Side Story Chapter 136
“What do we do now?” Lilith shouted while running as fast as she could. A swarm of countless monsters was chasing after her.
-You’re the one who came up with this, so even if you ask me...
“Why are you so uncooperative? This is to protect your dear home and family,” Lilith grumbled.
-I told you to go back to Hubalt.
“What’s done is done. Are you sure there’s no way?
Joshua was silent until Lilith managed to get close enough to see the east gates of Arcadia.
“Oh, no. There are so many undead! There must be over fifty thousand at least!”
-Two—no, around five demons of the highest rank are in there. With them, it wouldn’t be too farfetched to mobilize tens of thousands of undead.
“What does it mean to be the highest rank?” Lilith asked.
-They are those demons who stand among the top hundred strongest in the Demon Realm. Every single one of them is strong enough to be a Demon King.
“You sound awfully relaxed for such a heavy topic. Is there any chance they’ll take control of these monsters?”
-They would have already taken them when they climbed down the mountain if that were possible. Undead and monsters are different. Corpses are dead and have no mind of their own, but monsters have souls. Well, the key here is instigating a fight between the two...
“Do you think I can do it? Help me out here!” Lilith yelled.
-Run.
“What?”
-Just run; that’s all you have to do to make them fight. As long as those monsters are attracted to the residue of Lust, they’ll follow you to their deaths, destroying everything in their path.
“S-So I have to break through those undead?”
-I told you this before. You voluntarily chose to tread down this rocky path.
Lilith bit her lip. “You jerk.”
-I heard that so many times that I don’t really feel anything anymore.
“You’ll be punished even after death! I’m sure of it!”
-Let’s try it first. That said, I’m not sure my feeble power will be of much help.
Even while they bandied words, Lilith kept running and had made her way right in front of undead. Most of them were utterly repulsive—just looking at them made Lilith want to retch. And no doubt demons, the race of battle, were amidst those undead.
“It’s all or nothing!”
Lilith shoved off the ground with such force that her mana-infused legs left cracks on the ground. The undead’s heads jerked up, but she was already out of their reach.
Lilith marched forward using the skeletons’ heads as stepping stones. Each undead unfortunate enough to be stepped on by Lilith had no head left after the experience, but none of them screamed because they were undead who had already died.
The monsters arrived a little later and slammed into the undead in a flurry of claws and teeth. A black ogre swung its bat, tossing dozens of skeletons away, and a troll’s kicks pulverized the brittle bones.
Lilith glanced back and cheered. “It worked! It worked!”
-We’re just getting started. Keep in mind that the problem isn’t the skeletons.
Right on cue, three headless knights stood in Lilith’s way—dullahans, high-class undead. Lilith bit her lip but drew her sword for the first time and immediately attacked.
“Urgh...!” Lilith’s eyes grew wide like a surprised rabbit. She’d even used mana, hoping to slay the dullahans with one strike, but they were so sturdy that their armor was merely scratched a bit.
“I-I know they’re physically strong, but this is...”
-It’s the demons.
“What about them?”
-Undead become stronger depending on who they serve. Death knights and dullahans were knights before their deaths, and pure, thick demonic power helps them use their full power.
Kireua’s jaw dropped before Arie finished. “Is it...?”
-Yes, the only other person to possess multiple Evil Sins' powers is your father, Joshua Sanders. Hah. I received a lot of Joshua’s love, hence the thick scent of him on me. Maybe it recognizes its original owner, so the fire is refusing to hurt me.
The Emperor of Avalon had single-handedly annihilated the Demon Spirit when no one in the Demon Realm could have done it. Just like the Emperor of Avalon, Kireua had three Evil Sins' powers, but he didn’t think for a second that he was at the same level as his father. No, Kireua was no better than the dirt under the Emperor’s toenails. Anyone who thought otherwise was mad.
-How funny. You have both Joshua’s blood and his power... Gosh, I can feel my blood boiling.
Arie moaned once again.
“...Do you have blood?” Kireua gingerly asked.
-Oh, yeah. I don’t even have a tongue anymore.
“You‘re an irredeemable pervert.”
Kireua adjusted his grip on his sword. Perhaps this was the time to test his sword skills alone.
Arie seemed to notice what Kireua was thinking.
-Mmm... It would be a pity to stab you and end the fight like this.
“What?”
-The older you get, the wiser you become, and the broader your view gets. You clearly look like your sword skills aren’t anything exceptional.
Arie’s comment struck a nerve. Kireua gritted his teeth.
“It’s not over until it’s over.”
-No, my desire to fight’s already fizzled out.
Arie actually turned his back on Kireua.
-I’ll wait around a decade. I can’t die anyway, so whats ten years?
“Are you insulting me?” Kireua asked with a frown.
-Hahaha! Keep in mind that I also gave your father time to get stronger.
“E-Even His Majesty?”
-Of course it was less than half the time I gave you, but that madman skewered me through the heart with that red spear of his after less than five years from our first encounter. Hehehe.
Kireua’s face crumpled up. He was not ready to back down just because Arie refused to fight him.
-You should thank me, really. Your next and last opponent won’t be as easy as me.
Kireua tilted his head curiously.
Aisha let out a quiet sigh and stepped forward. “Kireua, accept his proposal. It’s an act of goodwill.”
“Teacher?” Kireua questioned. He didn’t understand her reasoning.
“Now you need to fight a lich king. He’s the de-facto leader of the other five liches.”
A lich king was an immortal undead as well as a weapon of mass destruction who wielded the supreme power of Eighth Circle magic. With nearly an infinite amount of mana and stamina, a lich king was practically a one-man army.
“Most of the people whom you’ve met have a favorable opinion of you, but it’s going to be different from now on,” Aisha warned Kireua.
“How so?”
Crevasse unlocked the lich king’s shackles. Immediately, the entire chamber shook, and a white lich wearing a crown approached with five other liches trailing behind.
Kireua reflexively swallowed. Even from a distance, Kireua could feel that the lich king was a formidable individual.
The lich’s identity, however, was even more weighty.
“That lich king’s name is Evergrant con Aswald,” Aisha explained.
“Evergrant... con Aswald!”
Aisha nodded. “You’ve already heard of him, haven’t you? Yes, he was the Imperial Chief Mage of the Avalon Empire and one of Joshua’s worst enemies.”