Chapter 161: 087. Ruppel Olfolse -5 (Part One)
Aslan’s nobles, manservants, and maids were fleeing from the royal palace. Even the empire’s Paladins stationed inside had evacuated in haste as well.
The members of the Order of the Crimson Cross stared at the palace while restricting the Third Imperial Prince.
Oscal Baldur and White Olfolse had to temporarily stop their Vampire hunt, their expressions gradually hardening.
All of them stood on the spot and stared at the apocalyptic sight of a portion of Aslan’s royal palace collapsing, then a skeleton king’s massive figure making its appearance among the falling debris.
“What on earth is that now?!”
White was in the middle of yanking a Vampire’s head off from its torso when this happened. His jaw dropped to the floor as astonishment filled up his mind.
On the other hand, Oscal was making a somewhat indifferent expression. “…The undead king, is it?”
He knew quite well what that humongous undead was. Well, he was one of the participants in the final battle against the Necromancer King fifty years ago, and as such, he did come face to face with the undead king back then.
However…
“That creature… is permeating with divinity, isn’t it?”
Oscal’s muttering prompted White’s slack jaw to clamp shut quickly.
An undead permeating with divinity? There could only be one individual capable of summoning such a creature. And he…
“Looks like his highness has done something outrageous once more!”
White shifted his gaze away at those words and spotted Hans hurriedly running towards him, all the while pushing aside the crowd of servants and maids evacuating from the palace.
Since White was somewhat acquainted with the merchant-cum-Alchemist, he decided to ask the latter for some clarification on the matter, “Did Allen summon that creature?”
Hans looked up at the distant skeleton king, and then looked back at White. He now knew the latter was indeed the empire’s Crown Imperial Prince, so he replied more politely than before with a flustered voice, “You didn’t know, sir? He hunted the black dragon down with that undead. You know… that dragon you fought against…”
“…Wait what? He hunted that dragon down?” White the Crown Prince became astonished once more. No one had bothered to tell him about this.
“I should ask his highness for permission to analyse that creature properly later,” said Hans while putting on the pair of goggles that analysed magical tools.
As a man who researched the truth of the world itself, the existence of the holy undead proved to be just too intriguing to ignore. Finding more about them was one of the reasons why he was planning to take a trip to the Theocratic Empire’s imperial palace later on.
While he was staring at the skeleton king and observing it, he detected a strange little flow of energy from nearby.
He turned his gaze at this surprisingly intricate, detailed, and even complicated flow.
Wasn’t this… magical flow associated with a warp spell?
Hans’s puzzled gaze eventually landed on the entrance of an alleyway quite some distance away. And that’s when he spotted a group of men in black robes gathered around there.
They were also frozen stiff in their spots after witnessing the advent of the skeleton king.
‘Are they sorcerers or something?’
Hans wondered to himself, but then realised that the flow his goggles had picked up didn’t belong to Mana, but demonic energy instead.
In that case, Necromancers maybe…?
Just as he began thinking, ‘Makes sense, Necromancers are a common sight in Aslan, after all,’ the trace of demonic energy coming from them simply vanished like a fading mirage.
Hans clamped his mouth shut at that.
A group capable of instantly hiding their demonic energy? There could only be one such group capable of pulling off such a feat.
Vampires.
All colour drained out of Hans’s complexion.
Count Timong, who was standing in the alleyway at that very moment, was genuinely freaking out as he stared at the skeleton king. “Is that a t-titan?!”
No, wait – that being wasn’t one of the sealed creatures.
That thing was… an undead. Not just any, but an existence possessing ‘divinity’!
Timong the Alchemist’s jaw dropped to the floor. “Incredible! But… this doesn’t make any sense. No! Such a thing shouldn’t even be possible! A perfect harmony of Necromancy and divine-type magic?!”
He urgently shook his head from side to side, hoping to reject reality before his eyes.
But then, a certain chain of thoughts abruptly popped up in his head.
‘Hold on!’
Chaotic confusion quickly made a mess of Count Timong’s mind. His pool of knowledge swirled madly and all sorts of terms fleeted in and out of his consciousness.
An extraordinary phenomenon. A contradiction. Harmony of demonic energy and divinity. Gods, the titan races, different dimensions…
…And then, warp magic.
Timong’s face hardened gradually, but that state lasted only for a little while. An expression of rapture rapidly formed on his face as he spread open his arms wide. His hunched back straightened up as well.
His expression was filled up with the glow of pure ecstasy as a loud yell jumped out of his mouth, “I’ve figured it out!”
He was basically crying out, ‘Eureka!’
His emotions had gotten the better of him and he inadvertently activated Spirit Speech during his shout. The other Vampires flinched in shock and hurriedly stared at Count Timong before turning their gazes away.
Was it because Timong’s voice was permeating with demonic energy?
No, perhaps not; a human wearing a pair of goggles had been staring at them before the yell and was already crying out, “Vampires!”
Thanks to his scream, the cordon of Paladins on standby in front of Aslan’s royal palace simultaneously turned their heads. That also included Oscal and White as well.
The single word, ‘Vampires’, caused their expressions to harden, madness swirling nearly out of control in their eyes.
Their gazes that were previously taking in the sight of the skeleton king had already locked on to the Vampires, causing the complexions of the latter group to pale in an instant.
Two nightmare-like existences to Vampires were currently staring at them – the perverted Crown Imperial Prince, rumoured to derive much pleasure from collecting severed Vampire heads and interrogating them, and then the zealot sword king, also known to be a connoisseur of raw Vampire flesh.
The Vampires predicted that one of these two would be facing off Ruppel, while the other would be occupied with hunting down the undead that had arrived earlier, but as it turned out, their prediction was wide off the mark.
If the empire’s forces had been spread out, then the Vampires would’ve stood a good chance of rescuing Ruppel from this mess, but it was practically impossible now.
The sword king and the Crown Imperial Prince, then the unknown giant holy undead…
Now was the time to escape from here.
‘Dammit…!’
The Vampires cried out in fear and anxiety.
“We need to flee!”
“Escort Count Timong! Hurry!”
The Vampires urgently grabbed onto Count Timong.
However, he had always been obsessed with all things related to Alchemy and as such, he was now completely lost in madness while taking in the sight of the contradictory truth playing out right before his eyes.
He extended his hands and flailed ungainly about. “Aaaaah! The truth, it’s right over there! Just a little bit more! A little more!”
“No! We need to escape from here, sir! Before we get our heads yanked out and tortured by that pervert, we need to hurry…!”
“It’s too late for Lord Ruppel now!”
“Ha, hahah! Ooooh, oooooooooh-!”
Unlike the desperate Vampires, Count Timong had a crazed smile as he continued roaring out in elation. His lengthy, bizarre-looking hands reached out towards the skeleton king.
His eyes were gleaming brightly. “I… I may finally get to complete it. The eternity that I’ve been researching all my life, soon I can…!”
“Warp, now! Warp!”
The Vampires urgently headed back into the empty house that they had come out of earlier. They breathlessly jumped on top of the warp magic circle drawn on the floor.
“We don’t have any offerings with us!”
“It can’t be helped. Instead of offerings, we’ll just utilise our own demonic energy.”
After saying that, Vampires began rousing up their demonic energy.
“Uwaaahk!”
A scream suddenly exploded out, and the gathered Vampires quickly turned their heads in that direction.
Their comrades, a little tardier in their attempt to escape, were collapsing in heaps as blood gushed out from their bodies.
Behind them were the smiling sword king wielding a gleaming sword, and the Crown Imperial Imperial busy yanking off the head of a Vampire.
Their eyes glowed eerily within the darkness of the night.
Holy cow! How could they have traversed that distance so quickly?!
“Heeeiiik?!”
“Everyone, offer up your lives! If you don’t want your head yanked out and tortured, then…!”
The frightened Vampires gave their all and wrung their demonic energy dry. Even if they get extinguished out of existence, they simply had to escape from this place.
Despite their urgent situation, Count Timong didn’t even bother to stare at either White Olfolse or Oscal Baldur.
He was still continuously smiling away while looking through the abandoned house’s window. He stared at the skeleton king and guffawed out. “Aaaah! It’ll soon be completed! My warp gate of truth!”
The sword king and the Crown Imperial Prince dashed forward.
“Uwaaahk!”
The Vampires unhesitatingly offered up their lives. A few of them experienced their demonic energy going out of control and even burst into flames.
But their efforts were not in vain – with only a hair’s breadth apart, the warp activated and the Vampires disappeared from the spot.
“Tch.”
The sword king and White stood before the magic circle and could only tut loudly.
(TL: In 1st person POV.)
The collapsed debris from the royal palace rained down.
The skeleton king revealed its impressively huge frame within the collapsing building, using its two hands to shield me from the falling debris.
Its third hand pressed against the ground to balance itself while the fourth was pulling out its sword from the holy lake.
Wow, it feels like my divinity reserve was being sucked dry.
Fatigue rushed in too, but since it was still at a tolerable level, it should be fine.
But the important thing was, I got to control my divinity without blacking out like the last time. That single fact alone caused a smile to automatically creep up on my lips.
‘Sure, I’ll probably have to go through pretty severe muscle pain for a while, but even then, how great is this?!’
I glanced at the world tree. As expected, that thing’s effect was top notch. The tree had managed to greatly soften the backlash of Amon’s relic.
Unlike back when I ended up losing my consciousness while fighting against the dragon, I felt confident of staying awake until the end this time.
If I matured just a little bit more, then I should be able to freely wield this power as I wish. Without a doubt, I was growing stronger. I could definitely feel that.
Even before being conscious of it, I was covering my grinning mouth with my hand.
The more I mastered new magic spells and summoned all sorts of colourful undeads, the more I felt this strange ecstasy and elation.
This sense of satisfaction was impossible to describe, really.
Even I could tell that this was seriously concerning.
This sensation couldn’t have been caused by the unique attributes of a Necromancer. And it sure as heck wasn’t part of a Priest’s nature either.
No, this… this sign of madness had to be hiding within the imperial bloodline itself.
‘I think I know why the Imperial Family is so dang obsessed with hunting down Vampires.’
One’s faith? Religious doctrine? Because those things preyed on innocent people? In order to protect the empire’s subjects?
Nope, none of the above.
Right, they were all excuses as far as I could tell.
There would be no better creatures than Vampires to ‘upgrade’ yourself as quickly as possible. Because they existed in this world, the Imperial Family got to experience the scope of their own powers.
Vampires required hundreds of years to become powerful, but the members of the Imperial Family could catch up to them in the matter of a decade or two.
This group of religious quacks were obsessed with power. No, hang on. I should correct myself and say that the Imperial Family had become blinded by this powerful sense of accomplishment born out of getting ‘stronger’.
‘I ain’t gonna end up as one of them, I hope?’
I tried so hard to deny the worrisome possibility in my mind as I locked my gaze on Second Imperial Prince Ruppel.
Wow, that dude really looks like a terrified little kid, doesn’t he?
His unstable body was breaking apart at a visible rate, the holy water lake overflowing like a biblical flood easily melting him down.
He did look pretty pitiful, this older brother of mine. He was thrashing about in anguish and pain.
That’s why…
“It’s time for you to rest for all eternity, older brother.”
…I should send him ‘gently’ away.
(TL: Also only one chapter tomorrow as well.)