Chapter 236 — 윈즈 변경주
Chapter 236
Wynz Border Province
While his aide hurried off to fetch Ghost.
Tssss—
The white steam coiling around Augustine had already thickened to paint the sky solid white.
And it began to deepen in shade.
As if a stark white curtain had been thrown over the world.
The phenomenon that drowned a vista of dozens, hundreds of meters in blinding white filled the onlookers with dread.
“U-ugh!”
“W-what is that…!”
“That’s a monster!”
Uneasy murmurs rippled through the ranks.
They were the elite of the Crimson Lion Army, veterans of countless battles; they were no strangers to the miracles wrought by magic.
But seeing that overwhelming sight with their own eyes, they simply could not stay calm, no matter how they tried.
White is often linked with purity or sanctity, carrying a “clean” image.
Yet when it goes past simple white into a density so stark it feels translucent, it tends to provoke revulsion and fear in people.
This was that.
The scene, as if drowned in a “White Night,” kept steeping the soldiers’ hearts in terror.
Thinking he couldn’t let this go on, Tedan urgently called for the mage unit to counter it.
“【Pillar of Fire】!”
“【Blazing Thunderblade】!”
“【Wraiths’ Calamity Zone】…!”
Shaa shaa shaa—
Fwooosh, fwooosh!
Those spells didn’t make it far beyond the walls; they unraveled midair and vanished.
As if they had never been cast.
“As I feared…!”
The commander of the mage unit wore a deeply troubled look.
“Why isn’t magic working?”
At Tedan’s urgent question, the commander let out a heavy sigh.
“There is no way for us to oppose ‘that.’”
“Then bring over the squad that handles barriers as well…!”
“No. Even if you add them—no, even if you brought every mage in the Crimson Lion Army—you still wouldn’t be able to stop ‘that.’”
Pointing at the white veil, the commander let out a frustrated lament.
“What are you saying…!”
“Bastard Sword, have you ever heard of something called the ‘White Night’?”
A question out of nowhere.
But Tedan realized it was, in fact, an answer to what he’d asked and shook his head.
“I do not. Other than my lord warning me to beware of that man….”
“To us, that man is a taboo.”
“A taboo…?”
“Yes. Even speaking of him, even thinking of him is forbidden.”
“…?”
“If not for the massive umbrella that is House Neresta, we would have gone to war with the Mage Tower long ago. From birth to the path he’s walked, he is steeped in the inhuman and the lawless.”
“…!”
“Had I known he would appear here… I would never have volunteered to come.”
“…”
Tedan had to swallow dryly.
A mage stained with inhumanity and depravity—he had no idea what that could truly mean.
But one thing was clear.
The renown and pressure Augustine carried far exceeded anything he’d imagined.
“Is he to be considered on the same level as the Golden Lion…?”
Among knights and martial artists, the Golden Lion was a wall no one could ever hope to surmount.
“No. Different.”
But Tedan shook his head.
He could say with certainty: in all his life he had never once heard the name of “White Night” Augustine Neresta.
Whereas the Golden Lion he’d just thought of—there wasn’t a soul in the Empire, martialist or otherwise, who didn’t know of him.
A being who had lived more than a century, vigorous beyond guess of age.
The only person in the Empire to have been granted the title of Grand Duke.
A man deemed capable of toppling the Empire single-handedly.
There was only one figure whose standing could be compared to his: the “Mage of the Stars,” Usden Mervinger.
Whereas Augustine—only those in the uppermost tiers of the mage world seemed to know of him at all, and even then only faintly; nothing of his reputation was common knowledge.
It meant his name and deeds had been covered up thoroughly and deliberately.
Whether that was the work of the Mage Tower’s deft hands or the Inspectorate, he couldn’t say.
But it clearly meant he held countless secrets that must never see the light of day.
The claim that Augustine’s name was a taboo word came from that very context.
“I can’t tell you more than that. Even facing him like this is… fuel for his power… perhaps.”
A deep crease formed between Tedan’s brows.
To someone who had always pushed upward, the terror the commander showed made no sense.
He wondered if the man was babbling because he didn’t think he could stop Augustine.
“…”
“…”
‘…They’re all avoiding my eyes.’
The other mages were all in a hurry to look away.
As if terrified he might catch their gaze and ask them about Augustine.
Shudder, shudder…!
Tedan didn’t miss the way the commander’s fingertips trembled.
“Then are we to just leave ‘that’ as is? Whatever spell that is, it’s common sense to disrupt or eliminate the caster before a grand ritual completes.”
“That’s…!”
The commander was about to answer when—
“Aaah! Aaaagh! Let go! Let go of me! How are we supposed to fight something like that!”
At last, soldiers began to show themselves overcome by fear. They threw away their spears and tried to bolt from their posts.
Schk!
Fsssh—
A discipline officer nearby hacked off the fleeing soldier’s head and shouted.
“Do not panic! Keep your heads! That is only a threat meant to scare us!”
Even so, the unrest among the soldiers scarcely abated.
Faces went ashen; the hands gripping spears trembled visibly.
Thinking that if this kept up, disaster would strike, Tedan moved to intervene—
“A threat, you say?”
“…!”
“…!”
“…From so far away, you can hear us?”
A voice they could only assume was Augustine’s landed clear as a bell in the ears of every soldier and officer.
It was neither a lion’s roar nor a voice-transmission art. Yet it carried a low, deep resonance, as if he were whispering right at their ears.
Had that abnormal White Night already crept over the walls so that unseen ghosts could whisper to them? Though the distance was great and Augustine’s frame clearly small, his body was starkly visible to their eyes.
As if he alone existed in this world.
“If that’s all you can see it as, then this old man is a little hurt.”
Hands clasped behind his back, Augustine went on speaking.
The soldiers’ faces had blanched so thoroughly you’d think a tap would knock their souls right out.
Most had their lips parted, but they did not scream.
It wasn’t merely that they were at a loss for words.
They felt that if they made a fuss here—if they shouted—that inhuman thing would notice them.
That the unknown thing beyond this White Night would lick its lips and swallow them first.
None of them believed they could escape the White Night.
Still—
If they could be noticed a little later, maybe there’d be hope of living…!
“So I’ll show you something special.”
But that was only their wishful thinking.
Augustine wasn’t the sort to let enemies nurse such foolish hopes.
Once he met someone as an enemy, his nature demanded he crush them, roots and all.
“Who this old man is. Heh-heh-heh-heh…!”
In that instant—
Flash!
Across the White Night, dozens, hundreds of hairline cracks scored in a row, then yawned wide up and down. Beyond them, countless pupils slid about, searching for the soldiers on the ramparts.
Those things opened their eyes.
* * *
Been a while since I’ve seen that. Kikikik!
When Augustine birthed the phenomenon, the first to react was Hyul’s Remnant.
I ate eight-tenths of it, and there’s still that much left? Heh-heh-heh. That thing isn’t human.
“Eight-tenths?”
Elric widened his eyes at his own shadow.
He too saw the white curtain that all but smothered the walls, and the many “eyes” beyond it.
Even Elric, with a head full of knowledge and magic learned from Otto Han and the Winter Six Chapters, was seeing this for the first time.
He could only guess it had to do with Augustine’s dark-elf arm—but Hyul’s Remnant sounded like it knew it intimately.
In a way, that was only natural.
He’d heard Hyul’s Remnant was the only thing that had ever driven Augustine to the brink of death.
Kikikik! Guess that old man never told you?
Elric said nothing.
Hyul’s Remnant didn’t seem to care; it prattled on as it pleased.
If you can see that and still don’t know, get yourself a new pair of eyes.
Kikikik. Cackling, the Remnant added:
That.
Is the same breed as me.
Elric nodded.
Augustine had said it plainly: the school of Nokya ran on a different track from ordinary schools. This world holds many taboos—but if needed, Nokya embraces even those.
Come to think of it, this is the first time Master’s shown me something like this.
Hoping to witness Augustine’s power with his own eyes, Elric resolved not to miss a single move he made.
Not just Augustine.
Though the White Night obscured them, the Elders were also readying their spells one by one.
Fwoooosh…!
From around them, a powerful gale of mana swept outward. Mana fields tangled, and the scent of mana grew strong.
In fact, the Star Contingent had already put a wide distance between themselves and the Elder Council.
In case they got caught up in the mana gale and something went wrong.
“Heh…! Monsters, the lot of them. Just what is Neresta, to be harboring things like that?”
Herman let out a dry laugh and glanced at Sean. He too pursued strength, chasing the Golden Lion, and had nearly completed the six chains other martial artists didn’t even dare dream of—but the Elder Council exceeded even his sense of what was possible.
Sean had no better answer; he scratched his cheek with his forefinger.
Even as a direct descendant, he actually didn’t know much about the House. The Elder Council was only one facet of the secrets the House held; there was no way to guess the end of it.
Perhaps the only person in the House who truly knew everything about it was his father, Guy.
Even so, Elric—who had practically become the Elders’ joint successor—was a wonder to behold.
Thank you, Master.
Elric dipped his head slightly toward Augustine.
The reason Augustine and the Elder Council had suddenly taken the field themselves—
All because Elric asked them to.
His request that the Bastard Sword and the Red Saint be captured “intact.”
He meant to use them as hostages to negotiate with the Crimson Lion.
They hadn’t launched their spells right away, and had conjured a White Night to intimidate the enemy, all to break their morale.
Fortunately, they’d succeeded in stirring the enemy to some degree.
The magical bombardment would begin any moment.
“It begins.”
No sooner had Sean spoken—
Countless magic circles bloomed before the countless eyes strung across the White Night.
And just as they were about to trigger in unison—
Flash!
Without warning, a streak of light shot for the nape of Augustine’s neck.
The Mage Who Devoured Talent