by Road Warrior
“What is going on? Mikhael Gilford! Odrias!”
It was the Seventh Continental Champion, Willie Gilford. He had been outside the dungeon when he heard the strange rumblings that shook the entire dungeon leading him to follow his suspicions to this place with a small group accompanying him. However, the son he was looking for was nowhere to be found in this tomb. Instead, in the main chamber of the tomb, there was a strange young man that appeared to be from the Suicide Unit, the Exploratory Unit leader Mimi Azrael, and an avian with black-feathered wings.
His eyes were locked onto Marakia. With the grand outfit and decorations that surrounded the avian’s entire body, the overwhelming oppressive feeling that pushed against his entire body, and the avian’s appearance, there was only one guess that he could make.
Could it be? Mimi Azrael… did she awaken the Avian King? And just where is that idiot Mikhael?
His son was nowhere to be found.
“And who is that?” Marakia directed his question towards Mimi.
She hesitated slightly but made her resolve before answering. “That man is our enemy.”
“Lies! That person is my employee.” Willie raised his voice as he spoke. Mimi trembled as she felt fearful of the overwhelming strength in his voice. This was what it meant to have the strength to hold the title of the Seventh Champion of the Continent.
Willie glared at Mimi as he questioned her. “Mimi Azrael! Where is my son?”
As he spoke, a weak voice rang out from the wall.
“Kuu… S-save me…”
It was the voice of his subordinates trapped by the servants of the king. Willie immediately went towards the voice and split the wall with his sword. The wall split cleanly allowing the people trapped within to spill out. Mikhael was among them.
“Mikhael!” Willie quickly embraced his son’s body and shook him. Mikhael was already dead. His mind broke much earlier within the darkness to despair, causing his body to follow soon after.
“This damned…”
Willie’s eyes lit up with intense flames, but he was also a person of great caution. He didn’t have any desire to fight with the King of the Nahaks whose strength couldn’t be determined. He quickly calculated in his mind to coordinate with the Avian King for a benefit or to cut his losses and leave with his son’s body. However, he couldn’t locate his most useful pawn.
In any case, where did Odrias go? I stuck him with my son to watch over him. Where is he now?
He looked around his surroundings and soon a single corpse abandoned in a distant corner came into his view.
That attire…?
Willie, whose eyes were drawn to the corpse’s face due to the familiar outfit it wore, was beyond shocked with what he saw. “Odrias Sikoro!”
His former comrade and most trusted subordinate was in the middle of being pecked to pieces by a white-feathered avian chick.
“This bastard!” Willie flipped out. Who was Odrias to him? He was the most loyal of followers who had been with him from the start and had fought with his back against his in many battles, even though Willie was a summoned that everyone looked down upon. They were so close that Willie hired Odrias as Mikhael's mentor after Odrias's retirement. It might have been odder for him to retain his calm after seeing such a man being pitifully pecked apart by some chicken.
Willie grew furious and booted the young chick that was pecking at the corpse.
“Bawk bawk!!” The avian bounced away like a ball until it hit the floor, then thrashed about a bit and died.
“How dare a fucking chicken try to eat my comrade’s corpse.” It was an immediate reflex that occurred before his head had time to think. He was known to be a selfish man, but he deeply valued those close to him and treated them with great care.
But due to his actions, the previously calm burial chamber began to stir. The mood of Marakia, the King of the Nahaks, had shifted. A dark and chilly air flowed from Marakia who had been quiet and agreeable despite his title as the Last King.
“You dare kill my subject in front of me?” Marakia grew enraged. Mimi who had been hunched over in front of him was wearing a meaningful smile beneath him.
Shit!
Willie realized that he had made a critical error, and to make matters worse, a being appeared from the shadows that he wished to never meet again. The Despair of the Abyss revealed himself as though he had been here from the beginning.
“T-that thing!”
His followers who had already had their share of troubles due to the creature immediately turned their gaze away from it.
“…”
Sungchul silently looked at his surroundings. Marakia was in the center of the room, Mimi was hunched over beneath him, Willie and his followers were at the entrance, the Despair of the Abyss sat in a shaded corner, while he stood in the middle of them all. All of the key figures within the Underground Kingdom had gathered in one spot. When it rains it pours, and this powder keg was ready to explode.
Marakia moved first.
“Which race rules the world now?’ he coldly asked Mimi who lay at his feet.
Mimi answered while still in her grovelling pose, “Several races share dominion, but the most dominating among them… are humans.”
“Is that so?” Marakia let out a cold laughter. His starry eyes were looking directly at Willie.
“Those that crawled the ground when we flew the skies have now become arrogant because they managed to gather some strength. To dare treat a subject of the King of Nahaks in such a manner.”
“…”
Willie began to retreat slowly but looked ready to pull out his sword anytime. Marakia who had seen this mocked him. “Do you truly believe that you could harm a feather on my body with a cheap toy like that?”
“…It is true that I have harmed one of your subjects, but it is also true that your young subject had desecrated the corpse of my subordinate.” Willie did not back down an inch, and the Avian King broke out into laughter.
“The creatures that once crawled on the ground as prey are now barking so indignantly. Human, I will let you experience again the fear that had since been forgotten.”
Marakia’s wings burst open. The massive magic power instilled within his black wings flooded the room, creating an uneasy atmosphere so tense that it felt ready to burst at any moment.
“I shall leave this place and lay waste to each and every human nation and drive them towards extinction. I shall burn the unworthy to death with the flames of purification, and the human kings will be forced to watch as I devour their own livers in front of them. If I repeat this enough times, the human race may remember once more what these black wings symbolize.”
Things escalated quickly, thought Mimi as she continued to lie bowed with her head to the ground at the king’s feet.
Meanwhile, Willie Gilford, who was receiving the full force of the Avian King’s rage with his body, felt extreme terror. This is not an enemy I can defeat.
What stood in front of him exuded so much oppressive strength that it relegated the Despair of the Abyss to the status of bystander.
Maybe if I gathered all 13 Champions of the Continent… but I can’t do this by myself.
He had wiped clean all notions of taking the bodies of his son or his comrade with him. Survival was the first priority.
These thoughts were running through his mind as he clenched his sword tighter, but Marakia’s wings suddenly moved. Marakia flew up to the ceiling with a single flap, and Willie, who could see the black wings of the Nahak King, couldn’t fathom what he should do next. Soon, the air above burst into feathers and beams of black light.
Sungchul silently watched the two battle. It is similar to Glare, but not quite the same. It’s a more powerful version of Magic Arrow.
Willie swung his sword to parry the projectiles or evaded them completely, but the deadly magical arrows continued to pour like rain, causing small and large cuts all over his body. His followers were long since dead within the confusion o
f the battle.
“Gasp… Gasp…”
There was no way to retaliate for Willie. He would simply be whittled to death at his rate, and it was too much of a risk to leap toward the Avian King.
A way… is there no way at all? Something most likely to succeed?
In a fight without the possibility of victory, everything had to be put on the line. Willie had only involved himself when the odds were with him. This was his first fight where the odds were against him from the start. He attempted a counterattack within the baptism of countless arrows, but it was already far too late as his body was exhausted and riddled with injuries. He was struck in the abdomen with a black magic arrow, and he fell. It was a mortal wound.
Willie wiped his lips and tried to catch his breath. The shadow of death was looming over him.
“You insect.” The Avian King gradually descended to end the life of the Seventh Champion of the Continent personally. A short staff that looked more like a pitchfork rather than a blade appeared in his hand. It was the Sceptre of the Avian King.
Marakia approached Willie who was desperately gasping for breath on the floor and raised the sceptre above him. “Die.”
It was at that moment when a man appeared before them. A man who had such a small presence that everyone had forgotten him and in his hands was a hammer. It was Sungchul.
The man who had naturally stepped in to block the Avian King’s path approached Willie and spoke in a calm voice. “Willie Gilford. Do you remember me?”
Chapter 7 – Echoes
“Who are you?”
It was an unfamiliar face, but when Willie noticed the hammer in this strange man’s hands, he recalled where he had seen the man. It was in front of the Demon King’s Palace. It was the man who was losing his mind before the heroes of Other World such as Girasung, spouting curses towards them.
Sungchul, the Enemy of the World? No… How could it be? His face is different. He looks younger than before, and his physique is different as well.
The most important aspect wasn’t his face, but rather the Divine Weapon, Fal Garaz, that he held in his hands. Sungchul looked down on Willie with a chilly gaze and opened his mouth again.
“You haven’t changed at all in eight years. Or rather, you might have regressed.”
At that moment, Marakia shot down dozens of magical arrows from the sky like rain. Sungchul struck the earth with his hammer. The surface cracked, and an entire sheet of bedrock popped out. He held it in place with just one hand. The bedrock was as large as a house, but the hand which held it up was unwavering.
PEWT! PEWT! PEWT PEWT PEWT!
Multiple Magic arrows landed on the bedrock, but none managed to penetrate it all the way through. After he had managed to block the first round of attacks, Sungchul threw the bedrock and mightily swung his hammer. It caused a sound reminiscent of an explosion along with a tremendous rush of wind. The Avian King was temporarily disoriented due to taking the resulting wind head on, and the bedrock Sungchul launched into the air came crashing down to the ground.
BOOM!
The ground shook wildly, but what shook even more was the Seventh Champion of the Continent’s eyes.
What is that strength? I knew that he forsook everything for the sake of physical stats, but that strength… what is this?
For a moment, a goal that he once chased but had long since come to accept as infeasible popped into his mind.
Could it be… did that man exceed Superhuman levels and step into the realm of Transcendence?
Transcendent One. It is the highest attainable state for a mortal. There were only three known Transcendents among the Thirteen Champions of the Continent: the First Champion of the Continent, Emperor William Quinton Marlboro, the Second Champion of the Continent, Mediator Aquiroa, and the Fifth Champion of the Continent, leader of the Assassin’s Guild Shamal Rajput.
Sungchul who had been the 10th Champion of the Continent was known as a powerful warrior, but he was too simple. People believed his upper limits were all too clear. He had no particular skills or techniques and chose to throw himself into battle with just his own body. This method was crude and predictable. But the martial prowess Sungchul just demonstrated in that short period of time was on a completely different level from his past self.
Could it be that he overcame his limits?
Suddenly, Willie spat out a glob of blood from his throat and curled up like a shrimp. It was because the shadow of death was looming over him.
THUD.
Sungchul’s military boots passed by him.
“Selfishness has clouded your judgement and made you fall into the pitfall called complacence.”
KONK.
Fal Garaz’s head fell lightly onto the ground’s surface.
“Look well, Willie Gilford. This is how the Enemy of the World fights.”
Sungchul ran out with his hammer in hand. Willie, who didn’t even have the strength to move a finger, couldn’t do much else than to watch Sungchul fight while his head still lay on the ground, forcing him to breathe in the loose dirt.
When the battle began, Willie fell into a huge shock. Sungchul and Marakia fought on equal footing. No… Sungchul had an air of leisure about him. It was unbelievable. A summoned, a mortal, was fighting evenly with a figure of legends.
Sungchul. He was definitely weaker than me. Just how did he manage to get his hands on such massive power? And… and for what reason?
Sungchul’s words were correct. While Willie had become complacent after obtaining the title of “Regent of the Ancient Kingdom” and the Seventh Champion of the Continent, Sungchul had become unfathomably stronger. He was forced to fight and struggle to survive every day for eight years, to the point where death would have been a much kinder fate.
“Receive the fury of the skies!”
Marakia formed several magic formations all across the ceiling and summoned a part of a storm cloud to cause lightning to strike down with abandon. It was a terrifying magical attack that hadn’t been seen before, but Sungchul’s response was quite simple. He rapidly smashed Fal Garaz into the bedrock, shattering the ground around him causing the debris to float up into the air. He then struck the floating chunks of the bedrock faster than the eyes could see, launching them towards and destroying every magic formation Marakia had created, even scattering the thunderclouds that had formed.
Marakia was impressive, but Sungchul’s response was simply breathtaking.
Just how did that man… for what reason did he reach that level…
In that moment, Willie’s sight began to fade. Death was quickly approaching him. All he could hear was the sound of battle, and even that was starting to grow distant. Within the tranquil darkness, Willie lay dying in humiliation and regret. The last thing he heard was Marakia’s outburst.
“You lowly pest of a human!”
It was an all-out attack. Marakia brought forth all sorts of damnable forbidden spells from within his feathers by muttering their incantation in his beaks before he thrust his wings forward. His entire body began to emit a black magical aura that swept through the entire Underground Kingdom like a torrent, causing all the corpses caught within to reawaken.
CLACK. CLACK. CLACK.
The countless Cave Elves buried within the wall broke through and began to stumble forth. It was an undead army of thousands… no, tens of thousands.
“My slaves. Exterminate that vulgar insect!”
The skeletal army began to rush towards Sungchul like a river.
“…”
Sungchul stood his ground and watched the tidal wave of skeletons overwhelm him while Marakia looked over the scene from the ceiling with his arms crossed.
The river of white skeletons quickly began to surround Sungchul and eventually enveloped him entirely. These dead beings had the magical ability to drain the life force of the living simply by being near them. Although each of them was weak, but what would happen if few dozens or few hundreds of them suddenly came rushing all a
t once to drain away life energy? No human warrior, no matter how powerful, would be able to withstand the onslaught. Marakia’s skeleton army also numbered in the tens of thousands. It might have helped to have wings to fly, but those without the ability to fly would be simply doomed to die without a struggle.
However, tremors began to rumble within the mass of skeletons. Marakia’s eyes caught something moving.
SWECK~
Within the river of white below his feet, something small and white began to fly over in his direction. Marakia immediately began to move his wings to back away.
FWIK! FWIK!
Something sharp flew past where he flew and became embedded into the wall. Marakia turned his head to take a look at what it was. They were fragments of bone.
BOOM!
Another muffled tremor exploded below him followed by the sound of the air splitting that shocked him to his core.
Did that bastard actually…?!
Marakia could not hold back his surprise and quickly descended. Skeletal fragments shot out like a shotgun and embedded themselves everywhere.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The swarm of skeletons moved in unison. More fragments flew toward Marakia than he had expected.
“Urk!”
One of the fragments caused an injury. The wound wasn’t deep, but it bled and caused ripples of pain. Marakia began to tremble. He was a Nahak; a race believed to be chosen by God. He was also the most revered and powerful among the Nahaks, but he was injured by a mere human.
However, that attack was only the beginning.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Consecutive muffled explosions resonated from the mass of skeletons.
What is he? Why is he fine while being surrounded by the Army of Death?
He had been the one showering black arrows like rain, but now he was on the receiving end, being exposed to the flying fragments of bone. Marakia now stood at a crossroad.
Do I release the Army of Death and put up a defensive barrier? If I do that, I’ll lose one of my methods of attack. The might of the Army of Death isn’t explosive, but it is unending. No matter how strong that human is, he will not be able to resist the Army of Death indefinitely.