Chapter 361

“Wham!”
Lance thrust his sword down, and rotten blood splashed.
An undead leopard with a hole in its belly has fallen.
With that, the undead that had been swarming ahead of them were all killed.
“That’s a lot of sizzle—.”
That wasn’t much consolation.
I had only killed the ones I could see in front of me, but the number of undead remained unfathomable.
It will be less than five minutes until the main body arrives.
Erin, who had her back to Lance, asked worriedly.
“Hey, brother. Are you hurting?”
“No—whoops, that can’t be right.”
Lance shook his head.
We couldn’t afford to show weakness.
Each ragged breath tasted like blood in my mouth.
I wasn’t hurt, but I was swinging my sword too hard.
Erin smirked.
“Don’t worry. Erin will protect you.”
“Are you really—! Are you going to keep talking?”
“But Erin caught as many as her brother.”
Erin’s mouth pouted.
Indeed, there were bodies at her feet.
The numbers were only marginally less than Lance’s.
What’s more, unlike Lance, who was breathing heavily, Erin’s face was calm.
“—that’s a lot.”
“Yee-haw, right?”
Erin patted Lance on the back with the back of her hand.
It was a pat on the back for a job well done.
Lance laughed in disbelief.
As time went on, the gap between herself and Erin was closing.
Lance knew why.
Erin’s pure white hair meant she inherited a deeper dose of the blood of the Savior, or Cain.
“I’m catching up. I wonder if this is a talent gap.
Differences in pure talent stemming from lineage.
He was a prodigy who entered Pileon’s martial arts department at the top of his class, but the sky was the limit.
Of course, Lance wasn’t about to take it lying down.
“Erin is Erin, and I am Nagi.
In the end, it was Ronan, not Abel, who won the final battle.
A saccharine-haired man who looks exactly like himself.
So instead of igniting her jealousy, Lance gently stroked her lovely sister’s hair.
“But you don’t have to protect me, Erin. It’s not me you need to protect, it’s them.”
Lance squinted behind him.
The villagers, including the chief, were scurrying away.
Seeing the children’s strength, the village chief eventually gave in and agreed to lead the evacuees.
There was more distance than before, but not enough to escape the undead’s grasp.
We’ve got to hang in there.
Muttering, Lance gripped the hilt of his sword.
“Hmph!”
Lance swung his sword in unison.
Sword energy shot out along the trajectory of the strike.
A silver-white crescent moon, torn into five parts, passed over the rotting bodies of the dead.
“Kaaaah!”
“Keruk!”
The dead with their legs cut off fell.
The march has slowed, if only slightly.
Lance’s blade struck straight and farther than any of his classmates.
As indicative of his character.
Lance fired sword energy until he was nearly out of mana.
“You’re amazing.”
Erin smiled at the bash.
After all, she liked her brother.
Like her mother, Lance had a kindness that Ronan didn’t have.
He took up the sword, which he had no interest in, because he wanted to spend more time with his brother.
“I’ll help Erin, too.”
Erin raised her sword again.
The black iron sword Ronan had given her as a birthday present had been tuned just for her.
He couldn’t yet manifest his sword ki, but he would have to go out and fight.
Just as she was about to run away.
“Erin. It’s dangerous to go any further.”
“X?”
Sechika’s voice came from not far away.
Erin, her backside pulled in, fell on her ass.
A shadow fell over the brother and sister’s heads.
“This.”
Lance looked up in surprise.
A dozen large rocks were flying through the air.
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
The boulders formed a parabola and slammed directly into the front of the undead army.
“Oh, great!”
Lance clenched his fists involuntarily.
The difference started with the number of units killed at once.
The bombardment must have crushed a hundred of them.
“Profit—! Sechika-sama, why are you interrupting me!”
Erin looked up at Sechika, annoyed.
Sechika was using telekinesis to levitate herself in the air and attack from a distance.
Unlike Asel, she was a feisty character and had no hesitation in utilizing her telekinesis in combat.
Once back on the ground, Sechika pulled Erin into a hug.
“Woof!”
“I’m sorry, but no matter how well Erin fights, she can’t handle that number.”
“Pooh-ha! Oh, I get it, this is what—!”
“Yeah, yeah. Good boy?”
Erin gasped.
She tried desperately to get out of Cecica’s local hell (as Erin had named it), but the power difference between the two bodies made it impossible.
Sechika let go of Erin only after a long moment and looked back at Ranse.
“Lance. We need to get away quickly. There’s no turning back if we get caught up in the main force.”
“Uh, yeah. I was just thinking about that.”
Lance averted his gaze in surprise.
He was in the middle of envying Erin.
The wave of undead was still rolling in, unstoppable.
Lance wiped the blood from his sword and shook his head.
“I guess we’ll have to trust my father or Orse now. Let’s go, Erin.”
“Yes!”
Erin agreed.
Now you’ve done everything you can do.
After gathering their thoughts, they turned their backs and drove away.
“Ughhh!!”
“What the hell?!”
Suddenly, a scream rang out from the undead side.
The three men turned their heads reflexively, frozen in place.
“Oh my God—!”
Chunks of earth were flying.
It was a tangle of beautiful trees, a chunk that had been pulled out along with the ground.
One the size of a modest house was no match for the boulder Sechika had thrown.
“How did you do that!”
Lance was stunned.
His gaze, searching for the source of the clod of earth, stopped at a point.
In the midst of the undead army, there was an unusually large hulk.
“Guoooooo!”
“That’s it! That’s it!”
There was a roar again.
The giants that pull up the earth and throw it away are actually golems made of woven corpses.
The golems were much larger than ogres, with stitches all over their bodies.
I couldn’t help but wonder who the enemy was.
“Intercept!”
“Ugh, ugh!”
But there was no time to freak out or get into reasoning.
Drawing on his last bit of mana, Lance fired his sword.
Sechika’s invisible fist sliced through the air.
Kaaaah!
The ground exploded with a loud bang.
But there wasn’t just one chunk to intercept.
“No.”
Sechika sighed.
I had just stopped one, but there were still three more.
The landing point was different, but the object was huge, and it was bound to get caught.
As if on cue, she realized she was running out of mana.
“I have to stop them!
Still, it had to be done.
I couldn’t let the two people I cared about the most get hurt.
What’s more, if you get defeated here, you’ll lose face for being stubborn.
“Grrr… Ahhh…!”
A trickle of blood ran down Sechika’s nose as she concentrated.
I am the Archmage’s daughter!
She steeled herself and was just about to activate her telekinesis.
“Whew!”
“Oh, Abel?!”
Abel, who had been suffering from motion sickness, spread his wings and took flight.
Sechika’s concentration broke as she was taken aback.
“Huh?!”
The nosebleed has stopped.
Abel quickly soared to a trajectory that sent chunks of earth flying.
Paaaaaaah—!
The white feathers seemed to glow, and a large, rounded force field expanded like a saucer over the three of them.
“That’s—!”
The Lance brothers’ eyes widened.
It was Nebula Clazier’s signature shimmering mana.
Kaaaah!
Boom!
The chunks of earth that collided with the shields set off a series of explosions.
“Kaaaaaah!”
Sechika clutched her head.
Unable to see the glowing mana, she assumed it was all over.
But over time, not even a crumb of dirt fell, let alone wood.
“What, what?”
“Phew, you have a cute side too.”
Erin covered her mouth and giggled.
Sechika’s face flushed with shame.Seeing that the attack had been blocked, Lance called out in triumph.
“Great job, partner!”
“Wham!”
Abel cried.
It was like it was spreading its wings, screaming at me to trust it.
The dreamy bird was about to strike a pose.
Quack-!!!
An earth-shaking roar echoed from the direction of the undead legions.
“Whirlwind?!”
Abel lost his balance and stumbled.
It was nothing compared to the roar of the golems.
A cloud of dust rose over the distant horizon.
“What the—!”
Lance gulped.
The ground was crumbling.
A huge rift was opening up around the point where the undead horde was leading.
“Krelek!”
“Kyaaagh!?”
The undead army plunged down the rift without warning.
The rift continued to widen, the bodies never stopped coming, and eventually all the undead fell into the ravine that had suddenly appeared.
The golems’ thrown dirt balls were all suspended in midair.
It was as if it was stuffed in place, not moving an inch.
“What the—!”
It was a sight I had never seen in my dreams.
It happened so suddenly that it didn’t feel real.
Suddenly, a voice came from not too far away.
[Why are you interrupting me, I was in the middle of something].
“Joe, that’s great, but you just almost killed all those kids!”
[You lack faith. I could have prevented that].
“Yes, but I couldn’t let that stop me. Maybe Orsay will change his mind when he becomes a parent?”
It was a very familiar voice.
The three men’s eyes widened as they shifted their gaze.
In the distance, Orsay and a man floated in the air.
Her fiery red hair looked exactly like Sechika’s.
“Dad?!”
“Uncle Asel!”
Cechika was stunned.
It was unmistakably Asel.
Her father, an unprecedented archmage who succeeded Lorhon.
Bam!
Asel snapped his fingers, and the chunks of earth that had been hovering in midair crashed down.
“Eek!”
“Gulp.”
The clods remained inside the rift, crushing the bodies.
Sechika handled the object, which he couldn’t lift with all his might, as if it were a feather.
Asel speaks up, realizing that all of the undead have fallen inside the rift.
“Great job, kids, we’re in charge from here!”
“Where have you been and are you here now?!”
“Well, you know–you’re stronger than I thought. Orse-sama told me to keep an eye on you in times like this, so I didn’t know what to do—.”
Asel let out an awkward laugh.
In fact, it had been a while since I’d been to the South.
He fell for Orsay’s twist of wondering how much his children had grown.
Sechika barked, unnecessarily annoyed.
“What the hell, I hate you!”
“Meh, I’m sorry–it worked out anyway, okay? Can all three of you turn around, please?”
“Turn around?”
“Yeah. You could hurt your eyes.”
Asel grunted.
A shield of telekinetic force surrounded the three of them.
Looking down at the ground, Orse gaped.
【This is the limit. I can’t wait any longer.
“Ugh, the heat is—!”
Black flames burned between its white teeth.
In that moment, the children realized that Asel’s words were not empty.
What Orce is trying to do.
Abel ruffled his feathers and spread his wings.
“Whew!”
A hemispherical force field surrounded the three of them.
He realized that Asel’s shields weren’t enough to reassure him.
Asel nods, satisfied that the children are safe.
“Yes. Now.”
At that moment, the dragon breathed.
A flash of light, like a second sun, enveloped him.
Lance pulled both Sechika and Erin toward him at the same time.
“Come on, everybody!”
“Kaaaaaak!”
His hand covered both girls’ eyes for a moment.
The atmosphere sizzled, and Orse’s roar rang out.
【Vanish! You insects!】
The flames that once burned the empire poured over the rift.
The flames swirled around the artificial valley Asel had created, devouring the beings within.
****
In a dreary cave.
A lab full of complex devices.
“——what is it?”
Necromancer Kiersaj frowned.
The connection to the undead was momentarily broken.
Something seemed to have gone wrong with the legions he controlled.
“That’s odd, this wouldn’t happen without the entire army being wiped out at once—.”
It was something I hadn’t experienced since becoming a necromancer.
If even one object remained, the connection was never completely lost.
My guess is that the error was caused by doing too much magic.
We need to reconnect the neural network.
It was the car that Kearsarge was about to step into.
“It’s you, the son of a bitch who shat in the South.”
Behind me, a man’s voice rang out, angry and firm.