Ch.1261The Dead and the Dying

The streaks of deadly light that roared like thunder mercilessly swept through all creatures within the bombardment range, making no distinction between giants and werebeasts.

Unlike typical mana bombardments, it didn’t tear the earth to shreds, but that was because the power within was directed toward slaughter rather than destruction.

In terms of lethality alone, it was a powerful and deadly attack that far surpassed ordinary mana bombardments.

Those touched by the pillars of light all screamed in their death throes as their bodies turned black, staggered, and collapsed with a thud, their breath immediately ceasing.

“Run away! Escape somehow!”

“Damn it…! Where the hell are we supposed to go…?”

Giants and werebeasts forgot about swinging their swords at each other and scattered in panic, fleeing in all directions, but how could they escape what was like a downpour of death?

Moreover, they weren’t in an open plain but in the middle of ruins filled with corpses, where they had been engaged in fierce combat—even if they tried to flee, it was difficult to gain any speed.

Giants and werebeasts collided with each other, fell down, got trampled, and some even swung their swords to clear their path, running about in disorder only to die together.

‘Damn it, those lunatics…!’

Caliburn, witnessing the carnage before his eyes, gritted his teeth and growled in lament.

He had ordered them to engage in chaotic combat, expecting that the enemy wouldn’t dare bombard when allies and foes were mixed together, but now that had become a fatal miscalculation.

The undead forces calmly rained down deadly bombardments as if they didn’t care what happened to their allies, while his subordinates couldn’t properly escape as they were entangled with the giants.

Yet ironically, despite how badly things had turned out, the fact remained that from Caliburn’s perspective, it had still been the best possible order.

If he had ordered a retreat instead of engaging in chaotic combat, they would have been hunted down by the pursuing giants while the bombardment would have fallen on their escape route.

In other words, if they had tried to flee quickly, the giants would have remained unharmed while his forces alone would have been slaughtered, caught between attacks from both front and rear.

Thanks to the chaotic battle, at least they had managed to inflict massive casualties on the giants as well, not just themselves.

“AAAAARGH!”

“Guh… L-Lord Caliburn…!”

…Of course, the fact that his subordinates were being slaughtered by the second remained unchanged, so it was hardly a situation to rejoice over the giants’ losses.

“Run! Run faster if you don’t want to die! Like your tail’s on fire!”

The werebeasts who had crossed the wall could withstand direct hits from the light for a while, but they too were in mortal danger.

It was obvious that if they delayed even slightly, they would meet the same fate as the corpses strewn all around, so they too were desperately fleeing.

「What a mess. I’d say this alliance game is over now.」

「KRRRRR…! It’s your fault for holding back! We were just one step away from finishing off that giant…!」

The dragons who could fly through the sky had even less to worry about.

Valaur had flapped his wings and moved far away as soon as he sensed the bombardment coming from the fortress, and Krakbabel too had quickly withdrawn from his fight with Hrungnir to escape the bombardment range.

Unlike Valaur who hadn’t been hit at all, Krakbabel had black vapor-like substance rising from his body after being struck while retreating.

「So what, are you going to attack me? In this situation, with that body?」

「Krrrrr…!」

Valaur’s words scratched at Krakbabel’s already uncomfortable mood.

However, Krakbabel only bared his teeth and growled threateningly, unable to lunge at Valaur as he normally would have.

On top of the wounds inflicted by Hrungnir and the giant warriors, he had consumed massive amounts of mana resisting the deadly light that was corroding his flesh.

Meanwhile, although Valaur had expended considerable power, he hadn’t suffered a single wound, so there was no possibility of Krakbabel winning if they fought now.

「…Indeed, this is no time for us to fight.」

Originally, with the Undead Duke’s floating fortress watching with cold eyes, fighting among themselves would only result in both being hunted down.

Right now, the fortress was busy slaughtering werebeasts and giants, but once the battlefield was cleared, it was obvious who would be targeted next.

Having no loyalty to fight the Undead Duke’s fortress in place of the werebeasts with their exhausted bodies, the two dragons fled far away from the battlefield without hesitation.

—-

After a desperate and fierce retreat, Caliburn’s forces lost a massive number of troops, but at least their elites managed to survive and withdraw.

This was thanks to their regenerative abilities that allowed them to withstand direct hits from the deadly light, their smaller target area compared to giants, and their beast-like quick reflexes and movements.

In other words, the giants who lacked such abilities had no way to escape the pouring light beams.

The barrage from Agnita Fortress had annihilated their allies rather than their enemies.

Rather than sacrificing some allies to defeat the enemy and failing, it seemed more like they had intended from the beginning to annihilate the giants, not the werebeasts.

And that was indeed the case.

“—Bellona’s Temple Knights, descent complete. Eliminate those still breathing. Preserve their forms as much as possible.”

After finishing the deadly bombardment that had been like a calamity, Bellona’s knights who descended onto the plain filled with corpses attacked the very few giants who had barely survived the barrage.

“Kuhak…!”

“Grrrgh…”

Though they had survived the bombardment, most of them were so weakened by the power of death that they could barely move their bodies.

The giants were slaughtered by the undead knights’ swords and spears without being able to offer proper resistance. It was a mechanical and one-sided slaughter.

“Grrraaagh…! You treacherous bastards, how dare you—!”

Only Hrungnir still had strength left to fight, but even he was wounded and weakened, with less than half of his original power remaining.

“Demigod-level hostile entity, Hrungnir confirmed!”

“Gwalhabaad! Agravaine! Surround him!”

His desperate struggle was blocked by the encirclement of high-ranking undead knights led by Arthur, without even requiring Garmerlic to step in personally.

“You, treacherous betrayers—!”

“I won’t deny our methods are vile… but I think there’s some inaccuracy in calling us betrayers.”

“What nonsense…!”

“Oh, you don’t know…? Well, never mind. You’ll find out soon enough anyway.”

Against Arthur and the undead knights who were spouting incomprehensible words, Hrungnir roared with rage and rampaged like a monster from mythology.

– KRRRRRACK!

A catastrophic battle where lightning swirled, lava surged like waves, and death rained down from the sky.

“Guh, kuuugh… GRAAAAH!”

“He’s withstanding Caliburn’s lightning? In that condition?”

The last giant of the clan, Hrungnir, took all those attacks with his body and slashed through heaven and earth with his half-broken sword.

Even as his legs melted in the lava pooled in the torn earth, his muscles and nerves burned and scattered in the raging lightning, and his very life was fading away as it was corroded by the power of death.

“…I should thank that explosive dragon.”

“Indeed. If he hadn’t diminished that monster’s power…”

It was a glorious and desperate resistance that even the undead knights facing him couldn’t help but admire.

Yet, as is often the fate of monsters in mythology, he was bound to eventually exhaust his strength and perish.

—-

After a rampage that burned his life like firewood, Hrungnir destroyed the bodies of five high-ranking knights of Bellona.

True to their nature as undead knights who don’t die easily, they would eventually resurrect, but he had completely incapacitated them for the time being.

“Indeed, your reputation is well-deserved. To accomplish this much despite being so weakened… I pay my respects to your strength and spirit.”

Even Arthur, their knight commander and the second-in-command of the Bellona Order, had half his body blown away and was partially incapacitated. It was truly a remarkable achievement.

“…However, it ends now.”

Unfortunately, that achievement had no meaning.

“Raise your head. And behold. Your end.”

Supporting his body, which had lost its left half, with a lightning sword thrust into the ground, Arthur declared with a tone elevated by religious awe.

“Him.”

The arrival of the demigod of death, Aurelius Garmerlic Pendragon, who had finally completed his new body.

– Gooooooo…!

A massive shadow covered the earth.

Six wings with only claw-like bones remaining without even a membrane. Two pairs of legs. A long tail and neck following the spine. An incredibly vicious skull.

Something immensely huge with a silhouette that was all too familiar and now sickening to Hrungnir was slowly descending toward him.

A massive monster with black sinews clinging to a skeleton that had no flesh.

Except for being a bit larger and having an extra pair of wings, it had the form of a dragon that Hrungnir recognized by name from rumors.

“Kele, bre…?”

The great dragon Kelebre.

A dragon who had returned from death as a servant of the gods, but had ultimately died and disappeared again, was now looking down at him.

【Wrong.】

Along with something attached to the center of that skull, something so small compared to the dragon’s massive body that it almost looked like a horn.

【That was merely the name of this body’s former owner. Not mine.】

A humanoid upper body wearing a hood made of darkness that concealed its face.

Something bizarrely half-fused with the dragon’s skull revealed its name with divinity in its slowly resonating voice.

The divine name bestowed by Bellona, the goddess of death who had embraced death, upon her demigod.

【I am Garmerlic. Aurelius Garmerlic Pendragon.】

The demigod of death, united with the corpse of the great dragon, smiled down at the dying giant.