Chapter 251: EX 251. Imperial Guard
The crushing weight of the golden-armored man’s skill blanketed the city. The pressure rooted every undead in place, their limbs locking mid-motion as if the world itself had frozen them.
James, drenched in sweat and with his chest heaving, blinked in disbelief. His staff trembled in his grip, and for a heartbeat, he thought his eyes were betraying him.
"What—?" he rasped, unable to form a full sentence.
Then the ground beneath them rumbled.
An enormous array flared to life, burning across the ruined streets in lines of radiant light. Chains erupted from its surface, shooting upward with a metallic screech. They coiled around the limbs of every undead, binding them in cruel shackles that glowed with holy fire.
"AHHHHHGGHHHHH!"
The horde wailed in unison, shrieks piercing the air as the burning chains sank into their rotting flesh. The golden figure’s voice cut through the cries like a blade.
"—Seal!"
The array flared brighter, a brilliant sun swallowing the streets. The chains yanked downward all at once, dragging every shrieking undead into the glowing ground. The earth seemed to open to consume them, until the last echo of their screams faded beneath the surface.
Silence.
James and his squad stood frozen, weapons still raised but no longer trembling from battle, only from awe. Their breaths came hard, ragged, but no undead clawed toward them anymore.
Leon’s clone, drenched in sweat, wounds littering its body, stared at the now-empty battlefield. The blankness in its eyes deepened, and as the last trace of hostility vanished from the city, its body flickered. The motes of light unraveled from its form, dissolving slowly into the night.
James’ jaw tightened, his throat thick. He dropped his gaze as the clone’s final remnants vanished.
Carl broke the silence, voice hoarse but filled with respect. "What a warrior..."
No one disagreed. The copy had held them together when death circled from all sides.
But the reprieve was short-lived.
A thunderous boom split the night as a dust cloud rose from the ruined plaza. James and his squad snapped their heads toward the source. Through the haze, a figure strode forth, red cape flowing, golden armor gleaming with untouched brilliance.
It wasn’t the handsome face or the radiance of his presence that stole their breath. It was the sigil etched into his chestplate, unmistakable even through the dust.
James’ pupils shrank, his heart dropping like a stone.
"That emblem..." His voice cracked. "An... Imperial Guard?"
*****
The Imperial Guard.
They were the steel wall and the burning sword of the Arman Empire, warriors said to be handpicked by the Emperor himself. Each one a monster in human skin, powerful enough to crush armies, their loyalty absolute. Legends claimed that so long as the Guard drew breath, no foreign force could ever topple the Empire. And now... one of those warriors stood before James and his weary squad.
This one was no ordinary soldier. The man’s golden armor gleamed even in the ruinous dusk, his red cape drifting lazily in the faint wind. His presence pressed on the world around him it was calm, yet heavy enough that even silence seemed to bend.
His eyes lingered on the spot where Leon’s clone had vanished, the fading motes still shimmering faintly in the night. For a moment, something unreadable flickered across his face. Then he sighed, turning his gaze on the battered squad.
"I am First Lieutenant Lancelot of the Imperial Guard," he said, his voice carrying no need for volume. Authority threaded every word, leaving no room for misinterpretation. "And I will be asking you a few questions."
It wasn’t a request. It wasn’t a command shouted with fury. It was simply truth. Resistance had no place here.
James felt the weight of that truth pressing into his chest. His eyes locked on the man, on the aura that radiated from him a suffocating, crushing pressure. Rank 7. A level of power so far beyond their reach that it made his squad’s struggles against the endless undead feel laughable.
His men stiffened, their weapons instinctively lowering as the reality sank in. This wasn’t an enemy they could fight. This wasn’t even someone they could defy.
James drew in a sharp breath, exhaling slowly. His heart pounded, but his voice steadied as he muttered, almost like a prayer, "For the Empire..."
The words didn’t come from loyalty. They didn’t come from love of crown or soil. The truth was harsher. The Arman Empire had long abandoned the Tyrant’s Forest, letting it rot under the Great Bear’s shadow for three whole generations until Leon’s intervention. James knew this. He carried the bitterness of that neglect.
But none of that mattered.
He would not curse the Empire. He would not dare.
Not because of patriotism. Not because of loyalty.
But because of power. The uncontested, immovable power that the Arman Empire wielded, a power now standing before them in golden armor, staring with piercing blue eyes.
****
Lancelot had not come to the Tyrant Forest for stragglers or for scouting. His mission was far more dreadful.
Corruption.
It had become the shadow looming over not just the Arman Empire, but across all of Pandora. The Great Forest, the Beast Islands, the Dragon Mountains, every great domain had felt its touch. A plague that had begun only three years ago, and yet in that short time it had carved its name into history through blood and fear.
It was unlike any other blight or curse. Corruption was unkillable. It could not be purified by ordinary means, nor burned away by divine flames, it could only be sealed away by ancient arrays and that to had its limits. But what made it worse was its unpredictability, it’s spreading without warning, sprouting in places untouched for centuries, blooming like rot in sanctuaries and strongholds thought unshakable.
The stories spread through Pandora painted the horror clear enough. Rank 8 practitioners who could split mountains felled in a single night. Rank 9 beings, the near-mythical apex of power, dragged into madness and ruin by something they could not resist. Cities had vanished into silence, their names erased not by war or beast tides, but by the slow, suffocating spread of corruption.
And now, the Tyrant Forest bore its mark.
But that alone was not enough for an Imperial Guard to be here. The reason a man like Lancelot had been dispatched personally was for something else.
But as his gaze swept over the survivors, the battered squad, the fading remnants of Leon’s clone, his expression shifted ever so slightly. The faint traces of that anomaly clung to them, the same traces he had tracked here, the reason the Empire’s eyes were on this forsaken land.
The corruption was here.
And yet... there was something different about it.