Book 6: Chapter The Eighth Week of Annihilating an Undying Lich: “Notorious”
While I flew in the direction of Charlotte, I gathered dark element. When I flew to a spot about ten meters away from her, I waved my hand and shot out the dark element in the form of blades.
Charlotte had seen me already. After I started my attack, her lips even turned upwards in a wisp of a smile. It was not until the dark blades flew in front of her that she unhurriedly raised her hand. A semi-translucent black shroud suddenly appeared. The dark blades struck the shroud, producing a tremendous noise.
However, other than the frightening noise, the dark blades didn’t cause any other harm. Even that black shroud was intact without a scratch on it. Unexpectedly, this shroud and the Shield of Earth were quite different, yet produced the same effect. It was just that the Shield of Earth used holy light, while this shield used dark element.
“The other candidate? You finally came out!” Charlotte said calmly, despite the danger present. “I’ve already made so much noise and you guys still didn’t want to come out. I even thought that the other two candidates were simply scaredy-cats!”
…This goddamn woman!
“A crazy hag is a crazy hag; you’ve caused this large an uproar. Are you afraid people don’t know you’re crazy?” I deliberately lowered my voice when I replied, and took the opportunity while talking to sense the situation at the scene, especially Stephen’s whereabouts. He’s actually not by Charlotte’s side?
First, I saw the Twelve Holy Knights over at the plaza. Even though they weren’t far from Charlotte, they were merely sitting or standing and not taking any action against her.
They were approximately split into two groups of people; one group was vigilant and holding their weapons while the rest had their eyes closed and were recuperating. The people resting were more or less the holy knights with extremely low holy element. For example, there was Earth, whose holy element was practically entirely depleted, but it was thanks to him that no one received serious injuries.
Let me say this first, don’t lift your heads together to look at me. I am Sun, the black-haired one.
Everyone was startled. Some people’s eyes grew wide, others almost jumped up, but because their responses were different, and they didn’t turn to look at me together, it didn’t look abrupt at all. It shouldn’t have attracted Charlotte’s attention.
I want to use the identity of a demon king candidate to finish Charlotte off. You guys can use saving the Sun Knight as a reason to help me! Oh right, I told Judgment to walk over by himself. Just now he received fairly severe injuries, so letting him take a walk to rest is good.
When I finished speaking, everyone showed different expressions. Some ducked their heads to laugh secretly, some seemed to laugh yet not laugh, and Earth and Metal even rolled their eyes at me.
Agitated and furious, Charlotte yelled, “Your hair is dishevelled, your clothes are even tattered and torn! You seem more like a lunatic!”
Other than shouting, she also released a large amount of dark element to attack, but the attack she released was completely shot down by an arrow from below. Distracted, she looked down and growled, “What are you guys doing? This is a battle between candidates. This has nothing to do with you guys!”
Below, Leaf’s expression was very serious, and he had his bow raised, but there were no actual arrows nocked on the bow. Instead, there was holy element in the shape of an arrow.
I don’t know how many people have gone wild with joy as if they won whenever Leaf used up his arrows… I’m not saying won the fight, I’m saying “won the escape” from the Leaf Knight, but in the next second, their bottoms would always be pierced with numerous holy light arrows.
Although using holy light to attack things outside of undead creatures isn’t very effective, compressing it into the shape of an arrow was enough to puncture a normal person’s bottom.
After Leaf becomes a genuinely scary person, focusing only on aiming and shooting, he is basically not too willing to open his mouth to talk, so it was left to Stone and Storm to jump out. The two of them chimed in unison.
Stone first growled, “You’ve actually dared to abduct Knight-Captain Sun, wreak havoc on Leaf Bud City, and summon undead creatures of the darkness. Don’t tell me you still hope that the Church of the God of Light will treat you with compassion?”
“Although love is very mighty, it’s a pity that forced love is not mighty at all! Our Knight-Captain Sun does not have the least bit of interest in you.” Storm lazily said, “You not only abducted him once before, but now you want to forcefully take him away again. How can we let you become the Demon King? Don’t you think so?”
“You guys should recognize your own circumstances! It’s only because of the Sun Knight that I haven’t killed you yet.” Charlotte yelled angrily, “Also, every demon king candidate is good at using the dark element; he would definitely summon undead creatures too! You idiots!”
Stone and Storm glanced at each other. Stone said rather helplessly, “She’s not wrong in saying that.”
Metal shrieked loudly, “At least surely he would not be interested in Knight-Captain Sun!”
“That’s actually true. At least we can save our Knight-Captain Sun.” Storm lifted up his head and spoke to me, “How about we make a deal? If you swear not to summon undead creatures, do your best to not wreck Leaf Bud City, and most importantly not to abduct the Sun Knight, then the Twelve Holy Knights will support you in becoming the Demon King, how about it?”
Who would want to abduct his own self? But then, it was just like Storm, who is good at diplomacy, to say things that are half true yet half false, and even going as far as to know to collaborate with me in front of everyone in order to dispel the others’ suspicions.
Although it seemed like only Charlotte, the Twelve Holy Knights, and I were currently present at the plaza, that wasn’t so. Hiding not far away and secretly watching were a lot of people, and the fellows from the Cathedral of the Shadow God were especially numerous, giving off a really unpleasant feeling!
“Deal!” I loudly agreed.
“Wait a minute!”
Who knew where Stephen popped out from, but he even vociferously reprimanded everyone. “You shameless holy knights are thinking of besieging a weak lady?”
Weak lady… I said incredulously, “If I haven’t remembered wrongly, she just blew up a plaza. If she is a weak lady, then don’t tell me that those holy knights below are five year old babies?” When I finished speaking, I counted that I received ten annoyed looks.
“No one should interfere in a battle between demon king candidates!” Stephen agitatedly and furiously roared, “Even a lich wouldn’t interfere when the candidates begin their confrontation! Didn’t your lich tell you?”
When he finished speaking, he was silent for a while before asking, “Where is your lich?”
“Discarded,” I replied lightly.
“Discarded?” Stephen was astonished.
At this moment, Charlotte interrupted to ask, “Stephen, where is the Sun Knight?”
“You’re still thinking about the Sun Knight? I can’t find him!” Stephen turned his head back and shouted, “Who asked you to believe his words? You thought he would truly come over obediently to let you carry him away?”
However, Charlotte used an even louder yell to reply, “He’s the Sun Knight. It’s impossible for him to trick people!”
I really did come. It’s you, yourself, that hasn’t recognized me. You can’t blame me for this.
Stephen’s face was an expression of helplessness. If the two of us weren’t in a state of hostility, I would really want to go up to pat his back and say some words of comfort.
“Leave the Twelve Holy Knights to me. Focus on fighting with him. After you finish fighting, you can then search for the Sun Knight again. The holy element on his body is so strong it won’t be too hard to locate him. Remember! After you win the fight, you can lock your sweetheart in an ancient castle to love for a lifetime. However, if you lose the fight, you won’t even have a life… Ah!”
Midway through speaking, Stephen suddenly let out a roar of pain, a sound unlike that of a living person. There were five holy light arrows piercing his body—on the vital points of his head, neck, heart, liver, and lower body respectively. If he had originally been a living person, he would now already be so dead that he could not die again.
Stephen lifted his head, half of his face covered with blood and brains. Luckily, I was unable to see colors. If not, then the entirely red and white, yet still moving, head would be really quite disgusting. His eyes grew so wide that they almost split open, and he growled, “You despicable holy knights, actually ambushing me…”
While he was still talking, Leaf fired a volley of arrows that hid the sky and covered the ground. Faced with the holy light arrows that were specially used to deal with undead creatures, Stephen had to dodge. Even if liches weren’t afraid of dying, to receive those arrows head on, I’m afraid that that body of his would definitely be scrapped.
“Knight-Captain Leaf has had his bow raised for over five minutes,” Metal mocked loudly. “How can that be considered an ambush?”
A human shadow actually leapt up from below into the sky, sending a powerful kick towards Stephen’s back and causing him to momentarily plummet down like a shooting star.
The human shadow that had leapt up was Storm. The Storm Knight’s weapon is a set of leg armor, as his main fighting style also used his legs. Although being kicked once sounds a lot less menacing than being slashed with a blade, the legs of a Storm Knight are legs that can break a normal person in half!
Even though Stephen was not a normal person, from the sound he had made, he had probably not received it too well.
Storm couldn’t actually fly, so he began to drop. While he dropped, he also accelerated due to gravity and stepped on Stephen’s back, causing the sound of Stephen’s landing to be almost no different from an explosion. A large section of the plaza even sunk in.
Although in theory the Twelve Holy Knights should act just and honorably, the Storm Knight is the spokesperson for freedom. Doing some ambushing is also one of his displays of freedom. So it didn’t actually matter, but if the others did it, it might…
Everyone, no matter whether it was the Storm Knight, or the supposedly honest and sincere Earth Knight, or even the compassionate Leaf Knight, they all charged up to uncaringly stomp on Stephen, and even cursed as they trampled him.
“Like we’d let you capture Sun! Just try to grab him again!”
“You caused so much trouble and hardship for us, making us evacuate the people!”
“The normal workload is already more than enough. Don’t increase my blood pressure too!”
Even though I understood everyone’s grudges very clearly, they shouldn’t actually stomp so hard! There is a crowd of people watching secretly to the side. Everyone must take into consideration their image! Earth, even if you trample on people, can you not show such a malevolent expression? Leaf, you’re a person who is compassionate both outwardly and inwardly, but now your manner of pummelling him with the bow makes me feel like hereafter it is better not to carelessly bully you…
Finally, it took Stephen flying up into the sky in one breath before he could evade the group of knights’ trampling attacks. Even though he looked battered and exhausted, he didn’t seem to have received any serious injuries. Everyone had surrounded him to beat him up again and again, but they hadn’t actually used their weapons to attack. No matter what, the Twelve Holy Knights were not the sinister ones…
“Ah!”
Suddenly, a sword pierced through Stephen’s chest, and it wasn’t a normal sword, but the Divine Sun Sword! The distinctive shriek of an undead creature penetrated the skies. Despite that his left hand would be wounded, he resolutely pulled the Divine Sun Sword out. However, a large portion of his chest was already eroded, and the remnants of the holy light still continued to corrode his body.
It’s truly a pity. If I were holding the sword, I could have completely destroyed his body!
Everyone looked towards the direction from which the Divine Sun Sword had been launched from. Knight-Captain Judgment stood at the edge of the plaza, his right hand wielding the Divine Judgment Sword, his left hand conversely raised up in the air, looking like he had just used it.
There was no doubt about it. The person who had ambushed Stephen was him. Now that was a proper sneak attack!
In any case, the Judgment Knight has criminal charges from wilfully slaughtering the innocent to cutting in line when buying desserts. He is absolutely notorious. That’s why no matter what bad thing he does it is not strange at all!
Everyone really is… I couldn’t control my laughter. I laughed louder and louder, becoming happier and happier. “Hahaha!”
“Stephen!”
Charlotte flew to Stephen’s side, stretched out her hand and gathered a large ball of dark element which she poured into Stephen’s body. The latter’s wounds were immediately enveloped in dark element, which stopped the corrosion.
Charlotte turned her head, the dark element in both her eyes burning like flames. She shouted irately, “You actually dared to do this to Stephen, while all along he was restraining me from killing all of you, stopping me from utterly turning this place into a dead city! And this is how you repay him?”
Stephen struggled for a few moments, and then shouted, “Charlotte, your dark element is entangling me. Hurry up and release me. Let me deal with the Twelve Holy Knights…”
But Charlotte yelled at him, “Follow behind me to control the death knights. You don’t have to bother about anything else!”
Then, she turned to glare at me, saying, “Let’s battle then! Even though I don’t wish to become the Demon King at all, you don’t wish to either, right? Too bad we both have a reason in which we must become the Demon King at all costs.”
I asked, puzzled, “You like the Sun Knight, right? Why not consider having a normal relationship with him? It’s not guaranteed that he would reject you. But you are choosing take him away by force. Doing so would only earn you his hatred.”
“I know.” Charlotte laughed as she spoke, “Do you believe that the Sun Knight can be together with a demon king candidate? Even if he doesn’t currently know my identity, later on the other two candidates will eventually find me, and even kill me!”
Her smile was not cute, but it gave me a sad yet beautiful feeling. What a laugh, I shouldn’t be able to differentiate between beauty and ugliness at all.
“I’ve finished speaking. What’s your reason?”
I was silent for a while, then said, “I…”
Charlotte suddenly appeared in front of my eyes. Teleportation, damn it!
“I don’t care about your reason.”
She smiled as she threw a punch. Of course, the fist of a priestess isn’t very menacing, but the massive dark blade gathered on her fist was very deadly. I took a step back and at the same time used Shrouds of Darkness to block her. However, the shrouds I used were chopped into pieces by a single strike. I could only produce more Shrouds of Darkness to defend against her attack.
As Charlotte attacked, she laughed, “You aren’t skilled at using dark spells, are you? Although I don’t know why, you’re dead for sure!”
Following the utterance of the three words “dead for sure,” about thirty dark blades exploded out. All I could do was spread out ten or more shrouds of darkness to block them, but they were all destroyed along with many of the dark blades. Even though my Shrouds of Darkness had been completely exhausted, there were still about ten dark blades left.
I tried my hardest to dodge those dark blades, but because of that I couldn’t attend to Charlotte’s sudden attack, so the front of my chest was still slashed by a dark blade in her hand. Although I instantly retaliated, the shrouds of darkness surrounding her were much stronger, and only after blocking all of my attacks did they shatter into pieces.
Suddenly, she withdrew. After raising a shroud of darkness, she frowned as she looked down at the dark blade in her hand. The edge of the dark blade was no longer smooth, but had been corroded and was jagged.
Even though my body was currently filled with dark element, due to the many years my blood had been immersed in holy element, its ability to counter the dark element had apparently not changed. I hoped she wouldn’t become suspicious.
I sneaked a glance at the situation below, having some misgivings about why no one had helped me out. Even though no one can fly, at least Leaf could have shot some arrows to help me, right?
With this glance, I realized that below was practically a chaotic battle. It seemed that everyone was battling one person against three death knights. Even though the strengths of those death knights were not on par the strength of the Twelve Holy Knights, those death knights weren’t afraid of getting injured at all. Even if their hands or legs were snapped off, they would be able to continue fighting. They could only be disposed of by chopping off their head or being wounded so badly they couldn’t move, so this made it quite strenuous for everyone to deal with them.
“How can there be so many?” I cried out in alarm.
With some pride, Charlotte said, “I improved on the ceremony for the summoning of death knights. As long as it is a complete corpse, it can become a death knight. In these five years, I have created enough for an army! Although their strength is very far from that of a genuine death knight, the large number of them is quite troublesome too, right?”
An army? Can you please clarify on that? The size of an army can be huge or tiny! If the army is on the scale of a kingdom’s, then you might as well directly conquer the world. Why do you even need to vie for the demon king position?
“Also, don’t expect that those clerics out there will come to help. Earlier on, Stephen sent a group of death knights over. Just now that teenage pope has already run over to help!”
So that was the case. No wonder I hadn’t seen the Pope for a while. It turned out he had gone to save the clerics under him.
“The dark element in your body has suddenly increased. Are you finally getting serious?”
I looked at her, and coldly said, “Withdraw those death knights, and I’ll stop collaborating with the Twelve Holy Knights. Let only the two of us fight!”
Charlotte asked curiously, “You’re worried for the Twelve Holy Knights? Why?”
“Are you going to withdraw them or not?” I asked impatiently.
She snorted as she replied, “You think I’ll believe your words? If you want me to withdraw those death knights, then defeat me!”
“…Alright!”
I gathered a large amount of dark element. The element spread across the skies, gradually covering the whole sky.
“You’re serious now?” Charlotte’s voice was filled with excitement, “Now we’re talking!”
She flew back some distance, apparently wanting to leave the range of the gathered dark element, but I continued expanding the dark element. Although this would greatly increase the strain on my body, this was the only way I could beat her—using my sensing ability.
In this kind of concentrated dark element, visibility will become poor. Even though she should be able to use the sensing ability too, to instantly use it as a substitute for vision is unlikely to be a simple matter.
However, I am an eye-opened blind person. If I don’t want to be unable to see, I can only frantically use my sensing ability. In a single day, I have to use my sensing ability for at least ten or more hours. Unless the other candidates are also blind, then there is definitely no one whose sensing ability is stronger than mine!
Charlotte shouted angrily, “Stop fooling around! Do you believe that this will render me unable to attack you? The dark element in our bodies is so concentrated, it simply cannot be hidden!
“Stop playing tricks with me!” She roared and released a large attack at the same time.
As I avoided the attacks, I slowly expelled the dark element in my body and continued to dye the sky black. The Divine Sun Sword was not far below me, and borrowing its strength, it wasn’t too hard to expel most of the dark element from my body. Along with the decrease of dark element in my body, Charlotte’s attacks also decreased in accuracy.
At this moment, I whispered, “Dragon’s Saint Brigandine, in the name of the descendants of Dragons, I command thee, activate!”
Upon finishing the recitation, my body was wrapped up tightly in a leotard.
My lord, your servant is not good for aerial battles, and suggests you descend to the ground to carry out the battle.
“Shut up, I want to ask you a few things.”
Yes.
Charlotte’s attack completely lost its accuracy, and only then was I able to focus on various arrangements. However, I hadn’t carried it out for long when suddenly a dark blade shot directly towards me. I was startled, and since my body didn’t have much dark element to use Shrouds of Darkness, I could only hastily dodge this dark blade.
At that moment, Charlotte suddenly appeared in front of my eyes.
I clearly sensed she was still far away… She also expelled the dark element in her body? And actually sneakily made a substitute to muddle my sensing ability.
“I’ve caught you.” Charlotte showed a sweet smile, and laughed, “You know how to deceive me. Did you think I wouldn’t know how to do it too? This trick is no use against me… Ahhh!”
Our surroundings lit up with countless sparks. Lightning shot out in all directions, attacking Charlotte and I without distinction.