Ch.137Undead King Elder Lich – 5

The Elder Lich, once the commander of the Demon King’s Second Corps and now self-proclaimed as the new Demon King, had long forgotten his original name.

In the demon realm, it was clear who the term “Elder Lich” referred to.

There was only one being in the world who had pursued knowledge relentlessly until stepping into forbidden territory, gaining immortality, summoning the undead, and creating a personal legion.

Therefore, he believed that if he fought with all his might, no one in the demon realm could stand against him, even if not the Demon King himself. After all, he had countless undead legions plus his own formidable power.

It went without saying that he could single-handedly annihilate the human world.

He had only submitted because the Demon King intended to weed out the weak through war, which was resulting in the overall improvement of demonkind, and because the Demon King’s personal power was overwhelmingly strong.

That’s why the Elder Lich considered the present moment, with the Demon King dead, as the most promising opportunity to succeed to that position and become the legitimate ruler of the demon realm.

Even the magic he had used on Mira Crate—sharing memories to transfer the count of deaths—was originally created to subdue the Sword Saint.

But then.

‘What… what in the world is this…?’

The Elder Lich reached out toward the corpse before him. Fingers of a frail demon woman, feeling utterly weak, slowly traced over the large, scale-covered body.

‘This is not a wyvern… then…’

At first, he thought it was a wyvern. Or perhaps he wanted to believe that. But the hardness of the scales, perceptible even in death, and the enormous size clearly indicated this was no wyvern.

This was a dragon’s corpse. One slightly smaller than Meligor.

Mahbat was exceptionally large and powerful even by dragon standards, and Meligor too was quite large among dragons. It was just that so few dragons remained that there was no basis for comparison.

Yet here, dragon corpses slightly smaller than Meligor were strewn about as far as the eye could see. The Elder Lich had never witnessed such a shocking sight before.

‘What… what powerful being could have done this…?’

A vague emotion washed over him, but the Elder Lich couldn’t understand what kind of emotion it was.

He had abandoned all emotions when dabbling in forbidden magic, and it had been so long since he last felt anything that he couldn’t recall the names of feelings. He had discarded all remnants of his time as a mere woman.

The Elder Lich, or rather, the frail demon woman, guided her trembling legs and hands over the dragon’s corpse. With this weak body, even such a simple task required considerable time and energy.

‘This is impossible…!’

An utterly unbelievable scene unfolded before him. Dragon corpses were scattered in every direction. Each one powerful enough to overwhelm the Demon King’s army single-handedly.

The astonished Elder Lich discovered something—a dragon still half-alive, and a human slowly walking toward it.

The human, with a half-melted and burned body, dragged a sword to the dragon and thrust it into its reverse scale. The last living dragon weakly dropped its head.

With that final image, the world was swept away in a flow of memories. The frail demon woman closed her eyes and curled up to avoid being carried away by the current. When the flow subsided, she slowly opened her eyes.

And could only be shocked at the changed world before her.

‘These are…’

They were ogres, but not ogres.

Trolls, but not trolls.

Orcs, but not orcs.

Werewolves, but not werewolves.

Corpses of demons—at least 1.5 times larger and more powerful than any she had known—were piled high enough to form mountain ranges and geological strata, blocking out the moonlight.

Beside them flowed rivers of blood, and beyond those stood towers made of weapons and armor. She couldn’t even begin to imagine how many bodies were piled in those mountains.

“How…?”

She expressed her countless shock. Could these really be those lower demons?

At the top of the highest mountain, she saw Mira Crate stabbing and tearing the neck of an exceptionally large ogre. The ogre’s skin and muscles tore apart with unnatural ease.

Once again, the flow of memories continued. The space changed. Her hearing responded before her vision, identifying the direction. She turned toward the source of the sound.

A battle of mythical proportions was unfolding.

A creature larger than a dragon—lower body like a centipede, upper body like a demon, with six arms, three heads, and hair made of enormous snakes—was emitting light.

Its three heads spewed lightning, fire, and ice respectively; countless snake heads randomly sprayed poisonous mist; and its arms unleashed endless destruction.

The unknown creature flexed its arms. A nearby mountain was uprooted whole, lifted above the monster’s head, and hurled at incredible speed toward something.

And in less than a second, it shattered into pieces.

“…”

It was a sight the Elder Lich’s eyes couldn’t possibly follow.

He couldn’t comprehend what had just happened. He barely registered that the flying mountain had been reduced to fragments smaller than a human in the blink of an eye.

A blue light flashed through the rain of soil, rocks, and wood splinters. It was Mira Crate again, leaping through the debris with a broken sword in hand.

Lightning that could reduce a dragon’s breath to a mere trickle shot from the creature’s mouth. Mira Crate didn’t dodge but calmly swung his sword head-on.

The very space emitting the lightning shattered. The world-rending strike was absorbed and disappeared between the fragments of space.

Yet the monster had only suffered a scratch from the space-shattering blow. Its face seemed to grin widely, and the centipede legs began to move in earnest.

The mere movement of its legs split the ground, creating a massive ravine. Every area its feet touched collapsed into an endless abyss.

“S-stop…!”

The Elder Lich suddenly felt dizzy. It was like having all known common sense denied. What were these memories? What was this human?

Being connected to Mira Crate’s memories meant that he had not only survived against these numerous enemies but had defeated them all.

Mythical monsters that could each easily destroy the demon realm and fight the Demon King on equal terms, along with beings that could hardly be called demons. He had faced all of them.

“A mere human… impossible…!”

The Elder Lich desperately tried to escape the flow of memories, flailing the frail demon woman’s limbs. He feared that staying longer would make him believe victory was impossible and make him give up everything.

The problem was that it was impossible to escape. There was only one way to end this magic he had developed to use against the Sword Saint.

One of the two sharing memories had to have their mind broken and disappear. There was no other way to end this magic, or at least none that even the Elder Lich knew of.

“No… it can’t be…”

Even in despair, the memories continued to flow.

The space changed, and Mira Crate appeared. He was crossing swords with a monster that seemed no less formidable than the previous one, locked in a test of strength. The ground beneath them, unable to withstand the force, split in two.

Again the space changed, and again Mira Crate appeared. He was seen exchanging magic that shook the earth’s axis with a monster no less formidable than the previous ones.

Once more the space changed, and once more Mira Crate appeared. The previous and the previous and the previous…

“…!!!!!!”

The weak demon woman collapsed to the ground with a silent scream. Because it was magic that shared and looked into memories, she instinctively realized:

The Mira Crate who had effortlessly cut down Death Knights before entering this place had not yet displayed his full power.

Mira Crate’s original form was sleeping deep in his soul along with fragments of memory, too deep for even himself to recognize, and at the same time, due to a loosened seal, it was slowly leaking out.

As a result, his strength was noticeably increasing even without taking any special action. And he would likely become much stronger in the future. After all, it was power he had originally used.

“This cannot be… this cannot…”

An undead legion of tens of millions? Take a few more steps forward, and even hundreds of millions would all melt away. This was beyond what the demons of this world could conceptually handle.

For whatever reason, demons that seemed inherently larger and stronger, whose very species felt fundamentally different, had failed to defeat him and became mountains of corpses.

It was absolutely impossible to win.

Upon realizing this fact, tears flowed from the weak demon woman’s eyes. The weak demon woman curled up her legs. The weak demon woman trembled.

Regardless of the Elder Lich’s state, the memories continued to flow. Another world unfolded. Tear-soaked eyes looked around.

The weak demon woman screamed from the depths of her heart at the sight of Elder Lich corpses covering the vast plain. A legion of Elder Liches lay dead and scattered like mere goblins.

Seeing the human standing in the middle of those corpses, the Elder Lich finally recognized what emotion he was feeling.

It was fear.

“…”

Next time, I won’t carelessly use someone else’s magic just because I’ve finished analyzing it. I made that resolution as I recalled the completely different result from when the Elder Lich used it, and opened my eyes.

An unfamiliar ceiling came into view. It was truly unfamiliar. I looked around. A double bed with white bedding, and curtains drawn around it for isolation.

‘Is this the infirmary?’

I raised my upper body, leaned against the bed, and looked down. My body was fine. There didn’t seem to be any injuries. Instead, my clothes had been changed to a cleaner school uniform than the one I had been wearing.

—CRASH!

While wondering who had changed my clothes, I turned at the sound of something falling. The Chairwoman, who had dropped the tray she was holding, was staring at me with astonished eyes. Her body was trembling.

‘Her eyes are rolled back.’

I don’t know how long I had been in those memories, but that was not a good sign. I smiled and waved my hand, trying to appear as normal as possible.

“Um… I’m awa—oof?!”

“My child! My child… you’re awake! Thank goodness! Thank goodness…”

The Chairwoman rushed over at imperceptible speed and embraced me. My head was buried between her much larger breasts. Her arms wrapped around my back as if to crush it. She seemed intent on suffocating me with her chest.

‘I knew this would happen.’

Since I had anticipated this, I wasn’t surprised. I hugged her back and used physical enhancement to flip our positions. In an instant, our positions were reversed. I was on top, and she was lying on the bed.

Looking down at her from above in a pouncing position, the Chairwoman released her arms in surprise.

“Oh, my child…? Why so sudden…?”

“I’m fine. You don’t need to react like someone who’s come back from the dead.”

“Y-yes… that’s right. I’m sorry.”

I stood with both feet on the floor. The Chairwoman carefully raised her upper body, covering her chest with one arm. As she continued to look at me with lingering attachment in her eyes, I sat down beside her.

“How long was I asleep?”

“About six hours. Do you know how worried I was? If by chance you never woke up, I… I…”

The Chairwoman’s eyes welled up with tears.

“…I would have taken you, still asleep, to a place where no one lives, and spent my entire life by your side, waiting for you to wake up… That would have been the only atonement I could make…”

“…”

Is that really atonement?

I never planned to die in the first place, but now I had one more reason not to return to the academy unconscious or asleep.

“By the way, where is the Elder Lich? You didn’t let it escape, did you?”

Given the knowledge of magic that had flowed into me while sharing memories, I could assert with near certainty that wasn’t possible.

After all, the fact that I had awakened meant that the Elder Lich’s mind had somehow failed to endure. It was magic made specifically for countering the Sword Saint, ending only when one person mentally died.

“Don’t worry. I brought it, of course.”

“Brought it?”

Momentarily puzzled by the odd choice of words, I watched as the Chairwoman walked over and pulled open the curtain right beside us.