Harvest Festival

1.

“Long time no see?”

The Legion Commander, reunited after decades.

I never dreamed we’d meet so soon.

He hasn’t changed a bit.

He’s exactly as Elia remembers him.

Unlike Elia, who has changed in everything, even gender.

“Long time no see, you say?”

Mortis tilted his head.

As if he couldn’t remember the number of loaves of bread he’d eaten, one by one.

Having massacred countless humans over hundreds of years, it was impossible for him to remember each and every face.

Of course, there were a few humans whose faces were vividly etched in his memory.

Those who had consistently interfered with his research and stubbornly resisted on the battlefield.

Most of them were no longer of this world, so there was no need to dredge them up from his memory.

“I don’t know you.”

“That’s a little disappointing.”

Elia threw off the veil she was wearing.

Her neatly arranged golden hair cascaded down over her chest.

“I told you I would cut off your head for sure.”

Elia raised her sword.

For a moment, someone else overlapped with her image.

The figure of a certain knight who had been the greatest threat to him.

“You seem to recognize me.”

Elia unwound the bandages wrapped around the sword hilt.

Extermia is a double-edged sword.

It can amplify Magical power to unleash explosive Sword Aura, but it also drains Magical power in real time, limiting its usage time.

The sword absorbs Magical power.

The dark, dull blade turned white, and a subtle golden light bloomed.

The flames in Mortis’s eye sockets slowly grew larger.

“That Magical power…!”

Just as he was about to recall the owner of the Magical power, Elia swung her sword.

It wasn’t a fast or threatening movement.

But with just a light swing of the sword, a golden line cleanly cut through space.

Mortis deployed a Barrier to defend.

The golden Sword Aura cut through the bones binding Yohan and collided with the Barrier.

-KWAANG!!

Magical power and Demonic energy collided, causing a violent explosion.

Mortis’s defensive Barrier shattered into pieces.

It wasn’t an attack that analyzed the circuit to undo the Barrier, but one that simply destroyed the circuit itself.

It came back to him.

It all came back to him.

Mortis murmured that name after a long time.

“Adrean Van Reiker…!”

The name of the knight who died long ago from the Demon King’s Curse.

Elia grinned.

“That’s right.”

Elia quickly healed Yohan, whose limbs were twisted and tattered. Just enough to keep him alive.

Saving the future Hero was important, but the most important thing right now was to defeat the Legion Commander in front of her.

“Haaap!”

Elia charged at Mortis.

Just by lightly kicking off the ground, the air was pushed back, and she moved faster than sound.

Mortis clashed his palms together, intersecting two Magic circles.

He created a large Magic circle on the ground.

As the Magic circle activated, a monster that looked like a giant shark opened its mouth wide and swallowed Elia.

Light flashed.

-PEOONG!!

With an explosion, the monster’s flesh scattered in all directions.

Elia, without a drop of blood on her, used the monster’s corpse as a stepping stone and leaped high into the air.

Elia had the sun at her back.

Her shadowed face revealed blood-red eyes emitting Eye light.

Mortis reached out his arm towards Elia.

Fifteen Magic circles appeared behind him.

Summon.

Monsters poured out of the fifteen Magic circles.

Things made by weaving together various corpses roared, scraping at the eardrums.

Being in the air was a miscalculation.

It made her an easier target.

However.

Elia kicked off the air.

She dodged the monsters charging at her and slashed upwards from below.

The bodies of three monsters were bisected, falling to the ground with a thud.

It didn’t end there.

As if there were footholds, she kicked off the air, moving like drawing a star.

Golden lines were drawn across the sky, and the monsters in the path of the lines were cleanly cut down.

Tap.

Elia lightly landed on the ground with her toes.

Leaning her body forward, she thrust her sword forward as if sliding.

-KWAHAAAAANG!

She released Sword Aura with a Sword Dance, creating a massive shockwave.

Mortis, with a flick of his finger, recombined the corpses on the ground into a solid shield.

A shield thickly layered with bones and flesh.

-PEOEONG!

The shield that blocked the Sword Aura exploded.

Flesh soared into the sky like corn, raining down.

Before the next attack could follow, Mortis moved first.

Barrier construction.

Barrier deployment.

Mind control.

A Barrier made of Demonic energy surrounded Elia.

It was over.

Being swallowed inside the Barrier meant that everything about Elia could be controlled.

But.

Elia cut through the Barrier.

It split in half.

With that one strike, the circuit forming the Barrier was completely destroyed.

For a warrior, a Wizard is a very difficult opponent.

If they fight at a distance, the warrior is absolutely at a disadvantage.

Depending on the hierarchy, it may even be impossible to approach.

Elia had experienced that difference in her past life.

No matter how much she tried to approach Mortis, she couldn’t because of his magic.

She could somehow cut down the monsters he summoned, but the pouring magic blocked her path.

How could she approach and attack?

She pondered and pondered how to attack a Wizard and devised a method.

It was simple.

Wouldn’t it be enough to just cut through the magic?

That’s why even this kind of Barrier is useless in front of Elia.

“Your tricks have improved.”

Mortis clashed his palms together once more.

Domain.

Sea of corpses.

A black Domain with a diameter of over 100m was created, centered on Mortis.

A viscous black liquid, like lava, bubbled.

Moans echoed from all directions, and dozens of pairs of hands emerged from the liquid.

“If you keep removing them, I can keep creating them.”

The corpses rose up, wielding weapons.

Elia’s eyes widened.

Mortis, watching her expression with satisfaction, said.

“Do you recognize them?”

Corpses armed with old armor.

The emblem of the Empire was engraved on their chests.

They were the knights who had fought alongside Elia long ago.

Flesh was attached to their skeletal bodies, and their shapes gradually transformed into people.

Because they weren’t truly alive, their cloudy eyes had no focus.

There were nearly 150 of them.

A number generally impossible to face alone.

“Haa… haa….”

Elia took a breath.

Even as she did, Extermia was greedily devouring her Magical power.

She had already used 1/3 of her Magical power.

Handling Extermia was one thing, but cutting through magic required a large amount of Magical power, so she had used it excessively in an instant.

She had to finish this quickly before she collapsed.

But she shouldn’t be impatient.

Impatience was the greatest poison in battle.

The corpse knights charged towards Elia.

Elia didn’t hesitate.

After all, they were already dead.

It was right to cut off their heads and send them to Valhalla rather than let them live like slaves.

A golden wave washed over.

Elia swung her sword as if dancing.

Four corpses’ necks fell at once with each swing.

-KWAHAAAAANG!

Elia’s Sword Aura swept through the corpses.

In an instant, she knocked down over 150 corpse knights.

“Let’s continue to the next. There are plenty of corpses.”

The sea of corpses.

It was truly a sea made of corpses.

The dead continued to rise from the ground, creaking and groaning.

Over 100 corpses surrounded Elia.

“Hap!”

Elia rotated her body, swinging her sword widely.

A golden line drew a circle, pushing back the corpses like a wave.

It pierced through the corpses’ waists, and their upper bodies slid to the ground.

A horrifying symphony that tore at the eardrums echoed.

She couldn’t keep doing this forever.

Elia charged towards Mortis.

Mortis’s Barriers and Summoned beasts stubbornly blocked her path, but she easily cut through them all and approached.

-PPEOEOK!!

Elia kicked Mortis in the stomach.

She broke his ribs, sending Mortis flying far away.

She followed immediately.

This time, she kicked him upwards into the sky.

Elia also leaped up.

She raised her sword above her head.

She brought it down on Mortis as he was.

Mortis clashed his palms together.

Triple Barrier.

-TTAENGGRANG!!

She broke it immediately.

Summon.

A giant made by mixing thousands of corpses awakened, tearing through the ground.

The giant protected Mortis.

“Heup!!”

Elia swallowed her breath and rotated.

She slashed through the giant’s spine and landed on the ground.

It didn’t end there.

She leaped up again, carving out large chunks of the giant’s flesh.

Finally, she brought her sword down on the giant’s crown, splitting its body in half.

“It’s over!”

Elia brought her Sword Dance down on Mortis’s head, which had fallen from the giant’s embrace.

-KWAHAAAAANG!!

The Sword Aura exploded violently.

2.

It was close.

She finished it before exhausting all her Magical power.

I rubbed my blurry eyes and looked down.

The sword was splitting Mortis’s skull in half.

Mortis’s flames, which replaced his pupils, were weakening as if they were about to go out.

“Haa… haa…”

I pulled out the sword.

I clutched my chest in a heart-wrenching pain.

My whole body was damp.

I wiped the sweat flowing down my neck and took a breath.

That’s when it happened.

“Heuk… heuk heuk….”

Mortis’s body twitched and moved, and a laughter was heard.

“Did you think you could cut me down with something like this?”

Mortis grabbed the sword embedded in his face and pulled it out.

I tried to suppress him with force, but because I had used almost all of my Magical power, there was a difference in pure strength.

I stepped back and created distance.

Mortis rose as if someone was pulling him up.

“I am already a dead man. No matter how strong your Magical power is, it is impossible to kill me.”

Eternal life.

A blessing and a Curse that he could enjoy because he was already dead.

Mortis ran his hand over his face.

The marks where the sword had been embedded disappeared cleanly.

The flames in his eye sockets began to burn fiercely again.

“I really wanted to see you. I really wanted to use you as my research material.”

Damn it.

This was bad.

I didn’t have any more Magical power to fight with.

I had just enough to barely escape.

But I couldn’t escape from here.

I couldn’t stop the disaster that would befall the academy.

And this might be the last chance to meet the Legion Commander one-on-one.

“You seem to have been reborn, but I will make you be born into a more perfect body.”

What should I do?

“…Ah!”

Oh.

I was so stupid.

I was making a simple thing difficult.

He’s a Lich, an Undead.

What works well against Undead is naturally not Magical power.

It’s Divinity.

I have two powers.

Magical power and Divinity.

And if you asked which one was more powerful, it was Divinity.

The Saintess’s body was optimized for Divinity rather than Magical power.

I didn’t know if it would work, but let’s try it.

I gripped the sword tightly.

I closed my eyes and focused.

I forcibly fed Divinity to Extermia, which was sucking up Magical power.

Eat it.

Keep eating it.

My Divinity is close to infinite.

“God….”

I prayed silently.

So that Divinity could shine even more brilliantly.

“How pitiful. Are you finally seeking God? But don’t worry now. I will make you into a body so strong that you won’t need God.”

I swung my sword at the chattering skull head.

The brilliantly shining golden Sword Aura cut off his neck.

With a slicing sound, the black, rotten skull fell off.

I reached out my hand.

I grabbed his head.

To finish him off for sure, I poured Divinity into his head.

“Kkeuaaaaaaaak!!!”

A scream that sounded like scraping metal echoed throughout the forest.

I squinted one eye and continued to use Divinity.

Demonic energy rose up as if trying to resist, but it was buried in the face of the vast amount of Divinity pouring down.

The screaming subsided.

Divinity melted the head of the dead man.

“I… I Curse you….”

With those words, the bones crumbled in my palm.

The bone powder scattered in the breeze.

The foul Demonic energy disappeared, and the cool scent of the forest, with summer approaching, wafted softly.