Chapter 223 — 깃발을 들다
Chapter 223
Raise the Banner
“Damn. What a waste.”
Sailor lowered his bow with a click of his tongue.
He’d thought he might bag someone who looked fairly high-ranking in one clean shot.
Of course the man had to catch on midway and block it.
“Doesn’t change much, does it?”
Watching from the side, Hermann chuckled.
Sailor laughed as well.
“True enough.”
Ff-ft-ft-fft!
The rain of arrows that followed Sailor’s volley swept over the mountainside a heartbeat later.
At Hermann’s signal, the knights of House Vail, the Black Skull, and the Soldiers of the Star—who had all been waiting with arrows nocked—loosed as one.
Thousands of arrows darkened the mountainside. It was a grand sight.
For the demons watching, it was pure terror.
It looked like the shadow of death itself was falling.
KRA-KOOM!
Rrrr—
Crackle, kr-r-rak!
The barrier guarding Grigori’s Chapterhouse flared to life.
It existed to protect the demons from sudden assaults, but Elric had already suspected its presence the moment he located the Chapterhouse.
The arrows loosed by the soldiers weren’t ordinary.
Demonbane arrows.
Like the scrolls they’d used before, these shafts bore runes Elric had personally carved.
Arrows that excelled at purging and scouring away magi.
So when they struck the barrier, they split into dozens of shards and scattered in every direction.
Those fragments triggered a chain reaction, displaying their bane’s full efficacy.
The barrier tore to pieces.
Holes punched through it by the dozen, the multiple layers collapsing and then stitching back together, only to collapse again.
Below, Grigori’s Chapterhouse—massive as a fortress—briefly bared itself, then vanished.
That was enough.
Enough for ordinary soldiers to fix its exact position.
“I’ll go on ahead.”
Hermann moved first.
With the Cheongyang Knights at his back, he charged up the slope.
“Hey! Who said you could call dibs?”
“Hahaha! Finders keepers on the battlefield, no?”
“You—! I said let’s go together! Damn it!”
Contrary to what they’d agreed on, Hermann bolted first, and Sailor chased after him with a twinge of irritation.
He was too old for sprinting to be kind on the joints, and this was pushing it.
But like Hermann, Sailor’s mind was filled with one thought: he couldn’t let the Demon King slip away.
Since they were out on a demon hunt anyway, he had to try hanging the Demon King’s head from his own hand.
Skee-e-e-ree—
Papapap!
“Stop!”
“No.”
“If you hog it, you’ll get a stomachache!”
“The tastiest things are best eaten—”
They were trading barbs as they ran when a shadow sliced past overhead. Both men snapped their heads up.
And grimaced in unison.
[Going on ahead.]
Elric cut across the sky on flight magic.
“Hey—! No fair!”
[The tastiest things are best eaten alone.]
Elric tossed Hermann’s own words back at him as a retort.
By then, he was already dropping toward Grigori’s Chapterhouse.
“S-stop him!”
“Magic! Cast now!”
“Knock him out of the sky!”
Ordinarily, even Elric would have struggled to breach the barrier alone.
But not with holes torn through it.
He dove straight down through the shattered seams and unfolded his Authority in rapid succession.
【Howl】.
Hanseol. A winter storm roared through, ripping away the already-weakened barrier in an instant.
Demons who had scrambled up onto the ramparts to stop him were caught in the blizzard and buried under drifts of snow.
In the sky, icicles formed in uncountable numbers and came sheeting down in torrents.
Thud-thud-thud!
KRA-KOOM—
“Graaagh!”
“My arm! My aaaarm!”
“I can’t see! I—!”
As vision vanished and killing cold swept in, shadows spun amid the panic and converged on Elric.
【Manifest】.
North Wind. Guardians rose from every shadow.
Once Otto Han’s loyal hounds, now sworn to Elric, they fell upon the demons without pause.
Among them prowled a beast whose savagery hadn’t dulled even with heavy chains binding it.
None of them were perfect. But.
Better than nothing.
Tzzzz—
Between the Guardians, Hül’s thought-form surged up and went on a rampage.
The demons’ lines fell into chaos at once.
BOOM!
Elric landed among them.
As the ice sheet slammed down and shards and powder flurried outward—
“…There.”
He flung open his mind’s eye, swept the area in a blink, and spotted his target fleeing through the ranks of demons.
Not the Demon King, but the one who seemed Grigori’s true master.
The High Priest, beyond doubt.
Elric didn’t hesitate. He launched toward him.
Flaaash—
“P-protect the High Priest!”
“Elric Mervinger! You will not take another step!”
Demons threw up a wall of flesh at once.
Elric already had an ice spear in his right hand, Dragon Fear boiling off him in savage waves.
Snarling like a beast, ice swirling around him, his presence crushed them completely.
“Out of my way, riffraff!”
With Nahatram’s possession, his ice spear kicked up a gale as it fell again and again.
* * *
“This way!”
“Over here!”
“Haah, haah!”
Guided by his honor guard, the High Priest hurried down a spiral stair.
He wanted to move even faster, but his body wouldn’t obey.
Demons did not wear the shackle of a lifespan unless killed, but unless one was Demon King-class, age still eroded the body.
The High Priest had led Grigori for an age beyond reckoning and devoted his life to Azazel without tending to himself. His flesh was ruined beyond repair.
He could have returned to the embrace of a devil at any moment and it wouldn’t be strange.
Unlike the “vessels” he crafted, the High Priest wasn’t built for battle.
So he had always issued orders to the vessels.
And he himself had always stayed buried deep inside the Chapterhouse.
Who would have thought the Chapterhouse would be exposed…!
“Mervinger…! For Mervinger to chase me to my doorstep!”
The High Priest felt his breath catch in his chest.
How dare that wretch crawl this far—does he know where he is?
This was the holy ground where the great Azazel closed his eyes and returned to the arms of the devil.
That a mere Mervinger set foot here was unthinkable.
But—
KRR-RAAACK!
Rrrrr—
“M-Mervinger’s this close!”
“Stop him—!”
Mervinger had closed in enough to tread on the High Priest’s own shadow.
A savage chill swept over them and the honor guard scrambled to block Elric.
Thud, thud, thud!
The only sounds were bodies sent flying, unable to do anything.
The ice sheet was already chasing up right behind him.
“The gate! Where’s the gate?”
“Preparing to activate, sir—!”
“What is the archmage doing! Hurry! Now!”
“Y-yes!”
A teleport gate required painstaking coordinate work to function correctly, which took time.
But the High Priest’s vision had begun to darken. He had no room for such considerations.
He ran for the gate chamber—
BOOM!
“Gah!”
“How did it get in he—urk!”
No sooner had he reached the fortress lobby than a wall exploded and a colossal beast emerged, snarling.
Grrrr—
Found you.
Hül’s thought laughed openly at the High Priest.
At his feet lay demon corpses pulped into gore, blood smears, and bricks strewn everywhere.
The path to the teleport gate was completely cut off.
“So there really was a turncoat stuck to Mervinger…!”
The High Priest realized the massive shadow-beast was the former Demon King of the Eastern Continent, now obedient to Elric—and his body shook.
“This way! This way, High Priest!”
While part of the honor guard broke off to hold Hül’s thought at bay, the High Priest hurried down another corridor.
But—
THOOM!
“Graaah!”
A Guardian appeared around that corner as well and blocked the way.
“T-then this way!”
Every time the High Priest moved, a Guardian popped up as if lying in wait. Each time, a portion of the honor guard rushed in to engage, and his escort dwindled at a terrifying pace.
“How are you bungling this so badly…! Belot? Where is Belot?”
His anxiety sharpened.
It felt like he was circling in Mervinger’s palm, being slowly driven into a corner.
To drive Elric out, he needed Belot—but Grigori’s strongest force was nowhere to be seen.
“Th-that’s…”
“What is it? Speak!”
“Since a moment ago, we haven’t been able to locate Lord Belot…!”
Thok.
The High Priest’s steps halted.
His pupils shuddered violently.
As if he couldn’t believe what he’d heard.
“W-what? Say that again!”
The aide bowed low, eyes darting.
“W-we’ve been looking for Lord Belot since just now, but he isn’t at his post. His whereabouts… are unclear.”
“Impossible…!”
He was about to snap at his subordinate for spouting nonsense when the words died in his throat.
A memory surfaced.
Come to think of it—his eyes.
The High Priest had ordered Belot to kill Elric even if it cost him his life.
Belot had assented readily, but his eyes had been still.
What if he had been thinking something else then?
“No. Impossible! A vessel cannot disobey me!”
The High Priest could not conceive of a “vessel,” bound by brainwashing and suggestion, turning on him.
Least of all Belot—dull, guileless, peerless only in his loyalty.
But with things as they were, dread crept in.
If not, how else had Belot vanished without a trace at a time like this?
“Or even before that…? What if it was him who left the bait for Mervinger to find the Chapterhouse?”
Thought chased thought, each one feeding his unease.
A chill of fear crawled up his spine as the possibility rose that the Chapterhouse might truly be annihilated.
“Cle—!”
He tried to shout for his guard to break a new path, but he couldn’t.
Every guard around him hung impaled on long ice lances, dangling high above his head.
At some point, the floor had frozen over and ice spikes had surged up.
The High Priest’s eyes trembled violently.
Fear curdled into terror and clamped tight around his throat.
And then—
“Looks like you’ve been abandoned.”
A sepulchral voice rang behind him. He tried to twist around—
“…Kh!”
Thwock!
Right behind him.
Elric’s ice spear punched through the High Priest’s chest.
And right there, within arm’s reach—
Elric stood with a cold smile.
The Mage Who Devoured Talent