Chapter 139 - Rikrakhamur (2)

Around the time Alon's battle with Rikrakhamur began...

“Thank you so much, Your Holiness!”

“It is not thanks to me, but entirely to Lady Shironia's grace.”

At the border wall, another monster wave had been repelled.

“Yes...! Thanks to Lady Shironia's grace, we suffered almost no casualties!”

“That is a relief.”

Yuman answered and looked down from the wall. Below the hastily repaired fortifications, shattered only days earlier, soldiers were clearing away monster corpses. The wall itself had still not been properly restored.

“When do they say the mages will arrive?”

“We sent an urgent message, and they say they are on their way, but I fear it will take some time.”

“That worries me.”

Yuman's expression darkened.

'We're managing without any major problems for now, but...'

Since the expedition had left to slay Rikrakhamur, Yuman had repelled two monster waves in all, with relatively good results. Yet the still-broken wall continued to make him anxious.

'If we had the wall, we might not suffer any casualties at all...'

Even with Yuman among the allied army, casualties continued to mount. No matter how often they repaired it, the monsters somehow smashed through the wall again. Even he could not save a soldier killed instantly by a single blow.

'... The mages need to arrive as soon as possible.'

Of course, there had been few casualties. Repelling the attacks with so little damage was an extraordinary achievement.

But how small the losses were did not matter to Yuman. What mattered was human life itself. He could not help being troubled that there had been casualties at all.

He was a saint, after all.

He lowered his gaze to study the soldiers' bodies lying among the monster corpses. They were in a horrific state, but he did not look away from the dead. Instead, he quietly paid his respects.

Later, once most of the cleanup was finished, Yuman was discussing how to repel the next monster wave with Kyriana's aide when he heard a rather strange story.

“... Someone was in the north?”

“Ah, it is hardly a reliable rumor.”

“... So you mean that when the soldiers went out to patrol the border, they saw something resembling a person to the north?”

“Yes, well... It is only a rumor circulating among the soldiers. You needn't pay it much mind. It just came to me, so I thought I would mention it.”

“... If you don't mind, could you tell me a little more?”

Yuman's face had grown grave. The aide, who had brought it up casually to lighten the mood, was bewildered, but continued the story.

A short while later...

“... So there was a rumor that someone with white hair had been seen in the canyons in the northern region?”

“Yes, but as you know, there cannot be anyone in the borderlands. Both we and the Empire restrict access. It was reported to Lady Kyriana, but everyone dismissed it as a trick of the eyes.”

“Hmm.”

“However, after Cardinal Yutia arrived recently...”

The aide paused for breath before continuing.

“The men who saw that figure said the person they had seen seemed to look rather like Cardinal Yutia... That is the gist of it.”

“...”

“Haha, now that I say it aloud, it is a rather absurd rumor. It makes no sense for the cardinal to have been there.”

“Besides, the soldiers saw the figure from a great distance, which makes it even less reliable,” the aide added, scratching his head with an awkward expression.

But Yuman, having heard the story, only gazed northward, where the battle would now be raging, deep in thought.

'...'

####

The enormous falling crystal pierced Rikrakhamur's body and burst apart, sending ice flowers into full bloom beneath the blue moon.

■■■■■■■■■■!!!!!!!

Rikrakhamur began thrashing with a spine-chilling scream. A single sweep of its tail cleared away every tree nearby, while barbed, tentacled worms spilled from its sharp-toothed mouth and scattered madly in all directions.

Merely twisting its body shook the ground so violently that it felt as though the entire continent had been struck by an earthquake. Amid the monsters' shrieks, Rikrakhamur's red eyes came into view.

Eyes devoid of reason.

At the same time, black slime began erupting from the end of its enormous, whale-like, streamlined body. Just like the slime Alon had found at the gate, it devoured all mana.

This power—a law granted only to the abomination Rikrakhamur, rendering every mage's strength useless—was melting the enormous ice crystal Alon had created. No... it was erasing it.

The crystal that had pierced Rikrakhamur's body so precisely was disappearing. Alon's spell, fashioned by combining magic with an application of Manifestation of One's True Nature, vanished under the unreasonable law of the world bestowed upon the abomination.

Like a mirage.

Even in the face of that unfairness, Alon prepared his next spell. He had known about Rikrakhamur from the outset, had fully anticipated its actions, and remained confident he could win.

Alon checked his mana. He had manifested the spell for only about two seconds to conserve as much as possible, yet he already had only half his mana left. It was enough to cast small spells several times over, but nowhere near enough for a spell capable of dealing a meaningful blow to Rikrakhamur.

Still, that did not matter. He had wounded Rikrakhamur, and it was now thrashing in the drained swamp with its bed exposed. That alone meant everything was already going according to plan.

“Unification of Shadows.”

At Alon's quiet murmur, Blackie sprang from his breast pocket, red eyes forming all over its body. Its tail flowed along Alon's hand and sank into the ground in an instant. He raised his hand and cast another spell, deploying Shield.

A Shadow Tree shot toward the Shield deployed at his hand.

BANG!

Alon's body soared into the air.

Now out of the black slime's range, Alon looked straight ahead. Rikrakhamur's chilling red eyes were fixed on him—the creature was twice as enormous as Rainicius the Golden Dragon.

A question briefly crossed his mind, but his hand instinctively formed a seal, and the phrases spilled from his lips.

“Refraction, Repulsion, Blue Light.”

He was deploying the phrases distinctly faster than before.

And then...

“Linear Diffraction.”

As though flicking someone on the forehead, Alon fired the blue light formed at his finger—not at Rikrakhamur, but at the ground, already riddled with cracks from the creature's wild thrashing.

KABOOOOM!!!

The lightning released from Alon's hand struck the ground. The spell was small in scale compared with what it would take to harm Rikrakhamur's body. Yet that little force pierced the already cracked and unstable swamp bed.

THUD—RRRRUMBLE!!!!!

That slight impact set the collapse of the ground in motion.

KABOOOOM!!!!

Rikrakhamur's enormous body began to be dragged down into the abyss.

####

Kyriana stared blankly in one direction. She was not alone. Knights and soldiers alike were all looking at the same place.

At Marquis Pallatio.

His coat billowed, rippling black as a shadow, while grayish-white mana wreathed his left hand as he floated in the air. No one could tear their eyes from the sight.

Beneath Marquis Pallatio, shining in aloof splendor, Rikrakhamur was falling through the collapsed ground—the creature whose mere appearance had frightened every knight and soldier... whose presence had inspired even Kyriana with something beyond fear: awe.

CRRRRRAAAASH!!!

The tremendous noise did more than ring in their ears; it was loud enough to tear their eardrums. The shaking was so powerful that soldiers and knights momentarily lost their footing and fell to the ground, yet they still could not look away.

Rikrakhamur was being dragged into a bottomless abyss. The contrast between it and Marquis Pallatio inspired an immeasurable sense of awe.

While everyone stared dazedly at that one man...

“Ah...”

At the swamp's edge, in a dense forest no one had thought to watch, Yutia was admiring Marquis Pallatio as though enraptured.

Behind her...

CRUNCH—CRRRUNCH!!!!

Death cries rang out amid the sound of bones crushing against bones.

When she quietly turned her gaze toward the noise interrupting her appreciation, there were monsters there.

A goblin with every bone in its body pulverized, embedded in the ground like a paper doll. An orc stripped of its skin. A gnoll whose entire body was twisted in every direction. An owlbear that had thrust both arms through its own neck.

Brutally mangled corpses lay everywhere, as though they had been ground apart.

Dozens?

No.

Hundreds?

Not that, either.

Behind Yutia stood so many corpses that they formed an enormous boundary around the swamp's edge.

And...

“Grr... erk.”

The one still making noise was a troll, alive despite being bound in black tentacles thanks to its absurd regenerative ability. It was far larger than the others of its kind.

With its entire body bent out of shape, it watched Yutia with eyes full of instinctive terror rather than savage ferocity. She gently placed her index finger against her lips.

“Now, now, you must be quiet. We mustn't interrupt, must we?”

Smiling at the ferocious troll as though soothing a little child, Yutia glided toward it. Her red eyes shone in the blue moonlight.

“Now, don't look at me. Look over there.”

CRACK—CRRRRACK!!!

The tentacles wrapped around the troll forcibly twisted its neck, making it face the marquis.

“Grrraaagh!”

The troll screamed in pain.

But...

CRUNCH!

The tentacles seized its jaw as well and severed its protruding tongue. It writhed in horrific pain, only for the tentacles to turn it toward Marquis Pallatio once again.

HUFF... HUFF...

Breathing in terrified gasps, it moved only its eyes to look at Yutia.

Amid that cruel scene, her lips remained curved in a smile.

“You, too, must offer your awe and faith.”

As though whispering, she quietly commanded:

“The awe and faith he needs.”

“To my one and only god.”