Chapter. 14. One Empire, Three Legends (39)
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How to unlock the Witch’s Realm as told by Aldrich.
In some ways, it was similar to dealing with a Type 3 variant.
‘Warlocks are people who use the corrupted mana that leaks through the cracks in the soul. If it leaks out, you will run out of life and die, so the warlock did whatever he could to block the gap. In my case, I blocked it with the evil spirit of Neria and separated my entire soul from the crack by putting it in a box. Or, there are those who change the form by altering the soul itself.’
‘The important thing is that no matter how much it is hidden, the fact that the crack exists inside the warlock does not change. That is the dark wizard’s weakness and fate.’
‘To find it and damage it somehow. That’s our goal. ‘Establishing an area like this and projecting it to other environments means that this place is connected to her inner world.’
‘Whether it causes physical harm or mental harm. shake her So if it comes to light, me and Nell will catch it.’
It may seem complicated at first glance, but it ultimately means breaking the opponent’s will and creating a loophole.
The inside of this cursed tower certainly seemed like a place with some important meaning.
“It’s a war zone…”
“It’s a familiar-looking face. Now that I think about it, you said you worked as a mercenary before becoming a hero?”
“Yeah whatever. “I’m not familiar with it because of that.”
For me, when I think of a battlefield, what comes to mind is the smell I can feel rather than the familiar sight.
The battlefield in front of me could not be seen for a moment when I entered the barracks or closed my eyes, but the smell that pierced my nose continued to follow me until I took my last breath.
It’s ambiguous to say it’s just the smell of blood… something fresh and something rotten. A mixture of the stench pouring from the intestines and the smell of burning meat.
If you add the smell of gunpowder and ozone around the laser blades, the only difference is that it’s a battlefield outside, and without that, it’s just a battlefield in your neighborhood. The elements I mentioned first were the smells that could be felt even if you were near the battlefield.
In that respect, the battlefield within the witch’s domain felt quite unfamiliar even to me, a veteran.
Corruption. A battlefield filled with nothing but dead corpses.
For a moment, I thought it was a symbol of a battlefield left unorganized, but it seemed like that was still hot steam rising from the putrid blood.
A battlefield where the dead are rotting before their knees even touch the ground. A land that desecrates even the death of the dead. A rotten corpse and warmth. Could there be a more incongruous combination than this?
“This… no matter how good you look at it, the appearance of the capital is-”
“No. The place you set foot in was a long time ago. “It is the battlefield of the one who drove the world into the abyss of destruction before you were even born, and it was once my battlefield.”
A hill littered with rotting corpses. Aldrich and the professor immediately got ready for battle at the sound of a voice coming from above.
A witch who appears alone, without a cursed knight or a corpse pile monster.
“It’s been so long that my eyes hurt, Aldrich, my son. And Neria?”
“…Now, enough time has passed that I can no longer be swayed by words like that, witch.”
“Be merciless. I really loved you “Both as a mother and a witch.”
Sitting on top of the corpse hill in the form of the first princess, she looked elegant and neat at first glance despite the stench and the background.
The unconcealable malice flowing from his hair soaked in cold sweat and his trembling voice was enough to overshadow everything in an ugly way.
“and you. saint of light. One who is not a part of God, but is a tool in His hands. Touched by Lo Haram…. Another of his agents.”
The tone of voice and facial expressions. Everyone seemed calm. The colony of corpses that slowly began to grow behind her was anything but.
Countless faces that repeatedly grow and fall on rotten tentacles.
Anger, Shame, Sadness, Love, Resignation, Denial, and…. Enlightenment.
They changed and mixed together as if to embody the witch’s boiling emotions, growing like the legs of a giant insect and embracing the witch with purple flames rising from their joints.
“It’s the guidance of light… Well, I commend you for not blooming with that disgusting divinity as soon as we met. “Saint, can you guess where this is?”
“….battleground. “It was also a terrible curse.”
The witch said it was the battlefield of someone who once almost destroyed the world. By inferring based on those words and the identity of the witch, it was easy to recall where this place was symbolized.
“…Undead Lord. “It is a battlefield where the ‘perspective beyond silence’ descends.”
And this is the battlefield where Mea-Maria, once a saint, was captured by an undead monarch after a bitter defeat.
Clap clap clap!
“good job! These days, the Gwangmyeong Church tends to consider the events of that time taboo. “You studied hard!”
She seemed to like my answer and clapped her hands with a bright smile.
“The most painful failure for the Church of Light. The three eastern countries and the western empire. A disaster that has dealt with all humans on this continent and brought them all to the brink of destruction, and is so severe that just calling its name causes mass panic among refugees. A look beyond the monarch’s silence. This hill is where he and I met after he descended on the battlefield that was already over.”
Phew!
Kurrrrrrrrrrr-!
With her words, one of the corpse’s legs pierced the hill, and the corpses on the hill began to collapse, as if a tumor had exploded.
The shaking dead earth and the purple energy rising from its cracks. curse. And your vision becomes blurry.
A wall of dead bodies grew in an instant, separating Aldrich and me and wrapping around us like a cocoon.
“….A curse without parameters! It’s a hallucination! Professor, come to your senses! From now on, everything you see in front of you is-”
“Shh. are you okay. You can resist. Actually, I just want to show it. “Sometimes a lot of things change just by looking at it.”
The witch whispered in a tired and weak voice, as if in a dream, amidst the stench of corpses.
“It just takes away the blind man’s happiness.”
Aldrich, swept away by the waves of corpses, was moving away, and the rotting flesh rushing over me finally became a perfect cocoon, presenting me with darkness where I couldn’t see an inch in front of me.
[….break it down and get out? Is it now?]
‘No. It sinks.’
This is what I felt from the first time I came to the battlefield of this capital.
The witch is trying to show me something, having been led by the emperor’s will.
If the other person’s actions contain meaning, understanding that meaning is the key to preventing it.
What on earth does it mean that the fallen Saint of Light wanted to show the Saint of Light who appeared for the first time in decades?
Because if you knew that, you could break down the witch’s inner self and bring out its core.
‘….I’ll take a look.’
The professor closed his eyes, adapting to the approaching darkness like night.
Like a corpse chained to a stone, his consciousness sank into darkness. Dimly, as if I was falling asleep and transported to an infinitely far away place.
And the moment I opened my eyes.
….visor!
Chaeaeang!
“from now on! Let’s use our lives as a lamp and come forward!”
The place he was in was a battlefield that looked similar to a witch’s territory.
A place full of vividly dying people, not rotting corpses.
A shadow of history that leaves no record other than the two words “defeat” because all who participated died.
2nd World Imperial White Dallas Defense Line.
It was the final battlefield of Mea Maria, the Virgin of Light.
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“Hahahaha hahaha bright, my Lord, my light…!”
Whoa!
The staff carved from the sacred tree shone like the sun, and the undead that stood in her way were reduced to a handful of ashes. No painful screams or death.
Unlike in heroic poetry, dying undead do not scream in pain. It just crumbles like a sand castle being torn down. That’s why the battlefield is only half noisy. A place where you want to cover your ears because every scream you hear means the death of an ally.
‘This place… is wrong.’
Maria shook her head as she saw the wave of undead filling the empty space in an instant.
When the war began, she knew only religion and prayers, but repeated battlefields gave her the ability to read the world.
We’ve already been fighting for three days and nights, and our troops haven’t been able to push back a single step from the plains occupied by the undead. On the contrary, after repeated retreats, the priests at the rear were chanting healing spells among the refugees who had gathered with no room to move.
There is no place to be pushed anymore. The enemy’s army was alive and well, and had become even stronger by raising the corpses of knights from all over the world.
Chaeaeang!
What woke her up from despair was the voice of a paladin striking down a toothless sword.
“Saint, saint!”
“Ah… Brother Landale.”
Paladin Landale. Thanks to his natural body, he was educated as a Holy Knight, but his true heart is a simple person who is closer to a priest.
“What about the Knights of Dawn here…”
“The brothers… have all returned to the embrace of light. You must retreat! “You need to step away now and wait until next morning!”
A paladin showing off his pale, poison-addicted shoulders beyond his cut armor. She agreed with the words of the paladin, who looked like he was about to collapse at any moment.
Yes, this is a battlefield that has already been lost. It would be right to retreat.
However, when those who were struggling to survive escape to seek their own livelihood. What about the people here?
She bit her lip as she felt the energy of countless lives behind her.
Refugees flocked in from nearby territories. The situation was already different, with refugees fleeing to every place where people could enter, from the back alleys of the territory to the market, from the main street to the castle.
She knew because she had seen the injured people and met them. Just ordinary Anak farmer children. Ordinary people who plow the fields, complain, and only know one line of prayer before a meal.
The moment she and the Holy Knights left, the fate of the refugees who had flocked in was almost decided.
“I… can’t go.”
“Saint!”
“As a saint who represents Him as a piece of light that illuminates all people, I was not given the right to choose anyone!”
Sometimes night comes and the light fades in the imponderable darkness.
If you don’t shine a light because you’re afraid, who can move forward?
“…I will try to take as much time as possible. Brother Landale, along with other knights, guide the refugees to escape through the back door. The nearest Feishan Territory is a natural fortress, so it will be enough to accommodate all the refugees and block the undead army.”
“Saint Maria, but you…!”
“It’s an order! Of course, I am fully aware of my position and importance. There are still brothers holding out in front, so I will buy as much time as I need and get out with them. Go, don’t forget that the light is upon my will, Brother Lansdale. To the sun, to the moon, to the starlight. He is always with us. “If you have given me an unwavering will, this is also the will of light.”
“…Latura. “May the Light take care of you.”
“Latura lo haram.”
In the end, Landale, who could not break her strong will, headed alone to the castle where the refugees were, and the saintess led her exhausted body and began to move towards the battlefield where the paladins were struggling.
“how is it? How does it feel to look at the image of a saint who has been erased from history?』
“….It’s so stupid that it’s hard to look at her.”
Another saint who exuded like a soul from her body. In response to the witch’s question, I told her my honest feelings.
It’s a foolish, foolish, and devoid of any sense of responsibility. As a human being, you cannot be completely rational in the horrors of battlefield, but even if it is not perfect, a part of you must always have cold calculations in your mind.
The saint is the church’s greatest symbol and a key commander responsible for the morale of the frightened soldiers and civilians. Rather than having the responsibility to come forward and protect them, we must also have the responsibility to take upon themselves the lives of those who have died.
‘….but. Religion is not the study of reason.’
blindness. A decision of pure faith, excluding thinking. That strong belief that denies even the phenomena before our eyes is truly the beginning and end of religion. In the first place, Maria had no choice in her actions.
『Hehehe. one more. Since I am a body that is okay with death, I will lose my memories, but I will be reborn with that mission intact, so I thought it was right to dedicate myself like this.』
“So. Did she hold on like that until she was captured by an undead lord and became a witch? “You just wanted to show me that?”
The witch, who had been looking at her appearance a long time ago with pity, shook her head with the face of a saint.
『No, my choice was right. The power of the piece of the divine being called a saint was greater than you could imagine. My brothers and I succeeded in taking the time and still had the strength and energy to go back. Everyone could survive. My choice was not wrong.』
“Then why…”
『Because this world was wrong from the beginning.』
Sararak.
With the witch’s hand gesture, the battlefield of the past became blurred and came back to its original state. Bodies piled higher.
More bone chips and wounds.
The saints and paladins looked like they had finally made it, even though it was beyond their strength.
Now, as they waited for the news that the evacuation of the refugees was over, the sound of Lord Landale’s horse’s hooves as he left for the castle first was like news that dawn had come after an endless darkness.
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“Heo, heo, heo, saint, saint, saint…”
“Stop talking, Sister Tyra! “We need to get treatment to the point where retreat is possible…”
“We must have fallen short of his will… right? “The one who protected the light of so many people….”
“Sister….”
Her physical strength and stamina were exhausted. Maria held the head of Sister Tyra, whose armor and entire body were bent in a strange direction, and made eye contact with her as the light was fading out.
“Yes… of course. “Everyone got out safely.”
“Ahhhh Latura. I hope my starlight touches their future….”
The soul completely left with its last prayer. Maria closed her eyes and then turned to the knights surrounding her.
One, two, three, four… twenty people. Paladins armed with disciplined bodies and faith. Countless soldiers and knights who raised their banners for humanity are now twenty people wearing wounded and dented armor.
Tears welled up in the saint’s eyes as she contemplated that unfathomable death, but she wiped them away with her sleeve before they fell. It’s sad, but it’s the path they chose, just like her.
This is because the countless deaths ultimately pushed back the undead army and saved all the refugees who flocked from nearby territories.
A group of undead could still be seen walking towards this direction from afar, but that distance was enough for her and the remaining paladins to escape.
Clamp, clang, clang, clang –
A glimmer of hope flashed on the faces of the knights who looked like they were about to collapse from exhaustion as they heard the sound of horses’ hooves coming from afar.
“This is Brother Landale, saint.”
“It looks like all the refugees have evacuated. “We are now taking a step back.”
“Okay… let’s go, everyone. Thank you for being alive. The brothers who went before must have…”
They saved everyone, but they sacrificed so much for it. The paladins supported her, unable to be happy, and headed toward Landale, who had led the horse.
“Landale… Brother?”
The saint was so exhausted that she thought she had seen something wrong because her eyes were half closed. Why? Although he sent a knight full of courage to many brothers, he saved hundreds of times more people. Why is Brother Landale running like that, crying and with a distorted face?
At the same time, the same questions as the saint began to arise among the surviving knights and paladins. Landale, who had dragged another horse after the horse he was riding, let out an angry voice as if he was letting out the breath he had been holding.
“Is this all that remains?”
“exactly. The rest is all a journey to the stars….”
“….Damn the light…. Damn it! Why why why!!!”
“Brother Landale! calm down! “Why on earth are you doing this!”
“…I don’t have time for this. Before the undead narrow the siege any further, we must clear at least a corner of their front line while it is still thin! You, the saint, must at least get out of here! “Saint, come here!”
“Ah, Brother Landale! “Why are you suddenly like this? Ugh…!”
Paladin Landale shouted as he violently lifted the saint onto his horse.
“The leg… the leg is broken! “All the bridges and ships around the Dallas estate have disappeared!”
“Nonsense! The front line against the undead army is here in Dallas, and no undead has ever escaped here! Moreover, because of its military importance, the bridge that crosses the river must have been made as strong as the castle wall, and separate defensive troops were stationed! “That bridge is so broken that you can’t even cross it!”
Crash!
The paladin, who was swallowing tears, remembered the refugees who had thrown themselves into the strong river water to survive somehow, and spit it out.
“There were no undead or dark magic! “The ones who cut off the legs were humans like us!”
“Ah…”
Because the saintess knew what that meant. A horse with enough strength to break through the rough battlefield appeared before Sir Landale’s eyes, and the guide of light that could be felt in the distance was indeed an escape route with a clear meaning of Ro Haram. Because I felt it.
The saint did not want to understand the meaning, so she closed her eyes tightly.
‘….I threw it away.’
As if the professor, who was watching the scene in the witch’s fantasy, closed his eyes.
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