Chapter 205 : Chapter 205
Chapter 205
"The Fog Desert? That place is......"
"Right. A place where no human can stay."
The Wolf King gave a wave as if his explanation was done and ambled away, hands clasped behind his back.
Ulf continued where he left off.
"You saw how the Fantasy was used?"
"Yes."
"Watching that sorcery is what got me thinking. Until now, we assumed the demon appearances were the work of a 7th-circle mage, yes?"
Which meant.
"......It might not be a 7th-circle mage."
"Exactly. A 6th-circle mage. If such a person sacrificed countless lives and used sorcery, they could produce a 7th-circle miracle."
But that required a condition.
Countless lives had to be sacrificed.
In the roughly one hundred years since the first demon appeared, no massacre or mass death of meaningful scale had occurred — excluding the demon appearances themselves.
"Even activating the World Eater Fantasy required this much effort...... Given the timeline of the first demon appearance, the conditions are far too vague."
"That was the blind spot. I changed the time axis."
"The time axis?"
I did not know much about magic.
But our side had someone as versed in magic as Ulf.
Sihan, who had been listening beside us, let out an ah and widened his eyes, as though something clicked.
"You did not view it synchronically on a two-dimensional map — you added a diachronic axis, a time dimension!"
"Correct. The absence of a non-realistic artifact like a Fantasy makes it all the more likely."
"I am sorry, I am not quite following......"
"They did not kill them all at once. They accumulated the dead over a long span of time!"
Such sorcery was possible?
So they would need to have held onto souls who had died over hundreds, thousands of years...... Was that not utterly horrific?
Only then did I understand why the Emperor — and Perdius — had been heading for the Fog Desert in the northwest.
"Because the Bone Dragon is there."
A Bone Dragon was not a being that had arisen on its own.
Thousands of years ago.
The great species "Dragon" was said to have ruled over humanity.
There existed a forbidden black magic that gathered their bones and corpses and forced them to grovel at human feet.
The creature made through that process was the Bone Dragon.
And the human who had defied the natural order by reversing the death of a species that was nature incarnate — cursed to be alive yet no different from dead.
The pinnacle of black mages, the oldest, the most wicked 6th-circle mage — the Lich, Gladpowell.
He was in the Fog Desert.
"But Gladpowell has been secluded in the Fog Desert for five hundred years, inactive."
"Perdius went there. If Perdius and Gladpowell are in communication, what then?"
This year was Imperial Year 67.
And before becoming an empire, it had been a great kingdom with five hundred years of history.
The kingdom had waged endless wars to become an empire.
It had invaded the kingdoms along its borders, and countless massacres had followed.
'At the head of those campaigns stood the Lionheart Knights and the Emperor's army.'
Counting the period before and after the Empire's founding — at minimum, a hundred years.
Sorcery forged from the blood of barbarians spilled over that span.
And if it was the magic of a Lich called the pinnacle of the 6th circle......
"Call it 7th-circle if you like, but in truth, miracles beyond even that are possible."
I considered the past lives of the people before me.
For ten years, they had fought with everything they had to save the world from demons whose origins they could not fathom.
But in the end, they failed.
Before the world was destroyed, they had regressed through Pan's awakening.
And another two years.
They had caught the thread.
Perhaps that was why a complex swirl of emotions lingered in Ulf's eyes.
Ulf usually hid her feelings well — perhaps because of age.
But this was a turbulence uncharacteristic of her.
"Not yet. A little more. We too must prepare. Well, before that, we plan to lop off a limb or two."
"......"
"So your role is important. Go to the Holy Kingdom. Turn around the Holy Kingdom you provoked into coming here. Have them stockpile strength and rally."
Ulf, too, seemed ready to wrap up the conversation and rose to her feet.
By chance, I noticed her fingertips trembling slightly.
The skin on her fingers had shriveled like an old woman's.
She had used a great deal of mana.
Even holding this conversation and sharing information must have been an enormous strain.
"Thank you."
"Once a teacher, always a teacher."
Ulf clicked her tongue and smiled, then glanced at me.
"My little brother acts as though you are not to be trusted...... but I have always been grateful. The strength that brought us this far — all of it is owed to you."
Ulf's voice, her tone, was as warm as when we had been together at the Academy.
It gave me a measure of comfort.
***
When Cassian approached the Holy Kingdom's formation, Yuria and Ganemia drew near.
Yuria was the first to position herself quietly behind Cassian, standing as though she were more Cassian's retainer than Ganemia's.
Ganemia saw this, let out a dry laugh, and turned to Cassian.
"Is your conversation finished? There is a foul energy lingering over there."
"Yes. The Wolf King's forces will be heading south now."
"They are not staying in the Empire?"
"Their purpose for entering the Empire has been achieved. From now on, what fractures the Empire will not be the warriors of the Great Forest, but the land, the forests, and time."
Ganemia's gaze turned to the crimson typhoon.
By now, the storm had migrated to the far sky.
She would not be surprised if it kept climbing all the way to the sea.
"The Empire really will be ruined."
"Which is why it would be wise to prepare for the aftermath. Please withdraw your forces now."
At Cassian's words, Ganemia stared at him.
There was a faint edge of anger in her gaze.
"You realize this constitutes interference in our internal affairs? No — beyond that, it could be an insult to our holy war."
They had invaded the Empire to capture the Underground Magic Tower.
The war had raged for nearly a month, and the Holy Kingdom had yet to land a meaningful blow.
And now she was told to pull back?
That was tantamount to telling the Holy Kingdom to accept defeat.
Had this been a mere territorial dispute, retreat would have been possible.
But the Underground Magic Tower was a den of evil that had violated human rights and developed black magic for ages.
Given the Holy Kingdom's nature — driven by fanatical faith — this was not a topic on which they could easily yield.
They had to bring home a victory.
"It is all right."
And Cassian could deliver that victory.
"As the Wolf King's forces withdraw, they will strike the Underground Magic Tower."
"......Them?"
Ganemia looked toward the Great Forest forces as though asking what that meant.
The Great Forest warriors were lounging on the ground with a casualness bordering on indolence.
At their center, the Wolf King was already snickering, a bottle of liquor in hand, strolling about.
They looked nothing like warriors who had come to slay a colossal demon.
Why on earth would they......?
"They despise the Empire more than anyone."
And they despised demons just as much.
Ulf had said they planned to lop off a limb or two on their way out.
The subjects of that remark were Gladpowell, the Empire, and the demons.
The Great Forest sat in the Empire's northwest.
A little farther from there lay the Fog Desert.
Cassian shared with Ganemia his hypothesis about the current demon crisis and Gladpowell.
"The Underground Magic Tower is also farther northwest from here. If the Empire is connected to demon summoning rituals, then the Underground Magic Tower......"
"Would naturally be located northwest of here. So that is it."
"Yes."
"Gladpowell — to think that bone-face who crawled up from hell would be mentioned again."
Ganemia squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head.
"Fine. We will also withdraw today."
If Gladpowell was truly connected to the demon crisis, they could not keep fighting like this.
The Lich Gladpowell had been active five hundred years ago.
The Holy Kingdom had been founded by the First Saint, the first Holy Knight, and the first Saintess — three siblings sent down by God specifically to combat him.
In other words, an adversary so formidable that God Himself had to personally send down three siblings to deal with him.
A single Saintess and one Prospective Saintess.
A few hundred members of a thoroughly exhausted expeditionary force.
That was not enough to guarantee victory.
Especially not against an enemy who might summon demons on top of everything.
"Thank you."
"You came because you were worried about your disciple, yes? She is fine. Take her back and let her rest properly."
Cassian bid Ganemia farewell and stepped out.
Yuria followed him.
"Yuria?"
"When I return to the Holy Kingdom, I plan to come back to the Academy soon after."
"Is that all right?"
"I learned everything I could, from the Holy Kingdom and from the battles here. And......"
Yuria glanced at Ganemia.
"Now that Sacer is dead, Saintess Ganemia will not die for the time being."
"......That sounds like you wanted her to die."
"She has to die for me to become Saintess. Since it seems she will not, I am merely a High Priestess. My absence will not be a problem."
Technically correct, yet the phrasing carried a strangely violent edge.
Cassian nodded.
Having Yuria at Akarind was nothing but welcome.
"All right. I will be waiting."
After seeing Yuria off, Cassian approached the Crownhardt knights.
"A demon...... this is absurd."
The Duke sat slumped on the ground, wearing a somewhat dazed expression as he gazed at the gouged earth.
The knights were the same.
All of them sat blank-eyed, unable to believe what they had been through.
They had seen demons before.
But the demons they had encountered were small-scale entities — powerful in their own right, but contained.
The World Eater was a different dimension entirely.
An entire mountain moving, swallowing everything in its path.
"That thing destroyed our homeland......"
The World Eater's path had run through the former Crownhardt Duchy.
That was what hit them hardest.
Right now, they were significantly stronger thanks to Akarind Academy's crash course.
And even their formation could not pierce the World Eater alone.
If they had simply stayed in their territory?
They would have been swallowed into that world before they even knew they were dying.
"Let us go home."
Cassian soothed them and helped them gather their hearts.
They had all fought a colossal demon once. They would throw themselves into the sword with even greater intensity.
Their passion would become Akarind Academy's military strength in full.
"Cassian."
"Yes."
"This Fantasy. It...... seems like it could become one hell of a weapon."
Sihan held the World Eater Fantasy and spoke with a grave expression.
"The World Eater. On its way here, it swallowed things without ever spitting them back out."
"Ah...... yes. It did not."
"But the Iron Eater did spit things back out."
"It did."
"Then a portion of the world it consumed on its way here should be dissolved inside this Fantasy."
Sihan raised the Fantasy to eye level.
As if proclaiming its own power, the Fantasy shimmered with a bewitching glow.
"Sleeping inside here might be composite minerals far superior to any legendary eternal steel, mithril, or orichalcum."
"That is good to hear."
Cassian affirmed flatly.
Sihan grumbled that Cassian had no sense of romance.
And so, over three days, they made their way back to Akarind Academy.
Three more days passed after that.
Rozalin had still not regained consciousness.