Ch.268Dragon (5)

What is the Purpose of Blood Knights?

Blood knights claim to be their father’s well-honed swords, executioners who carry out their father’s will to punish enemies.

They had to be strong. They believed they must possess strength enough to stand against and punish anything that opposed them, no matter what it might be.

But strength was not freely given. No matter what innate power they possessed or how different their bloodline might be.

Without training, one cannot become strong. That was why even within the blood clan, there was a distinction between blood knights and those who were not.

With extremely few exceptions, blood mages or ordinary clan members could not become as strong as blood knights.

Therefore, blood knights were the military might representing the three clans. The blood knights swung their weapons as if to prove this statement.

That sight.

Even the Inquisitors, who were prepared to respond at any moment from right behind, were considerably taken aback.

Clang, claaang!

The knights advance. Each faces a different approaching enemy, with different timing between them.

Yet they responded with perfectly unified movements, as if they were one, without any communication.

As the claws of the undead touched the surface of their armor, which rippled with a blood-red hue, they twisted their shoulders to shake off the attack and immediately swung their swords.

The undead, its upper and lower body separated, seemed to try to continue its attack by twisting its body, but the blood knight, as if it were nothing, thrust his sword downward, piercing the falling body and causing blood to burst forth.

Boom—with a heavy impact, the corpse shattered into pieces and scattered. Though the flying eyeballs still seemed capable of movement, frantically rolling in their sockets, the corpse had completely lost its mobility and had no way to continue fighting.

The responses of the other blood knights were similar.

One swung a poleaxe, commonly called a bardiche, cleaving left and right, then drove his hardened gauntlet into his foe, bursting blood and leaving no corpse behind.

Another swung a long sword to sever a head, then trampled the unbalanced corpse, crushing it and planting it into the ground.

With each step the knights took forward, the number of corpses that lived but could no longer move only increased.

It was truly overwhelming martial prowess. The dignity of punishers representing the blood clan and the three clans.

“…Prepare to support!”

The Inquisitors, who had been mesmerized by the blood knights’ might, finally came to their senses. They couldn’t just let them handle everything.

Besides, corpses were beginning to seep through the blood knights’ formation into the interior.

Grrrroooooaaaar!

The Inquisitors each aimed different weapons.

Massive bodies charged forward as if to pierce through the formation. Dozens of them swarmed in.

They were corpses of elephants, hippos, and other strange beasts not found in this region. Monsters that could easily overwhelm others with their overwhelming mass and the power that exceeded that mass.

Fortunately, the Inquisitors specialized in dealing with such enemies. Their weapons were aimed with various techniques and methods.

“Respond! Everyone fire!”

Following the sharp command, all manner of projectiles cut through the air fouled by the carpet of corpses.

Catapult stones, crossbow bolts, arrows, followed by javelins, throwing axes, and even darts.

Though the projectiles varied, they all targeted the same spot. Precision shots aimed at the legs of the massive bodies that had raised their front legs high.

Crunch!

A lead bullet crushed a leg. The bullet from a rifle fired with a thunderous sound.

It was a peculiar weapon that took over a minute to load even for a skilled user.

As each bullet had to be hammered into the rifled barrel, its precision and power surpassed ordinary matchlock guns.

The effect was certain. With its leg severed, the elephant’s body tilted, losing balance due to the raised front leg.

The blood knights responded immediately. Taking up firing positions again, sword-axes were aimed in sequence.

“Fire.”

With the quiet command, countless blood bullets were born. A downpour fell, accompanied by a noise one might only hear in the middle of a rainstorm. Naturally, the countless droplets of blood turned the corpses into chunks of meat, the undead into fertilizer with will, scattering them to the ground.

The sound of flesh falling in clumps and the distinctive stench of decaying corpses.

The thick bacterial gas that wafted through the air.

Though harmful to the body, the blood knights were completely unfazed.

They could simply block their sense of smell, and they didn’t need to breathe anyway.

All they needed was pure blood. Instead, they took another step forward.

Those steps suddenly halted.

“Maintain formation.”

Another command issued in a murmuring form. Yet the blood knights heard it clearly despite the battlefield’s roar and brought their weapons close to their bodies in the fog that covered the battlefield.

That fog was visible even to Llewellyn, who stood on high ground.

“Sejin.”

“Not yet.”

His sister asked if it was time for her to step in. Llewellyn quietly shook his head and watched something emerging through the fog.

Crack—the sound of breaking trees rang out chaotically. There was a sign of something enormous approaching.

‘A dragon? No, that’s not it.’

Fog and a massive body. The fact that it was coming on foot rather than flying.

Llewellyn’s memory quickly rifled through a list of countless monsters, and he ended up letting out a hollow laugh.

“They resurrected that?”

Expansion pack, DLC.

Like the New Continent DLC that had brought Llewellyn to this world, Grim Darker would release expansion packs and DLCs with each series, adding new regions, monsters, and quests.

Among them were some that allowed players to directly encounter monsters that had previously only appeared in the lore.

Lucilla’s eyes widened as well. It was because of the enormous monster that emerged, cutting through the forest shadows.

Called a:

“Tarasque…?!”

The monster approaching with an awkward posture, one of its limbs torn off, was a monster Lucilla had already defeated before.

For Llewellyn, it was a being he had only seen in the game. Its form, like a massive alligator with a short snout adorned with countless horns, had completely rotted through repeated decay.

A monster larger than a decent-sized house. Its charge alone had overwhelming power that could destroy a castle.

Even in the story, it was explained that no one knew why this being had been resurrected in modern times.

But now Llewellyn knew. Its resurrection, death, and even its conscription after death were all the work of the Transcendent.

The very existence of this monster was not tolerated in this world. It couldn’t maintain the calories needed for such a massive body, nor the bone density to support it. That was common sense.

It was a monster that twisted logic by its very existence. It let out a terrible roar with its completely torn vocal cords.

The fog was not fog. It was gas emitted by the decaying corpse. Flammable, and with overwhelming acidity that made even the blood knights frown and step back.

It was clear that this was no ordinary decay gas. It was gas that melted skin and dissolved the ground and trees.

The blood knights retreated hesitantly while the Inquisitors prepared spells with frowning faces.

They couldn’t handle this. Llewellyn closed his eyes briefly and activated his anti-magic power.

The magical power swelled around his body and pushed outward, following a specific signal, the anti-magic power repeatedly swelled and contracted, creating what could be called a wind of magical power.

Something that could not be easily sensed by those who were not Black Knights. But something that Black Knights could definitely sense, a means of communication exclusive to Black Knights.

The cradle floating in the sky responded to it.

Boooooom!

The sound of magical power in the air twisting under the powerful anti-magic power could be heard. The displaced magical power mixed to create wind, and mages lacking sufficient mastery staggered and looked up at the sky in the magical storm.

The Black Tower, renowned throughout the continent as the tower that killed mages, was moving.

That Black Tower had the function of carrying Black Knights and turning anywhere into a battlefield and home ground for Black Knights.

But its most notable function was elsewhere.

“Strike down.”

At Llewellyn’s murmured words, the cradle soared. Moving as if pushing away the world itself with its powerful anti-magic power, the cradle stopped abruptly in the air like a massive wedge.

Directly below it was.

—!

The monster, the Tarasque, let out a shrill scream and raised its head high.

Just as it opened its maw wide to concentrate something.

A hissing sound like air escaping reached everyone’s ears.

The sound created by displaced air due to the overwhelming pressure, the momentary numbness reaching the eardrums, and as they unconsciously swallowed.

The Tarasque’s massive body was crushed.

Trees already fallen and covering the ground scattered, and the incoming storm swept around in all directions like a seething cauldron.

Overwhelming power that crushed the Tarasque’s massive body without leaving a trace. A fatal technique that put tremendous strain on the cradle, preventing its frequent use.

But the effect was certain. The approaching undead scattered and flew away, and all that remained of the Tarasque was a handful of residue not even worthy of being called blood.

As the storm subsided, Llewellyn watched the retreating cradle through the thick dust.

The cradle’s falling ability couldn’t be used again now that it had been used. At least, it needed time.

And Llewellyn thought that if he were the enemy, he would strike at this moment.

As expected.

“…It’s here.”

Following Llewellyn’s murmured words in the space where sound had returned, something massive was approaching.

A shadow approaching in a straight line toward the path the cradle was retreating on. Llewellyn thought it was as if the shadow of the forest itself was moving, and slowly raised his head.

“Nerilmaeus.”

He saw a dragon of such alien form that it could hardly be thought to be the same being as before.

A dragon that spread a massive membrane casting shadows on the ground, revealing scales and flesh that shone with all sorts of colors as if sewn together from twisted and rotting corpses.

Its form crossing the sky, incomparably larger than when they had defeated it in the past.

Despite approaching from the horizon, it didn’t seem to be getting closer. That’s how massive it was. In terms of size alone, it was reminiscent of the giant golem he had moved when fighting multiple gods.

Each time it flapped its wings, gas and decay fluid similar to what the Tarasque had scattered covered the forest. The forest was painted black.

And the things slowly walking out from the blackened forest were.

“Is this… the Demon Realm?”

As Lucilla muttered, they were indeed twisted monsters that could only be seen in the Demon Realm.

Minions of the Transcendent who corrupted the world. Monsters originating from the Demon Realm, the end of a corrupted world, twisted and defiling even death.

The army crawled out from under the shadow cast by Nerilmaeus’s remains. With their backs to the sunlight, monsters that had overcome life and death in ways even more twisted than the three clans approached.

“…Dragon King.”

The Dragon King, who had been silently watching this with clenched fists, slowly turned her head at Llewellyn’s call and met his eyes.

“Don’t you need a dragon to vent your anger on?”

She stared directly into Llewellyn’s eyes with an expressionless face. As if trying to determine if he was serious, or to figure out what he was thinking.

“As it happens, there’s a dragon right there that no one would complain about killing.”

Llewellyn gestured with his chin toward the approaching Nerilmaeus, and the Dragon King glanced at the dragon.

As a light of assent appeared in her expression, Llewellyn smiled.

“What do you say?”

Instead of answering, she strongly beat her thick tail against the ground.

And then the two dragon slayers moved simultaneously.

To bring down a dragon.