Chapter 5. The Catalyst (4)
“Monsters spotted ahead!”
The battle began with that shout.
By the time roughly thirty minutes had passed since they began climbing the mountain, the Knight Order collided with the monsters visible ahead.
“……Incredible.”
Wayton and Alex, who had been excluded from the fighting because they were serving as messengers, could not suppress their admiration as they watched.
For Alex in particular, the sight was overwhelming.
He had spent his entire life in the countryside, and the only monsters he had ever encountered were the occasional small groups of goblins that settled in the mountains behind the village.
If anything, the ferocious wolves and bears that appeared from time to time had been more frightening.
Yet the knights moved faster and fought more courageously than even those terrifying beasts, swinging their swords without hesitation.
The monsters caught up in the Dungeon Wave ranged from goblins to kobolds armed with various weapons, while more than a dozen trolls stood firmly in place farther back, staring toward them.
There were roughly one hundred and fifty monsters in total.
It was enough to qualify as a small-scale Wave.
Against them stood only around thirty knights, yet not a single member of the Knight Order believed they were at a disadvantage.
At the first clash, the knights used their shields and spears to sweep aside the approaching goblins and kobolds, while those wielding swords cut down War Wolves attempting to break through from the flanks in a single strike.
The Knight Order itself was impressive, but the boy fighting at the very front stood out above all else.
He looked even younger than Alex, yet he wielded a brilliant golden Sword Aura almost identical in color to his hair, cutting through the monsters with graceful movements.
Watching from afar, Alex could not close his mouth.
“So amazing…….”
“Admire him all you want, but do not lose your head.”
“Ah! Yes!”
At Wayton’s warning, Alex forced the dazed look from his eyes and scanned his surroundings.
The trolls had yet to begin moving in earnest, so the battle was still progressing smoothly.
Alex, however, was not the only one watching the trolls.
Even while cutting down War Wolves, Klein never took his eyes off them.
The trolls watched them while exhaling hot breaths, as though gauging the strength of the forces before them.
Once they began moving, even the knights would no longer be able to relax.
No matter how sturdy their armor might be, a troll’s fist carried enough monstrous strength to crush the person inside it through the armor itself.
The instinctive ability to analyze a situation and see it for what it was.
That was one of Klein’s talents.
Even without consciously trying, Klein could grasp the state of the battlefield.
Watching the look in Klein’s eyes, Layerd felt a chill run down his spine.
The boy was only seventeen, yet his eyes shone like those of a veteran who had survived battlefields for more than twenty years.
Layerd was not the only one who felt it.
The other knights shared much the same impression.
The more exceptional the son of the lord they served proved himself to be, the higher their morale rose.
And just as the heat of battle intensified—
The trolls finally began to move.
ROOOAAAR-!!
Beginning with the troll at the very front, the others unleashed their Fear all at once.
“Urgh!”
Alex’s legs gave way beneath the pressure, and Wayton caught him as he collapsed.
“Keep your head straight. This is what a battle between humans and monsters capable of wielding mana looks like.”
“Y-Yes!”
The only reason Alex managed to retain his senses beneath the Fear, which preyed upon humanity’s most primal terror, was the mana being released by the knights fighting at the front.
The mana the knights unleashed against the monsters and magical beasts seemed to gather in the air like a protective shield.
‘Still, for a brat, his eyes have not gone dead.’
Wayton glanced briefly at Alex before turning his attention back to the battlefield.
The moment the trolls began moving in earnest, Klein shifted from the left side of the battlefield toward the front.
‘Nothing good will come from letting this battle drag on.’
The Knight Order undoubtedly possessed enough strength to stop every troll, but other monsters might slip past them and head toward the village in the process.
Of course, his brother remained in the village with five knights, the mercenary company, and the village militia.
Even so, Klein wanted to eliminate as many variables as possible.
“Hup-!”
Mana surged from Klein’s Core.
It wrapped around his entire body before erupting into a spiraling torrent that utterly dwarfed the mana being released by the thirty knights around him.
And the moment Klein swung his sword horizontally—
The spiraling torrent became a dragon.
Yet the dragon held its shape for only an instant before shooting forward like the wind.
It struck the trolls advancing toward the front lines and the monsters surrounding them, blowing them apart in a single instant.
It was such one-sided violence that it could hardly be called a battle.
Faced with that absurd display of power, even the monsters that had been advancing without regard for death were swallowed by fear.
They had realized that even an army of monsters that knew no fear as it marched to annihilate its enemies was nothing more than a swarm of moths flying toward a flame before that existence.
“Press the attack!”
At Layerd’s shout, the Knight Order drew upon their mana and surged forward all at once.
Not one of them entertained the slightest thought of defeat.
There were geniuses in this world whose potential could not be expressed in words.
And that genius was the young master they served.
Eventually, the final troll was cut down.
Klein stared at the troll he had personally slain, and his brow twitched.
“This is…….”
From the corpse of the last troll, a very faint trace of dark blue mana took the form of water before dissolving into the air.
“Could it be……?”
Klein suddenly raised his head and shouted.
“Messenger! Return to the village immediately and tell everyone to evacuate outside the village!”
“Pardon? Ah! Understood!”
Though visibly confused, Wayton immediately grabbed Alex and withdrew from the battlefield.
Klein then turned toward the still-bewildered knights and gave his order.
“We are returning to the village at once!”
—
Meanwhile, Shane saw the spiraling torrent rise beyond the forest and realized that the battle was nearing its end.
‘That was quick.’
Had ordinary mercenaries been sent instead, or had Klein not been present, the battle could easily have continued for days.
Thus far, events had unfolded much as they had in Shane’s previous life.
Back then, Klein had also followed Shane’s orders until the trolls began moving in earnest, at which point he had revealed his true strength.
And then—
“Everything up to this point is the same as before.”
At the edge of the village, within the darkness of the forest—
Shane sensed an entity carrying ominous mana.
In his previous life, Shane had encountered it from afar at this very moment.
A manifestation of the pure power of darkness, gnawing upon human corpses within the shadows.
One of the spirits of darkness—
A Rotten Tree Spirit.
Shane had not known it at the time, but the Rotten Tree Spirit had concealed its presence beneath the darkness of the night and made its way all the way here.
‘No wonder I never noticed it in my previous life.’
Had he left reserve forces behind in the village back then, as he had now, they might at least have bought enough time for the villagers to evacuate.
But the Shane of his previous life had taken every available soldier with him.
The defenseless village had become nothing more than a convenient feast for the Rotten Tree Spirit.
“Prepare for battle.”
“Pardon? Ah!”
At Shane’s quiet command, Rodwill and the other four knights finally noticed what was lurking in the darkness and immediately readied themselves.
THUD-!
An ogre emerged, wrapped in the dark blue aura unique to the Rotten Tree Spirit.
And not just any ogre.
It was a Twin-Head Ogre with two heads.
Despite its enormous body, the Twin-Head Ogre had approached with astonishing stealth. Once it realized its prey had noticed it, however, it no longer bothered hiding.
Instead, it released the darkness surrounding its body in every direction.
WHOOOOOOM–!!
“Urgh!!”
The mere eruption of darkness was enough to force all five knights to brace themselves with everything they had just to remain standing.
A Twin-Head Ogre.
A monster that even a Fourth-Grade Expert had to fight with everything they possessed, while safely confronting one required at least the strength of a Third-Grade Master.
And now such a creature had absorbed a dark spirit as well, pouring that power through its entire body.
‘This is dangerous…….’
The knights did not know of the Rotten Tree Spirit’s existence, but every instinct in their bodies sounded the same warning.
That ogre was dangerous.
‘The five of us alone…… are not enough to kill it.’
The five knights ranged between Sixth- and Fifth-Grade Experts.
If they were willing to stake their lives, they might be able to kill it.
But even then, at least two or three of them would have to be prepared to die or suffer fatal injuries.
They did not fear death.
But the roar that had accompanied the creature’s appearance must have reached the main force as well.
In that case, even if they had to accept some damage to the village, their best choice was to stall for time.
The villagers had already been evacuated.
As long as they merely prevented the creature from advancing deeper into the village, they calculated that they could hold out long enough.
Just then, Shane spoke quietly.
“You should abandon any half-hearted notions of fighting that thing.”
The knights’ gazes briefly turned toward him.
Astonishingly, while even the knights had needed to plant their feet with all their strength to withstand the pressure of the darkness, Shane stood without the slightest disturbance, glaring directly at the Twin-Head Ogre.
‘A thing like you.’
Meanwhile, Shane could sense the hostility emanating from the Rotten Tree Spirit parasitizing the ogre’s body.
A dark-attribute spirit born from the accumulated negative energy of the forest.
The Rotten Tree Spirit erupted with its mana, but to Shane, its threat felt no stronger than a gentle spring breeze.
That was only natural.
For more than ten years, Shane had been dominated by ‘Envy,’ one of the Seven Deadly Sins and a form of Corruption.
‘Do you truly think such sinister mana could affect me?’
To Shane, the pressure of such a minor spirit was not threatening in the slightest.
The Corruption known as ‘Envy’ was an existence that envied, resented, and hated every living creature in the world.
It was the power at the very root of the Undead.
In his previous life, Shane had been the First Legion Commander of ‘Nameless,’ the king of all Undead and death itself.
The power of ‘death’ contained within a single forest could do nothing to him.
“Knights, listen. One strike. I will finish it within a single strike, so use everything you have to create an opening.”
“……Understood!”
Under ordinary circumstances, the knights would never have trusted Shane’s words.
They possessed not even the slightest faith in him.
Yet now, as Shane faced the threat of the Rotten Tree Spirit with undisguised hostility, his voice carried the presence of an absolute ruler—something the knights could not bring themselves to defy.
It was not the blind faith Klein inspired.
It was an order of submission so cold that it sent chills from the very depths of their souls.
Perhaps at any other time it would have been different, but standing before an enemy that might require them to stake their lives, Shane’s command somehow inspired an inexplicable confidence within the knights.
All five began channeling mana into their weapons.
At the very front, Rodwill, a Fifth-Grade Expert, infused both sword and shield with mana as he searched for an opening in the ogre’s defenses.
Shane offered the knights a final warning.
“Its true nature is a dark spirit. If you charge in thinking it is an ordinary ogre, the darkness will devour you in an instant. Always be wary of any space where darkness gathers.”
“……Yes!”
The knights charged the moment they heard Shane’s advice.
Normally, they would have deflected the enemy’s attacks and gradually tested its strength.
But there was no time for such caution now.
The instincts of warriors who had survived countless battlefields were screaming at them.
If that creature began attacking in earnest, they would not last even a minute.
An ordinary ogre would have been one thing.
But a monster empowered by a spirit was not something the five of them could handle alone.
Meanwhile, the two Circles formed around Shane’s heart were rotating violently.
Shane possessed only two Circles.
But his magic was different.
No—
To begin with, the concept of Circles meant little more to Shane than the total amount of mana available to him.
He had once been the King of Darkness, a Legion Commander who led an army of hundreds of millions of Undead.
At this point, twisting something as trivial as a magical formula was little more than child’s play to him.
‘I have to kill it in one strike.’
A spirit fundamentally required a medium through which to exert its power.
The medium this dark spirit was using was the already-dead Twin-Head Ogre.
Therefore, destroying the ogre was the only way to suppress the spirit.
As his Circles spun furiously, Shane added a modification of his own.
It was one of the derivative techniques born from Runic Script.
‘Amplification.’
The distances between the mana components within Shane’s magical formula expanded, increasing the spell’s effective scale.
The absolute quantity of mana remained unchanged, but its size was already far beyond anything a mere Second-Circle spell should have been capable of producing.
Of course, that alone could not overcome the fundamental limits of Second-Circle magic.
So Shane added another technique.
‘Duplication.’
A technique that overlaid one spell upon another.
At first glance, it might have seemed like nothing more than adding a second spell, but spell duplication was fundamentally considered an obsolete technique.
Every established magical formula had a fixed capacity.
Trying to force another spell into it was no different from pouring water into a cup that was already full.
But Shane had used Amplification to widen the spaces between the mana components.
Then, into those newly created spaces, he inscribed the exact same formula again.
‘Attribute: Metal. Form: Severing.’
Above Shane’s outstretched hand, a blue disc formed from mana.
The disc began spinning at tremendous speed.
Before long, the repulsive forces within the mana caused it to turn red.
The farther the process progressed, the larger the disc became, while its cutting power increased at the same time.
And when the disc finally turned as red as blood, Shane opened his mouth.
“Now!”
The knights did not miss that fleeting command.
In that brief span of time, their bodies had already become drenched in blood.
Yet in response to Shane’s order, they spared themselves nothing, wringing out every last trace of mana they possessed.
Together, they succeeded in pinning the Twin-Head Ogre’s feet.
The Twin-Head Ogre—or rather, the Rotten Tree Spirit—ignored the knights’ attacks and focused warily on the disc hovering above Shane’s hand.
But it could not completely disregard the coordinated assault coming from every direction.
As a final act of resistance, it gathered the power of darkness and raised a barrier.
The dark wall possessed the property of ‘Absorption.’
The instant it intercepted the crimson disc Shane had launched—
“How dare you!”
Shane’s shout, imbued with the mana of a soul that had once stood as an absolute ruler, transformed into a form of Fear and violently shook the Rotten Tree Spirit’s soul.
The disturbance within its soul immediately threw its mana into severe imbalance.
The crimson disc pierced through that imbalance.
With terrifying precision, it passed cleanly through both heads that defined the Twin-Head Ogre.
And even that was not enough to stop it.
The disc continued flying into the forest, slicing through everything in its path.
The ogre’s severed heads fell away.
Then its massive body collapsed to the ground beneath the pull of gravity.
The knights stared at Shane in disbelief.
Until that day, not one of them had ever doubted Klein’s abilities.
But at this moment—
They felt something from Shane that they had never felt from Klein.
An overwhelming presence that could not be resisted.
