CHAPTER 187
THE RETURN OF THE KING (1)
As Norwin’s order fell, all available persons, irrespective of their differences stood united. As there were no infantry units, there was no way to contain them all, but instead of numbers, they had all big names. Kansas, the chairman of the Knight Association, Dijkstra the commander of Parv, Norwin the alliance head, Reina the elven queen and the second-ranked knight, King Eleanor. The Concordia personnels had retreated to their castle to check on their students while the rest of them had charged towards the area of impact.
As Norwin took charge, his attacks froze the undead while Eleanor’s wind aura destroyed them. Yet Norwin’s own father in the ranks of undead, the fire knight of his time, halted his process.
“We need to contain them here” Arat finally suggested, “These are all big names, even if one of them reaches down the capital. I don’t think, your soldiers could stop it.” And he didn’t have to say twice, while Norwin hated the old snake, he couldn’t deny his foresight in battle. Norwin stopped in his place, gathering all his aura, he sacrificed half of it to call his domain.
Domain Skill - IceAge.
As he thrust his greatsword, Faith, into the ground, a remarkable transformation ensued. The cemetery grounds turned snowy and the whole mountain began enclosing by colossal ice walls. These walls, emanating an enchanting blue glow, extended far into the landscape. The once serene cemetery, then a chaotic battlefield, finally turned into a winter wonderland encased in a circular boundary of high walls that reached the skies.
“Take down the one who can fly, first,” Norwin asked the people as his sword, Fate, fuelling him in an unending power clashed with its previous owner, his own father. Transforming the place into a sea of ice and fire.
“I don’t like following his orders, but he is right.” Dijkstra, the quickest knight in the land commented, as he kept appearing and disappearing on all the battlefield. Severing the limbs of whatever he could get his hands on. He knew well that the undead could regenerate on their own, but a less hand holding a sword, especially one of a sword master’s, was one less thing to worry for others.
“It becomes a little easier,” Norwin commented, as Dijkstra flashed through, taking his undead Father’s arm. “ I should be not happy about your hand, Father, but you are in the wrong time, So I apologise.” Norwin called upon his another skill.
Skill - FrostBite
The area where his swords moved and managed to tear the necrotic skin started freezing the wound, slowing the already slow movement of Death Knight. Yet he knew this was not going to stop the almost immortal undead.
Arat as the weakest physically but on another level of experience offered his wisdom, “The only way to kill them completely is to destroy them at the molecular level.”
“I know,” Norwin responded aloud, cleaving his undead father into two, yet it began to regenerate.
Arat added, “You are not a good match, we need fire or light. Sierra shouldn't have left. Damn it. ” He then turned to the woman he hated most in the world, the queen of Clandor, the sole possessor of light element amongst them. "It won't be as quick as divine mana but that is what we got. I fear for the worse."
Seeing all their gazes on her, she quipped, “Don’t look at me like that. I’m half the knight I used to be.” Turning to Arat she let out a sharp retort, “Don’t you know, who turned me into one.”
Irritated by her glance, Arat responded, “He should have gone for your head, woman—”
“This is not the time,” Norwin shouted from afar, stopping them before they could start arguing like cats and dogs. He looked at his force, they only had a handful of people who could fight these mighty death knights. When the explosion happened, Samwell took a chunk full of knights and left for the capital as he was informed of the situation of the city under attack. Only Arat and Dijkstra from Parv. Eleanor, Reina and the interrogator who he doesn’t know the name of, followed him to the cemetery with Kansas.
Kansas as the user of Water aura was quite compatible with Norwin’s icy aura, but as Arat had mentioned before, only Reina was the one who could permanently end them. Some handful of knights and mages who had the misfortune of being in the vicinity or curious to see what was happening were still present, but none was of a level to deal something to the numerous death knights, whom Dijkstra was currently slaughtering like a butchering machine.
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“What do you need?” Norwin offered his helping hand to Reina.
“I won’t last long, you know it. My skills don’t favour the long battle—”
“I know, you are all passive…you lost your spirit,” Norwin remarked cautiously so as to not rub on her. It was enough that she was not exploiting the situation in her favour. So he didn’t want to ruffle her feathers.
“Then I’ll restrict my movements." Reina proposed, "Bring the subdued ones to me, and make sure they are incapacitated,” She stressed, “My guard will be all down.”
All nodded, affirming on their honour to not try something funny, and the fighting ensued in several steps, Dijkstra taking out the limbs, Kansas’s watery attacks flooding them, Norwin freezing them and Eleanor's windy rampages breaking and bringing them to his wife, where through her sword skills, specialised in stopping regeneration as it cut through mana itself. She destroyed them completely.
“That’s two down,” Arat commented as he counted the remaining ones, unsure of how long she would last. He continued, concerned, “We have eighteen more to do, Hurry!” Arat’s concern was not for some foreigner’s safety, but for some other reasons. He was afraid to face the worst thing that could happen there, and Norwin shared the sentiments.
Norwin was looking at Samson’s burial place, struck by the sword directly. He thanked his fortune as the very sword that turned his ancestors into undead was stopping Samson’s return. But the thing about intelligence is that it came very late, and even the sharpest mind missed the obvious things. Norwin and others failed to realise that Xandor’s Return spell was the sixth circle, not the ninth which was currently encompassing the entire cemetery, and they were going to pay the price of not thinking ahead.
“Dark Revival” the voice of Xandor echoed once again and the huge ninth-circle spell shrank, which was still illuminating in the burial grounds, fuelling the body it stabbed. "BOOM!!"And a loud thump of a war drum, as loud as the previous explosion, echoed throughout the Capital city.
“Dark Revival” Bernard exasperated, and his former colleague, Dijkstra shared the Exasperation. “Don’t tell me, he completed the spell,” Bernard muttered.
“What is happening, Sir Bernard?” Reina questioned her face as contorted as it could be. She once put everything into fighting against Samson and barely got a victory because of his side backstabbing him one after another, but not once she want to face him again.
“That is far more dangerous than the undead spell.” Bernard explained, “We have to stop it. That spell uses a remnant of the soul to call back the dead. It will not be just a husk that Xandor could control but the distorted emotions of the original owner.”
Arat stopped Bernard’s progression, “Is he coming back to life.” He asked as every Parvian he bought got ready to fight the whole others. But Bernad shook his grip in an instant. “Listen, old man, he is not coming back to life. But Xandor is gaining the all-powerful Death king." Bernard mumbled in concern, "Death knights would be children in front of him.”
Bernard began charging his aura and Norwin and others did the same and in unison, they attacked the Dark Revival spell. Bernard muttered as he saw the charged attack go, “Once I asked Xandor what brings a dead back to life and he answered- Hate and regret.”
The Parvian stood back as Arat’s orders were never heard, but every other knight and the mage present contributed to that attack. Including current rank holders, Norwin, Elanor and Kansas, all launched their ultimate move, all combining into a nebula. And it went like a ravaging storm, ripping apart every undead of Grimgar cemetery and finally struck the spell of dark revival, blowing away half the mountain in the impact.
Hans who was dragging Delimira to run back to Concordia's stay, suddenly stopped, as he felt a thumping beat hitting him, and he turned his head towards the cemetery. The Explosion’s shockwave greeted him later, putting a halt on his retreat completely.
“So you grew a heart, finally. Now you wanna help them?” Delimria taunted, misunderstanding Hans’s sudden stop. But Hans’s priority was something else at this point, he muttered, as he felt a part of his ripping apart from his chest.“What the fuck is happening over there?”
Meanwhile, in the cemetery, a hollow yet terrifying voice echoed, in cacophony of the combined attack. “Know your place, peasants.”
“SWINGGG!” A sharp ear-screeching sound followed by a powerful sword swing gained velocity from the unsettling debris and smoke, aiming at the united Genas. They managed to dodge the quick attack, but the sinister slash, undeterred charged forward, tearing the air and anything that it came to way and several hundred metres away, struck the mage tower inside the icy boundary, bisecting it like butter with a hot knife.
“Dhud..Dhud..Dhud!” A shadow rose from the smoke, floating in the air, the bluish-skinned man, whom everyone there knew, again spoke in a hollow voice, “What is this? Where Am I?”
Walter the late arrived, muttered,"So the worse has come." “
"Is the prince okay?" Arat asked, his priorities clear.
“All the students are fine.” Walter stated, adding, “Only Hans and Delimira are missing from our castle. Aredhel went to search while Lady Sierra is holding the castle--”
"You should've brought her." Norwin interjected.
However, as the thumping beats increased, Walter turned to awakening Samson, He was a dark aura practitioner himself and could feel the sinister aura gradually increasing in the dead king. “This is the only chance we have, or else…” He stated, engulfing his aura in the blade, as he sneakily summoned his ultimate skill Dark Schneider, an aura skill capable of splitting the space itself. With a quick succession, he appeared left of Samson only to meet his sinister gaze.
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