Chapter 96
"So. Make your choice, White Knight. Bow your head and accept my aid to the mockery of your peers, or cling to your arrogant pride and reject me to their applause."
Blackmore's ultimatum threw a lit match into the powder keg. The summit hadn't even officially commenced, and the political crossfire was already suffocating.
Rimuru stared at the grotesque raven head, his brows knitting together behind the Oni mask.
Clearly, the Black Wing Lord didn't give a single damn about giving Altrouge face. Her casual, public advice to Rimuru had instantly provoked Blackmore's twisted, fanatical pride.
It was a brilliant trap. If Rimuru accepted the help, he looked like a spineless bootlicker. If he rejected it, he lost a phenomenally powerful asset just to save face.
As a pragmatic businessman, if they had been talking in a private room, Rimuru would have sold his dignity for a tactical alliance in a heartbeat. Pride didn't pay the bills.
But here? In front of an audience of literal apex predators? Publicly groveling would cripple his authority. He'd never get the other Ancestors to take him seriously again.
Seeing her knight boxed into a no-win scenario, Altrouge's patience violently snapped. An ocean of suffocating, apocalyptic killing intent erupted from her small frame, slamming directly into Blackmore.
The pressure was so intense that the Dead Apostles lingering behind Ortenrosse instinctively stumbled back.
But the Black Wing Lord didn't flinch. He met her killing intent with an icy, unbothered stare of his own.
"You bloodsuckers really love your binary choices, don't you?"
Rimuru finally sighed, scratching the back of his head. He took a casual step forward, smoothly inserting himself between Altrouge's murderous glare and the giant bird.
"I'm not picking either of your options, Blackmore."
Rimuru raised a hand. His golden eyes ignited, bleeding into a harsh, mechanical red. Without a second thought, he cracked the seal on the True Ancestor blood coursing through his veins.
A primal, ancient pressure crashed over the courtyard. High above, the pale moon was instantly stained a bruised, violent crimson.
"I know your history, Gransurg," Rimuru said, his voice carrying effortlessly over the rising wind. "Legend says you used to pull this exact same stunt. Anyone who disrespected your precious birds got a simple, two-lane choice: submit, or die."
"Right up until you tried it on Crimson Moon."
Rimuru tilted his head, the Oni mask bathed in red light. "He beat you into the dirt. And you, adhering strictly to the etiquette of the vanquished, willingly swore absolute loyalty to the victor."
As Rimuru laid out the ancient lore, a ripple of profound amusement swept through the observing Ancestors.
They realized exactly what the new White Knight was doing. He was bypassing the political humiliation entirely by invoking the oldest, most brutal rite in their society.
I'm not going to flatter you. I'm going to challenge you. And I'm going to beat you into submission.
It was a brilliantly arrogant pivot. If he won, he secured the alliance and cemented his sheer physical dominance. But if he lost? He would be stripped of everything, his authority, his dignity, and quite possibly his life.
"Fascinating."
In the shadows near the castle doors, the spatial distortion rippled. A blonde girl stepped out, swirling a goblet of viscous, blackish blood. Sumire shot a look of utter disgust toward a dark corner of the courtyard. "Tch. Are the Church's lapdogs crashing our little party too?"
"Like I wanted to be here, Sumire."
From the shadows, Merem Solomon stepped into the crimson moonlight. The Divine Child's youthful face was tight with apprehension. He stared at the White Knight standing in the center of the courtyard.
It's only been four days, and he's already stronger.
"Besides, don't pretend you have the moral high ground," Merem scoffed, side-eyeing an elegantly dressed man leaning casually against the castle doors.
"The top brass of the Mage's Association is here. Why shouldn't the Church take a peek? Speaking of which... as the former Director of the Atlas Institute, shouldn't you be attending the human's Grand Resolution instead of lurking around here?"
"I simply found the guest list here to be far more entertaining," Zepia Eltnam Oberon chuckled, entirely unbothered by the jab. "Especially when my esteemed contractor requires my presence."
Driven by an obsessive thirst to reach the Sixth Magic, Zepia had willingly sought out Altrouge and traded his humanity to become a Dead Apostle. Out of everyone present, he was practically the only Ancestor whose baseline loyalty leaned toward the Black Princess.
Sumire took a sip of her blood, letting out a cold, melodic laugh as she watched them bicker.
Look at this absolute circus.
A former Director of the Atlas Institute. A lapdog of the Burial Agency. A permanently drunk Earth-Born vampire. And up on the second-floor balcony, looking down through a stained-glass window with a plump, amiable smile, the financial demon king himself, Van-Fem, quietly calculating the odds of the upcoming brawl.
This was the terrifying reality of the Twenty-Seven Ancestors.
They were immortal, bored, and cursed with wildly divergent, utterly irreconcilable obsessions. Throwing them into one room didn't create an army; it created a powder keg.
If anyone actually wanted to forge this freakshow into a cohesive weapon, diplomacy wouldn't cut it. They needed a singular, absolute linchpin to physically chain them together.
Can you actually pull it off, Leviathan?
Or rather... Rimuru Tempest?
...
Oblivious to the internal monologues of the peanut gallery, Rimuru kept his crimson gaze locked on the Black Wing Lord. He had laid his terms on the table.
"Let's recreate history, Lord Blackmore."
He issued the challenge without a shred of hesitation. "I only hope you still possess the grace to honor the etiquette of the vanquished."
To the loser, absolute submission.
Blackmore's grotesque raven head twitched. The massive, steel-like feathers on his wings shuddered, sending a shockwave of displaced air across the courtyard. Then, he threw his head back and laughed.
"Hahaha! Very well!"
Blackmore's voice boomed like thunder. "I never imagined I would see the day someone deemed me worthy of such a challenge again."
"But heed this, nameless White Knight. Simply because Lord Brunestud swatted me aside with ease does not mean my strength is lacking."
The sky above Berlin began to warp.
"As the opening act of this grand ball, I don't mind putting on a spectacular show. But watch your step, Knight."
The crimson moonlight was suddenly blotted out. Tens of thousands of black crows poured in from all directions, swarming the sky in a chaotic, deafening dance. The shadows rose up like floodwaters, rapidly swallowing Blackmore's massive silhouette until only his grinding voice remained.
"The birds that dance in my night sky only sing for the dead."
"Are you absolutely certain about this?"
The pitch-black domain violently expanded, ravenously devouring the physical world. The opulent walls of Ortenrosse's castle dissolved into the encroaching void.
The White Wing Lord frowned slightly, feeling the Reality Marble overwriting the local space. He could have resisted it. But after a second of contemplation, he dropped his magical defenses. He let the darkness pull him in.
A clash of this caliber would be dreadfully boring without an audience.
Following Ortenrosse's lead, the rest of the observing Ancestors allowed Blackmore's void to swallow them whole.
As the darkness settled, Rimuru's steady voice cut through the gloom.
"Absolutely."
In a flash, the blood moon tore through the suffocating black sky, casting a stark, scarlet glow over the new world.
Nevermore.
Blackmore's Reality Marble was a desolate, infinite graveyard. The air was thick with the suffocating stench of decay, the wailing of death birds, and an endless blizzard of falling black feathers.
Every single bird in this sky was a herald of the afterlife. Every feather was a lethal, hyper-compressed weapon.
Altrouge hugged Fou tightly to her chest, a complicated look in her eyes as she drifted backward to give them space.
She watched the pale blue hair of her knight flutter in the phantom wind.
BOOM!
A sonic boom shattered the graveyard's silence. Rimuru vanished, leaving nothing but a concussive ring of vapor in his wake.
Breaking the sound barrier instantly, Rimuru closed the gap. Dozens of intercepting crows were shredded into black mist by his sheer velocity.
He raised his hands. Water condensed in his grip, instantly boiling and solidifying into a massive, jet-black greatsword wreathed in demonic flames.
He materialized directly in front of Blackmore, bringing Strout's replicated weapon down in a vicious, two-handed cleave.
CLANG!
Sparks rained down like fireworks. Blackmore hadn't moved an inch. He simply brought his wings forward, the feathers hardening to the density of reinforced steel, flawlessly catching the roaring demon blade.
"Watch yourself…" Blackmore warned, his crimson avian eyes glowing in the dark.
"The birds are taking flight!"
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