Chapter 203 : The Annihilation of House Berg (2)
The annihilation of House Berg.
The moment I heard those words, my entire body felt as if it were turning to ice.
“…What?”
A vision flashed through my mind.
Brutish knights dragging me toward the guillotine. The cold bodies of my family, and those Artezia bastards, watching and sneering.
Cold sweat slicked my skin. My breathing grew ragged, and I felt my reason slipping away, consumed by rage.
“Artezia, Artezia, Arteziaaaaa!”
Fury seized my mind.
In that instant, as I was about to charge out and slaughter them all…
“Calm yourself, Louis.”
Lea’s hand closed around mine. Her warmth was an anchor, pulling me back to my senses.
“You can’t lose control. We have to assess the situation with a clear head.”
“Hahh… Hahh…”
My breath still came in ragged bursts, but I forced myself to nod, clinging to what little reason I had left.
She was right.
In a situation where we didn’t even know who the culprit was, storming the Artezia duchy would be a fool’s errand. Especially since I had no idea of the true extent of the Duke’s forces.
“Hah… I understand.”
My fist tightened. I clenched it hard and nodded again.
Lea then turned to the messenger.
“Explain exactly what happened.”
“Well, y-you see, what happened was…!”
The messenger began to recount the entire sequence of events.
His story was this:
A massive host of Demonkin had marched on Berg County.
A battle had erupted between the Demonkin army and the forces of House Berg.
And in the end, the Demonkin had been victorious.
“And what’s more, there was one of them… one of the Demonkin who was on another level!”
“Another level?” I asked.
The messenger bit his lip and continued.
“...Yes. A Demonkin who controlled knights that weren’t even dead. It raised the fallen Demonkin we’d already cut down and seized control of our own soldiers’ bodies, turning them against us!”
“…”
A heavy silence fell over us at the messenger’s explanation.
Everyone—from those who had fought the Marquis of Envy to me, who had only heard how that battle had unfolded—was struck silent.
One thought dominated my mind.
“...One of the Twelve Nobles.”
It was one of the Aspects used by the Marquis of Envy.
An ability known as the Aspect of War.
“Louis, I think one of the Twelve Nobles has made a move,” Lea said, her voice grim.
“...It seems so.”
Bile rose in my throat.
One of the Twelve Nobles.
No matter how strong my father was, he was still only a single Master. My brothers, too, were knights who had not yet reached that level. For one of the Twelve Nobles to appear in a place like that…
There was no way they could have won.
“...Is my father alive?”
I finally voiced the question I had been desperately avoiding. I prayed he was alive, but I knew the odds were slim.
Just as I bit my lip and lowered my head in despair…
“He’s alive!” the messenger cried out urgently.
My head snapped up.
“What?”
“He’s alive! They were captured by that monster, but the Head and the young lords… they are all alive!”
A wave of relief washed over me, so potent it nearly buckled my knees.
Alive.
My family was alive.
They had been captured by that monster, but there was still time to save them.
“...I see.”
As I let out a sigh of relief, the messenger glanced around nervously before speaking again.
“However… the reason I came here was not only to deliver this information, but also to make a request of you, Young Lord.”
“A request?”
“Yes.”
The messenger’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he looked at the knights standing behind me.
A moment later, he squeezed his eyes shut and shouted.
“Please, I beg you—will you not join the battle for House Berg?!”
The messenger’s body trembled. He must have expected the other knights to refuse.
To be honest, the warriors of the North were not in any state to fight. The last battle had just ended. The grief of losing family and comrades was still raw. To ask them to march into another war…
No ordinary commander would dare make such a request.
“To hell with it. We’ll join the fight.”
Before I could even form a response, a knight behind me spoke up. It was the same man who had been cutting down enemies at my side during the fight with the Countess of Slaughter.
“Good. I was hoping for this before my muscles cooled,” another knight muttered with a smirk.
“Finally, a chance to repay our debt,” said another.
“The warriors of the North never fear war!” declared yet another.
One by one, they all roared their readiness for battle, their fighting spirit blazing.
“...A pack of madmen,” I muttered.
“Isn’t that the charm of the North?” Lea replied. She, too, rested a hand on the hilt of her sword, her eyes glinting.
“Let’s go. Let’s save our family.”
“...They’re my family, you know.”
“Your family is as good as mine,” Lea answered with a faint smile.
And just like that, before the heat of one battlefield had even faded, another war was declared.
* * *
At the Round Table of the Twelve Nobles, Crio, the Duke of Benevolence, surveyed the empty seats and spoke.
“It seems they have all perished. Such a desolate table… Truly, it is a heart-wrenching night.”
Sloth.
Wrath.
Slaughter.
Envy.
Madness.
Gluttony.
Fear.
They had all been powerful, yet every one of them had met their end. Some of them would not even return to the embrace of our Demon God.
Truly… what a heartbreaking state of affairs.
“Hah… We can hardly call ourselves the Twelve Nobles anymore. Only five remain. And if we exclude those who are sealed, we are but three.”
Maria, the Viscountess of Lust. Rohan, the Baron of War. And himself, the Duke of Benevolence.
Only three of the Twelve Nobles were left.
“May you find peace in the next life, my comrades-in-arms.”
Crio stroked his prayer beads, offering a prayer to the moon.
At the same time, his pupils began to turn a milky white.
“Well, the mourning is over. It is time to return to work.”
<Clairvoyance>
Fwoosh!
As Crio activated his skill, the entire continent unfolded within his sight.
The North and the Imperial Capital. The new enemies from the Duchy of Artezia and the currently held prisoners from House Berg.
Everything fell under Crio’s gaze.
“Diva has fallen, and the Allied Kingdoms have claimed victory. The Capital… they will have to prepare to retake it. And the North… must we let it go now?”
The ability to grasp the state of the entire war with a single glance. This was not an Aspect, but a power unique to Crio himself.
Crio closed his Clairvoyance and took a breath.
“Everything is a mess.”
The war was flowing in a completely different direction than he had initially planned.
Victory bells were still ringing across the continent, but that was to be expected. With the sheer number of Demonkin unleashed this time, how could they be satisfied with such minor victories?
On the contrary, losing two of the Twelve Nobles to a backwater like the North was a painful miscalculation.
“...And at the center of every one of these discrepancies… was him.”
Louis Berg.
Based on the circumstances, this human was responsible for eliminating most of the Nobles so far.
The youngest Grand Master in history, the one chosen by the Goddess. As if the world itself were forging a hero, he was surrounded by a hero’s companions.
A priestess on the level of a saint and four Grand Master-class knights. Add to that a Master-class knight, an assassin nearing the level of a Grand Master, and even a poison-wielding coachman.
It was an absurd lineup.
“Why, they seem even more formidable than the Emperor’s own Royal Guard.”
Crio shook his head, a look of disbelief on his face.
It couldn’t be helped. To win this war, they had to snuff out the boy’s life.
And Rohan would create the perfect opportunity for that.
Crio raised the artifact he had fashioned from his own prayer beads.
“Rohan, can you hear me?”
Static crackled from the artifact, and through the noise, Rohan’s voice emerged.
—Oh, I can hear you!
“Excellent. And how is the task I assigned you progressing?”
—Completed, of course! I’ve captured all the direct descendants of House Berg! They’re getting a nice, long soak in demonic energy!
“Well done. Keep up the good work for just a little longer.”
—Yessir!
Rohan replied with military crispness.
Soon after, the prayer beads scattered the demonic energy, and Rohan’s voice could no longer be heard.
“You may call it cowardly, but there is no other way,” Crio murmured to the empty air.
For some reason, the corners of his mouth were pulled up into a wide, tight smile. It was a bizarre expression, a forced benevolence spreading across his face.
“For the sake of the grand design, I must ask you to die, Lord Louis.”
With those final words, Crio clenched the prayer beads and closed his eyes.
Fwoosh!
A tremendous wave of divine power—no, a black divinity—surged from his body.
Before him lay a sealed object, waiting silently.
* * *
Meanwhile, at that very moment, Rohan, the Baron of War, was sneering at the fallen.
“Everyone, I have good news! Your dear son is coming to save you! Clap, clap!”
Rohan offered an exaggerated reaction from his throne of human bodies. It was like watching a child at a tea party.
The members of House Berg watched him, their eyes burning with a murderous light.
“Mmph! Mmph!”
Their mouths were gagged, so no coherent words came out. But Rohan knew what they were trying to say.
They were vowing to kill him.
A dry laugh escaped Rohan’s lips.
“My, you still don’t seem to grasp the situation.”
CRUNCH!
Rohan kicked a knight’s head. The man’s skull shattered, and he collapsed to the ground.
In that instant…
<Aspect of War: Marionette>
Rohan’s Aspect activated, and the knight’s body began to rise on its own.
The headless knight knelt before Rohan, then bowed its upper body low. Rohan placed a foot on the knight’s back and spoke slowly.
“Without Louis Berg, you all would have been dead long ago. What revenge are you talking about? Are you stupid?”
“…”
“Honestly, I only need to keep those three alive. I can just say the rest of you died as collateral damage, you know? So why… can’t you… appreciate… my… mercy?!”
Rohan punctuated his words by kicking the knight’s back again and again.
“Mmph! Mmph!”
The other knights thrashed wildly, but Rohan paid them no mind.
Prisoners had no rights. That was his long-held principle.
“Ahahaha!”
Rohan tormented the knight as if to relieve his own stress. Finally, when the knight’s body was reduced to a tattered ruin, he allowed it to die.
Thud.
Thump.
The reanimated knight finally found its rest.
The direct descendants of House Berg glared at Rohan. He simply smiled back at them.
“Just wait. I’m going to kill you right in front of that monster.”
How wonderful would it be to kill them in front of Louis Berg? A feeling of ecstasy coursed through him.
“Hurry up and get here…!” Rohan screamed, his smile twisting into a grotesque grimace.
In the lands of Berg County, a new hell was unfolding.