They advanced toward the temple. The farther they went, the larger the temple loomed before them. But when the warriors’ ranks had reached roughly the midpoint between the wall and the temple, a sudden roar erupted. It was a tremendous explosion, as though a mountain had collapsed all at once.
Rumble, rumble, rumble.
The warriors’ heads snapped back as if they had been struck across the cheek. The roar had come from directly behind them. As they turned, their eyes widened sharply.
“What is this?”
“Huh!”
Incredibly, the wall was collapsing. It happened immediately after the warriors had entered.
Of course, it was a wall that had been battered by long years of weathering, old enough to crumble at any moment. But for it to collapse now, by such coincidence, just as they had stepped inside…
As the warriors watched, the wall came down in a chain reaction, as feebly as a row of dominoes. At the same time, an enormous cloud of dust billowed up. In an instant, the place where the wall had stood was swallowed by dust, making it impossible to make anything out.
As Sergey watched the scene, an ominous thought flashed through his mind.
For the wall to collapse the moment they passed through, as if it had been waiting… There might be an ambush. He hurriedly halted the warriors’ advance.
“Stop. Stand here for now and assess how the situation develops.”
The warriors decided to remain where they were and wait until the cloud of dust enveloping the wall settled. In terms of tactics, it seemed best to confirm their retreat route before taking action. But the situation did not unfold so easily. Cries of bewilderment burst from the mouths of the knights who were watching the rear closely.
“Wh-what is that…”
“By the gods…”
No matter how thick the dirt and dust, it was not as if they could see absolutely nothing within the cloud. All the more so for Sword Masters, who possessed exceptional eyesight. Yet something utterly incomprehensible was taking place before their eyes. The collapsed wall—in other words, the stones that had made up the wall—were rising as though they were living creatures.
Rumble, rumble.
The stones that rose from within the dust tangled together and soon began to take on definite forms. They became the shapes of countless stone giants. Cold sweat trickled down the faces of the watching knights.
“G-golems?”
“Damn it. Stone Golems.”
The stones that had formed the wall had, before they knew it, transformed into an uncountable number of Stone Golems and were rising to their feet.
Stone Golems. Monsters born by using a kind of magic stone to breathe life into rock. Since their entire bodies were made of stone, their defensive power defied imagination, and their strength was immense as well. Moreover, because they were not living creatures, even if their arms or legs were cut off, they regenerated quickly. And until the magic stone within their bodies was destroyed, they would never fall, making them extremely troublesome monsters to deal with.
Of course, creating Stone Golems required advanced magical ability. Thus, ordinary mages could not even dream of making them. And now, such Stone Golems were blocking the warriors’ retreat route without a single gap. At a glance, there were easily more than a hundred of them. Sergey, watching them, bit down hard on his lip.
“So it was them after all.”
Magical ability capable of creating this many Stone Golems was impossible for a human mage. Only one being, a progenitor of magic, could produce a scene like this.
As he watched, the completed golem corps lined up in a row and began walking toward them.
Thud, thud, thud.
Their movements were very slow, but the sight of them approaching while shaking the very earth was more than enough to chill the warriors’ hearts.
Stone Golems were among the monsters that were extremely difficult to face, even if the opponent was a Sword Master. Of course, a Sword Master’s Aura Blade could cut through a Stone Golem’s body well enough. But a Stone Golem stubbornly refused to die until the magic stone inside its body was destroyed.
Since destroying the magic stone hidden deep within its thick body was an exceedingly difficult task in itself, a sickened look spread across the warriors’ faces. Even though they had gone through every hardship imaginable, none of them had ever faced so many Stone Golems before.
“There is no choice. Everyone, charge toward the temple at full speed. Stone Golems are slow, so they will never be able to catch us.”
At Sergey’s command, the warriors hurriedly turned around. They thought that using the narrow entrance of the temple as a shield while fighting would still be an effective countermeasure. But the moment they turned, every one of them froze where they stood. The path to the temple had already been sealed off without a single gap.
As if by a lie. The warriors, eyes bulging as though they might tear, shook their heads in disbelief.
“This makes no sense!”
“Could this be a dream?”
Before the frozen warriors, a scene unfolded that was impossible to believe.
Grrrrr.
The first thing that caught their eyes was a massive army of mid-sized monsters. Ogres and trolls, numbering over three hundred at a glance, were glaring at them while clutching weapons tightly in their hands. Between them, wyverns with folded wings crouched, rolling bloodshot eyes.
The gaps between the sparsely standing mid-sized monsters were filled by orcs. At a glance, they were clearly elite orc infantrymen, carefully selected from among the best.
Faced with this unexpected situation, the warriors froze completely. Things that had not existed moments ago had revealed themselves in the brief moment they had turned their heads… They even wondered if these were illusions, just like those in the barrier zone. While the warriors stood stiff, the Stone Golems blocking their retreat slowly tightened the encirclement. The warriors remained motionless, staring blankly at the orc army.
From among them, Sergey stepped forward. His gaze was fixed on one place.
Alien beings standing among the orcs. Beings in human form. Of course, they were certainly not human. A look of dismay appeared on Sergey’s face.
“Five in total. There is no hope.”
His gaze turned toward the red-haired young man standing at the center of the orc army. Judging by his blazing red hair, that man was most likely the Red Dragon Verkis. As far as Sergey knew, among the dragons participating in the war against humanity, Verkis was the only Red Dragon.
Verkis. As the dragon who participated most actively in the war against humans, he could be said to have inflicted the greatest damage upon mankind thus far. Among Ancient-class dragons, he ranked second only to the Dragon Lord Kranus, and in terms of magical ability alone, he was a magic fanatic whose power was said to surpass even Kranus.
His love for magic was so intense that he filled all the guardians protecting his lair with liches. Of course, only after taking measures through brainwashing magic to make them obey him with blind loyalty.
Gedenhide, who had previously invaded Feldrian, had also been one of Verkis’s guardians. Thirty years ago, Verkis had brainwashed the captured Gedenhide and made him his guardian. Naturally, it had also been Verkis who turned him into a lich. For there had been no other way to make a short-lived human protect his lair for a long time except to turn him into a lich.
Usually, dragons used mid-sized monsters such as Stone Golems or ogres as guardians. In that sense, Verkis could be called an abnormal dragon, different from other dragons.
Verkis, who had been looking over the assembled warriors with his distinctive burning gaze, took a step forward. One expression passed over his snow-white face. It was the expression of a sneer. He soon looked across the faces of the warriors and opened his mouth.
“Welcome, actors who have faithfully performed according to the script.”
A dark look passed over the warriors’ faces. They had repeated to themselves over and over that they wished it were only an illusion—no, that they would ask for nothing more if it were a dream. But that hope had been shattered completely.
Thud, thud, thud.
Even in the midst of that, the Stone Golems were slowly approaching. It had to be said that the probability of the warriors achieving victory against this many enemies was almost nonexistent. Looking at them, there was not a single one that was not powerful. If they had at least been at their original strength, they might have been able to put up a proper resistance, but in their current battered state, even breaking through the encirclement looked difficult. Sergey, who had been maintaining a silent calm, stepped forward.
“Was what happened inside the barrier zone your doing?”
A faint smile appeared on Verkis’s face. It was an expression of great satisfaction.
“Of course. There was originally a barrier there that the god had laid down. The original barrier was quite different from what you experienced. It merely instilled extreme fear, making one unable to even think of approaching. But I used magic to alter the nature of the barrier a little. Instead of fear, I made it so that extreme hatred toward the other party would boil up.”
On Verkis’s face, pride was plainly visible—the pride of having transformed a barrier established by a god into something entirely different. At those words, Sergey was able to understand one thing: why his subordinate knights had launched a reckless attack despite being outnumbered. In a way, it was a situation that could have made his rage rise to the point of losing reason, but Sergey remained cold.
“There is one thing I would like to ask.”
“Say what it is.”
“How exactly did you discover our plan?”
Sergey’s voice came out as though squeezed from him. Verkis said neither yes nor no; he merely smiled. Sergey, glaring at him, clenched his teeth.
“Did you use a spy? How on earth…”
This operation had truly been carried out under the utmost secrecy. Even the guards selected as Porters had only been informed that very morning.
Of course, there was not the slightest reason to doubt the mages and knights. They had been chosen only after their status and abilities were thoroughly investigated and found to have no abnormalities. And yet, the enemy had grasped their movements so completely… Verkis, who had remained silent, quietly raised his hand.
“If you want to know that badly, I shall tell you.”
Verkis’s finger pointed at someone. At once, the warriors’ gazes converged on that person. The eyes of the one indicated widened sharply. It seemed he had never dreamed Verkis would point to him.
“I-it wasn’t me.”
The one backing away with his face turned deathly blue was none other than Benitez. Benitez, Icarot’s court mage, Sergey’s trusted subordinate, and the man who had also participated in the operation to bring Damon. Naturally, the warriors looking at him were also deeply bewildered. As far as they knew, Benitez was absolutely not that kind of person. Even Sergey shook his head, as if unable to believe it.
“That cannot be. Why would Benitez…”
“Of course, he did not know either. That I could know his every movement, every action—even his thoughts.”
“L-lies.”
Benitez, who had been listening, covered his ears and shook his head violently. It was a fact he did not want to believe, one that even he himself had not known. But Verkis’s cold, stern words continued.
“He has already entered into a Familiar contract with me. Since I erased his memories immediately after the contract was made, he will never remember that time.”
Benitez’s face had gone beyond blue and turned as white as a sheet. Without even knowing it, he had entered into a Familiar contract with a dragon, and all this time he had been informing the dragons of every detail of the warriors’ circumstances… It was truly enough to make a ghost weep. The present situation could not possibly feel real. But as Sergey looked at Benitez, he nodded, as if something had come to mind.
“Now the situation from that time becomes clear.”
Long ago, when the Kingdom of Kanduras had fallen, Sergey had once dispatched Benitez to the battlefield. Benitez was a War Mage with extensive combat experience, and there had been no one more suitable to uncover the reason the Kingdom of Kanduras had been destroyed. At the time, Benitez had departed for the Kingdom of Kanduras with a dozen or so subordinates. And not long afterward, he returned alone.
“I apologize. We fell into an ambush, and I lost all my men. However, I was able to confirm that dragons were deeply involved in the fall of the Kingdom of Kanduras.”
From that day onward, Benitez had strangely come to detest being dispatched to the battlefield. It was behavior entirely unlike a War Mage hardened by years on the battlefield. At the time, his actions had seemed somewhat suspicious, but Sergey had not paid much attention to it. Benitez, with his brilliant mind, was useful enough in matters other than war.
Because of that, Benitez was able to become a court mage, and he had also participated without fail in the operation to invite an absolute being from another world. But to think all of that had been arranged by the dragons…
Benitez, who had been anxiously glancing around in every direction, suddenly met Sergey’s gaze. Sergey nodded, showing that he understood everything.
“Do not worry. If it was the dragon’s doing, then there was nothing you could have done…”
At those words, a look of intense emotion rose in Benitez’s eyes. Seeing that Sergey believed him, he thought that his superior was indeed someone he could trust and rely upon.