Chapter 125

[Shadow Elf Lv.1]

Knight Grade

[Shadow Elf Lv.1]

Knight Grade

[Shadow Elf Lv.1]

Knight Grade

A unit of shadow archers appeared before Suho, standing tall as black vapor rippled around them. They held bows made of shadow, and at his command, they drew their bowstrings toward the enemy without hesitation.

SHHHHH!

At that moment, multiple shadow arrows formed on their bows.

"My goodness."

Realizing who they were, Sirka could only stare in astonishment.

"You took back the souls the spirits stole!"

Through true death, the ice elves' souls had finally gained their freedom. Only now did Sirka grasp the true meaning of the words "Chacha's son."

Chacha—no, Cha Haein's husband, Sung Jinwoo.

He was the one who ruled over death. The king who governed death.

The Shadow Monarch.

And Sung Suho was the one who had inherited his blood.

"All troops, advance."

At Suho's command, the black archers aimed their drawn bows at the enemy.

* * *

Meanwhile, unlike Suho, who was fighting his way into the Echo Forest from its outskirts, the Scavenger hunters who had entered with him had already spent a long time wandering its depths.

WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH!

Ice arrows flew in from every direction.

"Here they come again, damn it!"

"Block them!"

"We can't block this wave! There are too many!"

"Then get behind that tree for now...!"

Unlike Suho, who had ended up alone, they had fallen straight into the Echo Forest. Suho might have landed here too if he hadn't used Storm Slash to cut through the blizzard and tried to glide during his fall.

Although they hadn't used Suho's method, they had all calmly managed to land alive, each in their own way. After all, they belonged to Scavenger, one of America's leading guilds. Their membership alone was as good as proof of their abilities.

But even after landing safely, they hadn't had a moment to catch their breath. Ice spirits had immediately begun showering them with attacks from every direction, as though they had been lying in wait.

"... Ice elves possessed by spirits."

Esil, who had likewise fallen into the Echo Forest and been fighting ever since, clicked her tongue at the possessed ice elves. Her expression was one of utter disbelief.

"What a spectacle. Snow folk devoured by ice spirits? Just how pathetically weak were they when they were alive?"

If the King of the Snow Folk, the Monarch of Frost, could see this, he probably wouldn't rest easy even in death.

"Snow folk specialize in spirit arts, yet instead of commanding spirits, they've had their souls devoured by them."

As a demon noble, Esil knew all too well how truly terrifying the snow folk could be. The ice elf warriors deployed in the War of the Monarchs had always carried the blessing of ice spirits. Whether they held bows or any other weapon, every attack they made bore the Curse of Bitter Cold.

An arrow from their bows froze the spot it struck. A cut from their blades drew no spray of blood; the severed surface simply froze solid. After only a few of those chilling, merciless attacks, their opponents' bodies would begin freezing over, slowing their movements. The longer a battle lasted, the more formidable ice elf warriors became.

'Even I might have been in danger without the Ice Bear Robe Suho gave me...'

CRACK!

"Aaargh! My arm shattered! Healer! Healer!"

"W-wait! I'm on my—!"

Just then, in the midst of the fierce battle, one of the Scavenger hunters suffered exactly that fate: the part of his body struck by an ice arrow shattered. Esil's eyes flashed. Once that happened, even treating the wound by ordinary means was impossible.

WHOOSH!

Esil rushed to the injured hunter's side, seized the wound at his shoulder with one hand, and tore it open.

"Aaaaaargh!"

"Bear with it. We can't heal you until we draw out all the cold that's seeped into your blood vessels."

Bloodstone Creation.

SHHHH!

As the hunter screamed in agony, Esil swiftly drew a frozen bloodstone from his wound. Then she issued an order to the healer who had just arrived beside them.

"Now regenerate his arm! The same goes for everyone else! You have to cut away the entire frozen wound before casting Heal, or it won't work!"

"Y-yes!"

Faced with the demon noble's commanding presence amid the chaos, the healer found himself obeying her without thinking. That same presence influenced the other hunters as well.

"Don't let those arrows hit you—not even a graze! The Curse of Bitter Cold seeps into your body at the slightest scratch!"

Scavenger had so many physically tough hunters that many of them simply took ordinary attacks head-on while fighting. But a stray arrow that happened to find a gap in their armor would deal a critical blow on the spot.

Rallying the Scavenger hunters this way, Esil gathered their scattered comrades one by one, steadily building up their numbers. Of course, some of the A-rank hunters were stronger than her, but even they were only in their second year as hunters. The commanding presence of a demon noble who had struggled since birth to survive in the eat-or-be-eaten Demon Realm was on an entirely different level from that of human hunters.

As they helped one another and joined forces, their growing numbers gradually stabilized a situation that had initially left them doing nothing but running for their lives.

"I'm starting to get the hang of this!"

"We just have to smash them all anyway!"

"But where the hell is our guildmaster?!"

"Thomas! Thomas Andre! Can you hear us?"

Now that they had a little breathing room, they began searching in earnest for Thomas Andre, their most vital source of fighting power. But it was far from easy. The blizzard raging all around them threw their senses into confusion.

"Where on earth did Suho land?"

Esil was trying to locate Suho's presence rather than Thomas Andre's.

Then, suddenly, a chill ran through her.

"Wh-what?!"

Esil hurriedly raised her head at the spine-chilling sensation.

WHOOOOO!

As they wandered aimlessly through the forest, gray snow had begun mingling with the swirling blizzard.

"... Gray snow?"

Esil's eyes widened.

'No! This isn't snow!'

As a demon intimately familiar with blood and corpses, Esil could be certain.

"This is... ash! Ash from burned corpses is blowing around in the snow!"

Corpses had burned instead of freezing in this bitter cold? That alone wasn't the issue. The true source of her sheer terror was the presence she sensed in those tiny gray flecks of ash.

"Could this be... a dragon?"

She could unmistakably sense the presence of dragonkind in the gray ash.

Horrified by the realization, Esil frantically looked around. But there was nothing to see, leaving only one conclusion she could draw. Her gaze snapped toward the direction where the gray ash blew thickest, and she stared intently.

"A dimensional rift has opened somewhere over there! And it leads to the world of dragons...!"

No, perhaps it was an entirely different world. The war between the Monarchs and the shadow army led by Sung Jinwoo had been fought across all manner of dimensions, following the gaps between them.

And no matter how she thought about it, Sung Jinwoo was practically the only being capable of slaughtering dragons so mercilessly that they scattered as ash like this. Surely dragons wouldn't have fought among themselves.

'This... isn't good.'

Esil had an ominous feeling.

Of all the races living throughout the dimensions, two stood out as the most dangerous: giants and dragons. Dragons in particular possessed bodies armed with tremendous mana and power. The bones and corpses they left behind were treasures of immense power in their own right.

'And those corpses have turned to ash and are being scattered all over this land?'

This was absolutely not good.

'The curse of dead dragons has been falling over this land!'

Esil urgently turned to the hunters fighting the forest spirits and shouted.

"We're going back the way we came! We have to get out of here as fast as we can!"

"What? Why, all of a sudden?"

"This forest is cursed! This gray snow is...!"

That was when a silhouette flashed across Esil's vision, beyond the gray blizzard.

"...!"

Her eyes filled with horror.

"A dragon!"

The silhouette belonged to an enormous dragon. Beyond the gray blizzard, its shadow beat great, outstretched wings! The Scavenger hunters who saw it were equally horrified.

"Holy shit."

"Wh-what is that?"

"A dragon?!"

Not once in the past two years had a dragon appeared among the magic beasts on Earth. There had been gargoyles that looked somewhat similar, but even those had never been that large.

"W-we have to run!"

"Aah! Where the hell is Thomas Andre when we need him?!"

"Retreat! We're retreating!"

"We can't handle this on our own!"

The hunters hurriedly backed away before Esil could even finish giving the order. Seeing that dragon made them realize the Ice Golems had been nothing at all.

But how much noise had they made on their way here? They had only fought to survive, yet that very commotion seemed to have disturbed a dragon sleeping peacefully deep in the forest.

"... Damn it."

Esil swallowed hard as she retreated, keeping her eyes on the dragon. Flying beyond the blizzard, it abruptly turned toward them. Then it opened its jaws wide and let out a roar brimming with murderous intent.

At that moment—

GROOOOOAR!

"...!"

"...!"

Dragon Fear.

A murderous aura so terrible it stole their breath engulfed them, and everyone's body froze rigid on the spot.

They understood now. Like frogs before a snake, they were nothing more than prey before that mighty being.

But in that moment of imminent peril—

WHOOOOOSH!

They saw it. As the dragon flew through the blizzard toward its prey, another dragon swooped in from the side and collided with it.

KABOOM!

"...!"

"...!"

Caught in the tremendous shock wave that erupted in every direction, the hunters were helplessly flung backward. Yet even then, Esil kept a firm grip on her senses and clearly witnessed the scene unfolding before her. Her eyes widened until they nearly bulged out of her head.

"... C-could it be?!"

She had seen it: black vapor rippling over the entire body of the second dragon.

And were her eyes playing tricks on her?

Someone was riding on that dragon's back. The distance and the blizzard kept her from making out the rider's face, but the silhouette was...

A woman holding a dagger in each hand.