Chapter 134: Holy Knight Antoine (1)
-kieieieieieieie!
-Stop it…!
A fierce battle raged before the moon shard.
Freemen archers fired their bows from their horses behind the knights who had erected a protective wall, while giant monstrous spiders and wolves charged ferociously.
“Uhhhhhhhhhh…!”
The demon troll let out a furious roar and charged with a club the size of a human torso. The knight raised his shield, but the troll’s momentum was too much.
“Come, you ugly beast…!”
The Kingdom Knight’s voice was ferocious as he braced himself for the impact to come. The troll was charging at him with the intent to blow the knight, who was shorter than him, away, when──
“Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
Something whizzed past and in an instant, the troll’s head disappeared like a popped balloon. The torn nape of its neck reeked of charred flesh from the high heat.
-Enemy Dangerous Object Sniping in progress. Twelfth target adjustment.
Yakt Spinner, the iron-blooded war machine that fires supersonic railgun rounds is the center of coordination on this battlefield.
“Well done, Lord Yappy. I’ll clean up the mess.”
If Yappy is the sniper, hitting the enemy where it hurts, then Beatrice is the artilleryman of the last line.
Archmage <Destroyer’s Eye>
Her specialty, the Archmage class spell, triggers in rapid succession. The Magician Queen’s magic is an absolute firepower that can overturn a hopeless numerical disparity of 500 to tens of thousands.
There’s more.
“Kie-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e?”
-Chulp!
The monstrous spider that was charging toward them collapses on the spot but it’s still alive, its veins pulsating.
-Ki, ki, ki──
There’s no way to know the expression on the giant spider’s face, but it’s clear that it’s in pain and the culprit was the purple fog that spread across the battlefield.
Unleashed by the High Priestess of Dreams and Death, Beatrice, the fog is dragging demons across the battlefield into an endless pit of nightmares.
-Why not use the power of death?
Yappy realized that Beatrice could have turned that mist into a death fog, and death would have been preferable to nightmares.
“Sometimes a ‘crazed ally’ hurts more than a dead ally.”
-Hmm?
Beatrice’s finger flicked through the air as a crisp, clear sound echoed through the air and at the same time, the demons in the dream woke up.
-Kiiii…!
-Kiyaaaaaaah!
The behavior of the waking demons was bizarre: they drooled as if they were still in a dream and began to attack everything in front of them.
-Kiiiik?!
The demons from Beatrice’s nightmare had turned on their closest allies.
“They’re trying to kill the nightmare monsters so they don’t die in their dreams,” she says, keeping them half-awake.
And those nightmare monsters are the ones next to them.
If Beatrice is causing nightmares for an unspecified number of demons and adding chaos to the battlefield, the higher-ranking demons that can resist her power will be sniped by the Yakt Spinner with his Holy railguns.
Indeed, the Holy Knight was demonstrating battlefield dominance.
“That’s it!”
Antoine and the priests finish the three-hour extraction.
“Let’s get going, they’ll know soon enough!”
Antoine blew a bugle call to the outlying companies, and the riders acted quickly.
“Mount the horses in the rear! Let’s get out of here fast!”
The freemen riders quickly mounted their horses, and the last of the knights who had kept their horses dust-free scattered their holy laws and went in search of their horses.
In the chaos of the battlefield, there was no rider who could not find his horse. Lionheart’s wise steeds recognized the whistles of their comrades and rode swiftly to them.
Less than thirty seconds after the call to retreat, the detachment was ready to go.
“Full speed ahead!”
Antoine, Yappy and Beatrice sprinted to the front while the horses of the others followed.
-Pursuit interrupted. High firepower temporary focus.
Yappy carapace short-range missile silo opened, sending one missile flying into the air with a clang.
The rockets, handcrafted and blessed by Yappy himself, circled through the air before landing squarely on the demons, causing a chain reaction of explosions.
<Radiant Heavenly Beetle>
-Thwack! Quack!
Combined with Beatrice’s high-powered thunder, the demons are stunned.
“Run!”
From the clouds of dust and natural disaster, the Star Corps roared, their steeds speeding along at a pace not unlike that of modern Earth’s automobiles.
“They’ll catch up, but they won’t get there before us.”
“Let’s hurry, they’re not stupid, they’ll catch up-─”
───────
It came from the sky without warning, and the only ones who noticed its presence before the attack were the Yakt Spinner, who kept his radar running at all times, and the knights with their superior instincts.
“”Melt before the fires of hell.””
A barrage of fireballs tinged with green quickly descended on everyone.
“……!”
Beatrice’s hand reached up to the heavens, her great magic unfurling against the five falling infernal flames.
<Super Elemental Cancellation>
Her magic intervenes with the infernal power and in an instant, the Queen of Magic, the world’s most powerful magician, cancels half of the spells unleashed by the Great Demons.
And to rephrase that.
Half of it fell toward the soldiers.
-Kaaaaaaaaaaaah!
A huge explosion rocked everyone from all sides.
After the dust from the explosion cleared, it revealed a sea of blackened corpses.
“… Lord Yappy, report the damage…!”
-Eighty-Eight Knight dead. Freemen light cavalry destroyed. Injuries unaccounted for. Five enemy Archdemons. Database searched.
Yappy knows them. They were the agents of a disorderly quest that, in the distant past, invaded the world of the highly advanced Yakt Spinner and caused more damage than any other demons.
The evil Knowledge Demons who unleashed a disease plague upon the world, called the Wisdom Treasury.
With the head of a beast and the wings of a bird—the Archdemons of wisdom and inquiry appeared.
The masters of wisdom, the highest of the demons of wisdom flapped his wings and looked down upon them, and soon uttered a terrible cry.
-Kiaaahhhhhhhhh!!!
-Kiaaahhhhhhhhh!!!
It is the voice of a demon that leads living things to their doom.
Just as the Holy Knights protect living with their mere presence, so the voice of the Archdemons drives humans mad with their power.
“Crack, crack, crack…!”
“Ear, ear…!”
Even the Kingdom Knights could not withstand the demonic voice of the five Archdemons.
Although there were three Holy Knights, the curses of the Archdemons were more powerful than their protection.
[Insignificant mortals]
[Mortals against immortals]
[Foolish ones, do you not know that your foolishness will lead you to your doom]
The Archdemons descended to the earth while Yappy responded and Beatrice cast her magic but they are Archdemons of the highest order, demons of wisdom.
They parry Yappy shots, bind Antoine javelin to the space and negate Beatrice’s magic.
Three Wisdom Archdemons were enough for that while the other two spewed curses at their enemies and swept through the Kingdom Knights.
“Ugh…! Run!”
“Come to your senses, stop your horses’ ears and run, the ‘Iron Will’ is with you!”
Antoine’s booming voice carried a holy power, a blessing of fortitude that would break but not bend, and the knights answered the command.
“Horses first!”
“Hold fast, comrades! We must get out of here together!”
The knights covered their horses’ eardrums with earplugs, and when that didn’t work, they pounded on their eardrums.
In their pain and panic, the horses gradually regain their senses under the familiar touch of the knights.
“Let’s go!”
The gallop resumed despite the demonic power of the Archdemons as their indomitable will and infinite trust propelled them onward but the demons continued their pursuit.
“Watch your step!”
“Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!”
The Knights of the Realm were snatched up into the air by the sharp claws of the Wisdom Archdemons.
Soon the knights were falling from the sky defenseless and they crashed to the ground.
“Lord Yappy”
-Initiating an aerial assault.
Beatrice and the Yakt Spinner, with their formidable ranged firepower, respond but the five Archdemons are as powerful as their age-old wisdom.
[Annoying.]
[That girl, the depths of her magic.]
[But not so much that we can’t counter it.]
Even with the two of them on the defensive, the Archdemons swooped down on the knights with the maneuverability of their wings at the same time as their magic.
“Endure, as long as we reach the allied forces, reinforcements will come──”
A loud explosion rang out all too clearly in the chaotic battlefield even though Beatrice’s defensive magic was clearly present and even though all of Yappy’s computations were clearly detecting the surroundings.
[You will not escape]
Behind the backs of the Wisdom Archdemons, with their backs to the sun, the demons pierce the most troublesome Holy Knight of Steel.
“Lord Yappy!”
Yappy crumbles, his carapace pierced. Not even the most powerful metal of the gods in this place could hold back the demon’s magic.
-Database. Identify destruction object──
Yappy cameras focus on the worst demon lord of all time, who has destroyed the most advanced technology and led the world to ruin.
-Demon Lord of Wisdom and Inquiry──Caracael.
The end of the world.
* * * * *
Beatrice was horrified at the smashed fuselage of a Yakt Spinner.
That fuselage of Yappy is a high-strength body made entirely of stardust and even she had trouble destroying that body in a mock battle…….
‘There’s a difference between being strong and being a magician.’
As a magician queen herself, she didn’t even feel any magical omens.
“Lord…….”
There was no mistaking it. That snake-headed demon is the Lord of the Demons, the demon of demons, the pinnacle of all evil.
-Kie-e-e-e-e!
Demons swarmed in from all directions while the knights march was halted and with the arrival of the Lord, their numbers have multiplied.
“Alas…….”
“Is this the end…….?”
The knights who did not give up even with the appearance of the Archdemons dropped their swords at the hopeless spread of evil.
The endless malice of the Demon Lord is a malice so deep that mortals cannot stand against it.
It’s the end not only for the soldiers and knights, but for Beatrice herself.
“Lord Yappy…are you alive?”
-Yes…….
Yappy emerges from the shattered fuselage. His body had thankfully not taken a direct hit from the magic.
“As I understand it, your world… has been invaded by demons of wisdom and inquiry. In this situation…what do you think it’s our chance to escape?”
-Zero. Even with the Queen’s leap magic, not a single person could escape.
“Haha…….”
Beatrice knows how strict this machine is with probability. She knows that its computational power is far beyond human comprehension, overwhelming even modern Earth civilization.
“Hmm, you mean there’s zero chance of escape.”
Antoine stepped forward and asked.
“Miss Beatrice, what is that leap magic?”
“It’s an application of gate magic… well, more accurately, it’s a leap through space into the Temple of Ten Thousand Gods but I can’t use it right now.”
“Why?”
Beatrice remembered that when she first entered this gate, something had forced it to close.
And she knew that it was most likely the Demon Lord magic that closed it.
In other words, as long as the Wisdom Lord is present, spatial leap is impossible.
“I see. In other words, we just need to get rid of that damn bastard, right?”
-???
“???”
What the hell was that? Yappy didn’t understand the organism’s words in this hopeless situation, where even he had given up on the victory.
Antoine picked up a hammer, a short hand mallet that he used to sharpen his weapon.
Antoine flashed his hammer as all the knights and freemen stared at it.
“My proud brothers and sisters! Thank you for your service to the gods and the kingdom, for all these years!”
Antoine sees the people of the realm looking at him, and he realizes the oath they have taken.
“You have sworn to defend the kingdom with your lives! Today, at this moment, keep that oath!”
None of them knew what it meant.
-Die.
It was just that, a command but with that unreasonable command in front of him-─
“”I will obey!!””
They made an unreasonable choice.
“Hold the line!”
“Lord Antoine must be sent back!”
Made the most irrational choice.
-Impossible. Organisms. You could throw them all into the dumpster and have zero chance of success.
“Maybe. You’re smart so you won’t say anything wrong.”
At that moment, a burst of holy power erupted from his body.
“But there are more important things in this world than odds.”
Suddenly Antoine’s consciousness was cut off from the world.
[Cease, my blacksmith, do you intend to waste your life here?]
The divine voice that had always been with him. The divinity that had been with him at his lowest point, that had given him the gift of iron, had rebuked his knight.
“I would have done so no matter who came.”
But even the gods could not dissuade the stalwart knight from his resolve.
Why do the gods love them?
Why do they protect the Lionheart?
Because they are beings who would die for their beliefs because the spark of life was so beautiful.
“I, Antoine, Holy Knight of Iron and Blacksmithing, guardian of the mines and the kingdom’s finest smith!”
The hammer, once pointed toward the future, stops.
Now it exists only in the present.
There is no future for the blacksmith anymore. Even so.
“An oath of iron, here and now.”
It is the dazzling future that the hammer is aiming for.
────■■■■■■■■■■■■■■
The change was dramatic.
A wilderness filled with the malice of demons, transformed in an instant into a sacred shrine, a land of steel.
His mere presence reshapes the landscape, and his every movement stretches out to erase the black stain, as if to denounce the world’s venomous malice.
[……No way.]
Even the Demon Lord groaned before the mighty divine will.
It was a divinity of boiling steel that only a human who embraces the divine will reach and an infinity that regular humans can never reach.
Divine Descent “Iron Blacksmith”
A being radiating light from its entire body looked up into the sky.
“Fall first.”
In the next moment, the Demon Lord and the Archdemons plummeted to the ground.
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