Chapter 26

Seed of Division (2)

Kiiiii—!

The knight's sword, imbued with mana, flashed brightly, and the Skeleton's body collapsed powerlessly onto the ground.

"Young Master Hector! Are you alright?!"
"H-Hiiik…! T-There… there's an undead over there…!"

An unexpected ambush by Imperial necromancers.
Before Hector's group could even fully grasp the situation, everything had already descended into chaos—
but the reputation of the Paul Wyvern Knights was no bluff.

'Twenty minutes against twenty Skeletons. They held out better than expected.'

Thinking that, I slowly revealed myself.
Naturally, I was still wearing the mask used by Imperial necromancers.

"There's the necromancer!"
"Capture him! We need to interrogate him and find out what's going on!"

The people they believed to be allies had suddenly attacked them.
Two knights had already died to spear strikes launched without warning.

'Good. Everything's going according to plan.'

After confirming the men charging toward me, I stepped back into the darkness.

"That bastard…!"
"Catch him! He's a rogue who attacked the Paul Wyverns!"

The sight of the enraged knights made me chuckle.

'That should be enough provocation.'

A surprise attack in the darkness of the forest.
The deaths of comrades.
And now the suspicion of betrayal added on top of it all.
That was more than enough to rob the knights of their reason.

[I grant you new flesh. Cling to the legs of those loathsome enemies.]

As I chanted, I sent the ten Skeletons I had prepared in advance forward.

Their targets were the shattered remains of the Skeletons strewn across the battlefield.

Whoosh—!

The moment I infused them with demonic energy, light returned to their faded eye sockets.

Grrrrrr—!

Their bodies not yet fully restored, the Skeletons crawled toward the knights.

"This is insane—they're reviving?!"
"What kind of undead is this…?!"

Undead created from corpses became incapacitated once their bodies were destroyed.
But undead created from condensed mana could be restored endlessly, so long as the soul possessed sufficient magical power.

They couldn't overcome the overwhelming mana of knights, but binding their movements for a while would be more than enough.

'It should be about time they arrived.'

That was what I was thinking while watching the Skeletons gradually collapse beneath the knights' blades.

Craaaagh—!

The cry of undead echoed from afar.

Hearing it, I smiled triumphantly.

'Bingo. Right on time.'

With the knights' vision narrowed by the smoke pouring from the Skeletons and the darkness of the forest,
I slipped into the woods amidst the confusion and quietly withdrew far from the battlefield.

And shortly afterward—

"There are the knights!"
"You dared to ambush us? Don't think you're leaving here alive!"

Necromancers wearing masks engraved with the Imperial crest revealed themselves.

"To think necromancers can't even distinguish doppelgangers."

I disguised myself as a necromancer and attacked Hector.
Meanwhile, the doppelgangers I sent disguised themselves as Hector and his knights before attacking the necromancers.

A classic disruption tactic from the days when I was active.
Watching them fall completely for such an outdated trick made me sigh.

"To think these people are supposed to be my juniors."

Pale.
And the necromancers before me.

Looking at them, I became certain.
Modern necromancy on the continent had become completely focused on reviving corpses and creating powerful undead.

'A twisted form of necromancy refined purely for warfare. Easy to learn, but its limits are obvious.'

As I observed the undead summoned by the Imperial necromancers,
the knights finally noticed them as well and poured even more mana into their swords.

"Knights, prepare for battle! Protect Young Master Hector!"
"Necromancer unit, prepare for combat! Eliminate those traitors immediately!"

Now that casualties had occurred on both sides, there was no turning back.

[Dismiss Summon.]

I dispelled the spiritual bodies of the fallen Skeletons and erased all traces.

Meanwhile, over a hundred zombies summoned by the necromancers and ten furious knights charged at one another with weapons drawn.

Boom—!
Kiiieeeeeee—!

A hellscape of blood and flesh.
The zombies summoned by the necromancers and the knights clashed together as time seemed to stretch into eternity.

And by simply observing the situation for a while—

"Huff… haaah…!"

—I could weaken both sides simultaneously.

'Good. Mutual destruction.'

A clash between ten knights and ten necromancers.
After two hours of brutal fighting, the ones who ultimately emerged victorious were Hector's knights.

"Young Master… are you alright…?!"
"U-Uugh…!"

But they weren't unharmed either.

Zombies created from corpses.
Their rotten claws and teeth were filled with deadly toxins.

"Hurry… retreat to the territory. This place is dangerous—khk…!"

The wounds of the knights protecting Hector had already begun turning black.

"H-How can you collapse here?! How am I supposed to get back now…?!"

The sun had completely disappeared, leaving the forest pitch black.
Hector trembled as he looked at the pale-faced knights staggering around him.

'If you've never truly seen bloodshed before, even a knight ends up like this.'

I smiled bitterly while watching Hector shake like a child.
He had spent his entire life merely serving as Helian's escort.
This kind of carnage was completely new to him.
Fear had rendered him incapable of doing anything.

"Go now, Young Master! Call for reinforcements from the main house…!"
"Reinforcements? Who said I'd let you?"

Answering the desperate cries of the knights, I stepped out from the darkness.

"Y-You…!"

The Imperial necromancers dispatched to support Helian.
And the knights escorting Hector.
Both sides were powerful forces far beyond what the current me could fight directly.

The most efficient way to destroy them all at once—
was to make them annihilate each other like this.

"A necromancer!"
"You're still alive?!"

The knights forced themselves upright as they looked at me, still wearing the mask.

'So they still have some strength left.'

The resilience of the Paul Wyvern knights, descendants of dragon slayers.
With slight admiration, I addressed them.

"That's right. A necromancer."

As I answered them, I slowly removed my mask.

Faint moonlight filtering through the leaves and the glow of the torches.
The two ominously flickering lights illuminated my face for a brief moment.

"Y-You are…!"
"Young Master Klein…!"

The knights recognized me and froze in shock.
Then, realizing who had orchestrated this entire disaster, one of them pointed at me furiously.

"So that's it. This whole situation was your—!"
"What? You figured it out already?"

My face, illuminated by the wavering flames, twisted into a cold sneer.

"You lizards who only know how to cut off tails are smarter than I expected."

As I provoked them, the fallen knights slowly began rising to their feet one by one.

"How dare you…! How dare you toy with the great Paul Wyvern?!"

"Paul Wyvern? No. That's wrong."

I accepted their furious outcry with a smile before speaking to them.

"It wasn't Paul Wyvern I toyed with."

I looked at the knights and smirked.

"It was the parasites clinging to Helian and feeding off her."

Parasites.
The moment I referred to the knights of Helian's faction that way, their expressions darkened even further.

"How dare you…!"

The looks they gave me now were no longer contempt or dismissal.
They were filled with fury, hatred, hostility—
and fear desperately hidden beneath it all.

"Craaaagh—!"

Unable to endure the standoff any longer, the knights charged at me all at once.

"No matter how exhausted we are, you're still just a worthless swordsman without even a shred of mana!"
"At this distance, you won't be able to use necromancy either!"

The knights shouted out my weakness as their blades came crashing toward me.
Their speed was astonishing despite their exhaustion.
Even while taking in the precision of their techniques and the flow of their mana, I remained motionless.

Because there was no need for me to move.

"Rudel."

I spoke the name of the former Duke of Leinrant.
The trump card I had prepared for this exact moment.

The instant I called him forth, dozens of sword strikes tore through the dark forest simultaneously.

There was no way they could see it.
No way they could even sense it.

Kkagagagagak—!

With a horrifying ripping sound,
the heads of all ten knights flew off at once.

The moment I blinked, a knight clad in black armor stood before me.

Death Knight, Rudel Leinrant.

Thudududuk—!

"Uh… ah…?"
"W-What is…?!"

The severed heads of the knights fell to the ground.
Even then, they still didn't seem to understand what had happened to them, their mouths opening and closing blankly.

But only for a moment.

Thump!

Their headless bodies lost control and collapsed to the ground beside them.

'His physical abilities shouldn't be much different from ordinary knights… but he's a monster.'

The title Leinrant had given him was:
"The Most Brilliant Swordsman."

After witnessing his swordsmanship, I finally understood why.

Beautiful lines carved through the air with sword energy compressed to the extreme.
Despite cutting down ten knights in a single instant, Rudel's mana flow remained completely stable, as though nothing had happened.

"H-Hiiik…?!"

Now only one remained.

Hector Ross Paul Wyvern.

I slowly walked toward Hector as he stumbled backward in terror.

"D-Don't come closer! Don't—! Uwaak?!"

Having completely lost the will to fight, Hector retreated until he tripped over a rock and crashed onto the ground.

'So this is the heir of a ducal house once he's dragged away from his mother's protection.'

To think such pathetic trash had been considered the main house's mortal enemy.
A hollow feeling washed over me as I slowly raised my sword.

— I could do it instead.

"No. This one's mine."

I answered Rudel's voice from nearby.

No matter how corrupted Rudel had become, Hector was still his grandson by blood.
If Rudel killed him personally, he would bear the sin of kin-slaying.

"W-Why are you doing this?! What did we ever do to you?!"

Hector's voice trembled with grief and outrage.

'Listening to him, you'd think he was the victim here.'

The sight of Hector looking so pitiful made me laugh involuntarily.

"Why?"
"Y-Yeah! We—at least I never did anything to you…!"
"Then let me ask you something."

Cutting off Hector's protest, I stared directly into his face.

"What did the people of the Leinrant territory ever do to you people, that they deserved to die as Imperial test subjects?"

That was the greatest reason I had decided to destroy the branch family.

The human experimentation grounds inside the cave of the Imperial necromancer Pale.
The moment I mentioned the people dying there, Hector fell silent.

"T-That was Mother's…!"
"You enjoyed all the wealth and luxury bought with the blood of northerners, and now you want to pretend you're the victim?"
"Ugh…!"

Watching Hector fail to find another excuse, I tightened my grip on my sword.

"You watched Helian closer than anyone else. There's no way you didn't know. Right?"

Even if he truly hadn't known, that didn't free him from responsibility.

The resentment of those who had been dragged away alive, dissected like laboratory animals, and forced to slaughter their own families with their own hands—

The promise I carved into my heart that day in the village still hadn't faded.

This wasn't a sin that could be repaid with mere death.
An eye for an eye.
A crime for a crime.

To recreate the same suffering and force him to endure it eternally—
that was the minimum punishment I could give him.

Which was why—

"Don't think dying will be the end of this, Hector Ross Paul Wyvern."

I stared into his terror-stricken eyes and continued.

"You still have a lot of work left to do."

With those final words, I swung the sword diagonally.

Slash—!

Hector's severed head spun through the air before rolling across the cold dirt.

Far too pathetic a death for the heir of a ducal house.

After glancing around the forest littered with corpses, I formed a hand seal.

Pachik—!

Three contract circles appeared before me.

It was the same spell I had used when turning Rudel's soul into a Death Knight.

— What are you planning now?

"You think I'd let this end with simple death after how many lives were sacrificed to Helian's schemes?"

Answering Rudel, I inscribed new rune words into the contract circle.

— Hah. You really are vicious to the very end.

After examining the contract circle, Rudel spoke with a disgusted expression.

"I told you already."

I smiled faintly and repeated the words I had said before.

"I'm an evil necromancer, remember?"

I gazed at the contract circle binding Hector's corpse.

Black energy layered itself atop the blue glow, accompanied by ominous runes.

A Rune of Obedience—
a rune that erased a soul's free will.