Chapter 150: 081. Aslan’s Saviour -2 (Part Two)
Chapter 150: 081. Aslan’s Saviour -2 (Part Two)
“I’m the king, yet you dare...!”
His legs muscles bulged with pure strength in the next moment.
“...Make a mockery out of me?!”
Rahamma, while lifting up his mace, exploded forward from his spot and flew straight towards Tina.
To eliminate both her and the giant tree at the same time, he took an almighty swing with that large blunt weapon of his.
“Protect Tina.”
I stomped my foot on the ground. The spirits of earth and water floating around me quickly dashed forward.
The spirit of water created waves and pounced on Rahamma, and he got sucked into the crashing tides. At the same time, the ground shot up in front of Tina to create an earthen wall.
However, Rahamma didn’t stop. Despite being trapped in water as if he had fallen into a lake, he didn’t stop moving. He even temporarily held his breath while swinging the mace in his hands.
When the huge earthen wall was struck by the weapon, it exploded into bits. Even the water entrapping him blew apart and dissipated away.
But that was already enough for me. The bastard’s speed had dropped sufficiently by then.
I strengthened my legs and dashed towards where Tina was. Because the spirit of wind had already boosted my speed, I arrived at where the destroyed earthen wall used to stand in the blink of an eye. I glared squarely into Rahamma’s eyes.
Tina and her large, surprised eyes were staring at me from behind.
“You bastard-!”
Rahamma roared out, raised the mace, and slammed it down.
I raised my staff in response and blocked his downward swing.
One mace and one staff collided mid-air.
At the same time, the flames wrapped around the staff erupted out. The mace permeating with demonic energy was instantly heated up as Rahamma’s hands gripping the weapon got burnt pitch-black.
“Heuh-euph!”
Rahamma somehow managed to withstand the intense pain despite the flames burning him.
However, I could tell that the state of his body wasn’t normal. It seemed this bastard was gradually dying as this battle wore on.
Without a sacrifice nearby, he would have to put up his own life force as the cost for his incredible power. The longer he kept pouring out such an incredible level of strength, the quicker he’d reach his own demise.
“Stop him.”
Two words from me were enough for the spirits to make their next moves. The spirit of earth grabbed Rahamma’s legs and dragged him underground.
The spirit of fire danced around the king’s figure and began burning him with an even hotter flame.
As for the spirit of wind, it turned the winds into sharp, invisible blades and started inflicting countless wounds on his body.
In the meantime, the spirit of water wrapped around Rahamma’s face and began cutting off his oxygen supply.
Despite all of these, King Rahamma still didn’t falter or retreat.
“...!”
He opened his mouth underwater and muttered something out. However, I couldn’t hear what he wanted to say.
Even then, I could kind of tell that he was going for the last hurrah here. All of his demonic energy began condensing and gathering on his mace.
And from the surroundings, the aura of death violently and explosively gathered towards his weapon.
This aura caused the grass near Rahamma’s feet to wither into blackened colour and die instantly.
His previously middle-aged face rapidly transformed into an old man, and his hair lost all colour and turned snow-white.
Even his healthy-looking and rippling muscles withered away, leaving behind only his skin and bones.
“Ooh! Oooooooh!”
Rahamma cried out a loud battle roar.
Eventually, every single drop of demonic energy he possessed filled up his big mace.
Well, there’s his one last shot. I’m sure he’s itching to unleash that on me.
I raised my staff in response.
Honestly, I had been thinking that this would be the perfect time. The perfect time to test the performance of this staff, that was.
“Die along with everyone else!”
Rahamma’s muffled roar barely managed to escape from the watery prison around his head as he slammed down with his mace. At the same time, I too swung my staff.
Our weapons collided once more.
“This is the end, you stupid king.”
Unfortunately for him, all that stupendous demonic energy permeating in his mace simply dissipated in the blink of an eye.
The thing I wanted to test out was ‘skill nullification’, the additional skill granted to Amon’s staff after I upgraded it with Divine Aura. A skill that lets me nullify a single attack from my enemy, and featuring the cooldown time of one day.
Thanks to this skill’s effect, I got to block Rahamma’s final attack without putting up much of an effort.
“...!”
My staff dug into the mace that no longer boasted the might of all that demonic energy. The incredibly sturdy weapon began cracking apart like a fragile biscuit.
The king of Aslan, Rahamma, stared at this spectacle with pure astonishment as if he couldn’t believe it.
He muttered out, “I... I am...!”
My staff completely shattered his mace. And it went on to slam straight into Rahamma’s unguarded head.
BOOM-!
My final attack crushed the face of Aslan’s king.
His cheeks burst open while his cheekbones and jaw all shattered before caving in. His neck cracked and bent in the wrong way before his whole body, now resembling an old man, spun like a ragdoll as he was sent flying away to a distance.
He rolled on the verdant field for a dozen or so metres before eventually coming to a stop in a collapsed heap.
There was no sign of movement. Either he lost consciousness, or...
“Fuu-woo...”
I used the staff as a crutch. At the same time, the bone armour wrapped around me went away. I took off Amon’s skull from my head and stored it away in my item window.
My legs were wobbling unsteadily. Sure, the spirits did help me, but it seemed that even their aid was not enough to overcome the penalties of using the relics.
When I plopped down on my butt, Tina hurriedly held me up from behind. “A-are you feeling alright?”
“Not really.”
While saying that, I sensed my eyelids getting heavier.
Sleepiness was washing over me. My body was demanding some time off to recover from the consequence of fighting an intense battle.
“Hey, look after my body for a while, okay?”
After saying that, I closed my eyes.
I thought I could hear Tina whispering into my ear just then, “You can leave it to me. And thank you for all your hard work.”
While feeling relieved by her words, I fell into another bout of deep slumber.
**
(TL: In 3rd person POV.)
Tina leaned her back against the trunk of the huge tree, all the while still holding onto Allen. She then shifted her gaze over to the unmoving figure of Rahamma.
This would be their second meeting.
That man used to be her father once upon a time, and also the king of a nation, yet now, he laid face down on the dirt as a frail-looking old man.
The hashashins gathered around the fallen Rahamma. They stared at him before shaking their heads.
And since Tina knew what that gesture meant, she held Allen even tighter than before. She raised her head and looked up at the tree behind her – at the large tree that used to house the tree spirit.
A ‘clone’ of the world tree had taken root in this land now. As long as this tree was here, this barren wasteland would surely be covered in the hues of green sooner or later.
A powerful ray of hope had now appeared on this land of death.
Just as Tina smiled brightly at this realisation...
“Tina, our father’s army has arrived.”
One of the hashashins addressed Tina in a flat voice. She flinched in surprise and hurriedly turned her head.
Indeed, King Rahamma’s main army was approaching from afar.
The sounds of pulsing war drums resounded out. Skeletons, dullahans, and ghouls summoned by the Necromancers were standing orderly in formation. Aslan’s forces, which consisted of elite warriors, were getting closer to her location, all the while the light in their eyes burned ominously.
She could even spot the feudal lords commanding them as well.
It really was Aslan’s main army led by the feudal lords!
All colour instantly drained out of Tina’s complexion.
“Oh no! Tina, we need to run now! S-sir, you said you’re the Imperial Prince, didn’t you!? What should we do now? Sir?!”
Hans yelled out while hugging his head.
Despite his desperate questioning, Ruppel, who was standing next to him, didn’t mutter out a single word.
The Third Imperial Prince dazedly walked over to where Tina and the slumbering Allen were. He stood a little distance away and stared at his younger brother for a long while. The events he had witnessed so far made it exceptionally hard for his mind to process them all.
A mangnani who assaulted women and got banished for blasphemy, had somehow summoned a whole legion filled with holy undead. He then fought one on one against Aslan’s king Rahamma, only to emerge victorious at the end.
This boy, he... He was destined to become stronger than even Holy Emperor Kelt Olfolse himself.
Ruppel stared at Allen and felt some renewed strength seep into his clenched fist. Even though it was faint, he sensed ‘hope’ for the future now.
‘Allen, if it’s you, then maybe you can...’
“Your highness! We need to escape now! Sir!”
Hans’s urgent cry snapped Ruppel back to his senses, and he quickly shifted his gaze over to Aslan’s army.
Those combatants were on a whole other level compared to the small fries Allen had fought off earlier. This was a highly trained and united army. Not only was Ruppel hopelessly inadequate to resist this force, he even got the feeling that he wouldn’t be able to escape from them either.
However...
“...Actually, I don’t think there’s a need for us to escape.” Ruppel smiled wryly and shifted his gaze elsewhere. “It seems that our reinforcement has finally arrived.”
When he said that, Tina, Hans, and even the hashashins all turned their heads in the direction he was staring at.
Rahamma’s main army also stopped marching just then. The commanders leading the troops took in the beautiful greenery with their widened eyes.
Unfortunately for them, this break in action had to be cut short.
From the left side of their marching direction, another army was approaching them. The feudal lords discovered the second army and fear rapidly dyed their expressions.
“The Theocratic Empire...!”
Boom...! Boom...! Boom...!
The beating of the war drums resounded out while accompanied by a sacred-sounding hymn matching the rhythm reverberating throughout the sky.
Numerous Priests held up their staves high as they sang the hymn aloud, while the Paladins, kitted out in heavy armour despite the crippling heat, were silently marching in a perfectly-ordered formation.
The symbol of the Theocratic Empire, the golden cross, gleamed sharply under the light.
Divinity began spreading to all surroundings and stoked the army’s fighting spirit.
A small number of Paladins wearing golden armour could be seen; the Order of the Golden Cross.
The Heresy Inquisitors wearing crimson robes and bird-beak masks, the Order of the Crimson Cross.
The pursuit specialists wearing green robes and balaclavas, the Order of the Verdant Cross.
The Imperial Court’s imperial guards wearing silver-coloured armour, the Paladin Corps.
And then, the legion consisting of one thousand dedicated Paladins, the Heavenly Army.
Besides them, the dwarven legion as well as the elite soldiers of the empire numbering well over ten thousand individuals...
Finally, one man wearing a golden armour and commanding the Theocratic Empire’s impressive army, the Sword King Oscal Baldur.
Next to him was the head of the Order of the White Cross, Charlotte Heraiz, there to support him from the side.
They had entered the battlefield.
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