diworth. The empire that had been prosperous for so long was decaying from the top.