Bølberg is an ancient god.
That was my last guess. Assuming that, everything would fall into place.
The apostles, who are practically proxies of the ancient gods, using Bølberg’s Authority.
The so-called holy warriors of Bølberg, who, though somewhat forced, agreed to a plan that required sacrificing hundreds of thousands of lives, yet were not abandoned by Bølberg.
Even Knut, who had once come to kill me, described our encounter as being guided by Bølberg.
If Bølberg is assumed to be another name for one of the ancient gods, then all these events could be neatly explained as the will of the ancient gods.
If all of this turned out to be a misunderstanding, it would be the ultimate blasphemy… but no matter how I thought about it, it didn’t seem like a misunderstanding.
The one-eyed warrior god Bølberg.
Was he a servant of the ancient gods, or was he the ancient god himself?
Either way, it wasn’t good news.
If Bølberg was an ancient god or his servant, it meant that Knut, as Bølberg’s holy warrior, also needed to be watched closely.
Knut seemed unaware of Bølberg’s true nature… but if my assumption was correct and Bølberg was connected to the ancient gods, there was a high chance Knut would eventually turn against me, whether willingly or not.
…Should I try to convert him to another faith?
“Do I look like a joke to you? You’re the only one who’d think that.”
Well, I didn’t need to worry about that right now. Figuring out how to convert Knut could wait. For now, defeating the apostle in front of me was the priority.
“You were bragging about your fancy weapons, but now you’re running away. Typical cowardly cultist.”
I took his taunt as a provocation and faced the nine gusts of wind flying toward me.
A deafening explosion shook everything around me.
—
Ragnar, who had given up on close combat, was using tactics that embodied sheer cowardice in human form.
Like all the enemies I’ve faced, he kept his distance and bombarded me from afar, trying to wear me down. It was a method so familiar it made me sick.
The only difference between him and the others was… the sheer volume of attacks, multiplied by nine.
”Īsaz, Þurisaz, Jēra!”
The Spear of War, flying toward me like a storm.
Nine times the number of Blood Blades.
A rain of ice spikes.
Lightning tearing through the air.
Even tree roots bursting from the ground, trying to entangle me.
A carpet-bombing of magic, turning the royal palace into ruins. Each attack was as powerful as a high-level spell.
“Is this all you’ve got…?!”
I tore through the roots binding me, dodging, breaking, and deflecting the incoming spells as I advanced toward him…
”Sōwilō, Raidō, Gebō!”
But every time I closed the distance, Ragnar blinded me with a light rune and used an acceleration rune to escape. Catching him wasn’t going to be easy.
And that wasn’t all.
“Assassins! The Empire’s assassins have killed His Majesty the King!”
“Support Lord Ragnar!”
Knights of the kingdom and engraved holy warriors, joining through the shattered walls instead of the blocked corridors, were now swarming me to aid Ragnar.
The Rune of Domination that Ragnar had awakened had no effect on me, but it seemed to work perfectly on them, as they threw their lives away to help him.
”Naudiz.”
Every time Ragnar placed his hand on them, their life force was drained, leaving them on the brink of death.
It was a rune Knut hadn’t explained, so I didn’t know its exact meaning, but it seemed to be a spell that absorbed people’s lives to replenish his own power.
Every time someone turned into a mummy, the small wounds on Ragnar’s body disappeared, and the divine light he emitted grew stronger.
If Lacey had seen this, she would’ve labeled runes as heretical creations. The hundred or so royal knights gathered here were essentially his living batteries.
The engraved holy warriors, unlike the royal knights, seemed too valuable to use as disposable tools, so he left them alone.
Either way, I had to take down the royal knights whenever I got the chance while fighting Ragnar. If it weren’t for the Rune Flame, it would’ve been a huge hassle.
We fought like that for an hour.
—
Above Edricksa.
A small hawk circled the panicked city, observing the scene below. Specifically, the inner fortress that had once been the royal palace of Dane.
– Whoosh!
The palace, now reduced to rubble, was engulfed in flames. Corpses were scattered everywhere.
Burned, dried, and torn to pieces.
The bodies of the kingdom’s knights were so mutilated that it was impossible to recognize their former selves.
The hawk’s glassy eyes imprinted the scene into its memory.
And into the mind of the Third Apostle, who was sharing the hawk’s vision through a distant viewing spell.
‘Things have gone awry.’
The Third Apostle sighed in frustration.
Despite risking exposure by Peirus to persuade the Eighth Apostle to join their side, it was now unclear whether they could even achieve their goal.
It wasn’t that the Eighth Apostle was incompetent. He had done exactly what the Third Apostle wanted, creating a situation where the Empire and Ka`har would clash and destroy each other.
By persuading—or brainwashing—the King of Dane to withdraw troops from Ka`har’s advance route.
‘I didn’t know the Eighth Apostle was the younger brother of the King of Dane… but thanks to that, it was easier than expected.’
Up to that point, it was perfect.
The problem was that the Empire’s—specifically Ludwig’s—response was faster and bolder than the two apostles had anticipated.
As soon as they learned of Dane’s plan to retreat, within less than four days, the Empire deployed its strongest forces to Edricksa. The response was too quick.
Because of that, the Eighth Apostle had to face the Empire’s blade before he could prepare a perfect countermeasure. He tried to respond with hastily prepared divine artifacts, but…
‘…He’s too strong.’
The Third Apostle swallowed dryly and lowered the hawk’s altitude to get a closer look at the palace.
In the center of the rubble, a woman in tattered armor, clutching a grotesque longsword, was approaching a middle-aged man shrouded in a gray haze.
She wasn’t unscathed. Blood dripped with every step, her left arm bent the wrong way, and one side of her face was torn, revealing her teeth.
But compared to the middle-aged man, who was gasping for breath, her injuries were nothing.
—
“Cough…! Cough…! Don’t you ever tire, you monster…?!”
The Eighth Apostle, Ragnar Lokan, spat out blood and shouted.
His left arm had turned to dust and scattered, and there were two large holes in his abdomen. His face was pale as a corpse, likely due to the chilling curse that had seeped into his veins.
An undeniable defeat. It was a result he couldn’t believe.
Even with the Rune of Recovery and the Rune of Bloodsucking endlessly replenishing his stamina, he was reaching his limit. Meanwhile, the woman in front of him had endured without a single healing spell, until the mana in the air was completely depleted.
It was the result of her stamina, nearly double that of her peers, combined with the endless vitality granted by Durandal.
And so, Ragnar was defeated.
Not by being cut down or burned, but by being worn down in an endless battle of attrition.
He couldn’t even activate his rune engravings anymore.
With the mana in the air completely depleted, rune magic, which relied on absorbing ambient mana to manifest spells, was useless. No matter how much he chanted the activation words, it was just shouting into the void.
Ha-shal-leur was also unable to use the power of runes, but for her, the depletion of ambient mana only meant losing two of her many attack methods.
Unlike Ragnar, who heavily relied on rune magic.
Even without rune magic, Bølberg’s Authority and blessings remained, but they weren’t enough to face the Empire’s tireless monster.
“Got you, you bastard.”
Ha-shal-leur, now standing in front of Ragnar, pointed Durandal at him and grinned. The teeth visible through her torn cheek made the smile eerily grotesque.
Her blue eyes, filled with killing intent, glared at him.
Ragnar, trembling with fear—an emotion an apostle of the ancient gods should never feel—felt death smiling at him.
“The Third Apostle was right. Whether it’s a variable of fate or whatever, we should’ve eliminated you sooner…!”
He muttered in despair, unaware of his own words.
Peirus’s command to keep his mouth shut came to mind too late, but it didn’t matter now.
He was about to close his mouth forever.
– Need some help?
A sly, snake-like voice whispered in Ragnar’s ear right after.
