Book 2: Chapter 394
As he slid down the sand dune, Lukas once again realised that he was acting in a very impulsive manner. But he couldn’t help it.
He didn’t think he could watch Schweiser die right in front of his eyes.
Taht.
As he landed on the ground, he felt gazes lock onto him. Coincidentally, the place Lukas had landed was in the middle of the Flower Mountain Swordsmen’s formation.
They weren’t the only ones looking at him with hostile gazes. The miglings and humans past them, and even the angels in the sky were looking at him.
Just wearing the hood of his robe would not do much to hide his ident.i.ty. But that didn’t matter. As long as he wasn’t caught by Schweiser, who was still in the distance.
Woosh!
The nearby Swordsmen quickly swung their swords.
Their response was quick. They had probably seen the absolute that Lukas had shot from the dune.
‘This isn’t the Plum Blossom Sword Technique.’
Depending on the user, the appearance of the Plum Blossom Sword Technique varied, but the sword techniques they were displaying now were completely different on a fundamental level.
Lukas wasn’t sure, but the sword techniques they were using now all seemed to be different styles.
The Flower Mountain Faction’s Solitary Gate Martial Arts, Profound Sky Sword, Supreme Purity Sword, and Sky Flow Sword.
The martial arts of Flower Mountain were a symbol of harmony. Even though they were martial arts with completely different origins, as long as the Swordsmen had a certain level of understanding about each other, it was possible to sublimate them into a natural connection.
Swoosh!
Swordsmanship that he’d never encountered before flowed in like a flood.
But that didn’t matter. With a glance, Lukas could tell that the martial arts they were using were not on the same level as the Plum Blossom Sword Technique.
Paht.
He raised his fingertips slightly. In response, the sand surged upwards.
It was a display of motion magic.
Rumble…
In an instant, the sand rising into the air clumped together before striking the surrounding Swordsmen. Even though it was just sand, it had been compressed to the limit till it was as strong as metal.
The Swordsmen pulled their swords back in a move to block the attack, but they were too late.
Paak!
And in real battle, such mistakes were particularly painful.
Five Swordsmen wavered at the same time, their blades almost certainly badly damaged.
Without giving them a chance to recover, Lukas dashed forward. Condensed bolts of lighting wriggled around both of his hands.
Boom boom boom!
He took five steps.
With each step, he appeared before a defenceless Swordsman. Any part was fine. Regardless of whether it was the hem of their clothes, a finger, or even the tip of their blade.
That alone was enough to send condensed lightning coursing through them, electrocuting their entire bodies.
As a result, one person fell with each step.
Plop, plop…
Coughing up black smoke, the Swordsmen collapsed.
“…?!”
“…”
More than half of the Swordsmen around Lukas were shocked because they could not understand Lukas’ skills. The rest, on the other hand, gazed at him with tense expressions.
‘He has a strange skillset.’
‘Were there still pract.i.tioners like this in the Underground City?’
Lukas didn’t give them time to think or react.
Boom!
An explosion swept through the area.
Boom. Boom. Boom. The intervals were consistent, but the locations of the explosions seemed to be random. In the area around Lukas, as well as the surrounding tens of metres, explosions occurred without warning.
“Scatter!”
“If we stick together, we’ll be blown away all at once!”
Cries like this rang out, but the surrounding area had already been obscured by smoke because of the explosions.
Though small, a battlefield was still a battlefield. And the presence of a Wizard on a battlefield was truly overwhelming. In particular, if a Wizard who had the ability to protect themself like Lukas swept through the middle of the battlefield, it would be no different from a disaster for the enemy.
—To Lukas.
Most of those around him were small fry. Despite being so close to them, he did not feel threatened at all.
Even if Lukas, a Wizard, were to stick his head into one of the Swordsmen’s inherent s.p.a.ce, they would be too slow to realise that fact. Their thoughts were too slow. Their ability to judge the situation was also terrible.
But they weren’t all like that.
Swoosh!
Lukas turned to look at his opponent after avoiding a sharp stab by a hair’s breadth.
It was a Swordsman in distinctive green clothes. Lukas had seen clothes like that before. (TL: So they’re colour coded?)
“An elder.”
“Lim Ho-sang.”
He briefly gave his name before kicking off from the ground once again.
This time, it was the Plum Blossom Sword Method once again. Lim Ho-sang’s Plum Blossom Sword Technique erupted like an explosion. It was relentless as if he wouldn’t give Lukas a chance to breathe.
That wasn’t all.
Some of the Swordsmen around Lim Ho-sang joined in and began to naturally blend in with his Plum Blossom Sword Technique.
In an instant, there was nothing but fluttering swords surrounding Lukas.
“…”
“…!”
It was a sword display similar to what he’d seen before, but this time, the level of completeness was on a completely different level.
‘A perfect sword display by ten people.’
The swordsmanship was fierce, but the distance they maintained from each other made it even more difficult.
In a short time, Lukas noticed what bothered him the most about the distance.
‘If I use magic without thinking, I will also be swept up in their momentum.’
Nevertheless, it was also hard for him to retreat. Enemies lurked on both of his sides as well as behind him.
He was completely surrounded without any openings. How had this happened without him noticing?
There was no need to think about it further, because it was clearly Lim Ho-sang. It happened in the instant when he was distracted by his explosive swordsmanship.
It was this man who created this situation, realised the distance that bothered him most and informed the people around him, and who was guiding the sword display.
In other words, if Lim Ho-sang alone was killed, the sword display would collapse like a sandcastle. Of course, there was no way that Lim Ho-sang and the surrounding Swordsmen didn’t know that.
In that case, the method was simple.
He had no choice but to pierce through the iron door from the start. (TL: Or he could have nuked them from the start…)
As soon as Lukas’ robes fluttered slightly, Lim Ho-sang’s eyes shined.
There was no reason for his robes to flutter in a windless desert. In other words, it was safe to say that the sudden appearance of wind was a precursor for magic.
“…!”
At that moment, Lim Ho-sang noticed a faint hint of red aura wriggling beneath his robe. It sent shivers down his spine.
That power was dangerous.
Jurk-
Lim Ho-sang turned the hilt of his sword and held it horizontally. Following his instructions, the Swordsmen around them flinched slightly before immediately copying his movements.
The Ten Sided Plum Blossom Sword Display, which they were currently unfolding, was their strongest defence.
Pyut!
At that moment, the red aura became a beam that shot out in an instant. It wasn’t just to Lim Ho-sang. Red light filled the surroundings faster than a flash.
Boom!
Their swords trembled and they felt a heavy pain in their wrists. With a heavy shudder, the Swordsmen of Flower Mountain collectively released a sigh of relief.
Miraculously, their defence had been successful, and it was all thanks to Lim Ho-sang’s keen eyes. Without his instruction, they would not have been able to block that attack.
However, there was one person with a stiff expression, Lim Ho-sang.
‘…that shouldn’t have been so easy to stop.’
The red light.
He knew it was something that could only be used by a small portion of pract.i.tioners.
He knew how strong it was.
And he knew that it couldn’t be blocked by any countermeasures.
“As I thought, you know about absolute.”
Lukas’ calm voice was heard.
“That was just a small trick. By mixing a bit of red wavelength into a lightning spell… Well, you wouldn’t understand even if I explained it to you. Only a Wizard could see through it.”
“…!”
A Void Trick.
When those words appeared in his mind, Lim Ho-sang hurriedly shouted.
“Attack! Don’t let him use-!”
Buzz!
A dark red beam of light pierced Lim Ho-sang’s skull.
“…”
Lim Ho-sang froze where he stood, his body growing stiff.
“How the h.e.l.l… could it be so fast…”
He collapsed, blood spilling from the hole in his skull.
“E-, Elder Lim!”
“b.a.s.t.a.r.d!”
The broken sword display caught his attention before the angry shouts or emotional blades. No matter how helpless they were, they shouldn’t have lost their composure like that.
Lim Ho-sang was a leader they didn’t deserve.
‘Pathetic.’
Crack!
The sand rose to grab the Swordsmen’s ankles.
“Urk?”
“Wh-, what…”
They swung their swords to cut the sand, but because they were off balance, it wasn’t very effective. During this time, the sand began to pull them into the ground.
“K-, kuhuk!”
“Dammit! What kind of sand is this hard… Hup!”
The nine remaining Swordsmen were quickly buried in the sand and crushed to death. Or perhaps they were suffocated. Either way, it was clear that they were dead.
Lukas swept his eyes over the battlefield again without paying too much attention to a singular point. There were a few more who appeared to be elders. All of them seemed formidable, but Lukas had no intention of facing them head on in the first place. He nimbly hid among the Swordsmen of Flower Mountain and began to disperse their willpower.
The tide of the war, which had been relatively even until now, gradually began to shift to one side with just that small intervention.
‘…this should be enough.’
The tide of the war had turned. And at some point, the Flower Mountain Faction had begun to get swept away.
Lim Ho-sang. He had probably been the key figure that led this unit. A unit that lost its commander was bound to collapse easily.
Lukas returned to the dune from which he’d descended. Some Swordsmen rushed in as if to say they wouldn’t let him leave easily, but it didn’t take him long to deal with them.
Taht.
As he stepped onto the top of the dune, Pale approached him.
“Do you not plan to kill more?”
“Right.”
Looking down at the battlefield from there, it was clear to see where the tide was leaning towards.
Lukas’ gaze turned to Lesha.
“The war will soon be over. I’m sure your companions will welcome you when you go down from here.”
“…who the h.e.l.l are you?”
Lesha asked in a cautious voice.
“I’m not asking for your name. I could tell from the way you fought. There are many kinds of magic in this world, but the one you use is the same as us.”
“…”
“…are you a Wizard from the same fundamental universe as us?”
Lukas didn’t answer.
“Pale.”
“Yes!”
“Let’s go.”
“Where… Ahh.”
Remembering their previous conversation, Pale nodded.
Then, with her eyes closed, she put her hands to her temples and started making weird sounds.
“Dugudugudugudugu… Hut!”
Then she opened her eyes and turned in the direction they’d come from.
“This way! This way!”
“Wa-, wait a minute… cough.”
Lesha tried to follow them but let out a cough instead.
Without stopping or even looking back at her, Lukas muttered.
“Forget about me. We will never meet again.”
That was the last time he would get involved with them.
Lukas followed Pale.
* * *
“…there isn’t a part that doesn’t hurt.”
As he lay on the desert floor, Schweiser muttered to himself. He didn’t even want to lift a finger. Instead, he just moved his eyes to look around. He was trying to find where his severed arm had gone, but it seemed that it would take a while as it had gotten mixed with the corpses.
At that moment, a faint light appeared above him. It was an angel with grey hair. With a playful smile, she spoke.
“Seeing as you can still grumble, I guess you’re alright.”
“…can you really say something like that while looking at this sorry sight?”
“Mhm. Come along.”
“You’re too much.”
With a sigh, Schweiser got to his feet.
Then he began looking through the corpses for his arm.
“What about Raphael? Is he okay?”
“What about me? Some of the Left Angels died.”
“That… is unfortunate.”
Schweiser flipped over the body of a middle aged Swordsman and found his arm beneath it. After roughly attaching it back to his body, he took a piece of jerky from his pocket and started eating it.
As he felt his flesh beginning to reconnect, Schweiser let out a sigh.
“In any case, that was dangerous. If Lesha hadn’t joined in the middle, it really would have been a dangerous situation.”
“Lesha? What do you mean?”
“Uh. Did you not see? Lesha came down from a sand dune and entered enemy lines. That’s what flipped the table upside down.”
Schweiser chuckled.
“At any rate, she likes to appear at dramatic moments, just like old times. I knew she would be okay.”
“It seems you have misunderstood something.”
Raphael narrowed her eyes.
“That wasn’t Lesha.”
“Huh?”
“That wasn’t Lesha. You didn’t see it clearly.”
Ah. He was a bit far away.
Raphael nodded.
“Since I was in the sky, I was able to have a better view of the battlefield. Lesha is still on that dune right now. I don’t know when she got there, but I at least know that she hasn’t moved.”
“No, wait a minute. I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying. Then does that mean that someone else shot the Absolute Line?”
“It was one of the two people that came with Lesha. A man in a robe. I didn’t manage to see his face.”
“…you mean that man used Absolute?”
“I would doubt it as well if I didn’t see it with my own eyes.”
Schweiser’s expression became a bit strange.
“So there was a 9-star Wizard other than Lesha on this battlefield? Is that what you’re saying, Raphael?”
“That’s right.”
“What the h.e.l.l-”
It was at this moment that Lesha stumbled down from the top of the sand dune.
Before Schweiser could even approach her, the miglings cheered.
“Wow!”
“Came! Came!”
“I’m going to meet!”
“No! I’m going!”
“Kiki. No one can stop me!”
Schweiser frowned.
“Didn’t I tell you guys not to talk outside? The desert air is harmful to you.”
“White one noisy.”
“Talk, a lot.”
“Blind. Blind.”
Ignoring Schweiser, the miglings ran over to Lesha and shouted.
“Trowman!”
“This time, real Trowman is here!”
“Wow!”
Looking at them, Lesha showed a blood stained smile.
“I’m glad you’re alright, Schweiser.”