Ch.453Beyond Expected Results

I parried the Dragon Ascension with my body and broke through with a slash.

It was a perfect surprise attack that no one could have anticipated.

The problem is… that bastard Lübitz had an evasion spell that could ignore just about any slash.

“Kuk…! Dīvus gressus!”

Durandal, which was meant to split his waist in half, merely grazed his skin and cut through empty air.

A hastily activated short-range spatial transfer.

With a flash, Lübitz disappeared, and his presence instantly moved several meters below!

“You cowardly bastard! Let’s see how long you can keep dodging-!”

I shouted furiously as I continued my charge in the same direction, getting swallowed by the vortex again.

– KWAOOOOO!

And once again, familiar noise and friendly boulders welcomed me back.

…Goddamn it.

—-

What followed was truly a transcendental game of tag.

A deadly race to see whether my strength would reach its limit first, or Lübitz’s mana would be depleted first.

“Just die already, Aishan-Gioro! Don’t you ever get tired?!”

“That’s my line! What kind of endless mana are you pouring out! Did you eat a dragon’s heart or something?!”

I kept getting sucked into the Dragon Ascension, spinning around before breaking free, constantly targeting Lübitz, while he repeatedly used transfer magic to dodge whenever I emerged.

Damn it. If he’d put up a barrier, I could just cleave through it, or if he used attack magic, I could deflect it or endure it and cut him down.

But with him constantly teleporting away, I couldn’t finish him off. What a pathetic coward.

Still, seeing him show signs of growing impatience, it seemed that even his seemingly infinite mana must have a limit.

That was my only hope.

The problem was whether I could hold out until then…

…Unfortunately, it seemed more likely that I would reach my limit before he did.

After about ten minutes like this.

The power of my heroic feat that had been withstanding the storm’s pressure began to bottom out.

My legs, which had endured terrible impacts continuously, had almost lost all sensation.

Unlike me who was starting to tire, the cursed Dragon Ascension showed no signs of stopping as it continued to rage and sweep through the surroundings.

I looked up at the mana-overflowing sky with a sense of despair.

At the celestial authority spinning madly, pregnant with dark clouds.

And then.

– JJEEEOK!

Like a blade thrust into ice, a long crack appeared in the sky.

– KADEUDEUK! KWAJIK! PAKAANG!

The darkened heavens shattered like glass fragments and came raining down.

The out-of-control whirlwind began to fluctuate and scatter.

His seemingly infinite power was suddenly breaking apart!

“What…!”

Lübitz looked up in shock, like a child who had just received news of his mother’s death.

“Impossible, the ‘Eternal Spring’ has been cut off?! What the hell did you do?!”

Why are you asking me?

I don’t even know what the Eternal Spring is, you bastard.

“Who knows, go ask your god!”

I leaped toward him again, swinging Durandal with my arm that had cracked bones.

Lübitz rapidly ascended to avoid the blade aimed at his legs, then looked sharply toward the back of the prayer room with light blazing from his eyes.

“Could it be that half-elf wench…! How dare a mere half-elf…!!”

Lübitz roared in intense anger.

I wasn’t sure what was happening, but from what I heard, it seemed Hush had done something.

…I never expected her to help like this.

I thought she would have escaped or hidden herself by now.

=======[ Hush ]=======

Right after Haschal gave his order, Hush focused all her consciousness on escape and began withdrawing at full speed.

She wanted to get away from this ominous place as quickly as possible.

‘This is insane, completely insane. Fighting those monsters in a place like this? Does he have two lives or something?’

Hush tended to trust her instincts quite a bit.

They weren’t always right, but at least she had never lost by following her instinctive warnings.

For her, fighting those monsters was nothing short of madness, no matter how she looked at it.

The ominousness she felt from that basement was even worse than when she had faced Haschal as an enemy.

‘Whatever. He’ll manage somehow!’

Hush shook her head to clear her distracting thoughts, then sprinted through the underground passage and into the first-floor corridor of the cathedral.

She pulled out the daggers she had kept in her bosom and gripped them tightly.

If this was all an enemy trap, the first floor would likely be on high alert by now.

Guards who had been waiting calmly, pretending not to notice anything, waiting for her and Haschal to enter the underground trap.

“Over here! The intruder appeared!”

Just as expected.

As soon as she kicked off the wall at a corner and changed direction, guards with drawn weapons welcomed her as if they had been waiting.

“Tch…!”

Hush clicked her tongue and put more strength into her legs to increase her speed.

‘Three. No Paladins, just two soldiers and one priest. Good.’

With speed rivaling a master-level knight, she ran along the wall.

A technique only possible due to her light body from her elven bloodline.

– WHOOSH!

Before the soldiers could even aim their weapons, she was already in front of them.

Hush threw two daggers at the unarmored faces of the soldiers, then launched herself forward and wrapped her legs around the priest’s head.

She gripped a newly drawn dagger in reverse hold.

“Kup…?!”

The priest let out a muffled scream with his face buried between her legs.

Unless they were high-ranked, most magic or miracles could be blocked by covering their mouths.

One of the lessons she had learned during her time with the Five Swords.

“Die.”

Hush grabbed his head with her left hand, bent her upper body to embrace him, and stabbed her dagger into his exposed nape.

Without the slightest hesitation.

“Keueoeo…!”

The priest’s body convulsed as his spine was instantly severed. Certain death.

‘That was easy.’

As Hush twisted and pulled out her dagger, the soldiers with dagger hilts protruding from their foreheads also became corpses rolling on the floor.

Her current master, Haschal, had ordered her not to kill church members carelessly, but…

‘These must be exceptions. They’re enemies, right?’

At least that’s what Hush thought.

She showed not the slightest interest in the fallen bodies and, after confirming the priest’s death, kicked his body away and continued running.

After that, Hush slaughtered enemies she encountered while running along walls and ceilings.

Either jumping down from the ceiling like lightning to pierce their crowns, or pulling out wire from her sleeve to strangle and break their necks.

Even for priests who could use magic, as long as they weren’t in formation but wandering separately, they had no defense against sudden ambushes.

It would have been different if they were Paladins wrapped in armor, or groups of three or more priests.

—-

As Hush ran down the corridor, she smashed through a glass window as soon as she saw one leading outside.

“Th-that’s!”

“Catch her! She’s an assassin targeting the Cardinal!”

The priests on guard outside shouted in surprise.

‘Assassin? What nonsense… Ah, I see they didn’t tell the low-ranks anything.’

Hush tilted her head at the unexpected security claim, but her confusion didn’t last long.

Even in her former organization, they didn’t reveal the full extent of plans to disposable underlings.

‘Well, it makes sense.’

Kidnapping the poor or setting traps to kill the entourage of a saint candidate.

These weren’t exactly things people would want to hear about.

She ignored the priests’ shouts and broke through the garden at full speed.

Unlike inside the cathedral with walls and ceilings, in open terrain like this, she would be roasted without being able to move if she started getting attacked by magic.

Indeed, with each step she took, the sound of lightning and flames tearing up the ground behind her was clear.

Though it was nothing compared to what Haschal must be enduring from nearly two hundred mages.

Anyway, since all the skilled priests were assigned to the basement, Hush was able to safely climb over the wall and escape from the cathedral.

“Don’t let her escape! After her!”

Although guards and priests pursued her, tracking a half-dark elf who had disappeared into the complex city alleys was nearly impossible.

—

‘Now, what should I do…?’

Having shaken off the priests, Hush hid in the shadows of an alley and contemplated her next move.

Now that she was out of Haschal’s sight and had escaped the priests’ pursuit, nothing was stopping her.

Complete freedom lay before her.

Haschal had threatened to kill her if she ran away, but from Hush’s perspective, Haschal was going to die there unless someone helped him.

Unless divine punishment fell from the sky, killing only the priests and then disappearing.

So there was no danger in running away now.

The problem was…

‘If I run away, where would I go?’

Hush asked herself.

Not human, not even a full elf, and now belonging nowhere—that was her situation.

The Council of Dream Utopia, which had been her only place, was destroyed.

It seemed Eljur and Kist were still alive, but…

‘I can’t find them, and even if I did, they wouldn’t welcome me.’

Considering that the Council of Dream Utopia’s headquarters was destroyed right after Hush was captured, she might even be accused of being a spy and tortured to death.

‘…It wasn’t that comfortable a place to begin with.’

Hush had no great attachment to the Council of Dream Utopia; she had only stayed there because she had nowhere else to go.

If anything, she felt a slight aversion to it.

Though they called themselves comrades like the Five Swords, except for Ladeli, they were all trash obsessed with murder and rape.

If she had been even slightly weaker, there would have been many who would have invaded her bedroom while she slept.

‘At least Ladeli was a bit better…’

Ladeli had taken relatively good care of her.

Though it was a bit disconcerting when he came to her bed late at night.

‘He’s dead now.’

Hush let out a hollow laugh.

While Ladeli’s death was regrettable… she had no naive thoughts like seeking revenge.

For a girl raised by slave traders, who had rolled around like a prostitute before growing up as an assassin, avenging a comrade was an incomprehensible sentiment.

‘He’s dead, what can I do about it? Let’s not think about it.’

Hush erased the word “Council of Dream Utopia” from her mind and went back to considering her future.

‘Even if I leave the city and wander around… nothing good will come of it.’

Hadn’t the Archbishop of the Church of Menes said it?

A half-elf slave was something difficult to obtain even for a thousand gold coins.

Unless she had powerful backing that others wouldn’t dare touch, if her identity was discovered while wandering alone, every human in the world would try to capture and sell her.

‘Still, this place is probably the best after all.’

Although there were three people who openly despised her, she wouldn’t find a better environment anywhere else.

Her current master, Aishan-Gioro Haschal, was rough, cruel, and fierce, but… he was unusually merciful to allies who weren’t enemies.

In fact, finding such a master while being a slave was already incredibly fortunate.

At least he didn’t rape her or torture her for fun.