The Lost Sun Revamped - Chapter 5 : Weakness

Sun stomped out the remnants of the campfire.

“It’s time for us to continue moving.”

The paladins finished up with their breakfast and picked up their weapons.

The atmosphere was sharply different from the previous day. Before the expedition, they had been inexperienced and rebellious. Under Sun’s tutelage, they have become disciplined members of the Church of Freya.

Of course, there would have been little effect on their behavior from simply buffing and healing them.

In the beginning, he didn’t really have any idea about what to do to get the rookies disciplined. But Sun simply did whatever he felt like doing. He would put the paladins that didn’t like him at the front of the squadron, where they inevitably place their life in mortal peril. He would spare only the most minimal of healing for them and eventually they would get their act together.

The paladins that were disrespectful would find themselves situated at the back of the group. They wouldn’t think much of it at the time, but after a few battles they would be ordered to the front. At which point they would be under-leveled and insufficiently skilled. After fighting a few battles and realizing how dangerous it was for their level they would be placed in the middle of the formation, where they could safely acquire experience with a considerably lower risk.

Scouting missions were given to the paladins he liked and the items from hunting were distributed according to how he felt.

The opposition eventually died out within the group as he gained favor with a larger number of paladins. Furthermore, his high faith stat for his level gained him a certain respect from the more devoted paladins. As his leadership and charisma increased, the more the paladins trusted him rather than simply going along with the group.

And then there was Alexander.

Reckless, nonchalant, and weird.

Those were the words he would use to describe him.

Although he was relatively strong; at little stronger than the paladins in group, he would always rush into monsters without any hint of a plan. In the middle of combat, Sun would look over and see him doing the most random things.

“Paladin in the front, use your shields! Paladins in the back use holy magic! Everyone else kill or do something!”

Sun was shouting really unspecific orders to the platoon.

The paladins had become accustomed to it and follow his orders.

“Under the protection of the goddess you shall not pass!”

The paladins in front cast their heavy defensive skills.

“The enemies I face shall meet the judgment of the blade!”

Sun looked at his platoon, pleased at the progress they were making. It was their fifth day of the expedition and he was nearly out of holy water. He looked around to check everyone’s status, healing those below 70% health. However, looking around, he noticed that Alexander was nowhere to be seen. It was then that Sun looked over to his side, where he noticed Alexander standing there talking to himself.

‘What the hell is this guy doing here?’

He had ordered him to be part of the frontal guard, but here he was sitting next to him talking to thin air.

“So yea, for the last few days I’ve been going along with this expedition with the church. Yea, I know it’s been quite a bit of time since I’ve come back to the guild but I can’t just leave or I’ll get penalized for the quest. I think we’ll be done with it in a few days. I’ll talk to you later; the commander is looking at me funny.”

“Ah, it seems like the paladins are done fighting already”

“What are you doing here when you’re supposed to be over there?”

Sun questioned him while pointing towards the paladins.

“Well, I was busy PMing someone so I couldn’t go to the front. I was busy talking to my guildies about where I was and the chain quest I had.”

‘I don’t understand this guy.’

Sun didn’t want to waste any time trying to decipher the nonsense he was saying.

“I never thought that I would ever have to feel like Storm.” He muttered to himself silently.

The monsters remained relatively the same level throughout the dungeon so the rate at which they were leveling decreased considerably. However, it was still relatively decent experience.

Soon they reached a fork in the road.

“Commander, there appears to be two separate paths.”

“That’s strange.”

Sun thought back.

“According to what Jacob had said, there were only twenty-five passages in the entire cave and they were supposed to be singular paths.”

Sun walked over to the two passages. He looked around for any signs of the right path. Picking up a rock, he threw it into each of the passages. The only reply was a dull sound from the rock making contact with the ground. He tried a number of other things to see if he could get some response but all of them failed.

“Commander should we split into two groups and explore each route or stick together?”

The paladins looked towards him for guidance.

“Give me a moment.”

Sun began to think about his next course of action. He closed his eyes and then tried something he hadn’t done in a while.

Elemental Perception!

A skill he had commonly used in his world but ceased working ever since he came here. It was a skill that primarily focused on sensing the position of objects based on their elemental composition. Despite initially failing when he came to this world, after he had converted to the priest class he was slightly able to use it.

He tried scanning through the two paths, but most of the route was blurry. However, after comparing the two routes, he came to a decision.

“I feel a faint holy presence coming from the left passage. On the right passage, I feel a larger dark presence.”

“So what is it that we are going to do?”

The paladins trusted in his judgment, either that or they were resigned to their fate of following him around..

“There might be another platoon of paladins in the left passage. On the other hand, there seems to be something at the end of the right passage. It could possibly be what we are searching for.”

“The five of you take the left passage. If there is a platoon of paladins, then rendezvous with their group. If there is a considerable amount of danger, then return along this path to us. The rest of us will enter the right passage.”

The five paladins he picked went into the left passage.

The rest of the platoon continued on to the right passage. They continued walking down the path for an hour.

‘This is strange…’

Sun thought to himself. Usually by now, there would have been at least two or three undead monster attacks. However, ever since they entered the cave, they have not seen a single undead creature. He would have dismissed it as nothing had he not known that the cave was supposed to be crawling with the undead.

Alexander, on the other hand, was bored at the lack of undead.

To alleviate his boredom, he started making strange hand gestures with his hands. Sun didn’t think much of it; he simply thought that he was doing something random again. However, he looked over at him again. Seeing Alexander manipulate his hands in the air reminded him of something. Then he realized what Alexander had been doing.

‘That looks like what I do when I click on those box things that show up!’

Sun came to the realization that Alexander was capable of doing the same things as him.

‘I should ask him about these things later’

Finishing this quest took priority and he could ask Alexander later. He was finally going to get some answers about where he was and how to get back.

The group of paladins halted and took out their weapons. Something was moving around up ahead.

Though he could guess what it was, he had to make sure.

“Who goes there!?”

Sun yelled into the darkness.

From the shadows came a number of paladins. Aside from their armor being covered in blood, they looked relatively fine.

“It’s the paladins from the Church of Lexington! They’re alive!.”

Some of the platoon members walked up to greet their fellow paladins.

However, they were moving strangely.

Sun had a bad feeling. He quickly turned on his Elemental Perception and looked over the paladins. There was no trace of holy element coming from them.

“Get away from them!”

“What is it Commander?”

One of the paladins that had come out of the cave lifted his sword up.

“Holy Fire!”

A white flame burst from below the paladin, engulfing him.

“Commander, what are you doing!”

“Look carefully!”

The paladins directed his gaze towards the Lexington paladins.

Now illuminated by the holy fire that Sun had cast, the injuries on the paladins were now visible.

Many of them had large gashes around their entire bodies and shattered armor.

“Impossible!”

“Holy Fire!”

Sun recast his spell on the next paladin.

“So this is what has become of the Paladins that disappeared in last month’s undead scourge.”

One month prior, the Church in Lexington suffered a huge casualty from an undead scourge. In the confusion, many paladins were unaccounted for at the end of the battle.

“Those filthy bastards…”the paladins were furious that their brothers were transformed into undead slaves.”

Sun continued to cast the holy spell.

Holy Fire [3]

An arcane magic used by priests. In the series of arcane magic, these skills were commonly used by high priests during the warring period. In the arcane magic series, a total of 20 spells are in existence. There is no way to learn the spells except through self-discovery. This spell is a variation of fire magic, with holy magic as its base. It burns through the enemy with an incinerating flame. The damage towards the undead is doubled. The spell’s damage is dealt to the enemy over time, as long as the enemy stays within the spell field. The area of effect and duration increases with the skill’s level.

Cost: 125 mana

Spell lasts for 10 seconds.

Damaged based on Priest-related stats.

Area of effect: 1.2 square meters

Holy Fire was extremely useful for dispatching slow moving undead. As the skill level increases, then spell could be used for a large number of enemies. However, now it was good enough to get rid of lower level undead and later on would have additional skill effects.

It was a long, painful fight for the paladins to have to kill their deceased fellows but it had to be done. After the fight, it was dreadfully quiet. None of the paladins were willing to speak up and could only cast their eyes downward in anger.

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The paladins picked up the remains of the paladins and moved them to one place.

Sun cast a final Holy Fire on them. Holy Fire was an offensive spell made for war. However, it had another uncommon use.

By burning the body, it could no longer be desecrated by the necromancers for their purposes. Furthermore, it purified the souls of the deceased so that they couldn’t be brought back as ghosts.

“In the name of the goddess, they will pay for what they have done.”

One by one, they put their swords together. Sun walked forwards and joined them with his staff.

“Let’s go.”

As they kept down the path, they saw more and more undead paladins. They cut through each wave and burned each and every body.

The paladins did not falter and their determination grew with every battle.

It was not the only thing that was growing. From hunting the undead, their levels have increased substantially. The undead paladins were higher level than the undead they had faced up until now, but the pace of the fighting did not slow down. They continued along the horrid path for a few more days. After several days of continuous battle, the paladins reached an average level of 60. Sun, on the other hand, managed to leech enough experience to level 45

“Commander, I see a light up ahead.”

Sun continued onwards with his platoon. At the end of the path was a large opening littered with the various corpses, some of which were the remnants of the Lexington paladins. Sitting on a throne of corpses was a single man.

“So the dogs of the church have managed to make it this far.”

“Don’t fuck with us!”

Some of the paladins yelled back in rage.

“I don’t know what you possibly mean..”

The man played around dishonestly. He picked up a corpse off the ground and reanimated it with dark energy.

“I’ll let you run away and get your pitiful reinforcements from your little church.”

The necromancer said arrogantly. The necromancer was more than confident in his own abilities.

“Or, I can kill you all right now. Take your choice.”

Sun spoke up in defiance.

“That’s enough out of you. You will pay for your crimes against humanity!”

The necromancer was still calm as ever, at least until he looked up and saw Sun’s face.

“You!”

The necromancer boiled over with rage.

“Once again you have come to foil our plans! This time you will not escape. You, and everyone here, will die!”

The necromancer stomped, making the ground shake, as he rapidly drained his mana to animate all the corpses on the floor. In an instant, hundreds of undead began to stand up from the ground. There were so many types of undead: undead mages, knights, skeletons, archers, zombies, hellhounds, abominations, and undead paladins.

“Kill them all. Their bodies will be fuel for the Embinyu god.”

The necromancer commanded his minions as he sat back down onto his throne.

They began to fight against the undead legion. With the power of the holy blessings that Sun provided, they were able to fight against the enemy. However, there was a limit to what the buff was able to do. Sun devoted entirely to healing the paladins with his holy magic, since they were receiving an absurdly large amount of damage. There was a limit to his mana and soon his ran out. With no more supporting magic, the number of paladins began to decrease as they were killed by the undead.

Backing into the passage, they had already lost ten paladins. An undead knight broke through the paladins’ defense towards Sun.

‘Shit. No more mana.’

Sun’s mana was completely depleted and couldn’t use any magic to dispatch the undead.

He closed his eyes as the undead knight’s sword swung his way. The paladins were busy fending off the undead and couldn’t help.

“Shiiing”

Something struck against the undead knight’s sword.

But it was not his body.

“Alexander!”

Alexander parried the blow with his shield. Then he cleaved through the undead knight with his sword.

“Are you alright?”

He checked the condition of the commander.

“Yea, thanks.”

“No problem. If you had died, then the quest would penalize me.”

Once again, he was saying something incomprehensible but at the moment that did not matter to him.

Their situation had not changed in the slightest. They were still drastically outnumbered by the undead.

“I think I got an idea.”

Alexander said amidst fighting the undead.

“What is is?”

Sun asked, as he used some of his regenerated mana to heal and purge undead.

“They’re being controlled by the necromancer right?”

Sun nodded in reply.

“Then if we kill him, we win.”

Sun looked at Alexander as if he had said something completely retarded.

“And how do you expect to reach him through all the undead?”

Without a single plan in mind, Alexander charged through the undead wave.

He didn’t get very far as more undead struck him down onto the floor and started to literally kick him to death.

His health bar dropped rapidly as he was attacked by the undead trampling all over him.

“Holy Seeking Strike!”

He threw his blade out towards the necromancer. Then he died a slow, horrible painful death to the undead feet.

-Swish-

The necromancer didn’t see the sword coming for him. That was reasonable since the sword’s aim was horribly off-target and instead of aiming for a vital point like the head or chest, it flew and stabbed him in the leg.

“GAHKH?!”

“The fuck is this shit!? I don’t care about their bodies anymore. Just kill...”

-Boooom-

“What is it now?”

The necromancer was displeased with being interrupted in the middle of his command.

“Don’t you think that it’s a little bit early to be gloating?”

“Calvin!”

“You did well by yourself Sun. Let us take it from here.”

“Captain, are you alright?!” the five paladins he had sent down the left passage had met up with Calvin’s platoon.

Calvin and the paladins from the Citadel of Serabourg walked towards the mass of undead.

“Don’t be a fool Calvin! There’s no way that you can handle that many undead.”

“Let the power of the divine cleanse their souls! Holy Smite!”

Calvin pointed his finger into the air as he released a large amount of holy magic.

The undead burst into flames one after another. Close to a third of the undead were vaporized by the holy spell.

“Forwards.”

The paladins from Serabourg dashed forwards and cut through the undead.

The necromancer panicked at the sudden change in the situation. He tried to get up and run away but Alexander’s sword was firmly nailing him to the chair.

Sun did not stand by idly. After regaining some of his mana, he walked up to Calvin. Then he held his hands out and formed a bow of light. Using his bow, he shot the undead with his Divine Light Arrows.

Soon the undead were cleared and necromancer was depleted of his mana.

“Damn you. We will not stand for you constantly meddling in our affairs.”

The necromancer cursed at him.

“I have never met you in my life”

Sun told the necromancer coldly. All of the paladins gathered around the necromancer.

Then they plunged their swords into him repeatedly.

With a shriek of pain, the necromancer died but not before cursing him one last time.

“Damn you Angel! The Embinyu will get you!”

Sun, Calvin, and the rest of the paladins made their way back to the entrance after a few days and went back to Lexington.

“What was the progress of your expedition?”

Jacob asked Sun and Calvin when they returned.

After they reported the results of their expedition, Jacob gave a sigh.

“I see. It is a pity that Alexander met his end like that. I had only meant for him to go on a scouting mission, but to think that it ended up like this. He was a most valiant paladin.”

Jacob called together the expedition for an announcement.

“The expedition to clear away the necromancers from the Dawes Caverns was a success. We have exterminated ten necromancers within the cave, along with countless undead. However, it pains me to say that we have lost a number of our brothers in this mission. They were all brave and valiant soldiers that have passed away in the middle of combat. We must remember them for their actions and how they fought for peace.”

“I would like to dedicate this grave marker to the men that perished here in the battle against the undead. We will live and carry on the peace that they sought to maintain!”

Jacob walked over to a large rock and drove a single holy paladin blade deep into the center.

“May those brave men rest in peace.”

Sun stood there silently. He had thought that he would be able to do something this time, but it was always him that was being saved. Back in his world it was the same, nothing has change since then. He was still weak. He clenched his fist tightly

“Sun, come back with me to the Citadel of Serabourg. We can decide what to do after we get there.”

“You’re right. I need to decide where I need to go and what I need to do from here on out.”

‘And what this Angel nonsense is about…’

Sun released his fist, but not before a few drop of blood fell to the floor.

They left the city of Lexington and returned to the Citadel of Serabourg.

“…”

“…”

“We need more stone over here!”

“We got it. Someone go and rebuild a perimeter around the town.”

“Commander, one of our holy brothers is here to see you.”

Jacob looked up from his work to see his fellow paladin.

“Commander, I have returned.”

“As expected of a freedman, you have come back as expected.”

Alexander logged back on after a whole day and walked back out of the dungeon.

Then he came back to the church and turned in his quest.

“Because of your extraordinary accomplishments in this mission, I will honor you to the best of my ability.”

After giving him the reward, Jacob looked up into the sky.

“Reconstruction will take us quite some time. However, soon we will restore order to Lexington and it will prosper once more. It will take time, but will you assist us in the reconstruction of Lexington?”

“Sure, but can I invite my friends?”

“Of course.”