---

Chapter 344

“It seems like it’s over.”

“Yeah, with the Demon King keeping to themselves.”

It’s foolish to think that the enemy has no plans in any situation. Although I couldn’t see it for myself, Yeon-woo was well aware that a foreboding aura had seeped into the ground.

“It’s thanks to Tae-oh.”

In his current state, Tae-oh was, you could say, an unprecedented specialist in great curses.

From his very first appearance, he emerged while absorbing the Demon King’s curse, so finding someone more of a curse expert would be a tough task. Among the countless gods, maybe you could find one or two like him, but that’s about it.

However, even someone like Tae-oh had doubts; that aura was unusually weak. If he was saying that, it might not have even been a curse to begin with.

I hadn’t realized it when I first heard it, but now that I think about it, it could be a fragment of a deity from another realm.

However, even so, it wasn’t as if we could burrow into the ground. The fact that its presence disappeared the moment it sank into the ground suggests that nothing would remain, no matter how deep we dug.

Of course, I had thought about it. The enemy must know somewhat about their plans. In this situation, where a branch of their organization has been wiped out, it would be surprising if they weren’t expecting something.

They’d probably caught on to the fact that their headquarters’ location had been exposed. With that in mind, they were surely fortifying their headquarters in conjunction with the marauding necromancers who had lost the branch.

They might not even know that we could forcibly open the Gate.

In contrast, they knew nothing about our plans. Not a single inkling. It’s easy to see how great an impact that difference would have.

“That said, we can’t just not act.”

“No one’s forcing you, though.”

Riley spoke harshly, but her tone was filled with concern. Just having her worry for me was something to be thankful for.

“We have to. It’s not an exaggeration to say it’s my lifelong wish.”

“Then stop mumbling.”

At Riley’s sudden sharp retort, Yeon-woo burst into laughter. She had a point.

Fortunately, they had at least noticed the existence of a scheme. That alone made a significant difference compared to those who failed to see it.

“Well then, I’ll be off.”

“Wishing you good luck.”

The two exchanged brief greetings. It was the day of the final battle. It was time to settle the score in this war. There was no one to take responsibility for the lives of the countless people who had died and those who would die in the future.

For an individual to take responsibility for the deaths of an unspecified number of people is nothing short of arrogance.

Yet, we had to fight. If we didn’t fight now, it was clear that the casualties would exceed whatever fighting we could possibly do.

*

“It’s packed.”

That was all I could think. Just that sentiment emerged from the sight before me. Just like the battle that had occurred in the southern United States, all I could think was how the necromancers were truly obsessed with numbers.

It wasn’t right to even call it an army anymore. It was an ocean. An ocean of corpses. It was the horrendous descent of the most dreadful hell that should never have had a place in this world.

If death were nothing more than that, even the people who lived in horrible pain day by day would refuse to die.

“… Is there anything we can do for those people?”

Kim Yoo-min murmured in a sad voice next to Yeon-woo. It was a question I had thought about a lot in the past, but I had no real answer.

“Other than giving them rest, I doubt there is.”

That’s really all there is. The beings moving those corpses are the souls of the dead. Even those harboring regrets or those who don’t are forcibly subjected to curses.

There’s no way for them to find peace except through destroying their bodies and purifying their souls. In the end, the only thing we can do is fight against them.

But we shouldn’t fall into the thought that all necromancy is evil and bad. Surprisingly, there exist virtuous necromancers.

It’s a common saying: the sharpness of a sword isn’t the problem; it’s the user’s responsibility. A sword that has killed hundreds can also be a sword that saves lives, and we must always keep that in mind.

Forming prejudices from this incident would negatively impact the necromancers trying to live uprightly and, in turn, provide reasons for the necromancers on humanity’s side to betray us. We must always remember that good and evil are two sides of the same coin.

A military force of undead so vast it could be likened to an ocean. Yet, not a single person among us felt defeated. Though some nervously searched for calming herbs, no one turned pessimistic.

This was because the hunters facing them numbered enough to be called an army.

Of course, whether operating as solos or raid parties, the hunters collaborating would barely number twenty, and they couldn’t display the level of coordinated combat worthy of being called an army.

There was no strict command or control. Hunters fought following the values they pursued. If you take away their freedom, their fighting strength would plummet.

Therefore, there was no need for banners or shouts. The nature of a hunter’s fight is always sudden.

“Shall we start with a big one? Shar, Nea?”

At Yeon-woo’s words, Shar and Nea nodded in agreement. Namgung Seong, who flinched at the suggestion, stepped back. His head felt hot.

I’d once said that unlike human magic, which can create fireballs similar to the sun’s structure and properties, Dragon Majesty magic couldn’t do so.

This was because once modeled after the sun, the calculation burst, rendering it unmanageable with mana.

“But what if we just slam some mana into a fireball?”

“Fire! … Hmm.”

At Yeon-woo’s mumbling, Namgung Seong unintentionally attempted a dragon’s breath but ended up awkwardly whistling and fiddling with his vocal cords when no one picked up on it. Due to the structure of his beak, it sounded pretty bad.

A giant fireball blazed above Yeon-woo’s head. It wasn’t really an efficient act. It would have been better to leave this sort of thing to Professor Alisa; my control wasn’t great.

But still, thinking that flames were the most effective element against the Demon King’s curse ensured that it wasn’t entirely useless.

Shar controlled it, and Nea guided it. Although it was a level of magic Nea could use alone, leaving it to Yeon-woo’s charge offered him a chance to gain strength.

As the magic was completed, Yeon-woo leaped high. He swung White with great force beside the swirling fireball.

The surface of White struck the giant fireball away, which soared with incredible speed directly into the midst of the undead army.

Boom!!

A towering column of fire erupted into the sky. It was the signal. The beginning of the fight recorded in human history as the Cemetery War, marking the first full-scale battle between humanity and the Demon King.

*

It was chaos. Hunters and undead collided in a haphazard struggle. In such a situation, it was hard to find anyone who could fully utilize the experiences they had accumulated.

Thus, Yeon-woo and Namgung Seong broke through the frontlines. Whenever the two swung their swords, undead fell like autumn leaves. Kim Yoo-min and Baek In-hwa were keeping pace.

Baek In-hwa was securing routes for retreat while supporting, while Kim Yoo-min pushed forward even more aggressively than Yeon-woo and Namgung Seong.

“Watch out there!”

Yeon-woo’s role was to care for Kim Yoo-min, who bulldozed everything in sight with her fists.

In particular, the zombie bags favored by necromancers were Yeon-woo’s specialty, and very few could even sense them.

Without hesitation, White elongated into a spear and pierced the throat of the bag of zombies that was about to explode from below. Once frozen with ice attribute magic, that would be the end of it. Removing unexploded bombs would be no issue later on.

In fact, Yeon-woo was at the center of the battlefield. The sound of blade clashing and fabric tearing could be heard from all sides. Someone’s pained scream echoed, and as a result, the Demon King’s curse seeped through the ground.

Battlefields are inevitably structured to boil over with negative emotions. Fear, excitement, and anger turn into the Demon King’s power. One reason Toyo’s Demon King was so strong in warfare.

It wasn’t outright disadvantageous, but it sure was annoying. Accumulated curses could lead to creating high-ranking undead, and those undead would once again stir up negative emotions, creating an unending cycle.

“Well, that’s all been prepared for.”

With Yeon-woo’s mumbling, the dark clouds covering the sky split apart. Rays of sunlight began to pierce through the cracks. The chilling atmosphere that had filled the air was swiftly swept away.

Standing in the center of that light was none other than Na Yang-ho. The Saintess of the Sunflower Church. A woman said to have formed a friendship with the sun god, quite an absurd claim.

While Solaris’s divine art generally focused on healing, the highest healing divine art, Reincarnation, is merely a high-tier divine spell. So, what could be the most advanced divine art of Solaris? It was simply asked.

The manifestation of the sun god, Sol Invictus. As the six flaming wings grew from behind Na Yang-ho unfurled, the dark clouds that had covered the sun were torn apart, and sunlight illuminated the battlefield and the hunters.

Right now, Na Yang-ho could be viewed as the sun god himself. The sunlight shone according to her will, and anyone within that light’s domain could be considered effectively immortal. Even if wounded, they would regenerate, and those who were cursed would be purified.

Not only that. While her indiscriminate blessings would do little in person-to-person combat, against undead enemies, it acted as a perfect trump card that couldn’t be surpassed.

As fire ignited the undead bodies touched by the sun god’s blessing, they quickly turned into flaming masses, turning into ashes in an instant.

Of course, given that it was a powerful divine art, it couldn’t be used for long, but it was easy to see why she was referred to as the complete opposite of Toyo’s Demon King.

As the sun’s rays draped over her body, the lizard-like stigmata squirmed and crawled over her skin. Ah, so you want to cavort, too, right, Dawn?

Grinning, Yeon-woo charged straight ahead. From now on, he would take the Demon King’s life. That was the only thought in his mind.

(To be continued in the next episode)

 

---