Approaching the undead encirclement, Lawrence released a horizontal slash of “Tendan” that first shattered the light barrier that René had put up, then cut through René, the girls that René had prepared as her backups, and then the undead soldiers behind them.
The remains of the undead and the girls fell in a radiant pattern.
“… What? The strange response just now…”
Lawrence cut the air with his Terra Ayur a few times, questioningly.
“Ah, ahhh…”
Several knights collapsed, looking dejected.
They were the fathers of the murdered girls.
“Pray to the Lord in Heaven. Your children are a precious sacrifice for your country…”
“Do not be distracted! This is not over!!”
The knights around tried to comfort them, but then Lawrence gave them a quick rebuke, and the crumbling “Turtle Formation” regrouped.
“Where is she…?”
One of the holy magicians belonging to the knights looked around with his staff at the ready.
The “Tendan” should have destroyed René’s body, but the main spiritual body didn’t pop out.
And the undead who were out of range of the “Tendan” were still intact.
There was the sound of wind breaking.
“Huh!?”
Sensing René approaching at high-speed using «Fly», Lawrence turned around and released “Tendan” to shoot her down.
René suspended the ≪Fly≫ and used ≪Short Teleport≫ to shift directly below, and before inertia died, she used ≪Fly≫ again.
Closing the distance at once, René slashed at Lawrence with the momentum of her flight.
Terra Ayur and the cursed red blade created red sparks.
“That body…!”
“Oh my, when did I ever tell you that the replacement bodies were all prepared over here?”
René was wearing a crude, folksy apron and one-piece dress. She still had a fresh blood rose painted on her skirt, but she was dressed differently than she had been earlier.
This was the body of a girl who had been procured in Wesala and transported here as a military supply.
This was just an insurance policy in case no one was available in the capital, and there were plenty of relying persons around, but since the evacuation of the citizens had not yet been completed, she was making it useful.
“Do you know the maximum speed at which a soul can fly? Did you think that by destroying all the bodies in the … vicinity, there would be no place for me to escape to and I would show an opening?”
Having said that, “the maximum speed at which a soul can fly” was not a well-known knowledge even among magicians.
Spiritual undead were often bound by some kind of code of conduct or unexamined objective. René, who could fly around at full speed and in excellent condition, was a heresy.
When she took over Gillian, she deliberately tried to fly slowly, but her original spirit flight could travel a thousand miles in a single night.
It meant that she could escape at super-high speed without relying on magic … i.e., with the «Countermagic Field» deployed.
It would be nearly impossible to prevent René’s escape without creating a magically isolated space or dimensional fault line.
A “one-man” tactic through Hit & Away and infinite continuations.
The First Knights and Lawrence, who had already been worn out, were forced to spend a reasonable amount of resources each time they defeated René. It was enough to win the game by cutting down the “Turtle Formation” one by one in exchange for a single body, or by continuing to inflict wounds on Lawrence and exhausting the healer’s magical power.
And René’s further objective was to break the hearts of the knights in this desperate situation.
“In other words. It means that it is impossible for you to defeat me in the first place. A noble sacrifice? No, right? You only stopped my attack for a few dozen seconds. You could’ve saved them… Unnecessary deaths. It was a waste of time. It was a waste of life. Terrible!”
René’s words shattered something in the tension between them.
“Oooohhhh! Aaaaahhhh!”
A crazy, absurd cry of frenzy went up.
One of the knights, throwing down his shield, jumped out of the formation and slashed at Lawrence.
“What!”
“Ohhhhhh! Aaahhh…!!”
The man had lost his daughter to Lawrence’s blow earlier.
When he learned that his daughter had died in vain, the last lifeline that held his reason together, the cause of “for the country” and “for victory”, was cut off.
The knight just slammed his sword down with force. Lawrence was fighting it off with Terra Ayur, but as soon as Renéshowed signs of rushing toward him with sword at the ready, he cut the knight down with a single stroke.
“Kuh… you!”
The knight’s blood was spilled, and Lawrence turned to René.
“Are you mad at me there? You did everything.”
René said in an offended tone.
Well, it would be a lie to say that Lawrence was not induced to get his hands dirty, but as far as René was concerned, it could have gone either way. The decision was solely Lawrence’s.
“… Oh my.”
René turned around to look.
Or rather, she kept her sword ready to face Lawrence, but only turned her head backward.
“While you guys were playing, the second group arrived.”
“What?”
The undead stirred again.
The army made way for them. Through them, emerging from the rear, as before, were skeletons carrying crying, frightened girls.
Counting the number of girls they were able to capture, they dared to divide them into several groups and put them in small groups.
It was René’s plan to repeat the same situation.
To create the illusion that if they were killed, there would be another, and another, and another, and so on, they would have to do the same thing over and over again forever.
“Now then, starting with the friend farthest over here, say your name and your father’s name in order!”
There was a crunching sound.
One of the knights folded on his knees.
Feelings that began to crumble propagate.
The hearts of the knights were shattered.
Some threw down their weapons and ran away. One tried to charge through the middle of a dozen undead soldiers and was skewered from all sides.
Some chanted prayers and then stabbed themselves in the throat with their swords.
Some just wept silently, others just looked at René and her comrades in dismay.
Despairing that there was no possibility of victory.
Despair at the death of their own children.
Despair at their own mortality.
Despair, despair, despair, despair, despair, despair, despair, despair…
“…You’ve got a match. Now.”
Under René’s order.
The army of undead, which had been observing the event, all at once prepared their weapons and began to rush forward.
“Wha… Damn…! Hold back! Hold your shields up! Use your magic to create a barrage!”
Lawrence’s proclamation was in vain.
The “Turtle Formation” was no longer of any use if half of it was broken.
The magic exploded and blew away the undead that were rushing toward them. Swords and spears with the «Consecration» penetrated the undead.
However, their resistance was crushed by the overwhelming violence of numbers.
Not even “Tendan” could shake off this horde. If he swung horizontally, he would hit his allies as well.
They slashed and thrust, but they could only kill 10 or 20 of them, and the pace at which the undead overran them was much faster.
The “Turtle Formation” was engulfed by a swarm of corpses.
Screams echoed intermittently from within the mass, which had become like a rugby scrum. Even the undead were being crushed by their comrades and breaking one after another, but of course the undead were not afraid of such a situation.
Lawrence was unharmed in the melee.
It was not that the undead soldiers were avoiding Lawrence, but that Lawrence was cutting down all the undead that were attacking him.
In this respect, after all, Lawrence was also a supernaturally strong man. It would be impossible to defeat Lawrence by relying on numbers.
But now that he had lost the support of the knights, Lawrence was as good as stripped completely bare.
In the encirclement of the undead, which had become smaller than before, René and Lawrence faced each other.
“Hmph, hmph, ahaha! Kya-ha-ha-ha! Finally … Oh, at last you despair! What a vile tasting despair! It’s like fried and candied pork fat!”
“Ah, ah…!”
The emotion that filled Lawrence’s heart was despair bordering on anger.
The object of that anger probably included not only René but also his fellow comrades.
If everyone had been as cool-headed as Lawrence as swords for the country, there would not have been such a cruel defeat.
But each of the knights took up the sword for a different reason. They were all knights gathered to protect the country. But why they wanted to protect their country was even slightly different for each of them. It was just that those differences ballooned.
“If only you weren’t here…, if only you weren’t here, ahhhhh!”
Lawrence, with his Terra Ayur at the ready, rushed toward René.
But.
A shadow jumped out of the encirclement and intersected Lawrence at almost a right angle.
“…I’m going to cut down something that’s not worth it…Gozal.”
A ghoul in a kimono sheathed his katana.
Both of Lawrence’s arms were cut off at the elbow, and they were flying in the air.
With the support fire of holy magic gone, there was nothing to stop the undead.
“What…”
“Goud jobu~, swordsmanship instructor”
René placed her head on her neck and quickly gestured with her free left hand.
The sword flew through the air due to «Telekinesis» exercised without chanting, and it was pulled and settled in René’s left hand.
“Yes, it’s a good magic sword. It’s too good for a treacherous Knight Commander. This sword belongs to the royal family. That means it belongs to me now.”
Looking sullenly at the magic sword Terra Ayur, René nodded.
The azure-silver blade glowed with its own light. The cursed blood was sticky on it, but it peeled off when René gave the blade a quick brush.
Lawrence lost his sword and both arms.
The undead soldiers gradually crept up on him.
“If it were true, I would like to cut you with my own hands. But, you know, that would be kind of cool, wouldn’t it? And to use a magic sword, which is a national treasure, would be very, very, very bad.”
Lawrence backed away.
The undead followed him and closed in even more.
“Let the ghouls slay you, let the skeletons taunt you, let the zombies eat your flesh and die. That’s enough for you. … I suffered for a month before I died. I will make you suffer for at least that long. Well, how about “Promethean Punishment”? After you die, I will burn your bones in an unholy fire and spread them in a field of poisonous plants for fertilizer. I want to make an insecticide. Zombies attract flies.”
“Insecticide …? What!?”
“I won’t say it again. Do it…”
Skeletons and zombies all jumped on Lawrence at once.
Even those with weapons dropped them and used their bare hands.
The zombies, in particular, had their only remaining instinct … “appetite” unchecked, and bared their fangs.
“Ah, what! What are you doing, stop! You monster! I will bring you to justice! … Federation devil! Ciel-Terra is immortal! Curse you! You will perish! I am …aaaaaaaah!!”
Kicking at the swarming undead, striking them with only his two limbs, Lawrence flailed like a fish washed up on land.
However, it did not last ten seconds, and he was buried among the corpses.
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