The black aura blade cut through the air in a cross-shaped trajectory, advancing with a ferocious momentum that seemed to tear through the temporary fort’s walls in an instant.
Bang!
But Raul wasn’t one to just watch and let it happen. In a flash, Raul, with his golden aura blade ignited, effortlessly deflected the Skeleton General’s aura blade.
“Oh, a mere human child blocked my sword?”
It seemed that an undead of master level had at least some form of ego. The Skeleton General spoke with a curious glint in its eyes as it looked at Raul.
“There’s no reason why I couldn’t. You’re just a corpse being manipulated by a necromancer because you couldn’t properly die. If I were you, I’d be too ashamed and would drive a sword through my own skull and self-destruct.”
“You speak beyond your capacity, mortal who knows nothing of death. If you wish, I can give you a firsthand experience.”
Whether provoked by Raul’s taunt, the Skeleton General charged at him, eyes burning with black flames.
Crash! Boom!
The golden aura blade and the black aura blade collided, wreaking havoc all around them. And the aftermath was.
Crunch. Thud!
The undead legion following the Skeleton General into the fort was swept away, disrupting their formation.
‘Foolish.’
Though Raul had intended this, the Skeleton General’s greatsword was slicing through the surrounding undead without hesitation.
Among them were high-tier undead like Expert-level Death Knights and Dullahans, but they were all equal before the master’s aura blade.
“How about putting in a bit more effort? At this rate, I’d die of old age first.”
Raul continued to taunt the Skeleton General.
“Grrr, you wretch.”
The general’s aura blade extended to nearly two meters. But Raul’s expression became even more relaxed.
‘Weaker than I thought. For all that talk, it’s not very smart.’
Additionally, it seemed the necromancer’s control wasn’t very effective either.
Smash! Boom!
Thus, the general was helping Raul reduce their numbers as it blindly slashed through the undead legion.
‘Master-level in name only. Its sword skill isn’t even up to high-level Expert standards. That means….’
It wasn’t a proper master-level undead. Raul surmised that the necromancer had placed a low-tier spirit into the corpse of a master.
To think they could stop Raul with such a half-hearted undead was laughable. But Raul didn’t immediately deal with the General.
There was no need to eliminate something that was enthusiastically assisting him in reducing enemy numbers, nor did it pose much of a threat.
As proof.
Swish! Thud, clang!
The legion of weapons hovering above the fort continued to actively deal with the enemies. The monsters and undead aiming for the fort had to first face Raul’s weapon legion before anything else.
Even if they got past that, the special exploration squad was waiting on top of the fort.
‘Let’s buy some more time, shall we?’
Raul seemed to still have plenty of leisure.
***
“Hehe. The vaunted might of the undead legion leaves much to be desired.”
The mage Fry, shaking his wrinkled chin, sneered at McClanahan.
“This isn’t the time to be laughing.”
McClanahan felt more frustrated by the turn of events than offended.
‘Raul, was it? Just who is this guy?’
He had belatedly received information about Raul from headquarters. Raul was the youngest brother of Lawrence de Ashton, the leader of the special exploration squad.
The assumed rank was high-level Expert, using a peculiar technique of controlling weapons without touching them. And he was only 16 years old.
‘Is that even possible? Handling aura at that age, even if he had been training since he was in the womb?’
Even with the help of the barrier, this was beyond reason. Moreover, the issue wasn’t his swordsmanship but that bizarre technique.
In magic, there is a ‘psychokinesis’ branch that moves objects with magical power. But that typically involves moving one or two objects, not imbuing them with energy.
Knights had a somewhat similar technique called 『Ghost Sword』. It moved swords with mana and will instead of hands. And it required a skill level between upper high-level and peak-level sword mastery.
‘But even that only involves handling a couple of weapons….’
A legion of thousands of autonomous weapons was another thing entirely. Even if each movement lacked autonomy, the overall power couldn’t be dismissed.
‘I thought the elite undead would disrupt his control, but that doesn’t seem to be happening much either.’
While the elite undead legion was not being swept away like the basic undead, they weren’t easily breaking through the defensive line either.
He wasn’t happy with the Skeleton General slashing friendlies, but letting it be was the lesser evil at the moment. Without it, there’d be no means to tie down that Raul bastard.
‘In the end, must I rely on this one?’
Though a simpleton who didn’t realize to whom they owed the maintenance of the current situation, the mage’s skills weren’t bad. With the undead legion and himself holding down Raul, handling him with magic seemed possible.
“How long do you plan to just watch? If things go awry, can you handle His Majesty’s wrath?”
“Hehe. It was just amusing, so I watched for a bit. I was planning to settle it soon anyway.”
Fry pulled out a staff from his robe, and as he stirred mana, a massive magic circle formed underneath him, making his robe flutter. Though it seemed like he had done nothing so far, he had been setting up a high-level spell.
“Don’t complain if some of your henchmen get swept up. Rough winds swirling through the sky….”
As Fry began his incantation, the magic circle’s light intensified, and unsettling winds swirled above his head.
“…obliterate all! Mega Blade of Wind Storm!”
Rumble.
An ominous tremor shook the sky above the temporary fort, followed by the sound of a sharp wind, creating a massive tornado.
Whirl.
Razor-sharp, translucent wind blades spun fiercely within the vortex, tearing through the air.
“Go! Shred them all!”
With bloodshot eyes, Fry commanded, and the whirling wind blades began descending.
“Everyone, get low!”
“Ah, we’re gonna get sucked in!”
The squad members on the fort wall hurriedly clung to cracks and attachments in the stone wall. The intense whirlwind had already lifted their bodies halfway into the air.
“Moo!”
“Gao!”
Some Devil Cows and Corrupted Buffalos beneath the fort were sucked into the sky by the wind.
Crunch!
The monsters dragged into the tornado’s center were torn apart by the wind blades, turning into blackish blood sprays. Even the master-level superhumans fighting outside the fort had to anchor their weapons into the ground to resist the wind.
Meanwhile, Raul’s legion of weapons hovered out of the fort, moving to the temple’s outer perimeter, while Raul himself stood dangerously right beneath the spell’s focal point.
Fry had cast the 7th-circle ultimate area spell ‘Mega Blade of Wind Storm’.
It was so powerful that even a master wearing power armor couldn’t survive if caught unprepared. Raul seemed too late to escape the spell’s range.
“Yes! Be the prey of those raging winds! Hahaha!”
Assured of Raul’s demise, Fry laughed maniacally with bloodshot eyes.
‘Pity, but I suppose it’s a bargain at this price.’
Despite losing some cherished elite undead, Fry was untroubled, considering it a fair sacrifice if Raul was annihilated. However, McClanahan’s expression remained unexpectedly calm.
As the operation leader, he believed losing undead was an acceptable cost if they could break the barrier stone. Moreover, he didn’t intend to simply sacrifice the Skeleton General.
Clatter.
A huge mass of bones surged from the ground, forming a bone tomb over the Skeleton General. But at that very moment. Fry and McClanahan’s eyes widened in shock as they looked at the tornado.
“No, what is that?”
An emerald-colored shield had suddenly enveloped the fort’s sky, blocking the tornado. Not only that, but it also ascended, colliding directly with the descending whirlwind.
Crack, boom!
***
‘What a stroke of luck!’
Raul looked at the tornado above him and smirked. He roughly understood what the enemy mage was trying to achieve with such a wide-area spell.
‘They’re trying to trap me with the undead so I can’t dodge, huh?’
But that was a foolish choice. The enemy might not know, but psychokinetics are inherently opposed to wide-area spells related to physical laws.
By observing the physical phenomenon, they could negate it by applying an opposing force. In fact, the undead around Raul were being sucked into the tornado, but Raul himself was barely affected.
He was just putting on a show. Moreover, he was subtly using his psychokinesis to project forces on the surrounding monsters.
Thunk.
“Gwaaak!”
Thud.
“Moooomoo!”
With just a light touch of psychokinesis to the monsters clinging to the ground with their hands, feet, or weapons, they lost their balance and were swept into the sky.
‘This is fun. Getting a lot of experience points too.’
He was gathering a lot of experience with minimal effort. Killing allies within the same faction usually yielded little to no experience points. Therefore, Raul was the one receiving the experience points, not Fry.
Despite that, he couldn’t let it continue indefinitely. No matter how much Raul held up the exploration squad with his psychokinesis, there could be danger if the tornado got too close.
“Rabel, I need your help.”
“Leave it to me. What bad luck for them—wind magic of all things, heh.”
Rabel, flipping open her skill book and adjusting her glasses, responded. Rabel, the forest fairy who loved harmony and order.
She was proficient in various elemental magics, with a particular strength in wind-related spells. Her magic had an emerald tint due to her affinity with both forest and wind mana.
“Absolute Elemental Shield! Hold firm!”
A translucent emerald shield formed over the fort.
“Rise and quell the wind!”
The shield soared and collided with the tornado.
Crack, boom!
The clash produced tremendous noise. The tornado ground against the shield, trying to drill through, but the shield pushed skyward.
What looked like a simple power struggle was, in reality, a bit more complex. The center of the Elemental Shield was spinning counter to the tornado’s rotation.
If it was a clash of spear against shield, but make it spear against spear…
“W-What is this!”
Fry exclaimed in disbelief. The tornado collided with the Elemental Shield, rapidly losing strength and dissipating as if time was reversing it, finally turning into a gentle breeze.
And as if on cue, Raul’s weapon legion swept across the battlefield once more. The monsters lifted by the wind. The undead that had anchored their weapons to the ground to maintain balance.
The magic soldiers and Imperial knights distracted by the majesty of the 7th-circle spell. The weapon legion exploited this opening to cut them down, and they fell like puppets with their strings cut.
Whirr, swoosh!
Then, the climactic moment arrived. Golden aura surged from Raul, as the surrounding mana was drawn toward him.
(To be continued)