Chapter 284: Balzac Ludbeth (4)

Whenever the Death Knight tried to swing his sword, it felt like something kept getting tangled up in his movements. As a result, he wasn’t able to wield his sword the way he wanted to.

It was as if this kid, Vermouth’s descendant, was reading his mind and preemptively blocking the trajectory of his sword.

‘He must be good at prediction,’

the Death Knight guessed.

‘Just how… far ahead is he looking?’

This couldn’t be just an innate sense he had been born with. Instead, Eugene’s prediction was based on experience that had been accumulated and tested over time.

𝘧𝘳𝘦ℯ𝓌𝘦𝒷𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝓁.𝒸𝘰𝓂

The Death Knight had never expected that, in this era of peace, there would be someone as adept at fighting as he himself was. He had heard from his Master that barely any wars had been fought during these past three hundred years.

‘This isn’t good,’

the Death Knight assessed soberly.

It wouldn’t matter if the only opponent he had to deal with was just Eugene Lionheart, but there were still the three Tower Masters of Aroth standing behind him. The Saint of this current era, who so closely resembled Anise, wasn’t an existence that could be ignored either.

The Death Knight carefully considered his options,

‘If I use Ignition… will I be able to kill them all?’

His corpse, which had been made into a Death Knight, no longer possessed a beating heart. However, there was still a Core in his chest. Although this Core was composed of dark power instead of mana, it was still possible to amplify his own strength by deliberately overclocking his Core.

If he used Ignition, he would be able to generate so much dark power that even an undead body like his wouldn’t be able to withstand it. So he would still have to deal with the recoil. However, it wouldn’t just be the kind of recoil that would leave him unable to move his body after using Ignition like it had been while he was alive, nor would it reduce his lifespan. Instead, the more dark power he explosively generated, the more this undead body of his would deteriorate.

“Tch,” the Death Knight clicked his tongue and furrowed his brow.

The sword he was using to combat Tempest’s windstorm was crumbling right before him. The Death Knight threw away the sword that was no longer usable and covered his hands with dark power. He then condensed this dark power between his palms to create a black ball of explosive force.

Boooom!

The explosion managed to briefly blow away the windstorm. In that short opening, the Death Knight’s right hand had been covered by his sword-force.

Unlike Eugene, the Death Knight didn’t have any friends to guard his back. Things were different from his previous life. He didn’t have any comrades who could fight at his side, shield him from the front, support him from behind, or take care of his wounds.

Yet he didn’t feel disappointed by this realization. On the contrary, this undead body of his, which had been revived after already dying once, was capable of performing much bolder feats than what he could have dared to attempt while he was still alive.

The Death Knight first protected his whole body with a shield of dark power, then plunged straight through the slash now flying at him. He might have been able to block the windstorm with the previous explosion, but that hadn’t done anything to block Eugene’s sword. Purple flames danced along with the movement of Eugene’s hands, tracing the trajectory of his slash in a fiery blaze.

Rooooar!

The armor of dark power covering the Death Knight was shredded by the flames. A line was also drawn across its undead body.

At that moment, the Death Knight’s hand disappeared as a blade of dark power struck Eugene from outside his field of view.

Eugene wasn’t surprised by this. Attacking from outside the opponent’s field of view while sticking close to the body was a tricky technique that Eugene had made good use of during his previous life.

So Wynnyd easily blocked the blade that was flying out of his blind spot. At the same time, his other hand reached out in a different direction.

“Tsk,” the Death Knight clicked his tongue in disappointment as he stepped backward.

Eugene’s other hand had caught the dagger that the Death Knight had thrown when he thought that Eugene was distracted. The target of the dagger had been Kristina. The Death Knight had wanted to take the chance to kill the owner of that disgusting appearance.

“This bastard, you really are seeing right through me,” the Death Knight complained.

Since his attacks kept getting blocked before they could reach their target, the Death Knight couldn’t help but feel annoyed. Was it because his body was still a bit stiff? After all, he had just opened his eyes after three hundred years of lying dead, and it had been a long time since he had experienced a battle of this level. The difference in the quality of their weapons couldn’t be denied either.

‘If he wasn’t a Lionheart, I might have even praised him with a pat on the head,’

the Death Knight thought regretfully.

To be honest, this fight left him with very complicated feelings.

The Death Knight had left no heirs during his lifetime. He had never taught anyone how to use the sword. Even though he had died before he could pass them down personally, after three hundred years had passed, he had still managed to meet a successor to his techniques.

The problem was that his successor… was Vermouth’s descendant, and the things that had been passed down to this kid were the skills that Vermouth had stolen without his permission.

Because of how Vermouth had betrayed his trust when he was alive, this whole situation caused the Death Knight to feel even more furious and enraged. These emotions led his steps, which had been drifting backward, to advance once more.

The Death Knight felt regret that he had only brought one blade to this battle. If this were the battlefield, he would have been able to find usable weapons from his surroundings, but all that was present here were dirt, gravel, and trees.

The fortunate thing was that this body, which had been revived as an undead, was extremely tough. The Death Knight spread both his hands in a loose stance and lowered his body.

There was no sound from the Death Knight’s feet when he started charging forward. His fully lowered stance seemed to slide across the ground effortlessly. Then his loosely spread hands swung forward like whips.

Eugene hadn’t moved a step. He was standing in the same spot as before, with Wynnyd being the only thing showing slight movement as it rose in defense.

The Death Knight didn’t choose to clash with Eugene directly. The moment he reached the defense Eugene had erected with Wynnyd, the Death Knight twisted his body to the side. His swinging hands avoided the blade and struck at Eugene’s neck.

Even now, Eugene still didn’t move. Instead, the ground that the Death Knight was stepping on began to churn.

In mere moments, the distance between them abruptly expanded. Yet instead of pulling back his swinging arms, the Death Knight spun his entire body around. During this spin, his nails, which had been lengthened with dark power, swiped at Eugene.

In response to this attack, Eugene finally took a step forward, even though the distance between them wasn’t all that large in the first place. Yet this current arm’s length between them wasn’t a gap that either Eugene or the Death Knight were uncomfortable with fighting in.

Cyan watched the battle between Eugene and the Death Knight with an expression of undisguisable astonishment.

Both kept firing off attacks without showing any signs of retreating. Without being able to touch each other, the two of them launched continuous waves of assaults. There was no way to tell just how many moves either of them were predicting in advance. The moment that one of them was forced to be distracted by an attack coming at them would be when the other seized the flow of battle. Both Eugene and the Death Knight kept pressing forth with their attacks to seize an advantageous flow in their battle.

Before too long, the gap between them began to emerge.

Eugene’s sword was lighter than the Death Knight’s fists. As a result, he was ever so slightly faster than the Death Knight.

So, at some point, the flow of the battle began leaning towards Eugene.

There was no way that the Death Knight wouldn’t be able to sense this happening, but his head was throbbing in frustration. The battle techniques he

recalled

weren’t working as well as he expected.

‘It feels like my body isn’t moving as well as it should,’

the Death Knight thought in distress.

But that had to be an illusion. His body, which had been raised as an undead, was actually moving better than it had when he was alive. After all, that body had been damaged by the frequent battles and extreme overuse of Ignition to the point of self-abuse.

His body may have once disintegrated, but it had been restored out of nothing through the authority of the Demon King of Incarceration. Although it had been perfectly restored in its final damaged state, Amelia Merwin had remodeled the broken body to have higher specifications than Hamel had once had in his prime.

‘...My head…,’

the Death Knight thought with a wince.

Could it be because of an incompatibility between his body and soul? No, that couldn’t be it. Edmond himself had lent his own expertise to fine-tuning the Death Knight. While his existence as a whole might not be natural, that didn’t mean that the rate of compatibility between the body and the soul was low.

But if they fought in the

exact same way

, there was no way that the Death Knight, who was relying on memories from three hundred years ago, could win against Eugene.

After all, Eugene was all too aware of how the Death Knight would move and how he would launch his attacks. Yet, at the same time, Eugene no longer thought and fought the same way he had three hundred years ago.

It had been twenty-one years since he had been reincarnated as Eugene Lionheart. He had first set his sights on reaching the heights of his previous life, which had seemed far into the distance at that time. Now, those heights were no longer so high nor so distant. So the movements of the Death Knight couldn’t escape Eugene’s eyes.

It was only the Death Knight himself who refused to admit to this fact.

His head kept throbbing in pain as he tried to think of a way to win, but the memories being drawn from his body were already flowing into its head all too perfectly. There was no way to improve his absorption of Hamel’s skills. Rather than that, the memories associated with those skills were practically forcing themselves onto him.

So there was no shortage of techniques at his disposal. As for his former strength and speed from when he was alive? That was just a matter of replacing his usage of mana with dark power.

In the end, this still meant that he was lacking something decisive needed to win this battle, and whenever it came down to situations like this, “Hamel” would always….

The Death Knight’s right hand, which had just been blown back from a parried strike, twisted back downwards. The bent fingers of the Death Knight’s hand headed straight for his chest.

He had to use Ignition. If he was the slightest bit careless, his undead body would break down, but things such as the recoil seemed insignificant for the Death Knight at this moment.

The Death Knight was filled with hatred for the Lionheart name. Eugene’s fiery mane reminded him strongly of Vermouth, and he also claimed to be Sienna’s successor. Then there was the Saint who looked exactly like Anise. The Death Knight didn’t want to admit to their strength. Instead, he wanted to squash them in a head-on conflict. Only by killing all of them would he be able to resolve this suffocating and terrible hatred in his heart.

His dead fingers dug into his unbeating chest. The Death Knight’s own rage was injected into the dark power of the Core that lay there.

Eugene naturally recognized what this gesture signified. He just never thought that the Death Knight would still be able to use Ignition with its undead body. If Eugene had his way, he wanted to defeat the Death Knight while using the same technique of Ignition. But it seemed like there wasn’t any need for that.

Fwooosh!

Purple flames began to gather behind Eugene’s back.

Cracracrack!

Then came the sound of something shattering. Kristina, who was standing behind Eugene, covered her mouth with one hand, but she couldn’t seal it off completely, and blood soon flowed out from between her fingers.

Melkith turned to look at Kristina in alarm. Lovellian immediately made a gesture with his hands and started casting a spell. Balzac also flattened his body and placed one palm on the ground.

But it was useless. They couldn’t do anything to stop the intrusion of Edmond, who was drawing on the mana from the Earth Veins, Vladimir, and even the dark power granted to him by the Demon King. Through sheer force, Edmond broke through the barrier of divine power that had been erected around this location, and he also immediately tore through the barrier spell that Lovellian had just cast.

‘Balzac Ludbeth,’

Edmond thought with a twitch of his brow.

To think that his fellow Black Mage would actually interfere in his plans like this. Balzac’s clever penetration of his own defenses was more irritating than the solid barrier of divine power he had just destroyed.

However, it seemed that he wasn’t too late.

“...What is this?” the Death Knight spat out as it suddenly fell from mid-air.

Tearing his eyes away from his hand that had been set on fire by his own enflamed dark power, the Death Knight looked around at his new surroundings.

Whether it was the descendants of Vermouth, the Saintess who so resembled Anise or the Archwizards who followed Sienna’s tradition, none of them could be seen. He had been on the battlefield just moments ago — but in an instant, he had returned to the capital of the Kochilla Tribe.

“That wasn’t something you could overcome with force,” Edmond lectured.

When Eugene had just been about to cast his Signature and the Death Knight was on the verge of activating Ignition, Edmond had used the summoning spell he had obtained from Amelia to pull the Death Knight back here.

“But doesn't that just give you a little more motivation to grow stronger?” Edmond said as he turned to face the Death Knight, his furrowed brow relaxing.

He had been surprised to see a Saint whose magic was lethal to the undead. There had also been Three Tower Masters from Aroth.

Then there was Eugene Lionheart. He had known that Eugene was strong, but… to think that it was to such an extent. Edmond clicked his tongue and shook his head.

Claaaang!

The attack that came flying at him was blocked by Edmond’s defensive spells. As he gazed through the hazy barrier, Edmond narrowed his eyes.

“Motivation?” the Death Knight growled, his expression twisted into a demonic grimace. As his body shook with rage, the Death Knight spat out, “So what? Are you saying you sent me there to motivate me?”

“It wasn’t just that,” Edmond replied. “If at all possible, I hoped that you would be able to kill everyone there. But, regretfully, it seems that was impossible.”

“Impossible? Don’t spout such bullshit. If you hadn’t summoned me, I would have been able to kill them all!” the Death Knight insisted.

“Would that really have been the case?” Edmond questioned in a calm voice.

The Death Knight immediately opened its mouth to give a response, but, unsure of what to say, he remained silent. Instead, the Death Knight eventually restrained his current surge of rage and closed his mouth.

“...I can’t say that for sure,” the Death Knight admitted once he had finished calming his raging emotions.

When it came to combat, the Death Knight knew that one needed to be rational. He shouldn’t allow his emotions to take precedence. Even though this was already something that he should know all too well… this time, he hadn’t been able to put it into practice.

After considering the matter, he felt that it couldn’t be helped. Eugene Lionheart was Vermouth’s descendant, a successor to Hamel and Sienna’s legacy, and the Hero.

While chewing on that list of eye-catching titles running through his mind, the Death Knight shook his head.

“If I had kept on fighting, I might have been able to kill a few of them. However, killing them all would have been impossible,” the Death Knight conceded.

“That wasn’t a situation wherein I felt I could afford to lose you.” Edmond continued speaking, “After all, you don’t want to be defeated without getting your revenge on all those who wronged you, do you? It’s just that the battlefield this time wasn’t advantageous for you. Now, your motivation has been strengthened, and I’ve also confirmed who our opponents are…. Next time, I will also be able to provide you with my assistance.”

The Death Knight just listened silently.

“How do you feel now?” Edmond asked.

The Death Knight was no longer planning to attack Edmond. He stood there, completely still, while reliving the battle that had just taken place.

“Is the current me truly in the right condition?” the Death Knight asked. “I know that my body is healthier than it was before. Probably… if it’s with my current undead body, I’d likely be able to keep up in a slugfest with that fool, Molon. However, I still couldn’t manage to gain the slightest advantage over that brat.”

“Hm….” Instead of replying immediately, Edmond was lost in thought for a few moments.

He knew the reason why the Death Knight felt that way.

The Death Knight firmly believed that he was Hamel. He didn’t have the slightest hesitation or doubt about calling himself Hamel. However, even with that, this didn’t mean that the Death Knight was the

true

Stupid Hamel.

He was just a doppelganger who was perfectly mimicking Hamel after being implanted with Hamel’s memories from when he was alive.

Amelia Merwin believed that once the doppelganger could fully adjust to these memories, it would be able to recreate everything about Hamel, including his personality. To do so, the doppelganger needed to go beyond simply relying on those memories and instead needed to digest them. Amelia predicted that only then would an independent sense of self be born, and a new soul would come to dwell within the Death Knight’s body.

Amelia had loaned the Death Knight to Edmond, partly because she expected a favor in return later… but also because she hoped that experiencing the battlefield might allow the Death Knight to go beyond being a simple mass of memories and sublimate a true self.

‘But such a possibility… while there might still be some hope for it, it doesn’t seem too likely. I’m skeptical as to whether it can truly go beyond the limited nature of its existence,’

Edmond thought doubtfully.

Unlike Amelia, Edmond didn’t really trust such uncertain possibilities. The only thing Edmond believed in was the things he had perfectly designed. From that perspective, the Death Knight had plenty of room for growth.

However, truthfully speaking, Edmond was skeptical about whether a doppelganger, who was just a mass of copied memories, could truly be reborn as a higher class of being like Amelia hoped it would.

Of course, it was impossible for him to confess such thoughts to the Death Knight. Once Edmond had finished his contemplations, he spoke up.

“It seems that you are being overly influenced by your memories from your past life.” He decided to give the Death Knight a bit of encouragement while keeping his words moderate, “It’s something that cannot be helped. You were once a human and died as one three hundred years ago. Now you have returned to life, but you were not resurrected as a human being.”

The Death Knight silently processed this.

Edmond reassured him, “Since you have been dead for hundreds of years, your soul and memories may be incomplete. However, there’s no need to be too concerned about it. To my best knowledge, Amelia Merwin, the one who resurrected you, stands at the peak of all necromancers. She is also an existence incomparable to the necromancers you may have encountered three hundred years ago.”

“Your words leave me with a complicated feeling,” the Death Knight complained.

Edmond laughed, “Haha…. Your instinctive disgust towards black magic may also be contributing to your current discomfort. You asked if you were in the right condition. Well, if I had to be honest, you’re not.”

The Death Knight glared at Edmond without responding to his revelation.

Without averting his gaze, Edmond smiled and continued, “You could describe it as a characteristic that all ancient undead experience. They are repulsed by their current form of existence and become obsessed with the memories left from their former lives…. Ah, but that said, that doesn’t mean you need to give up on all of your past attachments. Because for the undead, their obsessions can be said to be the foundation of their very existence.”

The more Edmond talked, the calmer the Death Knight’s expression grew.

“However, you should focus on the motions instead of your memories,” Edmond advised. “Instead of relying on the countless battles you went through during your life, you might find the answer to your current distress by coming up with new ideas.”

“Hmm,” the Death Knight slowly nodded his head. “That’s certainly true. Perhaps it’s because I’ve been revived after dying once that my head doesn’t seem to be working too well. Now that I think about it… I… I was fighting the way that I always did during my previous life. My past experiences… take over… whenever it comes to fighting for my life. However, the battles I face now are different. I can’t allow myself to be swayed by my memories.”

It seemed that the Death Knight’s pounding head was gradually clearing up.

“I should have been thinking… about how I should fight… instead of letting habit take over. The fact that none of my tricks worked on Eugene Lionheart… means that he must know me all too well. So my defeat is because I couldn’t go beyond his expectations…,” the Death Knight continued to mutter as he turned around.

In the end, wouldn’t that also just be acting according to the habits from his past? That was what Edmond thought as he looked at the Death Knight’s receding back.

But it was clear that his conflict with Eugene Lionheart, who was much stronger than either of them had suspected, had managed to motivate the Death Knight. Although the Death Knight couldn’t gain the upper hand on Eugene in this battle… if the Death Knight had been able to use Ignition like he had said, the results might have been different.

‘However, this still isn’t a good turn of events,’

Edmond thought as his expression reverted back into a frown.

He had been planning to finish his preparations at a leisurely pace, but he could never have imagined that the Lionhearts and the Tower Masters of Aroth would actually arrive to interfere with his plans. Though the truth was, more than anything else, it was Balzac Ludbeth’s presence that caused Edmond the most aggravation.

‘What does he want? Could it be… he plans on stealing control of my ritual?’

There was also one other thing,

‘They also had Raizakia’s

hatchling

with them. …Did she manage to escape when the Dragon Demon Castle fell? Was Eugene Lionheart involved in that fall?’

Edmond kept thinking about what the hatchling’s presence could mean. He knew that the Rainforest retained a connection to the dimensional rift Raizakia was trapped in.

…The Wise Sienna must truly be secreted away in the elven territory hidden somewhere within the Rainforest. Eugene bringing the hatchling here must have something to do with that.

The fact that the Wise Sienna hadn’t been seen in over two hundred years meant that she had to be in a state where she had no choice but to stay unseen. Edmond had dared to use the Rainforest as the stage for his ritual because he was confident that Sienna had been sealed away. While he had failed to find the World Tree himself, he was hopeful that once the ritual was successfully completed, he would be able to devour both the World Tree and Sienna’s power for himself.

That was why he had wanted to make as complete preparations for the ritual as he could, but… having confirmed the presence of the hatchling, Eugene, and Balzac, Edmond could no longer afford to be so relaxed.

Edmond was afraid of two possibilities. One was that he would lose control of the ritual to Balzac. The other was for the Wise Sienna to be resurrected before he was finished.

Whichever way things went, Edmond would only end up with the worst possible outcomes.

“It seems that I can’t afford to relax,” Edmond breathed out with a groan.