Ch.596Human Calamity

The Champion of Aishan, Ihan Kunuma, had never imagined that he would cower in fear when facing an enemy.

During the war with the Clan Union that had elevated him to the rank of Champion, and even in his childhood when he was merely a warrior, he had faced countless life-threatening situations, but never once had he felt fear.

An Aishan warrior should fear only the wrath of their Kagan, Orhan. That was the belief he had lived by.

Until now.

“Gah, aaaargh…!”

A warrior, his face gripped by a hand covered in black armor, lets out a strangled cry as his body convulses. Bones and flesh, muscles and organs split into pieces as torrents of blood pour through the gaps.

Chunks of meat crumbling like weathered rock turning to sand. Kunuma felt his heart lurch again at the horrific scene that had repeated several times before his eyes.

Right in front of him, a person was literally being disintegrated!

– Hisssss…

It took mere seconds. Only a few seconds for a person to be reduced to a pile of dust floating on blood.

‘What is this? What the hell is this monster?!’

Kunuma barely managed to compose his trembling body as he stared with terror-filled eyes at the monster slowly walking toward him.

—-

A flash of light from the southwestern garrison. Rushing there in haste, suspecting some trouble, they encountered a sorcerer covered head to toe in a black windbreaker with a hood.

The figure looked suspicious, wandering alone in the dead of night with their entire body concealed, so they attacked first—a fatal mistake.

They should have chosen to flee, not attack. What they encountered was not merely a suspicious human, but a living calamity merely mimicking human form.

– Grrrrrr!

The moment the creature placed its left hand on the ground, the earth shattered into pieces and collapsed like a dried-up lake. It was like witnessing a landslide in reverse.

The mounted warriors were swept up in the ground collapse, tumbling inward and falling from their horses, with broken boulders raining down on their heads. Dozens of warriors perished in an instant.

And what followed was an incomprehensible, one-sided slaughter.

The warriors who had avoided the collapse rushed at the attacker all at once, but the sorcerer who had overturned the earth with a single gesture easily avoided the fierce attacks of dozens of warriors, including Kunuma himself, and butchered them all with terrifying simplicity.

– BOOM!

A kicked warrior bursts apart, scattering into bloody mist.

“AAAAARGH!”

With each swing of the suddenly drawn longsword, warriors were sliced to pieces without the blade even touching them.

“Guh, gaaah…!”

“Hagalaz.”

A warrior caught in the left hand screams his last breath and crumbles to dust.

“You monster!”

“Die-!”

The spears and swords of warriors who barely managed to get close pierced through the sorcerer’s body and-

– Screeeech!

“What…!”

They slid off harmlessly with the sound of scraping metal. As if they were facing their Kagan Orhan’s Unyielding Flesh.

“Impossible…!”

“Indeed.”

Violence that no human body could withstand flew toward the warrior who muttered in disbelief.

It didn’t take long for all the warriors to be annihilated.

—-

And now, back to the present.

“You, what are you…!”

Kunuma desperately moved his weakened legs, retreating backward from his sitting position as he shouted. He couldn’t stand up or swing his weapon. He could only tremble like a rabbit before a predator.

The short sword in his right hand, his trusted companion that had always felt reliable, now looked as small and weak as a toothpick, having lost all fighting spirit and will.

The sorcerer who had slaughtered over a hundred warriors in an instant walked toward him, shaking the blood from his sword instead of answering.

No, was “sorcerer” even the right word? To Kunuma, the being before him was not human. Something terrifyingly strong and horrifyingly ominous. Like an incarnation of calamity burning blue ghost fire.

“What are you, I said-!”

Fear. With terror that made his heart drop and his limbs freeze, Kunuma felt tears welling up as he cried out convulsively.

The opponent answered. Narrowing eyes with burning blue light, as if amused by his trembling form.

ᠪᡳ ᠰᡠᠸᡝᠨᡳ ᡥᠠᠰᠠᡤᠠᠨ

“I am your calamity.”

Contrary to Kunuma’s expectation of a chilling metallic voice befitting a monster, though mixed with strange noise, it was clearly the timbre of a young woman.

“Hasagan (calamity)…? No, wait. This voice, I’ve heard it somewhere…”

Despite his fear, Kunuma felt a sense of curiosity at the alien yet somehow familiar voice, and looked directly at the masked monster’s face.

“You’ve heard it before? Yes, I suppose you would have.”

The monster who called herself Hasagan touched her mask—with a clicking sound, the metal mask covering the lower half of her face was removed. Kunuma’s eyes widened in shock, momentarily forgetting his fear at the revealed face.

“Well? Do you recognize me now?”

A face with mixed features of Ka’har and Westerner. Blue eyes flickering like will-o’-wisps. Sharp eyes resembling Orhan’s and an overwhelmingly ominous presence. There was no way he wouldn’t recognize such distinctive features.

“Aishan-Gioro Haschal…!”

Kunuma murmured the opponent’s name blankly.

Aishan-Gioro Haschal. The woman grinning like a beast before his eyes was once expected to grow into Aishan’s strongest warrior, but was now a traitor who had betrayed her father and clung to Westerners for her own advancement!

“Yes, I have returned. To these steppes of Aishan. As the calamity you will face.”

Haschal curled up the corners of her mouth. An unnaturally heightened tone with exaggerated diction like in Chinese opera. It was exactly how Kunuma remembered Haschal’s manner of speaking.

“Impossible. How…!”

Kunuma’s trembling stopped. Perhaps he had forgotten his fear from the shock. Astonishment had gripped his mind.

“How, in just one year, such power…!”

If she had been some unknown monster, he could have accepted it.

But for a woman who had been merely at Champion level when she left for the West to return after just one year with superhuman strength and terrible sorcery, becoming a powerhouse on the level of the Kagan—how could this be possible?

Even rapid improvement has its limits; this was too much.

“Experience. Talent. Luck. You seem to lack all three. And judging by your inability to even fight back, you’re short on spirit too.”

Haschal mocked Kunuma as she approached him. Close enough to clearly see the cold sweat on his forehead. The dark red killing intent rising behind her back flickered ominously.

A suffocatingly thick and hideous murderous intent. Kunuma felt for a moment as if he were sinking into a swamp filled with teeth.

‘Dangerous, this is. This woman is too dangerous…!’

His shoulders shook. His breathing quickened and his pupils trembled. His teeth chattered as they collided. The fear he had forgotten due to shock was sprouting again.

‘The Kagan, I must inform him…!’

He had to inform him. That such a monster was roaming the great plains in disguise.

Before suffering irreversible losses, he had to somehow inform the Kagan to hunt down this monster.

Otherwise, countless warriors would be killed in vain.

– Thud.

However, five fingers covering Kunuma’s face cut off his thoughts.

A touch emanating icy coldness. Haschal’s left hand, which had suddenly approached as if time had stopped, gripped his head and lifted it up.

“Hiiik! Let go! Let me go! I said let go!”

“Would I let you go just because you ask?”

Kunuma screamed shrilly and convulsed. The death throes of warriors turning to dust flashed through his mind. As did the image of himself breaking into pieces.

However, what awaited him was not the spell of collapse, but a dark red thorny lightning that penetrated his skull and spread throughout his body.

Crack. The lightning bolt of murder Karma that penetrated his body tore apart his entire being.

“AAAAARGH!”

With excruciating pain as if all the nerves in his body were being torn apart, Kunuma died instantly, spewing blood from every orifice.

Haschal shook the lifeless corpse once, then tossed it onto the pile of bodies like garbage, losing interest, and left the place.

—-

Thus, the forces rushing toward the southwestern base were annihilated by the murderous hand before reaching their destination.

One Champion and one hundred and ten warriors. Their journey to the afterlife wouldn’t have been lonely. Haschal, who visited their camp, sent the remaining personnel to the afterlife as well.

After massacring the forces at two bases, Haschal tore down tent cloth to make a large flag and erected it there.

「 Aishan-Gioro Haschal 」

The name written in warriors’ blood fluttered on the flagpole.

======[ Haschal ]======

[ Weren’t you supposed to keep your identity hidden? ]

‘He said to reveal my name after killing more than five hundred. That from then on, I should properly draw attention.’

I reminded Hersella, who was questioning me, of what Ludwig had said, as I firmly packed down the earth around the flagpole.

As dawn was breaking, it was time to return to the Wall.