Two armed forces were approaching the vicinity of Carne Village.
White-robed figures moved along the western forest path.
Forty-five men.
They marched in silence. No one engaged in idle chatter. Armor was concealed beneath their white robes, and their hands gripped holy symbols, maces, and swords.
The Sunlight Scripture of the Slane Theocracy.
They were an elite unit of combat priests, every member capable of wielding 3rd-tier faith-based magic.
Their objective was clear.
The total annihilation of Carne Village.
And the assassination of the Warrior Captain of the Re-Estize Kingdom, Gazef Stronoff.
The Sunlight Scripture had already dispatched a covert squad to raid Carne Village. They had staged the scene to look like a massacre to lure Gazef into action.
However, the plan had not been proceeding smoothly.
Unlike the Holocaust Scripture or the Windflower Scripture, the Sunlight Scripture was not a unit specialized in covert field operations. They had already had four opportunities to assassinate Gazef, and they had missed all four.
Nigun Grid Luin, the captain of the Sunlight Scripture, ground his teeth.
He would not let him escape this time.
Gazef Stronoff.
The strongest warrior of the Re-Estize Kingdom.
But in the end, he was merely human.
How long could a human's sword hold out against the Sunlight Scripture, blessed by the gods?
Nigun raised his hand, bringing the unit to a halt.
“Tighten the perimeter.”
The white robes dispersed quietly.
Some hid within the forest, while others moved toward the outskirts of the village. The priest-warriors gripped their holy symbols and chanted prayers in low voices. Preparations to activate their magic began.
On the eastern road, Gazef Stronoff, the Warrior Captain of the Re-Estize Kingdom, was advancing toward Carne Village.
Behind him followed fifty men of his warrior band.
By the Kingdom's standards, they were an elite force. However, they had not yet fully realized that their opponents were a special forces unit from the Slane Theocracy.
Gazef looked toward Carne Village from atop his horse.
He saw smoke.
His heart grew heavy.
“Increase the pace!”
At his command, the warrior band spurred forward.
Carne Village was caught between the two forces.
The villagers did not yet know that their home was about to become a battlefield. A few closed their doors at the strange presence felt from the forest, and children huddled in their parents' arms, looking outside with anxious faces.
The Thousand Kingdom was sensing all of these movements.
Ea’s observation network displayed every life sign around Carne Village.
Sunlight Scripture: 45 members.
Gazef Stronoff and Warrior Band: 50 members.
Carne Village: Multiple residents.
The report was sent to the Throne of Heaven in Sector 12.
“Two armed groups are approaching Carne Village.”
“One is the Sunlight Scripture of the Slane Theocracy.”
“The other is Warrior Captain Gazef Stronoff and his warrior band from the Re-Estize Kingdom.”
“The Sunlight Scripture's objective is presumed to be the massacre of the village and the elimination of Gazef Stronoff.”
The outer walls of the Thousand Kingdom remained silent.
No orders had yet descended to the skies above Carne Village.
---
The battle began in the fields on the outskirts of Carne Village.
Gazef Stronoff’s fifty warriors formed a phalanx and charged toward the Sunlight Scripture. Gazef took the lead, and the Kingdom's soldiers ran, watching his back.
“Maintain the formation!”
Gazef shouted.
But the Sunlight Scripture had already completed their preparations.
The white-robed priest-warriors raised their holy symbols in unison.
“Summon.”
Their prayers overlapped.
Magic circles bloomed across the field. Forms of light condensed in the air, and winged angels began to manifest one by one. They possessed humanoid shapes, but their eyes were devoid of emotion.
Immediately after, faith-based magic poured forth.
Arrows of light hammered against the Kingdom soldiers' shields.
Holy shockwaves tore through armor.
The summoned angels flew into the front lines with swords in hand.
The warrior band's ranks wavered.
“Hold your ground!”
Gazef roared.
He threw himself into the fray.
His sword flashed.
With a single strike, Gazef split an angel in two. Following that, he shattered the shield of a priest-warrior, tearing through armor and sending the man to the ground.
Yet, the Sunlight Scripture did not falter.
When one fell, another took their place.
Magic flew at every path Gazef tried to break through.
Spears of light, defensive barriers, healing magic, and coordinated attacks from the summoned angels.
The Kingdom's warrior band fell one by one.
A soldier holding a shield was struck by an arrow of light and forced to his knees.
The soldier beside him tried to pull him back, but was immediately stabbed in the shoulder by an angel's sword.
“Warrior Captain!”
Gazef grit his teeth.
He knew.
If he died in this battle, it was over.
If he died, the warrior band would collapse.
If the warrior band collapsed, Carne Village would be destroyed.
If the village fell, the children, the elderly, and the farmers would all perish.
That conviction drove Gazef's body forward.
He raised his sword again.
His body already felt heavy.
His breathing grew ragged.
But he could not stop.
Nigun Grid Luin watched the scene from the rear.
He let out an unpleasant laugh at Gazef’s tenacity.
“He truly lives up to the title of the Kingdom's strongest warrior.”
But that was as far as it went.
No matter how strong, he was still human.
No matter how well he swung his sword, he would eventually bleed, tire, and die.
Nigun raised his holy symbol.
“End this.”
The priest-warriors of the Sunlight Scripture prepared their magic once more.
Gazef saw mana condensing from three directions.
He couldn't dodge it.
He couldn't block it.
Even so, he raised his sword.
Nigun spoke coldly.
“Die.”
In that moment.
The sky went silent.
The wind stopped.
Dust settled as if frozen in mid-air.
The noise of the battlefield drifted away.
Gazef instinctively looked up.
The priest-warriors of the Sunlight Scripture also ceased their movements.
Even the summoned angels seemed to stop beating their wings in the air.
Between Carne Village and the battlefield.
A black rift opened in the void.
From within that rift, a being slowly descended.
Black robes.
Red eyes.
An overwhelming divinity.
He possessed a human form.
But he was not human.
Celestial Emperor Caesar.
The moment his feet touched the ground, everyone on the battlefield held their breath.
The priest-warriors of the Sunlight Scripture stopped their spellcasting.
Gazef’s soldiers could not move.
The people of Carne Village watched the being through the cracks in their windows.
At that moment, the same word came to the minds of both camps.
Death.
But it was not simple death.
Before this being, death was not a result.
It was more like evidence that he had appeared.
Nigun Grid Luin felt it, and so did Gazef Stronoff.
Caesar looked down upon the battlefield.
In the sky behind him, the gargantuan fortress of the Thousand Kingdom glowed faintly.
He had not yet spoken a word.
Yet that silence alone froze the fields.
After a moment, Caesar spoke quietly.
“Ridiculous.”
His gaze swept over the Sunlight Scripture.
“You have been deleted from the narrative.”
Then, he looked at Gazef.
“Gazef, I shall personally save you.”
As those words ended, a sword appeared in his hand.
The Dimensional Sword, Ashkal.
The blade flickered like a rift where black light and silver light intertwined. Rather than a sword made of metal, it looked as if space itself had been folded into the shape of a blade.
Nigun snapped back to his senses for a split second.
“Everyone, prepare offensive magic!”
At that shout, the Sunlight Scripture moved.
The priest-warriors raised their holy symbols.
Arrows of light were formed.
Holy shockwaves were condensed.
Defensive barriers were deployed in layers.
The summoned angels flew toward Caesar.
It was every response the Sunlight Scripture could muster.
Caesar moved.
No, it didn't even look like he moved.
The distance between where he stood and the Sunlight Scripture's front line simply vanished.
The first priest-warrior’s barrier was split.
Neither armor, nor shield, nor body could resist. Where Ashkal’s blade passed, only a thin tear in space remained.
Second.
Third.
Fourth.
The Sunlight Scripture’s line collapsed.
Arrows of light poured onto Caesar.
But the light scattered before his black robes.
Holy shockwaves exploded.
But the impact lost all meaning before it could reach him.
A summoned angel rushed in with its sword raised.
Without even looking, Caesar reached out his hand.
The angel's form folded in mid-air.
Like paper burning in a fire, the body of light crumbled and vanished.
One priest-warrior tried to flee.
He turned and ran toward the forest.
But in the next instant, the space beneath his feet folded.
He was dragged back in front of Caesar.
Before he could even scream, Ashkal passed through him.
Gazef’s soldiers could not move.
The Sunlight Scripture, which had been overwhelming them just moments ago, was now falling without being able to do a single thing.
This was not a battle.
It was a disposal.
Gazef Stronoff gripped his sword and stared at Caesar.
There was no relief on his face, nor was there gratitude.
There was only the silence of a human who had witnessed something incomprehensible.
Nigun Grid Luin backed away.
This is impossible.
That was the only thought repeating in his head.
This was the Sunlight Scripture.
The elite of the Slane Theocracy.
A combat unit that upheld the will of the gods.
They should have been able to kill a mere Warrior Captain of the Kingdom.
They should have been able to erase a single village.
They should have been able to deliver divine judgment upon the humans of this world.
But the being before his eyes was different.
This was not the one doing the judging.
He was judgment itself.
Nigun raised his holy symbol with trembling hands.
But it was not directed toward the Six Great Gods he served.
It was directed toward the transcendent being before him.
He opened his mouth without realizing it.
“O God—”
The words were not finished.
Caesar didn't even listen.
Because it was the prayer of a human not worth recording in the narrative.
Ashkal swung once.
Nigun’s defensive barrier and holy magic circle were severed simultaneously.
The holy symbol was split.
The robes were torn.
His body collapsed.
Silence descended upon the field.
All forty-five members of the Sunlight Scripture were annihilated.
Caesar lowered his sword.
The spatial rifts remaining on Ashkal’s blade slowly closed.
He looked down at the corpses of the Sunlight Scripture before turning his gaze toward Gazef.
Gazef instinctively straightened his posture.
This being had saved him.
But he was far too cold to be called a savior.
Caesar spoke.
“I shall delete your memories from causality.”
Gazef’s eyes widened.
“What…?”
“However, your martial feats shall be eternalized in the narrative of Alexandria.”
Gazef Stronoff did not understand the meaning of those words.
But his instincts knew.
Those words were not a salvation.
It was a recording.
And at the same time, a deprivation.
The battlefield he had experienced.
The transcendent being he had seen.
The fear he had felt.
The reason he had survived.
It was a declaration that all of it would be taken from him.
Before Gazef could even open his mouth, Caesar snapped his fingers.
Snap.
A short sound echoed.
In that instant, a black circular magic circle spread beneath the feet of Gazef Stronoff and the surviving warrior band.
“Warrior Captain!”
One Kingdom soldier gripped his sword in alarm.
It was already too late.
Space folded.
Gazef and the warrior band vanished from the spot.
---
The next moment.
They appeared on the road on the outskirts of E-Rantel, as if tumbling out of thin air.
Soldiers fell to their knees from dizziness.
Some vomited, and some could not even comprehend where they were.
Gazef slowly pulled himself up.
He had been heading toward Carne Village.
He had been rushing to stop the raid by the Slane Theocracy.
But now he was on the outskirts of E-Rantel.
Why?
Gazef looked down at his armor.
There were traces of battle.
There was blood on his sword.
Some of his subordinates were missing.
And yet, his memory was severed.
Where he had fought.
Who he had fought.
Why he had survived.
He couldn't remember.
He had been saved.
But he could not know what had saved him.
That fact made Gazef’s skin crawl.
He looked up at the sky.
It was clear.
There was nothing there.
And yet, an unknown sense of pressure remained deep in his chest.
As if something larger than the sun had been looking down on him just moments ago.
“Warrior Captain…?”
A soldier called out in a trembling voice.
Gazef tried to answer.
But the words wouldn't come.
He didn't even know what he had lost.
---
Meanwhile.
Only Caesar remained in the fields on the outskirts of Carne Village.
The corpses of the Sunlight Scripture lay scattered.
The burning remnants of mana had vanished, leaving only the smell of blood and dust.
Caesar looked in the direction of E-Rantel.
The black magic circle remaining where Gazef and the warrior band had vanished slowly flickered out.
He muttered quietly.
“Is this the level of this other world?”
In the sky behind him, the fortress of the Thousand Kingdom shone in silence.
In Alexandria, Sector 10, the recording had already begun.
Gazef Stronoff.
Battle of Carne Village.
Annihilation of the Sunlight Scripture of the Slane Theocracy.
Memory erasure of observers complete.
Ea preserved the incident within the internal recording system of the Thousand Kingdom.
And then, the predictions began.
Probability of the Slane Theocracy issuing an emergency alert.
70.09%.
From the Throne of Heaven, Caesar looked at that number.
After a moment, he spoke.
“Raise it to 100.”
Ea replied.
“Command accepted.”
---
At the same time.
Deep within the temple of the Slane Theocracy.
A high priest monitoring surveillance magic gasped for breath.
The lights of the Sunlight Scripture had all gone out.
Forty-five holy symbols had fallen silent simultaneously.
“……Annihilated?”
Someone whispered in a trembling voice.
No one in the room could answer.
Then, a low voice echoed from the shadows.
“It is not a Great Sinner.”
The high priests turned their heads in unison.
Rufus.
The guardian of the Slane Theocracy stood in the darkness.
He looked at the afterimage of the surveillance magic and spoke quietly.
“Something far more dangerous has arrived.”
Comments (0)
Please log in to leave a comment. Login or Register